Queen of wands

CHAPTER TWELVE

“There is BDA from the site,” the Air Force Chief of Staff said over the video link. “Are you sure you actually hit the target? The bomb craters looked as if we were just bombing an open field.”

“Oh, they hit,” Janea said nastily. “But they didn’t have any effect. They blew up real nice. And it didn’t even slow the Gar down. It was like it wasn’t there.”

“If you’d been looking at it, you’d think we were bombing a hologram,” Barb said. “That’s a demonic effect I’ve seen before. Bullets just go right through, and then it hits something and destroys it. Don’t ask me how it works; it’s metaphysics.”

“That wasn’t the worst part,” Janea said bitterly. “ I was looking through the scope. It brought its captives with it. Even they were protected.”

“How many?” the NSA asked.

“Five, I think,” Janea said. “Those we couldn’t grab at the slaughterhouse. And, honestly, if I’d been one of them, as I almost was, I’d have preferred the bombs worked on me. I’d be thanking you from Hel.”

“You think you’re going to hell?” SOCOM asked. “You’re a priestess.”

“Hel, H-E-L,” Janea said, rolling her eyes. “It’s where Asatru go that don’t die in battle. Sort of like Christian limbo. Just a boring place.”

“That is interesting but not getting us anywhere,” the NSA said. “Suggestions.”

“The faith of the nation is being tested,” Barb said, tightly. “That’s the bottom line. We are not going to be able to stop this thing absent God’s aid. And He is being, as Janea pointed out, Old Testament. We either prove that we still retain faith in Him or we might as well be doomed now.”

“I hate to ask this, but nuclear weapons?” the NSA said. “It is on the table.”

“Then you’d just have a radioactive pissed-off Old One,” Janea snapped. “You’re not getting it. There was no effect. None. It’s insubstantial to most things. But it can affect its environment if it chooses. I strongly doubt that plasma is going to help, no matter how much you throw at it. There are references to these things inhabiting stars. That’s more firepower than we’ve got, buddy.”

“Janea,” Barb said.

“No,” Janea said. “I’m tired of being looked at like a freak because I believe. Well, get this straight, you stupid suit bastards. Get with belief, now, fast, or this country, this nation, this continent and this world is doomed. Get that through your fat politician heads, for Freya’s sake. I don’t care if you believe in the White God or Odin or fricking Vishnu! Just get some faith, fast, or find somebody to do your job who has it!”

“Janea,” Augustus said. “Your passion is understood. But try to be a bit less Asatru for a moment. NSA.”

“Go,” the NSA said, his jaw working.

“We need to move this discussion to the next level,” Augustus said. “And I strongly recommend bringing in the SC Onsite team, passionate as one of them may be.”

“I will take that under advisement,” the NSA said balefully. “Break this down.”

“Well, that was fun,” Janea said, starting to take off her headset.

“Miss Janea,” SOCOM said as soon as the other leadership was off the line.

“Yeah?” Janea answered, settling her headset back on.

“I was wondering if, assuming we get this situation under control, you might be in the Tampa area any time soon,” the admiral said, his face blank.

“Is that a palpable hit, admiral?” Janea purred. “You’re kinda cute for an older guy.”

“Ahem,” the admiral said, clearing his throat. “I appreciate the compliment. But actually…I’d like to talk to you about this Asatru thing. Any religion where the prime requirement is to die in battle…interests me. And all this is sort of giving me religion. Possibly over dinner?”

“Assuming we can kill this thing, it’s a date,” Janea said. “In fact, kill it or not, it’s a date. ’Cause we might as well have fun while the world is consumed by evil.”

“I don’t get where a bunch of people praying are going to help,” Randell said. “Does God need the power? I thought He was all-powerful.”

“No,” Sharice said. “He doesn’t need the power.”

There being effectively nothing to do but wait for doom, absent a miracle, the FBI agents and the cave team had gathered at the SC house. Most of the rest of the groups in the area were packing up as fast as they could. Most of them still didn’t know why, but the panic was palpable in those who did.

