Angel of the Damned

AotD - 9

       The ornate door hadn’t budged since Lucifer vanished from the room. It had no handles, grips, slides, keyholes or visible mechanisms of any kind to open it. Two natural torches illuminated the door, casting their light across it.  The door’s surface of knobs and strips on metal cast strange shadows over it and gave it an eerie look.

       Her hand moved almost subconsciously and she touched the door. It’s surface rippling like water beneath her touch.. She instantly withdrew her hand, taking a few hesitant steps back from the door. She clutched to the rosary to her chest as she reached out once more.  Her fingers slid through the door, disappearing from sight into the bronze. A wet sensation covered her hand before a harsh, dry wind blew across her finger tips. Hastily retracting her hand once more, she inspected it for damage. She furrowed her eyes brows and marveled her dry, unmarked skin.  Extending her mental probes, grasping for a foothold in something’s mind on the other side of the liquid door but nothing opened it’s mind to her or made itself known.

       She reached up, made a sign of the cross hastily before clutching the rosary, squeezed her eyes shut and stepped through the door. The wetness she’d felt earlier coated her entire body, sending a shiver of cold through her spine. Then the harsh wind she felt earlier bit into her skin and face. Her eyes opened slowly before she gasped. Spread out below her a massive jungle of magma and black stone could be seen from her spot on the small ledge to the horizon. Bright red birds flew through the air, bits of magma falling from their wings and filling the air with razor sharp projectiles as they cooled and became sharp. Far below her, a rocky clearly at the base of the cliff had just enough room to land if she wanted to risk walking through the jungle.

       Ebony turned back to the door and encountered a solid stone wall. She touched it and found cool stone below her fingers, no give or ripple in the appearance. She turned back to the forest and she fumbled around with the suits controls until the back slid back into the belt.. Clenching her teeth at a slice of pain up her back as her wings unfurled and they stretched out for the first time since she woke up at Drake’s place in Arkane. She slipped the rosary over her head and stepped off the shelf, plunging into an exhilarating freefall. The wind rushed past her, ripping and tearing at her hair while bringing tears to her unprotected eyes.  It filled her wings, ruffling past the feathers, ticking the skin below. She snapped them down, slowing her descent and another sent her upwards into the sky. She soared up and flew out over the forest, searching the horizon for a break in the black towers and red streams..

       Several of the red birds changed their course and headed for her, shooting like projectiles through the air, magma stripping off them, creating an almost smoke in their wake. A squawk that shook Ebony to the core sounded as a bird dropped in from the left, it’s searing hot talons stretched out to take a chunk from her wings or side. Ebony curled her wings in and dropping into a dizzying plummet to avoid its talons slashing just inches from her back. She unfurled her wings, spun to the left and risked a glance over her shoulder, watching as more of the birds joined the hunt. She dropped down into the pillars and wove in between them, the bird following her.  She flew under a collapsed pillar and the loud squawking got slightly softer.  A glance back confirmed she had fewer birds following her. Four birds remained with killing on their minds, radiating off them in waves.  Four pillars in a row blocked any speedy maneuver around them, but the sky above them was open. Ebony got as close as she dared and forced herself upward, the pillars slicing inches from her face.  Three of the birds didn’t pull up in time and slammed into the pillars, leaving one following her.  She dove back down, pushing herself faster and faster, pillars slicing past in her periphery vision as blurred black columns.  A glance over her shoulder showed that the bird had vanished.  Flipping over, she allowed her wings to fill with air to slow herself down, searching for the bird when white hot pain ruptured into her back and then spread to every appendage of her body as she crashed through a rock pillar and slammed against the ground, the suit restricting her from moving until she hit another pillar and slumped against the ground.  Every breath brought a fresh wave of pain to her ribs and her one lung refused to inflate.  Her muscles instantly sagged as she healed her wounds, pulling herself into a sitting position, she leaned against the pillar and looked up at it.  A large crater in the rock showed where she’d finally come to a stop.  Leaning against the tree, she took several deep breaths, waiting for the fatigue to drip out of her muscles and the ability to walk return to her legs, flying was clearly too dangerous. A loud squawk sent her heart into her throat as the bird stalked out from behind a pillar still standing in the path of Ebony’s rough haphazard tumble.  It stalked towards, her its beady eyes staring intently into hers, magma dripping off its body and wings.

       I am so sorry, Gabe. She thought and closed her eyes, a tear streaking down her face.  A squawk was cut off suddenly and she peaked out, the feeling of wanting the bird to gouge her throat opening filling her chest.

       “I can find you wherever I you hide in this world, it doesn't matter,” Lucifer chided, “There’s no point in trying to escape.”

       He knelt down and brushed her cheek.

       “Leave me alone!” She cried and pushed back to her feet. She turned to run and he blocked her path, whirling around to go the other direction he blocked it again. She spun back to face Lucifer and pulled the rosary from her neck and dropped it. The beads broke apart on the ground and began to hover around her, the cross sitting at her feet.  As his hand extended towards her, the beads started flying through the air towards him.  With a short laugh, he opened his hand and the bead bounced off the air, returning to her quickly.

       “Now, that’s no way to treat the man who is trying to help you,” Lucifer said.

       “You aren’t trying to help me!” Ebony snapped.  The beads began to spin in place, spinning faster and faster until they began to glow white hot. They went flying again, spinning through the air towards Lucifer.

He clenched his fist and the beads froze midair, all hovering around him, just inches from his body.  He marveled at the white hot silver beads floating all around him.

       “Your pitiful weapon is useless against me. Although I admire your ingenious. Not many of your kind would suspect a rosary is a dangerous weapon,” he said. A smirk crossed his face as he glanced at his fist and then back to Ebony. “Maybe, I should teach you a lesson on how to properly use a weapon such as this.”

The beads refused to return to Ebony, they stayed around Lucifer, and sped up, slowly turning pale blue and then bright blue. “It would be a wasted lesson as I wouldn’t survive to apply it,” Ebony said in feigned confidence.

       Fear pounded in her chest as Lucifer’s smiled widened revealing a mouth full of sharp pointed teeth. His eyes flashed an even brighter crimson as he walked over to her, she backed away as fast as he approached until her back hit the trees behind her. He coaxed one of the beads out of the formation and reached over to her, taking her jaw and pinching her mouth open. The bead still glew white and got closer and closer to her mouth. She tried to pull away but his grip was a vice.

       “No, no, no, no,” she whimpered, “Deus adiuva me.”