Demon Evolution (30 page)

Initially, Taylor was concerned when she felt
her body heating up again, but soon she was overcome by the
beautiful tingling sensation. It felt right. Instinct told her that
she was about to find her true place in the world. She smiled. Even
when wings sprouted from her back, she smiled. She knew what she
had to do.

“Get out of here!” she yelled. Before the
angels knew what was happening, Kiren, who was in the midst of a
circle of angels, teleported to Sampson, and then, quicker than the
blink of an eye, teleported them both away. With Chris and the
Knights also gone, only Taylor and Gabriel remained.
Just a
couple of roses amongst the thorns
, Taylor thought. She was
still smiling.

She could tell that Dionysus recognized the
gleam in her eyes. Even as she fired her weapon, he was yelling,
“FLYYYYY!”

A heavy beam of light burst from Taylor’s
outstretched hands, colliding with the group of Archangels and
angel guards, immediately vaporizing them. A lucky few were able to
react to Dionysus’s scream fast enough and shot into the sky and
away from Taylor, racing back towards the angels’ mountain.

During the melee, Cassie had evidently taken
it upon herself to protect David Knight, and now stood on the edge
of the plateau with her arm around the boy. Her mouth gaped open at
the sight of the destruction caused by the human girl. Like a
statue, she was frozen in place. Before Taylor could aim again,
Dionysus ran to Cassie and David, picked each of them up with a
different arm, and soared into the evening sky.

Taylor’s first instinct was to chase them, to
finish what she had started. The energy pulsing through her veins
was intoxicating. She felt powerful, invincible, as she continued
to hover in the air, her wings instinctively waving up and down
using some new muscle. Her senses were heightened as well. She
could see a bat sliding noiselessly through the air. She watched,
mesmerized that she was able to ascertain the most intricate
details of its tiny wings. The texture, the color, even the veins.
And she could hear its breathing, shallow and quick. A strange
throbbing sound pulsed in her eardrum. What was that? It hit her—it
was the bat’s heartbeat.
Amazing! Then she realized that the bat
was at least ten mountains to the west, probably about five miles
away.

All of these thoughts went through Taylor’s
brain in mere seconds, as even her ability to think was heightened.
She found that she could now process thousands of sensory and
logical inputs simultaneously.

Someone groaned.

Abruptly, her wings retracted and she dropped
to the ground, landing easily on both feet. Gabriel looked like he
was dying; his face was ashen and his eyes closed. In reality, he
was slipping into a coma, a result of the demon blade that David
had pushed deep into his leg. But Taylor didn’t know that. She just
thought that she was about to lose the only thing that truly
mattered in her world.

But somehow she knew that she could help him.
Placing her still-glowing hands on his head, she moved her lips as
if to speak, but said nothing. Her hands brightened. The light from
her hands was seemingly transfused into Gabriel’s head, and then
crept slowly along his scalp, onto his cheeks, down his neck, and
along his bare chest. The knife popped out of his leg and thumped
to the ground, scattering dust particles.

It was a day of extremes. Unexpectedly,
Taylor felt weak, like she was sick with a bad case of the flu.
Unable to hold herself up to even kneel, she toppled over and lay
on the ground, breathing heavily.
Was she dying?
Or maybe
she was already dead. She couldn’t have possibly become an angel
unless she was dead.

Gabriel groaned again, but this time it was
different. Not an I-think-I-might-be-dying kind of groan like
before, but more like an I-was-hurt-but-might-be-recovering type of
groan. Taylor tried to lift her head to look at him, but couldn’t
seem to find the strength.

She heard, “Taylor, Taylor?” A hand shook
her. She opened her eyes to see Gabriel’s beautiful blue eyes
looking at her anxiously. “Are you hurt, Taylor?”

“I don’t think so, just tired,” she
replied.

A relieved smile crossed Gabriel’s face.
“What happened?”

“I’m not really sure exactly. And if I told
you, I don’t think you’d believe me anyway.”

“My family?”

“Fine, I think. Back at the Lair. Chris saved
them.”

“And David?”

Taylor frowned. She shook her head. “With
Dionysus,” she said simply.

A sudden memory seemed to flash across
Gabriel’s face, his eyes widening. He said, “David—he cut me. It
was a demon’s blade. I feel great, but how?”

“I think I healed you.”

Gabriel gazed at his girlfriend in awe. “Just
when I think you can’t surprise me anymore…,” he said. “You’ll have
to tell me all about it later, once you’ve rested.”

“I will, I promise.”

Gabriel reached out and touched Taylor’s
head. “Taylor, your hair,” he said.

“What?” He lifted a lock of Taylor’s hair and
moved it in front of her face so she could see it. It was white.
Frantically, Taylor grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled it in
front of her eyes. Still good old brown, thank God.
Strange
,
she thought. “Just one lock?” she asked.

Gabriel nodded. Taylor wondered what other
changes she had undergone. She started to get up, but Gabriel
stopped her. “Taylor, I think you need to rest.”

“I’m fine. Really,” she insisted.

Gabriel helped her to her feet. Taylor was
feeling strong again already. If she was really an angel, then she
would recover much quicker than when she was a human.

At that moment, dozens of demons began
appearing around them, one by one. There was one human, too. “Sam!”
Taylor exclaimed.

Sam approached them, holding Chris’s hand.
“Thank you for not dying, Tay,” she said with a smile. The best
friends embraced; their hug was long and warm. A little more warm
than Sam expected. “Taylor, are you feeling alright? You’re burning
up.”

“You didn’t tell her?” Taylor asked Kiren,
who had just approached the group.

“Tell her what?” Sam, Gabriel, and Chris said
simultaneously.

