"I believe... I believe in you, in this world... in the human being. Let me become one of the protectors of this humanity again. Let me protect this child who gave me back the will to life, I beg you."
The thick fog melted towards Elijah, ready to extinguish his light with an eternal black veil. I looked at Faïz, distraught. He nodded, giving the signal to interpose us between my friend and the forces of evil. I took a deep breath and we ran towards the emanation which stopped dead to counter us. Once again we found ourselves on the ground, but we got up as quickly as we could to resume our attack without hope of overcoming it. This time, Lexy, Asarys and Masha followed our lead and we came back, giving us body and soul in the fight against darkness. As we threw ourselves back into the vast, shapeless fog, a bright white reflection blinded us. Pavel had to shield his eyes with his arm against the dazzling light. For the first time, he was no longer invincible. My eyes turned to Elijah. At that moment, my breath stopped and a slight dizziness came over me. It was still him, but in a magnified version in his heavenly form. I gazed at his hazel eyes that brought out his black eyelashes, except that his gaze had changed. He was imbued with an energetic force, a hypotonic force that nailed us to the ground. Particles of light seemed to float above his head and wings... They were immense, impressive and immaculate white.
Elijah stared at Pavel, without an ounce of fear in his eyes, quite the contrary. Suddenly, he bulged his chest and a dull rumble rose. My friend, under our admiring and amazed gaze, gently flapped his wings. His body rose a few meters from the ground. The breath of air produced by the beating of his elytra was of incomparable strength. This wind blocked us on the ground without being able to move an inch.
"No!" shouted Faïz who stopped Elijah just as he was about to run into Pavel. "Go save Georgia, go get her!"
My friend, still above us, frowned.
"Georgia is our priority,” I told him. "Don't worry about us."
Dreadful fear ran through his angelic face.
"Go, now!" I murmured, knowing full well that he would read my lips.
Elijah took a deep breath. He flapped his wings that blinded us with their bright light and walked through the door at a surprising speed.
"Destroy him!" ordered the Maestro, out of him. "I want his wings as a trophy!"
The shadows took the form of horsemen without faces. They ran outside the room in pursuit of my friend. Deep inside, I felt a mixture of relief and anguish and prayed that he would bring Georgia safely back to me.
"Asarys, Lexy?" called Faïz. "Get out of here. Wait for Georgia outside. When she's with you, take her as far away from this house as you can."
"But... what about Zoe?" stammered Asarys, panicked.
"I doubt she'll listen to me," said Faïz in a low voice, disillusioned.
My friends turned their heads towards me, their eyes begging.
"I'm staying," I replied, raising my shoulders. "You will take care of my daughter if..."
"Count on us," said Lexy, her cheeks wet with tears.
"You have to go," Faïz grew impatient and stood in front of the girls to block the passage to the Maestro.
The monster, looking terrifying, slowly moved towards us, a Machiavellian smile on the edge of his lips. The girls gave me a last glance full of promise and ran across the few meters that separated them from the door we had entered through.
"Zoe, take care of Martinez!" Faïz ordered me.
I complied immediately and rushed to Stephen's side.
"Come on, soldier, it's you and me now."
"Perfect, if you knew how long I've been waiting for this moment," Faïz blew out in a voice full of hatred.
"I'm going to get you out of here," I reassured Stephen as I worked to find a way to break his chains.
The underside of his chin was bloody. The fork was stuck in his flesh and threatened to pierce his chest. A ferocious roar forced me to turn my head towards Faïz. The Maestro had thrown himself on him and the fists were pouring on the man I loved. I watched in horror this fight between the two protagonists. Faïz replied, but Pavel seemed to anticipate his blows even before he threw them.
"You can't do it," said Martinez, exhausted. "The only way to free me is to break them."
