Chapter 5

Baltoh slowly stirred, being drawn from his deep sleep by a warm, wet feeling around his cock. With a yawn and a tired hum, he opened his eyes and looked down, smiling as he watched Selene’s beautiful head bob up and down. She had a coy look in her eyes as she sucked hungrily on his semi-erect phallus. He gave a tired stretch and his grin grew wider as her soft tongue slathered the shaft with her lips wrapped securely around the head. She then released the head and spat on the tip, using it as lube was she stroked him to a full erection with her hand.

Baltoh reached down and brushed back a lock of her hair, careful not to scratch her face with his sharp claws. Selene smiled and reinserted his manhood into her soft mouth, pressing the tip of her tongue into the slit on the head while she stroked the shaft. Baltoh gave another tired groan and his smile widened as she began deep-throating him, taking half of his cock in her soft mouth with the head going past her uvula.

After sucking him off for several seconds, Selene took his cock out of her mouth and began stroking it furiously against her bountiful tits. “Cum for me, baby, cum hard,” she purred, spitting again on the head and using it as lube as she stroked him.

Granting her wish, Baltoh grunted hard as he shot a thick ropey stream of semen across her breasts. With a coy smile, she smeared his cock against her chest like a soapy sponge, coating her breasts in his cum. Holding the giant fleshy water balloons, she leaned down and licked off the semen, slurping Baltoh’s jizz off her pointing nipples with relish.

“So delicious,” she whispered before he sat up and kissed her on the forehead.

“Good morning,” he said, wrapping his arms around her.

“Good morning. How did you sleep?” she asked, kissing him on the forehead in return.

“Since I rarely sleep, it was absolutely amazing. In Hell, I always have to sleep with one eye open if I can even find a safe place.”

“With how hard you rode me, I slept like a rock. You know, that was actually the first blowjob I ever gave.”

“Really? I must say I’m that skeptical with the skill you used,” he teased.

“Well I’ve always practiced on bananas for when I would find the right guy. Plus my best friend Molly is a master in the art of satisfying men and she is always giving me pointers. I’ll be honest, I think I enjoyed it just as much as you did.”

At her words, Baltoh leaned forward to kiss her, but suddenly stopped. He could sense something was wrong, something that he had been unable to notice before, but was now as clear as it was pungent, like the smell of a rotting carcass in an enclosed space. He could sense energy in the air, both Archangel and Demon and vast amounts of them.

“Wait, something happened. I need to get outside, now.”

Baltoh stood on the roof of Selene’s apartment building while she sat in her living room, watching the news for anything important being reported. The hybrid was taking several deep breaths, sampling the vast cascade of light and dark energy in the air. As far as he could tell, New York was completely undisturbed and there weren’t any signs of battle or destruction, but the thick energy that sat in his lungs like smoke said otherwise.

“It’s the weirdest thing, there are hundreds of missing cases being reported and nobody knows anything.” Selene said, walking up behind him.

Baltoh bit his lip in anger, causing blood to trickle down his chin. “Damn it, just as I thought.”

“What is it?” Selene asked with worry, leaning against him with her hands on his shoulders.

“There was a battle last night, a big one. Whenever large numbers people go missing at once, it means that the forces of Heaven and Hell faced each other and there were civilian casualties, a lot of them. There aren’t any destroyed buildings or craters in the city from last night, which means that the Angels have been hard at work, repairing the damage and erasing memories so that no one would ever know. However, what they cannot repair is the death toll. Last night, hundreds of people were killed in the crossfire, and no one remembering anything of the battle, they are being reported as missing.

I should have sensed it; I should have sensed the fighting going on as if I were watching it from front row seats. Of all the times for this battle to be waged, it was when I was the most distracted and focused on other things.” He cursed, thinking back to the night of passion. With her eyes filled with sadness, Selene took her hands off Baltoh’s shoulders and stepped back, praying that he wasn’t blaming her for what happened.

“Baltoh!” an angry voice announced.

