Chapter 25

~~David~~

“More!”

“More!”

“More!”

Lasca jumped up and down, and flapped her small wings enough the room filled with a breeze.

“More!”

David, sitting between Acelina’s voluptuous, perfect thighs, shook his head as he gestured to her. The huge demoness, still on her back, panting, lay there and did not move as David pulled himself free of her ass. Cum gushed out of her, a ridiculous amount, a ‘clearly defying the laws of physics, where did this all come from’ amount. It poured over the stone ground and pooled around Acelina’s ass for several feet in all directions.

“I think we’re done,” Jes said, chuckling as she sat up. With one hand holding her injured side, she gestured to David with a wing. “Unless you want to keep going?”

“We should stop,” Caera said, sitting cat-like and looking down at Acelina. “We have a mission.”

Dao sat up as well, and giggled as she tugged on her new nipple chains a couple times.

Caera shook her head. “His aura is settling. I think he’s done.”

It was settling, but that was because Acelina looked done, and all his attention had been focused on her. Everyone’s had been, for the most part.

“I could ignite it again,” he said.

“Yes!” all the Las said as a choir.

“No,” Caera said. Instant frowns and pouts from the four little critters. “Let’s get cleaned up and moving.”

Well, so much for a reprieve. Even with an injured arm and a half dozen smaller cuts, the tiger lady had a goal in front of her and in arm’s reach for the first time. Nothing was going to slow her down. David understood completely.

He sat there, panting, wiped away some sweat from his forehead, and smiled at Acelina as she sat up.

She did not smile back. She pushed away one of the impas still suckling on her breast, and she hissed at the little creature as she got back up to her usual hip-sit position.

“I have never been so ... defiled!”

Daoka shook her head and clicked several times at Acelina. Whatever she said, it earned some quiet groans from the huge demoness, and some grins from Jes and Caera.

The impa Lasca and the gremla Laria, the one who’d rode Acelina earlier, both stood beside David, and both looked down at him with big, curious eyes. His cock was still out, literally lying along the ground like some sort of giant python, and everyone stared as it shrank back to its usual, human-normal size.

“It grew again,” Caera said.

“Um, yeah ... it did.”

“So I noticed!” Acelina said, and she patted her stomach. “What is this absurdity? That was ... not ... natural!”

Daoka clicked a few times as she gestured to him.

“I know nothing about the boy is natural! But that was ... not how it was before.” After a hiss and scoff, Acelina tried to stand up. And quickly sat back down, legs shivering, and more cum leaking out of her. “I ... did not expect...”

The imps and grems all giggled as they circled Acelina, literally, and got in close. Very close. One of them hugged a leg from behind. Another got a leg from the front. One buried their face in Acelina’s chest, hugging the lower of the two breasts. The final one pressed her lithe body against Acelina’s huge butt, and giggled as she rubbed her face in it.

Acelina lifted a hand, ready to strike, wide mouth showing an assortment of shark teeth, but after a few seconds of everyone watching, she let out a long sigh. Instead of slicing the little critters to bits, she pushed the one hugging her breast off her with a little more gentleness than expected, and used her tail to nudge them away from her legs.

The size difference was ridiculous, and hot. They were four feet tall, little shortstacks with varying degrees of slim and curvy, and small and large breasts. Acelina was nine feet tall, curvy but with a tiny waist, and breasts half as big as the grems and imps themselves. It was clear they weren’t used to being around a spire mother. They were in awe of her.

“Away with you,” Acelina said, though the edge in her voice was gone.

The Las giggled and came for David next, two of them crawling over Acelina to get to him. Everyone watched as the four naked little demons sat with him, two around him, two on his legs, and all four of them put claws on his chest.

Those were long claws. Those were claws that could kill him in an instant, especially with how close they were and how exposed his throat was.

But they didn’t kill him. If anything, they looked at him with awe, and he squirmed a little as all four sets of big eyes lingered on him. A quick glance to Jes confirmed she was ready to jump in and kill them if they did something, but she and Daoka both smiled and watched the four small demons. From the look in Jes’s eyes, their behavior surprised her.

Not as surprised as David. He’d been so lost in his arousal and Acelina’s sudden interest in him, his aura had skyrocketed, and his body had joined it. The fact the Las had joined in the sex was almost an afterthought. Thinking back on it, though, holy fuck that’d been hot.

