...and in the last year of the second millennium a great battle will rage on the planet earth. The prophets of honour, wrath and peace will walk the world and bring the glory of the immortal gods to the common people. The fate of the world for the coming age will be dictated by the outcome of the war...
— The Prophecy of Llandimus
The last verse of the choir echoed through the cathedral. Beams of sunlight were filtered through the coloured stained glass windows. Jenny closed her eyes and listened carefully. Something was wrong with the way the last notes of the song reverberated through the ancient stone. As though someone had slipped a note of discord into it, before it had time to come back. This should not happen in a holy place. The cathedral was still sacrosanct and shielded by the ancient belief that helped building it along with the funds and the workers.
It was the new years eve of the second millennium. She smiled sadly, when she thought about the events that had brought about this particular way of counting years and her part in it. Things had gone awry before they had even properly started, a few days after she had defeated the fiend Sinariael, the lord of perversion and twisted passion. The end had been even more unpleasant, because she had overseen an important player in the game. None of the people present in this room would actually believe her version of the story. You just could not deny two thousand years of damn good propaganda that easily, but she might have to do that quite soon.
Jenny closed her eyes and felt the chill of evil creep into her. Black tendrils coiled around her and twisted her, trying to kill her, or worse. She withdrew into herself, into the core of her being the pool of energy that she knew would be there and let the light fill herself. Slowly she enhanced her awareness to the beating of her heart, the blood pulsing through it, filling her body with live, making muscles move and allowing her to think. Another great battle was ahead and a lot of lifeblood would be spilled. She sighed and opened her eyes, looking into the suddenly empty building.
Only the priest and one man occupied the suddenly vast and cold hall. Jenny rose from her kneeling position and looked at the man. He smiled at her in an unusually charming way. She returned the smile, trying to seem a little more reserved, but she doubted she was successful. The man turned to go, slowly, as though he had just recovered from something very similar to her ordeal. Even though she was married, she should keep track of him. She needed every ally she could get. Jenny left the row of seats herself, her legs still somewhat wobbly. She leaned against one of the massive support pillars, bathing in the holy energy the ancient stone radiated.
It seemed the forces of evil were stronger or nearer than she had anticipated. The other option was to terrifying to consider. Had human weakness and corruption spread as far and thoroughly, that the borders of reality were weakening enough to touch the infernal planes? She hoped the first was the true, because otherwise all hope was lost for this world, she had fought so long to save from the fiends. Involuntarily she had looked after the man. Was he as young as he looked, or was he another immortal, like herself? The priest said: "He might be the one for you. I think he still is a single."
"No", Jenny said. "I am already married for a very long time. I thought I already told you so." He nodded. "You never told me about your husband." She said: "I have not seen him for a time, and you would not believe me. One thing at a time. You already had to swallow a number of bitter pills." He smiled and said: "Not as bad as you thought they would be. I always had a feeling that things were different than they are usually told. We do not even know a lot about things five centuries or a single millennium old, but more than two? Things have to be misinterpreted over time." Jenny said: "Actually it has been done very deliberately and with a specific purpose in mind in this case to make things even more complicated. What do you expect fiends to do?"
Father Jonah looked at her and said: "You are right of course. Do you ever make mistakes?" She nodded and said: "More often than I would like to admit. If I had not messed up all those centuries ago, we might have faced a lot less trouble and could probably do without this battle." He asked: "Is this the final battle?" She shook her head and said: "No. It is just another one. This war has raged from the beginning of time and will rage to the end of time, probably even before and after those marks, because time does not really end. It is only suspended for some unmeasured period. That does not mean, that the coming battle is not important. It might quite well determine the fate of this world for a very long time. If I did not think of the fight as important, I had given up long ago."
He nodded and looked at her for some time. "Be careful", she said. "I feel the foreshadows of something sinister here. Remember the preparations. We might need to act tonight. I will be there when you need my help." She shook his hand and left the church. The place surrounding the cathedral was strangely abandoned. Was everyone already preparing to celebrate the most special new year they were going to face, or the last party before the world ended? She shook her head. The world did not end that easily, not even after a nuclear strike. Life might take a pause, but the world was far older and more resistant than most people knew, which was actually a good thing.
