Exousia - The Patron Saints of the Damned -Book II
Chapter 24 - Fitful Sleep

Exousia awoke without control of her body. It was the same feeling as when she’d been knocked unconscious before. Once again, it took her a moment to see more than just vague, colorful blurs moving around her. She wore closed-toe shoes that made her feet feel uncomfortably hot and confined, as well as a school uniform with a cross stitched over her breast pocket. Under her shoes, she felt pine-bark cushioning her steps. The pine-bark covered the surface of a school playground, which was filled with children. She could feel the crisp fall wind and smell dead leaves. The air also carried a sweet, slightly acidic, and fermented pine scent.

Everything around Exousia felt larger than it should have been. Then she remembered that this was because she had again taken the perspective of the small girl named Emma. There was a dull ache in her face, which reminded her of her last memory. It had ended with her face being mangled by the decorative stair banner. Now, there were heavy bandages that covered the swollen flesh.

The human child, Emma, reached a hand up to touch the heavy bandages that kept her face in one piece. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that she shouldn’t have even been at school. And it was a better alternative to the screaming and rage. However, there was a perpetual sensation of dread that followed her at what horrible surprise might await when she returned home.

A familiar human child approached. Exousia recognized her dark skin, her black curly hair that fell in ringlets, her chestnut eyes, her braces, and her smile. She said, “You’ve been gone a long time, Emma. What happened to you?” This was her one friend, Anne.

Emma’s face flushed before she answered. “I cut my face, falling down the stairs.” She didn’t offer more; she was embarrassed and … seemed to have difficulty remembering everything that had happened. Maybe she could have if she had really wanted to, but she didn’t. The pain was enough of a memory.

“It really doesn’t look that bad … just like it hurts.” Anne smiled and then began to kick the pine bark playfully at Emma.

“Hey Scarface! You playing with your girlfriend?” The question came from a rather loud human child who was quite a bit taller than Emma was. The boy was thin and had a large nose and big ears. “I’m talking to you, dyke!” Exousia noticed that he fumbled with the slur. Likely, he had no idea what it really meant at his age. He was parroting it … but that didn’t make its impact less.

Emma turned away and immediately regretted it. She was lifted by her sweater and thrown onto her back. The ground’s impact knocked the wind out of her lungs and made her head smack the pine-bark. Before she could stand or crawl away, the boy pinned her down with a heavy knee on her chest and began to peel the bandages. Emm nearly cried out, but her training at the hands of her parents took over. Flinch or cry out, and that was ten more strikes. Besides, she could hardly breathe with the knee compressing her lungs. Then, by some miracle, the tearing of her bandages did stop. She opened her eyes, hoping the boy had lost interest.

But the larger child was now on the ground beside her, holding his hands to his ear while a small amount of blood trickled down his neck.

Anne’s face was wrinkled, and her hand was balled into a fist, which she redirected at another one of the larger children.

The boy sat up and, with the same clumsy tone, parroted yet another slir, this one directed at Anne’s race. Then he rushed to his feet and punched her in the stomach.

Anne stumbled a few feet before she fell and her head collided with the metal base of another bench. Blood trickled from her head as she remained there, unmoving.

All of them froze in horror, even the boy who’d hit her.

Emma felt a heat begin to burn in her chest and her ears. All the emotions she hadn’t been able to process before seemed to well up inside of her like a storm long in the making. Her vision became blurry and, before she realized it, she’d lunged for the boy’s throat. She could barely see through the red color that obscured her vision; her only thought was to hold onto the throat until the boy stopped moving.

The boy struggled to free his neck, kicking and thrashing. His face turned red … and then purple as he moved less and less.

But Emma but held on wordlessly, digging her thumbs deeper into the pink skin over his larynx. She didn’t want the boy’s throat to be pink anymore, she wanted it to be red … and maybe even cold. She could not feel two other boys now trying to pull her away from their friend. She didn’t budge; she held on with an iron grip.

Then, a more massive strength pried her fingers individually from the boy’s throat, before pulling her away entirely. The arms belonged to an adult, likely a teacher. They held onto her, shouting something unintelligible.

Emma eventually stopped fighting but didn’t look at them or respond to their words. She realized that the teachers were dragging her and the other three boys to an office. However, Emma’s sense of time had not recovered, it was as if she were still floating through the hazy thickness of a dream. There was a woman with shiny brown hair and a pantsuit. There were lots of tears, plenty of shouting, and some talking. But Emma couldn’t really hear or understand any of it. The hazy feeling in her head and the pain in her face were too … thick.

Eventually, Emma found herself being taken from that office and into another room, where she was left alone. Someone tried to talk to her, perhaps even softly, but she couldn’t hear them. She remained like this for many minutes or maybe an hour, unable to move or think. All she could do was to look out the window at the blurred world outside. At the children lining up at the busses … including him.

