Chapter Eighteen - The Chosen One
Raphael peered down into the small shallow crater. The hunter, who still held Excailbur, was smoking but was still whole and lying at the bottom of the crater. Not a single wound on the hunter from that.
This one is tough, but it matters not. I will heal the world for once and for all. If this is what it will take for my penance to be paid. The archangel looked up at the portal, reaching out a hand.
A clawed hand grasped over their wrist.
Yeah, I know she’s kinda creepy sometimes—maybe crazy, but she is charming. Leora came face to face with Raphael. Then she tossed the archangel over her like she was doing a jiu-jitsu move.
Rapheal somersaulted in the air before flying into a loop. They stopped in midair. They glared down at Leora.
Ugh, seriously, how does Hollywood do this? Leora rotated her shoulders.
I knew you were released! I felt it in the world. Raphael was teary. They fluttered their wings in joy. I had sent my holder a dream.
Ah, the ‘kill all vampires’ spell. Leora made a pair of bunny ears motion with her clawed hands. Well, it worked. I wanted to know who was the dumbass saying that. What do you want with me? Not very wise to be this public considering, I dunno, you and three of your brethrens decided to seal my powers away—where are they by the way?
Raphael swooped down and slashed at Leora, who promptly ducked. The angel fluttered away, laughing. I wanted to see you and I don’t know where they are. I self-exiled myself soon after our last meeting.
Convenient. Leora nodded. Know where mom is?
Raphael looked sad. I’m sorry. I don’t know where she is.
That shithead Sariel?
I am sorry again, I do not know where they are either. Let’s talk after I take care of this. Raphael flew toward the portal.
Leora floated up into the air. Yeah, about that. No. I am not going to let you kill them. She flew and cut off Raphael’s path. Plus, I am going to beat you to a pulp.
Raphael shrugged. If you want, but without your full powers, you have no way to defeat me and break my seal on you.
Leora slashed at Raphael with a clawed hand, but the angel promptly batted her hand away with their flaming sword.
Owwie! Leora blew at her clawed hand that was still on fire.
Sorry. Raphael swung at Leora, who barreled away. They giggled.
I forgot who much of a psycho you are! Leora psychically blasted Raphael.
The angel took the hit and flew back, grimaced a little, but was able to maintain their flight. They smiled at Leora. There was even a halo over their head.
Shit. Leora braced herself.
They charged at Leora, tackling her in the air. They tumbled and somersaulted in the air before Raphael threw Leora into the ground. Leora bounced on the earth a few times before being picked up by the angel and thrashed around again as if the angel was trying to swat a fly in the air.
Leora could barely think with her body being shook, smashing into whatever and the pain that came. Lots of pain. She hated feeling pain.
Then she saw an opportunity. In the distance, Elijah was looking at them, murmuring a spell. His hands were glowing. That’s her buddy!
Tendrils of green energy whipped out of him and wrapped around the angel.
Leora knocked out the angel’s sword and then did a backward roundhouse kick that she saw Zea do, but her knee ended up hitting the angel’s head. She went down with the angel in a twirling motion.
They hit the ground.
You foul human! Raphael untangled themselves from Elijah’s energy tendrils with a mighty roar.
Elijah and Leora covered their ears in agony.
Raphael sped to Elijah.
“Not today, Satan!” shouted Elijah. He reached out his athame and aimed, channeling all of his astrals into the crown of the angel’s head.
Hmph, how sad we can only say their proxy names. Raphael summoned their flaming sword.
Personally, I prefer Lucifer! Also an addictive show! Leora intercepted the flaming sword and wrestled with it in the air.
Elijah watched his astral lines shootout and hit Raphael spot on. The angel cried out in agony, which sent Elijah back to cover his ears once more. Their wings broke apart, and they tumbled back to the ground.
Leora, finally getting the upper hand, plunged the sword into a rock. “And stay there!” she said at the sword. She then looked over to Elijah. He had a bleeding cut over his forehead, out of breath, slightly pale but otherwise looked fine. He gave her a thumbs up. Then he frowned.
Leora looked over to where he was looking to see the angel rise up, eyes flamed. “Move!” she shouted. She moved as fast as she could but was too late.
Elijah saw it, but he had no energy to even move. He saw it in the ebb and flow of the astral lines. A cubed light surrounded him and encased him, trapping him in space and time for all eternity.