Slowly Jenny walked around the church, carefully looking out for people. When she did not see any, she climbed up its wall, which was fairly easy, because it was build of huge blocks of stone, that were supposed to be easily recognised, so that there where a lot of hand and footholds. She quickly reached the roof and continued to climb. This part was more difficult, but Jenny was clearly experienced and made it to the top easily. She found one of the stones with a flat top and sat down, surveying the cityscape surrounding her. There had been a time, when she could see all of the town from this, the highest point of any building, but now she was surrounded by ugly blocks of concrete and plastic.
She settled comfortably to meditate and gather strength. This was going to be an interesting night...
Darius walked down the cold, snow-covered pavements next to the road. There was so little traffic, that even the road itself was still a clear white. Odd thing, when everyone should be on their way to a party. The red sun was low in the sky, still blinding, but spending little warmth a few days after midwinter solstice. Its rosy light rebounded off the polished mirror surfaces of the skyscrapers, forming a maze of sunbeams overhead, that seemed to from some type of mystical symbol. Was it a good or a bad omen?
He felt colder than he should in the winter afternoon. Those monstrosities of steel, plastic and concrete should never have been. Humans had always clustered together, but the population density of the great city led the whole idea ad absurdum. Instead of forming a community, as smaller settlements did, it was living with three million or so strangers within a few square miles. Still people wondered, why tensions unloaded in uncontrolled street riots and other fits of random violence. He shook his head and looked through the streets. There had been some type of movement, leathery wings too large to be those of a bat.
A few weeks ago some psycho had sliced up passers-by in underground parking lots, scribbling something on the walls with their blood. He or she had always managed to find a dead spot in even the best surveillance system to do those foul deeds. The killer had never been caught, maybe getting tired of doing so, or suddenly becoming aware of the risk of getting caught. Darius shook his head and wondered again, what the cryptic messages meant. It was a sad time, when a psychopath could go around like that in one of the best guarded and most watched cities of the world. Anther flap of wings, but this time it was only a bird lazily stretching and darting into the sky. A wonder that animals could live in at all in this unnatural environment.
He turned into a small alley, a shortcut he had been using for a long time. It lacked any of the prevalent snow of the rest of the city. The area felt unnaturally warm, almost as though something had burned here some time ago. Sulphur and rot lingered in the air, a remembrance of fiendish flavour, of evil deeds done all too recently. It was the smell of air, that had seen screams echo helplessly off the walls, screams that no-one could hear, that would blend with the noise of the city, before they even reached an ear. Combining everything it had the feeling of hell.
Now the flapping of large leathery wings was near, too near. Darius drew his sword and held it into the shadows, so it would not be given away. A creature blacker than the night glided after him. He turned to face it. It was not so much a reptilian monster with night black scales, as a scar in the fabric of reality itself, a thing that should not be. Malicious eyes glowed within the twisted face, over an too large nose that was a simple geometrical form instead of a rounded part of a body. The creature did not seem to have lips, but a seemingly endless row of long, sharp pointed teeth like needles.
A fiend.
One of the less powerful annoying version thereof. It might be able to scare normal people, but Darius was not precisely a normal person. He smiled at the creature and waited, what it was going to do. The thing lazily flapped its wings and glowered at him, trying to appear as frightening as it could, but it did not seem to have any effect on the man. "Fool", it hissed. Its unearthly, harsh voice hurt the ears and seemed to burst through the very fabric of the world like a whip. A hateful crackle with each word. "Those who refuse to bow down to the powers of hell, will be destroyed."
The fiend swooped down, claws extended. It had not seen the sword until it flashed into its direction. With a surprising speed it wheeled to the side, avoiding the simple swing and opening its maw, glowing with diabolic energy. The man had anticipated the fiends manoeuvre and his sword came around a lot faster than it should have. The fiend cursed something in its foul language. The man should have been overbalanced and in serious trouble. Instead the fiend had a problem, because the sword sliced right through it, splitting it cleanly in half. It had not even time to finally curse the mortal, that had defeated it.
None of the fiend's foul blood stained the blade. Darius took another deep breath of air through the nose, but the stench of hell was gone. This was going to be an unpleasant night, when fiends were already flying around in daylight. He hid his sword and continued his way, following several grim lines of thought, several of them ending at the bloody words, he had thought about earlier this evening. He had to puzzle out their meaning.
