Joseph stared in cold fury at the angel, ignoring the high winds and swirling dust that was rolling through the city and blowing across his face. His plan relied on an extended conversation, so he planned on talking.
“I have a counterproposal,” he said, looking down at the army and then back up at their leader. “End this now. Leave the city. You have the authority to order your three legions from Brone, and I ask that you do so. No one has to die. The Carnecians return to their city, and your army finds a happy place to live and prosper.”
Barely suppressing a smile, Adirael responded.
“The problem with your scenario is that you wish us to find a ‘happy place’. You see, we had a paradise named Machon, and we were ejected from it so that these creatures could inhabit it. So we forfeit it in exchange for this world, so long as there are none of them left in it. So we will stay. And you now have ten seconds to make your decision.”
“Actually,” Joseph responded with a sigh, keeping his eyes locked onto the Naphal’s. “I think I’ve killed enough time. My crew is in place, you’re looking at me, and my buddy Clovis here is about to clench his amazingly strong jaws around your arm.”
In one hectic second, warfare erupted in multiple areas. Clovis launched himself from the rooftop and gunned straight for the Naphal. Adirael, quick on the uptake, immediately withdrew his sword to meet the lion in midair. Joseph, too, rushed the muscle-laden general and put himself between the megasword and the Blesmahj, taking it in an awkward blow to the throat that knocked him back into his partner. Clovis rolled over the human, barely missing the blade and twisting his neck at the last second to latch his incredibly sharp teeth onto the forearm of the angel just as Joseph smashed into an adjacent building.
“Let’s go!” came a cry from behind the tussle, and two figures in white clothing flew through the arid dust separating buildings, high over the heads of the army, most of whom turned their eyes to them as they fell from twenty stories up, crying out a war cry as they dropped.
Meanwhile, on the ground, the legion of demons and angels shuffled their feet in anticipation, but otherwise stayed put, recalling their general’s orders to stay out of the fight. Except for one, a Naphal with strict orders to execute the young Carnecian who silently wept in front of him. A loyal soldier with contempt for the inferior species that sought to usurp their heavenly order, the sudden violence involving Duke Adirael was his invitation to end the life of one more Carnecian. With a wicked smile, the Naphal thrust his sword forward, exactly where the Carnecian had just been standing before the rushing form of a white tiger ran through and snatched him up.
The Blesmahj had booked it down through the building at top speed, under orders from Joseph, who had been constantly relaying mental orders through Clovis to his teammates while he verbally argued with Adirael. His scheme relied on buying his friends time to get to street-level, where they had wasted no time in racing through the doorway, through the ranks of soldiers who had been staring up at their leader and the screaming humans, not noticing the intruders in time to sound the alarm.
{The poor kid probably has whiplash,} Bramora commented as he dropped from the building. {If that’s even possible with these guys.}
Beside him, Summer replied.
{Better whiplash than a sword through his gut.}
{True,} Bramora said, then looked over in time to see Adirael drop his sword heavily across the spine of the lion attached to his arm.
“No!” Bramora cried out, but his own voice was drowned out by the deafening roar that came from Clovis as he let loose his grip and dropped down to the street below.
Bramora changed his path in a sudden angle, moving as fast as possible to intersect the Blesmahj before he landed on the dirt floor below. He knew, though, that there was no way he could make it in time, but was suddenly surprised when Clovis disappeared in a flash of light. Bramora came to a sudden stop and looked off at the building behind Adirael, which had a fresh hole where Joseph’s out of control body had flown after being struck by the blade. Bramora turned his glare up at the Naphal, who was scowling at his wounded arm.
“You killed them!” Bramora screamed, pointing his finger at the general, who only sneered.
“Of course I did. They attacked me, and I defended myself.”
Adirael looked down at a handful of his soldiers, who had brandished their weapons and were moving toward the multiple targets that were in their midst. Summer hit the ground beside the army and turned quickly away from them. She could hear their movement, and she ran quickly into the same building Zeth had disappeared into, dissolving into the dusty darkness as a squad of enemies closed in.
