Chapter 36

The sound of someone clapping made me suck in my breath. I spun around on a heel and peered into the darkness.

I didn't even realize the robot had a back door. Otherwise, I would have locked it.

"Is this what you meant when you said you needed a bigger squirt gun?" Vycandor probed, emerging from the shadows.

Equal parts startled and relieved, I exhaled sharply. "Yeah, something like that." As I waited for his reply, I thought he was going to congratulate me. You know, for saving his life.

He didn't.

Voice devoid of any emotion, what I could see of his face was utterly calm while his careful demeanor remained ridiculously arrogant. "What did you figure would happen when you ran out of water?"

I gave a shrug. "To be honest, I never thought that far ahead."

Vycandor took a purposeful step out of the belly of the beast and into the myriad of lights to close the small distance between us, the effect once again reminding me of when a black and white movie instantly changes to color.

He paused briefly to examine the cockpit before turning scornful eyes on me. "This miserable pile of scrap metal is why you left me?" When I refused to answer, he added, "You should never have gone rogue, Chaos."

"I make a habit out of doing things I'm not supposed to," I countered. "And anyway, so much for thanking me for saving your life. The score currently stands at chivalry two, gratitude zero."

"This isn't a game, nobody's keeping score. You said it yourself...we're on a mission to save mankind, plain and simple." Raising a finger and pointing it at me, he added, "So don't ruin it with your antics."

I pointed a finger back at him. "No. You're going to ruin it by not trusting me."

Voice lowered to a warning, his finger remained in the air. "No, you are."

"Just because you have the ability to sound more murdery than me doesn't make you the winner."

Instead of pointing at me, Vycandor pointed a finger out of the robots window accusingly. "How do you think I should react when I had to watch you drive up in this...in this...monstrosity, while you left me standing out there like suicide on a stick?"

I wasn't sure if he was asking me or telling me, so I decided to remain silent. It's a good thing I did. He wasn't even close to done at being mad at me. I'm sure an apology for leaving him behind would have helped smooth things over, but I can't apologize for something I'm not sorry for.

I'm not built like that.

"Chaos," he began, voice controlled and steady. "You take great pleasure in doing things others say you can't. Someday you're going to find out the hard way that if you continue to do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten."

"Ugh!" I threw my hands in the air out of sheer frustration. Our relationship was like a giant pinata stuffed with drama that I was about to hit with a dynamite stick. "There you go with your wise quotes. You're not a freakin' fortune cookie."

"And you're not listening to what I'm trying to tell you," he countered. "From the moment you ran out of water, the Angels of War stopped attacking. It's almost like they're waiting for something."

I leaned against the control panel to gaze out the window. Vycandor was right. Even though I could see their numbers visually increasing by the thousands with each passing minute, the creatures had indeed halted their assault. Most had landed and were now strangely still once more like huge gargoyle statues, their triangular shaped bat wings slowly waving back and forth in the darkness like a threat. When I switched off the music, the silence that followed seemed louder somehow.

Sliding the cockpit open and standing over 50 feet in the air, I had a perfect birds eye view of the entire downtown Kalamazoo. Bathed in a golden glow, dawns early sunlight reflected off the dew covered streets and the seemingly endless army of creatures that stretched out as far as the eye could see.

"What do you think they're waiting for?" I whispered.

Vycandor shook his head. "I don't know. The Angels of War went from swarming in masses just to be in your presence, to a fervent gathering to pay tribute. With numbers like this, forming a resistance to save the human race will be futile. When they do decide to attack, it's sure to be the downfall of us all."

My eyebrows shot up in alarm. "Wait. What did you just say?"

The question was met with a frown. "When they attack it will be our downfall?"

I shook my head. "No. The other part."

His frown deepened. "Forming a resistance will be futile?"

"No. The other, other part..."

He gave me a sideways glance like I'd sprouted two heads. "The creatures are swarming to be in your presence?"

"That's the one."

"I was kidding," he groaned."

I wasn't."

Vycandor's eyes went wide. "You think there's finally a reason for the entire world to revolve around you? Shocking newsflash, Nancy Drew. You're not actually the center of the Universe."

My gaze swept over the horizon, stopped only by the fine, bare limbs of misty trees on the farthest rolling hills of neighborhoods that undulated away into the distance. As I continued to watch, there was a strange dilation, a release of sorts as the sinister looking sky turned a formidable shade of deep blueish violet.

I recognized it immediately as a sign. And not a good one.

A feeling of dread washed over my entire body. "The world may not revolve around me," I relented. "But they want us to think that it does."

Vycandor and I were once again at a moment of reckoning. Thankfully, our union had made us both stronger and weaker at the same time. Well, made me weaker anyway. I knew if we had any hope at all of defeating the Angels of War, we had to unite once more and risk the inevitable bond that followed.

That insatiable hunger when two become one.

Filled with rage at the thought of losing what little connection to Thomas I had left, I became a rage machine. The Dark Ones had taken everything from me. Everything that mattered. Including the ability to be forgiven.

If what the Priest had said was true, that if darkness was allowed to supersede light, then earth as we knew it was doomed. In order to fight back, we had to find a way to stop the darkness from consuming the light. Only, I had a feeling the Priest wasn't referring to light in the traditional sense of the word. He was referring to an angel. More specifically...an Angel of Light.

"It's a diversion," I seethed, as the enormity of our situation sunk in. "A carefully crafted way to take our attention away from what's really happening."

Vycandor didn't seem convinced. "And what is that?"

I craned my neck in the opposite direction of the legion of doom. We may have been standing in the center of the storm, but the eye of the hurricane was focused elsewhere. I prayed we weren't too late.

"The castle is under attack."

Vycandor followed my eyes. "How can you tell?"

I shrugged. "Call it faith. There's only one way to stop it. We need to tip the balance of power in our favor."

Sensing my dread, he echoed the alarm in my voice. "And how do you propose we do that?"

"Kiss me."

Vycandor paused to study me momentarily. I studied him right back. I mean, Vycandor the monster was hot. But Vycandor the angel was mindblowable, obsessable, amazable hot. He was so good looking, in fact, that when his lips finally met mine, the earth moved and the angels wept.

Which is exactly what I needed.

As if on cue, the amethyst sky opened up, thunder bellowed, and the rain that followed fell in sheets of frozen droplets. Vycandor pulled me hard against his body and kissed me deeper. Out of the corner of my eye the Heavens flashed with jagged streaks of lightning as I gave in to the swirling inferno of combined power. Our tongues met in a fury of passion and this time the very air we breathed crackled with electricity as I set fire to the rain.