I came back to Stephen by pulling with all my strength on his chains, but it was a waste of time. I straightened up and went behind him to remove this torture collar, but again, it was impossible. I raised my head as Masha threw herself on her father's back. She stuck her teeth into his neck, which made Pavel scream. He grabbed the young woman's head and knocked her down on the ground in front of him. The moment he lifted his foot to crush her skull, Faïz rushed at him, dragging him a few meters away. I ran towards Masha to help her get up. When my eyes met hers, I froze on the spot. In spite of the fact that her face was bloody, I saw all the distress in the depths of her eyes in a nameless distress.
"He would have killed me without the slightest hesitation," she managed to articulate, in shock.
"The man you knew no longer exists. It's the Maestro!"
"I know," Masha whispered, realizing that she had lost her father.
"You'd better leave," I suggested.
She shook her head:
"No, I refuse to leave you alone with him."
"All right, go take care of Martinez. He's running out of strength. I don't think he's gonna last much longer."
Pavel stood above Faïz. He seemed to enjoy the spectacle, the killing with slow agony.
I grabbed one of the spotlights in the corner of the room and ran to this monster, too busy torturing Faïz with kicks.
"Let him go!" I roared as I struck the lamp in his face with all my might.
He wobbled back and forth trying to regain his balance, but eventually he stumbled all the way to the ground. Faïz then got up, holding his ribs with one hand.
"Are you all right?" I was worried.
"Take Masha with you and go!" he urged me, his jaw tight.
"No!" I grunted. "Free Stephen and then I'll go. In the meantime, I'll take care of Pavel."
"Promise me that afterwards, you'll go away!" he replied dryly.
I swallowed, my stomach twisted with emotion.
"Yes, I promise you, then I'll leave."
"This guy, I would have killed him with my own hands a few days ago and today I have to save him. How ironic."
I stared at the features of his face to take this last image with me before confronting Pavel. It was the same eyes that had burned me the first time I met him. I would have liked to tell him a thousand things at that moment, but time was against us. Faïz guessed my thoughts and forcefully grabbed the back of my neck and plunged his dark gaze into mine:
"Don't do this, Zoe! Don't say goodbye to me now,” he growled between his teeth, almost out of his mind.
Just as I was about to answer, the Maestro's hand grabbed my leg and threw me to the ground like a common puppet. I began to roll over on myself to escape from the monster who was about to catch me.
"Martinez!" I shouted in the direction of Faïz. "Free Martinez!"
He did so reluctantly, having no choice but to save Inspector Barthey's colleague.
Pavel looked down on me while I was still lying on the ground. He seemed to be thinking of the best way to crush me. I gathered my strength and crawled on all fours to save time, but he joined me in two steps. He grabbed my neck and lifted me up into the air. His fingers closed on me. My feet floating in the void were desperately trying to find a foothold.
"You look very fragile from here," he said with a swaggering accent. "What's so special about you? It's true, after all, he could have had fun creating something much stronger."
He raised his index finger pointing to the sky to make me understand who he was talking about. I ran out of breath. The hand around my neck was choking me as the seconds went by. Pavel continued to stare at me with frightening sarcasm.
"I'm your opposite," I whispered. "All the antidotes of this world flow through my veins
."
Pavel relaxed his smile. His orbits turned towards Faïz. His lips, curled with rage, made him even more terrifying. A wave of nausea seized me in front of this face that looked like a skull, with a mutilated nose and ears. Suddenly, without me expecting it, his head came to violently crash against mine. My vision became blurred, and I struggled not to faint. The pain was excruciating, as intense as I had ever experienced before. I was shocked and put a trembling hand to my face and saw that it was covered with blood. Before I realized what had happened, my body had already fallen heavily on the asphalt.
FAÏZ
The young man, beside Agent Martinez, raised his head as Zoe's body fell to the ground. The shock was so strong that dust rose all around her. His eyes widened as he saw Pavel approach the young woman, watching her with undisguised interest.
"Faïz?" called Masha, desperate. "Free Martinez, he's letting himself go."