“Leave them to me,” the general snapped, and the demons and Naphal quickly fell back into the ranks. He then turned his focus to the angel charged with executing the Carnecian, who stood holding his blade and eyeing the building the white-tiger had rushed into with his prisoner. “Except for you. You find that whelp and kill him. If any of them try to stop you, bring them to me.”
The executioner gave some sort of salute and rushed to the building as ordered.
Adirael descended to the ground. He eyed Bramora, who stayed aloft and far from his reach, then reached down and grabbed his tunic. With a quick pull, he ripped a strip from the base of the cloth and then tied it around his wounded arm. From his new angle, Bramora could see that Clovis had torn him up pretty good. A bite that would have torn clean through a human’s arm had managed to rip a piece of flesh and muscle from the Naphal, who was now tying a tourniquet above it to stop the bleeding.
“Call off your assassin,” Bramora said boldly. “Your fight is with us. Find whatever mercy you have in your heart and let that little one live.”
“I have mercy,” Adirael responded sincerely, wincing as he tightened the cloth around his thick forearm. “I am not a soulless monster on a quest for vengeance. I have spent millennia under the tutelage of Jehovah, studying His teachings and living according to His will. I know compassion. But I also know its weaknesses. People become slaves when they are too prone to compassion. When one cares for others more than they care for themselves, they do not survive very long.
“That child’s death serves a purpose: to make you and the Carnecians understand that I am a Seraph of my word. The Carnecians should fear me, as I am a superior species. Jehovah, who is far more advanced than me and every other angel, has a flaw: he holds all life in equal regard.”
“That is not a flaw,” Bramora argued. “It is an admirable quality.”
“To those who have been indoctrinated to believe such. Emperor Belial has led a school of thought that brings to light the concept of superior species. The Carnecians have a value that we acknowledge. Their lives have a meaning and a purpose. But it is one that is inferior to our own. To elevate them above us is an affront to the rightful order of existence. So we are remedying this. The child will die to keep this order.”
A commotion in the building behind him drew Adirael’s attention away from Bramora. Screams and attacks filled the air momentarily as the Naphal assassin apparently encountered opposition. Shouts of warning and orders to attack came from the windows four floors up, but they were suddenly cut short. A few seconds later, the prone form of a young blonde girl flew from the window and spun through the air like a ragdoll. Summer hit the ground hard between the standing army and their general, who looked up in time to see another body slam into the ground next to the other. Majecki rolled a short distance before coming to a stop next to Summer, his arm draped across hers and his face aimed for the sky.
There were two quick flashes of light in the building that were only visible for the darkness within, and a floor below them, an angel appeared in the oval window.
“I have yet to find the child, but this is their allies. I will continue searching.”
“Good,” Adirael replied, and the assassin turned and walked out of sight.
“So there was another member to this team?”
“His name if Majecki,” Bramora said, and touched down on the ground behind the two figures. “Her name is Summer. I plead with you one last time to leave here, and allow us to save the Carnecians. I don’t want to kill you, but we will if to save their lives.”
Adirael smiled.
“Your logic has an astonishing similarity to my own, does it not?”
Bramora’s eyes went wide for a moment, then he closed them and shook his head.
“I’m sorry.”
Adirael narrowed his eyes and pulled his sword from its sheath. He stepped up to the trio of humans and put the tip of his sword on the ground between Summer and Majecki.
“There is no need-” he started, when suddenly three figures appeared suddenly in front of him, springing forth from within their human partners.
Zeth went for the throat, while Silas and Elato each grabbed a wrist, all the while slashing away at his armored chest and bare arms. The Naphal Duke howled in pain, dropping his sword as Elato bit down hard on the wrist holding it, but was quick to respond by dropping his arms hard to his knees, bringing bone against bone when the cats’ skulls met his knees. Both Blesmahj fell to the ground in a daze, and the general turned his attention to the animal biting into his windpipe. The Naphal’s crunched body caused Zeth to stretch back to avoid being crushed by Adirael’s upper torso, but he constantly clawed away at the breastplate, his relentless attack tearing holes and exposing the skin underneath.
