Demon Evolution (28 page)

Ignoring the jab, Dionysus threatened, “I
would be happy to do a lot worse to the parents that raised their
son to be a massive traitor to his people. But that’s not part of
the plan today unless you want it to be,” he added.

“No!” Gabriel blurted out. While he didn’t
want to cooperate with the vile creature before him, he had to be
careful not to push him too far.

“Good.” Picking up where he had left off
earlier, Dionysus said, “Second, we didn’t just bring you to this
place because we thought the view was nice, we brought you here for
a purpose. For a game, you might say.” He paused for effect, but
Gabriel remained stone-faced, trying to appear unsurprised by
anything that the madman threw at him. “Where was I? Ah, yes, a
game! Many years ago the angels and demons held tests of
hand-to-hand combat skills here. I would like to renew that
tradition today.”

“And what if I refuse to fight?” Gabriel
asked, knowing full-well that he would have to fight.

“Then you die.” The head of the Archangels
croaked out the last word, making death sound even worse than it
is, if that’s possible. “But I think you
will
want to fight
the angel that has volunteered.”

“Let me guess: tall, full of himself, fights
like a girl? I think his name was Pucas. No wait, that’s not right,
it was Lucas.”

Dionysus was not amused by Gabriel’s wit.
“Enough talk. Bring in the warrior!” he roared.

From behind Gabriel’s family, Lucas rose from
the cliffs below, his wings beating gracefully. Wearing full body
armor, Lucas looked impenetrable compared to Gabriel’s exposed
skin. After flying over the heads of the Archangels and guards,
Lucas hovered for a moment, and then retracted his wings, landing
in a low crouch like a ninja. “We meet again. I said we would,”
Lucas sneered.

“Well, aren’t you just a regular walking,
talking damn psychic,” Gabriel taunted.

Lucas began walking forward towards Gabriel,
but Dionysus stopped him with a sharp, “Not yet!” Frozen in his
tracks, Lucas waited dumbly. “We have another surprise for you,
traitor.”

Great
, Gabriel thought.

“Bring in Lucas’s apprentice!” Dionysus
commanded.

Following the same path that Lucas had, a
pair of bright forms rose up, just as the last rays of sun beamed
across the valley. Temporarily blinded by the sudden burst of
light, Gabriel couldn’t quite make out the faces of the beings. He
could tell that one was tall with long hair, presumably a female,
and the other was shorter, but not by much. As he shielded his eyes
with a hand, Gabriel heard his mom scream, “Noo! David, what are
you doing?”

His heart sank.
This explained why
Dionysus had told him that David would not be joining his family.
He had been kidnapped and was probably being brainwashed already.
The sun sank below the horizon, and Gabriel saw the cold face of
his brother, who had now landed behind Lucas but in front of the
guards. Their stares locked, and while Gabriel’s eyes softened,
David’s remained hard and emotionless.

“David, I—”

“Shut it!” David’s escort ordered. Distracted
by David’s sudden appearance, Gabriel hadn’t noticed who was
holding the boy’s hand, leading him onto the rock.
Another
surprise.
It was Cassandra. As her blond hair swished gently on
the breeze, her lips formed into an ugly sneer. While some men
would consider her devastatingly beautiful, Gabriel could only see
her as ugly. Pure evil filled the hole where her heart used to be.
Gabriel remembered a time when they had been friends, good friends
even. But those times were long past and Cassandra would always
resent Gabriel for not wanting to take their relationship past the
friendship stage. Now she was glaring at him.

Helena broke the silence caused by
Cassandra’s outburst. “David, why are you doing this?” she
pleaded.

Looking back, David said, “If you love
Gabriel, you will cooperate. This is the only way we can save him.”
Turning his head back to Gabriel, he said firmly, “Turn yourself
in, brother. We can help you. I can help you. Please listen to
me.”

Gabriel looked to the heavens for an answer
of some kind, but hearing nothing, just said, “David, you don’t
know what you’re talking about. You have the story all wrong and if
you just stay with Mom and Dad, they’ll tell you the truth. I will
save you all.”

“No, Gabriel, you won’t. You’ll contaminate
us with your filth. They said you would try to lie, but please
don’t. No more lies. Just turn yourself in.”

