Chapter 11: Into the Fire: Part One

I’d had thought there would be more participation involved in a ritual meant to grant me godly powers. I’d thought that there’d be tests or trials, something like having to endure power being pushed into me, maybe something to prove I was worthy. Visions, spirits quests, some sort of personal revelation.

Around me, I could feel the air getting heavy, almost like just before a thunderstorm would hit, only many times over. There was energy in the atmosphere, so thick it was almost stifling, but at the same time, it was energizing. The air was so thick I found it hard to breathe, but so rich that I didn’t need to breathe much.

I could hear things too, the whistle of the wind and it seemed to circle the ritual site. The crackle of burning fire and the snap of electric lightning were also about me, accompanied by almost musical tones and chimes from random directions.

I could hear and feel it, but I couldn’t see any of it. Even though this ritual was going to be a huge turning point in my life, my role in it was to stand where I was told and keep my eyes shut.

I knew that it was necessary. I knew that Joan was working with the Enochian runes, and if I didn’t want to risk the angelic script going all eldritch on my mind, I had to avoid looking at them. I knew all of that, but it didn’t do too much to calm my frustration.

I knew that the ritual was having potent effects, but I couldn’t see any of them. I imagined Joan working with a huge dome of glowing runes. I imagined a massive pillar of flame from the bowl that she’d set the fire to. I imagined an aura of divine favour enveloping the resurrected saint as she gathered more power. But that was all I could do, imagine it. if I opened my eyes then I might end up sending my brain into blue screen mode, and Joan had been clear that something like that could seriously derail the ritual. So, I stood there and followed her instructions.

I wasn’t quite sure how long I had been standing there, with my eyes closed. Time seemed to crawl by as I listened to Joan raise her voice into something that was at once a chant, a prayer, and an incantation. I could hear her switching between languages as she continued, and several times I heard names that I recognized. Most of the time she spoke in French, but sometimes she switched to other languages I had no idea about. I heard names I recognized though, names like ‘Gaea’ and ‘Zeus’, ‘Isis’ and ‘Osiris’. I think I also heard some Latin in there, and something that might have been German, but for the most part, it was incomprehensible to me.

That said, I did find a certain pleasure in listening to her. Joan had a beautiful voice, especially when she put force into it. Most of the time she was just pleasant to listen to, her voice and slight accent combining to be both appealing and soothing. But now . . . now that she was raising her voice as though speaking to the entire field, empty though it was; now she truly shone.

Her words rang across the circle she’d created and across the plains of grass. Her voice carried across it all as clearly as though she were standing right next to me, and the passion, the force in her words was clear even if I could not fully understand the actual words. It was easy to understand how this girl could have motivated a country on the brink of defeat to fight, how she could turn the course of a war that had been going on for decades. It was easy to understand that this really was Joan of Arc.

As time passed, I could feel the tension in the air growing. The atmosphere practically thrummed with barely restrained energy, like some great predator coiled and ready to pounce, its muscles bunched and all that energy held and ready to be released. I desperately wanted to open my eyes and see what was going on, but I knew better.

So, I stood there, my blood hammering in my ears, eager for Joan to call to me, to tell me that it was time for me to do my part.

When Joan suddenly broke off in mid-sentence I knew something was wrong. She’d been reaching a crescendo in her chant, the words building towards something, when she just cut off. The sudden shift from hearing her speaking so forcefully to near-dead silence was a shocking contrast, discordant, wrong. Without really thinking about it I felt myself go still as well.

There was nothing though, just the rustle of the grass as the gentle wind made it wave about. Even so, I could feel a new tension in the air, more choking than before. I wanted to open my eyes, but even through my closed lids, I could see the faint glow that came through, a glow that let me know that the script my teacher had carved into the trunks was still empowered. If I were to open my eyes then I’d be disoriented at best, and useless at worst.

“Joan?”

The name was spoken as a question, a query as to just what was going on.