“Unmarked is special!” Lasca said, tail flicking side to side behind her. “Why special?”

He shrugged. “Still not sure.”

“Big cock!” one of the gremlas said. Latia, he was pretty sure, daintiest of the Las, small breasts included. “Super mega ultra big!” And apparently watched the scrying pool even more than her sisters.

“Bigger than Saldavin and Gorlus!” the other gremla Laria said, shortest and bustiest of the little demons. She giggled as she sat on his leg, facing the side, and clopped her hooves on the ground. “Crazy!”

David smiled down at the mischievous ladies. Jes and the others didn’t expect much of imps or grems, and considering the other ones they’d run into had been content to just hide from the Cainites instead, he didn’t entirely blame his friends. But the Las all seemed perfectly reasonable to him. Extreme? Sure. Volatile? A bit. As likely to kill him as fuck him? No.

So far.

“Yeah, it’s pretty crazy. I don’t know what’s going on with me.”

“And sister?” the not-Lasca impa asked. Laara. “She special?”

“Seems to be.”

All four Las looked at each other, like they were trying to solve a puzzle.

“Can she ... take giant cock?” Lasca asked. “Two at once? Three? Four!? Fi—”

David put up his hands. “I don’t know, and I try to not think about it. She’s trapped on the other side of the ravine, and I do not intend to ask her when we meet up again.”

The Las all sighed but nodded. David braced for follow-up questions, like ‘where will they meet up again’ and whatnot, but they didn’t ask. Either they didn’t bother to think that far ahead, or they knew better than to ask, what with all the threats Jes and Caera had thrown their way if they did anything bad.

Lasca got between his legs, and on her knees, she leaned in and pressed her naked body against his. Small as she was, she was still very much a woman, and he froze as the four-foot little demon giggled and rubbed her large breasts against him.

“Fuck Lasca next time?”

“And Laara!”

“And Latia!”

“And Laria!”

“I—whoa.”

And like a tide of wings and horns and boobs, they all jumped him. Again, Jes got ready to slice and dice, and even Dao came closer, ready to do the same. But the impas and gremlas didn’t bite him or anything. They giggled, chirped a few times, and pressed their naked bodies against him.

Eight breasts, big and small, all squashed into him by four cute and beautiful and oddly sexy little demons, was more than enough to reignite the plucking fingers inside him. But before the aura could so much as get past his skin, Caera grabbed two of the Las by their legs and yanked them off him.

“You four better learn to respect boundaries,” she said, rumbling as she stood up, holding Lasca and Laria by the ankle so they dangled upside-down in front of her. “David is Daoka and Jeskura’s pet, Dao’s in particular. If you want anything from him, you ask them. Got it?”

The imp and grem both put their hands together and nodded emphatically.

Dao stood up, chirping and giggling, removed her nipple chain, handed it back to Acelina, and motioned to David.

“Don’t listen to Daoka,” Jes said, whacked Dao in the ass with her tail, and eyed the imp and grem still pressed to David’s sides. “You don’t touch him unless I give the say-so.”

“What’d Dao say?” he asked.

“She said all ladies are welcome to fuck her cute pet whenever they want. Because”—Jes got up and whipped Dao with her tail again, earning a squeak—”she’s too nice for her own damn good, and just wants to share everything.”

Acelina rumbled, stood up, and took some time to adjust her wings, add Dao’s chain back to her collection of necklaces, and tie them up so they wouldn’t jingle while she walked.

“The boy’s member grew even larger than that of a tetrad!” On shaking legs, Acelina pat her flat stomach, and glared at David with her eyeless gaze. “I nearly burst. What hope does an imp or grem have of fitting him inside them?”

David managed a weak shrug, and tried really, really hard to not beam with joy. Something about watching the huge, angry spire mother struggle to stay standing while her legs shivered and his cum dripped down her legs, was just so damn perfect.

“I uh, I don’t know what happened,” he said. “I just, wanted to make sure you really enjoyed yourself, you know?”

She took a step toward him. He was still sitting, making it a long, long way to look up. Scary.

“What?”

He shrugged again, meekly this time. Suddenly, those long curvy legs and her black hooves looked dangerously similar to ball-busting high heels.

“I ... just wanted to make sure you enjoyed yourself?” Adopt the submissive position, before she crushes your future children.

