Chapter 62.2

https://www.NovelFire.com/series/1794487/daughter-of-damnation/———

“Who are you, and how did you find this place?”

The woman’s words rang in Vee’s head as she tried to piece together a response. It was nearly impossible to think straight in the literal light of this stranger, and the state of her mind was further hampered by fear. Residual fear from facing down an honest-to-goodness dragon, fear of not knowing if Amara was safe, fear of the incredible might that now held a sword to her throat. In the end, her fear for her love won out.

“I need to get back!” she stammered, haphazardly attempting to rise to her feet. “We were attacked, and I don’t know if Ama—”

With incredible speed and grace, the strange woman leapt at Vee and kicked her to the ground. The impact knocked the wind from her lungs, and before she had time to recover, the woman brought her heel down on Vee’s chest. She stepped down hard, the force of her body far exceeding her physical size, and she once again brandished her greatsword; this time, its luminescent tip aimed straight for Vee’s heart.

“If you make one more attempt to leave this clearing, you will do so in pieces,” the woman hissed. Her powerful voice eclipsed Vee’s world, drowning out all other thoughts as Vee looked up at her once again.

“Please, they’re in danger, and I need to—”

The woman leaned closer and pain erupted through Vee’s chest. “I suggest you worry about your own life for now, and answer my question. Who are you, and how did you find this place?”

Another burst of magic flared above Vee, energy so powerful it briefly made it impossible to look this woman in the eyes. As she recoiled from the might of this person, she felt a shiver of recognition run through her body, confirming her earlier suspicion.

“I-I’m not here to hurt you! I’m an angel, just like you!” Vee yelled out.

For some reason, this admission spurred the stranger to push down even harder. The tip of her radiant blade made contact with Vee’s chest, threatening to end her life with even the tiniest hint of movement. “I didn’t ask who you are. I asked why you are here.”

“I don’t know!” Vee gasped, pain radiating through her body. “One minute we were being attacked, the next I was thrown through a boundary and ended up here!” Vee fought to take a breath, her chest aching from the weight of the stranger.

The stranger retreated ever so slightly, the weight of her body lessening, but not vanishing entirely. “Who sent you?”

“What? No one sent us, we’re here of our own accord,” Vee said.

“Bullshit!” the stranger hissed, her blade flaring again. “All angels work for the Church, operating at their behest as they follow the plans put forth by their Patrons. What, were you ordered to chase a demon into The Wilds? I have trouble believing that.”

“I…” Vee swallowed nervously, terrified of exposing herself to the fury of this strange woman, but she’d run out of options. “I’m not with the Church. My Patron has turned their back on me; even as we speak, my powers grow ever weaker. If you still doubt me, then let me prove it to you.”

For the first time since arriving, Vee saw a hint of hesitation on the woman’s face. “…Prove it how?”

“If you let me attempt to summon something, I can—” Vee winced in pain as the woman pushed down hard on her chest. “I can prove that I’m losing Heaven’s favor!”

The woman’s fiery red eyebrows furrowed for a moment. When she looked back at Vee, she moved the tip of her blade back to Vee’s throat. “If you so much as twitch in my direction, it’s the end of the line for you. Understand?”

Vee nodded, and the stranger continued. “Now, what are you most practiced with?”

“A blade, and I’m right-handed.” Another flash of anger from the woman’s blade, but she allowed Vee to extend her arm to her side and begin to focus. Although terrified of the immensely powerful woman pinning her down, she knew that any hint of restraint might hint that she was merely attempting to put on a show.

Vee closed her eyes. She thought of her blade, the weapon she’d summoned dozens of times before. Over the years, its shape had subtly changed to match her evolving physicality, and she regularly took pride in its design. It had saved her life countless times in the past, and now it felt as if her very life depended not on successfully summoning it, but failing to do so.

A burst of light appeared in her hands, one that flickered as she attempted to harness the tiny spark of divinity nestled inside her. Sweat formed on her brow, and she did her best to ignore the immensely powerful weapon pointed at her throat.

Her fingers wrapped around a handle, though one that paled in comparison to the sword she’d wielded in months past. She thought back to her fight with the coven, how she’d worked together with all her friends to uphold their vision of a better future, and tried to cling to that hope as encouragement. She thought of Amara, all alone somewhere in this alien plane, but hopefully far away from the dragon that had separated them.

