Angel Evolution (21 page)

The head of the Elders stroked his gray beard thoughtfully. He seemed to be considering Christopher’s words. “I agree with you, but first we must figure out how to get close enough to Taylor to allow Samantha to talk to her.”

T
he group made their way to central command. Along the way, many angels wanted to stop to talk to Gabriel, saying things like, “Gabriel, long time no see, how are you?” or “Hey, Gabriel, who’s the girl?” Many of the angels were females and Taylor didn’t like the way they looked at her boyfriend. First, they were all stunningly beautiful, making her look even more ordinary than usual. Second, he didn’t shut them down the way she had hoped. His responses were typically, “Later, Rose, we’re in a hurry,” or “We’ll catch up soon, Sandra, gotta run.”

Taylor did
not
want Gabriel “catching up” with any of these beautiful women. She was relieved when they finally reached their destination. The only one with clearance, Gabriel punched in a code on the door and it opened, twisting like a pinwheel from the center. Looking inside, Taylor could see a bustle of activity, as angels diagrammed attack strategies on whiteboards, looked at security feeds, and shouted orders into headsets. She tried to pick out which one was the mysterious Cassandra, but she didn’t see anyone that might fit the part.

When they entered the room, the flurry of motion, as well as all conversation, stopped abruptly. Then she saw her. Initially her back was to them, but then, with a whirl of perfectly smooth blond hair, she turned, and with her perfectly blue eyes, gazed upon them from across the room. She smiled a perfectly white smile and walked to meet them with perfectly graceful strides.
Crap
, Taylor thought,
Cassandra is perfect; I don’t have a chance.

“Welcome back, Gabriel,” Cassandra said, kissing him on the cheek and generally ignoring Taylor’s presence.

“Cassandra,” Gabriel said coldly, turning his cheek away from her.

He put his arm around Taylor and pulled her close to him. “This is my girlfriend, Taylor. Taylor, meet Cassandra.”

Taylor was pleasantly surprised by Gabriel’s show of affection in front of the supermodel and it gave her a bit of confidence. She said, “It’s nice to meet you. Gabriel has told me what a good
friend
you have always been to him.”

“Oh, how nice,” Cassandra sneered, “you’ve found yourself a human pet.” She looked Taylor up and down, inspecting her ripped jeans, tattoo, and punkish styling. “And how lovely she is…”

“Get over yourself, Cass. Taylor has more power within her than you could ever hope to have. Now step aside, we need to see the Council,” Gabriel ordered.

While Cassandra had been quite successful in the angel army, Gabriel still outranked her significantly, and she turned sideways to let them pass. Her angry eyes never left Taylor’s, but Taylor stared right back at her without blinking, maintaining the upper hand that she had gained when Gabriel defended her. For the moment, she even considered forgiving Gabriel for his second round of lies, just to spite Cassandra by keeping him off the market.

The other angels in the room had watched the exchange with interest, but now, seeing that the action had ended, went back to their planning and strategizing. When they reached the far end of the command center, Sampson said, “Wow, Gabriel, you really handled her. It was fun to see someone put her in her place for once.”

Gabriel smirked and said, “She’s a stuck-up, obnoxious little know-it-all, and I’m sick of her crap. Don’t listen to her, Taylor, everyone else here realizes that you are special.”

Taylor wanted to kiss him on the spot, but she controlled her urge and instead said, “What next?”

Gabriel said, “This is the War Room, where the key strategic decisions are typically made. Usually it is used by only the generals and the commander, and the Council participates by video conference, but as Sampson told me on the way over, the full Council is here in person.”

“This is awesome, Gabriel, thanks for bringing me,” said David, in awe of the command center.

“No problem, bro, but unfortunately, only Taylor and I will be able to meet with the Council. However, under my authority you guys can stay in the command center and observe for as long as you want.”

“Cool, thanks!” David said enthusiastically. “My friends are never going to believe this!”

“Good luck, man,” Sampson said, giving him another man-hug.

