The flow of light on the horizon approached with every second, turning from a thin line into a wide river of lights. The roar of hundreds of engines broke the night silence of the desert, drowning out even the sinister hum of flies above the head.
Alexander stood in front of the snack bar, clutching the handle of a sword in his hand. The Space Tearer seemed to feel the approach of a large-scale battle - the blade pulsated weakly, and the gray-black pattern on the metal shimmered in the moonlight.
- How many of them? - Kyle asked, leaving the building with a machine gun ready.
- More than we can count, - Alexander replied gloomily. - It seems that they gathered all the possessed people within a radius of several hundred miles.
Jeep whistled, looking into the stream of lights:
- It's a whole army. We won't stop them.
- Let's stop, - Mikhail replied harshly, appearing in the door. - Or we'll die trying.
Archangel took Charlie by the hand:
- Let's go. You need to hide.
- Where to? - the girl asked confusedly. - There's nowhere to hide here!
- To the reckroom, - Mikhail pointed to the door behind the counter. - There are thick walls and only one entrance. It's easier to protect you there.
He led Charlie inside, pulling out a spare gun from behind his belt on the go:
- If someone breaks past us, shoot. Don't think, don't hesitate. Just shoot.
- I... I can't, - Charlie whispered, grabbing her stomach. - The baby... seems to be starting...
- What does it start? - Mikhail didn't understand.
- Scomps, - the girl answered through her teeth. - Childbirth begins.
The archangel paled:
- Damn. But not now.
"Tell that to the child," Charlie moaned.
Mikhail quickly looked around the back room. A small room without windows, racks with canned food and detergents, an old sofa in the corner.
- Lie down on the sofa, - he ordered. - I will protect the door. Try to hold out as long as possible.
"As if I have a choice," Charlie hissed through another fight.
And from the outside, the first cars were already approaching the snack bar.
Alexander, Kyle, Jeep, Howard and Sandra took positions around the building. Everyone had automatic weapons, a supply of ammunition and several grenades from Mikhail's arsenal.
- Remember, - shouted Alexander, - shoot in the head! Only hitting the head is guaranteed to kill an angel!
The first wave of attackers began to leave the cars. Cars, pickup trucks, vans, even a school bus - all of them poured out possessed people as if from a cornucopia.
Men, women, children, old people - all ages and social backgrounds. Office workers in suits, farmers in overalls, housewives in dressing gowns, schoolchildren in uniform. Some held weapons, others relied only on the inhuman power of angels.
And in all eyes there was the same cold, merciless fire.
- Let them get closer, - Alexander commanded. - Don't waste ammunition in vain.
A horde of possessed people moved to the diner with a wide front. They were not in a hurry, did not run - they walked with a measured step, as if to a parade. And it was even scarier than if they were shouting and waving their weapons.
When the front rows of angels approached fifty meters, Alexander shouted:
- Fire!
Four assault rifles opened simultaneous fire. The queues pierced the first line of the attackers, knocking the possessed dozens. But their place was immediately taken by new ones.
Alexander held the machine gun with his left hand, conducting aimed fire, and clutched the sword with his right hand. As soon as the cartridges ran out, he threw away the empty weapon and rushed into the hand-to-hand combat.
The sword cut through the air with silver lightning. The Blade of the Space Turner passed through the bodies of angels without the slightest resistance, leaving behind fountains of luminous substance.
At the same time, Alexander used electricity. Lightning broke out of his free hand, hitting several opponents at once. The discharges illuminated the battlefield with flashes of blue light, forcing the angels to writhe in agony.
But there were too many of them.
- Grenade! - Kyle shouted, shooting back from a group of possessed teenagers.
The jeep pulled out the check and threw the grenade into the thick of the enemies. The explosion swept away a dozen angels, but their place was immediately taken by new ones.
Howard and Sandra took a position on the roof, conducting sniper fire. Despite his age, the old man shot accurately, each bullet found the target.
- We're running out of ammunition! - Sandra shouted, reloading the rifle.
- Me too! - Kyle said.
Alexander heard their screams and realized that the situation was critical. Firearms were effective against angels, but without ammunition they turned into useless scrap metal.
"We need to break through to the cars," he decided. "There may be stocks of weapons."
He rushed to the nearest pickup truck, cutting his way with a sword. Three angels tried to stop him - a housewife with a knife, a teenager with a baseball bat and a man with an ax.
Alexander didn't slow down. A wide horizontal blow with a sword - and all three collapsed, cut in half.
In the body of the pickup there were boxes with ammunition and several other machine guns. Alexander grabbed one, inserted the magazine and began to shoot back, slowly making his way back to the snack bar.
Behind him, a rumble was heard - Jeep detonated another grenade, clearing the way to the building.
But angels were advancing from all sides. Some climbed onto the roof, trying to attack Howard and Sandra. Others bypassed the building from the flanks, trying to surround the defenders.
