Gabriel’s eyes were clear but had a look of defeat in them; they were half-closed, like he didn’t have the energy to keep them fully exposed. His head slumped and he looked at the floor. “Hell’s Angels were targeted in the battle today.”
“Who?” Sam asked, not being privy to the code names used by the demon army.
“Sampson’s squad,” Taylor said. “What do you mean targeted?”
“Dionysus had one goal for the battle today: kill the angel traitors. He used a sneaky tactic that confused the demon defenses. There were casualties.”
Taylor was afraid to ask the question Is Sampson okay? so instead she said, “Where’s Kiren?”
Gabriel looked up, his blue eyes nearly fully black as his pupils dilated to soak up the light in the room. “She’s in the hospital, with him. He’s alive…but barely. The next twenty-four hours are critical.” Like Taylor, Gabriel seemed to be afraid to say his friend’s name, as if speaking it would curse him.
Sam said, “That’s good, right? I mean, he’s alive. He’ll make it, I know it.”
Chris put his arm around her. “Yeah, he’ll make it. What about the others?”
Gabriel sighed. “Eleven dead. Ten in critical condition. A handful are already back on their feet.”
“I hate him,” Taylor said. “We can’t let him get away with this.”
Knowing exactly who she was referring to, Gabriel said, “Dionysus is pure evil and must be stopped, but first we have to plan. Given what you’ve become, we need to use your abilities to our advantage.”
“What am I, Gabriel?” Taylor asked.
Chapter Seven
He laughed. “That was fun,” he said.
Dionysus was celebrating the victory with his inner circle, comprised of Lucas, Cassandra, David, and the remaining Archangels—Johanna, Sarah, and Percy. They were in a large room with a long, rectangular table, named the War Room. Every surface in the room glowed from within, as if they housed miniature suns. The source of the power was hidden beneath the glow.
His laughter decreased until it settled into an arrogant smirk, and he took the time to read each of the faces in the room. He had been deceived once before, by someone he had trusted, and it had cost him dearly. Not wanting to make the same mistake twice, he considered each of his chosen ones in turn.
He started with the three remaining Archangels and glossed over them quickly. While he had had disagreements with all of them in the past, particularly Johanna, he knew that their vision of the future mirrored his own.
He moved on to his new Special Mission’s Leader, Lucas, who had replaced Gabriel when he defected. Dionysus almost patted himself on the back regarding the selection of Lucas. He was a perfect example of the type of angel that could be trusted. Despite the fact that Lucas was smiling, his mouth still managed to look angry, as if his lips had been engineered into a perpetual snarl. There was a gleam in his eyes that couldn’t be faked. The gleam showed his excitement at the destruction of the angel traitors. “Too bad Gabriel wasn’t there, too,” Lucas sneered. Yeah, he was pure evil, Dionysus thought, perfect for mission he had planned for him.
Next, Dionysus shifted his gaze to Cassandra. He knew little about her, but had trusted Lucas’s judgment in selecting her. Looking into her eyes now, he knew it was a good choice. If there was a female version of Lucas, it was her. Despite her skin-deep beauty—she looked like a model in every sense of the word; tall, thin, symmetrical facial structure, perfect smile—Dionysus could sense the evil that lurked beneath her sparkling exterior. As he gazed at her, he could almost feel the malevolency simmering just beneath the surface of her skin. He looked forward to unleashing her on his enemies.
Lastly, Dionysus’s eyes fell upon David, the boy. Of the group, he was clearly the biggest risk. He was young—barely fifteen-years-old—and had the most to lose if the angels defeated the demons; his entire family would be executed. But like Cassandra and Lucas and Dionysus himself, David was full of anger towards the demons. And the boy had demonstrated his dedication to the cause when he had stabbed Gabriel with a demon blade on the Warrior’s Plateau. Anyone who would stab his own brother was okay in his book.
Satisfied with his selections, Dionysus said, “Do you know why you are all here?”
“To celebrate,” Lucas offered.
Johanna snapped, “No, you imbecile! We are here to plan the next move. We angel leaders never rest on our laurels. We are always looking to the future.”
