by David Estes
Clifford continued with the informal briefing: “The goal of the first mission will be to gain support for the demon cause amongst the angels. We expect this to be a most difficult undertaking, one that will require powerful words from a powerful leader. We believe that leader is you, Gabriel.”
Gabriel said, “I know, I know, legends and dreams. I’ll do my best.”
With a wry smile, Clifford said, “I know you will.” He shifted his eyes to Taylor. “And you, young lady, will lead the second mission. Christopher and Kiren will accompany you, along with a dozen of the other top angels and demons. Your goal will be to kill Dionysus. The angel mountain is a fortress, and we believe getting into it while the angels are strong is nearly impossible. Therefore, you will need to draw Dionysus out from his stronghold, into the open. To do this, you will need bait.”
Taylor interrupted: “So we capture one of his favorites, right? Like Lucas or Cassandra.”
“Exactly right,” Clifford said. “How you do that is up to you and your team.”
Taylor glanced at Chris and Kiren, who both looked significantly more capable than she felt. She expected to lean heavily on them for advice during the mission.
“If there’s nothing else—” Clifford started to say before being cut off by a loud cracking-tearing-grinding sound from above. Taylor looked up and saw a single star shining through a hole in the roof. Another crack, another tear, another grind: Like an orange being peeled back, the roof was slowly ripped from its moorings, revealing the clear night sky beyond. Glowing shapes were silhouetted against the blackness of the cloudless sky. Taylor counted six bright figures.
Taylor said, “Is this part of the training?”
Clifford was already on his feet. He said, “No, my dear. I think we’re under attack.”
Almost as a response to his statement, a massive boulder of light tumbled at them from above. “Incoming!” someone yelled, maybe Sampson.
Taylor watched as Chris teleported Sam from the area, and then she spread her wings and rocketed away from the danger zone. BOOM! She looked back to see the boulder explode in a frenzy of sparks, fire, and shrapnel. The bleachers were flattened by the impact—huge chunks of concrete and metal were launched through the air. Instinctively, Taylor fired half-a-dozen medium size orbs, destroying the deadly projectile rubble before it could do any serious damage.
She heard Gabriel yell, “All fighters to me!” His voice had come from behind her. Performing a tucked and twisting front flip, Taylor hung in midair and then accelerated forward in the opposite direction. She was able to easily locate Gabriel, who was hovering ten feet off the field in the north end zone, which was painted with the football team emblem, a ferocious-looking, sharp-toothed beaver with a mohawk. Sampson, Kiren, Chris, and Clifford were already beneath him—along with a group of other angels and demons who were there to help Taylor train—forming a shield around Sam, the only human in the group.
Taylor reached them in less than two seconds, and Gabriel lowered himself to the field. He barked orders, naturally assuming a leadership role. No one questioned his authority, not even Clifford. “Angels—you will fly with me and we will attempt to target one enemy at a time and force them to land. Demons—you hit the fallen angels hard and fast when they reach the field. Clifford—you’ll get Sam the hell outta here.”
Clifford was already reaching for Sam’s hand as Gabriel was speaking. Once his fingertips touched hers, he started to teleport, his body becoming fuzzy. And then a glowing form was upon them, snatching Sam from his grasp and leaping from the ground.
Clifford disappeared without Sam.
Sam yelled, as she was flown towards the roof. Taylor saw her kicking and clawing at her assailant. She was about to fly after her, but Chris said, “I got this,” and was gone. A dark form appeared on the angel kidnapper’s back and the lot of them—demon, angel, and Sam—disappeared. Chris appeared a second later, hanging in the air for a moment, clutching at the nothingness that used to be Sam. He yelled, “Nooo!” as gravity took him back down.
Chris crashed to the field, spraying grass and dirt in his wake. Taylor and Gabriel rushed to his side. He was bloodied from the crash, but the scariest part was the look on his face. It was something Taylor had never seen from her best friend’s boyfriend. Fear, agony, hopelessness, defeat. Under enormous pressure, Taylor had seen Christopher act calmly and confidently. Now his face was ghost-white, a far cry from the shadowy ruggedness that typically dressed the area between his scalp and chin.
