The Taking (24 page)

I spin and place my hands on the closest demon. He screams out in pain as my white light pierces the skin. When I remove my hands, large ugly burns glow on the skin I touched. I do the same to the next one, my hands finding skin easily alongside the demons’ sarong type clothing with a strap over the shoulder, showing off the demons gaunt chest. These touches are working better than the breaking of the bones, so I continue with them. As I rotate to encounter the next demon, I take a look at their prisoners. They are watching the gaps between the fighting, but every time they think they have a chance to run the gap closes, sealed by a demon.
 

My eyes turn back to my fight. Three demons are closing in at the same time. This could be tricky. I get my hands ready for two of them, but I don’t know what to do with the third. My hands dash out touching two of them at once on the torso. There’s that screaming cat again. I prepare to reach for the third when I notice that they are already stretching for me. The gnarly hand reaches my boundary and touches it. They howl in pain, but it does not deter them for they continue to prod at my barrier. I feel the fizzle every time, but I set it up from the start, so the power is still running strong unlike the day at Ethan’s. The others are putting up a good fight yet unwelcome touches from the demons slip through their defences, weakening them with every touch. If too many get through to them, the battle will end much like the one the day we went to protect Ethan and failed. I have to stop this now.
 

My eyes look for my victim, and I find her still laying on the ground. The deep-seated swirling in my stomach begins to churn stronger. I feel it escalating, energised as I watch the woman still clutching her womb and barely moving on the grassy ground.
 

Pushing past the demons, I jump in the air and hover, flapping my wings while I wait for the energy within to gather further. Following my instincts my body spins in the air in tight rotations as I rise up, and up. When I feel the time is right, I dash in the air toward the group and slam to the ground in a squat with my palm facing down on the grass. A sonic pulse mixed with white light leave my body, crashing into the ground and springing across it like a mushroom.
 

It brought back memories of when we were in Somalia. Hopeful for the same effect, I gaze up to look at the group. My heart cheers as I see that the circling demons have disappeared leaving the group of humans unguarded.
 

I rise to my feet, and I begin to run to the lady when I hear Ben’s voice in my head. “
Aurora, wait
.”

My eyes search the group in front of me and my body cringes. In the centre of the people, the gatekeeper pushes his way to the front and stands mocking me with his cackle. His eye flicks to Zacharias and passes over his mutilated wings. He sniffs the air in his direction as the eye continues to study the cranky old face. After a while, his cracked lips split into what I have worked out to be his smile, showing off the few yellow teeth spread through his mouth. He chuckles. It is different than his call for Separus but still manages to send tingles down my spine.

“Yes, yes.” The s is dragged out to an eerie length. His bulging eye does not leave Zacharias. “You look old, my friend.”

Friend?
Startled, my eyes flick to Zacharias and I see his face scowling worse than I have witnessed so far.
No, not a friend.

“Old, but you still smell the same.” He sniffs the air again. “The same but dirtier, soiled, and impure.” The cackle sounds; this time it is the call. “So how’s life without your wings?”

Zacharias body is completely tense, and I can see he is using all of his willpower not to dash forward for revenge.
 

The gatekeeper must have had something to do with the grounding of Zacharias. Now I really know just how lucky I was that Archangel Gabriel rescued us when they did.
 

I expect to see Separus turn up at any second, and I keep my eyes peeled. The entrapped people begin to run away from the gatekeeper, and I inwardly cheer them on. I stop in my tracks when the gatekeeper waves his hand and a large black hole appears next to the group.
 

My mouth drops as I watch approximately the same amount of demons exit out of this dark space and stand around the humans. In the middle, the pregnant lady is curled in the foetal position, desperate to protect her unborn baby from the stamping of the surrounding people as tears ooze down her face to the ground.
 

Zacharias, Cindy and Ben prepare to attack again. They are beginning to look tired, each one having been touched several times already by the demons without enough time to recover. The cackle of the gatekeeper sounds as he once again disappears somewhere. I prepare to land some more hands on demons. I find it odd how they all look so much the same that I could swear they were made from the same mould — the mould of Separus. Egyptian Axes, Chakram and Butterfly Swords start swinging with each step the demons make nearer to us while keeping the people hostage. Eventually, a gap forms in the demons circle long enough for a couple of prisoners to run through and escape. They flee toward the entrance of Tatev Monastery. My mother with the dagger still sticking out of her womb remains in the middle, each second another moment closer to the death of the baby’s, hers, or both. I focus, charged by their desperation. I fly with extra vivacity. They have to be saved.
 

After a while of fighting, I see the others beginning to fail while the touches incurred from the demons meet their skin. Once again I begin my gathering of the white light then eventually when I feel ready, let it loose forming the nuclear bomb shaped explosion, wiping out the current demons.
 

The entrapped people spread, trying to escape before any other demons show. Zacharias, Cindy and Ben take time to recuperate, watching the people disperse, and I rush to the centre to the mother I accidently injured. The area around her has finally cleared. Black shoeprints mark her skin where she has been trampled but thankfully not too much. Kneeling down at her side, I see beads of perspiration dripping from her forehead. I gently wipe it away instantly feeling the scorch of the fever with my hand.
 

While Zacharias keeps guard, Cindy comes to cushion her head, stroking it softly and Ben rushes to my side and helps me roll her to her back. He glances at me, his eyes filled with concern and speaks in my head.
I’ll pull the dagger out. You get your hands ready to heal her and take away as much pain as possible. Otherwise, she is going to lose too much vital amniotic fluid
.

