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Archangel's Daughter
A white flash of lightning lit up the stormy sky, and for a brief moment, its thunderous boom buried the cacophony of the raging battle between the forces of heaven and hell. Funny how something so mundane could drown out something so divine.
From here on the grassy plains, I could not see the battle between the gods’ Legion of Angels and the demons’ Dark Force, but the song of metal and magic rising from the battlefield could be heard from miles away. I had followed those belligerent booms all the way from Ruin, a Frontier town about twenty miles back. I’d run the whole way across the gloomy countryside—mud and puddles beneath my feet, swirling storm clouds above my head.
Hard, needle-sharp rain bounced off my poncho. Sludge stained my boots. The mushy, water-logged ground continuously collapsed under my feet, and I couldn’t see much past the curtain of rain—but it wasn’t all that bad. Since joining the Legion of Angels, I’d been through much worse than a rainstorm. At least I hadn’t met any monsters on this trip.
And the end of this rainy run was close at hand. I could see it now, lit up like a night light in the darkness. I was coming up on a large war tent. A pair of wings, the emblem of the Legion of Angels, was printed on the canvas exterior. Here was where I’d find the officer commanding the Legion’s army for this battle against the forces of hell.
I stopped in front of the tent and drew in a deep breath before I entered. The sweet aroma of pine needles hung in the air, coupled with the scent of slowly-decaying plants. A pack of wild wolves had passed through here yesterday, but the battle must have scared them away. I could still smell the beasts, just as I could smell the blood on the battlefield so far away. Supernatural senses were just one of the magic powers you gained when you joined the Legion of Angels.
My breath froze in the chilly air. A few miles down the road, the countryside was experiencing the height of summer. Back there, the scorching heat was frying the dry grass like an egg sizzling in a pan of hot oil. Here, on the other hand, the manic weather was only a few degrees short of this rainstorm transforming into a snowstorm.
We had the monsters to thank for the wild, unpredictable weather. Out here on the plains of monsters, the laws of nature no longer applied.
I strode into the Legion tent. It was dry in here—and warm too, thanks to the magic fire burning inside an enormous iron cauldron. A few paces from that cauldron, a man dressed in a black leather Legion uniform stood inside a magic web of glowing dots. It was a map of the Legion’s battle with the Dark Force. The man was studying it closely, his forehead crinkled in concentration as he tracked his soldiers’ progress.
He looked up at me in agitation. My arrival had clearly disrupted his concentrated strategy session—and the fact that I was tracking muddy footprints into his clean, dry tent was not endearing me to him either.
“Captain Walker,” I said.
The name on his jacket read Walker. The emblem pinned to his chest, the symbol for telekinesis, or Psychic’s Spell, identified him as a sixth-level soldier. A captain.
Captain Walker frowned at my squelching, muddy boots. He was clearly not at all impressed by my arrival. His uniform was spotless, his face clean and freshly-shaved. Not a hair was out of place on his head. The brown hairs were perfectly combed and closely-cropped; I bet that if I’d measured them, I’d have found them all to be precisely the same length.
The Captain had wide shoulders and a tall, upright stance that bespoke confidence. Even beneath all that leather, I could tell his body was muscular. The Legion’s training was rigorous, but he’d clearly added some extra training of his own on the side. So he was ambitious. He wanted to do that little bit extra to move up the ranks faster. And his plan must have been working out perfectly for him. His eyes shone with the sort of easy arrogance bred by continued success.
His war tent exuded the same unwavering duty to orderliness. And then I’d arrived, dripping and dirty, leaving wet, muddy footprints all over the tent’s clean interior.
“Sorry about the mess,” I told him because, yes, I did feel bad about dripping raindrops everywhere. But it wasn’t like there was anywhere to freshen up. We were on the plains of monsters, not inside a luxury resort.
The visor of my hood was already steaming up in the warm tent, so I flipped it back from my face. Steam rose and the flames inside the cauldron sizzled as my accumulated raindrops splattered the magic fire. An agitated crinkle formed between the Captain’s eyes.
“Captain Walker, your battle with the Dark Force is taking too long,” I said. “You need to bypass their blockade, not fight every Dark Force soldier that stands between you and the Black Forest. There’s a tunnel passage a few miles from here that will lead us right to where the dark angel Leon Hellfire is holding our angel Colonel Beastbreaker prisoner. I’ve taken the liberty of clearing debris from the tunnel, so we can bring your soldiers through it.”
He stiffened at my words. He didn’t like that I was telling him what to do. No, he didn’t like that at all.
“Which office did you come from?” he said coolly, silkily. It was that same kind of smooth, beautiful silk you used to strangle someone to death.
“You asked for reinforcements. I was sent here from the Berlin office by General Silverstar,” I replied.
“Where are the rest of my reinforcements? Where are all the other soldiers?”
“I’m afraid it’s just me,” I told him. “Most of General Silverstar’s soldiers are currently otherwise occupied in an important mission.”
“More important than this?” He huffed like he didn’t believe it.
“Call the General if you’d like.” I arched my brows and held out my phone to him.
He said nothing, nor did he make a move to accept my phone.
Since he didn’t take me up on my offer, I dipped my hand under my poncho and slipped the phone back into the pouch around my waist. “Don’t worry, Captain. General Silverstar wouldn’t have sent me here if he didn’t think I could help you.”
Captain Walker looked me up and down, clearly not impressed with what he saw. I supposed I couldn’t blame him. Even with my poncho covering much of my torso, it was obvious I was skinny, not muscular. I did not look like a frightening soldier, a shining example of a Legion soldier, one who instilled fear into the hearts of our enemies.
But I didn’t let Captain Walker’s disappointment deter me. I was used to it by now because, well, I got this reaction a lot. Appearances were everything in our world. People had been underestimating me even before I’d joined the Legion.
“The tunnel is the fastest way to the Black Forest, where the Dark Force is holding Colonel Beastbreaker,” I said. “Giving the demons’ soldiers bloody noses along the way was just supposed to be a bonus, Captain. It wasn’t supposed to interfere with your main mission objective: the safe return of Colonel Beastbreaker.”
The frown hadn’t left Captain Walker’s face since I’d walked into the tent. Maybe it was permanently engraved there. Like a tattoo.
“How long have you been at the Legion?” he asked me.
“Five years.”
Which was the blink of an eye to an immortal being, such as a soldier in the Legion.