Rumors of War

by Cynus 

War of Heaven

Chapter 11

        Keith stood before the devil grinning broadly, his eyes twinkling in the bright light. Though I still did not share his humor about the situation, I admired his courage, especially when faced with the mask of rage that Lucifel wore. I would not be able to hold the same smile under any circumstances when faced with such eyes, tearing into my soul with unholy fervor.

        But when those eyes came to rest upon me, I was surprised to find that I didn’t shrink back, but instead I matched her fervor with my own. When my eyes met hers, every memory I had of her, from both my own mind and that of Michael’s, came to me in a flood of pain and misery that somehow only seemed to fuel the fire of my courage. I was not going to be cowed by that witch, even if she was about to kill me. Nor was I going to be cowed by Shatan, who had followed us from the brig and now took his place beside Lucifel, who eyed his bandaged wounds with contempt. Not contempt for him, but for us, the source of all her problems.

        Even before she said anything, I knew what was coming. This was the moment she had been waiting for, waiting for eons to see come to fruition. I knew as Michael had that she had always wanted to lead the forces of Heaven. She had always seen herself as the Empress, and could not settle for second in command. She was going to make my execution public, a show of strength to those who had exiled her, and she would then have the momentum she needed to seize the control that she craved.

        It didn’t even matter that she knew I wasn’t really Michael. The people didn’t know, and that was what mattered. The people would see their beloved commander, the man she despised, torn down like he was nothing. She hated him, surely, but not as much as she hated his image. This was about destroying that more than it was about killing him.

        She spoke, and the emotion behind her words confirmed everything that I had surmised. “Ah, the High Druid once again graces my halls. I had extended my hospitality to you once, Master Morgan, and this is how you repay me?” she asked with venom dripping from every word, “You come to assassinate me, and in the company of my greatest enemy no less? We’re going to have to make an example out of you.”

        “Hospitality?” Keith responded incredulously, “if I remember correctly, you took us hostage to protect us from Michael, but we both know that you had different plans. You used us as leverage with the demon king, to get the alliance you needed to draw Michael out of hiding. This was your end goal all along.”

        Lucifel smirked as she replied, “You’re perceptive for a human…”
        Keith interrupted her, and smiled wider at the flash of barely contained fury in her eyes as he did so. “Ah yes, bring my humanity into this. Humans have been how you’ve survived since your exile to Earth,” he stated firmly and then sarcastically added, “I’m a little confused as to why you are repaying our hospitality with genocide.”

        “Humans, all of you, are vile creatures,” she replied without missing a beat, “You break your oaths faster that you can make them. Your sexual deviance is without match, but of course, you and the whore Verina know all about that, don’t you?”

        “Ah, so you’re aware of that little bit of information, are you?” Keith answered, refusing to be provoked by her insults, and instead using his sarcasm he tossed another barb her way, “Well, I’m glad I could piss you off with my offspring. The child isn’t even born yet and he’s already made an enemy of the Devil. You can tell it’s definitely mine.”

        “Yes, I’m sure when we rip the child from her womb it will look just like you,” Lucifel smiled wickedly, “Of course, it’s not like you’re the first deviant in your line. Maybe we should start from the top and work our way down.”

        “That would be a little difficult, don’t you think?” Keith deflected the horrific threat, “I’m the only member of my family left. You’d have to raise the dead if you want to kill them again.”

        “Hah!” she replied with contempt, “You mean you really don’t know?”

        “I’m afraid not,” Keith answered with a roll of his eyes, “Perhaps you could enlighten me?”

        “Well, I already killed the first one,” Lucifel admitted casually, “Michael’s father tried to rape me, and he died trying. And we already killed the real Michael, though you’ll do in a pinch, Damien…”

        “How did you know?” I interrupted, though I was only slightly shocked that she had been able to piece it together. After all, with Keith’s cover blown it was only a matter of time that she reasoned out my identity. No one else was left to fulfill the role.

        “That’s hardly relevant anymore, Damien,” Keith answered instead, with a nonchalant shrug. Though the grin hadn’t left his face, it had weakened somewhat, and his eyes had the sparkle of challenge in them as he went on, “She knows, and that’s all that matters. What I’m more concerned with is the lies she’s telling me about Michael being my ancestor.”

        “If Belial had done his duty and killed Lumial like I ordered, then you wouldn’t exist, Keith Morgan,” she began to explain, and then with the same wicked gleam she clarified, “Or perhaps I should say that Lancelot would have never existed. The man who raped Pen’Arthrun’s wife who then gave birth to Morganna.”

        “That’s a lie!” Keith replied angrily, and this time the grin disappeared as he insisted, “He would have told me!”

