Demon Evolution (12 page)

He whirled around and, in less than a second,
had scooped her up and leapt into the air, wings fully extended and
undulating, as they raced across the sky. “No!” Taylor cried. “You
have to
use me
! I am the only hope!”

“I’m not going to lose you again,” Gabriel
said firmly.

Taylor clutched his face with her hands,
tilting his chin down, until his eyes met hers. She could almost
feel the heat of the fire in her eyes. “Use me, Gabriel. You know
you can. They will all die if you don’t. Let me do this.”

Upon hearing her words, Gabriel’s heart split
in two. He had vowed he would never allow her to be hurt again,
used again
, but he also owed these angel spies, as well as
the demons, his life. Taylor
was
his life, so putting her at
risk was logically a fair payment if it was done for the greater
good. And she had volunteered. She was doing it for him, for
Samantha, for humanity. She was being brave…and he had to, too.

Abruptly, he stopped in midflight and
accelerated back in the direction they had just come from. “Hold
on!” he yelled, his voice rising above the sound of air rushing
past them and the noisy fight below. Moments later, he landed next
to a very surprised Christopher, who was fighting back to back with
Kiren, who was standing overtop of Sampson, protectively. The
demons were completely surrounded now, and on the verge of being
taken hostage, at best, and being killed, at worst.

Ignoring the battle around them, Gabriel
ordered, “You all need to teleport out of here immediately. Get the
rest of the demons at the gate to do the same. Once we’ve cleared
the field, teleport back out with some of your friends and grab the
prisoners.”

Chris looked at him like he was crazy, but,
while blocking jabs from an enemy angel, said, “Consider it
done.”

After getting confirmation from Chris,
Gabriel shot back into the air and out of the melee, trusting his
demon friend to handle the rest. He soared for the empty center of
the battlefield; thus far, the entire fight had taken place at
either end of the valley. He knew they had to work fast and were
relying heavily on Chris to get everyone out of harm’s way.
Dionysus would quickly realize what was happening and would either
order a retreat, or send the full cavalry to kill Gabriel and
Taylor.

C
hris wondered how
Gabriel planned to
clear the field
, as he had put it. He
also wondered how in the hell Taylor had ended up on the
battlefield and why Gabriel had not flown her to safety yet.
However, with the world collapsing upon them, he had no choice but
to trust Gabriel’s judgment.

While Chris was thinking about his encounter
with Gabriel, Kiren yelled to him. “I’ll take care of Sampson, you
worry about the Elders,” she said, while holding off two angel
attackers with her short, fiery daggers. She touched a foot to
Sampson’s unconscious body and vanished, along with him; she likely
took him directly to the Lair’s medical center.

Chris performed a dangerous, short-distance
teleport to get closer to the five demon Elders, who were fighting
at least a dozen angels. Teleporting at such close range was risky,
because it gave less time for him to change his trajectory if he
was going to miss his target landing spot. In a worst-case
scenario, one could accidentally teleport into the same space being
occupied by someone else, thus intermingling body parts with each
other, like Siamese twins. Chris, however, had performed such
maneuvers countless times in battle, and was able to appear within
a few feet of the nearest Elder without incident.

He yelled, “We all need to teleport out
now!”

The nearest Elder asked, “But what about the
mission?”

“We’ve done our part, the rest is in
Gabriel’s hands,” Chris said.

“Okay, let’s do it. Move now!” the Elder
commanded. Like a light bulb that unexpectedly burned out, all six
demons disappeared, their enemies left swinging bright swords at
the empty air.

D
ionysus was
enjoying this very much. Through the impenetrable, one-way Command
Center glass viewing booth, he was able to use his super-human
angel eyes and ears to watch and listen to the reactions of his
enemies in their cliff cave. He saw and heard every moment: he
witnessed the dead angel’s crash landing, heard Sampson’s miserable
plea, and watched their horrified faces when he made his
announcement about executing the filthy angel spies.

It was a rare opportunity indeed to see the
head of the Demon Elders in such a precarious position, but of
everything, he most enjoyed the verbal sparring of Taylor and
Gabriel when she agreed to give herself back to the angels. He
certainly never expected the demons to give Taylor back that
easily, but for just a moment, he thought they might do just that.
Instead, Clifford did exactly what he expected them to: He sent
Gabriel and his friends to try to free the prisoners. Now they were
about to be crushed in a perfectly laid trap.

Once Gabriel was his prisoner again, Dionysus
was confident he could convince Taylor to turn herself in. If there
was one thing that Dionysus had learned over the years, it was that
love was a powerful force. And he was more than willing to exploit
its power whenever possible.

He focused his attention back on the battle,
and he watched Gabriel break away from the demons towards the angel
prisoners. As instructed, the angel guardsmen allowed him to reach
the captives unobstructed.
Now was the time
. “Initiate the
trap,” he commanded.