“You piece of shit!” snapped Leora, no longer speaking telepathically. She wanted the angel to feel her wrath through the air.
Raphael spoke in the most pleasant, lyrical voice as they approached Leora. “You sound in agony. I am so sorry,” they said and then determined. “But it seems you are fighting for them and cannot be reasoned with.”
“Killing everybody is not reasonable! Fuck it, you are supposed to be the good guy!” Leora tried to punch the angel.
Raphael caught her punch. “I am doing my duty. Duty that should have been long resolved eons ago. Do you still want to stop me?” they asked.
“Fuck yes!” screamed Leora. She tried to punch with her other hand and it too was caught by Raphael’s other arm.
“I see. Perhaps you need to be locked away again,” said Raphael. The archangel pulled Leora to Twilight's Gate.
“No, I can’t go back!” Leora kicked but the angel was unphased. She tried to bite Raphael’s arm with her fangs but only burned her mouth and tongue. “Blaaah!”
“I am sorry for the last time,” said Raphael. They reached the base of Twilight’s Gate.
A huge door appeared under the archway. It opened up to a pitch blackness.
“When I get out, I am so going after you first you piece of bird--” Leora’s voice cutoff off as Raphael touched her forehead and she fell into unconsciousness.
Then Raphael carried Leora up the stairs and set her down in front of the opened door.
“I look forward to it, Leora,” said Raphael softly.
They watched Leora get sucked through the opened door.
The door promptly closed and disappeared.
Raphael turned to the portal. They only have to distort it enough for reality to remove all of humanity and those that were one. Thus fulfilling that old hunter’s wish. They started to walk to the portal.
***
Josephine woke up standing in a dark room with a spotlight on her. This was where she would watch her death visions. The little light tv was displaying the same vision she had seen last time. Just a light. The last thing she saw before she woke up here.
“Just making sure but, um, am I dead?” she called out.
“You have to get her out,” someone using her voice answered.
“What hickey dickey grim reaper are you?” she asked.
“You are not dead. Not yet,” answered voice doppelganger.
“Alright alright, good news,” she said happily. She rubbed her hands. “So how do I go back to where I was?”
“You have to get her out,” repeated voice doppelganger.
“Yeah, will do that once you tell me who,” said Josephine.
Then the light on the tv changed. Something was playing other than her death. Josephine approached it and watched a little movie play.
“Yo, I did not know Leora knew how to fly! And did she cut her hair? She’s hitting all my spots.” Josephine nodding in approval. “On a serious note, how do you expect me to beat an angel? Oh wait, seven wings I counted, an archangel?”
“Did you forget? You’re the Chosen One,” said the voice doppelganger.
Excalibur appeared before her, stabbed into a stone.
“Take your rightful place,” said the voice doppelganger.
Josephine placed her hands over Excalibur’s handle. She took a breath and pulled the sword out. A blue light flowed out of Excalibur and into her.
***
Raphael stopped and turned around. They looked over to the small crater. “You...I knew would be a problem,” they said. They raised their hand, summoned their flaming sword that dislodged itself from wherever Leora stabbed it into.
Josephine stood with one foot out of the crater and Excalibur resting on her shoulder. “No longer using your inside voice, I see,” she said. Her eyes were glowing, and there was a soft light over her head. Almost like a halo.
“I believe you humans say,” Raphael caught their sword, “Come at me, bro.”
Josephine ran at Raphael, sword swinging. The angel parried every slash. However, each of Josephine’s sword swings were getting stronger one after another.
Josephine was relentless. Raphael found themselves backing up. They tried to summon the light box to trap the hunter like Elijah, but it had no effect on the hunter.
Josephine did a mighty overhead downward slash, forcing Raphael to use both arms to block with their flaming sword. Taking advantage, Josephine thrusted a kick into the angel’s midsection. The angel stumbled back and saved themselves from falling backward when their heel touched the base of Twilight’s Gate.
“This is cheating,” said Raphael through gritted teeth when Josephine switched her grip and batted the archangels’ flaming sword away with a sideways swing.
The flaming sword once again was plunged into the ground.
“I have no idea me beating your ass is cheating. You being an archangel is cheating,” said Josephine. She grabbed the angel’s neck and pulled them up the stairs and to Twilight’s Gate. “Bring her back,” she demanded.
“Why does it matter?” said Raphael, struggling to break free.
“Stop being a bitch and just open it!” said Josephine.