“Thanks, we’ll see you all later.” He pressed his glowing finger to the door and it opened for him. Taylor took a deep breath.

They moved past the door and it closed automatically the instant they were inside. Now they were in a tiny intermediate room, separating the command center from the War Room. Gabriel strode confidently to the next door and repeated the finger trick. It opened upon his command.

Walking into the next room, Taylor ignored the thirty-four eyes that watched her from the long board table. Gabriel pulled out one of the two remaining chairs for her to sit in and then pushed her closer to the table. He sat in the last open seat.

Gabriel spoke first: “Dionysus, Councilmembers, meet Taylor Kingston, the girl whose arrival I am sure you have all been anxiously awaiting.”

The angel at the head of the table rose from his seat and the other sixteen angels followed his lead. He began clapping and soon the other angels joined him, a full applause to welcome the lady of the hour and the angel who had escorted her.

Dionysus walked around the table. Taylor stood as he approached her. He took her hand and kissed it gently. “I’m Dionysus, the Head of the Archangel Council,” he said. “We are forever in your debt for your willingness to help us.”

Taylor felt awkward. She didn’t know how to address him so she said, “Thank you, your majesty, it is my pleasure.”

There were a couple of snickers around the table at her use of a pronoun typically reserved for royalty. She glared at the offenders, who seemed taken aback by her boldness.

“You can just call me Dionysus, for I am not royalty. The Council is a democracy that, by necessity, needs a head to ensure protocols are followed.”

“Thank you, Dionysus,” Taylor said, correcting herself.

As Dionysus walked back to the head and sat down, Taylor scanned the room. Sitting at the table were some of the most stunning people she had ever seen in person. Any one of them could be photographed and placed on the cover of national magazines and look completely natural. There were five women and eleven men.

Upon sitting, Dionysus folded his hands and placed them on the table in front of him. “Now, gentlemen and ladies, we have some work to do. Thanks to Taylor, we now have the ability to finally win the Great War and defeat the greatest enemy that mankind has ever seen, the demon army. Commander Lewis, have you come up with a proposed strategy?”

A sturdy man with short white hair and a white goatee was standing in front of the longest wall in the room. Except for his hair color, his features were remarkably young looking; Taylor guessed he was between thirty- and thirty-five-years-old. His finger glowed as he touched the wall. A large screen appeared. On the screen was what appeared to be a satellite view of the valley they had flown over when they arrived at the mountain.

Motioning to the screen, he explained slowly for Taylor’s sake. “This is the battlefield and our forces are here.” He pointed to the left side of the map. “Tomorrow we have a large-scale battle scheduled with the demons. It is estimated that at least two-thirds of their forces will be exposed in the valley. The width of the battlefield is less than two miles wide, so based on the estimations we’ve been given, we should be able to impose mass devastation on the majority of the demon army within a few minutes. Would that be accurate, Gabriel?”

Gabriel replied confidently: “Based on our tests,” he said, looking at Taylor, “if a single angel harnesses her aura, we can, without question, vaporize anything within two miles.”

Commander Lewis smiled and rubbed his hands together greedily. “This is exactly the opportunity we have been looking for. The key will be to avoid killing our own forces with friendly fire. We will need to have our entire army out on the field to lure the demon forces into combat, but the Generals and I propose a synchronized maneuver, where at the exact moment that we fire the weapon our troops fly high in the air and out of the line of fire.”

“That could work,” Gabriel commented, “but the timing would need to be perfect. Too early and the demons will flee, suspecting the trap, and too late…well, I think we all know what that would mean.”

Dionysus stroked his chin. “Hmmmm,” he murmured. All eyes waited for him to speak. “I think it is the best plan we have at this point. We will separate the attack strategy from the defense strategy for voting purposes. Council, let’s put the attack strategy outlined by the Commander to a vote. Those in favor…” All of the Council members’ hands went up. Commander Lewis, the Generals, and Gabriel and Taylor remained still as they were not permitted to participate in the vote.

