Lightbringer - The Patron Saints of the Damned III
Chapter 4 - Acts of Desperation

Dufaii made his form dim as he led Megan from the shore to a part of the wall where the vines grew thick. Since it hadn’t been made to keep humans or small creatures out, the walls did not undergo the sort of maintenance. It was almost as if the massive structures were treated with shame … and rightfully so, he thought. Given the lush and beautiful plants that the loyalists chose to allow to grow on the surface of the wall, the human would be able to get over unnoticed–provided she was given the advantage of a big enough distraction. Also working to their advantage was the fact that there wasn’t much of a difference between most souls and their physical bodies. She would just look a little tired and dirty compared to most others, so long as nobody took a closer look.

“You’re certain you can climb this?” Dufaii asked, looking up the towering wall. He didn’t doubt her abilities, but the wall did span hundreds of feet up. It was important to make sure this plan would work before he enacted his part.

Megan looked at it and her eyes glazed over for a moment. Her memories began to swirl behind her eyes, showing a tree that she had climbed to get into her house the day before she was brought to the woods. She lost herself to her sorrow for her brother and guilt for having spoken sharply to him. But she squeezed her eyes shut and nodded her head.

Dufaii pretended not to notice her thoughts, though he worried they would be a distraction. Then again, he was not exactly the best person to preach about haunting memories. He said, “Like I said before, keep your head down.”

“What if … I don’t replace her?” Megan asked. “What if they’re keeping her imprisoned or something?”

“You’ll have two options,” Dufaii replied, having thought the same. “You can either return here and, if I am able, I will bring you back to Earth once you return to this side of the walls. However, there is a significant chance that I will be captured. So if a few weeks pass and you do not hear from me, then replace an angel. Close your eyes, reveal that you are still alive, and demand to speak with Gabriel. Say that it is regards to the Challenge and Heaven’s Champion. It is important that you do not open your eyes until you speak with him, or you will jeopardize Exousia’s chances of making it out in one piece. Gabriel will be the one most likely to see to it that you make it back home.”

“And …” Megan said, working to try to put her thoughts into words. “What if she’s changed? You said that everyone who dies becomes a part of the Creator. What if they … did something to her.”

Again, Dufaii had considered this, though he hadn’t made a plan for what to do about it. More specifically, he had thought about what he would do if he found the piece of demon soul inside of Exousia had been removed. He didn’t want to believe that the Creator would stoop low enough to so thoroughly destroy her without her consent. But it was a possibility that had to be accounted for. Dufaii said, “If Exousia seems … off, tell her nothing and see if she wants to escape of her own accord. If she does, then bring her and I will fix her. If not … she has been murdered beyond what we can hope to save. Leave the broken remains of her soul at peace.” This last bit was difficult to say … but it was important … and it brought a somber and tense silence on the air.

After staring at the ground and processing everything for a moment, Megan nodded.

Dufaii unfolded his wings, leaped straight into the air with a powerful jump, and took flight towards a wispy cloud above. He soared upward at speeds that blew his hair back, sent ripples through his robes, and caused the air to whistle in his ears. Only once he was in front of the gates of Heaven did he begin his descent. He readied his sword and landed on a patch of sandy shore with enough force to send up a small cloud of dirt, sand, and dust. Then, he stepped upon a pebble beach, took several steps, and then stopped towards the gates.

Like years before, when he’d come here to remember after his time in exhile, steel helmets and gold eyes peered at him from the top of the wall. Only, this time, he’d made his hostile intent obvious with his readied weapon. The whistle of the wind was replaced by the sounds of arrows being nocked, bows bending, and strings being pulled. Then, a bell sounded. The ground began to rumble as the gate opened slightly and hundreds of guards lined up in front of it. There were approximately three-hundred loyalists in front of him and two hundred aiming their bows from the top of the wall.

Dufaii waited as the loyalists took their positions. Then, he stepped toward the gate, sword in hand. He let his mind return to the place it had so often gone to it the past months–a familiar and somehow comforting rage. Dufaii embraced it, he wanted nothing but to cut and break and burn every creature that had caused him to feel the pain of losing his daughter. More than that … he was ready for them to inflict the pain on him that he felt he so rightly deserved.

The Archangel Michael stepped in front of the rest. His brown hair was tossed by the wind, and he looked ahead with the hardened glare of a warrior. his brown wings like those of falcons were folded behin him and he wore full plate armor visualized as steel. Michael readied his enormous two-handed claymore and spread both wings to make himself look even more massive than he already was. The he said, “Don’t make me fight you. I know what happened to her … and I know you’re hurting. But you know that I can’t let you bring your war into this place.”

