Exousia - The Patron Saints of the Damned -Book II
Chapter 7 - Unexpected Kindness

The angel named Maghoul, according to the book that Exousia now read as she waited, locked up in the barracks, was not a typical guardian. He’d begun his life as an apprentice researcher for Raphael. His field was anthropology, the study of human civilizations. This subject had pressed him to seek temporary transfer to a guardian role, where he could analyze shamans, healers, witches, and other humans of magical prowess.

Exousia began to flip through the pages of the enormous journal until she found human names she recognized. These included Xerxes … Moses … Tiresias … Merlin … Morrigan le Fay … Rasputin. It was then that she realized that the entire volume was not dedicated to the history of humans so much as to the history of human magics.

Now curious if this was a theme, Exousia opened several other volumes that had been left for her. Sure enough, each dealt with the topic of human magic. Magical figures, magic in regions and timelines, and the study of magic in application. Each was written by a different author, and so the focus varied substantially with each volume.

If that was what Raphael had left her … was it possible that the Archangel thought her capable of these powers? Was this her final test? It couldn’t be! Human magics were next to impossible to utilize. Dufaii had steered clear of them, teaching her exclusively to use the much more practical and accessible demon magic. He always said that human magic, like all elements of human existence, flourished only under considerable levels of adversity and were born of pain and madness.

For that reason, human magic was also all but extinct. While the power might have been accessible to shamans whose children had been starving to death in some jungle, it had been lost as human existence became easier with time.

That brought Exousia to the final issue–that, on top of being a dead power, those who had embodied those ancient abilities faced tremendous danger to their physical and mental health. Most were consumed, either in body, mind, or soul, by the magic they wielded. And that didn’t even count those who had been killed by other humans out of jealousy or fear.

But Exousia felt that there was no mistaking that this was what Raphael wanted–for her to learn the dormant magic of the human people. The thought of learning such a chaotic and vile-natured magic was repulsive. But … the prospect of power that not even Ammon could wield beckoned to her.

After all, Exousia thought to herself, she had been imprisoned with the training materials and no other way out. Was it possible that the prison had not been a punishment? A torture device created to simulate a feeling of desperation deep within her? What about Kueng’s brutal training and Gabriel’s strange attempt to twist her emotions? Were they all in on it?

No … this wasn’t torment, Exousia thought. It was a test! They wanted to see if she make it out of her prison by drawing on human powers.

Human …

Exousia spit and threw one of the books across the room. She was a demon! And even if she could wield such powers, Dufaii had warned her away from them for a reason. The Archangels were the ones who regarded her as a weapon to use against Ammon. They didn’t care what happened to that mortal weapon, so long as their precious Creator didn’t die.

But … on the flip side … had Dufaii warned her against it because he was putting his role as father ahead of his role as her teacher?

Exousia shook her head and snarled. She spent the next few hours training. No matter how hard she pushed herself, however, she couldn’t get the thought of wielding human magic out of her head. The idea had caught fire within, and a dark interest came over her. She wanted to be angry at them and to refuse their perverse experimentation. But that part of her was quickly being overtaken by a rabid fascination at the potential.

Finally, Exousia returned to the stack of books and opened a burgundy one. She read about the sorts of desperate circumstances that had created power within the human soul. These circumstances had allowed humans to serve as a sort of electrical conduit between the natural and supernatural worlds as they fought on behalf of various gods or spirits. But, over time, these passages of power had begun to accumulate into pockets of self-replenishing power. No longer did humans have to rely on the supernatural for their abilities; they had generated a wellspring of their own to draw on.

And the more Exousia read about all of this, the more rabid she became for more.

She didn’t sleep that night or the night after; she read straight through them and marked essential passages as she went along.

After those two night, Exousia did sleep. But she found that hier connection to the material suffered for it. Though a concrete understanding of a rested mind helped to a point, it was different to read when her brain was fogged and maddened by a lack of sleep. Her imagination began to try to feel what those magics might have been like.