Without turning away from the city, Baltoh’s eyes swerved up as an Archangel descended from the sky, landing beside him with the balance of an acrobat. He was dressed just like Michael with the same white eagle wings, but his facial characteristics were much difference. While his hair was blond and cut short, he had several piercings through his pointed ears, his eyebrows, one through his lower lip, and three through the bridge of his nose. The Archangel and Selene paid no attention to each other, as he was completely invisible and inaudible to her.

“There is no point in hiding yourself, Gabriel. She knows about me and everything else. You might as well show yourself,” Baltoh muttered, drawing Selene’s confused attention.

With a swear, the Archangel became visible, causing Selene to jump back out of shock and grip Baltoh’s arm. She stared at warrior from Heaven with utter amazement, now having someone to compare Baltoh too other than that brief sight of Abaddon and Rimmon.

“It’s been a while, Gabriel,” Baltoh dryly said without looking at him.

He and Gabriel were in no way allies, but neither were they enemies, only in that they didn’t try to kill each other. Gabriel saw Baltoh as a somewhat positive force in the universe, one that he refused to work with or side with, but did not get in the way of. Baltoh saw Gabriel as probably the closest thing he had to a friend, even though they never saw eye to eye and did little more than argue.

“Damn it, Baltoh! Where the Hell were you? You come here from Hell to hunt these bastards down, and just when we finally need your help for the first time, you disappear on us! This is why the other Archangels want you dead, because you never make it very clear which side you are on.

And her, what the Hell are you doing with a human?! Do you have any idea how many laws you’ve broken?! I shouldn’t even be letting her see me but you’ve made that pointless now!”

“The laws of your master mean nothing to me. I do what I want and the forces of Heaven had better accept that they can do nothing about it and should just be glad that I at least keep myself hidden when I show up here. She is of no concern to you, so you better not say another word about her. I was busy last night, so tell me what happened.”

Selene gripped his arm, almost afraid of Gabriel.

The Archangel looked at Baltoh and Selene, switching his gaze between them as the truth became apparent. “You bastard, I don’t know if you really are this stupid or this selfish. A physical relationship with a human woman?! You always make trouble for us, but this is unacceptable! Do you have any idea what sort of abomination would be spawned if you were to impregnate her?!”

“Silence!” Baltoh roared, infusing so much power with his voice that Gabriel was forced to his knees by the oppressive weight of that single word.

“I warned you not to say another word about her. You would be wise to remember who you are talking to and just what I am capable of. Now what the Hell happened last night?” he ordered, taking the invisible weight off Gabriel.

The Archangel grudgingly stood up. “Gargoyles, super-charged by Demon power and feasting on innocent people. They were far stronger than Angels and they were fast, causing vast amounts of destruction to the city while completely exposing themselves to the public.”

“What was their purpose? Abaddon has already set the people of this city against each other, such a broad attack would only create fear and unify everyone.”

“It was a distraction, one that Abaddon was able to take full advantage of...”

12 Hours Earlier:

Abaddon faced his small squadron of Gargoyles in a massive abandoned warehouse, all fully-grown and far larger than their natural sizes. Having spent the last few hours eating and torturing live humans, they had feasted upon more than enough agony and fear to bring them almost halfway to Demon-level power. True, their minds still remained barely developed enough to speak and follow orders, meaning that they were not sophisticated enough to mold their energy into Demon Art, but they could unleash their power in raw unfocused explosions, easily capable of destroying buildings.

“Your mission is simple; buy me enough time to summon more Demons from Hell. To do this, I need you to release as much power as possible so that I my own won’t stand out while performing the ritual. Reign terror, slaughter everyone, destroy to your heart’s content, and have all the fun you desire. Just keep moving and keep the Angels off my tail. Go!”

All but two Gargoyles released gleeful shrieks of bloodlust and took to the air to wreck havoc. The two that stayed would be guarding Abaddon in case any Angels or Archangels discovered their location.

Michael and Gabriel stood on the edge of a skyscraper roof, looking out over the city. New York seemed particularly calm this night ... or as calm as New York could be without a blackout. Michael had recovered from his injury and it was as if he had never received it.

“It’s been so long since I’ve seen this world, I never realized how much it has changed,” Gabriel hummed.

“Neither did I. The Earth is constantly moving forward, while it seems like Heaven and Hell are always frozen in time.”

