Just got the new chapter edited. Working quite fast at this. Enjoy.

The Fallen

Chapter 4: The path to Heaven

I watched in disbelief as the demon known as Nathaniel slowly disappeared from sight. "What the hell? I thought that nothing could get through this ward."

The voice answered calmly, 'Exactly.'

My brain felt like it was doing back flips just to try and comprehend the situation. "What the hell does that mean?"

The voice never lost its cool, 'Just what I said. Nothing did get through. That creature wasn't really here. A small part of its corporeal shell might have been but the summoning spirit was elsewhere. As I said he is deceptive. In effect what you saw was a mere meat puppet. A partially real illusion if you will. You could touch it and it could certainly touch you but you could never destroy it without first destroying the spirit controlling it.'

I could only come up with one reaction, "Huh?"

The voice sighed, 'Never mind. Come on, we still have things to take care of.'

I stepped past the gate and swore that I heard a soft laughter come from nearby the stone. A large shattering of glass was heard from within the stone. The voice became slightly panicked, 'Quickly now, we have less time than I thought. It seems that the other guardians have been disposed of and we might soon be joining them if we don't move now.' I hurried back through the dark forest. This time my emotions connected with fear were replaced with a sense of urgency and a rush of power.

'Stop here. This will do. It is time to block the way to the standing stone lest anyone tries to raise the guardians to serve the darkness. God will deal with them in time. In the future we may even be able to rebuild the shrine but now we need to protect it.'

I looked around the sparse clearing looking for something to cast a spell into but saw nothing, 'What this time?'

The creature was busy looking for something and was using me to see. It answered in a distant tone. 'An infinite loop in time. We will create a place that no one can escape without first using a keystone.'

Still confused I simply gave up trying to understand, "So how do we go about this?"

The creature instructed me to use elements of air, earth and fire for this spell. I used my newfound power to call up the columns as before. The creature took over my body in order to join them in an intricate pattern. Once the columns combined a small crater was formed in the ground. I looked inside the crater and found a small black rock in the form of a dagger. 'Once one of God's chosen picks this up then they have the means to escape this spell. However as it is a time loop the dagger will always return to its resting-place. This is the obsidian dagger.' I held it up to the light of the moon and marvelled at its smooth and dark form. The blade itself sucked in light.

'Let me take control of your body for a while. There's something I need to do.' I allowed the creature to use me and watched from the back of my own head, as the creature drew the symbol of our church in the dirt. It then proceeded to cut my wrist with the blade and bled my arm over the symbol. Strange words spilled from my mouth. "Doolb eht htiw ylno evres. Ecalp siht ot dnuob era uoy doolb htiw. Ekowa uoy doolb htiw. Nrob erew uoy doolb hguorht. Eris." The presence receded to the back of my mind again as I felt the weariness take me as I regained control. It spoke again in the back of my mind, 'Right that's that settled, now for the next spell. I call spirit, earth and air.'

I called the columns for it as the presence felt weaker after the last spell it called. The power was stronger without the creature's help to control it and my arms still wounded but already healing. I was becoming used to it by this time and it felt good so I performed the weaving of the spell under the creature's direction. The three columns converged into a small bubble that floated in mid-air for a second before quickly expanding to form a large area around me…sorry I meant us. The creature took control and chanted a few more words before we started walking again. 'I take it that we are heading to the lake?'

"Yes. I fear that what we will see there will not be to our liking." There was something in the creature's tone that made me think he already knew what we would find.

The guardian juggled the blade from one hand to the other, trying to use up its nervous energy. I looked from the back of my head at my wrist still amazed at how quickly the wounds had healed. 'OK what the hell happened back there and how did it work?'

The voice replied from my lips, it sounded exhausted. "Come see for yourself. I need to rest for a while. I'll explain on the way just keep walking until I say otherwise."

When I regained full control of my senses once again I was disorientated by what I saw. It seemed that I could move in the same way that I always had but the world around me had changed. The mist that covered the area moved painfully slowly and felt a lot thicker. I almost felt that I had to wade to make any decent progress. Yet when I saw the breeze moving through the trees the branches moved unnaturally fast. Eventually I came to one of the torches that lit a path through the forest. We had finally reached the main road. 'Wait Valtiel, not so fast.' The warning came too late as I hurried towards the road, I stepped through the bubble.

Within the flicker of an eye I found myself back near the fence of the calling stone. 'What the?...'

The voice spoke up, 'I warned you. You are now in a time loop. Every time that you pass the threshold you will be transported back to the point where you would have entered. Only the blade's power can allow you to escape. We have to go and get it again. The principle of time is that we are celestial beings moving through the universe. The earth only happens to be moving at nearly exactly the same speed and in the same area. So all I did was to alter the speeds of earth and air in that small space so that whoever passed the spell without the dagger would be held by air while the earth transported them back to another part of the bubble's wall.'

The power amazed me and I was in awe of the creature's knowledge. Eventually I reached the bubble's wall, this time armed with the knowledge that I had to cut the damn thing first. 'Now cut through and leave the dagger here. It will return to its resting place in time and space.' I did so and made my way onto the main road. The creature whispered which I thought a bit odd, as I was the only one that could hear it. 'Stay on your guard young one. I have a bad feeling about the path ahead. Try to stay in the shadows as much as you can. The demons that took your town are drawn to light and sound.' I nodded and stalked as quietly as I could manage into the forest that led to the golden shores of LakeToluca.

