Darksiders: Among the Shadows (Book 2)

Library of Sapientia

Damiana paced through the empty library, gazing at the tall bookshelves and dusty books in silent awe.
"Wooow." She mused, gently putting her palm against the smooth marble.
"Don't touch anything! You may alert the other angels of your presence." Areal hissed,
"Please, if they were aware of me being here, the angels would have attacked us before we walked in here, now," Damiana said, tying to decipher the odd runes sprawled across the shelf side.
"Okay, so, since your mother was an archangel, her entire file should be...up there." Zareal quickly rose up to the high ceiling, flipping through the many scrolls lined up neatly in their shelf.
'How does he know this? Maybe...' she thought, watching the fallen angel search among the shelves.
Damiana slowly turned and gazed outside the window, gawking at the seemingly floating buildings.
'How can a kind live sonewhere so pretty...yet be so...ugly.' she thought.
"Miiah, Matim....Muriel; Angel of God." Zareal said, landing softly next to Damiana with a large, ancient scroll.
He and Damiana walked over to the smooth white table and gently unraveled the parchment. While using the faint moonlight gleaming from the window, Zareal read aloud the angel in question's past, present, and possible future.
"Muriel, The Angel of God and Harmony. As one of the first angels our Creator constructed, Muriel was one of His right hand angels, alongside with Lucifer. Eldest sister to Abaddon. Marimtius of Raziel. Kin of Aloxsunamoon, the Fifth Horsemen of the Apocalypse-"
"Who is Zacriael?" Damiana asked, raising an eyebrow in question.
"I dunno, another archangel? Archangels can only be with other archangels..."
"What are you?"
"I was of the Third Sphere...with the soldiers and messangers or whatever." He mumbled, still reading the scroll.
"They kept this updated."
"For birthing the Anti-Christ, Muriel is punished in Hell, kept at the Dark Prince's Throne."
Damiana bit her lip amd crossed her arms. Instead of trying to prove her innocence, Heaven just threw away their eldest angel. Damiana didn't know what her mother looked or acted like...but something inside her told that Muriel didn't deserve the way Heaven abandoned her....
The way they forsoke her...
"Those bastards..."
"I told you...what are you going to do with this information?" Zareal raised an eyebrow.
"I'm going to prove her innocence."
"How, her fate has been sealed, the Council themselves-"
"The Council were wrong, there wasn't enough evidence!"
Zareal shook his head and gently took Damiana's hand into his, squeezing it ever so carefully.
"You're a century too late, Damiana. There's no way you can do this alone. Even the Horsemen cannot fare to Lucifer themselves, what makes you think you can?"
"Its not about Lucifer, its about Justice, about my mother. It was me that put her there and it will be me to take her out."
Zareal looked as if he were to say something, but quickly froze and looked at the door.
"Son of a- we were here for too long, I sense them!" He said, dragging Damiana behind the massive bookshelf.
The two crouched and held their breaths as the door was torn apart. A fleet of angels, about 30, all armored, flew into the room, blocking all possible exits.
In the midst of them was the angel scribe, Azareal. Unlike most times, Azareal sported light yet durable armor. His face, although impassive, was visibly angered.
"We know of your presence here, horseman, we only ask of you to show yourself." He called, landing quietly on the table.
Damiana glanced at Zareal, who slowly shook his head.
"What are we to do? If they see you, the Council will know of your escape." Damiana mouthed, frowning at her punishment.
"Just, wait." Zareal assured, not knowing if he had a valid idea for them to escape.
"Listen, I'll go smooth this over, you stay here." Damiana mumbled, tearing away from Zareal, who protested silently.
"Hello, who are you?" Azareal mumbled, looking down on Damiana.
"Um...Damiana? The Fifth Horseman...we met previously." Damiana sighed, rolling her eyes.
Azareal titled his head and jumped down from the table, studying Damiana closely.
"The Anti Christ?" He asked quietly, looking down at her mark.
The amored angels all began to murmer restlessly, all wanting to see how they would all fare against the strong Anti Christ turned Horseman. One angel in particular held his weapon a little too closely and too threatening above Damiana's head. Damiana bit her lip and crossed her arms, not wanting to start a fight in the middle of Heaven.
"That is correct." Damiana mumbled.
"Why are you here and how did you come here? You weren't told of the path to Heaven for a reason." He said, staring down at Damiana.
"I was-"
Damiana's eyes widened and she dove to the side, just missing the swinging blade towards her head. She kicked her leg out to steady herself and brought her blade back, ready to strike the attacking angel. Azareal turned to scold the angel, but was soon met with a flash of metal, causing hin to cry out and jump back.
'GO!' A familiar voice hissed in her head.
The angel glanced over at Damiana and glared at her, urging her to follow the voice.
The other angels all went off into an attack, all perfectly coordinated and balanced. The angel rolled his eyes at Damiana and easily deflected the angels' many blows from different directions. Damiana nodded once and tore off towards the door, dodging the angels as they fell one by one from above. One angel stopped and looked over at Damiana as She tried to escape and gritted his teeth.
As soon as Damiana put her hand on the door, a strong hand grasped a handful of her hair and pulled her back into the library.
"OW, WHAT-" she hissed, trying to undo the angel's grip.
Suddenly, Zareal leapt out from the side, sword above his head, and used his momentum to swing down at Damiana's thick hair. Damiana stammered forward and was quickly shoved out of the doorway by Zareal, who followed her close behind.
"Wait-"
"No." He growled, snatching Damiana up under his arm.
With the flick of his wing, Zareal rose to the night sky, easily rising above the library.
"No, I HATE heights!" She stammered, griping on to Zareal's arm.
"We have no other options, so, shut up!" Zareal breathed, taking off towards the opposite direction.
