Ever so slowly she continued upwards.
John wandered into his kitchen, feeling more than ever sleep deprived. The election campaign was sapping all his energy, never mind the meeting he had to have with Ariadne and the other Daemon senators.
He stopped when he eyed the Asian youth typing away on a laptop at his breakfast bench. “Who are you?”
The youth raised unnerving amber eyes from his laptop to him “Kyle” then flicked back to whatever he was doing.
“What are you doing in my kitchen Kyle?” this was meant to be a secure area, along with his own security detail he had been assigned magical ones to protect him as well. He was apparently very valuable to Hera’s cause, whatever it might be.
He didn’t even bother looking up as he replied, “I’m your new security detail.”
He couldn’t help himself, he laughed “You? They’ve sent a child to protect me?”
Now he reacted, those eyes flicked up in anger as he glared “I’m not a child, I’m nineteen, and I’m the most powerful sorcerer in the whole of North America so count yourself lucky, old man.”
“Old man? I’m only thirty-five! I’m the youngest senator in the Senate.”
“Yeah, a whole lot of old people.”
He really didn’t like this kid’s attitude. “You expect me to believe that you are the most powerful sorcerer in the whole of North America.” He eyed up Kyle. He was thin, almost scrawny but tall, noticeably so for an Asian. He was quite attractive, his face still holding the cuteness of youth, though right now it was all seriousness. The seriousness was undermined by his unusual haircut, long and ragged, but those eyes were nothing but scrutiny. He was well dressed in a suit that was tailored, on his lapel, he wore a small peacock pin and underneath a small rainbow flag pin.
He was gay and clearly favoured by Hera.
Similarly, Kyle scrutinised him. He was here because Ariadne did not trust the Senator, and he was one of her most trusted aides. It was his duty to spy on the Senator and keep him in line. Though admittedly his purpose was not so desperate. With him as president, they could do sweeping reforms, without there would just have to be a revolution.
As he had said he was thirty-five, still quite attractive for an older man, though Kyle begrudgingly admitted he wasn’t that old. He certainly didn’t look it. He was only dressed in track pants, not having expected anyone in his kitchen. It allowed Kyle to give him a good once over. His body was muscular and well toned, he looked how he thought a man should. He had a smattering of brown hair across his chest and a snail trail but nothing more. Kyle could see the outline of what looked like his large cock through the track pants. He flicked his eyes back up to the face. Hair just long enough to run fingers through with no signs of grey. Morning stubble gave him a rugged look. There were some wrinkles, but otherwise, he was looking good. He found him quite attractive.
“Believe what you will Senator but I have been assigned to you, and I do my duties. You’ll just have to put up with me. Now you better hurry up and get dressed we have a meeting with Senator Claire and McClain.”
“What meeting?”
“The meeting on adjustments to healthcare.” He jumped up, grabbed the Senator by the shoulders and steered him back out of the kitchen “Now hurry up and get dressed otherwise we will be late.” He gave him a slight push, his hands suddenly itching to do more than just push him.
Strange.
He returned to his laptop and coffee, he had a lot to do. He could contemplate this attraction later, in the car.
This assignment suddenly seemed more interesting.
Chapter 39
Sariel climbed up out of the shaft and the blue-green mist pouring down it, her arms aching with exhaustion. How could a mortal ever make this journey, she was Divine, and it had nearly killed her on more than one occasion. She thanked her Divinity yet again.
She stood at the lip of the shaft as the mist poured down it. The mist was also the reason for the raging maelstrom at the apex of the stalagmite. This was where the degraded souls were trapped, too weak to do anything but fuse with the others, their Lifeforce released directly into the Lair where it reacted violently with Lucifer’s own phenomenal powers.
It was these souls pouring down the shaft that had illuminated it, but she also realised that while they should be seeping back down into the Lifestream they weren’t. They were as trapped as everything else. No wonder the planet was ailing. Hell was blocking the natural systems of the planet, it was swallowing up Lifeforce without returning it to the Lifestream.