Without thinking, Emma took a doll that she hadn’t even realized to have been in front of her. With a fluid motion, she pulled its head from its body. As she did, she barely even registered the screams outside. The red and blue lights.

It was only after hours more had passed that thought returned to Emma. But she could not register what had happened in the school. No, her mind focused on one fact–that she had been forgotten once again. She remembered what had happened at the church; if her parents hadn’t arrived yet, nobody was going to pick her up.

Without a second thought, Emma stood, unlatched the window, climbed out, and began to walk in the general direction of her house. It didn’t really occur to her that this wasn’t something she should do … or normally wouldn’t even consider; it was just the easiest way out.

Exousia hadn’t remembered any of this, and certainly hadn’t let herself meditate on her mental state during her past life. This was why Gabriel had chosen her. A human child who would not miss their life … nor be missed. No, she was a demon now … or something else entirely. This was all just a device to make her face her past and question her own sanity. That way, Exousia would be so occupied with introspection that she’d fail to protect the humans’ hearts from corruption. She would not fall for it, she would figure out Ammon’s plan and use this attack to her own benefit.

She continued to watch the young Emma as the human girl detoured on an oddly impulsive whim–from her path home to a large park. There were a few joggers, older couples, and people walking their dogs. But there were also lots of places where one could go to be alone. She sat down on a bench in the most secluded spot she could replace in the park, behind several trees and bushes. As she sat down on the cold wood, goosebumps covered her skin. The chilly wind had picked up, and the sky had grayed. She waited and watched as cold droplets of rain began to sprinkle down from the sky. A chill went down her spine as she sensed someone beside her.

Sitting beside him was a priest dressed in a black shirt. He was a large man with a blonde beard and bright blue eyes. He smiled warmly as he opened a large umbrella, positioned it over them, and said, “Hello child. I am Father Ammon.”

Emma did not reply.

“You seem deep in thought,” Father Ammon said. “And while that is certainly something to encourage, I note you happen to be very young to be out here by yourself … especially in the rain.”

Emma wasn’t sure why, but there was something familiar about the priest’s words and his eyes, something which made her feel compelled to answer. “I … hurt someone today. But … I didn’t feel anything. I felt nothing.”

“Do you fear some inner darkness?” Father Ammon asked, scratching his beard with his index finger and thumb.

“I didn’t feel anything,” Emma repeated, her voice just a little more than a whisper. “After I started to hurt him, I wasn’t even angry anymore. It just … felt good.

The priest sighed and then looked up into the sky. “I was a lot like you when I was young. I felt helpless while beings of greater power did such foolish and destructive things all around me. I often found myself wishing to be among the great powers and principalities of this earth. My inability birthed a rage inside me … one so powerful that at times it consumed me so that there was no other feeling.”

Emma stared back feeling a familiarity with that thought.

The priest continued, “It starts off as fury from immediate injustices. But soon it will grow inside you, as you see the vile corruption reflected in every facet of humanity. As you look into the eyes of others and see the souls of predators, sadists, and the pathetic worms who cannot bear the weight of their own shame. Perhaps your soul is going through a process of rejecting them–just like when your body fights off an infection.”

Emma felt confusion and yet … an odd sense of truth in these words.

The priest lifted an index finger, “What’s truly loathsome is how … unnecessary all this corruption is. Were it not for those protecting the status quo, this system of hierarchy and pretend justice, it could be fixed.”

“How?” Emma asked.

“By rooting it out at its source,” Father Ammon replied. As he did, he looked her in the eye. For a moment, he became much larger than he had been. His outfit was replaced by armor, and great wings sprouted from behind them. And his eyes … they became black as darkest night.

Emma knew what this being was; she knew from the stories she heard in church exactly what this being was. And she knew the only enemy such a creature could ever wish to destroy. Terror filled her. Not just at this being a myth, but also of the deity that might smite her on the spot for conspiring with his eternal enemy. Emma stood, stumbled backwards, and muttered, “I need to go home.”

The priest nodded. “In time, you will understand. I can see that in your eyes. It will take time, but the truth has a funny tendency of eating away all that stands in its way. When you are ready, call upon me. I will be there.”

The world around them began to darken as the dream of the past faded.

Exousia felt herself begin to fade away from the dream world. She felt that … something was wrong. Yet, for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out what.