Jana awakened with a start. Her body was covered with sweat. It had been another nightmare. She was used to awakening like that after nightmares, because it happened at least every other day. The rest of the time, she slept on uneasily without actually awakening. The phrase sweet dream did not have any meaning for her. As long as she consciously remembered dreaming, everything she knew were nightmares. Jana felt her belly and sighed. The marks, where the beast had caught her were clearly visible and only slowly receding.
Ripped in half by the teeth of a giant monster, being smashed to pulp, sliced to pieces and more. There was probably not any type of grisly death she had not already suffered in her nightmares and lately there was this annoying tendency to leave physical marks on her body. They always faded away too fast too prove it to anyone. She sighed and peeled herself out of the moist bed sheets and left the unpleasant bed. She sighed and took a shower quickly. Usually she enjoyed that part, but something kept her doing things quickly. She dried herself and quickly dressed in comfortable clothes.
There it was again, this feeling of being watched, of hunters waiting in the shadows, always in the corners of her eyes, but always gone when she turned to look. The feeling of being stalked. She knew it all too well from her nightmares, but this time she knew it was not a dream, that it was reality. Maybe the dreams had been some type of warning she was incapable of deciphering. She had talked to a few specialists, but they did only come up with nonsense about how horrible her childhood had to be. The opposite was true. Childhood was the only time in her live she had actually been happy in all her live. When she started to grow up and become a teenager, a small would-be woman, the problems had started.
She had been different from the others. Girls dreamt of boys and love, she of spilling blood and great battles. Jana never had a boy-friend or heard the music of anyone surrounding her. She loved heavy metal, powerful, pounding, driving and aggressive, a great way to get rid of her own aggressions and bloodlust. She had started to learn martial arts very early to learn controlling and channeling her aggression in a more useful way. The last thing she had done before she did so, was beating up two grown men, who wanted to do something to her and her "friends" that time. She had squeezed the genitals of one so tightly that he had screamed and trashed the other's knee. After that she had hit the first man in the belly and the second into the face.
While she was fairly good at school and now at university, she had always seemed like a stranger among the others, with a world of completely different concerns and troubles. She had been more than happy, when she could leave the home of her oversensitive and -protective parents. She knew mundane methods would not help her, but she had not yet found, what actually would. Praying to the Norse gods did, but only so far. It seemed not even the hands of Thor or Odin could actually keep the nightmares away. She closed her fist around the hammer pendant and sent a quick prayer to the gods above, then she picked up sword, dagger and gun.
After hiding all beneath her cloak, she left her house and entered her car. She reached the church without trouble, but the feeling of being watched, followed and stalked stayed with her. Jana flashed the policeman walking the street a charming smile and entered the church. It felt unusually warm inside and she looked around, seeing thousands of tiny flames lighting the room. The church was empty, except for a single old priest. He looked at her and greeted her warmly. She took his hand and said: "I have the feeling of fiends following me."
"This is holy ground. They cannot enter this place. It should protect you from threats from the nether planes, but not from those within the church. There might be several groups, who would like to see you dead. Some might actually try to kill you. Do not worry about them, unless you mind a little red colour on the floor when I am done." Father Jonah said: "I guess I should, but you would fight in self defence. It is a natural instinct and it seems very strong in your blood. Let us pray that no-one does something really stupid.
"I fight for more than self defence", Jana said. "I can do a lot of harm to a lot of people in a fairly short time, if I have to. I almost remember beating up a whole street gang, that angered me one day. You know, I am a natural berserk." She smiled gently, making it hard for the priest to reconcile what she had just said with the woman he saw. "I make a point of appearing weaker than I am," she said. It is not as hard as you might be thinking. She looked over the crosses and drawings of the Jesus story. A very strong woman, even without a weapon, she thought. It did not lack irony, that everyone was having the party of their live, while she awaited the first step on the journey to Valhalla in a Christian church.
At home, after he had eaten, Darius said: "I need the articles about the bloody inscriptions again." His wife shook her head and said: "With all the things you spend your time with, you should not be able to sleep." He shrugged and said: "If some of the things I fear come true, a lot of people are not going to rest well for a time. I only need the words, the rest is not important now." Julia looked at him and nodded, returning with several small sheets of paper after a short time. He picked them up, read them thoughtfully and started to arrange them. "It is pointless, I have already tried."