Above her soared a vast cavern, the bright hole of sunlight far above was the opening to the Surface. Thick coils of smoke drifted through the sunlight, their source unknown. Deep scratches marked the ceiling and the floor. Rubble covered most of the crater, large and small rocks, skeletons of buildings, vehicles and mortals. Beyond the lip of the crater cavern, was the raging tempest. It deterred her going anywhere near the edge.
She glanced down as she felt cold spreading up her legs. They were visible within the swirling Lifeforce. It was stripping her spells from her, she was becoming visible within the Beast’s Lair. Now was the prudent time to sneak past it but how was she to get up to the shaft far above without being noticed? More importantly, where was the Beast?
New winds sprang up forcing her to the ground, being covered within Lifeforce was a strange experience, especially as it stripped the last of her spells away. She was now visible and defenceless within the Beast’s lair.
She looked in the direction that the wind was coming from, her rational mind fleeing as she saw the Beast. He was beating his six wings, as he stopped so did the wind. He was the source of the wind.
The Beast was a truly impressive creature. He was a gigantic Dragon with seven heads upon seven sinuous necks. Each head bore a single horn except the middle head which had four horns. It seemed odd to have ten horns for seven heads. He had six black wings, a testament to his true Angelic nature, though they were now far larger and were the membranous wings prevalent on all Demons. His wings were so large that when he beat them, he completely blocked out the sunlight from the shaft far above.
His necks were two-thirds the length of his body, as was his long serpentine tail. His main body was completely black, and she couldn’t tell whether it was covered in skin, scales or chitin. To her eyes, it was shiny and smooth like chitin, but it moved like skin. There were ripples of gold within the black. Whatever it was made of it was hard, sharp rocks stuck into his underside, as he moved they were worn down smooth. Was his skin as hard as diamonds? He had only four legs, each tipped with ten golden talons the size of her. Golden spines ran down the length of his spine, some were thick and triangular others were needle thin.
Strangely though his eyes were unlike any other Demons’. They were an icy blue, shimmering with electricity. It was strange to look into eyes that were not burning. Those shimmering eyes watched her with predatory hunger.
In a quick fluid movement, he scrambled down the cliff and across the ground to her. Thinking fast she shot upwards, powered by magic as she cloaked herself once again in shields. She flew up like a rocket aiming straight for that sunlit shaft. She was escaping Hell, and nothing was going to stop her.
She slammed into a magical barrier, a spider web of blue, pink and bright green magic, shimmering all over the cavern and completely blocking the exit. It was then she realised how little her family had known...or told her. There was no way to sneak out of Hell, there was no escape.
She was trapped in the Beast’s Lair!
She fell slightly stunned despite her shields, only narrowly dodging out of the way of the Beast’s reaching claws. She flitted away and dove behind the nearest pile of rubble. Her heart was ready to burst out of her chest it was beating that fast. Her pulse continued to race as she heard the Beast move around his Lair looking for her. She screamed when his golden talons grasped the building she was hiding in. She sat paralysed by the sizzling blue eyes that studied her th
rough the windows. There was some lucidity within that gaze, but it was small, very small.
He was mad. Gabriel had driven her own brother mad with her Curse and his confinement.
He flicked his forked blue tongues out, tasting her fear. His long tail waved dangerously out of the side windows, cutting off any plans for escape. She was completely at his mercy.
She glanced at movement, there were Demons creeping into his lair. Their eyes were focussed on her, and all they held was murder. She was going to die, the Beast had her trapped, and now his hordes were coming to butcher her. All her hard work, all her trials, all the lives she had changed had been for naught. She was simply going to be Demon fodder.
To her surprise, he roared and charged across the lair to attack the Demons that had dared trespass. She sat transfixed as the Beast tore into the Demons. His fury was evident even to her. His madness had apparently made him extremely territorial. While he tore into the foolish Demons, she slunk away.
