Daystar (5 page)

“No.”
 
Barachiel shook his head.
 
“No, that is not possible.
 
It is not!
 
It is not!”

Furcas leaned back and moonlight reflected across his body.
 
“Hmm.
 
Think it will be a girl or a boy?
 
Can you tell that from your peeks?”

Barachiel gagged.
 
“No.
 
No.
 
No.
 
Not
you
.
 
Not you!”

Furcas grinned.
 
“You have nothing to offer me, Barachiel.
 
You won’t get me to come back and join your brainless squad.”

“You would not be like the rest of them!”
 
Barachiel glared at him.
 
“I had
plans
for you.”

“Oh, I bet you did.”
 
Furcas flew closer.
 
“I don’t want, never wanted, and will never want to be a part of them.”

Barachiel’s expression grew cold.
 
“Then there is no reason for you to continue.”
 
He dove at Furcas.

Furcas shot into the air and flipped over Barachiel.
 
He held on to the handles of the sickles as the chains shot forward.
 
The metal wrapped around the base of Barachiel’s four wings.
 
Furcas moved with a burst of speed and leapt on Barachiel’s back, using the sickles to hook onto the chains.
 
Furcas grinned and wrenched a wing sending them into a dive.
 
“Time to cut loose, Barachiel.
 
Let’s go for a little ride.”
 
Furcas summoned a current of air and blasted it into Barachiel’s wings.
 
They rocketed downwards.

Paimon watched them dive.
 
The guardian angels around him flashed blindingly white and followed Barachiel, only understanding the command to protect their Archangel.
 
They were not as fast as Furcas, they chased without catching them.
 
Furcas stood on Barachiel’s back and controlled his wings, sending them into corkscrews, dives, steep climbs.
 
All the while Barachiel cursed, unable to throw him off.
 
Furcas flashed Paimon a smile before soaring into a cloudbank.

Paimon grinned despite his fear for Furcas’ safety.
 
“Brilliant, clever, bastard!”
 
The sky around him emptied.
 
The space opened between him, the weapon, and his brother.
 
He shot into the sky at full speed.

***

Belial raced between angels that had fallen to the ground.
 
The snow around her was red and covered in corpses.
 
She recovered the blade Uriel had taken from her.
 
She leapt between ice elementals, taking the brunt of the attacks of fire and light that would have killed the Lilliam instantly.
 
Her skin burnt, blistered, healed, and flaked away.
 
Her armor came off in pieces.
 
She grinned for more and searched out her next victim.

Celeste slogged through angels, finishing off the ones Belial brought down.
 
She had lost much blood.
 
Her movements were slowed, but she could not stop.
 

Tokala shifted to a fox and landed on her back.
 
“You are too weak!”

Enraged, Celeste could not speak and barely recognized that he was an ally.
 
Her all consuming need was the fight.
 

Tokala barked and Varen came to his side.
 
He pressed himself into Celeste.
 
“She has lost too much blood.
 
She needs to stop.”

Celeste crawled towards the battle.
 
Varen looked between the pair.
 
He nodded at his brother and helped him grab her other arm.
 
The princes ran towards the medics with her between them.
 
She fought against them and screamed.

Belial continued her fight.
 
She looked up into the air.
 
“I am bored!
 
I want
more!
”
 
She drew the attention of angels away from the wounded around her.
 
They twisted their wings and sent fire racing towards her.

Belial danced through the flame, unheeding the pain it caused.
 
The angels focused their heat on her, not paying attention to anything else.
 
Banshees flew up behind them and wailed inches from their heads.
 
The angels passed out and fell towards the snow and Belial’s waiting blades.
 
Belial grinned and cut them into bloody pieces.
 
“Thanks!”

Helion dropped to his twin sister’s side.
 
“Belial, you are hurt.”

Belial cleaned her blades off on the snow.
 
“No Helion, my magpie, I am fine.”

“You are limping.”

“I will be fine, Helion, go!”
 
She backed away from him and raised her blades, scanning the skies.

Helion shook his head, but Whitney grabbed his hand.
 
“She can make her own decisions.
 
We have wounded to tend to.”

Helion nodded reluctantly and kicked off the ground, his black and blue wings blended into the night sky.
 

Belial watched her brother go and smiled.
 
She might never say it, but she was proud of him.
 

The flapping of wings filled the air behind her.
 
She whirled and sliced through an angel, as another scored her chest with a blade.
 
She summoned forth energy from her reserves and wailed, killing angels around her for dozens of yards.
 
She sucked in air and regained her footing.
 
Belial slashed the air.
 
“More!”

***

Andy’s assault forced Uriel to the snow-covered coast.
 
The pair fought across icy rocks and seaweed.
 
They hit the ocean and exchanged blows through frigid saltwater waves.
 
The sounds of their weapons and curses bounced off sea cliffs and out over the water.
 

Andy ran across the surface of the waves.
 