With one last flash, the partial idea of her blade vanished from her hand. Vee’s eyes sprang open and she gasped from the exertion, hoping that her display was enough to win over this stranger.

A second passed.

Then another.

The strange, red-headed woman looked at Vee’s extended hand, then back to her, and finally spoke. “Why would Heaven turn their backs on you? What sins have you committed that would warrant such punishment?”

This was it. If Vee was wrong about this woman’s intentions, confessing her feelings about Amara might very well be the last decision she ever made. On the other hand, the only angle that seemed to encourage this woman to back off was her admission that she was not aligned with Heaven. With one last breath, Vee summoned all her strength and looked this woman directly in her radiant eyes.

“I’m in love with a demon,” Vee said. Her words rang with truth, and a tiny spark of warmth appeared in her gut. If this was to be the end, at least she would do so with Amara in her heart.

“A demon?!” the woman gasped. Her eyebrows furrowed once again, and focus turned away from Vee as she retreated within her own mind. Tiny flickers of movement in her eyes hinted at the countless thoughts racing by, and Vee held her breath as she waited for a proper response. When the woman finally returned her focus to Vee, her eyes went wide with excitement. “That’s so romantic!!”

“I… what?” Vee asked, completely stunned by what she’d just heard.

The stranger’s blade vanished in a burst of light as she fell to the ground, kneeling beside Vee and clasping her hands to her chest. “How did it happen?! Were you star-crossed lovers that met on opposite sides of the battlefield? Fated enemies sworn to destroy each other only for your passion to win in the end? Did you cross blades only to look deep in their eyes and discover that you had more in common than you ever thought possible?”

“Um, not quite?” No longer on the receiving end of a sword, Vee slowly pushed up from the ground so she could sit next to this stranger. As she did so, she found that the overwhelming aura of power and radiance the woman had previously emanated was now gone, replaced with mundane, overwhelming exuberance.

“Right, right, sorry, battlefields like that aren’t that common on Earth nowadays,” the stranger said as she helped Vee up. “But what happened? You to tell me!”

While still immensely confused, Vee figured she had little choice in the matter. “Well, we were best friends for a year or so, then I discovered she was actually a demon. I thought she’d betrayed me, so I tried to banish her, and I nearly died in the fight. In time, we managed to talk through our differences, and eventually we confessed our feelings for each other after I stopped her from caving to her demonic desires for carnage.”

Even though she’d massively simplified the story of her and Amara’s relationship, she was shocked to see tears of joy appear in the stranger’s eyes. “That’s. So. Amazing! Betrayal! Heartbreak! Two women fighting against the powers that created them in a search for true love!”

“I’m… uh, glad you liked the story,” Vee said, “but everything I said earlier is true. We got separated when a dragon attacked us, and if I don’t make my way back to her, she could be seriously hurt.”

“Right!” The stranger leapt to her feet with effortless grace, then grabbed Vee’s hands and pulled her up as well. Once they were both standing, she began leading Vee to the nearby cabin. “Okay, so, I can’t let you leave until we check in with my dad, but I’m sure it won’t be a problem! We just have to explain the situation, and I’m he’ll let you—WAIT! We haven’t been properly introduced yet!”

The woman quickly spun around, still holding one of Vee’s hands. “Right, I suppose we haven’t. My name is Vequaniel, but everyone calls me Vee.”

The stranger squeezed Vee’s hand with a little too much enthusiasm. “It’s lovely to meet you, Vee! My name is Hope, and it’s short for… actually, it’s not short for anything. When I was younger, I liked to pretend my full name was Hopekiel, no matter how much my dad insisted that wasn’t a real name.”

As they shook hands, Vee took the opportunity to examine Hope’s outfit. Earlier, she’d been blinded by the sheer, overwhelming power emanating from the redhead, but now she seemed no different than any other angel one might find on Earth. She wore loose, flowing pants made of white fabric and her feet were completely bare. The tops of her pants were hidden underneath a long, green tunic that left her arms exposed, and a thin rope lined with golden thread had been tied around her waist to literally pull the outfit together.