-O-

Dufaii, in his wolf form, remained cautious even after the loyalists had flown out of sight and earshot. He ran between places where the dead branches of trees gave him some cover. It was still likely that he would be spotted if anything flew directly overhead. But he trusted that he would sense their approach in time to hide if he needed to. It was perhaps only because of this attention to his surroundings that he detected the movement of air from the woods behind him. He tried to lead his potential pursuer into revealing themselves by weaving and changing directions over the course of several minutes. But as much as he moved to try to locate the source of the sound, there was no further sign of its presence.

Just as Dufaii was about to accept the sound as natural, he heard the air move again. This time, it was to his left. He launched in the direction of the noise. The force of his lunge caused many small branches of a nearby tree to snap and the leaves to cascade down. What was more, something large leaped to avoid his attack.

The figure with gold wings wore a light-blue cloak that covered their entire body, face, and everything except their golden eyes and narrow, feathered wings.

Dufaii changed to his demon form and shouted. “Why are you following me, loyalist?” He removed his sword from its sheath and swung it at the angel’s knees with a single motion.

With unexpected speed, the angel leaped into the air and struck with a heel aimed at his temple.

Dufaii only had time to shield himself with his armored left forearm, which absorbed the blow. There was a dull cracking noise that indicated that the bone had been fractured, shortly followed by sharp pain. He gritted his teeth, took a step backward, and prepared to strike again.

But instead of following up with a secondary attack, the loyalist stepped backward and let out a whistle that echoed through the dead air.

Dufaii ducked. An arrow gave off a low whistle before it rushed through the space where his head would have been. It was followed by several more, each closer than the last. Dufaii sprinted away from the cloaked figure. He weaved through the trees to avoid the arrows.

The firing ceased; they weren’t wasting shots.

Dufaii sprinted up an incline and towards the far south-eastern outskirts of the woods. He knew that he couldn’t fight them, especially with how unpredictable their attacks were. And he couldn’t outrun them by turning into a wolf now that his arm was fractured. He had to get to a place where he could hide. Then he could stalk them and take them out one by one, or else lose them.

Dufaii reached the top of the hill and was about to continue when he felt something pierce his lower back. The pain caused his muscles to spasm; his knees buckled and he tumbled down the opposite side of the hill, rolling five, then twenty, then forty feet. At that point, he lost his sense of direction or distance. Then, Dufaii felt his body bounce off a wall of wet stone and then crash down onto another, covered in a thin layer of moss and decaying leaves. He remained still for several moments, hidden in the leaves that had fallen with him into the crevice between two boulders.

Trying with all his will to think past the pain, Dufaii tried to assess his situation. Judging by the moss, he was on the outskirts of the cursed woods. This would make him difficult to detect while shielding his aura, so long as he did not move. And since it wasn’t likely that they could have reached the top of the hill in time to see where he’d fallen, they had probably lost him for the time being. Of course, if he was wrong, he would still stand a much better chance of striking if they thought he was unconscious or incapacitated. They might get close, giving him the opportunity he needed to grab one and cut their throat.

So, Dufaii remained still and quiet, grateful that the arrow in his back was not ridged and bleeding him out while he waited. Soon, movement could be heard from above. Then they were gone, and their presences moved far enough away that he could no longer sense them.

Dufaii tried to move, gritting his teeth when his body protested with jolts of pain that shot through his back, arm, shoulder, and several ribs. He focused on making controlled movements as he used his right arm and legs to slide forward, toward another opening in the rocks. Once he’d reached the edge, he was able to dim his form and assess his surroundings. The hill he had fallen down had many other small caverns, boulders, and rock outcroppings covered in living grass and moss. If they searched everywhere, they would be at it for a while.

It took him a moment to spot the loyalists, who had also dimmed their forms–a relatively rare skill for loyalists to learn as they had the numbers to forgo stealth in most situations. But he eventually saw the light of the sun distorted by their forms at the bottom of the hill. These were the same loyalists that had passed overhead hours earlier. It was difficult to tell with their forms occluded. The only visible one was the thin figure with the blue cloak, who stood in the center as they searched. After about a half-hour of searching, they seemed to give up. They made their forms visible and gathered around the robed figure, revealing the same armor as the first. They did not speak verbally, opting for psychic communication.

As such, Dufaii was only able to read one statement, made by a loyalist who incidentally looked in his direction, just at that moment.

“The Godkiller is nowhere to be found. He likely found the stream further down and vanished, Archangel,” said a male loyalist who seemed to be the second in command. There were no other messages after that. And after a few more minutes, they took flight in unison and were gone.

Archangel! Then it was one of the three—Michael, Gabriel, Raphael. Try as he might, Dufaii could not decide which of the three it could have been. Why would any of them be hunting him and why? Whoever it was … there was only one possible motivation. They didn’t want him to help Exousia. So either they were allowing Ammon to kill her and forfeit the Challenge, or … they didn’t want Exousia to win.