He looked at her. She was lying. He made a mental note and looked at the text again, rereading it several times. Darius changed several letters and said: "If you assume they are German or English it does not make any sense, but it is Latin and makes frightening sense. It is about danger to someone. This person is supposed to be killed." He looked over the remaining pieces and rearranged them several times, until they seemed right. "Jana Callista", he said. "This night." He looked at the letters and sighed. "Looks like another sleepless night", he muttered, more to himself.
"It might be me", Julia said. He shook his head and said: "Someone wants to remove this woman in some type of witch hunt. I do not think you drew enough attention to yourself." She looked at him and said: "I just wanted to tell you, I am frightened." He looked at her, locking her gaze and said: "Why do not you just say so?" Julia sighed and wondered, what to reply. "Hell, we are all afraid", he said. "Just today I was attacked by a black abishai in the alley I always use. In the light of the day. There is serious trouble ahead." She looked at him for a while, wondering what he had just said. Some gang?
"Wait, did you say abishai?", she asked. He nodded and said: "It seemed quite black to me in the alley. It might have been a badly scorched black one, but I always thought they were immune to the effects of fire." Julia said: "They are, but who are you to defeat one?" He looked at here, not understanding the point of the question. "Darius Iundalus, head templar of Europe. I never claimed to be anyone else." She shook her head, wondering why it had escaped her. "I know", she said, almost sounding like apologising.
"Now you could answer the same question about yourself. You do not actually have to, because I know the answer." She looked at him puzzled. The expression in her eyes was unreadable, almost hazy. Did he know more than she suspected, or would he be surprised, when she told him something. Carefully she considered her options. "Julia Varina, archbishop of the holy sisterhood." She turned to stare at him. "Do you think I am stupid? I knew you were lying when you said the letters did not make any sense. The letters can be arranged in a way, that closely resembles your name, but not closely enough."
He smiled slightly amused and said: "I always thought I was paranoid." She looked at him and said: "You never know. Personally I do not trust Rome any more than any of those fiends." He said: "It is very unlikely they will do something after the third council of concordance." She said: "I missed that one. I do not remember why." He said: "You did not want to go there, you were to busy fighting for your own vision. Your focus is too narrow. You are missing too much that is going on outside your circle." She stared at him, unable to tear her gaze away from his intense, penetrating eyes. Almost as though she could feel him on the other side of the table.
Suddenly he broke the contact, leaving her alone with her thoughts. He walked to the window and looked out into the night. "I have seen the first lady in the church today. I sensed descending darkness and I am sure she also did. I wonder how the impact on her would have been, when even I have almost been overwhelmed. Her arcane sense are far more sensitive than mine." Julia said: "She is far stronger than we are. You can only advance in awareness if you are strong enough to endure and be strengthened by what you perceive." Darius asked silently: "Why did I always feel like having been tossed into a pool of cold water filled with hungry sharks, each time I learned more?"
"This is a dark time", she said and walked to were he stood. Gently she pressed her body against his and touched him. Their lips met and they shared a long kiss, sharing their passion for a few all too short moments. "We should go to the cathedral and see what is going on", he said gently. "It will take too long. We will never be there in time", she replied. "It is never too late to meet an Antyrael", he said, effectively ending the discussion. Julia nodded and said: "If you insist, we should definitely go." It was obvious that she was as eager to see him as he was. After all your celestial idol did not descent from his heavenly home every day.
She looked at her form, until she vanished into the bedroom. Poor little girl. Did she know what she was getting herself into? He already had to face an angel and was at least somewhat prepared, but she had always missed the opportunity, almost as though someone had tried to keep her away.
On top of the church Jennifer still waited. She had seen the young woman enter the church, filled with wrath beyond herself, beyond any mortal being. The prophet of wrath. It seemed there was a prophesy with at least some truth to it this time. A rare thing in this world of false prophets and lies. Jenny smiled into the sky and wondered if she herself might be one of the mysterious persons the prophesy of Llandimus referred to.
She closed her eyes, feeling the presence of darkness again, but it was far less intense, than within the holy walls, that amplified the mystic echoes of the world surrounding her. There where going to be humans trying to do the wrong thing for the right reasons and at least one major fiend, if things were simple, but they rarely were.
The waiting was far shorter, than she had anticipated. As the group of twelve men walked into the church, Jenny glided silently from her perch and down the roof. She leapt down from the corner of the church and landed on the floor without problems. Sometimes being a warrior enhanced by the most advanced magitech humans ever came up with did have its advantages. Silently she looked into the back room of the church, checking if Father Jonah had prepared everything properly. She nodded into the room, seeing that things were almost ready.
