Disappear: Into Shadow

- CHAPTER SIXTY TWO -

It was a darkness even Azrael had never imagined possible. When it descended every glimmer of light was consumed. Even her slivered aura had become eclipsed.

"Do you know what happens next?" The voice of Adimus, the Black Angel, asked her.

Light began to creep back into the Watcher's vision. She could see pairs of red, burning eyes surrounding her. Their lights cast a firey glow across the ruins of the black stone cathedral. A mere portion of the recent escapees from Tartarus, Azrael could only imagine what horrors must now be happening across the world.

"My Crones want retribution for their captivity. They want justice and now they will collect, from you." The unseen Admius said.

More light bled down from above the shattered remains of the rafters and buttresses above the cathedral's nave. Azrael could now see the entire horde that had encircled her. In their ragged brown robes, their wretched faces were the embodiment of an ancient evil. As the mob of Crones hurled abuse and anger her, Azrael stood her ground as the crones clustered tighter about her.

From their hiding place in the upper reaches of thr ruins, the Fallen Watchers Azazel, Haroth and Maroth looked down at the cathedral floor and they prey they had stalked here.

"When do we strike?" Asked Haroth.

"Let us strike. Take them all." Added Maroth.

"Take them all," Haroth agreed.

"We wait." Azazel ordered. "There's too many Crones. Let Azrael thin the herd first. Besides, we must take the soul Michael first. We wait. Stick to the plan."

Azazel licked his lips in anticipation of the imminent fight below them.

Azrael backed herself away from the altar, down the steps of the apse and through the choir. Looking up at the north transept, she picked out the faces of Azazel, Haroth and Maorht leering down at her. Azazel's smirk was filling her with anger, until she noticed the sky. Or, the lack of one. She realized that the entire cathedral had been bound. At least she didn't have to worry about Adimus at that moment. How to escape would have to come later. She sensed that this may be some manner of test that Adimus was conducting.

The Crones continuing to advance, they poured over the sides of the choir's stalls, others filed into the cathedral through both trensept until they surrounded her at the crossing. A first wave lept forwards, hulting themselves at Azrael.

A wave of her hands folded the air about her, pressing the attacking crones together in midair. Wrapping them about one another againa and again until Azrael had contained them in a binding sphere of her own. A sphere with in a sphere, she reflected.

For a brief moment, Azrael considered smashing it into the stone floor with a violence that would destroy the sphere and its inhabitants in a single, fell swoop. Remembering Admius must be watching, she thought it best not to give him any ideas. She set the sphere on the floor and prepared for the next attack.

The speed with which Azrael had rebound those first attackers stalled the Crones, but only for a moment. They reconsidered their prey and chose to advance again only in a more horrible aspect. Morphing into giant spiders, dire wolves and terrifying spectres of nightmare they scuttled, slunk and spread out about floor, ascended the columns and walls and took to some of the heights of the ruin's transepts and buttresses. Once again, they circled Azrael as they stalked her, looking for an opportunity to pounce.