Torn between the choice of rescuing the woman he loved or freeing this FBI agent, Faïz finally chooses to keep his word by breaking the chains that held Stephen's feet and hands. The poor unfortunate man immediately put his hands on the torture collar and tried hard to get his hands on it.
"Get it off me!" he shouted. "I'm going crazy."
Faïz blocked his head with his hand to prevent him from moving, then with the other, ripped off without difficulty the metal choker. Officer Martinez stumbled from his chair, too eager to get out of his diabolical shackles. Panting, he crawled away on all fours before stopping to hold his bloody chin.
"Take him outside and give him first aid," ordered Faïz to Masha.
"No, I'm staying."
"Come on!" roared the young man. "I don't have the time to worry about you."
Despite her reason for staying, Masha obeyed the authoritarian voice in front of her. Reluctantly, she helped Martinez get up, putting her arm around his shoulders, and then they hurried out of there before the Maestro stopped them. Stephen preferred to die rather than return on the chair of torture.
The moment Pavel grabbed Zoe by her hair, Faïz, horrified, rushed towards him to force him to let her go. At that moment, he doubted he would win the fight against this demonic being and didn't know if he would see his daughter again. His only goal now was to buy time so that Zoe could regain consciousness and escape from here as fast as possible to have a chance to stay alive.
Outside the walls of the house, in the air, a wild chase was going on between Elijah and the shadow horsemen. The angel, with huge wings, was trying to escape from these raptors hungry for souls like his own. Suddenly, a young man with a round face and fine features appeared beside him. He who had been hidden from the light, but also from Elijah's eyes for years, had just shown himself again in the darkness of that night, lit by repeated flashes of lightning.
"My old friend, the darkness seems very upset with you!" the man remarked ironically.
The latter, dressed in an elegant amber toga, had very short silver hair. His piercing gaze carefully scanned the top of his neighbor's head.
"It isn't the time, Condor. The damn ghosts have been on my ass for several minutes now."
He was trying to repress his anger at the words of his former teammate.
"No wonder, your halo of light looks more like crushed glass than anything else. The source didn't give you back your full capabilities."
Elijah climbed back up to the top of the hill and answered his neighbor with a clenched jaw:
"How would you like to make yourself useful for once? Instead of procrastinating, you could start looking for Georgia. You may have forgotten, but she's in danger right now, buried alive in that park."
"What did you think I've been doing all this time?"
"Nothing!" replied Elijah, regretting having opened his mouth.
"We'll have to work on your damn character when this is over. All those years on Earth didn't do you any good."
The two friends turned to the right at the same time in order to follow the current of the wind to go faster.
"I've combed through all the northwest and the east," said Condor. "But I haven't been able to capture Georgia's energy."
The two acolytes pricked down and started slaloming between the trees with the ghosts still behind them. The abstract forms, with their flamboyant red pupils, seemed to twist and stretch out to better reach the two angels.
"Can you take care of the horsemen? Or at least try to slow them down? I'm going to look for the little one south of the park."
"I should be able to do it."
Condor went up to the sky in circles. His celestial halo began to sparkle more to draw the demonic shadows in his direction. Hypnotized, they forgot to follow Elijah who was sinking into the wooded forest.
With each flapping of wings, the trees almost fell to the ground. He noticed that he was moving more and more easily in the air and faster, as if he had done it yesterday. Elijah slowed down after a few minutes, concentrating on himself to open his chakras. It used to be something so easy and natural for him. To capture a person's energy, he needed to have peace of mind and be imbued with pure wisdom. Unfortunately, he hadn't possessed these Anhel qualities for a long time. Elijah had preferred to give up his wings before he became a cruel being, inhabited, like the Maestro, by hatred. He didn't want to abuse his status and powers against mortals, for whom he now expressed only anger and disgust. In his annoyance, the Maestro let out a roar. In the distance, Condor's cries echoed in the middle of the thunder. His old friend had to give himself over to a merciless struggle against the horsemen of the underworld. "Where are the other Anhels?" Elijah wondered.