The two friends paid no attention to the third Archangel that appeared beside them. He was dressed in the same white uniform, but he had a darker complexion like that of a Native American, his brown hair hung down past his shoulders, and on his face were numerous tattoos; a pair of wings on his cheeks and a cross on his forehead that stretched down the bridge of his nose just to name a few.

“Everything is quiet to the north, all Angels are reporting silence,” he said.

“I don’t know if that’s good or bad. I know the Gargoyles wouldn’t act so broadly with us here, but I’m starting to think that it’s just a little too quiet. What do you think, Raphael?” Michael asked the tattooed man.

“I don’t know; it’s impossible to predict the actions of Demons and their ilk.”

He turned and looked out at the city, just as his friends were doing. They stood like three sentient statues, all in the exact same positions with the exact same expressions. Minutes went by, and not a word was spoken.

A building in the distance suddenly exploded in a geyser of black flames, throwing debris in all directions and sending up a mushroom cloud. Before the Archangels could even move in response, several more buildings were destroyed in other areas, quickly turning into domino lines of destruction. Down in the streets, people were panicking as they heard the explosions and saw the smoke rising, even in the dark night. Was it a terrorist attack? A huge riot? An earthquake? Whatever it was, it was sending ripples of fear throughout the city.

“Gabriel, summon a memory barrier around the city! Raphael, call forth the Angels to begin evacuations! I’ll go investigate!” Michael instructed as he spread his wings and brought forth his sword from nonexistence.

As Michael took off towards the nearest explosion, Gabriel and Raphael both cast a spell, with the former raising his hand and the latter pressing his hands down on the ground.

“Angel Art: Fading Dream Realm!” Gabriel called.

From his palms, beam of light, invisible to humans shot up into the sky, and spread outwards into a vast dome, encompassing all of New York. From this point, all humans that resided in its space would forget anything that happened within the barrier. What Gabriel didn’t know was that while she was currently being intimate with Baltoh, Selene was immune to the spell, due to her proximity to the supernatural figure.

“Angel Art: Saint Beckon!” Raphael chanted. A ripple of light pulsed from his hands, making every Angel in the area able to hear him. “All Angels report! Begin the evacuation of humans within the danger zone! I’m calling for reinforcements!”

“Demon Art: Horror Obelisk Summon!” Abaddon called, slamming his down on the ground.

Moving as slow as a slug, a Horror Obelisk slowly began to rise from the ground. Having practiced with that first Obelisk, Abaddon was now familiar with the energy manipulation required to bring forth non-sentient objects into the human world from Hell, though it was still like pulling teeth and incredibly slow. The obelisk was the fourth of a group scattered across the city, just as a little power-boost for the Gargoyles. With all their new power, they would be strong enough to even hold their own against Archangels.

Once the Obelisk was summoned, he and his two Gargoyle guards took flight, heading east towards the edge of the city. Like all Demons and Gargoyles, Abaddon and his guards were unable to stray too far from their area of origin where they had crossed over from Hell. Even though they had crossed over through nonconventional means and not summoned, their supernatural jetlag was only lessened, meaning that they could move at far greater distances. The farther they could get from the forces of Heaven, the better their chances were of being unnoticed. Moving with ungodly speed, they flew to the absolute limit of their roaming reach.

Believing that he was standing in the best possible spot to ensure his safety, Abaddon smiled and cracked his fingers. This was the real test, summoning Horror Obelisks was one thing, but this was a whole other league. Abaddon slammed his hand onto the ground, having dredged up his power to its maximum level. “Demon Art: Conjuring Necropolis Summoning!”

Michael soared across New York City with his claymore in hand, zeroing in on the nearest line of explosions. The energy he could sense from the one causing the destruction was incredibly large, almost large enough to be a Demon. In his heart, Michael prayed that it really was a Demon, because if something as common as a Gargoyle could reach this level of power, than the situation was far worse than he imagined.

The building next to Michael was suddenly blown to smithereens in a twisting maw of black fire, granting him only enough time to become intangible before rubble rained down on the surrounding area, crushing everything without cover. Looking through the storm of debris, Michael spotted the Gargoyle, shooting down the street and firing a miniature Abyss Blast from between its jaws, the signature move of its kind.