- They surround us! - Kyle shouted.
- To the building! - Alexander commanded. - We occupy a circular defense!
All the defenders retreated to the walls of the snack bar, pressing their backs against the brick. Now angels could only attack from the front, but their concentration increased many times.
The battle turned into a meat grinder. Alexander stood in the center, swinging his sword and shooting from the machine gun alternately. Others fought around him - Kyle with a gun, Jeep with a shotgun, Howard and Sandra with rifles.
The ground in front of the snack bar was strewn with corpses. Ordinary human blood mixed with a luminous angelic substance, forming creepy streaks. The air smells of gunpowder, ozone and the smell of death.
- How many more are there?! - Jeep shouted, reloading the shotgun.
- Fucking cloud! - Alexander replied, unloading lightning into a group of angels.
And indeed, the flow of possessed seemed endless. How many cars have arrived? Three hundred? Five Hundred? Four or five angels in each - it turned out several thousand opponents.
"We won't stop them," Alexander understood. - "Too much. Sooner or later they will crush us with numbers."
But suddenly a scream was heard from inside the snack bar. A female voice full of pain and tension.
- Charlie! - Kyle found out.
And a few seconds later, another sound reached them. A thin, piercing cry of a baby.
A child was born.
And a miracle happened.
The angels, who rushed to attack a second ago, suddenly froze. All as one. They froze in place, as if an invisible force stopped their movement.
And then they began to retreat.
Slowly, uncertainly, they began to step back. Something new appeared in their inhuman eyes - fear. They were afraid. We were afraid of the cry of a newborn baby.
- What's going on? - Jeep whispered.
- A child was born, - Alexander replied, not believing his own eyes. - A new messiah came into this world.
The angels continued to retreat. Some ran to the cars, others just disappeared into the night. After a few minutes, the field in front of the snack bar was empty.
The defenders slowly lowered their weapons, not believing that the battle was over.
- Did we... did we win? - Sandra asked.
"It looks like it," Kyle replied tiredly.
Alexander wanted to agree, but suddenly he felt something strange. There was tension in the air, as if before a thunderstorm. The hair on the back of my head stood on the back.
And then he heard a sound.
Not the roar of engines, not the cries of angels. Something else. A deep, resonant hum that came not from the ground, but from above.
Everyone raised their heads.
High in the sky, breaking through a cloud of flies, a bright light shone. Not the sun, not the moon - something artificial. Or supernatural.
The light became brighter and brighter, approaching the ground.
- What is it? - Howard whispered.
Alexander knew. He remembered this scene from the movie perfectly.
- Gabriel," he said. - The Archangel Gabriel descends to earth.
The light became so bright that I had to cover my eyes. And the buzzing turned into a deafening roar, forcing you to lay your ears.
The light column hit the ground right in front of the entrance to the snack bar. The asphalt cracked, the dust rose. And when the light went out, everyone saw what was standing in the resulting crater.
A man in silver armor. Tall, stately, with the right facial features and neatly laid hair. He looked like a successful businessman or politician. But in his eyes there was a power that could burn entire cities to the gout.
It was the archangel Gabriel. The right hand of God. One of the most powerful creatures in the whole universe.
And he came to kill the child.
Gabriel slowly headed for the door of the snack bar. His every step echoed in the ground. The air around him was shaking from the outgoing power.
- Shoot him! - Kyle shouted.
Everyone opened fire at the same time. Bullets flew at the archangel from all sides. But they didn't hurt him - they just bounced off the armor that protected his body.
Gabriel reached the door and stopped. Raised his hand.
And the door of the snack bar exploded.
It didn't open, it didn't break - it exploded, flying to pieces. The shock wave threw all the defenders aside.
Alexander fell on his back, feeling his ears ringing. The machine gun slipped out of my hands. But he forced himself to get up and snatch his sword.
It's time for the last battle.
Gabriel crossed the threshold of the destroyed entrance and entered the diner. His presence filled the entire space, making the air vibrate from the power.
- Where's the child? - the archangel asked in a voice that heard the echoes of heavenly trumpets.
Mikhail looked out from the back room, holding a machine gun in his hands:
- Brother, - he said. - Don't do that.
- You betrayed the Father, - Gabriel replied. - Betrayed Heaven itself. You'll pay for it.
- We can fix everything, - Mikhail tried to convince him. - Give people a chance. They can change.
- It's too late, - Gabriel shook his head. - The decision is made.
He raised his hand, and he hit Mikhail, who flew away to the wall, as if from a sledgehammer blow. Archangel fell unconscious.
Gabriel went to the back room, where Charlie was hiding with the newborn.
And then Alexander stood in front of him with a sword in his hand.
- Stop, - he said. - You can't go there, she's naked.
Gabriel stopped and looked at him carefully:
- Demon. And what can you do against me?
- You'll find out, - Alexander grinned.