Lucas scowled, but didn’t respond.
Dionysus smiled. “You are somewhat correct, Johanna. And you can save your anger for the demons; it will be much needed if we are to succeed.”
To Dionysus’s surprise, David said, “We are here to rebuild the Council.”
He stared at the boy who had looked so young not that long ago. In just a few weeks, he seemed to have aged, matured, changed. He was wiser, somehow. Ready to take his place. Ready to take action and to do whatever was asked of him.
“The boy is right,” Dionysus admitted.
Johanna was in one of her moods. She said, “Then you’re wasting our time. You need to have the prospective new Archangel Council members in attendance so we can consider them and vote.”
Dionysus stroked his chin. “Actually, they are here.”
“You can’t be serious. These are children,” Johanna growled.
“And yet I trust them more than our fallen brothers and sisters.”
“That’s blasphemy!” Johanna roared.
Dionysus managed to remain calm, choosing his words carefully: “Johanna, I realize that my methods will appear somewhat…unorthodox. However, the actions that I am about to propose must be carried out immediately if we are to ensure success. There is simply insufficient time to select additional Council members from the general population, train them, initiate them, and determine their trustworthiness. We have no choice but to go with those who have already proven themselves worthy.”
Johanna started to respond, but then hesitated and held her tongue. She made eye contact with Sarah, who said, “You’ll still need the support of one existing Archangel, otherwise you’re outnumbered.”
“Are you saying you disagree as well?”
“I haven’t heard a proposal yet,” Sarah said.
“Ahh. You are correct. Despite the urgency of the situation, we must adhere to the formalities required by our office. I’ll give you a proposal: I propose that effective immediately, Lucas, Cassandra, and David be sworn in as members of the Archangel Council.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Dionysus watched for reactions from his nominees. Almost identical smiles of victory exploded onto Lucas’s and Cassandra’s faces. Only the boy remained stone-faced, without reaction, as if he had already anticipated Dionysus’s proposal. Interesting, Dionysus thought.
On the other side of the table, Johanna rolled her eyes, while Sarah scoffed. Only Percy seemed unaffected by Dionysus’s declaration. Because he already knew about the proposal. Because he had already agreed to it. Because he was Dionysus’s secret weapon against the two female members of the Council.
Johanna said, “Surely you’re joking. Two of your nominees are barely old enough to drive and the third may not even be potty-trained.”
Sarah said, “Can we check to see if he’s wearing a diaper?”
“SHUT YOUR INSOLENT MOUTHS!” David roared. Shocked, all faces in the room turned towards the boy, who was fuming. He was on his feet, arms dangling awkwardly in front of him, his fingers curling into fists and then uncurling rapidly, again and again. Face beet-red, his eyes were night-black and yet were shining with rage.
For once, Johanna and Sarah appeared to be speechless, their mouths hanging open, gawking at the boy.
In a much softer but just as sharp tone, David said, “Percy, what is your vote?”
Not expecting the question, Percy had trouble speaking at first—his mouth opened and moved but no words came out. Finally, he found his voice: “Well, I…uh, I vote to a
pprove the proposal.”
Dionysus wanted to smile, but he couldn’t seem to control the muscles in his face. Hiding emotions was usually one of his many talents, but his interest in the boy’s outburst was written all over his expression: eyes wide, eyebrows raised, mouth formed into an O, head cocked slightly down.
David made eye contact with him, a direct stare that seemed to pierce him to the heart. The boy said, “Then it is done, my lord.”
Still struggling to gain control of himself, Dionysus said, “Yes, it is. Sorry, Johanna, Sarah—we have a tie and as Head of the Council, my vote breaks the tie. David, Lucas, Cassandra: You will now be sworn in as members of the Archangel Council.”
An awkward silence followed and more than a few glances were directed at the boy. He was sitting again, his face no longer red, his hands clasped loosely in front of him, his eyes no longer fiery. It was as if his outburst had never happened.