“You wanted pleasure for yourself.”

“Well, yeah, but that wasn’t the goal, you know? I don’t know. I mean, that’s ... that’s what it’s like every time. Enjoying sex is awesome, but seeing you girls enjoy it is even better. And, um, you’re a ... bigger ... girl.” He winced and waited for ball squashing. None came. “And I noticed demons seem to really enjoy really ... uh, deep penetration. When I was about to ... enter you, that thought was in my head, and my body ... changed.” He scratched his head and looked down at his naked self. Everything looked normal now, but when his aura had been going, his flesh had responded to his thoughts and desires.

Time to accept facts. Human? Probably not. Malleable? Apparently. His body was responding to his thoughts, to the aura, to the runes in his head, to way too many things.

Acelina tilted her head to the side again, opened her mouth, and—

“Don’t care!” Lasca said, still dangling upside down. “Will fit! Sex! Fuck me!”

“Good luck. You’ll get split in half.” Laughing, Caera set the two critters down again, got down on all fours, winced as she put weight on her bad arm, and nodded toward Jes. “Help me out.”

Jes, Dao, and Caera got to work getting their armor back on. Acelina watched, sneering every so often. The other two Las whined and rubbed their bodies into David some more, but Caera yanked them off, too. All four Las got dressed, though it was obvious they wanted to have sex. With him.

And he knew, if he wanted, he could have sex with them, right now. His body would adapt. He’d make it work. And he could fuck them, and Dao, and Jes, and Caera, and then ... do it all over again.

Thank god he had a bunch of ladies, all willing to help him keep his sex drive under control. His new, augmented, ridiculous sex drive.

Christ, what was Mia going through?

~~Mia~~

There was no way this could be natural. Post death nymphomania? If only she had David around to ask. Sure, it’d be an embarrassing conversation, but she and her brother knew enough about each other to be at least a little comfortable talking about their absurd sex drives and weird kinks. Except, right now, she was walking around with literal beads of her juices dripping down her thighs. That was a new level of libido she wasn’t used to.

Each step down the tunnel back to Vinicius, the sound of Yosepha’s moans echoed along the stone walls. Mia leaned against a wall, hand against the rocks, and she ground her teeth as she glared down at nothing. She was mad, mad at her stupid body for its absurd reactions, but no matter how hard she tried to keep hold of that anger and frustration, it melted away as more of Yosepha’s little squeaks and whimpers reached her.

Seeing the beautiful angel, her lean body, her muscular but feminine shape, squirm and writhe on the psycho demon’s giant cock, was like someone swinging open a door Mia had thought she’d securely locked. Not thinking about sex. For a little while there, she’d been able to not think about sex too much. Apparently, according to her body, all she’d done was delay the inevitable, and make the rebound worse.

The aura poured out of her, so thick she could almost see it, almost hear it. It was hot in that enticing kinda way a sizzling shower is. It tingled along her skin, little electric sparks that flowed through her and into her. And the music in her soul thrived on it, played the inaudible sound faster, louder, and it filled the tunnel and beyond it. Back in the spire, her aura had always been contained to whatever room she was in, but it reached beyond that, now.

Calm down. Breathe. If you keep this up, the next demon that finds you is going to pounce you and do things to you. Nasty, horrible things that she most definitely did not want, like getting pinned down like Yosepha had been, choked, and filled. Nope nope. Clearly, those were bad things. Totally. Especially if it was two demons, and they both filled her until she was a trembling mess of orgasms, stuffed to her limits and dripping with cum. That’d be horrible. Utterly horrible. Bad.

Groaning, she covered her ears and marched hard enough her feet hurt. And because God was an asshole, the first demon she ran into further along the tunnel, was Faust. Directly behind him was Gallius.

God, they were so damn handsome. Sex demons looked similar to humans, with the same sort of body shape, just blatantly idealized, with all the muscles and in all the perfect proportions. They had the black demon dreadlocks too, and it matched their small black horns perfectly. Even their tails with their devil spade tips looked cool. Would it be so bad if she—

Mia clenched her eyes shut for a moment and shook her head as she tried to walk past them.

Both demons tilted their heads to the side as they looked at her, both of them naked; they probably left their armor behind somewhere safe while they relaxed.

