Demon Evolution (6 page)

Gabriel looked around and saw only nodding
heads. It seemed no one else in the room shared his desire to act
quickly. He resigned himself to the decision that had been made
and, reluctantly, sat down.

“If no one else has anything to discuss, I
adjourn this meeting and will leave it to Chris, as the Operations
Leader, to make any necessary arrangements.” With that, Clifford
and the other Elders began disappearing in bunches from the
room—apparently the teleporting rules did not apply to them.

The six at the long table arose slowly and
wordlessly. As they passed through the foyer and back onto the
transporter, Sam asked, “What should we do now?”

“Let’s just enjoy the holidays,” Chris said
with a smile.

T
aylor awoke and
sighed with satisfaction. She felt warm. She felt loved. Complete
even. Her arm was draped across Gabriel’s bare chest. She could
feel his pectoral muscles flex gently each time his lungs filled
with air.

Ever so gradually, she lifted her arm from
across him, making a conscious effort not to wake her sleeping
boyfriend. Just when she thought she was successful, Gabriel’s eyes
shot open, his strong arms pulling her back onto him. Taylor
laughed in surprise as he kissed her face, her neck. When he
reached her lips, he lingered for what could have been an eternity,
or just a few seconds—Taylor couldn’t tell which.

Taylor had forgiven Gabriel for all of his
lies, for his treachery, even for putting her own life in danger.
He had paid for his sins while in prison, by nearly losing his own
life. But she did have one requirement of him, which he had readily
agreed to. “Come on,” Taylor said, pulling her lips away from his.
“It’s story day.”

Gabriel cringed. “Maybe we should just wait
until after the holidays, then I will tell you everything.”

“You promised,” Taylor said. “You owe it to
me.”

“Okay, you’re right. Today is story day.”

“
True
story day,” Taylor reminded
him.

“Right.”

Ever since Taylor’s discovery that Gabriel
had woven lies into his story about the evolution of angels and
demons, she had been itching to hear him tell the true story. Chris
offered to tell her, but she refused—she wanted to hear it from
Gabriel.

It was the 30th of December, and Taylor
wanted to hear the story before she became distracted with the New
Year’s celebrations that the demons were planning. According to
Chris, despite being nonhuman, they really knew how to throw a
party.

Taylor had showered the night before, so she
got ready quickly—she never did her hair or used makeup—and waited
patiently for Gabriel to shower and dress. Despite her efforts,
Taylor and Gabriel were the last ones to arrive at breakfast. Chris
and Sam had already finished, while Sampson and Kiren had
apparently just arrived too, and were only beginning to eat.

Taylor filled her plate; the demon café was
set up similar to the college dining hall: buffet-style with
various options scattered throughout the café. Within minutes she
was finished eating, while Gabriel was taking his sweet, old
time—he must have been chewing each bite at least thirty times.

The second that the last forkful of sausage
hit his tongue, Taylor said, “Okay, who’s ready for story
time?”

Surprisingly, the first to answer was Kiren.
“I am definitely in. When else will I get the opportunity to listen
to an angel tell the dark truth about his people?”

“Hey!” Sampson objected. “I’ve been helping
the Elders out for years.”

“Oh, sorry, Sampson. I wasn’t counting you as
one of
them
.”

“And I am?” Gabriel asked.

“You’re still a recovering angel as far as
I’m concerned,” she replied. “You have to make it through the
12-step program before I will fully believe you.”

“What are the steps?” Taylor asked.

“Well, step one is what he is about to do.”
Kiren motioned to Gabriel. “Admit he was wrong, that he lied, that
most angels are evil, that sort of thing. I’ll tell you the rest of
the steps later. We don’t want to overwhelm him just yet.”

“Good luck, buddy,” Sampson said, slapping
his friend on the back. “You should have taken the easy route like
I did, and just become a spy.”

Gabriel smirked. “Thanks for the advice.”
Looking at Kiren, he added, “And don’t you worry. I am going to
show you that I am committed to helping you take down the Archangel
Council and anyone who supports them.”

“Okay, then let’s start with step one,
angel-boy,” Taylor said.

“I’ve got the perfect spot,” Chris said,
winking at Taylor.

As they walked, Chris spouted off facts about
the Lair.

