Malachi was going to leave, but thought better of it. The woman, this descendant of Eve, might prove useful in escaping the Garden.
Quickly, he made his way around the withered Tree, emerging from the jungle at the woman’s back.
“Do not mourn for him, human,” Malachi said. “For he has achieved his heart’s desire, to return to the Garden from which he was banished.”
She turned her head to him, her face awash with tears.
“You killed him,” she spat. “This poor old soul, and you killed him like a dog.”
“You are incorrect, woman,” Malachi said as he grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet, pulling her back toward the jungle. “I did no such thing.”
He chanced a quick look back at the Tree of Knowledge, and what unfolded beneath it. Taranushi was still covering the Seraphim, moaning aloud. At first Malachi thought them moans of pleasure as the spawn of darkness fed upon the angel’s light.
But then the moans turned distinctly to screams of agony.
Taranushi had only imagined how wonderful an angel of Heaven—a Seraphim—would taste.
He had thought about it for centuries, and longer, as he searched the world for the keys to Eden. Now the power of Heaven’s warrior host flowed into him as his body continued to spread across that of the Seraphim, expanding and contracting, using powerful muscles to crush his victim, and allow the delectable juices to flow.
To think that there was an entire legion of these beings to feast upon was enough to drive him mad with pleasure.
Taranushi groaned in satisfaction as the angel struggled within him. He wanted to tell the Heavenly being to cease its efforts, that it was only prolonging the inevitable, but the truth was, he enjoyed the feeling, the power that he had over this arrogant messenger of God.
The sensation of supremacy.
The Seraphim’s movements grew weaker, and Taranushi felt his own digestive fluids increase in flow. The beast was tempted to release the angel, so he could rip the flesh from its bones and stuff the bloody pieces of Heavenly meat into his mouth as the Seraphim slowly passed from life, but this form of consumption would more than suffice.
The first twinge startled the Shaitan, but that moment quickly turned to excitement as he realized that the Seraphim still had some fight in him.
More life to feed his insatiable appetite.
The Shaitan constricted his muscles all the tighter, giving his prey little space to move.
“Fight, pretty angel,” he cooed, stretching his head above the undulating mass of black, marked flesh that was his body. “It will just make your meat all the sweeter.”
The monster began to laugh, but his amusement turned to concern as he realized that the Seraphim’s movements were growing stronger.
Concentrating with all his might, the Shaitan tightened his body’s pliant muscles, just as a clenched fist savagely punched through the mass of its body, and into the air.
“Yeeeeeeeeeearrrgh!” Taranushi cried out.
His flesh flowed over the arm and drew the limb back down into his body. But another fist forced its way through, followed by the flexing of a mighty wing.
The Shaitan was in trouble, and he doubled his efforts to put his prey down, but to little avail. It was as if the Seraphim had been given a second opportunity at life.
An intervention on behalf of the divine, he almost considered, before pushing the disturbing thought away.
And that was when he began to feel the heat. The angel had attempted the same trick before, radiating the fire of its divinity, but the darkness inside Taranushi had been enough to suffocate that flame.
Now, however, hands burning white with fire hotter than the heart of a star tore through Taranushi’s flesh, the meat of the Shaitan’s body sizzling as his juices were cooked from within.
The Seraphim tore himself out from the prison of flesh, body glowing white-hot, and tossed his head back in a savage scream that informed the universe he still lived.
Taranushi recoiled, flowing away from the intense heat of the angel’s form. He was hurt, his body damaged in ways that it had never been before. Gazing down at the wounds, he considered escape, giving himself time to heal before resuming the struggle.
But the ground beneath his feet pulsed with life.
The life of his kind, and he knew there wasn’t much time before they were born, and unleashed from the Garden unto the world.
There was no choice.
The angel stood naked before him, the fluids from his captivity smoldering upon his superheated flesh. Slowly he flapped his wings, shaking off the burning residue.
Taranushi let the rage come, ignoring his pain to once more challenge the soldier of Heaven.
“Time to die, messenger,” the spawn of darkness said as he lunged for his prey.
For the fate of his kind.
There was a balance within the Seraphim now.
Before there had always been a sense of struggle, of holding back.
But now that was gone.
He had been about to die when the change had come upon him, but two opposing forces joined together to form one.
Dispelling the darkness with light.
Dispelling the darkness with holy fire.
Seraphim and Shaitan came together at the base of the Tree of Knowledge, two bodies colliding with such force and strength that the Garden trembled with the intensity of it.
They both knew that this was the moment their fates would be decided.
They smashed into the base of the Tree, tearing away huge pieces of bark, revealing the pale, oozing flesh beneath.
The Shaitan was up to his old tricks at once, his body like water, attempting to engulf his foe. But this time the Seraphim was ready. He refused to allow the malleable beast to take hold. Instead, he made his hands burn with the heat of the righteous.
The Shaitan drew back, roaring his displeasure. He shifted part of his mass into a muscular tentacle and lashed out with all his might, swatting the angel away, the intensity of the blow picking him up from the ground and launching him through the air.
Sensing an opportunity, the Shaitan slithered across the ground in pursuit of his prey.
Remiel climbed slowly to his feet, attempting to stave off the encroaching unconsciousness. He could hear the monster approaching, its breathing excited and eager, probably imagining that victory was at hand.
The Seraphim decided to let it continue to think that way, for he had found his own opportunity.
Unwittingly, the Shaitan had knocked him within inches of his weapon. He had lost Zophiel’s sword when the struggle had first intensified, but now he looked upon it, protruding from the ground, covered in winding vines and thick leaves that were constantly burning, only to regrow twice as large, and twice as thick, only to burn all over again. To the normal eye it appeared as a small tree, but to the Seraphim . . . to Remiel, it was so much more.
The blade of Eden’s sentry was crying out to him, screaming into his mind to take it up and destroy the foes of the Garden and Heaven.
Almost, he thought, the sounds of the eager Shaitan nearly upon him.
Closer.
Closer . . .
The damnable thing was almost there; he could smell the evil sweating from its pores, hear the sound of its flesh as it abandoned its shape, becoming molten, preparing to envelop him.
Remiel reached for the sword, tugging the burning blade from a scabbard of thick vines and leaves, and spun to meet his attacker with a cry of fury. Their eyes met as Zophiel’s blade hissed through the humid air on its designated course.