“I’m Wiccan, but I fully recognize the power of the White God,” the old witch said, taking a sip of tea. “Whether the White God was, is and ever shall be or not, He is immensely powerful. He could bat the Gar like a fly. A gnat. A mite.”

“So what’s with the ‘the nation must have faith’?” Randell said angrily. “He’s just going to let us die?”

“He might as well,” Janea said, shrugging. “When Ragnarok comes, people are going to have to choose sides. If this nation can’t get its act together with the threat of the Gar…” She paused and frowned.

“What?” Barb asked.

“The Old Ones are neutrals in the battle between our side and the infernal,” Janea said. “And the US is the most powerful nation on earth. If your God, all the gods, are questioning which side the US will come down on…”

“Surely we are not so far gone,” Barb said, her face white.

“This is a pretty good test,” Janea said. “And if we’re so far depraved that we would side with the infernal in the final battle, He can take us out of play by giving us to the Gar. For that matter, it’s probable that the infernal and the Old Ones don’t get along any better than the gods and the Old Ones. It gives the demonic a serious thorn in their side.”

“That is sick,” Randell said. “See, this is why I hate God.”

“Why?” Janea said. “I think it’s brilliant. If we can’t even get it together to face the Gar, we’re sure as Hel not going to get it together before the hosts of the giants. This is a pretty easy and straightforward test. Can we muster enough believers to make a difference? Or are we useless to Him in the final battle? Hel, in the old days He’d have dropped fire from heaven on us for being too far gone. This time we get the Gar. How many Lots can America muster? There’s going to be more than one family, but are there enough?”

“‘And the beast shall arise from the endless depths…’” Barb said, frowning. “Actually, the Gar is sounding a lot like the Antichrist.”

“I thought it was ‘sea,’” Randell said.

“Bad translation,” Sharice said. “More like ‘from complete deepness.’ Apparently, King James had a thing with not liking the ocean. ‘From the sea’ was close enough to ‘from the deep,’ so that’s the King James version. He had about two hundred scholars working on the translation, but he had final approval on the text, and they were…aware of certain political realities. It’s beautiful verse, but there’s a lot of stuff like that in it. ‘Suffer not a witch to live,’” she added a touch bitterly.

“What’s the actual translation of that?” Master Sergeant Attie asked.

“That’s a bit debated,” Sergeant Struletz said. “It’s got two variants even in the oldest texts, one of which wasn’t available to King James’ scholars, and you’ve got to remember that even that is from oral tradition. One variant is something that translates sort of as ‘she who poisons.’ But that one was written during a period when arsenic was just being widely recognized as a poison, and all the kings, and you’ve got to remember that it’s always kings who got these things written, were really down on posioners. The other is more like ‘she who uses black magic to kill.’ Definitely a woman. Definitely one with powers that are poorly understood. One translation is more or less ‘she who is a fish.’ Which makes no sense.”

“The preferred one-word translation is ‘sorceress,’” Vivian said, raising her hands hopelessly. “But it’s us witches that prefer it, so there you go. But it’s definitely not witches, at least as we define witches. Which, pardon the pun, is female persons who are worshippers of the All. We’re still pagans, and a few of the prophets were really down on that, too. But if it wasn’t for that one word, we’d probably be able to get along with Christians about as well as, say, Hindus. But King James’ scholars had to go and translate that one word wrong. So we’re unredeemably evil in the eyes of almost all Christians.”

“Catholics aren’t that way,” Struletz said. “Most of us, anyway. Ecumenicism and all that. We’re still down on you because you’re pagans, admittedly.”

“So are you,” Sharice said. “Ever prayed to Michael?”

“Let’s not start that debate,” Barb said. “If we can’t convince the earthly powers that it’s time to get God, in all his fury and glory, involved, we are in deep kimchee.”