She crawled into a hole in one of the rubble piles, hidden by the Lifeforce mists curling around. She could feel it draining her shields, but it offered the best camouflage. From her cubbyhole she saw many more Demons moving through the lair, searching for her. It was completely illogical, but she feared them more than the Beast. There was only vicious cruelty in their eyes, and hunger. The strange noises they made only unnerved her more.
She kept quiet even as the Beast clambered over a mound of rubble, his eyes burning with fury before he roared. The Demons turned in fear as the seven heads and the tail lashed out at them. Flames, ice, and lightning, poured out of his mouths at the Demons. Powerful magic soon filled the air, reacting with the trapped Lifeforce. She watched in wonder as plants bloomed across the floor before they were consumed by the flames dancing across the ground.
She tuned out the shrieks and screams of Demons in pain as plants wound around her fingers. The mist around her thickened, helping to further obscure her from view. She felt alive, strange sensations firing through her nerves. She no longer felt the continued press down of the Curse. It was as though the Lifeforce was protecting her.
She realised the screams had stopped. The Beast had driven them all from his lair back out into the maelstrom. She saw one limping away as fast as it could, the long black tail struck him from behind. He was thrown out of the lair.
Then silence fell.
She kept completely still, she wasn’t foolish enough to dare climb out of her hole to see where the Beast had gone. She was more than content to remain within her hidey-hole. She listened for sounds of movement.
She held her breath as she saw golden talons through the green mist. They crept closer, before stopping near her hovel. Nothing happened.
She was just beginning to relax when his talons ripped off the rubble hiding her. She didn’t stop to think, darting out as fast as her wings would carry her, casting the first spell that came to mind to distract him. Flashes of lightning distracted him as she fled.
She rushed behind a crumbling wall, recasting her invisibility. She stood trying to calm her breathing as she watched the Beast purposefully dig through the rubble. She noticed why he had so easily found her. The ruins she had been hiding under were ablaze with plant life. It was a literal meadow in the middle of a desolate wasteland. The Beast was curiously studying the flowers. His talon delicately stroked a flower, the tip of the talon sliced right through it. He watched sorrowfully as the flower wilted. He seemed sad to have damaged it. It was only then he realised he had trampled half of them.
He let out a long, low moan. It seemed he was keening over the death of the flowers. Around him they started to perish, their colours fading before they crumbled into dust. As they did so little puffs of white magic bloomed before being absorbed into the trapped Lifestream. She found it a peculiarly touching moment.
That was until all the flowers were gone, no more than dust in the wind, and he resumed looking for her. To her dismay, she realised that flowers were blooming all around her. She was the catalyst, the Lifestream was reacting to her presence.
She ran away to another corner of the lair thinking desperately. She couldn’t stay still for very long, otherwise, flowers would bloom, but running made her visible. It was also quite noisy on the broken shards covering the floor.
He had turned when he saw her running only to get distracted by the flowers she had left in her wake. She watched him, slowly walking between the rubble as she did so. He was not what she had expected, yet he was ferocious, territorial and violent, all of which she had expected. But he was also surprisingly tender and sorrowful towards the flowers.
It was almost as though they reminded him of his life before he was Cursed. She knew it to be true, she had seen a small amount of lucidity in his eyes.
She screamed when long grey talons ripped into her shoulder. Her shields had once again been worn away. She grabbed her daggers and stabbed them both behind her. She spun around raising all her defensive powers, her light casting the lair into stark relief. The shadows disappeared, but the flowers burst into light, shining like hundreds of pixie lights.
She paid no attention to the roaring Beast, her attention firmly fixed on the Demon standing before her. It was a grey, grotesque being who bore no resemblance to the Angel he had once been. His face looked like an insect’s, large beady eyes, mashing mandibles that clicked. It had eight limbs, stick thin and ending in two long talons. Two of his limbs covered the spurting wounds she had inflicted on its abdomen.
