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Women of the Apocalypse: Excerpt
IT WAS A SIMPLE ASSIGNMENT…
Five men sat in a boardroom at the top of a 75 storey office tower in New York. It could have been anywhere — Lisbon, Stalingrad, the South Pole — but Tobias liked New York. Since he’d called the meeting, it was there.
The four men huddled together at one end of the long table did not seem pleased. Tobias suspected it had nothing to do with his choice of city.
“Why were we called here?” the huge man in the battle fatigues asked.
“Because there’s a problem,” Tobias said.
He folded his elegant hands, one over the other, on the smooth surface of the long board room table and smiled at the four men. They did not smile back.
The huge man slapped both hands on the table, stood up and leaned forward. “The last thing in the world we need is another problem, Tobias.”
Tobias nodded. “Yes, sir.”
A young man in a sea green suit poked the huge man with a pen. “Calm down, Michael.”
Michael shrugged him off only to be jabbed on his other side by the old man in a trench coat.
“Easy now,” he said. “Give yourself a little time to acclimatize.”
“Shut up, Rafe.”
“Call me Raphael,” the old man said, anger tingeing his face. “You know I hate nicknames.”
“All right, Raphael,” Michael said. “I don’t have to acclimatize. Maybe the rest of you do, but I’ve been here since the beginning. The beginning! Do you hear me?”
The young man—really no more than a boy—in the sea-green suit frowned. “Yes, Michael, we’re all impressed with your dedication to the human beings. But pointing fingers won’t help.”
Raphael nodded. “Very true, Gabriel. We just need to understand the situation, and then we can do something about it.”
The man in the glittering gold suit rolled his chair away from the table and smiled at Tobias. “Why don’t you tell us what happened?”
Michael hit the table with his fist. “I don’t want to hear what happened, Auriel! I just want it fixed before anyone looks this way.”
Auriel shrugged. “How many millennia can one Archangel live in denial? ‘Anyone’s’ always looking this way. You know it as well as I do. And it will be fixed, as soon as we have information.”
He looked at Tobias. “Tell us. What happened?”
Tobias stared at his hands for a moment, then cleared his throat.
“I had a right ready bunch of blokes lined up. I did. Fighters, warriors, soldiers. They looked good. Really good. You would have been proud.”
Michael swung his chair so his back was to the table. “What went wrong?”
Auriel produced a glass of water for Tobias. He downed the whole thing before he continued.
“They didn’t drink the shooters.”
Four outraged voices yelled as one. “What?”
Tobias smoothed his hair, and took a deep breath to regain his control. Angry archangels were nothing to play with.
“The bar keep made the drinks up, just like you instructed,” he said. “A little Jim, some Jack, some Johnnie and a splash of José.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “Got the glasses to the table, got their attention, jiggled the tray just enough to activate everything, and… and…”
The men stared at him. He swallowed.
“One of those big lunks offered the shooters to women. I tried to stop it, but I was too late.”
He put his forehead down on his hands and was still. If he was going to be smitten, now would be the moment.
“Women?” Michael roared. “You activated women?”
Tobias didn’t move his head. “It was not my intention.”
Gabriel brushed his sleeve with the back of his hand and studied the shimmering silk fabric like it had suddenly become impregnated with sand. “Things have changed a little here, Michael. Women warriors are not as rare as they once were.”
Auriel patted Tobias’s head. “I doubt this is as serious as it sounds. I’m sure the women are at least athletic.”
Raphael nodded. “It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve trained unlikely heroes. Remember back in the dark ages when we ended up with the Unready brothers? Some kind of distant nephews of Edward the Martyr, if I remember correctly.”
Michael stood and paced in front of the windows. “The Unready brothers were nothing.” He swung around and jabbed his finger at the others. “And do you remember why? The horsemen did not show. A lot of hysteria for nothing.”
“Well, if you don’t mind me saying so, it’s pretty likely they won’t show again,” Gabriel said. “They haven’t been that reliable. Not on this planet, anyway.”
“I have a deep sense that is about to change,” Michael replied, pointing out the window. “Look at this place. The human race has managed to inflict the whole globe with Pestilence, War, Famine and Death. The Horsemen won’t have much to do. Just add the finishing touches here and there.”
He glared at Tobias. “Why did you do this now?”
Tobias glanced up at him, then back down at the top of the table. “Orders,” he whispered.
“And you got us women,” Raphael said. “Women to fight the Four Horsemen.”
“Yes.”
Gabriel rose. “God help us all.”
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INTERESTING FACT:
The Four Horseman Shooter
1 part Jim Beam
1 part Jack Daniels
1 part Johnny Walker
1 part José Cuervo
Mix in a shot glass and down immediately.