“And you may just have that chance,” Graham said, plucking his phone off his belt and looking at a message. “We’ve got a videoconference set up at sixteen hundred.”

“With who?” Janea asked. “Another group of suits?”

“I believe I asked you not to ask,” Graham said.

“Mrs. Everette, High Priestess Janea,” the President said.

Barbara nodded and tried not to smile. The government loved acronyms so much, they couldn’t even have “President” on the screen. It had to be POTUS. The only part that surprised her was the person next to him, a middle-aged man with CJSCOTUS under his name. Then there was SHR, a pinched-faced woman who was looking decidedly unhappy at the conversation, SMjL, a middle-aged man who looked as if he was about to burst a blood vessel, MLHR, an older man who was mostly looking bemused, and SMiL, a middle-aged man who was watching Barb with a great deal of interest.

Way over to the side were minor luminaries like SECDEF, CJCS, DHS, NSA and so on. Force commands didn’t make the cut, so Janea couldn’t preen for SOCOM.

“The basic message is clear,” the president said. “This is a test of the faith of the US by God. What I’d like to ask is if anyone knows why.”

“Mr. President, I have to make an issue,” the Speaker of the House said. “I feel I must ask you to refrain from bringing deities into this discussion. It is a violation of the Constitution!”

“That is, in fact, your answer, sir,” Barbara said, calmly. “God is trying to find out if the US is a nation that will support the side of the holy in the Final Battle. If not, by giving us over to the Gar, which is more or less neutral and as much a threat to the infernal as to the holy, He takes the most powerful nation on earth out of play. Furthermore, the lesson of the Gar will not be lost on the rest of the world. It will increase faith in other lands. China is rapidly Christianizing. Their projected Christian population in fifty years exceeds our entire population. Those are warriors He can use in the Final Battle. That is our analysis. As best we can do, given that it is the ineffable mind of the Lord of Hosts.”

“This is insane,” the Senate Majority leader snapped. “I cannot believe we are even having this conversation!”

“You want insane?” Janea asked. “I got video of the Gar. Tell you what, you view twenty seconds of it and then we can have this meeting with your successor.”

“I won’t stand for being threatened!” the majority leader said.

“It’s not a threat,” Janea said. “If you really don’t believe that this is happening, then view the tape. It is either true that this is a…call it super-powerful entity, which we need divine intervention to fight, or it is not. If it is not, then you can view the tape with no problems. There’s nothing to fear. If, however, you cannot view the tape with no problems, if there is something to fear, then we need to get to that point now and get past the ‘I don’t believe this.’ Among other things, while we’re talking, the Gar is moving towards where I’m sitting, and I’d like to get the Hel out of Dodge. Like the White God, I am offering you a simple test. A poisonous one that I know you will fail, but an honest test. Let’s hope that He has more mercy than I.”

“To get back on the subject of this meeting,” the president said, clearing his throat. “There is an issue.”

“Praying to God for divine intervention?” the Speaker said. “You bet there’s an issue! You’ve got zero chance of being reelected if you do!”

“That is not the issue,” the President said. “And since everyone here has a security clearance and this conversation is Top Secret, it’s an issue that had better stay in this room. The issue is this. While I have attended many services over the years and while I…don the trappings of religion for various purposes, I am not, in fact, a believer. I will admit that the reports I was made privy to about Special Circumstances have swayed me more to the side of belief, but I am not the sort of believer, well, you are, Mrs. Everette. The question is, does that matter? Will God still grant us intercession?”

“God does not care for the kings and princes of the world,” Barb said. “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. What He cares about is the essential faith of this nation.”

“I cannot believe this conversation,” the Speaker said. “This conversation cannot go on. My constituents will explode if we start having national prayer breakfasts!”

