by David Estes
Her feet were dangling beneath her and the field was getting smaller and smaller. At both edges of her peripheral vision, there were white creatures flashing about. Angels! she thought. Dionysus had found her and captured her and was carrying her away. She glanced to the left, ready to kick and claw at her attacker. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw what was there. A brilliantly white, feathery wing gracefully arced high above her shoulders, and then powered down with a whoosh! With each successive cycle, the wing pushed air across her face, simulating a gust of wind. She was flying!
But how? She wasn’t thinking about it and yet the wings performed, propelling her higher and higher, as if they had minds of their own. Finally, she thought to look up, and when she did, she saw that she was nearly to the top of the domed roof. “How do I stop these things!?” she yelled to Gabriel, who now looked like an ant scurrying across a small rectangle of grass.
Faintly, she heard Gabriel say, “You control them, not the other way around! They are just like legs or arms, your brain just isn’t fully aware of them yet!”
Taylor glanced up again; she was getting dangerously close to the roof, and she didn’t want to find out what would happen if she collided with it. A vision flashed in her mind: her wings clipped the dome, cracking in four places and failing her, like the propeller on a helicopter stopping in midflight, allowing gravity to carry her to the earth hundreds of times faster than she had left it.
“I’m the boss,” she growled through clenched teeth. Flying is just like walking, once you get the hang of it, Gabriel had explained. Concentrating on these words, she tried to garner control.
A burst of air hit her as she suddenly shot forwards, cruising along the edge of the dome. Despite having flown with Gabriel many times before, Taylor was unprepared for the rush of excitement she felt. Like every carnival or amusement park ride twisted into one—all the rollercoasters with their demon drops and loops and corkscrews, the plunges from incredible heights protected only by a thin safety strap, the spin-factories and Ferris wheels—flying solo was a thrill seeker’s wildest dream.
And then she was in control.
Somehow she intuitively understood the nature of her new appendages, and she dove rapidly for the field, loving the drop in her stomach that resulted and wishing she could fall forever. She leveled out and soared towards Gabriel, who was still earthbound and watching her. Seconds before crashing into her boyfriend she turned and whipped around him, leaving him in the wash of moving air that she had created, as if she was a truck powering down the highway.
Heading upwards again, she looked back over her left shoulder for Gabriel’s reaction. He was gone. Something brushed by her right side and past her. She heard Gabriel say, “Tag, you’re it.”
Turning to face forwards again, she saw him flying out in front of her, putting more and more distance between them. “It’s on!” Taylor yelled, as she mentally spurred her wings to speed up. They completed a lap around the dome. And then another. Despite her best efforts, however, he seemed to continue to gain on her. There has to be something else I can do, Taylor thought.
She stopped flying to think about it for a moment, hovering delicately in the air. A thought was on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t quite pluck it off. Something to do with angel abilities. Powers. How to magnify her powers! That’s it! She remembered Gabriel telling her at the beginning of the training that harnessing the power of light was the most important thing she could learn, because it would need to be combined with all her other powers to magnify them. To catch Gabriel, she would need to use more light power.
She waved her hand in front of her face to gauge her current energy level. Her hand was glowing, but only dimly, barely even noticeable under the bright stadium lights. Reaching her hand towards the nearest pocket of overhead lights, Taylor tried to extract their inherent power. Immediately her hand glowed brighter and brighter until it wasn’t glowing anymore—it was shining! Not nearly as bright as the sun, and just short of a light bulb, her hand’s light appeared more distant, like that of a star. Realizing she might blow out the bulbs like she had earlier that morning, she picked the next set of lights and stole as much of their energy as she could. Growing in confidence, she started flying again, but continued to soak up light-energy wherever she saw it.
She picked up speed.
Ahead of her, Gabriel had stopped to watch what she was doing. When she resumed her pursuit, he turned and raced off, moving faster than Taylor thought possible. But Taylor was faster, narrowing the gap by half, and then by half again, until she was less than five body lengths from catching him. Sensing her, Gabriel looked back and smiled. “Good luck!” he yelled gleefully.
