by David Estes
One of the opposing angels said, “We can live with that.”
Gabriel’s angel and demon unit leaders nodded. Speaking for all of them, Sampson said, “We agree.”
Gabriel said, “Good. Now I must go. There is something I must attend to before it is too late.” Before anyone could question him he sprang into the night, his wings spreading wide and propelling him off to the east, where flashes and blazes could be seen against the dark of the horizon.
Someone shook her shoulder. “Taylor, Taylor—are you hurt?” a voice said. It didn’t sound like Death.
Taylor opened her eyes and blinked to clear her vision. Kiren knelt beside her, her eyebrows tense and concerned. Taylor said, “I can’t move my body.”
“He must have hit you with a paralyzer. It will wear off soon.”
“Go,” Taylor said. “Help Chris, help Clifford.”
Like Chris had done before, Kiren sprang to her feet and ran in the direction of the battle. On one side of Kiren’s running body, Taylor saw Dionysus bearing down on Clifford, who appeared to be tiring, his staff moving somewhat slower. On the other side, Chris was encircled by the remaining three New Archangels. Johanna was nowhere to be seen—evidently Kiren had finished her off.
Taylor knew Kiren had a choice to make. Help Clifford or help Chris. They both needed it desperately. What they really needed was a miracle.
And they got one.
A magnificent creature swooped down from above, landing behind Dionysus with a thump. At first Taylor thought it was David, moving to gang up on the demon leader. But she could still see Chris fighting three New Archangels, one of whom was David. Unless he had learned to clone or split himself into two, the fourth angel could only be one person: Gabriel!
From across the plateau, Taylor heard Gabriel say, “Let’s end this now.”
Dionysus, who had been on the verge of breaking through Clifford’s defenses, whirled around just as Clifford tripped and fell back, landing dangerously close to the edge of the cliff. His staff clattered from his hands and bounced over the edge, disappearing into oblivion.
Taylor felt a twitch. Not a crazy, I-can’t-stop-my-face-from-spasming kind of twitch, but a slight movement of her left foot. She wasn’t sure if it was an aftershock from the paralyzing orb that had struck her, but it was something. Looking down at her shoe, she concentrated hard, trying to get it to move again. Nothing.
She heard a scream to her right and twisted her head to identify the source. Dionysus had leapt at Gabriel, wielding his heavy sword as easily as a feather, aiming his powerful strokes at Gabriel’s head, heart, and lower abdomen. Gabriel parried each blow with ease, dancing around like a prize winning fighter. With each deflected blow, Dionysus’s anger grew. His body glowed brighter and brighter as he sucked the light from the firmament, trying to overmatch his opponent.
Taylor feared for Gabriel. She remembered how he had struggled against Cassandra in her evolved state. This time, however, he was not struggling. It was as if he himself had evolved, like he was different, somehow. With the grace of a ballet dancer, he spun and flipped and parried around the plateau, defending himself, and generally making Dionysus’s extraordinary ability look rather ordinary.
He even had time to taunt the angel leader. “Is that all you got, old man? C’mon!”
Hearing Gabriel’s words, Dionysus shrieked with fury and redoubled his efforts. Gabriel was ready. He ducked under the first powerful stroke and simultaneously stabbed upwards, into the belly of his enemy. With a sickening scraping sound, Gabriel’s blade slid between the flaps of metal armor, through the skin, and into his opponent’s innards.
Another twitch. Taylor’s right foot this time. She looked down, hoping to see her feet dancing a silent jig. Instead, when her vision passed by her arm, she noticed her right hand. It was balled into a fist. She remembered clearly that it had been open when she had fallen. Her body was coming back to life.
She strained at the invisible bonds that held her to the ground, picturing ropes snapping and chains breaking. It worked.
She sat up. Her arms and legs were tingling, like they had all fallen asleep in unison. Sharp prickles of pain lanced along her joints, as if there were a thousand Liliputians jabbing her with tiny swords. Gritting her teeth, she blocked out the fierce pain and struggled to her feet.
