growing quieter from downstairs and hoped that meant her side was winning. She slowly turned the handle to the first room which looked like it could be the master bedroom and came face to face with Michael.
“Did I not warn you?” he asked with a sad smile on his face, “I suppose you must want to die.”
“I just killed two of your faction,” Ariel tried not to let her fear show, “and right now my faction are downstairs killing the rest.”
“Big words for such a little angel,” he taunted taking out his dagger and rushing at her.
Ariel pushed him away but he barely moved.
“You'll have to do better than that,” he told her.
Ariel knew she could do better and told herself to pretend this wasn't Michael just another enemy who needed to be put down to protect the humans. She slammed the dagger into his arm making him shout out in pain and surprise.
“How's that?” she demanded pulling it out and getting ready to strike again.
“You cut me,” he accused, as her came towards her with his own dagger slashing the air in rage.
Ariel managed to punch him in the face with her left hand while avoiding his dagger, then used her right hand to knock it out of his hand so that he was unarmed. She punched him again, knowing that she wouldn't get a shot at sticking the dagger somewhere it could end him, unless she weakened him substantially first. Ariel punched Michael a third time sending him staggering to the floor.
“You killed my friend!” she yelled going for a fourth punch.
Michael lifted his hand up and caught Ariel's arm, then twisted his body so that he turned the tables and was on top of her before she could react.
“You should never have come here,” he told her regretfully.
“You should never have waged a war against the humans and killed most of the angels I cared about,” Ariel retorted as she somehow managed to find the strength to reverse their positions and end up back on top. She grabbed his head and slammed it into the floor then punched him once more.
Michael lay there half out of it as Ariel held up the dagger and looked down at him. “Do it," he spluttered, “kill me.”
She remained still, unable to bring herself to slam the dagger into his chest.
“KILL ME!!!” Michael bellowed.
“NO!!!” Ariel found herself yelling back at him as the dagger fell from her hand, she got to her feet and helped him up. He cautiously took Ariel's hand and was still holding onto it once he was on his feet.
'”What...,' he began to say.
Ariel looked Michael in the eye and said, “I can't stop you from killing me, but I won't kill you, so if you're going to do it just get it over with.”
Ariel knew she was signing away the fate of humanity while she closed her eyes as Michael let go of her hand and she waited for the fateful blow. Instead of a dagger in her chest, she felt Michael's strong arms around her and the feeling of his lips pressed against hers, kissing her urgently as though trying to make up for all the years they had missed together.
When he finally stopped, he held Ariel close to him and whispered, “I could never have killed you.”
Ariel opened her eyes just in time to see Raziel approaching them with his dagger, still holding onto Michael, she spread out her wings and then wrapped them around Michael to protect him from the blow. Raziel's dagger cut through the wings sending them falling to the ground but narrowly missed Michael.
Raziel was unable to move as he realised what he had just done,.“I'm so sorry.”
Ariel looked down at her severed wings as she felt her powers slip away and a sudden urge to eat something, realising that she was now human.
Michael held onto her, “I surrender," he told Raziel, “do you accept?”
“There will be no more killing of angel or humans,” Raziel told him his one condition.
“No more killing,” Michael agreed, “just do me one favour,” he knelt down before Raziel and spread out his wings, “cut them off,” he ordered.
“You want to be human? After you spent so long fighting for the right to kill them?” Raziel asked in disbelief.
“I want to be whatever she is,” Michael said looking behind him at the now human Ariel. “I don't want to live hundreds of years after she's gone,” he explained.
Raziel bought down his dagger without further question and cut off Michael's wings.
Ariel threw herself to the ground where Michael still knelt beside him and threw her arms around him feeling like she won the battle.
While Michael and Ariel lived out their human lives together on earth. The remaining angels returned to heaven and watched over the humans who never knew how close they had come to getting wiped out by the angels. God never did return, some say he wanted a simple life and now works in an office somewhere in Birmingham.
Bite me
Chloe strode across her bedroom for at least the tenth time that night, as she waited for Adam to return, while looking for something to distract her from the torture of waiting.
