Archangel Evolution (16 page)

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.

S
amantha 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 breathing 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!

S
earing 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.

Gabriel loomed over her again.
No, not
Gabriel—it was David.
She was glad she could tell the
difference, although it was hard. He pointed a single finger at her
and laughed.

Taylor closed her eyes and prepared to
die.

Nothing happened. She didn’t feel anything.
No pain, no movement, no impact. And then there was a terrific
roar, as if a horde of angry lions all decided to voice their
opinions simultaneously. What horde? What lions? They were in a
football stadium on a university campus, not on some African safari
or in a circus.

She opened her eyes. David was flailing in
the air, held between two massive jaws full of shark-like teeth.
The angry gargoyle bucked its head and David went flying through
the air, away from Taylor. She smiled. “Thanks buddy,” she
whispered. All went dark.