He knocked Uriel into a rock wall, shattering the stone on impact.

Uriel shrugged off the blow and falling rocks.
 
He laughed.
 
“Andrealphus, you cannot stand it!
 
Your anger is a vibrant thing!”

Andy grimaced and hit him, sending him up into sand and rocks.

Uriel flipped to his feet unscathed.
 
“Besides an amusement, what will this do, this fighting?
 
You cannot save Belial.”

“Save her?
 
She is safe!”
 
Andy trudged through the surf.

Uriel wiped seawater from his face and slicked back his blonde hair.
 
“Safe?
 
She is already gone, Andrealphus.
 
She never came back to you in Heaven.
 
You lost her before the Fall.”

“You lie!
 
Helion would know!”

“He
does
know, Andrealphus.
 
Ask him.
 
He has been keeping things from you.
 
They both have.”

“Shut up!”

Uriel grinned in the darkness.
 
“What is back there walking around in her skin is a cancer.
 
Open her up and all you will find is me.
 
She is
my
twin now, not Helion’s.
 
She is
my
lover; she will not be yours despite how you might wish it to be so.”

“Liar!”

“She is ruined, Andrealphus!
 
Face the truth!”

Andy raised the morning star over his head.
 
“If that were true you would no longer pursue her!”

“I treasure garbage.”
 
Uriel shrugged.
 
“Her whole shape amuses me.
 
And…even if a copy, she still whimpers just the same.”

Andy slammed the morning star across Uriel’s face, launching him into the surf.
 
He raced across the water and hit Uriel before he touched the sea.
 
“You disgusting, vile, creature!
 
She was innocence itself!
 
How could you do that to her?”

Uriel flipped end over end.
 
“If you had given her up to me in the first place none of this would have happened!”

“This is not my doing!
 
Do not blame me for
your
foul nature!”

“Really?”
 
Uriel dodged, but Andy landed a blow to his stomach.
 
He hit jagged rocks and grimaced as he picked himself up.
 
“If you had let me be with her in the first place everything would have been fine!
 
But you and Helion would not let me be with her.
 
I wanted to touch her, to make her happy, but neither of you would let me!
 
I
had
to intervene; it was not against her that I acted, but
you
.
 
She loved
me!
 
Me, Andrealphus!
 
But the both of you caused this to happen to her.
 
You
forced my hand!
 
You forced me to change her!”

“Fucking shut up!”
 
The rock around Andrealphus crumbled into dust.

Uriel backed away slowly.
 
“If
you
had not staked your claim, if
Helion
had just separated from her, she would have come to me.
 
Me!
 
But you
had
to be there, you both had to
interfere!
 
How could I compete with an Archangel or her twin for her attention?”
 
He snarled and opened his wings.
 
“I had to do what I did.
 
I
had
to!
 
We were meant for each other!”

“I said
shut
up!
”
 
Andy’s voice blasted Uriel into deeper water.

Uriel lowered his hands.
 
“Belial is better this way, Andrealphus.
 
She can only be with me now, as it should have been from the beginning.
 
She will only be happy with me.
 
Deep down, she knows this, Andrealphus.
 
She has not accepted it yet, but she knows.”

“You are fucked up!
 
She is happy with us!”

“She is only happy when she causes pain, when she feeds it.”
 
Uriel’s eyes burned blue in the darkness.
 
“Andrealphus, she is sick with me.
 
Accept this and let her go.”

Andy shook his head.
 
“She
will
get better.”

“No.”
 
Uriel looked at him sadly.
 
“She is dying.
 
Only I can cure her.”
 
He touched his chest where her heart beat inside him.
 
“
You
cannot save her.
 
You must give her to me, Andrealphus.”

“Fuck you!”
 
Andy kicked him in the face.
 
“I will never
give
her to you!”

Uriel swung around.
 
“Then she will die!”

“You lie!
 
I will not listen to this!”

Uriel grinned.
 
“You might not accept it now, Andrealphus, but my words will have their time.
 
When she dies, know that it is on you, only you.
 
You
will be the one to blame for her death.”

“Belial won’t die!”
 
Andy’s voice carried across the water and cut the waves.

“She will!”
 
Uriel gestured at Andrealphus.
 
“Ask her!
 
Belial wants to, begged me to do it while I—”

Andy kicked and punched in a blur.
 
He launched Uriel for miles.
 
He couldn’t listen to any more of these words.
 
He whirled around and dashed back to the battle, tears blurring his sight.
 

Uriel struck the ocean and hit a chunk of ice.
 
He laughed into the night, his face as gleeful as a child’s.

***

Paimon flew through the shield and entered into space.
 
His flesh took on a greenish-blue glow.
 
He exhaled against the cold and difference in pressure, nothing like what he remembered.
 
He found it odd after so many eons as a physical creature.
 
He shook himself out.
 
He adjusted his jet pack and gave himself one burst to send him towards the machine.
 
Gabriel was nowhere in sight.