Gabriel was rattled. This was
not
his
brother. Not the innocent boy he had climbed trees and played
football with. Not the boy who had looked up to him, who wanted to
be like him. This was a robot, a product of Dionysus’s darkest
thoughts. He was not going to convince David today, not now. Maybe
never. Focus. Focus. Focus.

Suddenly he was angry. Ravenously angry.
Dangerously angry. Angry enough to kill. He leapt at Lucas,
simultaneously drawing his sword. The swiftness of his attack was
unexpected, and Lucas was unable to protect himself. With a flash
of light, Gabriel’s searing white sword slashed across Lucas’s
chest plate. The armor probably saved his life, because Gabriel’s
strike was so precise, so powerful, that the steel tore in half as
easily as if it were nothing more than paper.

Although he was still wearing arm and leg
guards, Lucas’s chest was now exposed, significantly evening the
fight. After being knocked back, Lucas had drawn his sword and
leapt to his feet, recovering quickly.

Gabriel risked a glance at David. Cassie had
pushed him behind her protectively, but Gabriel could see that his
brother was watching the fight with wide eyes.

Lucas charged, his face seething with rage,
but Gabriel managed to side step and avoid the attack while, at the
same time, using his fist to fire two small light orbs at his
opponent. Lucas took one in the chest and the other in the
shoulder. Grunting with pain he went down hard, crashing to the
ground in a heap.

Just to keep things fair, Cassie jumped into
the fray, slashing viciously with two small daggers. Gabriel was
able to deflect her first five strokes with his sword, but the
sixth snuck through and glanced off of his left bicep, producing a
foot-long gash. Taking a moment to inspect the wound—it was not too
deep, merely a flesh wound, as they say—Gabriel was unaware of
Lucas, who had regained his feet, circling in behind him.

A sixth-sense alerted him to the attack. It
came from both sides, with Cassie whipping her short swords around
like batons and Lucas stabbing at him from the back. Just before
Lucas’s sword would have impaled him, Gabriel ducked sharply and
thrust his sword upwards with both hands, simultaneously blocking a
two-sword attack from Cassie. Metal clanged on metal.

Next, Gabriel rolled to the side out of
harm’s way, and then fired ten rounds of light orbs at each of his
attackers. While both Cassie and Lucas were ready for the
counterattack and easily blocked the balls of light with their
weapons, the distraction gave Gabriel the opportunity to rush to
David. When he tried to pick his brother up to fly him away, David
squirmed free and swiped at Gabriel’s leg.

At first Gabriel didn’t understand what had
happened. Why would his brother punch him in the leg?
Then he
felt the pain.
Looking down, the white blood was already
pooling at his feet. A black knife had been thrust into his thigh—a
demon’s knife.
David must have been hiding it up his sleeve or
beneath his robe
, he thought. Reaching down, Gabriel tried to
wrench the sharp metal from his flesh, but it wouldn’t budge.
Already he could feel the demon magic working its way through his
blood.

A demon knife was an incapacitator, not a
killer. Eventually, the demon poison would arrest his heart and
brain, sending him into a coma-like trance that would sideline him
for at least a week. So this was Dionysus’s plan: use his own
brother against him to capture him. He felt violated, cheated.

He had five minutes—maybe ten if he could
generate enough adrenaline to dilute the poison—before he would be
weakened beyond recovery. He needed to make the most of it. Fight
or flight? With his family at stake, he would surely fight.

“W
hy don’t we just
go in now?” Taylor asked anxiously. She was watching Gabriel speak
to Dionysus. She was perched on a nearby cliff, using binoculars to
get a clear view of the action. Kiren and Sampson were doing the
same and were waiting for Chris’s signal to teleport in.

Chris said, “Because we need to ensure we
have a clear picture of the situation. It’s my guess that Dionysus
will have a few more tricks up his sleeve that he has not yet
revealed.” They had already discussed the situation with the demon
being tethered to the Knights. To deal with it, Chris would have to
perform a pinpoint teleport—landing practically on top of the
demon—and then teleport them all away while trying to kill or
incapacitate the demon. It sounded impossible.