“Unanimous. Excellent. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Back over to you, Commander, for the defense strategy.” Dionysus motioned to Lewis, who had remained standing during the first vote.

“Thank you. While our primary goal is the complete obliteration of the demons, we have a secondary goal which is to protect the gir…I mean Taylor, from harm.” He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts.

Secondary goal
, Taylor thought. She squirmed uneasily in her chair. Gabriel noticed and grabbed her hand, holding it tightly under the table. She kicked him hard and he released her hand.

Lewis continued: “Now, we must do everything in our power to protect her, as without her, we cannot achieve our primary goal. She is our most valuable resource.”

Taylor was getting dizzy now. After the standing ovation, Dionysus kissing her cheek, and the “thank you’s”, she thought the angels’ respected her as a human.
Cannot achieve our primary goal. Most valuable resource.
All they really cared about was killing demons! Protecting her had nothing to do with caring about her human life; rather, it had to do with killing demons! She was pissed off and considered speaking her mind, but her dizziness was becoming unbearable. Gabriel seemed to sense the change in her body language and leaned close to steady her.

Gabriel interjected, “Sir, if I may. We’ve had a long trip today and I think it would be best if Taylor lies down for a while. Once the decisions have been made, Commander Lewis can fill us in on the details.”

Dionysus’s silky smooth, tender voice was back and he spoke directly to Taylor. “Certainly, my dear, how thoughtless of us to not think that you would be fatigued from the journey. Please go, have a rest and we can talk later as Gabriel suggested.”

Taylor didn’t think she would be able to speak without throwing up all over the War Room table, so she just nodded and pushed her chair back, standing up. Gabriel held her arm, trying to provide support if she needed it, but she shrugged him off. Noiselessly, they left the room, strode through the command center and then cut a path through a maze of six or seven twisting and turning hallways.

Taylor’s legs eventually failed her and Gabriel had to catch her from falling—she let him touch her this time. She felt weak. He swept her legs out from under her and picked her up, carrying her around a few more bends before taking her through a door to the left. Through her half-closed eyes she could see they were in a large, brightly-lit room with a king-sized bed, small kitchenette, and sitting area, complete with couch and love seat. Gabriel said, “We’re alone, you can rest now.”

“Bathroom,” she managed to groan.

He carried her into a lavish and sparklingly clean bathroom.

“Down,” she mumbled and he set her back on her feet. She immediately fell to her knees and vomited, desecrating the shiny white toilet.

Gabriel wet a washcloth and brought it to Taylor, kneeling beside her. “Are you okay?” he asked.

She coughed once, twice, and then snapped, “Do I look like I’m okay?” She snatched the wet cloth from him and wiped her mouth. Scrambling to her feet, Taylor unzipped her overnight bag, which was still hanging diagonally from her shoulder, and removed her travel toothbrush and a small tube of toothpaste. Ignoring Gabriel, who was hovering over her, she thoroughly brushed her teeth, thankful that the awful taste in her mouth and pangs of nausea had subsided.

Upon finishing, she pushed past Gabriel, moving out of the bathroom. She sat on the edge of the bed. Gabriel sat next to her, barely touching. They sat unspeaking for a minute. Gabriel seemed afraid to speak after the harsh response he had received the last time.

Finally, Taylor said, “They made it sound like I was a piece of meat in there, to be used up and thrown to the dogs!”

“I’m sorry about that, Taylor. They aren’t used to having humans around, especially in strategy sessions,” Gabriel replied, weakly defending his leaders.

“You told me that I was going to
help
the angels, not be
used
by them; there is a major difference!” Taylor shouted.

“I know, I know, you’re right. Let me talk to them about it. They’ve got their priorities mixed up. Their primary goal should be your protection and attacking the demons should be secondary.”

“No! I want to talk to them and tell them how repulsive their behavior was. Let me talk to them or I won’t help you,” Taylor demanded.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Taylor. The Council will respond better to me. They know me and trust me.”