Demon Evolution (11 page)

Taylor felt powerless against what was to
come. And she was. Whether she stood here and watched, ran back
into the depths of the Lair, or even threw herself off of the
mountain, it would all be too late to save them now.
Maybe they
won’t all die
, she thought. Her mind didn’t permit her to be
any more optimistic than that. Not at this moment.

In contrast, Sam said, “It will be alright,
Tay.” She squeezed her hand in support.

Seconds later, barely within the five minute
limit mandated by Dionysus, the two angels and their passengers
arrived at the first line of would-be executioners. The angels with
the blasters and light-swords were ready for them. But they weren’t
ready for the demon Elders.

Appearing out of thin air, the five Elders
already had their fire-swords extended and slashing towards their
surprised enemies. One second elapsed—five dead angels. No more
than twenty to go.

The remaining angel guards recovered quickly,
firing pulses of light from their blasters, aiming at the pairs of
flying angel-demon warriors. Gabriel banked sharply, narrowly
avoiding the threat. Chris jumped from his back, landing on a
female angel and thrusting his own sword deep into her chest.
Gabriel grabbed another angel and slammed him to the ground,
simultaneously stealing his blaster and pumping him with ten rounds
of light. While the light rays wouldn’t kill an angel, they would
stun him long enough for them to carry out their mission.

Against all odds, they were winning. What
they didn’t know was that, for the angels, the fight hadn’t yet
begun.

C
lifford had given
each of the girls a pair of powerful, black binoculars that he had
brought for viewing the fireworks. Now, they watched in suspense,
as the battle continued. With each enemy that was struck down, they
reacted as if they were back at college watching the UT Beavers
decimate their opponents, cheering and high-fiving. Clifford, using
a third pair of binoculars, watched tensely beside them,
unspeaking. The radio was in his hand, and he seemed prepared to
send in reinforcements at the first sign of a problem.

As Taylor was watching the scene unfold
before her, out of the corner of her eye she noticed something
glint, just a tiny sparkle as something metallic reflected the
beams of the angels’ bright spotlights. Then it was gone. She
rotated her view to center on where she thought she saw the flash
of light. There was a large, familiar-looking boulder, and then she
saw it again, a brief twinkle of light; if she had blinked she
would have missed it.

Using the zoom function on the binoculars to
get an even closer look, she switched to 200-times magnification,
aiming directly at the spot where she had seen the last flash. Sure
enough, protruding from the large boulder was the metallic tip of
something—a weapon most likely. “It’s a trap,” she whispered under
her breath.

“What did you say, Tay?” Sam asked.

“It’s a trap!” she yelled, much louder this
time.

Clifford looked up, baffled by her sudden
outburst.

“I can see someone hiding. Look to the right
of the gate. There is a large boulder, someone is behind it.”

Clifford and Sam tried to locate the exact
spot she was referring to. They soon found it and saw the same
glint that she had noticed.

Clifford said, “Maybe there is someone there,
but that hiding spot couldn’t possibly provide capacity for more
than a handful of angels.”

“Trust me on this, Cliff,” she said firmly,
using the casual form of his name, much like Sam. “There is a
secret path there. It isn’t huge, but the entire angel army could
potentially march out of there, minus the gargoyles, which would
need to use the main gate. Trust me,” she repeated. “Sound the
alarm.”

Trusting her, he raised his radio to his lips
and said one word: “Mobilize.”

V
ia their combined
efforts, they had made quick work of at least half of their
enemies, and the remaining angels were looking frightened and
unsure of themselves, circling together in an effort to mount a
well-formed defense against the vicious attackers.

Wanting to finish the job, Sampson charged
the circle with reckless abandon. Ten blasters instantly fired on
him and, while he was able to deflect four or five light rays with
his sword, his body absorbed the rest of the firepower. He crumpled
to the ground. Immediately, Gabriel, Chris, Kiren, and the five
Elders jumped in front of Sampson, protecting him from further
damage.