“Attends, something . . . something is wrong,” she replied, her voice now hushed. “I think that . . . I think that we may have been found.”

I was about to ask what she meant. I was going to ask how she knew that, and who she thought might have found us. I had a whole bunch of questions to ask, but I never got a chance. A sudden tearing sound ripping across the ritual site, followed by a rapid series of thundering crashes cut me off. The land beneath me trembled, and it was all I could do to keep my balance. I wanted to open my eyes so much it was almost unbearable.

The next thing I knew I was being tackled to the ground. For a moment I tried to struggle, got ready to open my eyes regardless of the consequence, and then I recognized the sound of breathing, the scent of armour and flowers. The ground shuddered again, as another set of three impacts shook it, but a hand grabbed my cheek and turned my face in a specific direction, even though my eyes were still closed.

“Adam, we are under attack,” Joan’s voice was steady but urgent. “Do not open your eyes, not until I tell you! There are many of them, but I can fight them, however, you must get yourself to safety! When I call out I will release all the pent-up energy of the ritual. That will burn out the script’s power, and hopefully blind these attackers. As soon as you are able, run for the woods behind the farmhouse! Do not stop, go into them as deeply as you can. Do not fear, I will be able to find you. Are you ready?”

Was I? The situation had shifted so suddenly that I was still trying to catch up. We were under attack? By who? Why now? What did they want? Questions flapped about my head, drowning other thoughts out as I tried to recover my scattered wits.

“Adam! Do you understand?!”

She asked more forcefully this time, and I could feel a hand tightening on my shoulder.

“Y-Yeah. I . . . I can do that.”

My eyes were still screwed shut, but I could almost hear the approving nod that she gave me.

“Good. Have faith, Adam, we can succeed! We shall-”

Whatever she was going to say was cut off as there was another impact, but this one was far closer than before. I could feel the dust that had been thrown up by it was over me like a sudden wind. My mind catalogued the sensations and did not like the picture that was forming, for something to have had that kind of impact it had to be either very big, or been going very fast, or, most likely, both. That was not something that I wanted to contemplate. There was a rustle from beside me, then a cough, then a hand that had been on my shoulder was pulling me to my feet.

“Go! Go, Adam! I shall deal with these . . . creatures!”

I opened my eyes as I came up, and was immediately blinded, though not by mind-bending angelic script. Instead, it was by air that was thick with dust, and as soon as my eyelids opened the grains in the air seemed to assault me. With the world a blur of dust and tears I ran straight into one of the logs that had been laying on the ground.

I went crashing down with enough force that it felt like my bones rattled. Doing my best to ignore the pain I tried to right myself, but had to scramble to the side as something large and wet came down next to me. It took me a couple of seconds, and some more frantic blinking, to clear up my vision enough to make out just what it was, and as soon as I did I really wished that I hadn’t.

It was a leg.

To be more precise it was a leg that had been sliced off from someone around the mid-upper thigh. It wasn’t a human leg, that much was clear from the clawed toes, and the strange pallor to the skin, but even so I felt my stomach trying to rebel at the sight of it. Reflexively I swallowed and barely managed to keep from throwing up. Blood was still leaking from it, making it clear this was fresh, and I could feel my head starting to spin as I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off it. Where had it come from? Where . . . ?

My back met something large and solid, the impact of running into it being enough to bring me back to my senses. Looking over my shoulder I realized that I had been unconsciously scrambling backwards, away from the severed limb, and had backed myself up against the altar at the centre of the ritual circle.

Shit! I swore in my mind as I realized that I was ignoring Joan’s instructions. I should be running, not-

It was at that point that I finally looked around, trying to get a grip on just what the situation was.

Joan stood just away from the ritual circle, and she was geared for battle. She was now clad in the same armour she’d been wearing when I first met her, and she was wielding the sword I’d seen sheathed at her side, but which she had never drawn before. The sun had almost completely set now, so the main source of light for the area was the large fire dancing on the altar behind me. The flickering of the flames cast the area into jumping shadows, but it also clearly lit up the scene before me.