He focused again on the little things that made him happy in his life. And that's how the contours of Georgia's face appeared. The first few moments he had held her in his arms... His hands on her little pink cheeks to soothe her toothache when she was just a baby. Her first words and... her first steps. In that moment, Elijah felt a warm, gentle heat invade him. His throat closed and he suddenly understood something important. He had always thought that his meeting with Zoe wasn't by chance, blaming Condor and the others for putting her on his way to watch over her and guide her along this winding path. He had blamed his own people for not finding peace, even on Earth, because of the mission he had been given without asking for anything. In fact, it was quite the opposite. It was Zoe who had been placed on his path, so that he could rebuild himself, so that he wouldn't give up his humanity, so that he could learn to be happy again.
Emotion prevailed. A light, composed of a multitude of bright colors, now emanated from him. He felt the energy of the trees, of the earth, of the nature that surrounded him. He heard the murmurs of the little people, the one who remained discreet, in the shadows of men's eyes and above all, he discerned the sweet melody of the world. A melody that only angels could hear. It was the prayers of mortals. Songs that the Anhels fed on. Mankind wants to be saved! Elijah thought as he looked around him, impressed with the strength that came from all these supplications. It was then that an energy he knew better than anyone else caught his attention. Georgia wasn't far away. He rushed towards the source, turning on himself for more speed. He stopped dead in his tracks after flying several meters. Frozen, he stared at the top of a hill, surrounded by an oasis of greenery. There she was! Without wasting any time, Elijah flew towards the mound and, in a violent shock, collided with the earth to sink to the depths of its entrails.
13-RAY
Ray went first through the door of the villa, accompanied by David. Inside the house, it was dark. The switches didn't work anymore. Pieces of glass were strewn on the floor and a lot of other things.
"What the hell happened here?" David murmured, terrified.
His mouth contracted into a grimace of horror.
"Be careful where you walk. You never know."
Ray, flashlight in hand, pulled out his gun and pointed it in front of him as he walked towards the living room. He couldn't hear anything. The fear of finding Charles and Lily injured or dead prevented
him from breathing. The bile in his mouth tasted bad and went down, acidic, to the back of his throat. David was no more reassured. He held his semiautomatic firmly and stared alarmingly at the overturned furniture in the living room, the dishes scattered all over the floor, and the exploded bay window. There was no doubt: a terrible confrontation had taken place within these walls. Traces of blood in some parts of the room were proof of it. Ray suddenly had a bad feeling about Georgia. The mere thought that she too might be in danger broke the paralysis that had taken hold of him.
"Lily?" he called out for her with all his might.
David scanned the trashed place with his eyes, but saw no bodies. His gaze went to the walls at the entrance. He saw handprints, but wasn't sure because of the darkness.
"Let's go upstairs," he hastened to tell Ray.
The same mess reigned in the upstairs rooms. The rooms were upside down, the mattresses were torn open, and the walls were partially broken. Suddenly, little distant sobs, which seemed to come from Georgia's room, alarmed the two friends. They ran towards the crying.
"David, look behind the door and under the bed!" Ray ordered as he went into the bathroom.
Upon entering, the young man froze in petrified horror as he discovered Lily bent over Charles's bloody body. He staggered towards the woman he had always considered his mother. The ringing in his ears prevented him from hearing what he was trying to tell her. His eyes were clouded by the overwhelming emotion. Terror and panic could be read on Lily's face. Her tears, blackened by the mascara, ran down her cheeks, and her hair, tangled, fell disorderly over her shoulders.
"Is he alive?" Ray asked with a panicky tone that pierced his voice despite his restraint.
Lily raised her face, her eyes red from crying too much. Her hands were shaking uncontrollably. A deep, pensive expression ran across the young man's face. He crouched down beside Charles's body to check his pulse. A sigh of relief escaped from him.
"He's alive," Ray reassured her. "Lily, what happened and where's Georgia?"
DARK FAÏZ Book 3: Dawn never keeps its promises Page 18