Chapter Fourteen
THEA
The voice was ecstatic.
‘Why didn't I think of it before?’ it said almost gleefully. ‘Angels have the most power. And you can take us to the Angel Realm can't you, Thea?’
Thea was half conscious inside her mind. She sensed Cam but couldn't communicate with him. The voice was controlling almost every part of her now and it wanted even more. This didn’t seem like a dream anymore—it seemed too real.
Drawing from her memories, the voice took her to the nearest portal, but when she arrived, she saw something she hadn't seen before.
A girl stood at the portal. She looked to be about fourteen years old and wore normal human clothes under a pale green robe, like what angels normally wore in the Angel Realm. She had creamy wings and a golden staff, and pure black, curly hair.
She stared at Thea in confusion. "Why can you see me?" she asked.
"Who are you?" the voice made Thea say.
"I'm the Cherubim that guards this portal," the girl said, taking a step towards Thea. "But you shouldn't be able to see me in this form."
"What do you mean?" Thea looked at the wall for the symbol of the angel, but it wasn't there. "Are you normally sketched into the wall?"
The girl nodded. "That is how angels see me. Demons and other beings see me in this form."
"Why? What do you do?"
"I do what all Cherubim's do. I guard the portals against demons and humans and any other beings that are not angels but somehow manage to find them."
"Do you know who and what I am?" Thea asked.
"Of course," the girl said, a smile on her lips. "But you are more angel than you are human, so you have always been permitted. That's why I'm confused."
Thea tried to grasp meaning from what the girl said, but the voice forced her thoughts aside and made Thea shrug and say, "I think it's something that needs to be brought to the attention of Thrones. I'm going to see the Dominion League, I'll mention it to them."
The girl stared at her for a long moment, her eyebrows furrowed. "I'm in direct communication with Thrones, I'll let them know."
For a moment the voice contemplated killing the girl, but the girl tapped her staff and an arch appeared where the portal was supposed to be.
"Thank you," Thea said, with a forced smile. "It's a shame I don't get to see you guys."
The Cherubim lifted a shoulder. "We’re not very talkative or sociable," she said with a wry smile. "We love our families and we draw energy from them to repel undesirable beings entering the Angel Realm. We don't need more than that. It was lovely to meet you, though."
Thea nodded at her and stepped through into the Angel Realm.
She immediately came upon two angels, a male and a female, who seemed to have also just entered at the arrival grounds. Thea smiled at them both, the hunger in her rising at the feel of their energies. She strode to them, blocking their way. Both angels looked at her strangely, but before they could speak, Thea darted forward and clamped her hands on both of their necks. The angel energy surged through Thea like a lightning strike. It electrified her body, crackling throughout her limbs and down her spine. The voice kept drawing all the energy from the two angels until they collapsed on the ground in a heap of limbs.
‘Yes,’ breathed the voice. ‘This is what we need.’ It sounded as though it was high. ‘More,’ it demanded. ‘The angels have never accepted you, Thea. They’ve never looked after you. This is the only way they can ever be of use.’
Thea was vaguely aware of the instruction and what she was doing. All feelings gone, she moved as the voice forced her to, emotionless and with a foggy mind, taking to the air seeking out more angels.
She encountered three Powers walking in the direction of the training center. Swooping down, she sent a massive blast of energy into the back of the head of the male on the right, knocking him to the ground, while she dropped between the two females and placed her hands their necks, pulled on their energy. When she got to the third, he was groggily getting up. She lingered back; he had more energy than the others, more for her to take, and the voice was excited by that. He didn’t even fight her when she lunged at him, the surprise on his face almost comical. She drained him greedily, reveling in his energy until all life left him, and his body evaporated into a curling mist.
The voice was thick with satisfaction, unable to control the glee and admiration in its tone. It praised her and encouraged her as it propelled her forward, heading in any direction. It was only concerned with finding more angels. Thea stopped often, draining singular angels or those in small groups who were out and about, but it was late evening in the Angel Realm and most angels returned to their quarters as it got dark.
‘Is that so?’ the voice said thoughtfully, as it read Thea’s half-formed thought.
It headed her into a nearby spiral-shaped building that housed mostly Virtue angels. Based on Dani’s powers, Thea knew Virtue angels could be extremely powerful and formidable but not all of them were like Dani.
‘Exactly,’ agreed the voice. ‘In your current state of power, none of them will be a match for you. Not even those Power angels were able to get the upper-hand on you, Thea. You should give yourself more credit.’
She flew up to the top floor of the building and forced her way through a window, sliding in and landing in a hallway that connected the rooms of the Virtues. She blasted open the door with an energy ball, then pushed her way inside. She drained the Virtue in that room and moved on to the next one. She moved from room to room, taking the energy from every Virtue she came across before she made her way down the staircase to the next floor.
She arrived on the next floor, only to encounter a number of Virtues, ready for her. One of them shot off a bolt of electric energy that hit Thea like a punch in the stomach. Thea kicked out at the other angel nearby, knocking her over, then felt arms grabbing her and restraining from behind as another Virtue shot another bolt into her shoulder. Thea howled and ripped away from the angel behind her, writhing away from his grasp. She created five energy balls and flung them out in all directions towards the angels. As they hit, she went after the angel that had restrained her. She pulled back her fist and punched him in the face, feeling the crunch of his nose and the warm gush of blood. He fell over and she held her hands out over him, began draining his energy without even touching him, pulsing through her palms as she drew from him with her outstretched palm. The other angel, further down the corridor, began to get up and Thea moved one of her palms to face her and began draining her too, taking from both of them at once.
The voice laughed through her with absolute glee when it realized she didn’t even need to touch them to drain them; she just needed to get close enough.
By the time she left the building, almost all the angels were partially drained of their energy, and it pulsed vigorously within Thea.
‘We still don’t have enough yet,’ the voice said, gently. ‘We need more, and we need to get it quicker.’
Thea stared out over the Realm. As the brilliant blue sky gently darkened, the Stream shone bright and beautiful in the distance.
‘Yes, of course,’ the voice said. ‘We need to draw from the Stream. Hopefully, we can draw directly from the Creator and get all the power we need.’
Thea shot into the air with one powerful flap and made her way toward it.
Before she was even halfway, Power angels surrounded her, keeping their distance.
"Thea," called one of them. He flew closer to her. "Fight it, Thea! You can fight it!"
Thea peered at the speaker and realized it was Asteroth. A jolt of awareness shot through the fog around her mind.
The voice laughed inside of her. ‘Does he honestly think that he can persuade you? Who is he anyway?’
Thea fought against the voice as it delved into her memories, drawing on those of Asteroth training her, speaking to her in the Dominion League room, and seeing her when she was ill.
‘He is unimportant,’ the voice said. ‘If we drain him maybe the others will keep their distance.’
Desperation rose in Thea as the voice forced her hands up against her will, her palms facing Asteroth. No, she couldn't allow this to happen. She had to stop the voice!
"Tap into it, Thea," Asteroth shouted to her. "Tap into the energy, use it for yourself. Use it to repel—"
At that moment, the voice began to pull energy from him. It flowed like a river out of him, folding and twisting itself into her palms, pulling from him relentlessly.
Thea tried to scream at the voice, tried to tell the voice to stop. She fought against the fogginess in her mind, the rigid grip on her body but she could not break the hold it had on her. She watched in horror as Asteroth was drained completely, disappearing into a curling misty smoke.
The Powers hovering in the air, surrounding her, stared at her in disbelief. The voice laughed and moved Thea forward towards the Stream. The Powers kept in formation around her but didn't try to engage her.
Thea's feelings dulled again, the horror of the event fading away.