What my teacher and protector was fighting were monsters, there was no other way to describe them. The creatures that threw themselves at her were sort of human-shaped but had taken a running leap into the uncanny valley. They were naked, apparently genderless, and hairless. Their limbs were slightly off, their fingers ending in black talons that took the place of their nails, and the way that they moved and fought seemed almost animalistic. The way they crouched as they ran, the way they used their hands to aid their movements, all of it was savage and feral. No, these things might have a vaguely human form, but they definitely weren’t human.

What they were was ferocious though, that was clear from the way they were throwing themselves at Joan.

It was like something out of a horror movie, the lone girl being dragged down and slaughtered by a pack of misshapen monsters. Joan, though, she was no helpless victim, and the ring of dead creatures around her feet was a mute testament to that fact. These things were moving fast, so fast that I was having a hard time keeping track of them. They moved like hunting cats, all speed and ferocity and claws, seeming to go from one spot to another without having passed the space in between.

As I looked over the group of these . . . things, I noticed that they were coming from a strange distortion in the air. I couldn’t see it, not properly, but the way the air rippled and shimmered like a heat distortion gave me a general idea of what I might be looking at. Whatever it was the monsters were coming out of it, I could see them tumbling out of the shimmer as though it were a pool of water. And what was worse was that they were coming out quickly.

For every second that passed at least two or three would come through, each of them hurtling forth with such force that you’d have thought they had been fired from a cannon. The grass around the cleared area was already torn up and cratered, and I was guessing that it had been the arrival of the first ones that had caused the tremors I had felt earlier. Their violent arrival didn’t seem to be slowing the creatures down at all though, as they quickly got to their feet without any signs of injury.

So many of them. Already there were enough to semi-surround Joan, and more were coming every moment. They also moved with eerie coordination, none of them bumped or jostled each other, as though they were a pack of wolves or a school of fish. Still, it wasn’t doing them much good, not against the reborn saint.

I’d thought Joan had a minimalist style of fighting, one that emphasized getting the greatest result from the smallest exertion. However, what I saw before me just showed how far off I’d been.

Joan was a whirlwind of action, moving so fast I could barely keep track of her. The monsters coming at her moved faster than anything I’d ever seen before, but that didn’t seem to matter to her. Every leap was met by the blade of her sword slashing through the air; every swipe from their claws was either blocked by her blade or simply passed through empty space as she avoided it. Those that tried to hurt her paid a heavy price though, as every attempt was met by retaliation from her flashing sword, and every swing of her blade left her foes either dead or crippled. They tried coming at her from the side, flanking her or going for pincer attacks, but it seemed pointless, Joan seemed to be constantly aware of all the enemies around her, spinning and bounding to meet every attack, or simply lashing out behind her without even bothering to face the target.

There were just no words to properly describe it! She wasn’t a woman anymore! It was as though the young woman that I’d gotten to know over the last few days was gone and had been replaced by a war machine. There was no hesitation, no remorse, no mercy, only perfect action that mowed down everything that came at her. Around her feet, the bodies of her enemies were already piling up, not that it was affecting her footwork as she easily stepped over and on them with perfect balance.

There was something else though. Every time her sword hit the monsters it was as though they were illuminated by a sudden internal flash of red and orange light. For those few without an immediately fatal wound, the flash seemed to be accompanied by intense pain, as they back writhing. They would quickly recover though, but when they got back up, they seemed diminished.

There had to be at a dozen or so of the things dead at her feet, but the rest of them just came on undaunted. They made a strange keening sound as they did so, something that sounded more like an air raid siren than it did something organic vocal cords could produce. It was as though the world was off-kilter. What I was seeing shouldn’t have been possible. Was this going to be my world now?

You’d have thought I’d been standing there like some gawking spectator. But the truth was that it all flashed in front of me in the time it took me to scramble to my feet and get my balance!

