Children of the Archangels

CHAPTER 55: LOST TO THE VOID

Luke wasn't getting paid enough to risk his life and die by a rainstorm of arrows. In fact, he wasn't getting paid at all. So why the heck did he care so much about saving Nil? If Nil wanted to leave, then let him leave?

But it wasn't that simple. Luke fought and sacrificed a lot to bring Nil here and back in one piece. He thought back to how Michael, his own chaperone, must've felt when he lost Luke in the Garden of Eden. It must've felt just as bad as watching your dog run away from home.

But Nil took the opportunity to move forward not even fazed by being made into a porcupine.

Luke reached out to Nil, but was hugged by Sirius, who teleported to him and got him out of there just in time to avoid the barrage that was extremely precise. All of the arrows aimed for the exact spot Luke was standing at, and they all crowded atop of one another. If Luke had been standing there, he would've suffered the death of a thousand arrows.

"We have to stop him," Luke said.

"He has already chosen," Alpha said.

Sirius looked between Luke and Alpha as if wondering which side to choose. Then Uriel stepped in. "Let the child go. You've done all you can for him."

"But he's using him," Luke pounded his fist in the snow. "Can't you see? He practically possessed him from afar."

"Nil has chosen," Uriel said as if that resolved the matter.

"You're just too scared to go up against him. You're a coward!" Luke shouted, taking out his frustration on the wrong person.

"You lack perspective," Uriel scolded Luke.

Luke's left hand snapped into a blue bow of lightning fitted with an electric arrow. "And you lack a spine." He turned and fired the arrow across the desert, watching as the lightning arrow erupted in thunder and broke across the field of snow at supersonic speed straight for the dark angel.

The dark angel held out his hand and a dark spot emerged. The arrow's light and power were absorbed by the dark spot and faded from existence.

Luke was less taken aback, and more furious. He was about summon another arrow when the dark angel's army answered back with its own volley.

"Are you crazy!" Alpha shouted. "You're gonna get us killed!"

Uriel's aspect changed and his body became younger. Lightning flickered from both hands as he held them forth and sent forth a veiny stream of lightning that pulsed through the air like a light show. Each bolt triggered the arrow head which exploded into miniature black dots that faded from the plane of existence.

Uriel managed to dispel every arrow, and that's when the line of soldiers leaped from the ridge and made their way down to the field of snow. They rushed towards Luke and his friends, their dark robes flowing behind them in a windless breeze.

Uriel turned to Sirius. "Get them out of here."

Sirius's right eye was bloodshot red from the last time he used his power to save Luke and it was scarred from Absorber's backfire against the Bunyip. But he nodded. "I'll try."

"Don't try, do," Uriel said as he touched Sirius's forehead and seemingly charged Sirius like a battery. His eye returned to gray and his adrenaline kicked in. "Get them back to camp. I'm afraid they'll need you there."

"And what will you do?" Luke suddenly seemed worried for the angel he had just called a coward moments before.

"I'll grow a spine," Uriel smirked and mocked Luke. "Now get going."

Uriel faced the army of soldiers who all looked agile and young as if they were in their teens. The way they ran across the field was more like rabbits. They leaped on one foot several feet and then tossed themselves forward another couple of feet with each step.

Uriel charged the army, refusing to use his sword. By doing so, he was showing that he would hold back. Why? Was it because this dark angel was his brother?

Uriel unleashed a connecting stream of lightning from his hands that burst and ricocheted off of each person leaping across the snow. Many fell in a seizure-like fit, but others managed to deflect the charge into a dark void they managed to summon just like their dark angel master.

Luke would've loved to watch more, but Sirius managed to get all of them teleported out of there just in time before a couple of soldiers made it to them.

But Luke was enveloped in a darkness that made him wonder—maybe he hadn't been saved by Sirius after all.