Needing to think, Dionysus handed over to Percy to take care of the formalities. Dionysus barely heard a word as each new Council member repeated the oaths and was officially declared a member of the Archangel Council. Instead of listening to the proceedings, he thought about David. Something had changed in the boy. Or something was changing. But what? And how? As the ceremony proceeded, Dionysus couldn’t stop thinking about David’s rage. Anger, rage, power, the boy, the boy, boy, boy, boy…
Chapter Eight
Gabriel was unwilling to answer her question until they had both visited Sampson. Taylor’s seemingly simple inquiry of What am I? was evidently more complex than she had thought. She wondered whether Gabriel was withholding the information because it was bad news. Like perhaps during the act of evolving into an angel, a mutant gene had formed in her brain that would eventually cause her to turn purple and grow a third eye. Or maybe a long-dead angel spirit had inhabited her body and would slowly take over control until she was merely a trapped voice, unable to participate in her own life. While those possibilities might seem a bit farfetched, like something out of a bad sci-fi movie, given all the crazy crap that Taylor had seen over the last six months of her life—winged angels, fiery demons, and ugly gargoyles, to name just a few—she wasn’t about to discount any ideas at this point.
Unfortunately, Sampson was not permitted to have visitors when they arrived, so instead, they waited with Kiren outside his room. Her eyes were closed when they sat down next to her.
“Kiren?” Taylor murmured, gently touching her shoulder. Kiren’s eyelids rose slowly.
“Taylor…can you save him?” Kiren asked.
Taylor was taken aback by the question. Save him? She was no doctor. Hell, she could barely take care of herself when she skinned a knee. “Wha…What do you mean?”
“Please save him…like you did Gabriel on the plateau.”
Taylor was stunned by Kiren’s request. Of course, she had healed Gabriel, but now that she thought about it, she didn’t know how she did it. It was as if a spirit had inhabited her body and taken control of her, performing incredible feats that Taylor wasn’t capable of. Sure, she could already perform simple angel skills, like creating light and increasing the glow of her body, but she hadn’t even flown yet. “I don’t know how,” she said.
“Don’t think…just try,” Kiren said.
Taylor looked at Gabriel. He shrugged. “It’s worth a shot.”
Taylor said, “What if I hurt him more?”
“You won’t,” Gabriel said.
“Okay.”
“I’ll get the doctor,” Gabriel said.
“Thank you,” said Kiren.
“Save it until afterwards.”
At first the doctor—a dark-haired beauty that could have passed for twenty-two or forty-two—was skeptical about what they were proposing, but after Gabriel described what Taylor had done for him on the plateau, and her remarkable transformation, she became more and more interested in the idea.
When Gabriel finished, she paused for just a moment, and then said, “Okay, you can try. But my team needs to be there to monitor him the entire time and if we say to stop, then you must stop.”
“Of course,” Taylor said. Her mind was whirling, trying to remember what she had done to Gabriel, what technique she had used, what she had been thinking. Her mind was blank, as if that particular segment of her memory had been cut out and tucked away into a drawer full of lost memories. All she could remember was Gabriel looking dead on the ground and then he was suddenly awake. She followed the doctor into the room.
The room was well-lit, a far cry from the dark, torch-lit tunnels and caverns she typically associated with the Lair. Sampson was laying on his back on the bed, with his arms at his side, coffin-style. The comparison to death caused memories of movies about the undead to flick through Taylor’s head. Vampires, zombies, demons of the night: they all tended to sleep the way Sampson did now. Trying to convince herself, Taylor muttered, “He’s not dead yet…”
“What?” Gabriel asked.
Taylor’s head jolted to the side and then she realized she had spoken. “Nothing,” she said.
She moved to the side of the bed and touched Sampson’s motionless hand. It was warm. For some reason, she expected it to be as cold as ice, ready to send chills up her spine and through the marrow in her bones. “He’s not dead yet,” she reminded herself again.