Commander Lewis, his second-in-command,
radioed in the order and then they watched as the real fun began.
Dionysus was impressed with Gabriel’s hand-to-hand fighting ability
and he allowed himself to reminisce about how different things
might have been had Gabriel not been turned by the demons.
Ahh,
the power of love
, he reminded himself.
Oh well, he could
still find a use for Gabriel
, he thought.

The tide was slowly turning and he knew
Gabriel would be captured soon. That’s when something completely
unexpected happened. Two new forms appeared on the battlefield, one
disappearing again almost immediately. Even without his
super-sight, Dionysus knew instantly who it was:
the
girl
.

It was almost too good to be true, and
because of this, Dionysus, usually quick to act, was mesmerized for
a minute as he watched Taylor run to Gabriel. The Head of the
Archangel Council snapped out of his trance when he saw Gabriel
lift her off the ground and race back towards safety.
Damn
,
he thought.
It was too late.

Just as he was about to order some of his
attackers to chase after Gabriel, he saw him turn around and fly
straight for the heart of the battle. “What is he doing?” Dionysus
hissed under his breath.

He was speaking to himself, but Lewis heard
him and asked, “Who, sir?”

Dionysus looked at the Commander sharply,
startled by his question. He locked stares with him. “The target of
this entire mission, who do you think?” he reprimanded angrily.

“Oh,” was all Lewis was able to mumble,
clearly taken aback by the fierceness of the rebuke.

Lewis walked away, jabbering into his radio
about capturing Gabriel before he could escape again. Dionysus
watched him for a second and then, turning his attention back to
the fracas, he saw Gabriel land next to the two young demons and
say something to them. He couldn’t make out what was said, probably
because Gabriel was using his powers to block any eavesdroppers.
The kid was smart, he had to give him that.

When Gabriel sprang back into the air with
the girl, Dionysus could hear Lewis shouting orders into the radio,
instructing all available personnel to chase him. There was nothing
he could do but watch.

To his surprise, the demons teleported away
from the fight just as Gabriel landed in the middle of the
battlefield.
Something wasn’t right.
Then it dawned on him:
Gabriel was going to use the girl against him. With Commander Lewis
still yelling various attack commands into the radio, Dionysus
frantically charged towards him, tackling him to the ground. He
wrenched the radio from his hands, pressed the talk button, and
ordered, “All units retreat. Imminent threat detected.
Retreat!”

T
aylor craned her
neck to try to see what was happening in the battle at the angel
gates, but could only see flashes of light and swarming bodies.
With his angel-vision, however, Gabriel was watching intently,
waiting for the right moment.

He spoke quickly. “Okay, Chris and the rest
of them are out. I’m going to try to shoot high enough to avoid the
angel prisoners, but low enough to destroy the angel army. I’ll try
to be gentle, but brace yourself anyway,” he instructed.

Taylor sat down and pulled her knees to her
chest and then wrapped her arms around her legs. Satisfied that she
was in a safe position, Gabriel lifted a couple of feet off of the
ground, using his wings to hover in midair. He pointed an arm
towards Taylor’s balled-up body. Immediately, she felt the tingling
sensation that she had experienced when he had first connected with
her aura back at the University of Trinton. It was a completely
different experience than when the angel snipers had nearly sucked
the life out of her just a few weeks earlier. This time, in stark
contrast to the agony she had experienced—it had felt like her soul
was being ripped from her body and with it, each of her internal
organs—this was a pleasant feeling. She couldn’t help but laugh, as
the feeling was like being tickled with a feather under her feet.
Her body glowed softly, along with her nine rings, her ankle
tattoo, and presumably the snake tattoo on her shoulder, until she
looked more like an angel than a human. The glowing became brighter
and brighter until she was forced to close her eyes.

Gabriel extended his other arm towards the
now-confused angels that had tried to trap him and his friends
while attempting their daring rescue. Just as he was about to fire
the weapon, about half of the hundred or so angels burst upwards
into the air upon receiving an order from the Command Center.
Likely the order was to
Retreat!
or
Get the hell out of
there!
as Dionysus realized what was happening. The other fifty
angels were not as quick, or lucky.

From Gabriel’s hand, a wide pillar of light
swarmed across the battlefield and into the dozens of stunned,
earth-bound angels, instantly vaporizing them. As planned, Gabriel
managed to generate the base of the light-pillar a few feet above
the ground, which he hoped would spare the lives of the weakened
angel spies, who, in their current state, were unable to get to
their feet. Gabriel watched cautiously as the angels who had
managed to avoid instant death flew directly back to the mountain,
in full retreat. His gaze lingered on the retreating angels for a
few seconds longer to ensure they didn’t try to double back, and
then Gabriel rotated 180-degrees to take stock of the battle at the
demon gates.

Where’s the battle?
was his initial
reaction, but then, realizing that Chris had once again fulfilled
his role by getting all of the demons to teleport out of harm’s
way, Gabriel fired the weapon once more, this time higher, into a
flock of ascending angels. They had clearly also received the order
to retreat and were caught in midflight while trying to escape. The
angled light-beam cut down scores of enemies before fading away,
leaving the night sky empty in its aftermath.