With a quick movement, he dashed his palm across a jagged remnant of the shattered window and dipped his fingers into the ichor that came spilling out. Carefully but quickly, he sketched out the summoning spell best suited to the situation. It had never been his forte, but he was good enough for an emergency.
Luce hissed on the kitchen floor, finally flinging his son away and scrambling back to his feet. His face was a horrifying sight. His proud nose was sharply askew, one eye socket broken and rapidly swelling, a lip so badly split that he couldn’t fully close his mouth, and every inch of flesh a different mottled shade of purple and black.
Michael winced in sympathy, even as Foster got back to his feet and readied himself to charge again. Enough was enough. The angel slammed his still bleeding palm to the center of the summoning sigil and it flared to life with golden light.
“Balthazar!By divine blood and angelic power, I beseech you come to the aid of your commander, Lucifer, at the plea of Saint Michael the Archangel!”
A fierce wind stirred in the apartment, sweeping from theblown-outwindow and whipping through the room, before abruptly dying. The light of the sigil died, and Michael’s stomach sank. Either his magic wasn’t strong enough or he had done the sigil wrong, he wasn’t sure. But it hadn’t worked, and he wasn’t strong enough to try again.
His wings were ruined for at least a few days, his healing all but slowed to a crawl trying to repair his damaged internals. He couldn’t teleport, or open portals. There was nothing he could do to help. Michael hung his head in bitter defeat.
“What in the seven circles isgoin’ on in this dump?” A curious but disdainful voice came from the window, and Michael glanced sharply up. Cwall lounged in the empty windowsill in his skeleton form, inspecting the trashed apartment with mild curiosity.
Michael blinked, then lifted a hand slowly and pointed into the kitchen, where Foster and Luce were currently flinging knives and ceramics at each other with their powers in between bolts of clashing gold and white light.
“Oh shit, they finally workin’ out their issues?”
Michael rolled his eyes skyward, seriously considering invoking Jehovah. He was bad at summoning, sure, but to ask for Bal and get Cwall? This was a joke; it had to be.
Foster snagged a knife as it flew past his head, spinning it in his palm and preparing to plunge it into Luce’s throat. Immediately, Cwall’s demeanor changed. He snarled harshly, lunging off the windowsill, ready to leap in between the two men. But Luce deflected the blade with a dinner plate and knocked his son backwards with a concentrated ball of energy.
“Hey, kid!” the demon called out, but Foster ignored him, lost to his anger again.
“It’s no use,”Michael cautioned weakly.“He’s in a bloodlust.”
Cwall frowned. “Wait...wait, I got an idea!”
The Dirge brought his palms together, the skeletal fingers letting out little sparks where they rubbed. Slowly, ropes of muscle and tendon began to spread over the white bone. Color flooded the tissues as the demon carefully formed a body of flesh and blood to cloak his true form, golden skin the shade of Michael’s tawny feathers spreading over the framework of a body.
His form stretched and distorted, changing from short and portly to tall, willowy, and graceful. A long blue dress cascaded over his newly formed feminine breasts and hips, while honey blonde hair sprouted from his head. Michael inhaled sharply as warm amber eyes opened, and he found himself gaping at a perfect recreation of Angela Morningstar.
Cwall winked, an odd gesture on the woman’s serene face, and strode confidently into the kitchen. “Foster, that’s enough.”
Even the voice was exactly right. Soft but steady, it was a tone that flowed like water over smooth stones and commanded attention without demanding it.
Foster reared back from his father as if he’d been electrocuted, whirling to face the demon wearing his mother’s face. “Mom?”
Luce scanned her from head to toe, squinting, and then went deathly pale as he realized what was happening. He looked sharply from ‘Angela’ to Foster, slowly inching backwards as if to put as much distance between them as possible.
“No,” the woman shook her head, form melting away as quickly as it had come on to reveal Cwall standing in the kitchen. “But I knewya’dsee reason if she was the one who toldyato knock it off.”
Foster’s expression was heartbreaking to witness; a look of blind, desperate hope shifting to utter betrayal and despair. The air stilled, then seemed to rush out of the room with a swiftness that reminded Michael of the rip current in an outbound tide. He found himself straining to breathe in a room suddenly devoid of oxygen.
When Foster spoke, his voice was like ice, “How dare you.”
Cwall cocked his head. “Huh?”
“I said,” Foster hissed softly, “howdareyou? How dare you impersonate her!? Use her face for a cheap trick!?”
“I wasn’t?—”
“How dare you insult her memory!” The boy advanced on the demon, eyes glowing like hot coals. Michael glanced down and saw Foster's hands once more ringed in white light—but this time tinged with a core of smoldering black. Lucifer slowly edged around behind his son, crossing towards Michael, eying the boy warily likehewas a ticking bomb.
“Fossie,” Cwall tried to placate him, lifting both hands and reaching for the young man’s shoulders.
He never made contact. The light swelled outward, cloaking Foster in a ball of painfully bright white before it unfurled and washed the room in his furious power.
The impact before had winded Michael, left him with ruined wings and internal bleeding and stung like a nasty sunburn. This was like being inside the sun. Michael’sskin stretched taught against his bones as his body was rocked with a wave of hot air strong enough to knock his head back. His damaged wings fluttered like old paper in the torrent. The temperature in the apartment built to a blistering peak.