“Oh, for a way to pick it up and drop it on Market Street, then,” Barb snapped. “Get this through your head. In a few hours, the Gar will reach the town of Goin. Sometime tomorrow afternoon, it will reach the perimeter we’ve set up. Sometime tomorrow night, it will reach the outskirts of Knoxville. You can keep trying to keep people out of its way, it will eventually outrun you. It will convert worshippers, gather reproductive females to make Children, and feed. It will feed on humans, cats, dogs, cattle, anything that is brought to it. It will cast off Hunters to go forth and gather for it. It will create Children to make more Hunters. It will physically spread and its influence will spread. It will take first this region, then the state and North Georgia, Western North Carolina. It will spread its influence and spread its influence until, yes, there will be Hunters in Ghirardelli Square gathering resources to feed its essence. By then, we will have either crumbled as a nation or, my greatest fear, become a nation of its worshippers, feeding it an endless supply of largesse. Then with our power and might we will go forth in the Gar’s name and conquer the nations of this planet. Their food and thousands, millions of handmaidens will be sent to its essence and it will consume the world!”

“How big can this thing get?” the House Minority Leader asked.

“Who knows?” Janea answered. “The people who were feeding it before were hunter-gatherers, maybe they had horticulture and early animal husbandry but probably not, and it got as big as fifty elephants. That might be a round number meaning ‘it’s really fricking big,’ but it’s already bigger than that. There’s no indication that it has an upper limit. It is just The Stomach That Walks. My guess? With industrial food production and the fact that the US is a breadbasket with lots of cows, pretty fricking big. Like, big-as-a-city big. And millions of Hunters, thousands of Children. With enough support, billions of Hunters, millions of Children. We’re currently dealing with maybe a couple of thousand Hunters, and we can’t deal with them. Did the part about this not being the worst Great Old One get up to your level?”

“No,” the President said carefully.

“The gar gyi dbang phyug ma isn’t the worst of the Great Old Ones,” Janea said with a sigh. “There are only seven mentioned in the Tibetan texts, but there are references to there being many others. The Gar is one of the few who had real worshippers. Most of the rest didn’t seem to care one way or the other and were as mercurial and deadly as weather. They didn’t even seem to destroy for the joy of destruction, as many demons do. They just didn’t seem, in general, to notice humans.”

“How were they defeated?” the Senate Minority Leader asked.

“The gods,” Janea said, carefully. “Humans apparently…” She paused and looked at Barb.

“I can handle the E word,” Barb said with a smile.

“Humans apparently evolved with the Great Old Ones just being part of their world,” Janea said. “At some point they managed to get the gods to intercede. There was a big battle that was so far back it’s not even in most religious texts, and the gods won. Then they took the humans as their worshippers, and you get Odin and Zeus and all the rest eventually. The battle with the Titans might be a reference to the battles with the Old Ones.”

“So…why can’t the old gods intercede?” the Speaker asked. “That would…actually be a lot more palatable.”

“You want me to try to penetrate divine politics?” Janea asked. “I thought you were going nuts about there even being a God? Answer is, I dunno. I do know that they are not as powerful as the White God by a lot of orders of magnitude. They’re still there. Many, as those the Asatru worship, side with the White God. Mostly. Don’t ask me about Loki; it depends on the day. Others side with the infernal. But for whatever reason, they aren’t intervening. I couldn’t even get Freya to give me enough power to battle a Child. She was just hands off. I was nearly taken by a Hunter, one of her most powerful priestesses taken to be defiled, and she didn’t intervene. That tells me that they are held. At a guess, because of this test of the White God.”

“So God is hanging us out to dry?” the Senate Majority Leader asked. “Great!”

“No, He is testing us,” Barb said. “This is part of the test. Can you, the leaders of this great nation, get your heads around there being a One True God and can you lead your people in His direction or will we continue to… What was that book a while back? Will we continue to slouch towards Gomorrah? Can you lead or can you only run in front of wherever the band is headed? Because this is but a minor test. Much greater tests are coming. I think what God is saying, getting it down to a bumper-sticker, is ‘Lead, follow or get the hell out of the way.’”