Adirael gasped and gurgled as blood filled his throat, and his now-empty hands reached up and grabbed the slobbery jaws that were clenched around his neck. The five seconds of pressure to his neck had already caused Adirael’s vision to blur, and his strength was already beginning to fade. But although he was not at the top of his game, the Naphal’s brute strength was still enough to slowly inch the cat from his skin, until, with a thrust, he pushed the white tiger back atop his comrades.
Adirael started to speak, but instead coughed up blood as he clenched his own hand around his throat to stop the bleeding. With a glance at his feline opponents, who had started to stir as their human counterparts helped them to their feet, Adirael reached down into a pocket in his tunic and produced a small blue container. Pressing his thumb against the slick exterior caused a hiss to come from within, and the device split in half to reveal a collection of even smaller, multicolored cubes sitting in a silver mist.
“Stop him!” Majecki cried suddenly and ran toward the towering opponent. “We have to stop him now!”
Adirael’s eyes widened as the force rushed him, and he quickly snatched a beige cube from the container and thrust the cylinder back in his pocket, palming the cube with the other hand. The Naphal rushed forward and snatched his sword from the ground, bringing it up in a dazzling spin that missed decapitating Silas by inches. The Blesmahj slid through the dirt dodging the gigantic blade, and the Rheigns split quickly, with Summer dropping low next to Elato while Majecki and Bramora moved up and out.
“Get the cube from him!” Majecki called, moving toward the angel. “I don’t know what it is, but I’m sure it’s bad for us!”
Majecki wrapped his body around the massive hand and began prying at the fingers gripping the object, seeing in his mind’s eye Zeth’s vision to keep an eye on the sword that was swinging wildly at his friends. No matter how hard he tried, though, he could not so much as move a finger out of the fist it was clenched in.
Adirael took one swing of his immense blade that sliced deep into Elato’s front leg, then reached up quickly and snatched the remains of his breastplate and ripped them from his chest. Due to the close range of Majecki being on his own arm, the angel forsook his sword and just punched Majecki right on the back of his head, knocking him from his perch and putting him down hard into the ground.
Now momentarily freed of attackers, his opposition saw for the first time a strange device melded into the flesh of his chest. With three small tubes running different directions and sinking completely under the skin after about eight inches, the device had a small, metal disc fixed directly over where the heart would be located on a human. In the center of the disc was a square impression that was obviously intended for the cube in Adirael’s hand. In a swift motion, Duke Adirael brought the beige cube up to his chest and sunk it into the hole, which gave off a small glow before the object disappeared.
Adirael smiled as his body suddenly tensed. The first changes were the slashes to his chest, which almost immediately closed up. On his neck, the ragged lacerations from Zeth’s teeth slowly began to mend themselves. Flesh reformed and internal injuries righted themselves as Adirael began to breathe easier.
“We need to attack now,” Majecki cried out suddenly. “Before he fully recovers!”
The others awoke from their stupor and rushed the Naphal once again, who was still in the process of recovery. Despite not being back to full-strength, enough healing had taken place to give the Duke the advantage. Whatever he had inserted into his bloodstream had apparently taken longer to reach his extremities, and arms that were just in tatters were showing signs of healing when the gang hit him.
This time, though, the advantage was Adirael’s.
Moving it like it was weightless, the general maneuvered his sword in ways one would think impossible with a weapon of that size. No longer hampered by the mauling of the powerful felines, Adirael stepped forward and stabbed his sword straight into oncoming group, who split just in time to avoid the savage brown metal. The stab then twisted into a backward arc that caught Zeth across his back legs, both of which were cut deep before the blade impacted the bone, which bounced away when struck. Blood turned white fur red as the legs buckled under him, inciting him to turn away from his opponent as he had become nearly immobile. Zeth drug his massive weight with his front legs while Majecki ran interference between the tiger and the angel.
{Is it life-threatening?} Majecki asked his partner as he stood firm before Adirael, who was now focused on the other Blesmahj.
{No,} Zeth replied. {But if I dissipate to within you to heal, the Naphal will learn our strategy and you will be vulnerable.}
{Then just stay away from the fight. Get out of sight. If things slow back down, dissipate, otherwise, stay safe. I’ll stay in the fight.}
The Blesmahj nodded and continued to drag himself away from the Duke and his army, leaving a trail of blood as he slowly made his way from the mayhem.