Jana looked at the door calmly as it opened and the men entered. There was no hint of expression in her face. She almost smiled at them, but only almost. Only mortal men, weak and easy to defeat, if she had to. Jana was probably the most fearsome warrior of her age and she knew it. Her fate was to fight more battles than most people knew about and to survive. She had accepted it. More than that. She actually liked it, but none of the men knew that.
They were knights of some secret order of the church and they were convinced that this woman was an evil sorceress or a demon. She had to die if mankind was to survive. No margin for error or mistake. This was the woman they were looking for. She seemed to know, what they had in mind, but there was no fear in her eyes, no fear of death that was an almost natural instinct of normal humans. This woman was no normal human, she was something else, something less, a fiend in disguise and she had to die.
Jana did not even struggle, when the men picked her up and carried her to the altar of the church. They went through a number of rituals, that were obviously required by their faith. Finally one pulled a dagger. "You should not do this," she said. "You will poison your immortal souls. Eternal damnation awaits those who break the rules of their gods." The man stared at her and hesitated. "You shall not murder. It is written in your holy book, yet you draw an assassin's weapon to stab me. What do you think you are doing?"
"Saving the world. Your tongue is deft, but you are a creature of evil and have to be destroyed for the sake of mankind." Jana smiled amused at him. "Who are you to decide the fate of a whole race? Not even the gods dare doing so. You are only a little mortal, who cannot even tell right from wrong and you think you know what is best for everyone? You do not even know what is good for yourself. Blind faith build on an ancient web of lies is all that drives you. I know my gods and have sworn to serve them until death and beyond."
They stared at her in obvious disbelief. "Do you even know your messiah's correct name? Do you know her tale? Has your faith ever been truly tested? Mine is tested and strengthened almost daily in a world of ignorance and lies." He waited for another moment, trying to digest, what she had just said. He was to focussed on his task to be distracted for a long time, so he brushed all the questions and disturbing thoughts aside and raised his dagger. Only Jenny had noticed the woman tense, ready to strike. The men had no chance against her, but this was not the battle she should fight tonight.
Quickly the dagger descended. It was ripped from the man's hand by something flying quickly and Jenny stepped out of the shadows. Jana leapt from the men's grip easily, somersaulting in the air and landing on her feet. She did not even bother drawing her sword, wondering about this turn of events. "Do not spill blood on holy ground. What would you say if someone drew steel and tried to fight on a sacred site of one of your gods?", Jenny asked. Jana looked at the other woman and smiled gently. "I never intended to draw steel, but I thought they might need a little beating to see reason."
"Violence has never been a way of convincing people of things, except that you are bigger and stronger than them. You will get more than enough opportunity to fight very soon. Always remember the wisdom of Odin." She turned to the men and asked: "What do you fools think you are doing here." A tremor ran through the church and made the men shiver. "You idiots just managed to desecrate this place. Now fiends can enter this church with little trouble, at least the more powerful creatures from the infernal planes." She walked to the pillar and plucked her own throwing dagger from the stone. It had been buried hilt deep.
"We did not do anything wrong", the leader of the men said. "Cold blooded murder without question?", Jenny asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "You have learned nothing of what I said two thousand years ago." The man looked at her and said: "It is the will of god." She smiled amused. "God is a lie. The structure of the multiverse does not allow One God. The multitude of modern faiths does not, but you always had the truth and everyone else is wrong, right?" Jenny still smiled ironically, having closed most of the distance now. "Blasphemy", one of the men whispered.
"Have you ever seen a true fiend or an angel?", she asked. "I have seen both. Believe me, purity can by as terrifying as corruption and tonight you will see both." As though it wanted to accentuate her statement, glass shattered overhead and spilled into the church among a rain of liquefied lead. A burning flash burst into their midst, unfolding its wings to a massive size, more than two times that of a man. It was surrounded by a pillar of flame, spreading wings of leather, like those of a gargantuan bat, so dark in their red tone, that they where almost the black of cinder, the colour of fiery death.
The whole, completely nude body of the creature was muscular, yet at the same time strangely spindly and misproportioned in a way that did not make any sense, even by generous physics. Trying to comprehend the impossibility of the creature could drive a strong man insane. The head, a twisted mixture of human and canine features, adorned by dirty white stubs, finished the imposing appearance of a massive burning scar, a hole in the very fabric of reality. This thing should not be possible, it should not exist, yet it stood there, a lord of its infernal home, amongst the most powerful the foul place had spawned.