“The problem being that this is a democracy, Barbara,” the Speaker said, as if speaking to a child. “And in a democracy, that is under rule of law, we have to follow the laws. And the law says, no interaction between church and state.”

“Don’t argue with me, sweetheart,” Barbara said, smiling broadly and then pointing at the roof. “Argue with Him if you’d like. I do.”

“Is this unconstitutional?” the President asked.

“Yes!” the Speaker and the Majority Leader both snapped.

“I was asking the Chief Justice,” the President said.

“There are numerous precedents,” the Chief Justice said. “Presidents have often asked for national prayers. After 9/11, for example. But given the current makeup of the Court, if they were all brought in on the decision and prior decisions related to Special Circumstance, it would come down to…ideological position. Which means, probably, a five-four vote in favor. The problem being, we don’t have time to debate. Which brings in the other precedent, which is ‘the Constitution is a document, not a suicide pact.’ I won’t get into the debate about the meaning of ‘respecting an establishment of religion.’ We simply don’t have time.”

“If you do this you are going to be out of office so fast it will make your head swim,” the Speaker said. “I’ll enter the impeachment documents the next day.”

“That’s a chance I’ll have to take,” the President said. “Mrs. Everette, I understand that you do not have any recollection of your…message.”

“No, Mr. President,” Barb said. “I’ve seen the recording, though.”

“Do you have any thoughts on the nature of the prayer?” the President asked.

“Oh, good…You’re not asking a soccer mom to write your prayer for you?” the Majority Leader said.

“Do you mean, do you have to say ‘Dear Lord God of all the Christians of this land, please destroy the Gar for me’?”

“More or less,” the President said.

“No,” Barb replied. “It can be ecumenical as you’d like. But it’s going to have to be somewhat specific. ‘Dear Higher Power, we’d sure like you to like us’ won’t cut it. If you’d like, I can work something up and then you can debate this while we are running away.”

“Mrs. Everette, I don’t know if this is a divine message or not,” the President said. “But the Lord seems to work through intermediaries. You are, as I understand it, the most powerful member of the Special Circumstances network. Is that right, Germaine?”

“Very close,” Augustus said. “And for this, undoubtedly the most powerful.”

“I doubt that God will choose to work through me,” the President said, somewhat ruefully. “As such, when the prayer is given, I would like you to be available in the area of the Beast.”

“Yes, Mr. President,” Barb said. “I’ll be there.”

“And, yes, send me a rough draft,” the President said. “Break this down.”

“This is Mary McCrory with CNN live from the vicinity of Goin, Tennessee. Overnight, the rumor has spread that the events in Tennessee are anything but a major methane buildup. What is going on is unclear but the area has been sealed off from entry. Our news crew has managed to slip through the cordon to a position very close to the small town that is near the center of the restricted area…”

“Mary,” the anchor said, breathlessly. “Can you see what might be happening?”

“Not exactly,” the reporter said, ducking through trees. “We’ve seen military vehicles moving out of the area all night, as if they are in full retreat. But what they are retreating from is unclear. We’re trying to get to the top of a hill where we can get a better view.”

“According to our legal correspondent, it’s a clear violation of the Constitution to prevent the free movement of citizens for anything other than a natural disaster,” the anchor said. “Were you molested by the military in approaching the area?”

“Well, the military is stopping anyone from coming in. We managed to evade several roadblocks. But this area is particularly well patrolled so we’ve had to go on foot for the last few miles.”

“The main guess is that there’s been an alien landing,” the anchor said. “Can you confirm that?”

“We may be able to in just a moment,” the reporter said excitedly. “The trees are opening up ahead and…”

She suddenly began screaming and the picture from the camera wobbled erratically. For just a moment it showed a swath of destruction in the distant valley and then panned towards the head of the swath. There was a brief glimpse of something and then the picture blanked out.

As the voice feed from the camera crew cut off, the anchor was left sitting with her mouth open.