Gabriel sensed the change in him as well. He said, “We’ll get her back, Chris. I know we will. I need you to pull yourself together so we get through this.”
The pep talk was all Chris needed to recover. The color in his face returned, and his stunned cheeks firmed into a stony determination. He was back.
They stood up and surveyed the sky. Five angels could be seen soaring within the stadium. “Attack!” Gabriel roared, as he threw himself off the ground.
Taylor followed her boyfriend, and was soon joined by a dozen other angels in flight. Gabriel looked back and growled, “Lucas is here. We target him first.”
As she followed him into a sharp turn, Taylor saw an angel hovering in front of them, waiting. When they approached, he stretched his arms forward and fired six orbs, three from each hand. “Evasive maneuvers,” Gabriel yelled, as he barrel-rolled to the side. Taylor went the opposite way, but as she came out of the spin she could see that the orbs had combined together to form into the shape of a giant six-fingered fist. Still in its path, Taylor gained as much altitude as she could, narrowly avoiding one of the blazing knuckles as it shot past her.
Glancing back, she saw that half of the other angels had not been fast enough and were crushed by the fist. Flailing, they fell to the field below, creating tiny craters in the earth. The single attack had knocked out half of the angels, and a quarter of their entire force. Something wasn’t right, Taylor thought. Scanning from side to side, Taylor located Gabriel and flew to him where she was joined by the remaining angels.
“What the hell was that?” Taylor said.
“I don’t know,” Gabriel said. “It appears his power has increased significantly. Almost like yours, Tay.”
Although she didn’t have a clue what to do, Taylor found herself saying, “Get to the ground and rally the demons. Tell everyone to stay as far away from each other as possible. We need to ensure that one attack doesn’t hit more than one of us if we’re going to survive this. I’ll take Lucas.”
Leaving Gabriel speechless, she headed for Lucas, who was still hovering arrogantly, like he was untouchable. When she got within shouting distance, she stopped and yelled, “Finally found your mojo, Lucas?”
His smile was wicked, Grinch-like. “Didn’t you hear? I’m one of the New Archangels. Stronger, faster, deadlier. I’m pretty much your worst nightmare.”
“We’ll see about that,” Taylor hissed as she darted towards him. An explosion of light filled her field of vision as Lucas attacked. This time it was a shockwave of light, rolling towards her like a dust storm. She never even slowed, her body turning hot-white just before she met the onslaught of energy. Like a fantastical creature passing into a looking glass, Taylor went through the light storm, her passage marked only by slight ripples in the filament of power.
She came through the other side like a charging bull, her eyes locked on Lucas’s. When she collided with him, she could see the surprise plastered on his face. While she had the upper hand, Taylor managed to land three quick punches to his head, which allowed her to climb on his back and grab his wings. Standing on him, Taylor wrenched the wings in opposite directions. The motion was unnatural and the wings resisted it. Slowly, however, Taylor was able to bring them together like an accordion, and then snap them past each other. With a cringe-worthy crack! the bones splintered, leaving the wings hanging awkwardly from his back. Lucas cried out in pain and fell from the air.
Taylor rode him to the ground like a surfer,
forcing him to collide violently onto the field.
She stepped off him casually, and was about to request for a demon to teleport him away as a captive, when a demon appeared next to her. She had never seen him before.
“Hello,” he said, and then touched a hand to Lucas’s back. They disappeared.
Taylor knew immediately that the demon was a spy and had just rescued her prisoner. He was probably the one who had taken Sam too. “Dammit,” she muttered.
She surveyed the rest of the battle, trying to decide what to do next. She was glad to see that the angels and demons had scattered and were doing their best to protect themselves from the powerful attacks from the remaining four enemies. She found Gabriel, who was locked in a swordfight with a familiar female angel. If not for the shining armor, blazing sword, and enraged face, the woman would have belonged on a Milanese catwalk. She was beyond beautiful, her long, blond hair swirling around her with each stroke of her blade. Cassandra, Taylor thought. Time for revenge. The last time she had seen the evil witch, Cassandra was attempting to kill Gabriel, and might have succeeded if not for Taylor.
