by Mark Tufo
“Gabriel wants you dead!” she shrieked.
“I’d say we have that in common.” I was trying to be as even-keeled as possible; there was no telling what was going to set her over the edge and this wasn’t some half-tilted ex-lover, pissed off I had dumped her because she didn’t like dogs. This woman had power that rivaled everyone on this field of battle, and lord knows there were some heavyweights in the ring. This thought started me sliding down the pay-per-view slope, meaning I suddenly wished I was at home, smoking a fattie with my friends, taking bets on who would emerge from this death-match alive and wearing the Interdimensional Heavyweight Belt. Betcha that thing would have been huge!
It looked like she was going to strike out only to be interrupted, as Michael, Gabriel, and the three other remaining archangels landed some fifty feet away. They were in a line and coming toward us. That they struck fear into my heart, was an understatement. Maybe at one time, they weren’t evil…or, perhaps from their point of view, they weren’t. But the malice that flowed from them was a tangible entity. Gabriel’s corporeal self, the one most were used to seeing on earth, was smiling, but the being underneath that shell was seething. I was having a difficult time dealing with the contradictions in my head. Everything I’d ever supposedly known about angels revolved around peace and love; yet this thing was all about war, hate, and death. Wasn’t that what the Great Deceiver was all about?
The angels spread out and like it was choreographed, their wings expanded. Whatever they had planned was going to be huge and monstrous. I was running through my Rolodex of options and each little slip of cardboard was coming up devoid of legible notes. I could feel my lungs deflate as if they were creating a vacuum which was sucking the very air from around us. Halifax wasn’t so far gone that she couldn’t feel it as well. Instead of striking out, she took flight. It got real weird real quick–yeah, I know what you’re thinking, already pretty weird. Halifax was jetting away before she came down like a hunted duck hit with a twenty gauge. It was that severe. Her magical wings clipped, she crashed heavily to our left. She wasn’t moving; wasn’t sure what Gabriel had done–then I realized whatever had happened, had happened to us all.
“What did you do?” Azile asked.
“Me? Nothing! Like, seriously, absolutely nothing. I was just squinting my eyes in preparation for what they were going to hit us with.”
“Whatever is going on, it has affected them as well.” Kalandar pointed to the angels. I noticed Michael looking in his hands. He spared us the briefest of glances before he reached behind him and in between his wings; he pulled free a sword nearly as tall as he was. Following suit, all of them did. No matter what had happened, it seemed they couldn’t care less; it had no effect on their plans to end us.
“Fine, do it your way,” I said as I quickly went over and grabbed a rifle off the ground. I brought it up to my shoulder and fired. I got the click of the firing pin and nothing more. “Dry fire,” I said as I dropped the magazine, expecting it to be empty; it wasn’t. When I pulled the charging handle back, a live round popped free. I snagged it out of the air. I would have scratched my head, if my hands were free. There was a perfect dimple in the primer, where the pin had hit. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities to have a dud round, so I slammed the magazine back, charged another, and was met with the same fate. “Third time’s the charm,” I said. If it didn’t work this time, I was going to need to move on to steel. Before I even pulled the trigger, I knew the result. Something, or someone, had intervened; magic, and apparently technology, were off the board. We were going to duke this out, old school.
I felt somewhat decent about our odds; we had the Landians, Kalandar, Azile, and myself. Halifax would be a non-factor. She wasn’t dead, but she was injured. Her sobs and pleas for help were not so much falling on deaf ears, so much as busy ones. It was Gabriel that silenced her. He got down on his knees and cradled her head in his hands before plunging his thumbs through her eye sockets. An unearthly cry gurgled forth from her. I was fairly certain any of us who fell would suffer a similar fate.
“You can thank your god for this!” Gabriel’s voice boomed out as he stood. “How dare he introduce savages into the garden!”
I wanted to point out that he was the one that had just painfully and deliberately killed someone with his bare hands.