Dufaii slowly unfolded his own wings and glared at the Archangel who had once been his lover. This brought up even older feeling of rage, betrayal, hatred, shame. These emotions boiled down and fed the bloodlust deep within him. With one mighty lunge, he sent his entire body and sword into that of the archangel, unleashing a barrage of attacks as arrows were released and enemies charged.

The noise of metal shattering, armor rustling, arrows zipping, and charging steel boots sounded like standing in the center of a storm. And it was the Archangel’s claymore which served as the thunder. After deflecting his initial strike, Michael let loose a barrage of overwhelming attacks that staggered Dufaii and forced him back. Members of the Guard then struck from the sides, thinking they had an open shot.

Dufaii twirled, placing himself so that the angels remained between him and Michael. Shielded, Dufaii was able to begin breaking blades and splitting helmets with the heft of his curved, dull blade. He ignored the arrows as they sunk into his flesh. He didn’t even realize that he was screaming in a mix of anguish, rage, and pain until he heard it echoed off the wall. By the time Dufaii fell, streams of blood—both golden and black—pooled around his face and slowly soaked into the pebbled shore.

-O-

Exousia sprinted as fast as she could go, her cape billowing behind him as she ran. It took all her training to keep her footing on the sharp, treacherous rocks. Even so, she stepped on loose stones once and nearly lost her balance. There was no way she was going to outrun them on foot as they flew towards him. Exousia decided that her options were then to hide or to fight. So, she made her form dim as she looked for a place she could duck for cover.

Exousia was surprised when Roach did not dim his form also. Instead, he scrambled and eventually managed to get his back shell open so that he could release his wings. Then, he flew low and managed to get a little further ahead. Watching him made it painfully evident that he would be useless in a fight against these enemies.

But then, Exousia noticed one of the barbs protruding from Roach’s leg. A plan still unraveling in her mind, Exousia sprinted to catch up and hooked her cape onto the barb. Once the fabric was floating freely with Roach, it became more visible than she was with her form dimmed. She then darted behind a jutting rock and watch the pursuing demons go by. Without thinking, she reached into her robes to grab a cloth bag of fire-powders, only to discover that they had been left with her physical body.

Exousia clenched her jaw in irritation and considered using human magic to create flames. But then she realized that the situation was working in her favor. Left to their own devices, the demons would chase Roach to some far corner of Hell, leaving her to get to Hades alone. It wouldn’t be the most challenging journey she’d ever made in unfamiliar territory. And, truth be told, it would probably be safer and quicker to go alone. However … Exousia realized that there was something else at play in her mind. Sentimentality had caused her to lose the Challenge, and this situation felt agonizingly similar. But … the small demon had saved her from being captured in Intake.

Exousia swore at herself under her breath as she drew upon the human magicand sent a wall of fire upon her enemies. The flames burned with the power of her self-directed anger. This made short work of the demons with thin bony wings and the cyclops with fleshy wings. Yana and Attel withstood the attack for long enough to turn and face her, but their muscularly hefted bodies could not be supported by wings that were on fire. They all fell hard into the sharp rocks below.

Exousia sprinted around them, pulling her arms to his chest and feeling the flames engulf her for a moment before they were rapidly extinguished. The feeling was unpleasant, but she knew she could afford to withstand the pain of it to more quickly purge the fiery magic from her body. She put the remainder of her energy into catching up and calling out, “Roach!”

Roach froze, having not stopped flying since the attack. He looked terrified when he turned around. Then he looked down in confusion at the cape dangling from his foot. Then, he looked back at where their enemies had fallen. Realization dawned on him and his eyes lit up. “We – uh – did it! Teamwork makes the dream work, am I right?” He cackled until he turned around and saw her expression.

Exousia was doing the best she could to psychically shield her inner seething at the worthless demon … and at herself. There was still a significant amount of magic running through her, feeding her rage. Exousia snatched her cape from the demon’s leg, and continued to walk towards the city. She was not going to waste time with pleasantries or jokes or trying to spare his feelings. She had a mission and was not going to spend any more time on anything else.

The two of them walked in uncomfortable silence from that point on, both because of Exousia’s anger and because neither wanted Ammon’s allies to hear them. For now, at least their auras radiated their position in this lifeless prison that made true hiding impossible. Once they reached the city, however, the pursuing demons would be easily lost in the thrum of surrounding energy. Evading them could become more difficult than ever.

It took hours for the fight in Exousia’s spirit died down. Even then, she felt like felt no better about her situation. The voices of condemnation reminded her incessantly she had made a mistake in throwing in her lot with demons–that she had learned nothing from her defeat at the hands of Ammon. The area around them gradually became more smooth as they descended the gentle slope from the mountain. As they went, they passed occasional huts and small buildings sitting alone.