The Lair was comprised of a labyrinth of
tunnels, alcoves, caves and cisterns. The massive underground
network covered five square miles, including escape access tunnels
and natural resource reserves. In typical demon style, there was
very little rhyme and even less reason to the floor plan. Rather,
over the years additions were made as random offshoots from the
original underground structure.

In its infancy, the Lair was simple, with
only an eating area, a sleeping area (which was a large, domed
room), and a meeting area. Over the last hundred years, it had been
expanded to include 5,000 separate, hotel-style rooms, more than
200 transporters—allowing residents and guests to access any part
of the complex in mere minutes—a recreational room (used heavily by
Taylor and Sam, mostly for its pool tables), and other luxuries
meant to improve the overall standard of living.

They passed through a thick metal door and
down a long, curving path. Taylor casually ran her hand along the
stone wall as she walked. In this particular passageway, the stone
walls were perfectly smooth, in direct contrast to the rough rock
walls in most other areas of the Lair. Eventually they reached a
break in the wall, as the tunnel tapered off to form a large
alcove. Within the recess, it was well-lit, with more than a dozen
amply-burning torches secured to the walls.

“What is this place?” Taylor asked.

“You’ll see,” Chris responded furtively.
There was a gleam in his eyes.

At the far end of the space were four sets of
wrought-iron double doors, lined up like soldiers on the front
lines. None were open.

Chris approached one of them. Before he
opened it, Taylor spotted faint lettering on the outside that read:
“To Balcony”.

He pulled the door open and then held it for
the tour group behind him. They marched through in a single-file
formation, the door being only wide enough for a single body to
pass through at a time.

At the front of the pack, Taylor plunged into
darkness, waving her hands in front of her, as the bright foyer
transitioned into a narrow strait—it was pitch black. A light
flicked on from behind her, and the path before her was suddenly
bathed in a white sheen. She glanced back over her shoulder.

“Flashlight. An angel’s best friend,” Gabriel
explained. While his favorite Mag-lite flashlight had been
confiscated by the angels during his arrest and imprisonment,
Sampson was able to procure another one for him before busting him
out of prison. Gabriel prodded Taylor gently in the small of her
back with his hand, encouraging her to continue forward.

Resuming her march, Taylor reached a steep
staircase. As there were no handrails, she steadied her climb by
running her hands along the walls, which were now not only smooth,
but cold.
Marble
, she thought. That explained the sheen when
the flashlight was illuminated. Someone went to a lot of trouble to
add a touch of elegance to this place. She knew it must be a
special place to the demons.

When she had climbed the final step, she
heard Chris yell from below, “Wait for me when you get to the top,
Taylor!” Obediently, she took a couple of steps forward to allow
the others enough room to exit the stairs, and then waited for
Christopher. Thirty seconds later, Chris had squeezed past the
group and was standing on her right. On her other side, Gabriel
probed his flashlight around them. Regardless of which direction he
aimed it, the light disappeared into darkness, unable to find a
wall or ceiling to rest upon. The room must be huge. As he played
the beam along the ground, it uncovered what appeared to be
clusters of stone benches arranged in semi-circles; each cluster
also had a circle of smaller stones in the midst of them—they
looked like fire pits at a camp site.

Taylor repeated her previous question. “What
is this place?”

She could barely make out Chris’s smile under
the glow of Gabriel’s body. “You’re about to find out.” He
dramatically stretched his arm out in front of him and paused. When
he snapped his fingers a small flame appeared, like his finger was
a lighter. The flame slowly grew into a small fire and then, using
both hands like he was shaping dough to make Christmas cookies, he
formed a ball of fire. Taylor and Sam leaned closer, in awe of the
way his skin refused to burn. While the demons’ mastery of fire was
something that Chris, Kiren, Gabriel and Sampson had grown up with,
the spectacle was still fresh and new to the human girls.

Chris grinned, enjoying the attention.
Rapidly, he whipped his arm back and kicked his leg high in the
air, like a Major League pitcher preparing to throw a fast ball,
and then thrust his arm forward. The fireball shot from his palm
and tore through the gloom. After twenty yards, the flaming
sphere’s flight ended abruptly, as it collided with an unseen
object in their direct line of sight. An explosion of fire and
flame erupted upwards, spreading rapidly.
Something wasn’t
right
, Taylor thought, as the flames branched further outwards,
extending their domain.
He was going to burn the place
down!

