The Tempting

by V J J Dunn

  They still had a traitor amongst them.

  So, putting aside the new training she’d wanted to give them, they focused again on constantly changing what they did, so that the demons wouldn’t adapt to their maneuvers. And on knowing that the fallen were going to use the same tactics over and over. Apparently, newly fallen angels weren’t as devious as demons.

  In the meantime, Zad worked to try to ferret out the traitor. Or traitors. He decided feeding the team false information would be the easiest way, but they needed to be very clever about it, as deception was something demons… and especially, Lucifer… excelled at.

  Abba got involved and gave an order to assemble at Trinidad for another riot. Only this time, there wasn’t a riot. When the announcement had been made, the angels and Allie had watched the team carefully, trying to discern who appeared shocked by the announcement. Allie didn’t notice any weirdness, but she saw Zad glance at Metatron and saw the Scribe nod slightly.

  As usual, they transferred to the outskirts of the city for observation. Of course, nothing much was going on since there wasn’t a riot. And while Allie knew Abba couldn’t lie, when He’d announced the team needed to go to Trinidad for a riot, He meant one that was going to happen.

  If there was a traitor on their team, then it was likely they’d let the demons know where the Remnants were going to be.

  So, they also watched for anyone who didn’t directly transfer with the group. There were two; Karl and Nick.

  Chapter 16

  W HERE DID YOU go?” Allie asked her husband when he finally showed up by her side. He glanced at her and the look on his face said he didn’t much appreciate the suspicion coloring her question.

  Allie couldn’t help it, though. She figured Metatron and his paranoia was rubbing off on her.

  “I went back to the apartment,” he said, like it was a stupid question. “I just finished this last night when you were sleeping and I wanted to give it to you.” He held his hand out to her and Allie looked at what he held.

  A necklace.

  It was a thick round wood medallion which had a thin leather strap tied though a hole on the top. She took it from him and was surprised at how heavy it was. Being wood, she thought it would be lightweight, but it weighed nearly as much as a metal medallion the same size would.

  Allie examined it closely. On one side was what looked like her sword carved into the surface. But crossed with her sword was one that looked just like Nick’s. Above the crossed swords was the Tree of Life, with its roots arching over both weapons.

  On the back side, he’d carved Scripture: Though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him — a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

  Allie met his eyes. Nick’s cheeks were a bit red, like he was embarrassed of his work.

  “It’s beautiful, Nick. Thank you,” she murmured. He grinned then.

  “There’s more,” he told her as he stepped closer. They put their heads together as he showed her that the medallion was actually in two pieces and could be twisted apart. Inside was a shuriken, a throwing star, but it was in the shape of the Chi Rho, the Greek symbol for Christ.

  “Secret weapon,” he whispered so only she could hear. “In case of accidental kidnappings.”

  Allie laughed and threw her arms around his neck while he screwed the medallion pieces back together. She kissed his cheek, then he moved behind her to tie the necklace around her neck. She put her hand on the medallion.

  “Now I know why it was so heavy,” she whispered, and he winked at her, then stepped back. Allie tucked the medallion inside her uniform, then turned to the other Remnants, who were awaiting orders.

  She noticed that Karl was still absent, but she couldn’t hold up the team any longer, because that looked suspicious. Sadly, it was possible there was more than one traitor among them.

  “Okay, you know the drill!” she yelled to the others.

  It took about an hour for demons to start showing up in Trinidad. Until then, the team had moved through the city, making a show of force. In the fallen state that the Outer Zone city was in, it was obvious the Remnants’ presence wasn’t welcome. The citizens even took potshots at the team as they marched. A few well-aimed, non-lethal lightning bolts were required as a result.

  It won’t be long before we’re called out for actual riots here, Allie thought.

  Once the demons finally arrived, the team put their new training into practice. Lucifer’s minions struggled to keep up with the Remnants and their constantly changing tactics. Their training was a success.

  Allie was just disappointed no fallen angels had shown up; she would have liked to have had an opportunity to fight them too. But her angels didn’t want to reveal her abilities just yet.

  The fight was over before it really started getting good. It was more practice for the Remnants than anything else. But it had also served to root out the traitor.

  Karl.

  He had never shown up for the fight and once they were back in her apartment — and Nick was allowed to join them, since he was no longer suspect — they discussed all the ramifications of what Karl knew and could possibly tell the enemy.

  “He’s probably told them that we’re on to the angels’ lack of great fighting skills,” Allie grumbled, “so they’ll probably do some training between now and our next fight. I’m not sure there’s much the demons can do about us knowing that they change their tactics.” She shrugged.

  “Like, what? Become predictable?” she snickered.

  Metatron crossed his arms over his chest where he stood leaning against the window overlooking the garden below. Allie was looking forward to taking a walk down there as soon as possible, since she was no longer under house arrest.

  “Do not underestimate those under Lucifer’s command,” he warned, as always ominous-sounding and super formal.

  Allie gave him a droll look. “Thanks for that, Stuffy-tron.”

  The angel frowned at her. “You have already used that ridiculous nickname.”