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Joan was doing a good job of holding the monsters off and drawing their attention, since they seemed to be focused on her. As soon as I got my feet under me, I took off running, jumping over the logs in my way and heading towards the distant darkness of the woods.

I don’t know if it was luck, adrenalin, or fear, but whatever the reason I tore across the field so fast that it seemed like a blur. My heart was hammering in my chest, the beat of it thundering in my ears, but I didn’t really care! All that mattered was getting to the woods, getting to safety, and getting away from those monsters!

The attack came out of nowhere. I didn’t see or hear anything coming towards me. The first hint that I hadn’t gotten away cleanly was something slamming into my back and taking me off my feet.

Sharp pain broke out in my shoulders as something dug into my flesh, but that was only background pain as I slammed into the ground. The impact drove the air from my lungs as I was pushed face down into the grass, my efforts to draw in a breath serving only to choke me as dry dust and crushed plants caught in my throat.

Spasmodically I coughed, trying to clear my lungs, but even as I tried to lift my head something grasped it from behind and forced it down. For a moment I struggled, thinking that whoever had me planned to suffocate me in the dirt of the ground, then the grip adjusted and it was just my cheek being pressed into the soil. It hurt, the grip was unyielding, and I could feel claws piercing my scalp, but at least I could breathe, and at that moment that was all that mattered.

Then more hands grabbed me, and I was dragged away. The grip on my face was gone, but whoever was pulling at me wasn’t bothering to turn me over, they had just seized my legs and ankles and were pulling me along. Stone and twigs dug into me, and I had to take a moment to try and get my bearings on just what was happening. My arms were free, and I instinctively thrashed about, trying to free myself from whatever was holding me. One hand came down on something half buried in grass and I grabbed onto it desperately. Whatever it was held strong, and with a jerk that made my arms ache I came to a stop.

The hands gripping my legs pulled at me, and I could feel those claws digging deeper into me. It hurt, it hurt like hell, but my blood was practically swimming with adrenaline, and I refused to let go. The grip on me slackened a bit, and I took the opportunity to try and see just who was holding me.

There were three of them, three of the weird eyeless monsters that Joan had been fighting. Two of them had my left leg, one of them had my right, and they seemed to be trying to drag me off towards the portal. Whatever I’d grabbed seemed to be deeply lodged into the ground, but I could feel it starting to come free. Gripped by sudden panic I tried to kick my legs free of their grip, all too aware that I was in the grasp of things that were NOT human. I didn’t know what they wanted with me, but as I looked at those empty holes where its eyes should have been, I was completely certain that I wanted no part of it.

I thrashed again, and the claws cut in deeper, my legs felt like they were on fire, but fear and anger both kept me from just giving up.

Then I was free.

I don’t know how it happened, maybe the blood they had drawn had made my legs too slick to hold on to, whatever it was I had no intention of letting the chance slip me by. Scrambling to my feet again I lunged away from the monsters, trying to turn back to the woods.

I didn’t get further than a few steps, and then one of them was in front of me, crouched and ready to spring. I stumbled back, my burning legs unsteady under me as I spun, looking for another route, only to find another of the pale monsters lunging at me, sending me scrambling back again.

They came at me, and I fell back, again and again. I didn’t know how I was managing to avoid them, but all I could do was dodge those black claws as they came flashing out at me. It wasn’t until I tripped over a log I’d backed into that I realized what was happening.

I was being herded like a group of wolves driving some fat buck I was being funnelled where they wanted me. Back to the ritual circle, back to where the others were.

Things were happening too fast! There was no time for fear, despair or even anger. There was only time for mindless reflexive action.

I didn’t try to run towards the woods again, instead, I fell back faster than the monsters had expected. I was trying to get to the altar, I was trying to get the burning wood on it between me and the monster.