Physically, she was in fantastic shape. Her exposed arms hinted at powerful musculature, and she walked with incredible grace as if gliding across the grass underneath her feet. Hope gripped Vee’s hand with unusual force, though didn’t seem to be stressed in the slightest; perhaps she simply didn’t understand her own strength?

But was she an angel? As strong as she looked physically, it was obvious that she contained magnitudes more holy might. If she owed her existence to the divine, why was she so paranoid that Heaven might have sent agents to her home?

“It’s nice to meet you too, Hope, though I wish the circumstances weren’t so stressful.”

“Oh, you’re going to my dad! He’s so nice!” Despite Vee’s relief that her host was no longer hostile, she still bristled at the thought that Amara was in danger somewhere in The Wilds.

“Daddy! We have company!” Hope yelled, her voice echoing through the clearing. Soon after, the front door of the cabin opened, and Vee’s stomach dropped.

Behind the door was not a person, it was eternity. A being so effortlessly perfect it defied all reason, their physical presence dwarfed by the glimpse of the cosmos that danced behind them. Their hair, impossibly golden, danced in an invisible breeze before vanishing into six magnificent wings. The wings themselves, despite managing to fit through the door of the cabin, seemed to stretch for thousands of lightyears in all directions, and Vee instinctively squeezed Hope’s hand as tight as she possibly could out of fear she might be cast into the cosmos. This person’s eyes, as unyielding and celestial as Hope’s gaze had been moments earlier, locked onto Vee with fiery determination and all the might of the cosmos. A hand extended to their side, and a pillar of stars swirled ever closer before condensing into a magnificent spear built of starlight. This spear, somehow both as tall as a planet and small enough to fit comfortably in a human hand, thrummed with divine power so potent that it brought Vee to tears once again; first in awe, then in fear as she realized its infinitely sharp tip was pointed straight at her.

“Young angel, knowledge of this place is forbidden! It pains us to say so, but as the Archangel of Mercy, I must extinguish your flame to preserve the glory and sanctity of—”

Hope skipped closer and pushed a finger against the archangel’s chest. “No, Daddy!”

The infinite, everlasting power of divine eternity vanished in the blink of an eye, and the archangel’s voice suddenly seemed just as mundane as Hope’s. “Sweetie, we’ve talked about this. We can’t let anyone know we’re here, not another angel!”

No longer holding Hope’s hand, Vee fell to the ground and wept. This was the second time in only a few minutes that she’d seen the full might of creation wielded as a weapon against her, and she had no idea how else to respond. Some tiny part of her whispered that these people seemed familiar, but she couldn’t organize her thoughts. As her tears fell to the blueish-green grass beneath her, she heard Hope continue talking.

“See?! You’ve terrified poor Vee to tears!”

“Hope, you’ve never met another angel before! How do you know she isn’t lying to you in a bid for sympathy?”

“Because angels don’t fall in love with demons!” Hope yelled. As she finished speaking, she fell to her knees beside Vee and gently reached for her face. Flickers of tender, loving Enochian magic sprang from her fingertips and lovingly dismissed Vee’s tears, at which point the two girls looked deep into each others’ eyes. “I believe you, Vee. I see the love you carry in your heart, and I promise Daddy’s not going to kill you. Right, Daddy?”

Hope’s last words carried a hint of accusation towards her father, who in turn sighed in frustration. “For Heaven’s sake, first everything with Evelyn, and now this…”

Vee snapped to attention and turned to look at the archangel. “Wait, you know Evelyn?”

The archangel narrowed his eyes as he returned Vee’s gaze. “There are many people given that name across existence, young Vee. Do not pretend you know of whom I speak in a bid to gain my sympathy.”

“Evelyn Lamour, the firstborn daughter of Lilith herself!” As Vee spoke, she saw a flash of surprise in the archangel’s eyes. “She turned her back on Hell nearly a century ago, and twenty years in the past she nearly sacrificed everything to save the lives of a fallen archangel and his newborn daughter! That’s you, isn’t it?”

A tense pause overtook the clearing in front of the cabin. The archangel clenched his fist, looked at his daughter, then back at Vee, and finally sighed in resignation. “Yes, my name is Zadkiel. Why don’t you come inside, young Vee. There is apparently much we should discuss.”