Nodding, I clench my jaw shut anticipating the additional pain she is about to go through. I prepare to heal the hole that the dagger caused first, to seal off all loss of blood or fluid as quickly as possible.

He yanks the dagger out quickly, trying to minimalize the pain. Even though she has nearly passed out, her scream fills the air and her back arches. I concentrate on healing, trying to block out her screams of pain. I feel the different layers of skin seal back together even the layer on the almost fully developed baby inside. Her screaming subsides as the last layer of skin draws back together. I then focus on healing the damage of the internal parts of the body.

I am not sure what damage may be caused because of the blade being inserted with angelic power. I dig deep focusing on the baby inside. The dagger has pierced into its back. The skin has sealed but the spinal cord needs instant attention, or the baby will never be able to walk. I sense the nerves and cord seal back together with everything moving back into place. While I am there, I probe further to see that the overall baby’s health is in good shape. My eyes open wide and I jerk back almost letting go.
 

- Chapter Twenty-One -

“What’s wrong?” Cindy asks.
 

With my eyes still wide in shock, I look at her. “It’s triplets.” I gaze down at the mother; her eyes are sealed shut. “She is carrying triplets,” I say as though speaking this out loud again would make this information set in.
 

“It’s a good thing that you got to her in time to heal them.” Cindy strokes the mum’s forehead some more.
 

“Were they all injured?” Ben still has my golden, bloodied dagger in his hand, his Butterfly Swords tucked away in their sheath behind his back.

I shake my head slightly. “No, only one. It was stabbed through the spine, but it is healed now. The mother must have somehow protected her womb from being trampled.”

I finish the final healing of the mother. Her eyes remain closed, but after what she has been through a little extra rest would not hurt.
 

Satisfied that I finally managed to reach the mother to heal her, and ecstatic that all four of them were saved, I rise to my feet. The people trapped in the centre of the demons are still trying to flee up the rocky mountain to the level of the road leading to the Monastery.
 

Cindy’s eyes are working overtime scouring the area. “It is not over.” Her voice holds the chill of icicles. “I can feel it. Their presence is still here, and it is strong — like many of them are around.” Her sight falls briefly to the mother. “We need to get her out of here.”

She does not need to warn us twice. After handing back my dagger, Ben scoops the mother and carries her to Zacharias.
 

I am about to follow him when I hear a gasp from Cindy. Looking up, I see the opening of a black portal has cut me off. Several demons file out entrapping the petrified people once again with some of them flying to round up the almost escaped people like cattle back to the centre. Their terrified shrieks fill my ears as the gatekeeper hovers out of the hole with his long stick in hand, and the eerie cackle fills the air. The exposed bulging eye studies me as he stands a little over a metre away. Tired of his antics, I raise my hands ready to fight. They are fired up with the white light, as is my protective barrier. He is not draining me of my energy again.
 

As he hovers closer, his one eyebrow rises. He stretches out his upper body and sniffs the air around me and cackles again. My body freezes momentarily with the sinister atmosphere that comes with that sound. “I have found you pretty, pretty angel.” He reaches out his knuckly hand bound with wrinkly, dark skin. I think he is about to touch me, so I knock it away with a body block. The smell of sizzled skin fills my nose, and I want to be sick. His arm is branded with my angelic burn. Despite the pain my touch must have caused him, one side of his mouth lifts in what looks like a smile. A movement crosses behind him in the darkness of the portal. I shiver when I imagine what must be in there, and this feeling is encouraged when I hear Cindy’s stressed breathing behind me.

As the people are again joined in a circle of demons, the gatekeeper’s mouth lifts in a half-smile, and he says, “You must come with me.”

“I don’t think so,” I say. The power is welling within me, and I fly a short distance into the sky, spin then slam to the ground. My palm is ejecting the energy into an angelic explosion, overtaking the surrounding demons. Again the people flee to the hill. They must be exhausted by now. Each time the power extracts from my energy. It is not a problem if I have time to recover.
 

The gatekeeper had disappeared with his portal briefly as I attacked but returns as soon as the surge has passed. The cackle sounds and I stare into the portal expecting Separus to appear at any second. “You can continue doing that as much as you like, pretty. One demon — many demons killed, means nothing to me. I have plenty more.”
 

He waves a hand at the portal and for a brief moment I can see inside. Hundreds, if not thousands of demons wait just on the other side. Cindy sucks in a sharp breath, and my face turns cold.
 

“I can release more of these every time you think you have defeated them. The people will continue to be tormented and eventually your energy will fade, leaving your fellow angels also open to being defeated.” He smirks wider. “So, you must come with me.”
 

Deep down I know he is right. I have seen the other angels weaken rapidly, when touched by the demons and with that many demons, the possibility of them winning is slim unless joined by a powerful archangel.
 

Don’t go.
I hear Ben’s voice in my head.
We will be alright. We can fight.

We will weaken too quickly
, I project to him.
 

I have called for the help of the archangels. They will be with us soon
. Ben says inside my head as I see him come around the side of the portal, his arms now empty.

The mother?
I ask internally.
 

Zacharias has taken a quick trip to the Monastery with her. He will be back soon
. He projects.
 

A cry of fear sounds from the group of people surrounded by the demons. It has to be stopped. I sneer at the gatekeeper, “Let the people go.”