Quickly the Knights of Peter scattered into all corners of the church. "Where are your faith and conviction now in face of that which you truly fear and fight?", Jenny asked with an amused and mocking tone. The creature growled, making the building shake, radiating a shock wave of fear from the very core of its being, sending men and woman dropping to their knees, shivering in fear with cold sweat pearling down their forehead. Only Jana and Jenny seemed completely unaffected by the presence of the diabolic creature in the middle of what should have been a sacred shelter from the forces of evil.
Jana had dropped to one knee and had bowed her head, seemingly awaiting whatever the fiend had in mind in humility. She prayed to her gods for the wisdom and power she needed to defeat the foul creature. "By the wisdom of Odin and the strength of Thor, this is the time of battle. I will not disappoint you, holy lords in the sky." When she was finished, she stayed there, kneeling, waiting. There was no reason to hurry. The battle would come to her and she would prove her worth on the field of glory sooner or later.
The fiend was slightly confused by the woman in front of it. She did not show any fear, or any of the other emotions he had expected. The other woman was a mystery too, but her aura seemed somehow familiar to the ancient fiend. It closed its eyes for a moment and on a whim it decided to deal with the one in front of it first. Blinding light flashed, as the fiend drew its jagged sword, a blade humming with electricity, barely contained energy waiting to be unleashed, to destroy, to kill, to defile, to have fun.
He advanced a few steps. Several drawings and wooden seats caught fire, before he reached the woman. Then he attacked with blinding speed. Jana danced lazily out of the way and drew her sword. The fiend was not surprised. It was too old and experienced in endless battles to be surprised by anything, but this did not change the fact that the following attack was so incredibly fast, that he had some trouble parrying it. At least it was a challenge. The ancient tanar'ri loved a serious fight, it increased his capabilities.
Several minutes the fight raged undecided back and forth, the unequal combatants circling each other. The fiend's lightening sword was circling around the woman, waiting to strike, but always hitting empty air, or sold steel with a ringing sound. For some reason the electric energy refused to leap over to the other sword and hurt the mortal woman. Her slender, simple sword was more than just a lethal weapon, it was a living being, dancing, leading a live of its own in her hands, striking, almost waving like a snake trying to dodge, parry and bite at the same time. It hit the fiends several times, but the wounds where so minor, that it did not even notice.
Suddenly the woman was behind the fiend and cut through the air. In spite of appearances she must have hit something vital. The fiend flinched and screamed in pain. Jana picked up her sword and charged the creatures back. It recovered and whirled more quickly than she had anticipated, holding its wicked blade in front of it, so that she had to impale herself on the sword. There was no way for her to avoid being killed. The balor had always known the woman would make a mistake at some point and now she would die. Too bad, there were a lot of more interesting things he could have done with her. Well, even he could not have everything at the same time. There was another woman waiting for him.
Jenny had watched the beginning of the fight and silently dodged into the shadows. She slid along the wall unnoticed with frightening speed. The last thing she saw of the battle was the fiend flinching. She smiled and entered the back room. Father Jonah greeted her and said: "I thought you would be here sooner." Jenny shook her head and asked: "Is everything ready?" He nodded and pointed at the summoning circle. Technically it was not necessary for the conjuration she was going to do, but one could never be careful enough when calling minions from the outer planes. You never knew what might answer your call.
She stepped in front of the circle and filed quickly through her ancient tome of magic and soon found the page. Again this was not technically necessary, because she had memorised the spell and could use it without the help, but it was important that she did not make a mistake this time. She silently read the ancient runes of power again, before she began reciting them in a load and clear voice. The circle began to glow and change its colour in rapid succession, quickly shifting through a myriad of tones and colours, many of which even more advanced languages than those of mortals did not have any words for.
The rhythm of the chanting reached a crescendo and the colour of the summoning circle became a solid blue. Mist oozed into it from nowhere, slowly taking an almost human shape. With wings. The white fog thickened and seemed almost solid, resembling a human man with large wings spreading from his back. The mist slowly swirled and wavered into a more solid shape. Jenny's forehead was dripping with sweat from the intense concentration and the strain of opening a gate to a heavenly plane to call forth a powerful being. Her chant ended in a last almost triumphant note. Within the circle the figure had become solid, a tall, athletic an impossible handsome man with large feathery wings spreading from his back.