Zareal, while holding Damiana tightly to his side, banked and dodged the many buildings Heaven bore, trying to soften his windstrokes to lessen the noise. He rose higher and higher to better see any one who would follow them. Soon, the two were almost as high as the tallest building in the White City.
"Can we please just land somewhere and you do your magic?" Damiana mumbled, looking down at the ground in sheer panic.
"Not with them only a few paces behind, hush now!"
Zareal stopped once and listened closely to his surroundings, hoping to triangulate any angel silent enough to have followed them. When he believed them to be safe, Zareal let his guard down for a couple of moments and began to fold his wings to his body to land.
Like a white bullet, an angel, female in figure, crashed into Zareal, using her massive sword to knock Damiana from his grasp.
"Dami-!" Zareal called, watching helplessly as the Anti Christ flailed in the air.
Damiana called out once and braced herself for impact, watching in horror as the ground moved from being a mile away to yards away.
"I thought you were led away to the Council in chains, you traitor." The angel hissed, holding the blade of sword to Zareal.
Her gold eyes flashed angerily...
Zareal rolled his eyes and went to dive after the quickly descending Damiana.
The Hellguard angel, Uriel, gritted her teeth and swung her sword downward, cutting Zareal's descent short.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Damiana closed her eyes as the ground edged closer, already feeling the pain of hitting the ground.She crossed her arms infront of her face, thoughts racing, but still ending up in the same subject;
This was A) really gonna hurt
Or B) Possibly getting hurt to a point where Fury will play nurse...or surgeon....
Either way; bones will be broken and teeth will be shattered.
Damiana made a short cry and suddenly felt an odd sensation pulse through her body. The sensation quickly creeped up to her shoulder blades and turned into a terrible feeling of tearing flesh. Damiana opened her eyes and watched in amazement as the ground didnt seem to race towards her body. She gazed up and gasped once when two pairs of full black wings greeted her, fanned out to catch the wind. Slowly but surely, Damiana reached the ground with a soft thud, falling over when her left foot skidded across the pavement.
"Cool..." she said aloud, admiring her newfound ability in the pale moonlight.
As quickly as they came, Damiana's wings swiftly disbanded, leaving her as the bipedal Damiana as she once was.
Zareal, who was quickly being trailed by Uriel, made a sharp left and disappeared behind a building, much to Damiana's anger.
"Do I have to call Death to get me now?!" She whisper screamed at herself.
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Damiana trudged the dark alleyways, stopping omce whenever she heard an odd noise, with her head kept down.
"There you are!" Zareal hissed, tackling Damiana from behind.
"The he- take me home, right now...please, I gathered enough information."
"Oh. You don't want another angel horde hunting us? Or maybe you would rather the White City's champion hound us down?"
"Shut up, just do the thing."
Zareal rolled his eyes and repeated the door incantation, this time in reverse to get back to their old destination.
When the door was completely summoned, Zareal stepped to the side and ushered Damiana to the front of it.
"You're not...coming with?"
"Nope, I'm going to do stuff in other places."
Damiana nodded and took a step towards the portal.
"Wait, you need to go back to your-"
Zareal smirked and forcefully turned Damiana around, kissing her lightly on her lips.
" 'bye, sweetness!" He giggled, shoving Damiana backwards into the portal.
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
"Stupid good for nothing-" Damiana thought outloud, wiping her mouth for the umpteenth time.
She trudged up to the house all of the Horsemen shared and put her hand on the door handle.
"How dare he disrespect me to that degree...on more than one occasion!" Damiana hissed, flinging open the door.
Strife looked up from one of Damiana's diaries and slowly looked back down.
"You look terrible."
"Thanks."
"No problem." He shrugged, sighing deeply as he closed the book.
"Hey...stop reading my journals, you creep!" Damiana snatched the book from Strife's hand and folded her arms tightly across her chest.
"Can't help it, you leave them lying around." He said, smile apparent in his voice.
"Yeah, in MY room!" Damiana growled, rolling her eyes.
"And your bedroom door was open."
Damiana opened her mouth to say something, but instead puffed out her cheeks and stomped her foot. When Strife seemed indifferent to her apparent anger, Damiana's mind drifted off into oblivion.
Then, she remembered...
"You knew my mom...pretty well..." she said finally, looking down at the louging Strife.
"Anndd?"
"Annnnd, I want you to tell me what really happened to her....also if you two had something, I would like to know...but don't tell me now...matter fact, yeah, no-"
"Do you want to know or not?"
"Yesh, very much so."
Strife rolled his eyes and sat up forward in the chair, gazing outside the window as if it were miles away.
"I met your mother at my and our brother's pledge to the Council. Out of the angels we've encountered, Muriel seemed to genuinely care for everything and everyone, she even defended our kind against the Counc; speaking of peace between our kinds, what a joke," Strife chuckled darkly, still looking outside the window.
"As if a peace treaty could satisfy Absalom's and the other's lust for land and mass genocide."
"She was the only one that associated herself with us, and I admire her for that; she saw past the skin and looked unto the person. The second time was at the Battlefield of the Nephilim and Heaven....where we obliterated our kind."
"You seem kinda happy."
"Couldn't care less about my kind, really." Strife shrugged.
"Who was Raziel?"
"From what I remember, her bodyguard...and possible lover, I don't know...where is this sudden care In your mother surface now?"
"Curiosity." Damiana said dramatically, moving her hands in the shape of a rainbow.
Strife ti lted his head and blinked, unsure on how to respond to her statement.
"Cut your hair?" He said finally.
"WHAT?!" Damiana stood up and looked in the mirror, groaning when she saw the half that the soldier had in his hand was cut up to her shoulders.