“The world was idyllic, a state your primordial minds cannot understand the grandeur of. We walked among you when you were nothing more than lowly creatures of the forest. You were in awe of us; you feared us, as you should have. Had I known Maker’s plans for you, and how you would eventually corrupt the world, I would have eradicated you. It would have been such a pleasure, and so simple back then; there were so few of you…”
“Fuck me!” I yelled. “Is this the part where you start going on and on about how we breed like rats and shit?”
“Really, Michael?” Azile asked.
“Sorry. I don’t want to hear that blowhard pontificate. Honestly, I just want to drive my sword through his shiny chest and crack my axe through his smug head.”
“There is something to brevity,” Kalandar said.
If I thought I was going to be able to goad the angels into action with my taunting, I was wrong. He was stalling. I hadn’t known it at the time, but he was waiting for the polions to enter the mix. Once he realized none of us would be drawing from the source, he wanted to even the odds. Like the shifting momentum in a football game, they once again possessed the fickle element. I wanted to offer some words to spur us into action, but my mouth was dry and I couldn’t think of anything that would inspire anyone to charge the opposition. They truly did look like gods from atop Mount Olympus; I could no longer see beneath the façade. Somehow, in this equation the polions seemed like the lesser of two evils. Then, of course, the fiends showed, and all bets were off.
After our little dance downstairs, I didn’t think they’d want to join the home team, but still, if we were against the angels, they were almost obligated to fight alongside us as enemies of our enemies. Not one word was said as they moved closer; their weapons were not drawn, but that did little to ease the apprehension they caused.
“It appears that this one time, it would be beneficial for all of us to fight together against the common enemy,” their leader said.
“And after?” I asked.
He grunted. Seemed clearly non-committal to me.
The polions streamed around the angels; I’d been hoping they were completely unbiased in who they would attack–not the case. Wasn’t even an errant tentacle thrown the angels’ way. Not sure where the demons had been hiding their swords, but they were armed and stood in a line with us, as the polions rushed in.
Chapter 29
Stonemar & Orderg
“What exactly are we witnessing?” Orderg asked.
“End times,” Stonemar answered. “I thought perhaps it would be quicker, though. And more…one-sided. The angels fight without their Maker; I find this strange.”
“The fiends do not have the Deceiver; maybe they are watching from afar.”
“End times without the primary figures does not make much sense. Do you see who is with the humans?”
“Is that? It is. How is Kalandar possibly here? He was locked up millennia ago.”
“That is the strangest thing you can think to point out?”
“He is a striking figure. Are we going down there?”
“We’ll watch for a moment. I do not wish to be flotsam caught in a maelstrom.”
“I do not like when you speak your grandiose words.”
Chapter 30
Mike Journal Entry 12
I should have known fundamentally that the polions would not attack the archfiends, either. The fiends moved to clash with the angels, leaving the rest of us on mop-up duty.
“Dammit,” I sighed as the closest polion was within striking distance. In one sweep I took two of its tentacles. The fight had begun. Landian archers were peppering the animals with ar
rows, dropping them by the score.
“Fight and withdraw!” Lyndajin shouted to those of us at the front. “They will pause for a moment.”
That’s what we did. As we regrouped, the archers kept killing them. The problem was going to be the shortage of arrows; seems that was what it always came down to. The tactic was brilliant in its simplicity; we were exposed to a minimum of danger while giving the archers time to set up and fire. When we were in jeopardy of losing ground, we would collapse and leave. The vacancy left the animals to search for us before once again moving forward. With the massive culling Halifax had achieved, we had a real chance of successfully decimating the polions that were left. It wouldn’t solve all of the problems before us, but it was a great start.
It seemed to be going according to plan until the polions somehow garnered reinforcements. Most likely it was a contingent that had taken awhile to catch up, but now we had the deadly animals to our front and back. We could no longer withdraw. The archers were the first to have their ranks torn through; in close quarter combat not much can be achieved with a curved piece of wood, no matter how violently you swing it. The screams of men and women being ripped apart were all around us. I’d hack at one polion only to have to dodge another. Luckily, they had been fighting so much recently, they had very few quills left to launch; kind of like our situation. We sliced the animals open. Their innards mingled along with our own, making the ground look like some ghoulish Halloween terrain. It was so over-the-top, it didn’t even look real.
