Hope & Fury (Heroes & Demons Book 2)

When the battle began Angel’s first and only thought had been to go right for Vetis. They were evenly matched, so far as abilities would go – and anything to distract him from the deadly hold he had on people’s minds and concentration. He needed to get him and get him away from the battle. His thought must have been similar, they dived for each other.

It was a frenzy with which Angel could barely keep up. He felt blows to his stomach, his ribs, his face. He returned them with an equal fury that left both of them in a flurry of confusion. The dark angel fought like an animal, dirty and vicious. At one point Angel felt the sharp sting of teeth buried into his shoulder and he cried out in pain.

Seizing the opportunity he grabbed him in a tight embrace and heaved as hard as he could with his wingspan. Their ascent was uncontrolled, the being in his arms wriggling to be free. They barely missed the helicopter still circling, airing the battle to the world – the felt the swift rush of wind at his back from the razor-sharp edges and would find later a slight shortening of some outside feathers.

Up and up they went into the night sky, the moon turning the clouds to bone around them. A graveyard mist they travelled through until finally, Vetis broke his grasp, pushing him away. Before Angel could recover he swept forward, driving a fist into his stomach and pushing all the air out of him. As though yo-yo-ing on the edge of the world they began to fall, wind whipping through their hair and feathers as they fell in a tangle of fists and fury.

They broke back down through the cloud, he had no idea how high up they were until he saw the spires of the second tower of the minster rush up to greet them. He pushed away, throwing himself back from his opponent’s grip, spreading his wings as far as he could to slow his descent. He barely managed, spiralling through the lead lining of the once stained glass windows to slam head-first into the tower’s main bell.

It gonged horrendously with the force of the impact and, feeling like a cartoon coyote, he felt the remaining thirty or so feet to the cold stone ground of the tower. Sure there was a humorous moment in there somewhere about bell ringing, he tried to fire himself back up for battle.

As he turned his opponent had already clocked him. He swept through the opening Angel himself created only seconds before, coming down at him with barely a break in his speed. One thick boot cracked into his sternum and Angel felt the fire, even as the force sent him back into the bell – making it gong for a second time, his head now spinning with pain and confusion.

“Nothing like having your bell rung is there?” Vetis gloated, somehow finding the humour Angel found lacking. He was on him, raining several blows down onto his helpless face. He raised one arm weakly to defend himself but was too dazed, too confused and too beaten to make much of a defence.

The dark angel saw and threw him to one side, Angel feeling the sensation of his warm blood dripping from his mouth and onto the stone floor beneath him. It was an unusual sensation, a rare experience. He didn’t like it.

“Well aren’t you a bunch of collective pains in the arse,” he commented. “And yet look how bloody pathetic you all are. You couldn’t even go two minutes one on one with me without being reduced to this fleshy mess.”

“As Rick would say, screw you,” he managed to spit out. It only amused the dark angel more.

“You don’t even know, do you? Just how insignificant you are?” Again he spoke in questions that were only statements. He moved over to the window, looking down at the battle far below. “Whether Atlas kills your friends or not is not important anymore, enough has been done. You’re only in the middle of this little story, you know – there are so many more ways in which you are all going to die. So many worlds of pain you’ve yet to experience. If you survive I may enjoy showing them to you.”

Angel managed to pull himself into a seated position, a heap of some rubble provided makeshift support for his broken back as it healed itself. The dark angel smiled, turning back to him. He glided over, kneeling and rubbing one hand slowly over a broken bit of wing. He felt pain but the feeling through his feathers was soothing.

“Mine used to be like this once,” he said softly, almost reminiscently. “Brilliant pure white. But it is the natural order of things, for things to change. The truth that ultimately life will become death, even for beings as eternal as we.”

“Who are we?” he asked once more, wanting to know.

“I am Vetis, Angel of Death,” he replied honestly, “And you are quite simply me.”

He chuckled and stepped back as the weight of that crushed Angel to the core.

“You’re simply my first experiment,” his double continued, “To see whether the technology of Atlantis really would work for Atlas. Whether that enzyme could genuinely regenerate flesh and bone from something as simple as a drop of blood. When all we got was bone I didn’t regret leaving you down there, in that hole of a Temple. Imagine my surprise when I saw they’d dug you up and you become a real boy.”

“You’re lying,” Angel spat back at him, but he simply grinned and he knew it was not so.

“Maybe one day you’ll know for sure,” he offered, “Or maybe you’ll remain in confusion. One thing I will warn you of though is that your path is my path. As I said eventually life will turn to death – for everyone around you.”

He turned to the empty window, looking out into the night sky.

“Maybe I’ll go somewhere warm for a while,” he mused. “And await the breaking of the next seal, perhaps by the sea.”

He glanced back at his fallen foe and smiled once again.

“Until next time.”