  She clutched her hands to her chest and batted her eyes. “Aw, I didn’t know you were keeping track. Why, Sweetie-tron, you do care!”

  “You have used that one also,” he growled.

  Allie winked at her angel friend then and she saw the corners of his mouth twitch as he fought back a smile.

  “Alright you two,” Nick growled, “can we please focus on the situation? We need to figure out where we go from here.”

  They spent the rest of the evening discussing strategies and tactics. The angels suggested that the team move their training to Shadar, the planet they’d taken Allie to. It would be safer, with no chance of invisible demons spying on them. There was also the added benefit of Shadar’s slower rotation, and the fact that time moved slower there. They would be able to practice for a full day straight and it would equal less than an hour on earth.

  And with the Remnant’s continuously increasing stamina and strength, they could practice for much longer times than they had before.

  The planet was ideal for practice and Allie was honestly a bit upset with the angels for not taking them there sooner for practice. While it was habitable for the humans, there were no other creatures on the planet. Not that they’d seen, anyway. Being away from earth and all its current trials and tribulations was a big plus too.

  It was getting pretty tiring, having to deal with all the evil.

  Selfishly, Allie wished they could just live on Shadar permanently. No demons, no Lucifer, no humans who couldn’t make up their minds which side of the fence they wanted to graze on. Allie always thought it was a no-brainer — graze with the sheep, not the wolves. Duh.

  It was another wonder why Abba didn’t just move His people to Shadar… or another planet. But Allie knew He had His reasons, as always.

  “My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts…”

  His voice filled her head and she smiled. Even as she contemplated the ridiculous thoughts in her
head, of living on another planet in a completely different solar system, He was with her.

  Thank You, Abba. Continue guiding me and leading me.

  The plan was that the next day, they’d go to practice, round up all the Remnants, and then Zad, Metatron and Allie would transfer them to Shadar. Once the Remnants had gone to the planet for the first time, they could then transfer themselves.

  After the decisions were made, Allie and Nick went to bed in her room and the angels moved to their own rooms. While it bristled a bit to need live-in bodyguards, especially since she was a warrior herself, Allie was thankful for them. She could sleep easier, knowing she had two warrior angels within a short distance from her and Nick.

  “Are you okay?” her husband asked once they’d settled into the comfort of the downy mattress that was as soft as a cloud. Abba certainly didn’t skimp on furnishings. Allie scooted up against her husband and placed her head on his chest where she could hear his heartbeat, one of her favorite sounds in the world.

  Allie’s typical knee-jerk response would be “Yeah, I’m fine, why?” with a slightly defensive tone to her voice. But she felt that Nick needed her honesty.

  As much as she could give him, anyway.

  “Not really,” she admitted, then sighed. It was painful for her to admit to any kind of weakness.

  “I’m just… it’s just that…” she huffed in frustration. “I’m worried, you know?” she cringed at that admission and curled her hand into a fist against his stomach.

  Nick was silent as he rubbed her arm. The movement was comforting, but slightly irritating at the same time, as the skin became over-sensitized.

  “You know,” he finally said, his voice a low rumble against her ear as it lay on his chest, “it’s okay to be scared. Or worried,” he quickly added when she started to protest automatically. But she realized that Nick was right; she was scared. Even with her new abilities and seriously enhanced senses, she was just one person and the others hadn’t quite caught on with the inner vision.

  Not as well as she had anyway.

  “I mean, this is a worrisome time,” he went on. “We have Lucifer on the loose, demons are stirring up trouble everywhere, and let’s not forget that they now think they can just sneak into our midst and kidnap us.” He squeezed her arm.

  “Don’t forget they also have enhanced powers now too,” Allie added quietly. “And with the addition of the fallen, their powers last like the angels do.”

  The couple was silent for a long time before Nick kissed her head and turned to his side, forcing her to scoot up so she could put her head upon the pillow.

  Nick’s dark blue eyes were troubled as they gazed at her. He reached out and slid his finger under a stray lock of her hair and tucked it behind her ear, then leaned forward and kissed her nose.

  “We’ll be okay,” Nick whispered. Allie was still taken aback by this new soft side of the man she now called husband.

  “We have the angels,” he continued, “we have Abba,” he said as he kissed her mouth.

  “But best of all, we have you.”

  They were into their second week of training on Shadar when they got a “call” from Abba. This time, the evil jerks decided to split up and attack different places at the same time.

  Allie hated to split the teams in two different locales, but it couldn’t be helped. But, when she considered where the cities were, it seemed this would be it — the circle was going to be complete.

  Since Lucifer had stepped up his attacks, Abba decided Alejandro should go with the Remnants to witness in the turbulent cities. His safety was yet another worry for Allie.

  “Teams A and D, head to Guwahati; B and C, we’ll go to Kaliningrad. I’ll take Alejandro with me. Angels, I’ll let you split up as you see fit.” She scrunched her mouth at Metatron because of the look he gave her. She knew he was itching to point out that the angels didn’t need her permission to do anything.

  She turned back to the group. “You know the drill — assess the situation first, don’t separate unless you feel you have enough angels for each team to deal with the problems. Listen to the angels first, team leaders second.”