Although they were obviously winning the
fight, Gabriel was acutely aware that they had not yet freed any of
the captive angel spies. Because they didn’t have time to formulate
a strategy before the battle, they had all been fighting
individually thus far.
It was time to work together
, Gabriel
thought, as a simple plan formed in his mind.

“Demons,” he said, loud enough for Chris,
Kiren and the Elders to hear, but low enough that the angels
wouldn’t be able to make out his message, “distract the enemy and I
will free the birds.”

The demon warriors nodded in agreement and
then charged into battle. Not like a human would charge, by running
towards the enemy, or even like an angel might charge, by flying,
rather, the demons began teleporting wildly at the angel guardsmen,
popping in and out of view rapidly and in all directions. The
angels fired haphazardly around them, hoping to get lucky and hit
one of the demons just as they appeared. They were used to this
particularly attack strategy, as the demons frequently used it in
battle. Nevertheless, it had the desired effect: the angels were
momentarily distracted.

Gabriel took the opportunity to soar into the
air and then land softly next to the first of the angels in the
line of captives. While the gleaming ropes prevented an unarmed
angel from breaking free, Gabriel’s light sword easily sliced
through the knots that secured the angels’ arms and legs.

As soon as the glowing tethers fell away from
her frame, the angel collapsed, unable to hold her body weight with
her wobbly legs. Gabriel reached out, and with one arm, caught her
before she hit the ground. Her eyes fluttered open and gazed at
him.

“Gabriel?” she said questioningly.

“Yes,” he replied. He recognized her, but
didn’t know her name. “What happened to you?” he asked gently.

She opened her mouth slowly; her lips were
chapped and cracking. Her eyes closed again. She needed water. “We
were beaten and then bound.” Her eyes snapped open, as if the
horrors she had endured were being replayed in her mind. “They
clipped our wings, Gabriel.”

Dread filled him but he forced his voice to
remain steady, confident. “Don’t worry about that now. First we are
going to get you all out of here. Stay here,” he commanded,
although he could tell that she wouldn’t be able to get far on her
own anyway. He was about to move onto the next prisoner, when a
loud horn sounded from somewhere in front of him. It came from the
mountain.

S
oon after Clifford
gave the order for his troops to mobilize, Taylor heard the angels’
horn sound. The trap had been unleashed.

Taylor had been watching Gabriel rescue the
first of the prisoners, while keeping an eye on the secret path
behind the boulder. When the horn sounded, angels frantically
spilled out of the hiding space, some flying, other running at
super-speed. They were all heavily armed.

At the same time, the main gate to the Lair
was lifted and the demon army poured out, in no particular
formation as was their trademark. There was no possibility that, on
foot, the demons would be able to reach the front lines of the
battle before the angel attackers. Thankfully, they had the ability
to teleport.

Clifford raised the radio again, and started
to say, “Teleport—” and then stopped abruptly. Something had caught
the corner of his eye. With a loud war cry, hundreds of angels flew
from the top of the demons’ mountain, high above them. Many of them
landed on top of the demon warriors, slashing with swords and
blasting with guns. A melee ensued, as the chain of command was
disrupted and it became every demon for his or herself.

Taylor watched in terror, as the demon army
was forced to fight for their lives while, at the other end of the
valley, the angel attackers were closing in on Gabriel and the
other would-be rescuers.

W
hen he heard the
horn, Gabriel knew they were in trouble. He had only freed one
captive thus far and, given the condition of the prisoners—clipped
wings, unable to even stand on their own—they would need to fly, or
teleport, all twenty-six of them to safety, along with Sampson, who
was incapacitated and in need of medical attention.

Then he heard a roar from behind him and
turned hopefully, expecting to see the full power of the demon army
teleporting in to help them. Instead, he saw a sky full of angel
hunters, zeroing in on their prey.
They were all alone
, he
thought.