“Mia?” Faust asked. “You’re...” Slowly, his face changed, and the playful smile of an incubus emerged.

“I have to go.” She pushed past him. Surprisingly, he didn’t grab her, or so much as tug on her shoulder and inquire more. Part of her wanted him to.

She didn’t get far before running into more demons. Livian. She stood in the tunnel, behind her the path to Vinicius, and she walked along with the classic strut of a girl in high heels; it was the hooves that did that. And with an evil smirk almost on par with Romakus, she walked up to Mia, and licked her fangs. She had her armor on, unlike the two incubi, but it only took a few seconds of being near Mia for the huge Zel-look-alike to change. Her dark red skin grew brighter, and her smile grew larger.

“Wow,” the ten-foot-tall demoness said, and she squatted down in front of Mia. “Faustinus, is this your doing?”

Mia looked back. Faust and Gallius had followed her, dicks out, erect, their eyes locked on Mia. She hadn’t even heard them.

“No. She came out of Romakus’s room, and...” He gestured to her, wicked smile also growing.

Gallius came closer, leaned on his shoulder against the wall, reached down, and casually stroked his cock. Not as large as a larger demon’s, but still absurdly huge for someone who was only a few inches over six feet tall.

All Mia had to do, was walk up to him and touch him, and he’d be all over her. Him, Faust, the two other incubi that were probably around somewhere, maybe the other demons hanging out in the tunnels, everyone.

She refused to look at his big, thick cock filling his hand, a foot of red flesh that would have felt so perfectly buried inside her. Instead, she looked up at Livian, her short dreadlocks, her four huge horns, and her armor.

“This is ... It’s um ... not important. Just let me pass, and I’ll get it under control.”

Livian tilted her head to the side, and looked past her to the two perfect, handsome, gorgeous incubi. Both were fully aroused, though only Gallius masturbated, grip casual and pace leisurely. Faust was content to watch Mia, arms folded across his chest, with no attempts made to cover himself or his now fully erect penis. Heavy as it was, it wasn’t firm enough to stick up straight, but it was hard enough to stick out almost perpendicular from him, pointed straight at her.

“Wait a moment,” Livian said. “I ... want to experience this aura of yours.”

“Well I’m not gonna fuck anyone!”

She chuckled as she licked her fangs, and her lips, all too much like a hungry animal licking their chops.

“Romakus has given us orders to leave you be.” With a slow, gentle motion, she ran the blunt side of a claw down Mia’s chest. If she turned the claw around, it’d have easily destroyed the remnants of Mia’s silk wrap. She didn’t. “But if a succubus walked around parading such an aura, smelling that way, looking that way—”

“Looking!?” Mia stepped back, looked down, and covered her breasts with an arm. Okay, yeap, she was poking through her silk.

“Every demon and soul nearby would know she was asking to be fucked. And while a demon could resist a sin aura, a soul would be helpless to it. But this aura of yours ... is ... strangely similar to a spire’s aura.”

“A spire’s aura?”

With a delicious sigh, Livian reached up, and undid the hook of one leather strap holding her breastplate on. And then the other. It fell to the ground, revealing the huge woman’s gorgeous chest and small breasts. Small, relative to her size. Her nipples were very red, very swollen, and were pierced with tiny, black metal studs.

Mia stared at them, and then up and down the slim demon’s body.

“A spire’s aura,” Livian said. “Spires can create varying auras, if you must know.” She stood up and undid the leather straps holding metal over her crotch. Clank clank, it hit the ground with an almost surreal weight, and the giant woman purred as she slid a hand down her naked, flat stomach.

“I’m not going to fu—” There was a mark on Livian’s stomach, right under the sternum where armor had covered. It was a rune. “What’s that?”

“A horde seal.” Chuckling, Livian squatted down in front of Mia again. “I know all too well what a spire aura feels like.”

Mia stared at the seal. It matched one of the runes drifting around in her head, something about control, and domination. It beckoned her. It wanted her to touch it, to understand it. It wanted to fit into the puzzle in her mind.

Livian, naked and obviously enjoying making everything more uncomfortable for Mia, didn’t seem to take issue with the idea of being touched, because someone had taken Mia’s hand, put it on the mark, and the bolstara tetrad didn’t stop her. Oh, wait, Mia did that. Livian purred.

