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JEDIAH SNAPPED AWAKE. Brown and white specks floated around him. A cold substance slinked along his limbs on every side, and he had the strangest feeling gravity had weakened. Confused as to where he was, he peered at a light that filtered through a clear, moving surface above. Only after standing up did he realize he was at the bottom of an underground pool. He reached up. His hand broke past the waterline, planted a firm hold on the surface and dragged himself out.
The cave walls around him formed a large bowl. Numerous tunnels leaked streams that fed the underground lake he stood upon, but before he could decide whether to pick a path or try phasing upward to reach his brothers, something stirred the atmosphere. Jediah grabbed his sword. The disturbance hummed in a low register like the rumbling of a greedy stomach.
“Well, well,” a voice lulled. “A juicy morsel has entered my den.”
Jediah’s eyes widened. He flinched at the padding of hurried steps. A feline’s eye-shine flashed and disappeared, startling him into slashing the air.
“You know, this scenario is strangely familiar to me,” the voice crooned with a purr. Whoever stalked Jediah kept moving from place to place; his tonal inflections kept changing. “Now, where have I seen this before? Oh, yes. I remember. This is how they slew several of your precious saints before me. I believe it went something like this.”
A lion roared, and the tunnels vibrated under Jediah’s boots.
The stranger yawned. “But I’ll admit, feeding the beasts got old for me after a while. Coliseum games could get boringly tedious.”
Jediah glared to the right. “I know it’s you, Lucifer!”
“Hm,” the voice hummed from behind. “The sitting duck screams like an eagle.”
Whipping around, Jediah scowled and shouted, “Mock all you want. You’re still destined to lose. You and your ilk.”
Clapping noises bounced around the arena. The audible clutter reverberated too loud to discern its source. “Bravo. Bravo. Got anymore speeches?”
A breath tickled Jediah’s neck. The angel turned but again slashed empty air, and a mocking laughter resounded. Jediah released a single wing and shot light in the loudest direction. It hit nothing, and the shadows it cleared dipped back.
“You’re wasting your time on me, and on Chloe,” Lucifer hissed. “She can’t help you anymore than you can help her. And you can’t even touch me.”
Jediah’s wings flared, illuminating the place. “Begone, Lucifer! You’re like the rest of your lot. Liars!”
“Like the rest, you say?” Lucifer commented. Foul saliva plopped on Jediah’s forehead and smeared down his face. He looked up. The great demon himself shifted his chameleon colors and grinned down at him. “I assure you.” His pupils tightened to slits. Fangs multiplied in his jaw. “None are like me.”
Lucifer’s face split to two, then four, then seven. Each head drew apart on sprouting necks. Their faces lengthened. Their toothed maws grew to sizes large enough to swallow cattle whole. Crimson scales glowed like cinders and spread across his body. Horned prongs crowned his heads, and his fingers and toes mutated bones large enough to support his growing muscles pound for pound.
Jediah hyperventilated. The sword shook in his hands.
The great dragon dropped from the ceiling. All fourteen blood coated eyes locked onto him, and all seven heads spoke in unison, “This game ends here.”
Jediah barrel rolled from scythe-sized talons. He dove underwater, escaped chomping teeth, and emerged on the other side, flying for an open tunnel.
Satan’s massive tail swatted him into the high wall. Ears ringing, Jediah flopped on a high ledge. His sword clattered two feet away. Fighting the vertigo, he crawled to reach it, but a huge hand pinned him down.
“That silly toothpick can’t help you,” Lucifer mocked. His fingers tightened, crushing Jediah and squeezing more energy out of his shoulder.
In a frantic burst, Jediah wriggled one arm free. He threw his hand out, nabbed his sword, and drove its sharp point up Lucifer’s nail between the skin and cuticle. The Devil hollered. Huge red drops seeped down Jediah’s blade as he wedged it in deeper.
Finally, Lucifer let go. Jediah gasped and clutched his bruising torso. He gripped the wall, pulling himself up, and looked down from his ledge.
One of Lucifer’s heads ripped the sword from his finger and spat it out of reach into the pool.
***
Tangling with Elazar taxed Nechum’s energy. The minutes wore on as they wrestled, and unlike himself, it seemed Elazar wasn’t close to tired. Nechum’s arms shook from weariness as Elazar leaned into their locked hands. In a spurt of desperation, Nechum leaned left, using Elazar’s opposing strength to send him falling forward. Elazar stumbled. Nechum swept his leg, then conjured a force-field and caged him to the ground.
Victorious, Nechum released a relieved laugh. He couldn’t believe he won, but then Elazar’s eyes glowed. The demon pressed both palms into the ground, and his resulting shield broke the earth in all directions, throwing Nechum off his feet. Falling but aware of Elazar charging him, Nechum blocked his blow with a barrier.
The opponents panted and stared at each other through the azure veil. After an uneventful moment, Nechum wondered if Elazar might give up. After all, he had Chloe’s letter and all the clues Elazar needed to track her down, but so long as he shielded himself, Elazar couldn’t get to it. Nechum rued himself for not thinking of that sooner.
But then Elazar turned his eyes toward the others—toward his wounded brothers left exposed and in the open. Nechum paled as Elazar chuckled, “You can’t protect them and yourself at the same time.” The demon pulled out a dagger and threw it.
“No!” Nechum raised a shield that blocked the knife from hitting Eran, but just as he and Elazar already knew, very few of their kind could maintain two large shields at once.