With reckless abandon, he twisted his body so that he was flying blind and upside down and then dove for the ground, arcing his trajectory so that when he pulled out of the dive he would be heading in the opposite direction. Taylor dove after him and realized too late that he was attempting to go under her, and because of the way he had positioned his body he would be able to seamlessly complete the maneuver, whereas she would have to come to a stop or slow down to turn. Taylor only had one option: speed up. Mustering all the energy she had absorbed, while continuing to soak up more power, Taylor increased her speed. When Gabriel was directly beneath her and just coming out of his arc, she burst towards him, grabbing his waist as she collided on top of him. “Oommf!” he groaned, absorbing the impact.
“Gotcha!” Taylor declared victoriously as they plummeted towards the ground. Thrown off balance by their midair meeting, Taylor was spiraling out of control. She tried everything in her power to stop the spin, to stop their fall, but her body just wouldn’t respond. Evidently her reserves of energy had been expended. She felt a jerk in her back and heard a zipping noise and she knew her wings had retracted.
Holding on to Gabriel’s back for dear life, she used him as a landing pad as they smashed into the field. They sank deep into the soft grass, leaving a two-foot crater that would require more than just a few panels of pre-grown grass to repair.
Climbing out of the hole unscathed, Taylor looked back and said, “You okay?”
“Uhhhh,” Gabriel said, still face down in the dirt.
“I guess I got a little carried away,” Taylor said.
Rolling over, Gabriel said, “Ya think??” His face was covered in splotches of dirt, and bits of grass clung to his nose, chin and ears. Taylor clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh.
Muffled by her hand, she said, “You look….good, Gabriel.”
Before he could respond, Taylor heard a girl’s voice say, “Hey, Tay.”
Turning her attention away from her battered boyfriend, Taylor saw her best friend jogging up to meet her. Chris was next to her. “What are you doing here, Sam?”
Smiling, Sam said, “Clifford told us about your training and recommended that we come and see if you needed any help.”
Chris winked. He said, “It seems like you’re doing just fine though. That was an incredible maneuver, especially for your first time flying.”
“Second time,” Taylor corrected. “You saw that?”
“We saw the whole thing, Tay, but didn’t want to interrupt. You were amazing,” Sam said.
“Tell that to the Training Master of the Universe over here,” Taylor said, motioning to Gabriel, who had sat up, poking his head out of the hole like a gopher on the prairie.
Frowning, Gabriel said, “It was a really, really impressive display of flying, Taylor.”
“But?” Taylor said.
With a wry smile, Gabriel said, “But….it was also extremely reckless. In a real battle you could have been badly injured. Not to mention that you completely exhausted your stores of energy, which would have allowed your enemies to destroy or capture you as soon as you hit the ground. This isn’t a game, Taylor.”
“Hmmm, let me remember….I think your exact words were: ‘Tag, you’re it.’ Is that right?”
Gabriel froze. “I, u
h, well, I was just trying to make it fun for you.”
“You’ve been tough on me all day long and suddenly you wanted to make it fun?” Taylor said incredulously. “You egged me on and I responded. And…..I…..beat…..you.”
A voice said, “That’s why he’s so mad.”
Taylor turned to see who the newcomer was. A white tank rolled their way. It was Sampson. And next to him was Kiren, whose neon pink hair looked even brighter next to her bulky boyfriend.
“Hey, guys,” Taylor said.
Continuing his previous line of thought, Sampson said, “In angel training, Gabriel was always the top of the class—First Angel. His best subject was flying, and during our breaks we used to play a game called Flying Tag. In all the years I’ve known him, Gabriel has never lost. Until now, that is. And let me tell you, us kids were far more reckless than Taylor was today. We tried everything: teaming up, daredevil moves that we hadn’t even learned in school yet, free falls; but nothing worked. Despite our desperate desire to dethrone the king, we never could. That’s why he’s so pissed, not because you were reckless.”
Taylor turned to look at her boyfriend, whose face was already turning red. “Is that true?” she asked, a smile widening across her face.
“Maybe,” Gabriel said.
“Definitely,” Sampson said.
“I dethroned the King of Flying Tag?” Taylor asked to confirm.