Exousia determined not to sleep or even eat, emptying her food dishes into the composting toilet as to avoid suspicion. In that state, she continued to read.

Days passed, and Exousia’s body began to experience pain, particularly her eyes and her stomach. And for each new discomfort and each step closer to the brink of sleep deprivation’s potent insanity, her primal understanding of magic grew.

However, she also began to identify a problem with the angelic text. That was the healing power that angelic text had on its reader. As she continued to read and purposefully tried to put her body into a state like dying, the words would nourish her and soothe the pain. By the time she had read all of the texts, she felt like she was in no particular state of danger, only uncomfortable misery.

Exousia had an idea on how to fix that. One by one, she tore all the pages that she had marked in the books. She then scattered them on the floor around him. These passages were a mix of core principles for the practical application of magics and the few samples of human spells she could replace. Unfortunately, the researchers had not seemed interested in recreating any magic, so these passages were few and used only as examples. She had little doubt that demon texts she could get back home would contain much more.

Exousia then requested a pen, ink, and a binder from the loyalists, which were brought. Using these, she began to translate the sample spells into the demon tongue. As she did, she felt her understanding of the text become amplified, along with her pain and mental unsoundness.

Exousia continued on for days. At times, she would be writing and replace that she had begun to bleed from her nose. Sometimes into the ink-well … which she assumed could only heighten her chances at success. At other times, she would wake up without knowing she had fallen unconscious, but without any feeling of being rested. Her body quickly became thinner, and the pangs of hunger never went away.

However, after an unaccountable amount of time had passed, Exousia finally found that she had translated the last of the text. She did not go to sleep or do anything to mark the occasion of completing such a grueling translation. She needed to hold onto all this pain and madness she’d endured if she was going to have any chance of using the magic to free herself, pass the last Archangel’s test, and finally go back home.

So, Exousia put her translated pages into a binder, placed it and her other belongings into her backpack, strapped it to her shoulders, and stood for the first time since she’d begun this process. The only things she held were her javelin and a single sheet of paper with her writings scribbled on it.

Standing, in Exousia’s state, proved extremely difficult. Her knees buckled several times, so she had to trust a good portion of her balance and weight to the makeshift staff. With it, she hobbled to the door of the barracks, rested herself against it, and reread the translated page.

It contained the method of replicating a destructive hex, invented during the colonization of South America. While most curses seemed rather inefficient and petty, such as giving one’s enemy bad luck, one elderly woman had created an effective one. She had found a way to destroy the metals for which so much of her people’s blood had been spilled. As a side effect, this spell left a dark mark that would summon destruction and disease for years afterward. It was vengeful … but potently so.

Taking a deep breath, Exousia bit into her thumb until blood gushed from a hole. Wincing, she painted this dark mark onto the surface of the door and chanted demon words to make herself really feel all the same emotions as that sorceress so long ago. Some combination of the demon words, the ancient magic, and her own states of malnourishment and sleep-deprivation created a vision. Her own world was forcefully overtaken by this vision as if someone had changed the channel with a remote.

Exousia saw blood trickle down stone steps like a small waterfall. She heard the cries of children and adults alike, snuffed out one by one. Above all, she felt an all-consuming hatred that made her one with that old sorceress. Exousia felt her frail body as her own … and the cold body of a child in her arms.

Exousia blinked and then found herself in a room full of gold. Her hands began to move on their own until she had used her blood to draw the crude image of her grandchild into the surface of a gold plate. Hot tears of fury and loss streamed down her face as she caressed the picture.

After a moment, the gold began to tarnish and bubble and melt away with a hissing sound. This created a black vapor that quickly spread around the room, destroying all it touched until all of the gold was gone.

With a walking stick to support her, the grandmother walked away as screams filled the air. A soldier tried to grab her … to put her in a cage with the others. But she wiped her bloody hand on him, and his metal armor began to boil as hot and as quickly as the gold had. The soldier screamed as he died, but the grandmother didn’t care to watch.