Elazar’s punch compressed Nechum’s torso. Nechum clutched his throbbing stomach and coughed. The following blows battered his ears and cheeks and forced him to roll over. Pressing his forehead to the ground, Nechum covered his head to protect his face. Strong hands groped for his collar. They reached into his tunic, aimed to steal Jediah’s letter, but Nechum flattened his chest against the floor, pinning the envelope firmly between himself and the stones.
Elazar grunted in frustration and pounded Nechum’s neck, but the angel crossed his arms beneath his chest and locked them tight. Elazar would not get Chloe. Not if he could help it.
“Pest,” Elazar spat.
In the corner of his eye, Nechum saw a long red cord, razor thin, form and extend from Elazar’s palm. The whip cracked once, smacking the air. The next crack cut a slit in Nechum’s tunic. “That was a warning,” Elazar growled. “Hand over the letter.”
Nechum regulated his breaths. He scrunched his eyes closed. “Mene, mene, tekel, parsin,” he responded between gasps. “God has weighed you. God has measured you, and you will forever be in wanting.”
***
Jediah sped down a tunnel too tight for the dragon to fit, but he knew better than to rest. Angry hisses cut the air. Serpent Lucifer slithered faster than Jediah could run and bowled him over.
Jediah twisted around. The green body coiled and fanned a skin hood. Lidless eyes rose high on a column of muscle, but once the snake struck, Jediah grabbed its fangs and kicked it in the eye. Lucifer recoiled, banging his head against the ceiling.
Jediah clapped his wings, but the Devil, as the monstrous lion, dismissed the wispy light like drops of rain. Lucifer’s massive paws padded closer and exposed every yellowed claw. His shoulders rolled on one side then the other as he crouched on his haunches.
Jediah stumbled backwards, but his back hit a dead end. Stamina low and his shoulder wound taking its toll, he didn’t have the energy needed to phase through the stones. He gasped his breaths, almost ready to collapse. A meaty paw swatted him into the opposite wall.
Everything in Jediah’s being seemed to implode. Himself in a state of shock, he slid down onto compacted dirt. He opened a single eye—the one thing that didn’t hurt to move. Lucifer the lion followed the gold streaks that led up to him, as does a hound to a wounded creature.
The lion rose on two legs, shed its mane, and walked. The bottom paws sprouted sandaled toes. Brown fur peeled off his face, and Lucifer’s arms were then robed in purple and scarlet. His four wings expanded behind him as he crouched over Jediah and stroked his feathers. “Tis’ a tragedy,” he said. “You’re gifted with immortality, yet somehow you waste it acting like you’re as good as dead.... You don’t even know the meaning of the word ‘dead’.... Let me help you with that.”
Lucifer squeezed Jediah’s neck and wrapped his fingers around the base of his left wing.
Crack!
Jediah screamed without a voice as the sinews in his left wing snapped like thread. His feathers spasmed in mad protests.
Then Lucifer tore at the second.
Crunch!
Jediah laxed, senseless.
Both amputated wings were heaped together at the Devil’s feet. Reaping them from the floor, the loathsome creature unhinged his jaw to an unnatural length. Fire leaped out, soldering the wings’ bleeding ends closed. Then, while their roots still glowed, Lucifer gritted his teeth and pressed them hard into the middle of his back. Electrical reds and yellows sputtered and sparked. Jediah’s golden feathers veined red, and Lucifer fanned the new pair of wings with his original four. “Thank you, Jediah, for your cooperation. Oh, and to ensure you don’t regrow those too fast...” He reopened his fiery maw.
***
Gold stained Elazar’s knuckles as he punched the back of Nechum’s head for the seventeenth time. As frail as that ministry angel was, he was every bit as stubborn. No amount of whipping or pounding could get him to budge.
“Having trouble?”
Elazar stood up as Lucifer entered. His six wings waved in magnificence like they had always belonged together—except the middle set’s muddied coloration didn’t quite match. Lucifer tossed the roasted lump he was carrying. Jediah rolled unconscious with scalded burn marks across his bared back.
To Elazar’s chagrin, Lucifer shoved him aside. “Here,” he said. “Allow me.” All six of his wings clapped. A wave of red and gold struck Nechum, knocking him far across the room into a smoking heap. In moments, Lucifer stooped over the angel, returned, and slapped Chloe’s letter into Elazar’s chest. “This is yours. And these,” he motioned to Jediah’s wings, “are mine.” He walked toward the exit. “Come. It’ll take time to muster our legions to seize the Abyss, and our old friends have waited for us long enough.”
“You mean your old friends,” Elazar countered.
Lucifer laughed and waved a dismissive hand. “Fine. Stay. I don’t really care. We both got what we wanted.”
Elazar stood in silence. He drank in the sight of Jediah, his enemy, beaten and stripped. It was just like he wanted, but as his anger began slipping away, Elazar encountered an emptiness. His fleeting wrath left a hole. After five millennia of obsessing for his justice, something yet remained unachieved.
Elazar heard someone growl from behind and looked back.
Several feet away, Laszio dragged himself with one arm. He winced and repressed gasps with every centimeter, but the storm in his eyes bore into Elazar. Eran, who laid beside him, restrained him with one hand. Their eyes locked together, and Elazar sensed a silent conversation play out between the two. Laszio’s head bent down. His shoulder blades convulsed, and Eran, using his right wing, wrapped Laszio and drew him close to his side.
The scene fixated Elazar in place. There before him were Jediah’s wingmen, yet instead of Laszio and Eran, he saw two very different angels... Jediah and himself... from another time and another place.
The rage Elazar missed rekindled. There was but one way to add devastating insult to Jediah’s injury. He crinkled the letter and shook it in his fist. “You two tell Jediah I’ll give Chloe Jack’s regards.”