“Fine, yes, whatever,” Gabriel said.
“And bruised his ego,” Sampson added helpfully.
In a blur of movement, Gabriel was on top of Sampson, pinning him to the ground. “Slow as ever, buddy,” Gabriel said.
“Hey, you’re messing with someone who is still recovering, that’s cold, man,” Sampson said.
“I saw what Taylor did, you’re in perfect shape.”
“What did Taylor do?” Sam asked.
“Saved him,” Kiren said.
Shaking her head, Taylor said, “Look, guys, I’m no hero and I didn’t save him. My new body did. It can do things…things I can’t even seem to control. I just let my body help him, that’s all.”
“Semantics,” Gabriel said, “but all that matters is that he’s okay now. I’m glad you’re okay, man.”
“Glad enough to get off of me?” Sampson asked.
“Never,” Gabriel said, laughing. He pushed him hard into the ground before releasing him.
When Gabriel regained his feet, Taylor punched him hard in the shoulder. “Oww!” he said, wincing. “What was that for?”
“For being an egotistical jerk sometimes,” she said.
“Can we kiss and make up?” Gabriel said, reaching for her.
But Taylor was already gone, her wings spreading and lifting her off of the ground. She was flying…and loving it.
Chapter Eighteen
Two months later.
Dionysus smiled. They were ready. After two months of hard training, the New Archangels had mastered their new abilities to the greatest extent possible. They could fly faster, attack more powerfully, wield swords more precisely, recover from injuries more quickly—basically do everything they could before but at a much higher level. While they had all progressed significantly, the greatest change was wrought in David. He had been a mere child before evolving; he was First Angel in all of his courses, yes, but only at a fifteen-year-old level. Now he was fighting with a strength and skill near—if not equal to—Dionysus’s own.
His smile was prompted by the sparring match he was watching. Even to a sword-master like him, the display was impressive. Even better was the suspense as to who would win. Johanna versus David—it was the grudge match he had been waiting for days to see. Johanna had been reluctant to fight the boy at first—using all sorts of excuses, like she didn’t want to hurt him, and he was only a boy, and blah, blah, blah—but Dionysus had eventually convinced her. Like him, her ego was her weakness. A few well-placed lies about how the boy had said he would easily defeat her and that she was too scared to fight him did the trick, and soon she was begging Dionysus to schedule a duel between them. All in the name of training.
Now the two were locked in an eighty-minute struggle that showed no signs of ending. Dionysus watched as Johanna slashed and David parried and counter-slashed. Johanna easily blocked the attack. Using her non-sword hand, she fired a light orb at David’s feet, but he hopped over it casually, like he was jumping rope. While still in midair, David swung his sword at her head, and at the same time kicked at her stomach. Johanna blocked his sword with her own blade, but was thrown off-balance by his foot, which connected solidly below her ribs.
Falling backwards, she led with her arms, which she threw back over her head, using them to catapult herself into a back-handspring. But her escape move was too slow, as David sprang forward, poking at her legs when she landed on her feet. His sword pierced her skin in three or four places, and white geysers of blood erupted.
In desperation, she went back on the offensive, erratically whipping her blade at David. He casually ducked under the first two swipes and then caught the sharp metal in his hand during the third wave. Milky blood dripped from his fingers, but still he held on. While Johanna was still hobbling from her injuries—and with her sword temporarily restricted—he kicked her damaged legs out from under her. As she fell, David wrenched the sword from her grip, although he paid a price, his fingers slicing off one by one as the pressure from the blade edge tore through his hand.
Before she could move to stand up or roll away, David had his foot on her chest and the point of his sword on her throat. His face was full of rage—maybe from the pain of his lost fingers, or from the excitement of the battle, or perhaps from something else entirely—and for a moment Dionysus thought he might finish the job, run her through, kill her. Rather than making a move to stop him, Dionysus just watched with interest. A trickle of blood dribbled down her neck as the razor-sharp blade cut into her skin. Would he do it? As the seconds ticked away, his suspense grew. Dionysus almost found himself wishing that he would do it, even though that would leave him another Archangel down, and a powerful one at that.