The rune glowed in her mind. Control. Manipulate. Dominate. But it wasn’t powered, and as much as touching it sent a tiny jolt through Mia’s mind along the rune and the chains that connected it to other runes, none of them activated.

But it was there, and it made sense, in a strange way. Not completely, but it did. It just needed something else to connect it.

Livian shivered from horn to hoof, and touched Mia’s hand.

“If you do not control that aura, little soul, I will ignore Romakus’s words, and yours, and take you regardless.”

Mia gulped and pulled her hand back. Much as that was a real threat, Mia couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty over it, considering the huge demoness was fully red and looked ready to pounce her on the spot. She’d just come along and got bowled over by Mia’s aura, caught up in it, and unable to resist it.

But that didn’t mean Mia was about to give her a pity fuck!

“Right, you’re right. I’ll be going now.” With a firm, confident nod that did not match how she was feeling in the slightest, she stepped around the huge demoness, and walked down the tunnel toward Vinicius.

She did her best to ignore the sounds of moans as Livian undoubtedly had fun with the two incubi, even with some remnants nearby. They didn’t care. Just the backdrop of Hell for them, like crickets. And, disgusting as it was, the more the aura flared inside Mia and flowed out into her surroundings, the less the horrendous landscape of Hell bothered her.

There weren’t any remnants near her and Vin’s alcove though, and their distant screams were quieter than the moans of Livian and the incubi.

Mia stepped around the curve of the entrance of her alcove.

“Vin, I—”

Julisa turned around and grinned at Mia.

“So it was you,” the fujara tetrad said. Like Livian, she had four big horns that gave her a regal, royal look, but had no hair. Considering her raptor feet, tail, and four arms, the bald head with the big horns made her look oddly similar to the giant monster she stood over. He didn’t have any hair, and all his horns made him look royal. Both of them looked terrifying.

“M-Me?” Gulping, Mia looked past Julisa to Vinicius, who lay on his side. Whatever they’d been talking about, it’d barely warranted interest from him, considering his relaxed posture. He wasn’t bleeding anymore, but it was obvious the wounds were nasty. They were healed over, but the skin over the wounds was super thin, red skin that’d break with a hard punch. Angel swords and spears were ridiculously sharp, and probably magical and stuff, so it made sense. The only reason her bodyguard wasn’t passed out, or dead, was the full belly of human souls he’d gotten yesterday.

“That aura. I felt it as you approached.” Julisa purred as she pulled her tail around in front of her, and gently stroked it with her two lower hands while her two upper hands idly tapped on her breastplate. “Faustinus mentioned it. But ... I had no idea...”

“It’s ... It’s because I saw Romakus and Yosepha, and they were having sex, and...”

Oh no.

Vinicius lifted his head and looked to her, and a twinkle in his dragon eyes arose. Unlike Julisa, whose face was mostly human, save for its flat, subtle, almost non-existent nose, giving her an alien-like beauty, Vinicius’s face was demony, and had a short snout. Every time he looked at her, there was a bit of that animal hunger in his eyes that reminded her of a hunting alligator, poking his head up from the water, looking for prey. And as Mia’s aura filled the room, his eyes focused on her. Just. Like. That.

Julisa came to her, slow and steady steps each accompanied by some talon tapping on the ground. With a rumbling purr that sounded almost more cat than demon, she closed the distance, and smiled down at Mia with every second.

“I can feel it. It teases along the stone, the air, and it ... goes into me.” She lifted her two higher arms into the air, and stretched out in that very ‘look at me I am gorgeous’ sort of way. “It is no sin aura. I can’t fight it. I cannot even resist it.” And as if her tail wanted to embody super long hair being tossed around by a woman doing a shampoo commercial, it flowed behind her, left and right, asking to be stared at.

“Sorry! Sorry. I didn’t mean ... it just happened, because Romakus and Yosepha, they...”

Her voice trailed away as Vinicius sat up, animal eyes still on her, and a heavy rumble flowed out of him into the ground. Heavy enough it tickled her toes.

“Romakus has somehow ensnared that angel in his grasp,” Julisa said, and she squatted down in front of Mia way, way too similar to how Livian had. Livian, who was fucking a couple incubi, and probably more demons, maybe a hundred feet down the tunnel. “He uses his aura sometimes, to seduce the woman, but we all know at this point she is simply addicted to him.”