At first, I thought the sound was of just more of us dying, until I figured out that the screams coming our way were a war cry–the Talbotons were rallying. Not sure what brought them out of their cellars, but their timing couldn’t have been better. Kalandar had somehow got tangled up with two of the animals; multiple tentacles were wrapped around each of his arms, the goal simple enough. He yelled and threw his head back as he brought his arms in toward his body. I cut through anything that dared to get in my way, even using the body of a downed polion to get some height as I jumped up, over, and to Kalandar, swiftly bringing my sword through the tentacles on his left. When his arm was free, he pulled the polion in closer, wrenching those feelers out. The beast was in a rage, thrashing about; if it didn’t have the arms to kill him it was going to attempt to use its bulk to smash him into the ground. Kalandar’s fist impacted the animal so hard on the side, he had to have broken its ribs–or whatever it used for skeletal structure. The polion’s whole body caved in around that strike. It shuddered a few times before going still.
“Thank you,” Kalandar said as he picked up his sword.
I nodded to him and moved nearer to Azile. She was proficient with her weapons but her true prowess was with her magic, and now that she was cut off from it like everyone else, she was merely human, and we were all too painfully aware of how delicate a condition that was. She cried out as a tentacle slapped her leg. The offending appendage recoiled back in pain as I cut a foot-long section of it off. Blood spurted from the wound, covering my chest and legs. Azile looked tired; I was doing all I could to extract us from the heaviest fighting. I knew the only way out would be to go the way the Talbotons were trying to come in. The problem was, we were entering into some of the most violent fighting we’d thus far encountered. Some of the big animals were facing forward, others had their backs to us, but they were packed so tightly they formed an impenetrable wall.
“Michael!” Azile cried out as she was pushed to the side and nearly out of sight. I thought I chewed through a piece of my heart as it surged up through my throat.
“Get out of my fucking way!” I yelled, each word punctuated with my sword puncturing the side of a beast. It screeched before falling over to its side, its arms flailing wildly, more than one making contact. I hacked my way through, only to realize I had to keep going. Azile was boxed in by three of them. The only reason she wasn’t dead was they didn’t know she was there. That bit of luck wouldn’t last long, as the entire battlefield was continually shifting like sand dunes in a hurricane. As animalistic as the polions were, I rivaled them by becoming an enraged beast. How dare something want to harm someone I loved! I fought with an unbridled fury; a wrath I had not felt since the tunnels when I’d cut through the Cajunites. This time, however, I was not constrained by the constricted confines. I launched onto the back of the nearest one and drove my sword through it like an entomologist might pin a butterfly. I went hilt-deep and rocked my blade back and forth, expanding the wound as much as I could before jumping down and to the next.
This one knew I was coming and sent three of its tentacles toward me, two of which I neatly cut off. The third I bludgeoned with the heavy side of my axe. I dragged the tip of my blade along its side, deep enough to expose the bones underneath. I did not stay to finish it off, as there was always another I needed to engage. Azile was backed up as far as she could go, defensively swinging her sword against the many arms that sought purchase. She wasn’t going to last much longer; my teeth elongated and my eyes narrowed; I could no more control the transformation than I could the weather. My blade spun so fast, an outside observer would have had a difficult time following its path. I thrust up and into blind eyes, into hungry mouths, into vulnerable sides, always drawing blood, always provoking death. I would not stop until I was dead or they were. I did not even notice the few quills that had adhered to me; they were no match for the anger that burned through me like a nuclear sun in the dead of an arctic winter.