Unfortunately, while the spirit might have been eager the flesh was unequal to the task. I only managed a couple of steps before one of my legs buckled under me. I was able to stay upright by grabbing the side of the altar, but the brief pause cost me. Before I could even think of what to do next a form slammed into me from the side, arms wrapping around me in an attempt to restrain me as one of those featureless faces filled my vision. Then it was gone, and an iron-like grip on my ankle was dragging me along the ground.

I thrashed like a wild animal, but all I could do was flail at the creature ineffectually, like a child against an abusive adult. Realising that fighting was pointless I instead dug my heels in and tried to grab at the long grass around me, trying to resist the pull.

My efforts must have done something, because suddenly it let go of my leg and rounded on me. The next thing I knew I was rolling across the ground, my head swimming and my ears ringing, the left side of my face throbbing and numb.

“ADAM!!”

It was only after I heard Joan’s enraged shout that I realized what had happened, the monster had hit me, and pretty brutally too. The world seemed to swim slightly as I stared up at it, my legs having given out entirely from under me and splayed out on the grass and dirt. I could see and hear it just fine, but it was as though I couldn’t get it to connect with anything in my head, I just observed it all in a sort of daze.

“AU NOME DE DIEU!!!”

In my stunned state, the words seemed to rattle around in my head, my ears ringing as they thundered through the air. For a moment it seemed as though the very earth beneath me vibrated in response to her shout.

The monster that had hit me also seemed to be shaken, because it paused as it loomed over me, giving me a moment to pull some thoughts back together into something that made sense. A sense I almost lost as I looked over towards Joan, only to be nearly blinded.

I’d suspected that when I’d seen her transform in front of my home she’d soft-balled her change. Something like that, the shift from a mortal to a divine soldier shouldn’t be something so subdued that you can do on a road without anyone noticing.

The sudden searing light that cascaded off her as the wings and halo reappeared before me proved me right.

She shone like a star, but she hit like a lightning bolt, I didn’t even see her move. One moment she had been hovering a couple of feet off the ground, the next she was amidst the enemy, one hand lashing out with her sword, the other laying about her with a weapon crafted out of solid light. Like something out of a samurai movie, the foes behind her fell apart, all of them bisected by a blade that had moved too fast for me to see.

She didn’t stop there though; she simply flowed into her next action as smoothly as a dancer on a stage. The sword of light faded away and she pointed her empty hand at the surviving creatures before her. There was a brief build-up of energy, and then a lance of golden force shot from her fingers. The beam of energy moved like lightning in a storm, the movement too fast to track, but just slow enough to be seen.

Energy attacks are something that I’d grown up seeing in shows and films. Laser eyes, ray guns, spaceships firing phasers, disruptors, turbo beams, there were a myriad of different names for more or less the same thing. Seeing them in real life though, that was awesome!

Her attack cut through the head of one creature, burnt through the neck of another and then struck a third in the chest like a wrecking ball. Given her hovering a few feet above the grass it was no surprise that her angle of attack was slanted downwards, but to watch it happen . . . Another burst of energy exploded from her hand, then another, and another, and with each burst of light more of the featureless creatures were shot down like toys before an angry child. In a handful of seconds the numbers of the monsters had been cut down from dozens to less than ten. The almost casual way that she did it was jawdropping.

Not that I was able to watch for all that long. A sudden pressure about my neck and shoulders reminded me harshly that I was far from out of the woods.

The creature that had hit me had understood what Joan had done as clearly as I had, though it had not been as stunned by her display of power. Instead it had moved to protect itself by seizing a hostage, namely me. One arm went around my throat while its other one came around my chest, trying to pin both my arms. My right arm was caught, but my left managed to rise before it could get a good grip, and remained free. Not that it did me much good since the grip that the monster had on me left me almost helpless; with it behind me I couldn’t even reach it properly to struggle. All I could do was flail at it with my left hand, and those attempts were even more pitiful than the earlier blows that it had ignored.