Sam read her mind. “Chris, we gotta get out
of here,” she shouted, grabbing his shoulder.

He looked back, surprised at the reaction. “I
wanted to surprise you, but perhaps I should have given you some
warning. It’s fine. Just watch.”

The girls looked on, their fear slowly
morphing into excitement, as the initial cylinder of fire spread
along the curved atrium roof, creating a dozen concentric circles
linked by fiery spokes. Each burning circle was of a larger
diameter than the previous one and, when the final circle had
formed, four plumes of fire blazed from the base of the domed roof.
As if by magic, hundreds of tiny torches and lanterns were lit
throughout the dome, shedding light on the furthest reaches of the
space.

Looking back at where Chris’s fireball had
originally ignited the fire, Taylor could see that the raging
inferno was, in actuality, a fiery chandelier, as beautiful as it
was deadly. She stepped forward to a curved railing and looked
down. They were on a large balcony, as the sign on the door had
suggested, and below them were hundreds more of the stone seating
areas. Beyond the lower-level seats was a massive slab of smooth,
round rock. It appeared to be a stage.

“Is this a theater?” Taylor asked.

Still grinning, Chris said, “Yep. Welcome to
Demon Hall, where all the popular acts by the Demon Symphony and
the Demon Play Company have been held over the last hundred years.
We have also had a number of great shows by some of the best demon
rocks bands, too,” he added.

Sam and Taylor looked at him like he was mad,
but he just shrugged and said, “Saving humans from complete
destruction by the angel race is not exactly a full-time job.
There’s lots of down time and we need to entertain ourselves
somehow. I’m sure the angels have the same thing, right,
Gabriel?”

Sampson and Gabriel looked at each other and
laughed. Gabriel said, “Actually, no. We do play games and eat and
talk and have fun, but I can say with certainty that we have
nothing like this. I am pretty impressed.”

Chris’s smile widened and it was evident that
Kiren was doing her best not to laugh out loud at the thought of
one-upping the angels. While the girls continued to gaze around the
Hall in awe, Chris said, “Anyway, I thought it would be a nice
location for story time, don’t you think?”

“Absolutely. Thanks, Chris,” Sam said,
hugging her boyfriend proudly.

“Yeah, thanks,” Taylor agreed.

Walking arm in arm with Samantha, Chris led
them to one of the nearby stone clusters. Each bench looked like a
miniature Stonehenge, with two rocks on either end, supporting a
long, rectangular stone that served as a seat for four or five
people…or demons…or angels, at a time.

The only two without significant others,
Sampson sat with Gabriel and Taylor, and Kiren sat with Christopher
and Samantha. Gabriel clicked off his flashlight, which was
rendered useless by Chris’s powerful fire display. Chris ignited
another small flame on his finger and lit the small fire pit in the
center of the seating area.

“What do we do next, sing ‘Kumbayah’ and
roast marshmallows?” Sampson asked.

Chuckling, Chris retorted, “We will be
branding your butt with the demon insignia, so you always remember
which side you are on.”

“You can do both of my cheeks if you want,
since I’ve caused so many problems,” Gabriel suggested.

“Aww, man, no one wants to see that!” Sampson
joked.

“I might,” Taylor said. “Remember, this whole
trip is all about causing angel-boy as much pain as possible. Just
getting him to tell this story has been like getting a child to
take a bath.”

Gabriel smirked. “Alright, alright. I get the
hint. I will tell you the entire truth as I know it…from the
beginning. Chris, Kiren—I would ask that you interrupt if anything
I say is different from your understanding. I want to get this
right.” The two demons nodded seriously.

Under the mood-setting flicker of firelight,
with Taylor’s hand intertwined with his, Gabriel began the tale
that he had once told Taylor—it seemed like a lifetime ago, but
was, in reality, only a few months earlier. The tale began exactly
as Taylor knew it from before: Clifford Dempsey the explorer, the
snake bite, the
changes
Clifford underwent, and his
subsequent astonishment over his newfound powers. Clifford was the
beginning of the demon evolution.