She could see me coming; her look was both hopeful and terrified. Either she didn’t think I’d get there before her end came, or she was worried that she no longer possessed the magic she’d used to bring me back from the edge, like last time. Both were valid concerns. My chest hurt, my throat hurt–I wasn’t aware that I was yelling at full volume, attempting to get the polions to shift their focus to me. I took note that the animal had mouth parts much like a tick, but only after I had sliced them off. When I finally found my way next to her, I swung in a hundred and eighty-degree arc, taking two more of them down. We were finally making our way to the line between man and beast. As Azile and I cut through the last of them together, we were met with four Talbotons that shied away from me, my blackened eyes and my long teeth a valid reason; surely everyone had heard about my encounter in the cavern. I dragged Azile farther away, fearful I would not be able to control myself around anyone, so close to slipping over that primal edge I found myself on.
“Thank you.” She was bent at the waist, catching her breath. I was trying to catch my sanity; it was a race to see which of us would win. I was fascinated, watching the blood flow down the steel of my blade. I thirsted for more of it. The soldiers…they were so agonizingly close; I turned back to Azile, she was closer.
I’m ashamed to admit it, but at the time, I honestly didn’t know which way that was going to turn out. Without her magic, Azile was no match for me. I told myself that I’d only take a few drops, but the rational side of me knew better. Once her blood crossed my lips and splashed onto my tongue I’d be lost; no more chance of stopping me than holding back the snow of a roaring avalanche. It would bowl me over, breaking through any wall I could potentially put up. It was Gabriel that saved me, saved her.
“It is high time we settle this,” he said, walking toward me. His white clothing was covered in a black, tar-like substance that I figured was the blood of his enemies. It was painfully evident who was winning that battle, though those who considered themselves the good guys, all dressed in white and such, had not come through unscathed.
I was laser-focused on him. The thought of soaking in his enriched blood was as close to lust-worthy as one can be during battle when met by an angel.
“Back to your natural state, I see,” he said condescendingly.
I ran toward him, my lips pulled back. There was a moment of confusion on his face; he had been looking for my paralyzing fear. What he got was pitiless aggression.
“You need to die!” I told him as our sword
s clashed. I had not been expecting the sheer power behind his parry. I’d had all of my speed and all of my enhanced strength behind my swing, yet he had stopped it with hardly any pushback on his end. He recovered quickly and swung, driving me backward a step or two.
“What does Maker see in you that he would dare to break the covenant?” Gabriel asked as he forced me back again. I stumbled a few steps; he had not pressed the attack. Maybe he wanted an answer I did not have. “You didn’t know,” he said sharply, picking up on my confusion. “You think all of us being removed from the source has happened by chance? He knew if he did not do this, we would win and this realm would forever be ours. He would have been permanently cut off from his experiment. I’m sorry to tell you, Maker,” he shouted upwards, “this world was never yours! You cannot take back that which you gave to us so graciously, our reward for eons of loyal service! To so quickly turn around and give it to these monkeys? What did you think we would do? Sit by idly while they destroyed everything we loved? For billions of years we cared for this plane, fostered it, nurtured, watched it blossom and grow. In the span of a few thousand years, your pets have nearly annihilated it. We can no longer allow that to continue. We thought all might be well after they chose to kill themselves by the billions, but now we’ve watched this plague reemerge from their caves, and we will not, we cannot, stand for it again! You’ve lost, Maker! Leave this place!”
He was so caught up in his rant, he’d not been watching me, and I struck. Light blazed from the wound I cut in his side. He turned on me with a ferocity I expected mama grizzlies had for those that messed with their cubs. He hacked at me with three wildly powerful swings which I more than expected would sheer my sword in two. The fact that didn’t happen I had to think was somehow influenced by Maker. How much more I could take, I wasn’t sure. This time it was Azile that saved me. She had come around the side of Gabriel and was looking for an opening. I could not tell if she had struck, but he took notice of her–he sent a backhand to the side of her head that sent her sprawling. I could tell she was unconscious before she ever hit the ground; she made contact with the dirt without moving. The only way I knew she wasn’t dead was the vampire part of me could still see the current of her blood being pushed by her beating heart just under the surface. That wasn’t to say she wasn’t injured, possibly badly, but she lived. Right now that was the best I could hope for as I was flooded with rage.