Archangel Evolution - David Estes Page 0,2

in the mirror. He was the Italian man, or the Italian man was him, the semantics didn’t really matter. Of course, he no longer looked Italian, because for some strange reason his hair had changed from a deep black to white blond when he had taken over the body, a trick of the transition.

Only a handful of other angels within his innermost circle knew the key to immortality, but none had chosen to follow the path yet. But they would. When their bodies began failing them, they would choose life. When the time was right, when the demons had been eradicated, he would tell the rest of the angel population his secret, and they would choose life too, helping him to enslave all of mankind.

Unfortunately, the last week had been a major step backwards for The Plan. When that damn girl, Taylor, transformed into an angel, she destroyed most of the Archangel Council—only Johanna, Sarah, and Percy remained. She had also eliminated his ability to use her aura to destroy the demons. When she was a human he could harness her aura to wield a weapon so powerful that the demons wouldn’t stand a chance. However, as an angel, her inner light had changed—for some reason angels couldn’t access each other’s auras—rendering her useless.

The whole mess was an unexpected development, and had sent Dionysus into a fit of rage, the likes of which hadn’t been seen in many years. His tantrum didn’t last long, however, and now he had a new idea—one that was given to him by Taylor. Not intentionally, of course, but even an inadvertent gift was valuable.

If she could evolve, why couldn’t he? Sure, he had evolved once before, from demon to angel, and his ancestors had once evolved from human to demon, but Taylor had been the first to evolve from human directly to angel. Perhaps he had been underestimating the evolutionary forces at play. Perhaps he had underestimated himself. Perhaps he could learn from the girl. It couldn’t hurt to try, he thought. But how?

Out of the corner of his eye he spotted movement, subtle and small. Despite the tiny web-crawler’s positioning in the far upper corner of the room, Dionysus could see the spider clearly. It had already designed and built an intricately detailed trap, beautiful in its simplicity—a web. Under normal circumstances, the spider would be motionless, waiting for his invisible net to capture dinner. In this case, however, the silky contraption had already done the deed—a fly was stuck in the corner, frantically buzzing and twitching in a fruitless effort to escape. The spider moved closer. Not only did Dionysus marvel at the beautiful appearance of nature in his fortress, but he also wondered at how a spider could have penetrated his innermost sanctuary. And even more incredible was the appearance of the fly. He would have to fire his housekeeper. But first, the spider and its web of perfection had given him an idea, one that excited him.

Assuming the success of his idea—and being an optimist he always assumed success—he would have all the firepower he needed to destroy Taylor, murder Gabriel, and eradicate the demons and their allies, like flies pitifully trapped in a web, waiting to be eaten alive.

But first he needed to rebuild the Archangel Council, and he knew the perfect recruits.

The spider crawled onto the fly.

Chapter Three

Taylor Kingston waited for him to arrive. She needed to talk to him. He was already an hour late.

She was wearing ripped jeans, flip-flops, a t-shirt, and her usual nine rings. Her straight, brown hair was unkempt—she hadn’t bothered to comb it. As usual, she wore no makeup, although since her transformation her skin had become flawless—just another benefit of angelhood.

As she sat on the lawn waiting, she was subconsciously aware of the demons protecting her. One was on the roof of a nearby building, another high in the uppermost branches of a tree, and two more in a parked car. There were likely countless others in the vicinity as well, but as of yet she hadn’t spotted them. She almost felt like yelling C’mon out, guys, we can all sit and wait together! but she held her tongue.

She gazed at the inside of her wrist—her new tattoo still looked fresh, having been inked only a week earlier. A pair of basic angel wings decorated her arm. They were a reminder of what she had become, and also what she had come from. Despite the increased strength of her skin, the