Hope & Fury (Heroes & Demons Book 2)

They had been gone a long time. Too long for his liking. Though thankfully no one had looked up and he was slightly back from the edge next to Sandy, time was ticking on and things were too quiet. The unease he felt grew with each passing minute, as he tried to reassure himself that nothing was better than something bad.

He felt the rumbling in his chest before anything else. A deep, low feeling that he almost mistook for his own heart. At least that’s how he began to think of it until the rumbling grew more substantial. More intense.

The building began to shake beneath his boots, a violent, unceasing rumble that did not back down but continued to build in intensity. It did not feel natural, it did not feel like an earthquake, it felt like something worse. Something rising.

Instinctively he scooped Sandy up in his arms and readied his wings. By the time the apex of the pyramid began to push through, lancing and collapsing the dome like a boil, he was already airborne. It rose and rose behind him, pushing through the earth, pushing aside anything that was not itself as though simply slicing through butter.

People screamed and ran, buildings crumbled and were crushed – top stories against their nearby pavements. It rose for an endless time until finally, it did indeed come to an end. The rumbling slowed, slowed and suddenly stopped. He continued to fly for a moment, coming to a rest on a distant low rooftop, further out of town. Only then when the reverberating had stopped and the rising had ended did he turn to behold what had risen.

People were still running, perhaps half the small town had been engulfed, pushed back by the penetrating force of the pyramid’s rise. It had taken over a large chunk of ground – the square in which the Rotunda had stood was completely obliterated – it now dominated the landscape, rising several hundred feet into the air.

The three sides were perfectly smooth limestone, reflecting the golden light of the sun on itself. They gleamed as though new, as though birthed only seconds earlier having never seen the sky. He heard Sandy stir at his feet and when she awoke, she looked up and gasped.

“That wasn’t there before, right?”

“You are correct.”

“What the hell is that?”

“I believe that is Atlantis.”

It was a sight to behold, it gleamed in the day. The only solitary blemish on it was an opening near the bottom where it connected to the dirt that had once been a road until it had been crushed. Steps led down from it, quite conveniently. It was the only entrance he could see from where he was.

People were beginning to gather and this time they had certainly noticed him, along with the thundering monument which had risen in their backyard. His anxiety began to grow as they began to take pictures of everything happening, photos, videos – everything that seemed to be all the rage. Yet still, he could not see sign or sound of Rick or Andrew.

Thud

He heard and felt the thick wet sound of flesh hitting the ground, followed by a weakened cry. He saw a single white feather floating in the air and wondered if it were somehow him. Then he saw the pigeon, its neck broken from impact. He sensed, rather than saw that that was not the cause of death. The pigeon had simply died. It had broken its neck when it thumped to earth.

He saw people around him beginning to look confused around them. There were other birds on the ground, each of them as broken and lump-like as the one by his feet. A second, a third, landed on his rooftop – each the same. Some black, some grey, some white – all gone before they landed.

Then he felt it, the presence which dominated the area. A man, dressed in all black walking up the long broken remnants of the street in expensive loafers – moving forward towards the entrance. He seemed bulky, strange, his back appeared to ripple.

Or ruffle.

Then it happened – the spread of wings. The man, the visitor, was not dressed all in black – in fact, his chest was bare pale skin – instead he had a pair of large black feathered wings the same as his own save for the colour. The man had his back to him, seemed not even to notice the presence of the only other winged individual he knew of in existence. He was instead focused entirely on the entrance, the opening in the side of the pyramid.

“Do not be afraid,” the man shouted, his voice silken but his command deafening. Poisonous, Angel could feel the falsity of his words even from the current distance. Darkness, destruction, they emanated from him in waves exuded by a simple force of will. “And I say lo and behold, come and see!”

He raised his arms, in reverence or boast, it was impossible to tell. From the opening of the pyramid a solitary figure emerged, a man Angel did and did not recognise at the same time. A slim, muscled man, his skin soft olive with mixed heritage. Visually, save from the reddish-gold metallic armour adorning the curves of his skin, exactly the man who had wandered into their lives again only a few days earlier. The same man who had died two years ago.

The hard set of his jaw, the dark cruel gleam and a faint glow in his eyes – those told Angel all he needed to know. The man in front of them was not a friend, he was enemy. He was no longer the frightened man without knowledge, he was gifted by deadly purpose.

He strode slowly and deliberately down the steps onto the broken dirt street. He didn’t bother when a shaken Andrew and Rick emerged through the same opening and remained fixed on the man in front of him. When they were but steps away the dark angel bowed, a grin fixed up at the emergent figure.

“Great power has been given to you,” the dark angel greeted, “To take peace away from these wretched creatures so that they shall kill one another. To this end, you are to be given a great sword. We are that sword.”

“Then we must get started,” the man in red agreed.

The dark angel straightened, the grin impossibly wide. Two men appeared beside them, arriving out of thin air in a manner he’d only ever seen Andrew do. One took the hand of the dark angel, the other of the man in red.

For one lingering moment the man in red armour looked up behind him to the opening from where he’d come. Angel caught the first emotion on his face, a sneer of derision. Then the four people on the road disappeared, leaving only the faint trails of dust behind.

Angel raised his gaze to meet Rick’s. They both knew what they had just witnessed, who had emerged from the Temple, the threat which now they faced together. The red rider, the second horseman come forth.

War.