Not one to dwell on bad luck, Gabriel sprang
into action, running at full angel speed along the line of
prisoners, slicing twice as he passed each of them, freeing their
arms and legs. Having no other choice, he let each of them slump to
the ground, some of them wincing in pain from the impact. The added
aches and pains from each fall would be minimal compared to what
would happen to them if he didn’t get them out of there soon.

When he had unfettered the final angel, he
saw the first of the angel sneak-attackers honing in on him. He
pretended not to see him coming, and then at the last second he
ducked under the killing strike that was aimed for his head, and
deftly slashed his own blade at the attempted murderer. The angel
fell to the ground with a
thud
, but another had already
taken his place, slashing violently at Gabriel.

T
aylor watched the
trap closing in on her friends. Samantha said, “We have to do
something.” Her usually calm and collected eyes blazed with fear.
The situation seemed hopeless.

Clifford was pacing across the cave; he
seemed unsure of what to do. Taylor had never seen him like this
and it scared her. What could
they
do?
They were just
human girls
, she thought. Then, like a lightning strike,
Clifford’s words from earlier pierced her mind:
The power within
you is far too dangerous.
She was not just any human girl. She
was
the one
. The one who was destined to end the War. It
seemed that both the angels and demons had assumed that she could
only help the angels to win—because only angels were able to
harness her power—but no one had considered the possibility that a
rebelling angel could instead use her against the angel army. Even
she had not considered that possibility, but now it seemed so
obvious that she nearly screamed it at the top of her lungs.

“Use me!” she shouted.

Clifford stopped his pacing to stare at her.
Taylor’s words didn’t seem to register, so she said more firmly,
but less loudly, “Use me, Clifford. The power within me, I mean.
Use me.”

Clifford appeared to understand what she
meant and raised his eyebrows, surprised that he had not considered
the notion. “But who?” he asked, searching her eyes for something
he couldn’t quite grab ahold of.

“Gabriel,” Taylor said simply. “He’s done it
before, we practiced back at school. It’s our only hope.”

Clifford’s head jerked up, as if his sudden
understanding gave him a shock of electricity. “Okay, here’s the
plan. Sam, you stay here. Taylor, I will teleport you as close to
Gabriel as possible, but then I will teleport out just as quickly.
You have to get to him and convince him to use you as a weapon. I
suspect this will be quite difficult, given you will be in the
midst of a battle and he will be reluctant to put you in any
danger, especially after what happened the last time. His first
instinct will be to fly you out of danger, but you cannot let him
do that, as it will mean sure death for everyone else. Is that
understood?”

Taylor nodded, her brown eyes never leaving
Clifford’s—they were intense and penetrating.

“Okay, hold my hand.”

Taylor reached out and clutched Clifford’s
hand, squeezing much harder than was necessary. She heard Sam say,
“You can do this, Tay,” just before she closed her eyes and
evaporated into thin air. After feeling the
whoosh
and the
twisting-turning feeling that she still hadn’t gotten used to,
Taylor opened her eyes and waited to return to real life.

Clifford’s aim was near-perfect, and when she
reemerged in the valley the first person Taylor saw was Gabriel,
who had just cut an enemy angel to the ground with his sword. “Go,
now!” Clifford ordered, pushing her firmly from behind. Before she
had a chance to respond, he was gone.

Taylor ran in a half-crouch towards the love
of her life, hoping to avoid instant death by an angel
blaster—dozens of orbs of light filled the sky. In her peripheral
vision, she could see Chris and Kiren using their own fiery swords
to deflect the deadly light rays, while fighting the nearest
angels. They were outnumbered and their enemies were beginning to
surround them. Taylor’s ability to get to Gabriel was their only
hope.

When she got within ten yards, Taylor yelled,
“Gabriel!” It was obvious that he heard her—his head perked up and
there was a change in his fighting style, an urgency to swiftly
defeat his current opponent. Gabriel pushed the angel back into a
group of ten more attacking angels, momentarily throwing them off
balance and allowing him to follow the sound of Taylor’s voice.