From their remote homes, demons occasionally glanced out their glassless windows and doors to see the presences walking through. No doubt they were confused by the wingless human-shaped demon with a psychic aura like a blend of the two. But they didn’t venture out. They looked like shut-ins, people on the fringe of society who went out to be left alone.

It occurred to Exousia, a time or two, that maybe she should stop and make camp to restore her strength. But being a soul was a bit different from having a mortal body. Though she felt tired and was sure that she could benefit from a break, her legs felt like they could keep going indefinitely. There was no urge to sleep, and she began to wonder if she even could. Probably not … as such unconsciousness would be an amount of peace and mercy in a prison built to devoid one of both.

They continued on for what might have been a few days, by Exousia’s best possible guess, before they arrived at the city. Trying to take advantage of the many souls around to hide her presence from being tracked, Exousia herself in the crowds of wandering human slaves and demons. Roach managed to keep up with her if only just. To Exousia, the city was more impressive up close than it had been from afar. The rock formations that they had carved into were works of art. Some buildings were constructed with motifs of human eras long since passed. Shattered rocks and bone covered some of the building to create patterns or mosaics on their surfaces. Other columns looked modern, with architecture resembling those in New York, Hangzhou, Valencia, and Dubai. And this wasn’t just the buildings themselves, but also the bridges between them and the massive windows for demons in flight.

There seemed to be three tiers of buildings in the city. The lowest level were the ones built of the shortest stalagmites that rose from the ground. Though still ornate enough to keep with the aesthetic of the city, these were given the least care. Most did not even have windows for demons to fly into. They seemed to be built for human-exclusive labor and had appropriate entryways for them. Similarly, many of the columns that reached from floor to ceiling had access points for humans and the occasional walking demon. However, their main entranced seemed to be the large open windows further up. The stalactites that hung from the ceiling, however, were the grandest. Artistry was etched into every part of them, from their shapes to the etched symbols, letters, and even pictures in the stone. And unlike the columns that had bridges between them, there was no way to access the stalactite buildings except by flight. These would be the most important buildings, meant for research, museums, and maybe military training, as no human could reach them.

Exousia studied the buildings as she walked, remembering most from her books and quickly figuring out the rest by what was happening inside. She was able to stare without notice, as thousands of people bustled around her busily. The humans kept their heads low and did not meet the gaze of anyone, even one another. Exousia remembered that such malleable humans were allowed to walk the streets, work jobs, and live communally with a slight sense of freedom. They were the most manageable level of damned soul, those with a minor amount of power who had used it solely to victimize those around them to the meager degree that their cowardice would allow.

Exousa passively wondered if she would see her progenitors among them, a thought that was unexpectedly painful enough that she forced herself not to consider it again. Exousia returned her thoughts to the humans and felt a mix of feelings about what she was seeing. Once again, she felt mixed emotions. If “deserve” were an idea based on any sort of reality, these people would have certainly deserved their fates. But being in this place seemed needlessly cruel, like beating a child-eating dog to death with a baseball bat instead of just shooting it in the back of the head. In any sort of reasonable universe, such souls would have been allowed to cease existing after all the pain they’d caused.

Most demons did not pay any attention to the humans in either a positive or negative light. And she had read that there was a small force of demons who worked on keeping the slaves passive by ensuring that they were not mistreated. But there were a few demons that she saw who treated them with needless cruelty. One demon in a suit was beating a human and shouting something about its laziness as she passed. She later saw another demon shove a human off a bridge.

After a while, Exousia reached a building that she recognized from pictures she’d seen as a child. It was a colossal tower, constructed out of the largest column in the city. It was covered entirely in polished white bone, which was positioned to give the illusion of swirling movement upon its surface. The way that the torches flickered around them further added to this illusion, making the beautiful structure look alive. This was the hospital, meant to care for demons.

“I know this place,” Exousia said, pausing for a moment to take it in. “It’s where demons overly afflicted by the terrors of this realm go to avoid losing their sanities. Dufaii told me about it when I was little … when I was worried about the innocent human souls dragged here by magic.”

“Oh yeah, we’ve got a whole community of them, treat them right,” Roach said, noddind a few times. “Actually … we got a bit of info about you from them.”

Exousia arched an eyebrow.

Roach smiled and scratched the back of his neck. “I mean, it’s not like there are a lot of other people on Earth going around and slaying human sorcerers. Anyways, we mostly use the hospital for demons afflicted by the plage these days.”

