Children of the Archangels

CHAPTER 39: AN ANGEL IN DISGUISE

If you asked Luke how he wanted to die, his real answer would be drowning in a pool full of naked Nellies.

But, since Luke was a pretty nice guy who could be occasionally timid, he'd probably say something boring like natural causes.

But he'd prefer just about anything to being killed by a tomahawk. He'd see the old video games his grandparents used to play where it took seven bullets to kill an enemy soldier but only a single tomahawk to the foot to yield the same results. He was not going to die like a soldier from an unbalanced video game.

But sadly, he had little to say in this matter.

Then he felt it, someone wrapping something around his waist again and hauling him aside against the raging wind from the freed Aeria, out of the path of the incoming oversized ax. Luke didn't understand how killing him would make his body usable, but then again, Aeria didn't seem like the type to possess brains.

Luke was amazed to be saved again by some invisible force. He wondered, Did Sirius manage to break free?

Victor shot another pellet of holy water at Ose, but he peeled out of the Chuchunya like it was a sinking ship. The Iumenti fell straight to the ground and joined his brethren in nap time. One of them seemed to be sucking his hairy thumb.

Victor seemed conscious again and back in the fight, but now Luke had to deal with six freed Aeria roaming loose. Even though some were weakened by Victor's attacks, he knew it would be difficult to fight that which he could not see.

Oops, looks like Victor wasn't demon-free for long.

"Not again," Victor croaked before struggling to fight another demon. Then his voice changed. "Whoever pushed out my comrade from this body will find it tougher to push me out," Ose spoke through Victor.

Then he pulled out Victor's knife with the rusted tip. He studied it carefully, like it was a delicate artifact. "Coated in dried Nightshadow from the Amazon," Ose observed. "Extremely toxic. No known anti-toxin. An excellent way to finish off someone for good." He turned towards Luke. "Would you like to try some?"

Luke reared back his whip and readied another electric attack but stumbled once the possessed Victor stomped his foot in the ground and made the floor shake. The ground around Luke split opened and swallowed him up to the waist in cold stone.

"How the...?" Luke struggled to break free. He tried to distribute his electric charge throughout his body to weaken the rock enough for him to break free, but he had overused his ability a bit too much recently, so it was running on fumes.

"Antarctica is a continent. Unlike the Arctic, beneath this sheet of ice, lies earth. The same earth that your friend here can manipulate thanks to the gift of that indecisive Raguel."

He reached for Nil and grabbed him like he was a trash bag. He placed the rusted-tip knife close to Nil's cheek. "A single slice is all I need to make your mission a failure. Would you risk the life of this child for your own selfish needs?"

Last time Luke checked, wanting to keep control over his own body was not a selfish need—just a plain old need. But he also didn't want young Nil to die too if he could do something to stop it.

"What do you want?"

"Allow one of my lieutenants to take control over you. We'll use you to enter the Garden of Eden, retrieve what we desire, and exit the Garden before the Equinox is up. Then we'll abandon your bodies and let you be. We'll even make sure this little guy here gets all the fruit he needs to make him see clearly again."

"And I'm supposed to trust you?"

"I am Lord Ose, commander of the legion of Aeria, demons of the air, and I never tell a lie."

"Nice title, but that doesn't make me trust you."

"What other choice do you have?"

Ose was right. The other option was to see Nil dead and eventually Luke would be overcome by the demons, even with the invisible help that apparently decided to lend him a hand from time to time.

Luke had no other choice, but to allow a demon to possess him—he just couldn't stomach the idea. He didn't want someone else entering into his temple. This was his home, and he couldn't allow it to get invaded and used.

Then Luke saw something sprout from the ground between him and Victor. It was a pair of boots, attached to legs—Sirius's legs. Sirius was somehow dragging himself out of the ground in reverse.

Or something was pulling him up.

Eventually his whole body laid flat on the ground with his eyes closed.

"How did he get up here?" Ose spoke through Victor.

Then Sirius's eyes shot open, but they seemed different. Instead of an intense gray, he had golden-green eyes and a smile that was devilishly cute.

He levitated his body off the ground and stared down Victor with a scowl that looked like a child who was denied ice cream by his parents and was plotting to get back at them somehow.

He uncurled his hands and watched as a sword of light sprouted forth from his palm. "No one gives boo-boos to my friends."

This was not Sirius. Luke knew that for a fact.

Something caught the corner of Sirius's eye. A raging wind surrounded him. Sirius swung his sword which grew brighter like a comet exploding in the lower atmosphere. Luke could hear the sword slurping up the Aeria like it was a delicious demon soup—but it probably would later give the sword a bad case of the farts because demons are not a part of a healthy diet for swords. The Aeria yelped, hissed, howled, and made every attempt possible to resist, but in the end, the sword did what its namesake said it would.

It absorbed the pathetic essence of five demons.

All that was left standing was the possessed Victor clutching Nil and bringing him closer to the tip of his knife.

"Whatever you are, don't come any closer with that thing," Ose said with a quiver in his voice that Luke wasn't sure belong to him or Victor.

Then something unexpected happened. Sirius's sword was instantly snuffed out, as if a thick blanket had eclipsed its light. His body slumped to the ground, but Sirius managed to catch himself before crashing towards the floor. He looked disoriented and was shivering from having been buried in the ice for a decent amount of time, but he looked like he'd survive.

But Luke couldn't say the same for Ose.

Luke couldn't believe what he witnessed. It happened so fast. Victor stumbled and dropped his knife in the snow. Nil fell down with him, but Victor managed to catch the both of them before hitting the knife at an awkward angle.

Meanwhile standing behind him was Absorber, floating in the air. Slowly the invisible force and the Aeria came into view. Ose looked like a dissolving horse. He had the front half of a trusty steed with pale fur, and the back half looked like the tail end of a genie.

Everything started to make sense now. Why Nil was able to dodge the attack of the Phantom Cat, the weird laugh Luke heard, the person pulling him out of these tight spots.

Holding Ose by the collar of his fur was the other member of House Uriel.

"I hate big meanies." Then Alpha stabbed Absorber into Ose's hide and the sword absorbed him like confetti in an ocean.