Gabriel was standing over Dionysus, a foot placed firmly on his chest. Dionysus was laughing, madly, maniacally, as if he had lost all understanding of where he was, what was about to happen to him. Something white bubbled from his lips as he laughed; it was bright in the darkness. Blood. From his internal injuries.
Gabriel thrust his sword downwards, through Dionysus’s heart. The crazed laughing stopped. He lay still. Dead, maybe—hopefully.
Possibly sensing Taylor’s watchful eyes, Gabriel turned sharply to his left. They made eye contact. She started to run towards him and then remembered the others. Her attention had been so focused on her boyfriend’s battle and her own struggle with her disobedient body, that she had been ignoring the other fights.
For a second she wondered whether the remaining New Archangels had been somehow connected to Dionysus’s life force. A strange memory popped into her head of a book she had read as a child. It was about an evil magician who controlled an army of demented clowns. Eventually the magician was destroyed, and his murderous clowns crumbled to pieces, as if they had never existed. Would the same happen to the New Archangels now that their leader had been destroyed? Somehow she knew it wouldn’t.
The fight was far from over.
Now she scanned the plateau until she found Chris and Kiren, fighting for their lives along the cliff’s edge. Each had their hands full with one of the New Archangels. They were losing. Maybe about to lose. So much for the deranged magician story.
Something was missing. No, not something—someone. David, the third New Archangel. Taylor frantically looked for the boy, sensing Death was on the loose. Gabriel saw the change in her expression and turned to follow her gaze. They spotted him at the same time.
He was shaking with rage, towering over Clifford, who was on his back, weaponless, defenseless. Just as Taylor started to run for them, Gabriel yelled, “Noo!” and headed in the same direction.
They were too late. Far too late.
Chapter Forty-Six
Taylor stopped when David plunged his sword into Clifford’s chest. Gabriel, however, kept running, charging, like a bull seeking a red cape. David, who continued to hold his blade in Clifford’s body, didn’t see his brother coming. Running at full angel speed, Gabriel slammed into him, pulling David off the demon leader and slinging him to the rocky earth. David’s hands had been tight on his sword’s hilt and it was wrenched from Clifford’s frame during the collision.
Taylor glanced to her right. Chris and Kiren were swordless, having been defeated by Sarah and Percy. The New Archangels would show no mercy.
Her eyes flashed back to Gabriel. Her heart dropped in her chest when she saw him. Staggering, falling: Gabriel was on his back, David advancing.
David’s sword was ripe with shining fluid from his victim.
Chris and Kiren were about to die. Gabriel, too.
Her entire world was about to be destroyed, annihilated, eradicated, like rats by an exterminator.
Fire, pain, heat, and power seared through her veins. Her skin blazed with light. She had done nothing. Her body had done everything. Her vision went black, and then she saw it. A slithering black snake of impossible size, dripping fangs, coarse skin, blood-red eyes. Evil in those eyes. Death in that stare. Closing in on its prey—coming for her.
Taylor had a sword but she tossed it aside. No, she thought, how can I kill Death without my weapon? But her arm wouldn’t obey her, wouldn’t retrieve the sword. Instead, she saw herself glowing in the dark, getting brighter and brighter. Through her clothes she could see the tattoo on her ankle, on the inside of her wrist; they glowed the brightest of all. She peered over her left shoulder and
caught a glimpse of her first tattoo—the snake’s head was as bright as the sun. And then she exploded. Or so it seemed, such was the intensity of the pain, of the light, of the impact on her body. All went quiet and dark. When she opened her eyes the snake was gone. Instinct told her that it was gone for good—really dead this time.