This information gave Exousia pause. Sure enought, when she looked at the entrance, she saw demons lined up in the streets to get in. Most of these had blood spilling from their mouths and down their fronts as they waited, both fresh and dry. Each of them had a horrendous growth the size of a melon somewhere on their bodies. Human workers periodically exited the building with white mugs containing blood for their consumption. These demons were falling apart … losing themselves. And there was no room for them, even in the largest tower in Hell. How had Exousia not known that the plague was this bad? How had Dufaii not known?

A human cleared her throat aggressively.

Exousia realized that she had impeded the flow of foot traffic. Se started to walk again when she heard a scream coming from the line to the hospital. She looked to see a demon, collapsed and bleeding on the ground.

-O-

Megan grabbed the thick vines going up the wall and began to pull herself up. They rose and protruded from the wall thickly enough that she could almost climb them like a ladder, and her new physique certainly made this easier. The only thing that bothered her were the heights, so she looked directly at the wall until she had managed to pull herself over the ledge. Once she got to the top, where there was plenty of space to stand, Megan glanced over toward the gates of Heaven for just long enough to see hundreds of angels line up on the wall.

Megan turned away and looked around for the stone staircase that the demon had told her would be there. This was a little difficult to replace, as the enclosed stairway was dark and covered in webs. Megan hadn’t really thought about the fact that winged would not need stairs. And she wondered why they had even been put in in the first place. Maybe it was for people, their souls, ghosts, or whatever they were. The demon had said that the walls were not meant for keeping humans in. In fact, there were several more islands that people traveled between. Maybe the demon had simply brought to a place that didn’t see much use.

Megaan finally looked out over a realm she had never fully believed in. Heaven was beautiful … joyful to look at no matter where you looked. A distant building towered and spiraled into the sky like giant shells of living sea creatures. The lake sparkled surreally, like it had been created with special effects for a movie. The mountains towered with a strength that was oddly comforting, somehow making her feel small and part of everything around her. Even the grass under her feet was amazing to behold, growing in various shades of green that organically swirled in color, intermixing into itself.

Megan could see her first destination a few miles away, on the opposite side of the lake. They were the barracks, stone buildings that looked like they were older than everything else. Short and spartan as they were, the stone had still been carved into patterns that made them seem like a place where only the strongest of people would be allowed to enter.

Megan descended to the bottom of the stairs and began to jog towards the building. As she ran, she realized that her fatigue was lighter than what it should have been. Sure, her body would eventually tire, but the air around her seemed to change to suit her body’s needs. As she heated up, the wind picked up and cooled her. The ground beneath her was solid but not hard, allowing for her joints to feel no jarring sensation. And soon, she arrived at a series of buildings that were identical, all lined up in rows. They were short but looked sturdy–built out of undecorated stone.

Megan poked her head in the door of one that was closest. It was an armory, with slightly unusual weapons. These included what looked like swords attached to poles, crossbows, oddly-fashioned bladed weapons, and a bin of small odds and ends. Maybe this was the hall of old or rejected weaponry, as most of it had acquired a thick layer of dust.

Out of curiosity more than anything, Megan went to a small bin and looked inside. Most of what was in it were various things that one could wear on their hands. Some were gauntlets with claws or spikes. Others looked like hooks that could be used for either fighting or climbing. But almost all of it was much too large for her hands, no doubt made for creatures around the size of the demon. But she did replace two objects her size, tied together with a string. There were sort of like brass knuckles, with two rounded bars that fitted neatrly in her palm and a single spike in the center of the striking surface. Megan put one in each pocket of her red hoodie.

“You aren’t Exousia,” said a gentle voice from behind her.

Megan squeezed her eyes shut immediately, and did not turn around. She didn’t want this person to know that she was keeping him out of her head. But, she had not missed the importance of the statement. This person knew Exousia … had been expecting to replace her here instead of Megan.

Megan shook her head and said, “No … she told me to meet her for some practice, but she’s still not here. Do you have any idea where I can replace her?”

There was an inoffensive chuckle and then a reply, “If I did, I would have told Dufaii, and there would be no need for the two of you to have snuck in. I had hoped that it was Exousia that a guard spotted climbing the wall and going toward the armory.”

Megan felt a chill go through her and realized that there was no reason for her to hide what she knew. This person already knew about the demon … apparently named Dufaii. And that Megan was helping him. Also … they didn’t know where Exousia was either. A sickly feeling of failure and hopelessness overcame Megan, and she felt her entire body slump in defeat. What came now? What would an angel do to a human who had been caught working with a demon? If Megan’s early days in Sunday school had taught her anything, she thought it likely involved a lake of eternal fire.

Megan began to tremble but then fought to regain control of herself as she remembered what she’d been told to do. She reached into her pocket, put her hand on her gun, turned around, and aimed for the head.