“Angel Art: Crusading Canter!”

Moving faster than a bullet, he zipped over to the Gargoyle with his sword raised, about to deliver an instant kill. With supernatural reaction speed, the creature turned around and blocked Michael’s sword with its claws, channeling its energy to the bony razors to protect them from the sword’s holy steel. The Gargoyle opened its jaws and black whirlpool of energy could be seen charging in the back of its throat. With an ear-jarring hum, the narrow blast was released, nearly striking Michael pointblank if he hadn’t caught the narrow beam with his hand.

Shadow energy streamed out from between Michael’s fingers as he pushed against the blast. Normally something like this would be child’s play, but the Gargoyle’s power levels were off the chart! With a deep battle cry, Michael forced the black back into the Gargoyle’s mouth, causing the Hell-spawn to explode like a water melon under the blow of a hammer from the pressure of it’s own energy.

A loud roar suddenly drew Michael’s attention up to the sky, where a house-sized Gargoyle hung suspended below the moon. The soulless beast opened its jaws and raised its head, charging an Abyss Blast between its jaws. Michael paled as he felt the energy being condensed into the sphere of darkness in the creature’s mouth, as it was more powerful than a fire-bombing drop by a fleet of planes.

“Angel Art: Rosary Restraints!” Raphael called, coming to join the battle.

From his outstretched hand, several chains of rosary beads were launched from underneath his wristband, as if coming out of his own flesh like a Demon weapon. The chains shot through the air like a frog’s tongue and wrapped around the colossal Gargoyle with more strength than piano wire, restricting its movement and ending the Abyss Blast before it could be launched.

“Angel Art: Divinity Ray!” Michael called, pointing at the restrained Gargoyle and charging a golden sphere of light just past his fingertip.

“Michael Look out!” Raphael shouted, a split second before the barbed tail of a regular-sized Gargoyle stabbed him through the gut.

The tail was quickly ripped back out before Michael could deliver a counterattack, leaving him helpless as a second Gargoyle slashed Raphael’s wings and then severed the Rosary Restraints with shadow energy streaming from it’s claws. The two injured Angels fell out of the sky, both desperately trying to heal their injuries. Casting the Laying On Of Hands technique on the bloody hole in his stomach, Michael looked up fast enough to see the Gargoyles fleeing with supernatural speed, shooting off across the city while suppressing their energy to disappear in the night.

“Damn it, they’re fast, strong, and coordinated. They are definitely getting more powerful, and if we don’t stop them soon, they might even surpass Demon levels,” Michael swore with blood trickling from his mouth.

Both Archangels were finally free of their injuries and regained their balance in the air, shooing back up into the sky.

“The Angels are reporting that most people in the chaos areas have been evacuated, but the Gargoyles keep moving and keep spreading destruction.”

“We need to kill these bastards now, and we can’t do it fast enough the way we are. As much as it hurts our pride, we need to power up.”

Raphael nodded and raised his hand. “Angel Art: Hope Beacon Summoning!”

Up above the Empire State Building, there was a bright flash of light as a huge crucifix materialized out of thin air. The structure was ten feet in diameter and forty feet in height, made of a single piece of rosewood and decorated with rosary beads. Dangling from the ends of the crossbeam were two smoking incense lanterns and adorned around the top of the vertical beam was a crown of thorns. In the upper corners of the cross, two large Angel wings of light appeared without any physical shape, like holograms.

A pulse of light boomed from the hovering cross, illuminating the city. Throughout the streets, every Angel gained a blinding aura of power, as well as the two Archangels speeding towards the Gargoyles on their destructive rampage. Following the lines of mushroom clouds as building after building was blown to smithereens, they increased their speed to levels normally achievable only through the Crusading Canter spell.

The two Archangels split up, chasing after different groups of Gargoyles. Michael chased after a group consisting of four house-sized Gargoyles, swollen by the amount of power they had absorbed before the attack and the pain they were inflicting. With a wordless slash of his sword, Michael launched a crescent blade of light energy that carved one of the Demons in half like a chainsaw through a rotten melon and set the two halves ablaze with white flames.