Something hit the back of my head, the blow not as harsh as the earlier one, but still more than strong enough to scatter my thoughts and take the fight out of me. Blearily I looked up, my eyes drifting over to my protector as she lit up the night with the light that shone forth from her.

“LET HIM GO!”

Joan’s words rang across the clearing like a whip being cracked, the force of it enough to get my swimming thoughts to focus on her, even if the rest of the world was still a blurred mess. However, it seemed to have no effect upon the creature holding me, because all it did was swing me around so that I was directly between it and my protector. Joan was hovering slightly off the ground, higher than she had been before, one hand extended towards us, energy gathered upon the outstretched fingertips and ready to be unleashed. In response the monster had brought its claws to my neck, the tips pricking into my skin hard enough to cause droplets of blood to spill forth and begin to run down my neck. Normally I wouldn’t have been able to feel it, but even in my still dazed state I had so much adrenaline flooding my system that I could feel the tiny rivulets as they trickled down my skin. The threat was clear, even if she could use that insane speed or those lasers to hit the monster then the very act of it falling over would be enough to let out my blood like a slit water bag.

I could see the frustration on Joan’s face, but she made no move. She just continued to hover there, her hand gripping the hilt of her sword so tightly that her knuckles were turning white. Suddenly I was moving, the arms around my neck and chest pushing me around as the creature tried to get me to move. My limbs were sluggish, dragging more than moving, but the creature was strong enough that it wasn’t hindered in any real way. It was just dragging me around the altar with almost casual ease, trying to keep both it and me between itself and Joan.

My left arm swung, the limb slack, and the hand ran over something long and hard. Instinctively my fingers closed around it. I felt its sharp edges press against my skin, yet for some reason my flesh didn’t cut. I couldn’t really think of anything to do with it yet. Still, some part of me knew that just having a weapon of any sort could be important, so I kept my grip on it.

The standoff continued as Joan maintained her focus upon the monster that held me. One of the other creatures tried to attack her from behind, no doubt hoping for her to be distracted, but she didn’t even bother to look at it as she cut it down. She didn’t even bother to draw her sword, one of her wings simply swatted out at it as though brushing away a fly and the top half of its torso simply vanished in a spray of blood and pulverized organs. Before that moment Joan had been mowing them down with almost contemptuous ease, now they weren’t even enemies, they were simply pests.

But one pest had me, and that was all that was holding her back, which was why things seemed to have degenerated into a Mexican standoff.

Then something changed.

I saw it arrive, but even though I understood what I saw, the connection with it being a threat to my protector took precious seconds to form. First it was just another heat shimmer in the air. Then something stepped through it, something huge. The figure that had appeared towered at least two feet over the hovering Joan.

Its arrival was silent, one moment there was empty space, the next it was taken up by the huge bulk of the newly arrived creature. There was a sense of unreality to it, a clash between the soundless way it arrived and the sheer imposing mass of its actual presence. It was only when the thing moved, reaching out towards the unawares Joan that my thoughts came into focus, and I opened my mouth to yell a warning.

Too late.

The cracking of bones echoed audibly across the field as those huge hands clamped down on the wing they were holding. For a moment there was only silence.

Then Joan screamed!

Light lanced out from her hand again, but it just skittered off the massive form that loomed over her. Her sword came about in a swift and vicious chop, but even though there was a shower of sparks as it made contact, the distinctive sound of metal on metal made it clear that she had cut no flesh. With a wordless shout she abandoned both sword and energy, and instead drove her fist into the chest of the hulking figure, a sound like a struck bell echoing through the field as she did so.

That blow had struck with such force that I had actually felt it from where I slumped. I swear there was actually a sort of shockwave that rippled out from the point of impact. I could only guess at the sort of power that must have been involved to manage something like that.

And all it had done was make the huge figure take one step back, nothing more.