  At that, they transferred.

  After Ed’s death, Allie had switched the teams around. Couples were now together on teams. She’d remembered watching Ed and Robin fighting demons together and thinking how well they worked as a team.

  The only problem was, she and Nick were leaders, so they had to lead separate teams, but she had kept their two teams together at least.

  Zad and Metatron were still her constant companions. Allie was grateful that Nick had finally accepted the fact that it was just how things were from now on. It made living with the three of them a lot more tolerable.

  Kaliningrad was the usual chaos, which Allie was grateful for. She would much rather have to deal with fighting demons than avoiding mindless zombies. But even with the chaotic atmosphere, they didn’t have much to do, other than just knock out about a hundred demons and put out some fires. Alejandro found a group of citizens willing to listen to him, so he preached for a bit and then they were ready to go.

  Easy peasy.

  After that was done, they transferred to Guwahati to help the others. Unfortunately, Guwahati was a nightmare and they arrived to find A and D teams completely overwhelmed. Even the angels were struggling to keep up with the sheer numbers of demons. To top it off, they were also facing a handful of fallen angels.

  Allie sent Alejandro back to the mansion, since there was no way they could protect him and fight so many demons. Plus, the fact that there were fallen angels there made the situation about a thousand times more dangerous and Alejandro was not a fighter.

  The new arrivals immediately fought back a large horde that had surrounded Team A. Robin was busy fighting two demons, while a fallen angel tried to take her head off. Allie shot a bolt at one of the demons which gave Robin a chance to take out the other one. The fallen transferred somewhere else before Allie could shoot him.

  She then ran toward another group of demons swarming over Garnet, Justin, Abdel and Carmine. There had to be two dozen demons, but the small group of Remnants was doing an amazing job of fighting them back, Allie thought with pride. The past several weeks of hard training had definitely paid off.

  Dispatching a handful from her vantage point, she then turned to see who else could use some assistance.

  “Look!” Allie turned to Nick, who was pointing his sword toward what looked like the town’s water source, a huge well in the center of a commons area. Like in Chengdu, a group of demons was busy poisoning the city’s only water source.

  “We need to stop them!” he yelled. Allie wanted to tell him, “No kidding, really?” but she kept her sarcasm to herself.

  Before they could stop those demons, they had to first fight their way through a whole mass of the evil minions that seemed to be guarding access to the well.

  The other teams were strewn along the outskirts of the commons area. While Allie hacked at a demon for a few moments before launching a bolt at him and sending him to wherever it was they went — she kept forgetting to ask Abba about that — she noticed that it seemed the demons were not only pushing the Remnants back from the commons area, which was expected, but that they were also working to separate the teams as much as possible. As it was, they were already scattered into small groups of less than ten.

  Nick noticed too and ran off to help Colette, Erech and Li.

  Allie was torn. She knew they needed to stop the demons from poisoning the water supply. For one thing, without water the citizens would obviously die, or be forced to move closer to the Inner Circle; and for another, she sure didn’t want the poison reaching the Gardens and City.

  But she also needed to make sure her teammates weren’t further separated.

  She turned to the angels. “Can you guys go help the others?” she asked, knowing an order wouldn’t sit well with Metatron. If they’d help the Remnants, she could take out the demons
at the well.

  She remembered what Zad had told her back in Chengdu, that the Living Waters were connected all around the earth, some below ground and in other places, above. She knew that in some places in the Inner Circle, the water was above ground. It stood to reason that poisoning the water supply in the cities would then drive the citizens to the Inner Circle… even closer to The City.

  All the riots and the zombie outbreaks had been in cities in the Outer Zone. If Lucifer’s goal was to draw people close to him through his fake healings and whatever, then it stood to reason that he’d want them where they were easier to gather. The Inner Circle only had a few dozen cities, unlike the hundreds in the Outer Zone.

  Zad had said that the poison could travel around the Zone, ruining all the cities’ water supplies as it went along. If that happened, then everyone in the Zone would be forced to the Circle, where it would be a lot easier for Lucifer to move along, sharing whatever lies he told.

  Dude is smart, Allie thought. She hated to give Lucifer credit for anything, but she knew that she had to, in order to never underestimate him.

  The angels didn’t want to leave her side. Allie knew that to begin with, but it was confirmed when Metatron took a step closer to her as he glanced back at the other Remnants, who were now being pushed even farther apart. His jaw worked and he looked conflicted.

  “I’ll be fine,” Allie told him as Zad hurried to help Nick, who had gotten maneuvered away from all the others and was surrounded by three demons. He was putting up a heck of an admirable fight, but it was obvious he was going to lose. Allie felt her heart rise up into her throat at the sight.

  Charo surprised her then when the cat leapt up onto the back of one of the demons and sunk her sharp teeth into his neck. Allie grinned when the demon howled and tried to shake the cat off his back. At least Nick only had two to fight now.

  Metatron glanced back at the well, where only two demons stood, as opposed to the swarm attacking the Remnants. Allie wondered where the citizens were. So far, she’d only seen demons and the fallen. Considering how the humans also had a penchant for attacking them too, she was glad they weren’t around.