Her daggers sizzled slightly as the blood boiled. She sheathed her daggers and unsheathed her katanas. She stood ready and waiting for its next move.
It struck out with six of its appendages, their talons cutting through the air. She flicked her wrists, her katanas cut smoothly through its wrists. It screeched in pain as its six appendages fell to the ground. She jumped back from its flailing limbs and the acidic blood spurting out.
The next instant the thing was crushed beneath the Beast’s claws. Its blood spurted out onto the flowers, burning them on contact. She had forgotten about the Beast, he could have done that to her for all the attention she had been paying him. She paid for that negligence when the next second his other paw grabbed her.
He scrapped his dirty paw off on the ground before he lifted her up before the seven heads. She shrunk before the seven pairs of electric eyes boring into her. Seven forked tongues licked the air around her. It snarled at her, and she realised she was still blazing like the sun. To him, she was just another Angel.
It was the Angels that had sealed him in here.
He roared at her, squeezing his paw. She screamed and struggled to stab him with her swords. He yelped, dropping her as she managed to cut into his paw. She was too slow to get away before his tail smacked her into the wall.
She slid down stunned, powerless to resist him as he used his tail to pick her up. He dangled her upside down before his middle face. She tried summoning her magic, but he easily cut her off. He was fresh and revived, within the full element of his Curse. She was exhausted after battling her way through all the Levels of Hell.
Slowly her light faded and fizzled as he drained away the last of her magical defences. She had dropped her swords, all she had left were her daggers which she couldn’t reach while the tail was wrapped around her. She was completely at his mercy and looking into his eyes she saw none. Only cold rage.
At least he would only kill her, he wouldn’t torture or rape her like the other Demons would. He was a Beast, not a monster, with enough of his true personality shining through. She would at least have the benefit of a clean death, small mercy as it was.
He shook her. Her jewellery jangled, reminding her that she still had them. She reached up to touch her necklace and the vine amulet. Green light flared from her right wrist up her arm to just under her right ear. Chaos brown flared from around her neck. Power flooded her, and she felt alive. The Chaos sigils on her arms blazed into life.
She heard a heartbeat, deep and d
istant. Was that the Lifestream or was it Gaia’s heartbeat? He dropped her hissing, curling his tail underneath him as though he had been burned. She dropped to the floor, smacking against the stone. She lay there dazed while he sat there hissing at her.
She sat up watching him warily as she recalled her swords to her. She sheathed them as she continued to wrap herself with power. The green mist beneath her feet blazed to life. Beyond the lair, she heard hundreds of Demons scrabbling to get away from the lair. Wind whipped in around her, raising the mist into various shapes and forms. It was as though the mist was coming alive with the spirits within it.
His tail whipped past her, but she stepped out of the way. It seemed as though time had slowed down as she called upon more and more power. She blazed with it, the green of Gaia and the brown of Chaos. All around her the Angels’ Curse flared brightly, their lights were overpowered by her own. He cowered away from her, snarling and hissing, his tail flicking back and forth in front of him.
The Lifestream surged up from the shaft, wrapping around her like a playful python.
He hissed again and this time struck out with magic. He was strong, far stronger than she would have expected. He would have been nearly as strong as Gabriel naturally, but now he was empowered by the Curse and the Human perception of Satan. She felt her outer shields shatter under his onslaught, but his attack was undirected and uncontrolled. The Lifestream surged around her to protect her.
She wound her own powers around his, snaking back up his magical stream without him noticing.
He shrieked in desperation as he felt her magic coiling around him.
Desperate he charged at her, running through the Lifestream mists that slowed him down, he felt as though he was wading through syrup. He reared up and flapped his wings, the blasts of wind coating the cavern with ice. The mist was blown away before it surged back with a vengeance, coiling up around him.
The Angels' Pride Page 56