The next moment it was advancing again, those huge hands reaching out to the winged form of the resurrected saint. The clear intention to break her apart present in its every motion. This time though, Joan was ready. Both her hands came up in front of her pointing towards the oncoming hulk, her fingers poised as though holding a large invisible globe before her. Light gathered there, they speared out, searing the air as it shot towards the huge figure that had attacked her.

This was nothing like the previous attacks that she’d used. Before it had been short flashes of light, the beams lasting for a second at most, then fading away. It had been devastating to her foes, blasting through them or carving them up with the sort of casual ease that denoted an absolute supremacy.

This attack made all previous attacks seem as pale as the squeaking of a kitten compared to a lion’s roar.

It was no simple flash that emanated from her hands. No brief blast of energy or brief shot of brilliance. Instead this was a beam as thick as one of my legs, and it just kept on going. It was a continuous stream of force that slammed into the figure of metal and stone. Just as with her earlier blow the force of her new attack was clear, even to my still dazed mind. I could feel the heat of the light, even from as far away as I was, and it was as though I’d just opened to door to a furnace. It was already a warm summer evening, but now it felt as though if I weren’t careful I might get burns.

And this was from me standing a good distance away. I couldn’t image how it must have been to be the object of that attack, to have all of that power levelled against you.

And yet the figure would not fall.

Its arms came up to shield its face and chest, but that was the only reaction that it gave. Instead it just braced itself and endured the torrent of heat and light in much the same way that a man might endure water from a hose. The ground about it burnt and broke, grass catching fire briefly, then being reduced to ash, the soil beneath it scoured away by the force of the onslaught. None of that seemed to matter to the huge figure as it endured without sign of weakness or pain.

The sight was like something out of myth, like Heracles holding up the sky, or Sampson bringing down the temple. It was one thing to see a video of some monster or demigod performing such a feat, it was quite another to see that force right before me.

Then I was suddenly being dragged back again, my arms trapped at my side and a pallid hand covering my eyes.

I think it was the loss of my sight, more than anything else, which finally let me put my thoughts back together. I’d been seeing so much, so many things that blew my mind. Monsters, sword fights, a hulking monster and a transformation into an angel, it had all been just too much.

Now I had less of a sensory assault. That, and a fresh surge of adrenaline that rushed through my veins, firmed up something within me.

The creature was stronger than me, but its frame was wiry rather than heavy. I was taller by a good few inches, and the training I’d been forced through the last few days, coupled with the healing and the masses of food I’d enjoyed, had managed to build up some of the muscle I’d been lacking for most of my life. When I threw myself to the side as hard as I could the action took the monster off its feet and slammed it against the side of the altar. It didn’t matter that the creature was far stronger than me, I had leverage on my side and was strong enough to move its weight, physics was on my side this time.

The impact against the altar would have been enough to break bones in a normal person, but the pallid creature didn’t even let out a grunt of pain. Instead it maintained its grip about my chest and face and started to squeeze.

I didn’t know what its plans were, perhaps it thought to choke me out somehow, thinking that an unconscious hostage would be less trouble than one that kept on struggling. Maybe it had decided I was too much trouble and had decided to kill me and be done with it. What I did know was that it was stopping me from breathing, and I really didn’t like that. I also knew that I was holding something soft but with a rod-like core running through the middle in my one free hand. The logical conclusion came together with mathematical smoothness.

Namely; Add object A to Aggressor B to gain Freedom C.

It was only when I was already in motion that I realized object A was the pointed end of a feather from one of the most powerful angels in heaven. Still, aggressor B was a demonic monster, given the way the others hadn’t liked Joan’s sword. Had I had more time to think then I might have guessed that a clash of such opposing forces wasn’t something to do carelessly.

The quill of the feather went into the side of the creature’s head with all the resistance of a knife sinking into jelly. I couldn’t see it, of course, but I felt it, and I also felt a certain savage glee in knowing that I had hurt this monstrous creature.

Then the world exploded into fire and force, but strangely no sound.

After that . . . the world went away for a bit.