Taylor approached her from behind, drawing her sword. She could see that although Gabriel was fighting brilliantly, he was overmatched. Slowly, she was pushing him backwards, her attacks gaining confidence with each stroke. “Hey, bitch,” Taylor said. “Remember me?”
Cassandra jumped away from Gabriel and glanced back. Upon seeing Taylor, her eyes blazed with renewed anger. “You! I’ve been waiting a long time to meet you again.” With an animal-snarl, Cassandra threw herself at Taylor, attempting to overwhelm her quickly with an explosion of force.
After weeks of training, Taylor was ready. She slid under Cassandra’s initial swipe—which had been aimed at Taylor’s head—and hacked at her leg; she aimed for a weak spot in the armor, where the upper leg plate met the lower. She was rewarded with a satisfying shriek of pain from her opponent.
Turning quickly, Taylor followed up the move by grabbing the witch from behind, locking both her arms behind her and ripping her sword from the clutches of her hand. “Gabriel!” she yelled, but he was already by her side, helping her to subdue the kicking, screaming Cassandra.
Gabriel yelled, “Christopher! We need you now!”
Evidently, Chris was close enough to hear his name and appeared next to them; black blood poured from his ear, which looked like it had become a chew toy for a Doberman. “I’ve got her,” Chris said, placing a hand on her shoulder. Taylor and Gabriel released her and she was gone, Chris likely having teleported her to a prison cell somewhere in the Lair.
Taylor and Gabriel looked around them. Destruction was everywhere. Three of the attacking super-angels were shooting light-arrows from invisible bows, cutting down demon after demon. The dark bodies lay twitching on the field, the golden arrows sticking out of their arms, legs, chests. Even Taylor knew that an attack using the force of light should explode, or at least dissipate upon contact with its target. The arrows, however, defied all the rules by remaining intact in their victims, continuing to send shockwaves of pain through the unfortunate bodies.
Gabriel said, “We’ve got our prisoner. It’s time to retreat.” Taylor nodded and dashed off to help round up the rest of the squad, both the living and dead. Gabriel did the same, heading in the opposite direction.
Taylor found Kiren first, who, despite having an arrow through each leg, was still fighting valiantly; blasts of fire shot from her hands at the three hovering angels. Each blast was knocked aside easily by the enemies, but she kept trying. “Kiren!” Taylor said. “We gotta get out of here.” Her mouth dry and lips cracked, Kiren only nodded. “Teleport the wounded back to the Lair. Get anyone else who can still walk to do the same.”
Taylor scanned the field for anyone else still standing. There were a couple demons at midfield, but Kiren was already headed in that direction. She heard a yell from behind her: “Gabriel! No!”
She whirled around to see Sampson sprinting down the field. Her eyes travelled ahead of him to see what had caused his reaction. Gabriel was walking slowly down the field, arms out pleadingly. He had deserted his sword, which lay behind him on the grass. Taylor’s eyes continued on, until she saw a glowing figure, hanging above the field. Gabriel! The figure appeared to be Gabriel again, except not. Her head bobbed back and forth between the two Gabriels, trying to understand.
While she was puzzling over the mystery of the twin Gabriels, she chased after Sampson, who was nearing the walking Gabriel. She watched as the muscly angel reached her boyfriend and thrust an arm around him, trying to pull him away from the second Gabriel. With a quick motion, Gabriel threw his elbow back, contacting Sampson’s face just below the eyes. Sampson’s head snapped back and he toppled over, white blood spurting from his nose.
As Taylor closed in, Gabriel approached Gabriel number two. That’s when Taylor realized who it was: his face was Gabriel’s but not; his body structure was similar but different; the second was not Gabriel, but was from the same gene pool. It was David. But he was changed—not the boy he had been two months earlier when Taylor last saw him. At that time he had done the unthinkable: stabbed his own brother—Gabriel, his idol—in the leg with a demon blade.
Taylor stopped ten feet short of Gabriel, afraid that she might spook him if she rushed in the way Sampson had. Gabriel, unarmed, said, “David, let’s talk.”