He could be dead.
She shook her head sending blue strands of hair flying across her face. Chloe opened her dresser draw and grabbed a scrunchie to tie her hair back. She knew Adam had a punch bag in his room and if he wasn't here, now was the perfect time to use it. Normally, he'd tell her she was too young to fight and too important to lose. Was that because she was like a sister to him or because that thing with the fangs had bit her, but not changed her like it had with Adam’s real family? These days it was hard to tell and the way he kept her locked away in the house made Chloe wonder if Adam really cared about her at all? He'd spent some time in the army, learning to fight and he had weapons' training. Did he just see her as some kind of weapon to be saved until it had a use? Either way this was never how she had imagined her life would be at eighteen. On reaching Adam's room, she headed straight to the punch bag. A few months ago, the weapons hanging above his bed would have sent her running, now it all seemed perfectly normally. There were three empty spaces from the weapons he had taken with him four days earlier. That only served as a reminder that he should be home already.
Something has gone wrong; I just know it.
She slammed a fist into the punch-bag, ignoring the pain.
Maybe if Adam had taught me how to do properly it wouldn't hurt so much. What if he's gone?
Chloe punched the bag again.
I can't believe he's done this to me, punch, he says he can't lose me, punch, but I can't lose him either, punch. I don't have anyone else, punch, punch.
Her legs gave way and her body fell against the wooden floor. She lay there feeling exhausted.
“Adam,” Chloe mumbled waking up on the floor sometime later, conscious of another presence.
“Not Adam, Darling,” a fanged face loomed over her, grinning menacingly as his arms reached for Chloe, yanking her to her feet and holding her there. “Aren't you a pretty one? Too good to eat, how'd you like to live forever beautiful?”
“Bite me,” she hissed, summoning all her courage as she stared at the vampire defiantly.
“That's what I intend to do sweetheart,” he laughed before sinking his fangs in Chloe's neck.
It was the last thing he did before falling to the floor, spluttering, his undead eyes looking up accusingly at his last would be victim, then he really was dead.
Chloe spun around to see a woman walk into the room. She didn't look like a vampire. There was colour in her cheeks, but Chloe backed away just in case and grabbed a sword from the wall.
“Don't come any closer,” she instantly regretted speaking, as fear sounded in her voice.
“It's all right,” the woman held up her hands, dropping the gun she was carrying. “I'm not one of them and I'm not here to hurt you.”
“What do you want then?”
“Adam is locked up in a government facility and he told me if I made it out to make sure you're okay.”
“Adam locked up, where? Why?” Chloe shook her head, trying to process what
the stranger had just told her.
The woman walked slowly towards Chloe and took hold of her hands.
Chloe tried to pull away. “What are you doing?”
“Just relax, your hands are bruised. I can help”
Chloe relented and let her take hold of her hands, trying not to laugh as the woman closed her eyes, this was the first time in ages that anyone had held her hands.
She's cute, only a few years older than me and... She jolted herself backed to the present. Adam was captured somewhere. This is not the time to be ogling the older attractive woman holding my hands for no apparent...
“All done.”
Chloe looked down at her hands, “the bruises...they're gone how did...”
“It's kind of my thing now, since the government got me and did tests on me. I'm Toni, by the way.”
“What? Is that what they're doing with Adam?”
“Let's just say it works differently on everyone they test and…”
“What?” Chloe demanded, as Toni healed her neck wound.
“Some of the test subjects haven't been so lucky, but Adam was okay when I left.”
“That's good, but we've got to get him out of there before...”
“We? What exactly are you planning in doing? Can you even fight?”
“Well, yes, no, not exactly but...”
Well that's Karma for you Adam, if you had taught me to fight like I'd asked, I might be able to rescue you.
“I'm sorry Chloe, but the plan isn't to rescue Adam. He did me a favour, so I owe him one, so I'm keeping my word and making sure you're okay."
“Well I'm not okay, not without Adam, so if you want me to be okay, you can either