The three other Gargoyles all looked up and all released their most powerful Abyss Blasts at Michael, shooting enough focused energy to power the city around them for a week.

“Angel Art: Gates of Heaven!” the Archangel bellowed, summoning forth the ornate gateway of solid gold. The three blasts joined together and slammed into the barrier like a tidal wave, but with his power enhanced by the cross above the city, Michael was fully protected by the blast.

“Angel Art: Divine Smite!” he then called, pulling back his fist and punching the air.

The combined trinity of shadow blasts was suddenly dismantled as an invisible shockwaves pulsed through it like a gas explosion through a sewer system. The Gargoyle directly in the path of the blast was instantly ripped apart into millions of bloody pieces as a wall of wind, worlds apart in terms of power from a hurricane, slammed into it like the shockwave of a landmine.

“Angel Art: Feather Arrows!” Michael cast, pointing his wings at the two remaining Gargoyles and launching thousands of super-charged arrows.

The bolts rained down on the street, each carrying as much power as meteor and shaking the entire city upon impact with the ground. The surrounding buildings were thrown off their foundations and crumpled just by the shockwave as pool-sized craters were torn into the ground by the strike of each individual arrow. Suffice to say, the Gargoyles didn’t stand a change.

“Angel Art: Final Penitence!” Raphael announced, pointing his hand at the fleeing group of Gargoyles.

From the sky, half a dozen crosses that dwarfed cell phone towers fell down like bombs and managed to slam down on at least four of the Demons with machine-like accuracy. Each cross weighed about as much as the Chrysler Building, and upon impact, every car in the street was thrown into the air like pebbles, the windows in the buildings shattered, the buildings themselves nearly fell apart, and the street looked less like a paved road and more like a dry riverbed. The Demons underneath were crushed to a bloody soup and pillars of dust and smoke rose up from the meteor-like impacts.

The remaining Gargoyles all looked back and launched their Abyss Blasts, trying to shoot him out of the sky. Dodging the blasts with ease, Raphael cast the Crusading Canter spell and caught up to them faster than they could even process, ending their abominable lives with sword slashes that broke the sound barrier.

Throughout the city, the remaining Gargoyles were hunted down, all while the Angels worked tirelessly to repair the damage and tend to the wounded. Hundreds of people had been killed in the crossfire, millions needed their memories wiped, and New York was practically in ruins. But the Gargoyles had been stopped and victory was theirs, or so they thought.

Abaddon gave a dark and booming laugh as his spell finally reached its completion. He was facing a summoning gateway to Hell, larger than the warehouse that it had just swallowed. The process had taken vast amounts of time and energy, but now, the finished creation was ready.

Slowly coming up as if on an elevator, a large building rose from the portal with an ominous presence. The building was a cathedral, but not like any cathedral seen on Earth. The building looked like it was carved from obsidian, with millions of symbols painted across the walls. Instead of depicting Angels and saints, the colored windows on the sides showed brutal scenes from the pits of Hell, giving a detailed picture of the different forms of torture being experienced by the prisoners. The door was guarded by two statues of demonic jackals and secured with six heavy chains, all with barbed links. Up above the door was a pond-sized rose window, with each narrow petal-like pane showing a picture of a human stretched out with their flesh peeled off and blood spurting from the muscle underneath. Like normal cathedrals, the roof was adorned with statues of Gargoyles, but this took it to the extreme. Instead of just crouched Gargoyles depicted only from the waist up, these were life-sized and fully carved, each in the process of devouring or raping their human victim. The bell tower of the cathedral was also decorated with statues, but these were of Demons, all armed and posed like Zeus about to throw a lightning bolt. The bells themselves were ribbed like human chests and gongs within were shaped like human skulls. At the very top of the tower, a statue of a jackal with bat wings and goat horns crouched with the fires of Hell burning in its eyes.

The front doors began to open, breaking the six chains. Instead of a view of the interior, doors opened up to reveal a portal to Hell. Normally, a Conjuring Necropolis was used in Hell as a means of a teleportation device to bring forth an army of Gargoyles to whoever cast the spell. While it could not serve as a regular portal between the universes, with was being used in combination with the jerry-rigged inter-dimensional gateway in Hell in order to bring forth multiple Demons at once, but that was all they had the energy for.