The look on David’s face was anything but brotherly. The sneer reminded her of Dionysus. The hate in his eyes, the rage on his face, the tension in his arms: It all pointed to one thing—he was about to attack. Recognizing the danger Gabriel was in, Taylor took off just as a golden snake sprung from David’s arms, its fangs reaching for Gabriel’s neck.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Samantha kicked at the angel’s shins, she clawed at his face, but his grip was like iron and the ground fell away below her. Screaming, she felt something land on her back. Help had arrived, she thought. And then she was spiraling through a strange vortex, left trying to remember which way was up.
All went black.
It was the deepest blackness she had ever experienced, and for a moment she thought she had been struck blind.
She heard a scratching. “Who…Who’s there?” she said.
No response. More scratching, getting closer.
When everything went black, she had found that she was sitting on a hard floor, somewhat cold, somewhat wet. The cold and wet came from the floor.
She stood up, ready to run from whatever was scratching. She would risk running blind if she had to, using her arms as a battering ram to prevent herself from running headfirst into a wall, or worse. The stone was cold on her bare feet. Where had her flip-flops gone? They probably fell off when she was ripped from the ground against her will.
Moving away from the scratching, Sam strafed her arms back and forth, but felt only dense air. Another few tentative steps and her knuckles scraped against something hard. A wall. Left or right? Left. Why not, she had no idea where she was and staying in one place wouldn’t get her anywhere. Using the wall as a guide, she moved left until she reached a corner, intersecting with another wall.
She still heard the scratching but it seemed to be well behind her.
With no other options, she turned left, following the new wall. The wall ended after only five steps when her hands clasped something cold and hard. It was thin—perhaps a pole of sorts. No, a bar, she realized. Like on a cell. Like in a prison.
Her heart hammered in her chest. Oh, God, no, she thought. This couldn’t happen to her, she wasn’t Taylor. Not tough, not feisty, not capable. Taylor would know what to do, what to say to her captors, and would probably save the day in some way. But Sam wouldn’t do any of those things. Under pressure, she would probably cry. She wouldn’t last one day in prison, much less the potential years that lay ahead of her. Taylor wouldn’t mind wearing the same clothes, being a bit dirty, having no makeup. No makeup! How will I survive?
Sam began breath
ing hard, unable to catch her breath. She was hyperventilating and she knew it. Stop thinking, stop thinking. Stop, stop, stop. Just breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Her inhalations slowed and her exhalations followed suit. Okay, everything is going to be okay. Why? Because her best friend was a powerful angel and her boyfriend was a ridiculously tough demon. And because she had spunk. Many people had told her that before, even Clifford, who didn’t hand out compliments lightly. She might not have the toughness of Taylor, but she was an optimist by nature. She could rely on that optimism and spunk to get her through whatever trials were coming.
Something scurried over her bare feet, scratching her skin as it passed. She screamed, loud and long. Yuck, yuck, yuck! Definitely a rat. A nasty, diseased, filthy rat had infected her feet, which would likely contract a strange fungus, turn black, and eventually fall off.
Screw spunk. Screw optimism. She wanted to get out of the cell now!
Chapter Twenty-Four
Searing pain burst through her chest as the snake of light tore into her. Despite being formed from light energy, Taylor could feel the fangs burrowing into her skin, searching for her heart, trying to pierce her, to maim her, to kill her. There was so much blood. On her skin, on her face, in her eyes. Her vision blurred, until she blinked away the glowing liquid.
Gabriel loomed over her. At least she hoped it was Gabriel and not David. He was shouting something but she didn’t know what. He clutched the snake by the tail and pulled. She felt her skin coming apart as its fangs were wrenched from her body. Upon leaving her, the snake disappeared.
Her vision went black for a moment and then returned. Gabriel was asking her something, but she still couldn’t hear. Her hearing returned when a blast rocked the night. Gabriel was thrown away from her, and she was left seeing the night sky through the damaged dome roof. It was so beautiful, clear and full of lights. Twinkling stars, the glow of the moon. The pain had left Taylor. That was good, she thought.