Kiren shrugged. “I thought you would want to
do it yourself.”

Looking embarrassed, Taylor said, “Well, the
thing is…it’s kind of a funny story, really. It seems that I might
not be…fully…human…anymore.”

Gabriel was looking at her strangely, like he
didn’t understand. Sam, on the other hand, seemed to recognize the
truth immediately. “Let me see your wings!” she said in
excitement.

Still looking sheepish, Taylor put her arms
around Gabriel’s neck and kissed him on the lips. When she pulled
away, she asked, “If I show you something, do you promise not to
run away screaming?” Her words were identical to the words he had
used not so long ago when he showed her something miraculous.

“I promise,” he said.

The words had barely escaped his lips before
her beautiful brand new fifth and sixth appendages shot from her
back and extended over her head. They shimmered in the moonlight,
as if a million diamonds covered them.

“Wow!” Sam exclaimed. “They’re perfect. And I
like the hair, too. It fits in with your punk look.”

Despite being ready to witness the
impossible, Gabriel appeared awestruck. “Tay, they’re amazing.” He
walked over to inspect them.

“No better than any other angels’ wings,”
Taylor noted.

Gabriel ran his hand along the feathers.
“Actually, I think they’re far superior to any wings I’ve seen
before.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re different than mine. They seem
bigger and stronger, yet lighter than other angels’ wings. Here,
let me show you.” With a pop, Gabriel’s own set of beautiful wings
extended. He compared them to hers. Next to Taylor’s, his wings
seemed basic and boring, like the old model of a newly redesigned
car.

“Wow!” Sam said again. “Yours are so much
nicer. No offense, Gabriel.”

“But why?” Taylor asked.

“I don’t have the slightest idea,” Gabriel
said. “It almost seems like a miracle.”

T
he last three days
had been peaceful. Sure, there were massive celebration parties,
dozens of meetings, and plenty of games of pool, but compared to
the last week it couldn’t have been any more relaxing. There was
also a lot of catching up to do. Gabriel introduced Taylor to his
family members and they immediately welcomed her as a friend. They
had already seen her dedication to Gabriel when she willingly
offered to sacrifice herself to save him. A few tears were shed
when they talked about David and the choices he had made, but
overall the feeling amongst Taylor and her friends was happiness,
pure and unchained.

Clifford, of course, requested a full
briefing of the events. Upon meeting with the Elders, the first
part of the story was told by the Knights, who were the only eye
witnesses to their own abduction. Next, Gabriel picked up the story
from his rescue attempt to the point where he blacked out. Then,
the Elders and their guests all listened in fascination while
Taylor recounted the rest of the incredible story. Initially,
Clifford was angry for being disobeyed, but when he recognized the
extreme bravery that they had all demonstrated, he was quick to
forgive and forget.

“Extraordinary. Absolutely extraordinary,” he
said. “This is only the third example of significant human
evolution in the last two thousand years. First, the Demon
Evolution. Then, the Angel Evolution. Now, this. I don’t even know
what to call it. We will have to study her.”

“Not so fast, Dr. Frankenstein,” Gabriel
interjected. “She’s not some kind of lab rat, you know.”

“It’s okay, Gabriel,” Taylor said. “I’m
willing to have a few tests run to see what can be learned from me.
I’m curious myself.”

“As long as I am present for all tests,”
Gabriel demanded.

“Of course, of course,” Clifford said,
throwing his hands up defensively. “There will be time to discuss
the details. For now, I just want to congratulate you all on what
you have accomplished. We all believed it was a dire situation, one
that would likely result in the loss of many lives. While that is
true, they were all enemy lives and thanks to Taylor, the angel
leadership has never been weaker. They have lost many
Archangels.”

Taylor squirmed in her seat. She wasn’t
comfortable with the fact that she had killed so many angels…again.
It seemed like every few days her weapon caused many deaths. It
wasn’t that she believed her actions were unjustified, because she
knew they were. She just hated thinking about it; it made her
nauseous.

Clifford continued: “In any case, in just a
few days our guests of honor, Taylor and Samantha, will be leaving
us.”

“What?!” Taylor yelled. “I’m an angel now,
I’m not going anywhere.”

“My dear, I appreciate your position, but you
still have a human family. And until they know the truth, you still
have obligations to them.”

Taylor had forgotten about her father. But
how could she tell her dad something this big?
Hi, Dad, I’m
home! I had a great time playing pool, hanging out with Sam, and
oh, by the way, I saved the demons from destruction and evolved
into an angel while I was away, too.
Not a conversation she was
itching to have anytime soon. She knew Clifford was right.

“Okay, but will we be safe?” She said “we”,
but really she meant Sam. Now that Taylor was an angel, and a
powerful one at that, she felt like she could protect herself.

“We are planning on giving you some really
good escorts, you might know them. Gabriel and Chris will be
attending UT with you next semester.”

Taylor smiled, and happiness filled her.
Looking down the table at Sam she could see that her friend was
feeling the same way—she was absolutely beaming, her arm wrapped
around Christopher. Taylor turned back to Gabriel who had put his
arm around her; she stretched up to kiss him. As their lips met,
she heard the applause of the entire panel of Elders. She knew that
not only were they cheering for her and for Gabriel, but also for
the fact that good had prevailed once again.

She began to daydream of the next few months:
being back at school with Gabriel, lazy days on the school lawn,
skipping class and playing pool with her friends. Maybe going back
to the human world was just what she needed. A relaxing semester at
college with the love of her life and her friends sounded pretty
good all of a sudden.

If only.

“D
AMMIT!!!” he
roared, tossing tables, chairs and anything else he could get his
hands on across the room. Each piece of furniture that he launched
smashed against the wall or the floor and crumbled on impact.