Vision returned to her. She didn’t know how much time had passed, but saw that David had not yet killed Gabriel; Chris and Kiren were still alive. Although the vision had seemed to last for at least a minute, in real time it must have been as short as a blink of an eye, maybe less. Her body was still changing, performing, out of control. The fire-pain-heat-power sensation escalated and she saw her clothes begin to burn away, but not all over. On her ankle, the outline of a snake strung up on a sword appeared; on the inside of her wrist there was a blazing set of angel wings. And although she couldn’t see it, she knew that the large snake etched into her back and shoulder had burst from its shroud, piercing the night with the intensity of the sun.
No, no, no, no! she thought. It was about to happen. The explosion. Everything destroyed, except for her. Not the snake this time, but Gabriel and Chris and Kiren—the New Archangels, too, which was good, but not at the expense of her friends. There had to be another way. But if there was, her body wouldn’t allow it.
She screamed as her body was racked with tortured agony and all went white. Whiter than white—the absence of darkness. And then her life went black.
Chapter Forty-Seven
She didn’t open her eyes. Didn’t want to open them. Didn’t want to see—maybe ever again. Blind to the truth she might be happy.
“Taylor, Taylor,” the perfect voice said. Oh the sweetness of the voice, the love in its tone. Gabriel’s voice. Her heart leapt. Maybe she had died along with everyone and was about to be reunited with him, with her friends. But then she remembered Samantha and misery swept over her mind, her heart, her soul. She pictured Sam crying, mourning the loss of her boyfriend, her best friend. Taylor felt like crying, too.
The voice again: “Taylor, Taylor.” A gentle touch on her shoulder accompanied the voice. She was scared to open her eyes but she did. Gabriel was looking at her, frowning. “Are you okay?” he said.
Taylor thought the question was dumb. “If dead is okay, then I’m great,” she said.
Gabriel laughed. Taylor couldn’t help but to think how rude it was for one dead person to laugh at the death of another. He said, “You’re not dead.”
“Gabriel, it’s good that we get to keep seeing each other, but I’m not going to be one of those stupid ghosts like Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense that don’t realize they’re dead. I am going to try my best to accept it and move on with my life—well, not my life, but my death I guess.”
Gabriel said, “Sit up, hero-girl. You’re as far from death as anyone on this plateau.”
Despite her mind’s objections, Taylor allowed Gabriel to lift her into a sitting position. She scanned the area around her. First she saw Chris and Kiren, rising to their feet, walking towards her. They didn’t seem to be dead. She noticed the wetness on Gabriel’s arm. “Are you…?” she said.
“Hurt? Yes, but it’s only a flesh wound. I’ll be just fine.”
Nodding, Taylor continued her gaze, looking for the New Archangels, for Dionysus, but they were gone. “Where?” she said.
Gabriel said, “A blast of light resonated out from you, in a circle. They were vaporized, just the New Archangels.”
“But how?”
“We may never know, Taylor. I’m not sure it matters.”
“David?” Taylor asked.
“His body is still there, but he might be dead.”
“But why didn’t he vaporize like the rest of them?”
“Look for yourself,” he said.
Taylor rolled over, allowing her head to face the direction where she had last seen David. His body was flush with the earth, pinned flat, as if some invisible force was pushing on his back. A bubble surrounded him, bursting with light from the edges, cradling him, protecting him.
“But how?” Taylor asked.
Before Gabriel could reply, the lifeless form within the force field reanimated, pushing slowly to his feet. The bubble changed its shape to allow him to stand while remaining within its borders. David’s back was to them.
He turned.
When he saw them looking at him he spoke. “Death lives,” he said simply.
Gabriel’s voice cut through the still of the night. “It’s over, David. No more.”
He laughed, loud and shrill. “Not over. Never over,” he said.
“No, David. The angels and demons are at peace. The War is over.”
David’s eyes were like steel, cold and hard. He was speaking to Gabriel, but staring at Taylor. Penetrating.
She felt him in her head.
The War has just begun, Taylor heard him say. Gabriel couldn’t hear him. Not from wherever David was speaking. As if through some evolved channel of communication, David’s message filled Taylor’s mind. She shivered.