Stepping out of the portal appeared ten Demons, each with different facial features. The first had two goat horns with one broken, the second had a head of spiky hair but he had multiple small horns hanging down on his face and resembling a beard, the third was bald and his horns were both broken, the fourth had his horns coming out of the corners of his mouth like boar tusks, the fifth had two long horns that protruded from his forehead and curled over his scalp, the sixth had three cone-shaped horns on his forehead, the seventh (and only female) had two hooked horns hanging down over here eyes and long black hair, matted with blood, the eighth had two goat horns like Abaddon but stood out with a large steel ring going through his lower jaw, the ninth had horns going around his head like a crown, and the tenth had two bull-like horns and his face was decorated with countless intricate patterns carved into his skin. Aside from their faces, all the Demons essentially looked the same, down to the shackles on their wrists and the armor-plated skirts. Naming them in order of appearance, Abaddon spoke,

“Amon, Bile, Shama, Pan, Dagon, Ishtar, Lilith, Mantus, Midgard and Nergal, I welcome you all to the human world,” he said with a dark laugh as he held out his arms to his sides.

“Damn it. Do you have any clue what they were trying to accomplish with it?” Baltoh asked.

“None. But one thing we are sure of is that Abaddon was not among them, meaning that the attack was most likely a distraction while he proceeded with some ulterior motive.”

“Damn it, that bastard sure knows how to hide his tracks. I just wish we could get some clue as to what they’re planning so that we could actually fight back instead of just cleaning up their messes. This thing will never be solved if we can’t make a preemptive strike,” Baltoh cursed, chewing on one of his claws.

“Another thing, after the battle, the people of New York began to go wild and psychotic. We thought that maybe our original memory wipe had failed and that they were still panicking from the destruction, but that theory was crushed by the amount of violence we saw. It seemed that Abaddon had managed to summon multiple Horror Obelisks across the city to make his Gargoyles so powerful that they had almost reached Demon levels.”

“Multiple Obelisks?! He should have barely been able to summon one, and you should have been able to find him long before he succeeded!”

“It seems that there is some trick to summoning on Earth that he figured out, something that made it easier than before.”

“Has something like this ever happened before? A catastrophe on this grand a scale?” Selene asked.

“There have been similar disasters and outbreaks, but they are incredibly rare and never incorporated any sort of planning. This is different; they have a mission,” Baltoh answered.

“They might be trying to build up their Gargoyles on Earth, Michael told me that Abaddon was able to spawn them from the anger of a riot. But that doesn’t explain his growing skill with the Obelisks.”

“Is it possible that maybe the barrier between Hell and Earth is weakening?” Selene asked, drawing the attention of the two supernatural beings.

“You two understand the laws of the universe far better than I do, I can’t even begin to act like I understand Heaven and Hell like you two. But I did study theoretical physics and I was a big fantasy reader when I was young. I know this sounds stupid, but is it possible that they are trying to weaken the barrier between Earth and Hell?”

“As far as I know, such a thing has never happened. The barriers have always been absolute. But if there was such a way, they would need an anchor, something they could use to tug on this world and pull it closer to Hell for the barrier to weaken,” Gabriel answered, sighing in disbelief that he was discussing such matters with a mere human.

“What about hatred?” she asked, slowly wrapping her fingers around Baltoh’s hand.

He turned to her, his breathing shallow.

“I honestly don’t think there has been more hatred in the world than now, especially in this city. We have an election coming up with political rhetoric that is as toxic as battery acid, (Remember, I wrote this in 2012. Holy shit, if only I had known what was coming.) Occupy protestors are waging a war against the police because the rich CEOs and corrupt bankers sent America into a recession, we’ve been trapped in an unwanted war for a decade that causes only misery, and every day, people are becoming crazier and more extreme. What if that’s the anchor you’re talking about? What if Earth, or America, or even this city, is generating so much hatred and negative energy that it is dragging us down closer to Hell?”