(Because it was wrong.)
Raphael stopped struggling. From across space and time, someone uttered those words to them. They looked like their heart was broken.
Josephine felt the power surge she had suddenly went away. She let go of the archangel. “Did you want me to say please?” she asked. She wasn’t sure what happened. She looked around quickly in bewilderment in case maybe a friend of the archangel had popped out and de-powered her.
“No,” said Raphael quietly.
“Okay, then do it,” threatened Josephine. She wasn’t sure if the archangel knew she no longer was imbued by Excailbur’s power.
“I just wanted a moment to take it all in. It’s going to be a really long time before I can come back. Likely I won’t see you again until, maybe, Judgement Day?” said Raphael. They looked back.
Once more a door appeared under Twilight’s Gate gateway.
Leora appeared at the base of the gate, unconscious and curled like a sleeping cat.
Josephine eyes lit up. “Leora!” She went down the stairs to the vampire and kneeled beside her. Then she looked up to see Rapheal waving goodbye before being sucked away into the door.
“Weirdo,” said Josephine as she waved back. Excalibur changed back into a gun, and she tucked it into her waistband.
The door closed and disappeared. Twilight’s Gate shook and crumbled into ruins. A few rays of light from the sun started to break through the jet black clouds.
Leora started to wake up. “Josephine?” she croaked.
Josephine smiled and brushed a thumb over Leora’s cheek. “Hey,” she said. Then she bent down and kissed Leora on the lips. She was pleasantly surprised when Leora kissed her back.
“Don’t get use to it,” said Leora weakly when their lips pulled away for a breath.
“Okay,” sighed Josephine before she fainted, her head softly landing next to Leora’s face.
Leora then closed her eyes and drifted into a deep sleep.
***
Zea had awoken behind the crumbled wall that once divided the courtyard terrace from the rest of the estate. She had no idea how she got here, but that was the least to occupy her thoughts. First thing she noticed was that she was alive. Next she noticed that her wounds were gone. Even more so, the arm she swore she had cutoff, had either been glued back or she rapidly regenerated. Both scenarios are impossible for her.
She stood up and climbed on top of the crumbled wall, watching sun rays breaking through the jet black clouds. She would have to seek shelter from the sun soon. She walked down the crumbled wall and traveled to the destroyed Twilight’s Gate where she last remembered she was at. Perhaps she could find out what had happened before she had to hide from the sun.
Many bodies, mostly vampires, littered her way. The hunters bodies she came across were mostly concentrated on the side of the now gone gashed earth where Elijah and Josephine were. She stopped upon recognizing a lump in her way—his purposely ripped shirt that was then put back together with safety pins with skull heads—was a dead giveaway.
In the distance she could hear emergency sirens.
“Elijah,” she called out as she kneeled beside him. “C’mon, we have to go.”
Elijah groaned awake.
“Did...Where’s Leora?” he asked as he scrambled to get up.
Zea stood back up. She couldn’t look him in the eye because the last time she saw Leora, her head was ripped off. “She’s,” she hesitated. She wasn’t sure how Elijah would react at his friend’s death.
“Over there! Thank you, Horned One!” Elijah cried out. He ran off.
Zea, more confused than ever, followed Elijah. She went still when Elijah approached an unconscious Josephine who was spooning a sleeping Leora. Leora who was alive...with her head back on her body.
“Zea, can you carry them? Eh, Josephine is kind of big for me. Can you carry her at least? I can carry Leora,” said Elijah, who had already decided and had promptly bent down to haul up Leora over his shoulder.
The loudness of the sirens alarmed Zea. She didn’t have to tell Elijah, who understood that police and emergency vehicles had parked in front of the estate from the vampire’s expression. Zea quickly picked up Josephine as Elijah grunted to pull Leora over his shoulders into a more comfortable position.
The jet clouds started to blow apart and let more sunlight through.
“Okay, this way to the getaway car!” Elijah jerked his head in the direction where they should be heading. He ran off as fast as he could with Zea following.
***
They had reached the getaway car. Even though Zea and Elijah didn’t say another word to each other, preoccupied with their own troubling thoughts, they knew what to do. They put Leora and Josephine in the backseats. Zea, herself, got into the trunk of the car just in time before the jet black clouds disappeared completely.
Then Elijah took the wheel and, in the afternoon sun, drove to the airport.
Chapter 19 - The Vampire That Walks in Light