David didn’t respond verbally to his brother. Instead, he crouched, and then pushed off from the ground, his wings extending within the confines of the glimmering circle of light, which followed him through the sky like a starburst.
Gabriel started to pull away from Taylor, to follow his brother, presumably. “No, Gabriel!” Taylor yelled.
Gabriel stopped, looked back. Looked forward and up again, watching his brother grow smaller and smaller until he disappeared like a firefly in the night. Made a decision. Turned and walked back to Taylor.
“Why did you stop me?” he said.
“He would have killed you,” Taylor replied bluntly.
“I could have talked to him, reasoned with him, convinced him.”
Taylor wanted to agree with him, to lie to him, to tell him his brother was still somewhere inside the evolved angel. But she couldn’t lie. Not anymore. There had been too many lies already. In their relationship, in their lives. “He’s too far gone,” she said instead.
Gabriel winced, like she had slapped him in the face, but then nodded. “I know,” he said.
“He spoke to me.”
Gabriel’s head tilted to the side, his eyebrows narrowing. Her words probably seemed senseless, like she had been injured worse than he thought.
Taylor said, “When you told him the War was over, he didn’t respond to you, not verbally, but I heard him in my head. Telepathically …or something.”
In another life, in another time, perhaps he wouldn’t have believed her. But he did without question. He said, “What did he say?”
“The War has just begun,” she quoted.
Gabriel’s frown remained. “He’ll never stop, will he?”
Taylor shook her head. Then she remembered. “What happened to Clifford?”
Gabriel’s head jerked up as if he had forgotten about the fallen demon leader too. Without a word, they scrambled to their feet, meeting Chris and Kiren as they ran to where Clifford was last seen. He was still on his back, still on the ground, still bleeding from the wound administered by David. Eyes closed, mouth dusty, beard crusted with crumbs of dirt and sand.
The fastest of the four, Taylor reached his side first. Touching his arm, she said, “Clifford?”
There was so much blood, more than she had ever seen. The wound was wicked and deep. She didn’t expect a response.
“Uhhhh,” he croaked, his lips parting slightly. His eyes slitted open. “My dear,” he whispered.
“Clifford, we’re gonna save you,” Taylor said as the others approached, kneeling in a circle around their dying leader.
Clifford’s eyes never left Taylor’s. “No you won’t,” Clifford said. Taylor was about to argue, but Clifford said, “Shhh. You have done well, young angel. You have done much, much more than we could ever have asked of you. I am so thankful to have lived long enough to meet you. It has been a privilege, Taylor, but now I must go to meet my father in the land of the d
ead.”
Tears flowed freely from Taylor’s eyes; they felt hot and fierce on her cheeks. She tried to speak but couldn’t. Instead, she gripped the old demon’s hands with both of hers, hoping that some of her life would leak into him.
Clifford turned to Chris. “Young demon, long shall your name be remembered amongst your people. Seek honor in all that you do.”
“I will,” Chris said, his eyes misty.
To Kiren, Clifford said, “You are quite a woman, my dear.” Kiren’s eyes were already overflowing, her sobs choking her.
Lastly, he gazed at Gabriel. “You have fulfilled your destiny, my angel friend. I knew you would.”
Gabriel’s tears dripped from his lips as he said, “It was your destiny too, my king.”
Clifford smiled and then died, his last breath taken while he was in a moment of true happiness. The foursome—two angels, two demons—huddled over their fallen leader reverently for ten minutes, arms around each other in comfort.
Gabriel finally said, “Let us make a pact now—that we will honor Clifford’s memory by always fighting to maintain the peace that has been made between angels and demons today.”
“Peace?” Taylor said hollowly. The word sounded foreign to her.
Gabriel said, “We did it, Taylor. There will be no more fighting.”
Taylor didn’t comprehend how it was possible, how it could be over—the Great War. But she knew his words were true, despite what David had said to her. “I will help however I can,” she said solemnly.
Chris said, “As will I.”
Kiren nodded, still unable to speak.
Gabriel said, “Let’s get Clifford home.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