His face still contorted in rage, David finally lifted his white-hot sword from her throat; in seconds, the blood had dried up and the minor wound had healed. Stepping off her, he said, “Good fight,” and stooped down to collect his dismembered fingers. Then he walked to the training room door and exited, leaving a trail of blood from his damaged hand.
Dionysus was speechless. The boy was so strange, so unlike anyone that he had encountered before, that he didn’t know what to make of him. Clearly, he had his uses. The anger, the hate, the rage: If he could manage to harness the boy’s fury and direct it at his enemies, it might be the edge that he needed to win the War. As long as the boy didn’t destroy the New Archangels first, Dionysus was happy.
Johanna was still lying on the ground, breathing heavily, her chest rising and falling. Dionysus watched her. Wait for it, wait for it, he thought.
One second she was on the ground and the next she was in his face, having used a karate-style kick to regain her feet in one swift motion. “What the hell was that!?” she roared, inadvertently—or maybe purposely—spitting in his face as she spoke.
Using a sleeve of his robe to casually wipe the spittle from his cheeks, Dionysus said, “No harm done.”
“No harm done! The boy nearly killed me, was going to kill me, I could see it in his eyes. He’s freaking crazy, one of these days he will kill one of us and it could be YOU!”
Remaining calm, Dionysus said, “I am aware of the risks, Johanna, but at this time his benefits are greater. Now, if you don’t get out of my face and calm down RIGHT NOW, I may order the boy to KILL YOU!”
Before she could react or respond, Dionysus pushed past her and exited the room. His smile had returned; in his mind, a little dissension in the ranks was a positive thing. Fingers could be regrown. Yes, they were definitely ready. All that remained was for them to find out where the girl went each day. Two months e
arlier, Dionysus had contacted his last demon spy with a special mission: to follow the girl everywhere she went.
On day one of the mission, the demon reported that he had followed Taylor to class and then back to her dorm. For the next eight hours he waited, but she never came out. The next day, the same thing happened. And the next. He knew something strange was going on, but despite the demon’s attempts to get the latest gossip from within the army, no one seemed to be able to give him any straight answers about the human girl who had turned into an angel. Evidently, anything related to her was highly classified, only known by the demon Elders and their innermost advisors.
Dionysus had to know what she was up to, so he instructed his spy to take whatever measures were necessary to find out the truth. The spy continued to tail her daily and stake out her dormitory whenever she was there, but her curtains were always drawn, preventing him from gaining any insights. Eventually he realized he was going to have to do something drastic. And to his credit, he did.
Earlier that day, Dionysus had received an excited call from the spy. The mystery had been solved. While Taylor was at class, the demon had broken into her dorm and hidden under her bed, behind some boxes. When she arrived home, he heard voices discussing whether it was time to go. He recognized one of the voices as being that of Christopher Lyon, a high-ranking officer in the demon army. Another voice was clearly that of Gabriel Knight. While even the thought of the traitor had made Dionysus want to punch something, between gritted teeth he asked the demon spy to continue.
Based on the conversation he heard, the spy knew they were about to leave the room, but not via the door. They were going to teleport, which explained why the girl was never seen coming out of her dorm after getting home from class. The demon explained to Dionysus how there was a risky form of teleporting that could be performed in dire situations. Demon children were not taught this technique, but those in the army received remedial training in what was called drop-porting, and were advised to only use it if there was no other way to accomplish what was needed. In this case it was the only option. The technique involved teleporting to the exact spot where another demon had teleported just before, thus dropping in on the other demon’s teleport. The window of opportunity to perform the maneuver was extremely short, and the risks to the dropping demon were many and deadly. In some cases, the dropping demon had been known to disappear, never to be heard from again. There were other tales of the demons being transported to faraway places, like deep under the ocean, or into outer space, although no one knew how anyone would know about the stories if they were true. In any case, the demon spy took a chance, peeking out from behind the boxes to watch for the perfect opportunity. When Chris, Taylor, and Gabriel had teleported from the room, the spy had dropped in, and was sucked into the same teleportation tunnel as them.