Slowly Jennifer closed her eyes and took several deep breaths to steady herself, after she had been successful. The angel looked at the circle and smiled slightly amused, knowing that it did not hold him. It ever supposed to. "Please excuse the delay, my lord, but..." He smiled and said: "You did want to appear foolish in front of Antyrael. I just wonder, why did you use a five-fold summoning circle?" His voice was strong, pleasant and resonant, an echo of his powerful being. She replied: "In case I messed up. There are too many things that can go wrong when summoning someone from the outer planes. I think it has something to do with the way spell crystals travel."
"I am forgetting my manners again", she said gently. Jenny knelt in front of the angel, still feeling dwarfed by his strength and purity. Not as much, as she had been when they had met for the first time, for what seemed like an eternity ago. "Rise and keep on standing. We know each other long enough, and you are a very strong woman. Stronger than a mortal should have any right to be." Jenny was standing again and said: "I am not precisely mortal. I thought you knew how long people of most mortal races lived." He nodded and said: "There is a fiend here." Jenny agreed and said: "The balor should be defeated by now, or at least will be very soon."
She opened the door to the main hall of the cathedral. "I should do something to help", he said. Antyrael sounded as though he knew himself that this was not a very good idea, and he probably did. "I do not think so", Jenny said. "Why?", he asked. "One word: Ysgard" He nodded somewhat sadly and looked again. Jenny said something to him. The angel was a little puzzled at first, but then he nodded with an amused smile. Jenny melded into the shadows again and no-one seemed to notice the glowing celestial, every eye glued on the terrifying fiend.
Jana was not nearly as foolish as the fiend had thought. She dived under his blade and danced to the side, her blade cutting deep into the foul creatures flesh. The fiend though of her as distracted, but she managed to parry his furious attack. "Die!", she screamed. "I am immortal", the fiend hissed, its voice beating through the room like a barbed whip, making men and stone shiver. Jana sliced the fiend, cutting it cleanly in half. The creature screamed in agony, a deafening roar, spreading terror even in defeat. She leapt and whirled around, cutting through the whole torso of the creature again. After that she dropped to one knee and sliced through the fiend's massive legs.
Greenish blood drowned out the scream, as the fiend spat its lifeblood and gurgled on it, collapsing to the ground. It seemed to drop almost impossibly slowly, defying the laws of gravity. Then it suddenly collapsed, its final strength gone. It hit the floor with a resounding crash. Jana did not even notice, deep in prayer again praising her gods and the fate that had led her to this battle. Her sword was dripping with green blood. Scattered over the church the Knights of Peter stared in disbelief, at the woman, they wanted to destroy. She killed a creature they did not have the slightest idea how to fight.
"Does that mean she is not a fiend?", someone asked. The leader of the men said. "I do not know. Fiends fight each other I think. We should better continue with our tasks." Another voice said: "She does not look awfully tired. How can we hope to defeat someone more dangerous than a lord of hell?" A new voice said: "You do not have to." Everyone turned to the altar and the large cross that was the centre of the cathedral. A large radiant being hovered in front of the holy symbol, almost as though he was the one crucified, but he was radiant and he was not hurt. Large wings spread from his back. "She is not a fiend."
The leader of the knights said: "Which type of idiot would pray to Odin? He is a relic of the past, long dead and gone?" Anyrael smiled and asked: "Why don't you travel to his home Asgard and tell him?" In a gliding movement of inhuman grace, he landed on the floor and looked at each of the knights, at Jennifer and at Jana. The latter woman was standing again, looking for something to clean her sword with. She picked up one of the robes a knight had dropped and carefully freed her blade of the foul, almost acidic blood of the fiend. The leader of the knights pointed at Jenny and said: "She said, that god is a lie. This has to be blasphemy. When you are here, this cannot be true."
"You really said that?", the solar asked with a hint of amusement. "There are gentler ways of saying it, but essentially she is right. God as you think you know him cannot exist. There are beings beyond the comprehension of mortals or even myself. We call them the Greater Unknown and the Source. Both are very similar to your god, but since you do not know anything about the being you call god." He looked around again. "We should gather in a circle here and talk for some time. I do not have anything better to do right now." Jenny doubted that, but she knew the angel well enough to understand what he meant.