“ We’re having some difficulties with our reporting team in Tennessee,” she said after a moment of her mouth opening and closing soundlessly. “ We are now taking you to our legal analyst, Rebecca Shelby, for a look at the legal ramifications of forced resettlement and denying access to the area on the part of citizens. Rebecca?”

“The President is doing his speech at eleven AM,” Graham said, entering the briefing room.

The FBI team had moved back to the Knoxville headquarters. The military was keeping as many people out of the area as possible, and the investigation part of the incident was pretty much over.

“It will be to Maynardville by then,” Barb said, looking at the map on the wall. It was some sort of interactive screen, and it showed the approximate progress of the Gar as well as all the major military positions.

“Yes, it will,” Graham said. “Which they’re evacuating. He’d prefer to wait until prime time, to get the maximum viewers, but this is going to have to do. All of the TV networks and radio stations have been informed that it is under Emergency Broadcast rules. We’ll have to see what the cable channels do, but most of them are probably going to go along. And we’ve basically given up on the methane story after what happened to the CNN team. But the point is…we’d probably better get moving.”

“Okay,” Barb said, picking up her purse and gesturing to the door. “You first, Laz. And yes, you’re coming along.”

The cat flicked his ears, then walked to the door as if it was his own idea anyway.

“Think he’ll use your script?” Janea asked as they walked down the corridor to the elevator.

“God willing.”

“Ladies and gentlemen of the United States, my fellow citizens, citizens of nations around the globe, I come to you in this, our nation’s hour of need to beg for your help.

“As President, I see many things that are secret and terrible. There are constant threats to the lives of peoples all over the world that never make the news, that are never known but to a very few. The threat this nation, and the world, faces in Tennessee must, for the time being, remain one of those secrets. My fellow Americans, peoples of the world, you don’t want to know.

“However, there is one thing I must ask of all people, of all people of…faith. I do not care if you are Christian or Muslim. I do not care if you are Jew or Mormon or Sikh. I do not care if you are Vishnaya or Syncretic neo-Pagan. In this, our nation’s hour of need, I need you to join me in prayer. I need you to bend your heart and your soul and your belief to ask for intercession by the Almighty, however you may choose to speak to Him, Her or It. I ask you this with all my heart, with all my soul and, yes, with my gathering belief. Now, please, I beg of you with all my power, join me in a prayer.

“Dear Higher Power, we, the believing people of this nation and of this world, ask for your intercession in this, our hour of need. Grant unto your chosen the power to destroy the fell beast which besmirches our land. Give us your blessing and aid, Lord, we ask by all your Nine Billion Names. Amen.”

He bowed his head for a moment and shook it. And then clearly went off script.

“Please, God. Save us. We know we’re not worthy, we know we have strayed far from Your path. But please don’t do this to us. Please. Send us your power or we will fall into the blackness of everlasting night. Amen.

“And now…we wait for an answer.”

“Sharice,” Barb said, looking over her shoulder at the crackle of underbrush. “What are you doing here?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for all the chocolate in Switzerland,” Sharice said. “It down there?”

“Yep,” Barb said. “We were just getting ready to take a peek. You don’t have FLIRs.”

“If the Lady isn’t willing to shield my mind, I guess I’m pretty much over the hill,” Sharice said. “I’ve seen a few things in my time. I think I’ll be okay.”

“That does it,” Janea said, dropping her FLIR to the forest floor. “I can’t be Asatru and fear. And I’m afraid. I will face the test of Fir. I shall overcome it or be blasted. Whichever way it goes, I’m not going to fear.”

“Let’s go, then,” Barb said, pushing aside a screen of privet.

The Gar was moving through the outskirts of the town of Maynardville, leaving its usual wake of destruction.

“Is it me, or is it getting bigger?” Janea asked, her voice a little too firm.

“It’s bigger,” Barb said, calmly. She could feel the horror, but it was washing over her like light rain. “There was a lot of minor cattle ranching in the valley. Lord hope everyone was evacuated safely.”

“That is rather ugly, isn’t it?” Sharice said. If she was bothered it wasn’t apparent.