Taylor continued watching nervously. It was
hard for her to stand by and watch while Gabriel stood alone
against at least twenty angels. But she would try to trust
Chris.

Soon enough, they found out his guess was
right.

They watched as first Lucas and then Cassie
and David made their appearance. “Damn, that’s Gabriel’s brother,
David. I met him once. Why is he with that witch, Cassie?” Taylor
wondered aloud. “What are they saying, Sampson?”

Sampson tilted his highly-sensitive ear
towards the action and listened for a few minutes. “You don’t want
to know, Taylor.”

“Tell me anyway.”

Grudgingly, Sampson said, “David is now
Lucas’s apprentice. He believes Gabriel is a traitor and needs to
be taken by the angels to be helped.”

“But that’s crazy, David adores Gabriel!”

“Not anymore. He’s been brainwashed.”

“Wait a minute, the fight’s starting!” Chris
yelled.

“Teleport me,” Taylor insisted.

“Not yet, let’s wait and see what happens
first. We only have one chance at using the element of surprise to
our advantage. Let’s not waste it.”

Taylor pumped her fist a few times as Gabriel
began winning the fight. When Cassie doubled up on him, she said
again, “Chris, can we please go now?”

“Not yet,” he replied flatly.

They saw Gabriel perform a brilliant move to
avoid a duel-attack and then watched in astonishment as he raced
for David. “He’s going to rescue him!” Taylor yelled. And then:
“What the—? What happened?”

Sampson, whose normal eyesight was even
better than those who were using binoculars, said glumly, “David
stabbed him. It was a demon knife.”

“Oh no,” Chris said.

“Dammit, Chris! Can we go NOW!” Taylor
demanded.

“Yes, now is the time,” Chris confirmed.
“Change of plans, guys. I will teleport Taylor and then leave her.
She will distract everyone—I think we can be sure of that.
Kiren—two minutes after I leave Taylor, you guys teleport into the
midst of the Council and hit anyone you can. I will follow you and
grab Gabriel’s family.”

“What about an escape plan?” Sampson asked
urgently.

“We’ll probably have to play it by ear, but I
will be gone already, so Kiren will have to be responsible for
getting Gabriel and Taylor out, unless I can get back fast enough.
Sampson, if you’re able to teleport out with them, do it, but if
not, you’ll just have to fly back to the Lair like a bat out of
hell. Let’s go!” Taylor was still processing everything he had said
when Chris grabbed her hand. Faster than she could blink, they were
gone.

G
abriel lay on the
ground, pretending to writhe in pain. Sure, it hurt, but not so
much that he couldn’t stand up. In his peripheral vision he could
see Lucas approaching—there was a cockiness in his stride. He
probably thought that Gabriel would be in a coma soon, the battle
already over.

But not to Gabriel. As he lay on the ground,
he was desperately charging up his body for his final stand.

When Lucas got within a yard of him, Gabriel
suddenly pointed both hands at him and fired off a single, massive
light orb. Lucas raised his sword to try to block the attack, but
the force was too powerful. His sword shattered into a thousand
tiny pieces, spraying him with metal shrapnel. The orb crashed into
his chest, launching him backwards fifty yards.

Using a karate-style leap to regain his feet,
Gabriel turned his attention to Cassie, who was now crouched, her
teeth bared. She hissed at him like an animal. He sprang at her,
swinging his sword with reckless abandon, as if it were as light as
a toothpick. After a dozen lightning-quick strokes, Gabriel had
disarmed her and had the point of his sword pointed at her neck. “I
win,” he growled. “Give me my family.”

“Bravo! Bravo, Gabriel!” Dionysus said,
clapping slowly as he passed through his line of guards. “I really
didn’t think you had it in you. Unfortunately, I can’t satisfy your
request. You see, the duel was just for my own amusement and you
know as well as I do that I was never going to let your family
go.”

Gabriel’s legs suddenly froze up and he
nearly toppled over. Using his sword as a cane he was barely able
to maintain his balance. Seizing the opportunity, Cassie rolled
away and retrieved her weapons. Rapidly, she stuck one to his
exposed neck. Gabriel could see the fury in her eyes—her animal
instincts were likely urging her to finish him off.

“Stop!” a female voice yelled.