2. Chapter 2 #2
The desire to hunt flexed her wings. Energy coursed between her fingers and the gun. As Thea and Izzy went deeper, the glow from their bodies illuminated a large, cavernous room.
“The wannabe angel brought another wannabe with her.” A deep voice scratched along Izzy’s senses. Shadows moved over the cave walls, slinking toward Izzy and backward.
“I’d rather be a wannabe angel than whatever the hell you ended up as.” Thea unsheathed her short sword. The blue crystalline surface of the benitoite refracted in the light of Thea’s body.
A clattering sound like someone threw rocks filled the space.
Four shadows lurched from the wall, ripping free rocks and stalagmites until crudely shaped stone beings stood before Izzy and Thea.
Demons had an ever-shifting morphology. Stronger ones could control their appearance, but weaker ones like these could only absorb what was around to conjure a form.
While a human may have been afraid, Izzy thrummed with a heightened state of alertness, a physiological response indicative of predatory instincts.
“Yeah,” Thea scoffed. “I’ll never understand why you didn’t ask for forgiveness from the Supreme, instead of dooming yourselves to living as monsters.”
“And what forgiveness have you reached, wannabe?” One of the rock formations hobbled closer, dragging its stalagmite leg. Its high-pitched voice grated into Izzy’s mind. “Last I checked, you Fallen are stuck as lowly, reincarnating humans.”
Izzy aimed the gun and fired. An arc of blue light flashed. The bullet struck the shadow between the rocks like exposed flesh in armor. Scratchy screams ravaged her insides like she’d rubbed two glass beakers against each other. Another bullet barked as she dealt the killing blow to its neck.
Rocks crumbled to the ground as the demon died. Static sizzled against her skin as three new feathers joined her barely feathered wings.
“I forgot you like to skip the banter,” Thea said, smiling full force.
Izzy aimed at another. “Toying with each other’s emotions in this way is pointless.”
The other three threw themselves at Thea and Izzy. Izzy sank into the numbness of her spirit and listened to that instinct to kill until she’d collected fifteen more feathers.
As the last rocks toppled over, the impression of sulfur didn’t dissipate as expected. Izzy met Thea’s eyes.
Thea’s stare shifted behind Izzy. Pushing energy from her hands into a light shield. Izzy whipped around. A sharp rock pierced her weak yellow shield, nicking her shoulder.
“Any slower and you would have been dead,” Fotios’s voice whispered in her head.
“Got it.”
A demon face built of darkness and dust shoved against her light. She faltered back under the weight. Thea slammed into the demon, knocking it away from Izzy. It attempted to dissolve into the wall, but Thea wrapped a blue light rope around its neck. Lifting her sword, Thea advanced.
“Wait,” Izzy called.
“Oh, now you want to wait.” Thea threw a taunting glance over her shoulder.
“Yes.” Izzy stood on shaky legs and focused energy on her shoulder to repair the rip in her spirit-created shirt. “I can use this one for research.”
“Go ahead,” Thea muttered. “You know it won’t tell you anything.”
Izzy couldn’t find eyes in the swirling dust, so she looked above Thea’s rope. “What do you know of the carvings here?”
It stayed silent.
“I can feed you energy.” She lifted her arm and focused her yellow light into a short laser beam.
While Fallen reincarnated back onto Earth, the demons reincarnated in Hell.
She’d discovered that giving demons power before they left Earth always seemed to grant her some answers.
She beamed yellow light onto the shadowy section of the demon, and it fidgeted.
In the Angelic militia, she was the power supply, recharging others.
Her power wasn’t strong, but it was long-lasting.
“That still grosses me out.” Thea made a retching gesture.
Izzy stopped the flow of energy. “If you want more, tell me what you know about the carvings.”
The demon spoke Demonic in a hoarse tone. “Is before we attached.”
She fed it more energy and kept track of the calories her human body was losing in the process. She’d need more than just a breadstick after this. “So, the carvings were here before someone Summoned you here?”
No answer.
“Do you know what or who carved them?”
Rocks clattered to the floor as it whimpered, and more of the demon’s darkness dissolved into the cave wall as it tried to escape.
It was afraid. More terrified of the cave carvings than of either Thea, Izzy, or returning to Hell.
Peculiar. She gave it more energy to pacify it.
Maybe she could make it feel strong enough to explain.
“Tell me,” Izzy said.
It screeched. “Is before we attached.”
Izzy waved her hand at Thea. If it didn’t want to answer after all the energy she had given it, repeating her question was futile.
Thea bathed her short sword in blue light and stabbed toward the rope of light encircling the dusty demon’s neck. The demon exhaled as if in relief, and the sulfuric presence vanished.
“I’ve never seen a demon scared like that,” Thea said as she sheathed her sword.
“Me neither.” Izzy handed her the pistol. With the demonic presence gone, the surrounding area lay dormant of hostile spirit energies.
“All right then. The carving is in that nook back there.” Thea pointed it out.
They walked toward the rear of the cave where an opening in the roof bathed moonlight over the ground.
Izzy amplified the light in her hand, revealing the nook the forums had discussed.
Lying on her back, wings pinched closed, the rough ground was a murmur of sensation as she scooted headfirst into the small opening.
At the back, the space grew tall enough to where she could lift her hands.
The feather-like carvings lay on the ceiling.
Most people believed someone had etched them there as a prank or as part of a ritual to Summon the demons.
They didn’t appear to be the demons’ Angelic names, but their structure nagged at Izzy.
She touched the carvings, and inhuman energy charged the air, sizzling across her being.
“It doesn’t feel like anything I’ve touched before,” Thea murmured, mimicking Izzy’s exact thoughts. “It feels ancient. I’d date it to before some of the local tribes even.”
“Whatever created these markings wasn’t human and scares demons. I’ll grab a sample for carbon dating and to test for particulates.”
“I’ll stick around. Just in case. I have that dig in Kenya to get to, so I won’t be available for a while after this.”
Izzy got what she came for, but the promise of hope had her knowing she might just risk coming back here again.