        “Let’s bring him here and ask him the truth shall we? He has to be here for his execution anyway,” she suggested with a dismissive wave of her hand, and then a glare at Belial to tell him that she was serious. Belial bowed quickly and left, though his face said that he would rather be doing anything else. Lucifel turned her attention back to Keith and asked, “Why would he have done that? Risk his position with the demons just to tell you the truth?”

        “No, you’re right, he wouldn’t do that,” Keith admitted, and he was forcing the grin back on his face as he added, “But I have asked him if he knew anything about that time, before. He said he wasn’t there. He wouldn’t lie to me.”

        “Lumial lies quite often,” Lucifel insisted, “He did it to me, his own mother; do you really think that you’re exempt?”

        “If that’s really the case,” Keith replied, this time the grin back in its fullness, “then we should start at the top, right? That means I should start with you!” The guards standing next to Keith were suddenly nowhere near him as he pushed them away with his mind. They hit the wall with enough force that both appeared winded, and I made a quick prayer to whatever gods were listening that they would be kept from the fight for a moment.

        I followed suit with a push of my own, but I chose to lift my guards up into the air instead, smashing them first into the ceiling and then dropping them to the floor. It did the trick and they too seemed out of the fight for the moment. As fatigue already began to strike me, I was reminded that I had to pace myself. The fight was far from over.

        The rest of the guards in the room had already begun to open fire by the time I recovered, but Keith had already anticipated the move. He was pushing the flaming hot discs back through the air, piercing flesh as he did so. While none of the projectiles were touching him, he was quickly dropping soldier after soldier to the floor as they were pierced by their own bullets. The master of telekinesis was in his element, and I was more impressed than I had ever been.

        Shatan was on the move, however. He was dodging the few projectiles that Keith managed to send his way, anticipating their paths before they were even sent. Slowly but surely, he was getting even closer to Keith. Lucifel dove behind her throne for cover, and Keith turned his attention fully to the demon instead.

        In a moment of inspiration, I used my telekinesis to pull one of the wounded guards’ weapons into my hands, and started unleashing a barrage in Shatan’s direction. The demon began to move even quicker, though I was glad to see that his wounds were making him move with less agility than he was used to.

Keith, smiling as he took the hint, grabbed a weapon of his own and did the same, somehow managing to maintain his telekinetic control to push the projectiles coming toward him out of the air. I wasn’t able to match that level of skill, and as one of the discs grazed my leg, I yelped in pain and started firing back at the guards, taking my attention off of Shatan.

And that was all that the demon needed to start gaining ground on Keith again, making the druid start to look worried, despite the grin on his face. “Damien,” He spoke to my mind, “I don’t think we’re going to make it. He’s gaining on me, and I’m losing steam fast.”

“I think I can draw him off,” I replied as an idea struck me. I pulled on another one of the guns but held it aloft and at an angle that would be in line to fire at Lucifel. I didn’t have the level of control that Keith had in order to be able to manipulate the gun from a distance, but the bluff paid off anyway. Even as I let the weapon clatter to the ground harmlessly, Shatan was diving between the weapon and Lucifel, turning his back on Keith as he did so. The druid took the opportunity and took shot after shot into the demon’s back. I followed suit, and soon Shatan was down, his black scales covered in blood and burns.

It took me a moment to realize that he was no longer moving, and for a moment it seemed as if time had stopped as everyone in the room stared at Shatan’s unmoving body in disbelief. Everyone except Lucifel, that is. While the rest of us focused on Shatan, she moved forward, grabbing a gun from one of her fallen soldiers and turned it toward Keith, unleashing a sudden stream of the metal discs his way.

He was caught off guard, and before he could even think to start deflecting them several had already pierced his flesh. He went down as the other guards recovered their wits and fired at him as well. Forgetting about anything else, I rushed to his side and started deflecting the projectiles as well as I could, but I was already tired and I knew I couldn’t keep it up for long.

That’s when it ended. “Stop!” Lucifel ordered, and the weapons fire ceased immediately. I stopped paying attention to them and turned entirely to Keith, his body covered in as many holes as Shatan’s had been. Even as the remaining guards surrounded me I kept my focus on him, but there was nothing to be done. He was dead, and we had lost.

For only a moment, I was on the verge of tears as reality sunk in, but then something inside me changed. The guns pointed at my head became unimportant. The pain from where I had been grazed seemed to stop, and I became fixated on one thing and one thing only; the smile frozen on Keith’s lips. He had known he was going to die, and he met it the way he had wanted to.

I looked up and met Lucifel’s eyes, hers filled with white hot rage that suddenly gained a bit of confusion as I smiled back at her. I understood. It was time to meet my death, but I wasn’t going to let her beat me as I did so. By the time I straightened up to face her again, I was grinning just as broadly as Keith had.

This was going to be fun.