Sampson’s face looked peaceful and serene and he might have passed for merely sleeping if not for the bandages on his head and the breathing tubes in his nose. He was in a coma, one he might never wake up from. Once again, Taylor tried to conjure up images of how she had healed Gabriel, as she put her hands on Sampson’s head, like a priest about to give a blessing. Her mind remained blank. Stupid, stupid, stupid, she thought. I’m no magical healer, I’m barely an angel.
Unsure of what to do next, she closed her eyes and tried to think healing thoughts. Thoughts of scabs, Band-Aids, and ice cream floated randomly through her mind. Not helping. Despite her efforts to control her thoughts, they pursued their own agenda, bringing up memories of Gabriel: the first time she saw him when he found a four-leaf clover for her, the first time she saw him in angel form, their first kiss, their first night together.
Abruptly, she felt a warm sensation in her outer extremities. She opened her eyes to see her hands glowing, hot-white with energy. The light crept up her arms, over her shoulders to her neck, and then down her torso and through her legs until she was a full-fledged glow worm, the envy of the entire glow worm community. She realized that her mouth was moving, but no words came from her lips. Her body-and-mind-control theory was looking better and better.
And then Sampson was sitting up, gasping, choking, pulling the tubes out of his nose, yelling something. It sounded like “Crap!” No wait, that wasn’t right, it was “Trap!”
When Sampson had reanimated, Taylor had been pushed away from him, and the doctor and her assistants had surrounded their patient, trying to calm him, to get him to lie back down, although he seemed unaware of them or his surroundings.
His yelling continued for thirty seconds—although an eternity couldn’t have passed any slower—and then his mouth and eyes closed, his body went slack, and he collapsed to the bed once more.
“What was that?” the doctor hissed.
Taylor was thinking the same thing, except she would have phrased her question more like What the flying, crazy, bloody, crikey, flaming hell was that? And she had hoped the doctor would have been able to answer her pointed question, but instead she found the shadowy surgeon asking the very same thing. Not knowing whether to respond and hoping the question might have been rhetorical, Taylor remained silent.
Taylor was relieved when one of the assistants answered: “Not sure, but his vitals are stronger—heart rate is back to normal, BP is about right, fever is gone. He seems to be recovering.”
“Really?” Taylor asked.
The doctor said, “Early indications are that whatever you did seems to have made a difference. But we’ll have to wait a few
hours to confirm.”
“You did it, babe,” Gabriel said, putting his arm around her waist.
“I didn’t do anything. My new body did. Which reminds me: Can we talk about the test results now? I want to know who’s inhabiting my body and how many eyes I’m going to have.”
Gabriel frowned. “What?”
“Never mind,” Taylor said. “Can we go talk?”
“Of course.”
Gabriel told Kiren the good news before they left and she promised to take Taylor out for dinner once Sampson had fully recovered. “Where do you want to go?” Gabriel asked.
“Not here,” Taylor said. “Anywhere but here.”
“How about the Bird’s Nest?” Gabriel suggested.
Exhilaration filled her. The Bird’s Nest! Given all that had happened over the Christmas holidays, Taylor had almost forgotten about the place where it had all started. Just a few months earlier, Gabriel had first revealed himself in full angel form to Taylor. On that same night, he had used his powerful wings to fly them to a quiet and tucked away alcove high above UT’s football stadium. Eventually the spot had become their spot and Taylor had nicknamed it the Bird’s Nest. She longed to return there, for Gabriel to hold her, to laugh, to live, to love.
Since her magical transformation into an angel (or something angel-like), Taylor and Gabriel had spent very little time together. They were simply too busy. Taylor had been forced to return home, pack her bags, and return to college. And Gabriel had his war stuff to fill his waking hours. The power of her sudden desire to waste away a day with just Gabriel overwhelmed her for a moment. Not cool, she thought. Taylor hated feeling like she couldn’t control her emotions or that she needed someone else to be happy. She wanted to always be independent, like her mom had been.
To cut off the unwanted feelings before they got out of control, Taylor slapped herself…literally. Smack! It wasn’t a friendly love pat on her cheek, but a forceful blow intended to sting. And it did. Taylor winced. But with the pain came clarity of thought.