My new gift of sight in the darkness became an essential thing to have as it saved my life more than once in that forest. It seemed the flying creatures had taken to nesting in the bigger trees. It was hard to stifle a gasp of shock when I came upon one such nest. Grotesque spread out faces grinned at me. There were no bones on this bloody visage, nothing but an eyeless and toothless joker. The joke was lost on me. The ground was sticky, as the blood had matted with the leaves. The air was filled with the stench of decay, as the nest of skin and flesh rocked gently in the breeze. My need to get to the lake suddenly became much more urgent.

I tried to stay as far away from the town as I could and yet I could still hear screaming. 'I think it's best that I take control now.' I agreed with the creature as I was not sure that my stomach could take much more of this. As we approached the lakeside the screaming grew louder. Within a matter of minutes we came upon the source of the noise. 'Oh my God!' I exclaimed in horror.

What faced us now, just paces away from the now blood red shores of TolucaLake, was a perimeter of screaming lipless corpses. Their heads and legs were nailed to the trees nearest to the shore. Most of the skin had either fallen off or had been torn off the faces. Stains of puss and dead blood streaked down the cadavers to touch the soil. The nail wounds had been infected. Tattered rags barely covered their scared and torn torsos. The bodies seemed a bit small as they tried desperately to grab my body. Their cries were not of terror but hunger. They reached out to rip and tear my flesh.

It was just as well that I was not in control of my own body, as I would probably have collapsed under the strain of the realisation. 'Th…the children.'

The creature sighed, "I was hoping that you would not have realised. Do not forget that this is a demon's paradise and that the things you see here were not meant for mortals eyes." The creature dared go no farther whenever he saw the lake and what was on it.

There, in the middle of the lake, was an open gate of blood, bone and fire. Demons walked out of the gate in a single line, however the line seemed endless. Beyond the gate out in the lake was a throne of bone and living flesh. There seated on the throne was the personification of evil itself. Its black horns spiralled into the sky and had an infants skull impaled on each horn. It smiled with glee at the destruction that surrounded it.

The top half of its face was hidden by a half skull that seemed to be from a big dog. It wore a suit made from living sacrifices. A living, breathing, screaming mass of people and animals sown together with the purples and reds that could only have been from intestines and blood vessels. The pain brought it pleasure. The back of its chair twitched. It was then I realised that it was not the back of his chair at all but rather the creature's large wings of skin and bone.

'Samael I take it?'

The creature nodded. "He must be stopped. The gates must be broken. They were originally intended to only open one way. We cannot fix this without the guardians and thanks to Nathaniel that will no longer be possible. This has to be contained. Samael seems confined to his throne for now, but if those demons kill enough people he will become strong enough to enter your world and I think you already know what will happen then."

I was resolved that this would not be the case, 'Tell me what I must do.'

The creature smiled with my lips, "That's the spirit. I will have to arrange an emergency council with Xuchilbara but first we need a way to get there. I will tell you more when it is safe."

The creature ran through the forest until it reached another clearing. When it was happy that the place was secure it began talking to me. "Right this requires a great amount of effort and pain. I need you to bear it as I will need my energy in order to complete this journey." I remained determined to stop Samael and took control once more. Once the creature was back in my head it spoke, 'Now for the big one. Ready yourself this will be a bit painful.'

I tensed my body thinking that it was the power that was going to hurt me. I was wrong. When it hit me the pain forced me to my knees. Brow covered in sweat and teeth clenched until I thought they were going to shatter. The pain continued but became more focused, especially around the shoulder blades. Something sharp stabbed at the skin from the inside. I heard a couple of cracks and felt small flaps of skin open up to reveal two protruding bones with large muscles wrapped around them. They were not completely out and I soon found out why.

More sickeningly wet, fleshy noises were heard before two small red lines began to form on my back, running from my shoulders to my calves. At this stage I was now flat on the wet grass of the clearing, the dew on my face keeping me awake, else I would have passed out with the pain. With a loud 'schlock,' a pair of bloodied, golden wings spread themselves out from either side of my body. The voice spoke to me as I lay there, face down, catching my breath.

'Stay still. You need to let them dry. You also need to rest so that those wounds can heal. I intend to gain an audience with my lady in order to give your plan her blessing so to speak. The amount of power it will take to change Lakeside will be only such a feat that God can perform. We need to cut Samael off from the world but also keep him so occupied that he doesn't notice. It will require sacrifice but I think it will be something God will be prepared to do in order to buy some time until She can think of something a little more permanent to deal with him. Are you healed yet?'

I expected to say no, but it was nothing short of a miracle that I found that I was able to stand up completely revived. I admired the wings as I spread them out. They were covered in golden fur, just as the ones I had seen in the mirror. The voice interrupted the moment. 'I will control you for another short time as I am the more experienced flier here. You just sit back and rest a while.' I obeyed and once again sat back to see what the creature would do this time.

I felt a strange sensation as the creature spread the golden wings. The newly formed appendages pulled on the skin near my shoulder blades. I expected him to make us run before taking off but he simply angled the wings down and with one mighty flap we were up in the air. We soared over the forest, the burning town, the lake and its armies however I did not see the leader of these demons. "Samael is still confined to the spirit world for now, you will only be able to see him if you look through the gates of hell." The creature calmly informed me. We sped over the mountaintops; my face was tight from the speeds that we were travelling.

Suddenly we veered sharply upwards into a large cloud formation that looked like a large door. In a split second the scenery changed from mountains, lakes and forests to the large courtyard of a golden palace.

Guess where Valtiel is headed next? Haha. Next chapter is a bit steamy. You have been warned. Hope you liked it. Please R&R.
Cheers
Wolf