“Yes, it is,” Barb said, cracking a grin.

“I’m glad you guys think this is funny,” Janea said, her voice shaking.

“Not at all,” Sharice said. “But here in this place, we stand on the precipice of doom with but one roll of the dice between us and the end of all we know. It is laugh or cry, and my choice has always been laughter.”

“I am Asatru,” Janea said, firmly. “I am the high priestess of the goddess of love and war. I will not let this thing defeat me. My goddess defeated it in times past and will aid me to defeat its powers. I. Will. Not. Fear. I am Asatru.”

“There you go, dear,” Sharice said, smiling again. “To each her deity. Anyone got the time?”

“President’s speech should be starting,” Barb said, looking at her watch. “Okay, God, time to count the Lots. Do we make the grade, or should I just go home and give up the land of the free?”

“And the home of the brave, don’t forget,” Janea said. “There’s a reason that the US has the highest number of Asatru in the world. Laz,” Janea continued as the cat walked up and parked by her feet. “I’m not sure you should be seeing this.”

“He seems to be taking it well,” Barb said, looking at the cat. “Maybe it doesn’t affect cats.”

“There is nothing living anywhere near its path,” Sharice said. “Were it not for his connection to you, he would be dead.”

“Alive enough,” Barb said as the cat stood up from its haunches and suddenly assumed a pounce position. His tail swished back and forth and he started to purr. “Very alive,” she added and then stopped.

She’d felt the feeling before, like gathering static before a lightning strike. But never like this. She could feel that it was not just her being filled by the Power of the Lord, but the two priestesses by her side, the cat, the growth around her. It was a massive bell of power gathering and gathering and gathering…

“Oh, good Freya,” Janea said, her eyes wide. “Uhhh…I’m not sure I can channel this much…” she ended on a squeak as her right arm shot outwards, palm upraised.

Barb, not fighting it but not willing it either, found herself following suit, as did Sharice. Lazarus stood up and opened his mouth as if about to wail.

And from the three outstretched arms, and one bellowing mouth, shot a beam of light powerful enough to level a city.

“This is Bob Toland near Knoxville, Tennessee,” the reporter said, then lowered his microphone. “Good?”

“Sound’s good,” the sound man said, raising a thumb.

“Bit to the left,” the cameraman said. “Better view of the mountains.”

“I hope like hell whatever it was got that CNN crew isn’t near here,” the producer said. “President still has the airwaves. And it’s dead air. People are starting to freak. Let’s roll. At this rate, we might even get live.”

“Right,” Bob said, clearing his throat. “This is Bob Toland near Knoxville, Tennessee. As you can see behind me…” he continued turning to the northeast.

As he turned, a beam of white light shot down from the heavens. It was so bright it seemed to override the sun, bright as a magnesium flare in darkness. It blinded him for a moment and he could feel a prickle on his skin. For a moment, he thought the President had dropped a nuke, but it wasn’t that. Just light. The purest, most white light he had ever seen in his life or could even imagine.

“Good God,” the producer whimpered, his hands over his eyes.

“Yeah,” Toland said, blinking and hoping that his vision would return. “I think that might have been exactly what that was. Tell me you got that.”

“I got it,” the cameraman said, lowering the camera. “I’ve got a burned-out CCD chip, but I got most of it. Damn.”

“I think you might want to watch your tongue there,” Toland said, looking up and blinking. “Seriously. Be careful how you speak.”

“Thank you, Lord,” the President said, his hands clenched together and tears streaming down his face. “Thank you for protecting us with Your divine hand. I pledge that this nation stands by Your side through all the trials ahead.

“And to the people of this great nation and all the peoples of other lands who joined us in prayer. Know that we have faced a great test and have shown that this nation stands by the side of the Powers of Good. Great trials face us in the future, but know that if we stand by our deity, whatever name we choose to use, that the power that watches over us will never fail. Thank you for your prayers, and God bless you all.”