She dropped her walking stick, picked up the soldier’s sword, and held to it like a crutch. This way, she managed not to fall until she had made her way to the lake. Once there, she used the sword and cut into the surface of the water, making a portal to a time before … a gateway home.

“Exousia!” screamed a nun in a black habit and veil. She had a golden amulet that was two cross-sectioned branches, with a little man nailed to them.

The grandmother tried to touch the amulet with her bloody hand, but her frail wrist was grasped firmly.

To her surprise, the nun did not kill her. She put her hand in the water and splashed it on the grandmother’s face, again and again. She said to wake up … to wake up. Because she wasn’t a grandmother.

Exousia was her name … and she was not in any ancient city. She was in Heaven, standing over the lake with her balance on a short-sword. Her other hand was bleeding. Yet, all she felt was profound confusion.

The Archangel Raphael began to bind her wounded hand with a piece of cloth. She shook her head repeatedly, her eyes filled with worry.

“Was that the test …” Exousia asked, her voice hoarse. She looked at the portal she’d cut into the water, hearing the birds sing, the wind blow, and the crickets chirp on the other side.

Raphael held Exousia head to her stomach in a motion that was uncomfortably maternal. “No child … the test was not going to be for a while. I thought you would meditate on the texts I sent you, and then request my help when the angelic writing prevented you from using the magic. How did you even-”

“Translated it,” Exousia said, too tired, too nauseous, too hungry, and in too much pain to lie or hide what she knew.

“In three weeks …” Raphael said, looking at her in disbelief. She then lifted Exousia’s jacket a bit, revealing her exposed ribs. “You … you starved yourself so that you could access the magic. Because you thought this was-”

Exousia fell to her knees—her entire body shaking. It seemed she still wasn’t completely separated from the magic.

“Creator! We need to flush this-” Raphael began to say.

“No!” Exousia interrupted in slurred speech, though she barely managed to make the sound. She swallowed a few times before she finally choked out the word. “Why?”

Raphael looked at her, looking like she didn’t quite know what to say. “No human can stand up to demon, child,” she said, her eyes lined with tears as she stared into the distance. “I thought I could make you stronger. Like your teacher did. I didn’t know this would happen to you. I thought that maybe I could give you the chance to fight. I thought-”

Michael’s booming voice cut her off. He shouted, “What have you done to her!”

“Michael, I assure you that I had no idea that she was starving herself,” Raphael said, her tone becoming sharp and authoritative when she saw him. “Neither did I know she would attempt human magic from just a few texts on the theory.”

“Did you know what that demon messenger trash did to her?” Michael asked, his nostrils flaring and his shoulders square against her.

Raphael nodded. “Gabriel and I agreed that Kueng’s instruction was necessary. Even you were unable to teach her anything in her previous state. To win Ammon’s game, she needed to be able to control her emotions.”

“This kind of challenge will not be a game of the mind, but of the heart!” Michael said, clenching both fists. “And even if it were not, we do not need to rely on a child to win this war. If you think we need to do, you’re a faithless fool. With the strength of the Creator and my soldiers, I can destroy any threat to the realms. We do not need to break a human child’s spirit to do that!”

Raphael’s temples bulged as she fought to keep herself from shouting. “Things are more complicated than your narrow version of the world lets you see. As for the child, I assure you that her spirit is still intact.”

“For your sake, it had better be!” Michael growled, his anger reaching a tipping point.

Suddenly, Exousia heard another voice … one that neither of the other Archangels seemed to hear.

“Your time has come,” whispered the psychic voice. It was … Gabriel. He was difficult to see, hidden out of sight of the other two Archangels with his form occluded. But Exousia was nearly sure he was there. “Go.”

Exousia suddenly noticed the advantage of the current situation. She didn’t have to energy to question this aid. The portal was still open, and both Archangels were distracted by one another. So, she put all her will and strength into leaning forwards, falling, and vanishing into the portal before their reaching hands could catch her.

Exousia was … going home.