“But she’s an angel, and Romakus is—”

“You must think angels and demons are different.” After a shiver, Julisa removed her breastplate with the same hungry, seeking claws Livian had. It landed with a heavy thud, but Mia barely heard it, eyes locked on the woman’s naked chest. That, was a busty demoness. The breastplate hadn’t been fitted to her shape at all, but considering it was just a bunch of metal hammered into a shape, probably by a big rock, it made sense. Uncomfortable, but made sense.

“They’re not different?”

“They are similar in many ways.” Julisa licked her fangs some more, eyes growing more and more predatory, and she cupped both of her huge breasts with her two upper hands while her two lower hands undid her lower armor. “They can create auras, too.”

“They can?”

“Oh yes. A demon can create an aura of violence and bloodlust, and an aura of sexual need and desire.” She tossed the piece of armor covering her crotch aside, and got to work on the pieces on her arms and legs, all while her two upper hands kneaded her heavy breasts. “I am not sure of the auras angels can create, but they can resist them, the same as demons can.”

Mia took another small step back. Fuck.

“You’re sure they can?”

“Quite so. The stories are very real. But my point is, Yosepha can resist the lure of an aura. Angels are powerful. But she gives into Romakus, because who wouldn’t?” She stood up, ran her two higher hands up her breasts, up her shoulders, and up onto her huge horns, as her two lower hands took her breasts instead. “What angel wouldn’t want to fuck a glorious tetrad? And for that matter, what soul?” The following look was positively sultry.

Double fuck.

“I ... um, I...”

Julisa tossed the final remnants of her armor, and with hungry predator eyes, she walked toward Mia again, licking her lips. It was obvious what she wanted.

But she didn’t get far. She paused, and let out the most un-demony squeak as she stumbled back. Stumble turned into fall, and she collapsed on her ass between Vin’s legs. The child of Belial had yanked on her tail, and now the tetrad sat between the much, much bigger demon’s thighs.

He got a hand around her throat and pinned her head to his chest. Two other hands found four of hers, two wrists for each of his hands, and he pulled them out to the sides so she couldn’t retaliate. The only reason Vin didn’t use his fourth arm was the giant wound in his shoulder.

“Do not touch her,” he said, snout aimed down at the small, ten-foot demon sitting back against his crotch and stomach.

Julisa looked up, shivered, and looked at Mia again. That wasn’t the look of a scared demon about to get her head popped off by a much bigger, angrier demon. That was the look of someone all too happy to be where she was.

“You care for her?” Julisa asked, looking at Mia.

Vinicius growled and squeezed a little harder, earning another girlish little sound from the giant, busty demoness. Her tail stuck out from under one of Vinicius’s raised knees, and it wagged lightly.

“We have a goal,” he said. “You will not intervene.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Vinicius growled again, and choked the demoness harder again, a sudden jerk that made her squirm and had her huge breasts rippling. And, as much as her ridiculously amazing body was delicious and hypnotizing to watch, Mia’s eyes drifted to Vin’s gargantuan arms, and the way they flexed as they held the demon. Vin was fully aroused, too, unable to escape Mia’s aura, and his red skin highlighted the definition of his ridiculous muscles as he pinned the fujara tetrad to him.

Despite the obvious size difference between Vinicius and Julisa, the tetrad just a small thing in Vinicius’s grip, there was no denying just how big they both were compared to Mia. Mia drifted closer again, stood at Julisa’s raptor feet, and spent longer than she should have watching the giant woman struggle, squirm, and lick her lips as Vin growled down at her. They were both so utterly huge. And so...

“If you want to be left alone,” Vinicius said, short dragon snout still aimed at Julisa, but eyes now pointed at Mia, “control the aura.”

“Sorry. I’m...” Was she even trying to suppress it anymore? No, she wasn’t. What she was doing, was standing there, eyes drifting up and down their two bodies, and letting the aura pour out of her. Or, affect the world around her, or whatever it did. And the more she looked at them, the more the aura changed, her fingers sculpting, plucking the strings harder, and crafting a ... song.

She wanted to see what she’d just seen. She wanted to see Julisa on her back, with Vin between her legs and hands around her throat, fucking her, filling her. She wanted to see the demoness who’d just been about to pounce Mia get fucked until she was mewling and whimpering and cumming, just like the warrior angel had been.