She was one of the first to sit down on the floor next to him. Jana and Father Jonah where next, but the knights needed sometime. They where utterly terrified of the being they where facing, a being they never thought could exist. It was not a frightening creature like the fiend they had seen before, but they felt so insignificant and weak in front of the angel. He was the impersonation of what they should be fighting for. They realised that they had been fools, that they had never even remotely understood their faith, that their perception of right and wrong was ludicrous and insignificant. It was a stark juxtaposition, facing a creature most unholy and evil first, then one of purity and good, one that nothing in all their lives could have prepared them for.
"Come on", Antyrael said. "I do not bite or something." Jana chuckled and tried to make out the faces of the knights, still hidden in the darkness surrounding them. "You cannot hide from me", she said. "You can hide even less from a fiend or celestial. Least of all, you can hide from yourselves." She smiled into the room in general and said: "From the beginning your problem has been that your faith was only in your head, but not within your hearts. You have never been convinced of what you said and where your thoughts led you. Only if you accept and love your lord, your gods, only then you will truly understand the meaning of faith and devotion."
Finally the leader of the knights walked to them and joined the circle. He was slowly followed by the other knights. They still flinched under the gaze of the celestial, who was mysteriously lacking wings now. Jenny, Father Jonah and Jana stood his gaze. The knights looked at all three of them and noticed the scars on both the back of Jenny's hands and her palms for the first time. It rang a bell, but not yet loud enough.
Jana looked at the solar quizzically. "What did the way you looked at me mean?" He said: "Your faith is very strong, but also very dissimilar to mine. I could almost say dangerous, but that would be doing you a disservice. A philosopher once said, that everyone willing to die for their conviction is a dangerous person, even if they are not fanatic. There is a narrow line between devotion and fanaticism, be sure not to step on the wrong side of the line." Jana smiled and said: "You have heard me pray, so you know my fate. There is a hall, where the brave feast with their gods, when their work in the world of mortals is done.
"Drinking from the skulls of fallen enemies and having a party between continuing the battle to prepare for the last one. All truly brave warriors prepare for the battle of Harmageddon, when the fenris wolf rips itself from its chain." She smiled with a dreamy expression in her eyes. "One day the gates of the brave will open for me and I will walk into Valhalla." Antyrael looked into her eyes and knew that she would. He smiled gently and said: "Walking the path of belief is not easy, but it is rewarding. There are many paths to enlightenment and you should choose one if you want to."
Jenny smiled and said: "Let me tell you a story. Two thousand years ago, when the demon lords we called the dark apostles where defeated and people left their home behind to begin anew without the curses of the past upon them, I returned to earth, the cradle of humanity. It was a strange time and one fiend was still walking the world. Since I was used to battle these foul minions for longer than I care to remember, I tracked down and defeated Sinariael with usual persistence. He was probably one of the few fiends, who actually was a fallen angel. I thought my task was finally done, so I wandered the lands, telling people to be a little nicer to each other, to prevent the weakness of the human soul that allowed the dark apostles to enter our world from returning.
"Something went wrong and I was supposed to be executed. They did not manage to kill me, leading to a number of weird legends.
"Centuries later I realised, that I had been played out by another fiend, who had stayed in the shadows all the time. Essentially he had been pulling my strings as though I had been fool." She shook her head: "Millennia of fighting fiends, their minions and the schemes and then I miss something that obvious." The solar said: "You are to harsh on yourself." Jenny smiled and said: "I have always been. It is the only way for me to keep my integrity and sanity. I should never have lived as long as I did and it can be a strain. You know that." The angel smiled, almost sympathetically, and said: "Continue with your story."
"It was too late then. Everything I had said had been twisted and perverted to mean something complete different, something repressive. I do not know what happened to the fiend, if it is still on this world or not. Recently I have found evidence, that it might just have been a servant of the Lord of Lies. He might have worked all those two thousand years to prepare entering this world. It is an unusually fast plot for one as old as him, but he might yet be successful. The next year will decide if this world remains free or fall to the fiends. We have just seen the first skirmishes of the battle." Everyone, except Antyrael looked at her in disbelief and terror. The light, the celestial radiated, made Jennifer's scars appear as though they were blood red. She looked at every one. When the silence became almost unbearable she said a single sentence.
"I am the one you call messiah."