Archangel Evolution - David Estes Page 0,3

tattoo-artist eventually got the job done, but only after breaking two needles and severely damaging the third. She had paid him extra for his efforts. Taylor’s dad had shrugged when he learned about the new tattoo—after the second one he had come to expect it.

Taylor’s new tattoo was the first to not feature the black snake. The deadly obsidian serpent that had plagued Taylor’s nightmares her entire life was not important to her anymore—a mere shadow of the great tormentor from her past. Her first tattoo—on the back of her shoulder—was the largest and displayed only the snake; it had been etched while she was still in high school, as a symbol of her waning fear of the nightmarish creature. The second tattoo—on her ankle—showed the snake strung up on a sword, dead and gone. She had had it inked during her first semester at college after Gabriel had entered her dreams and slain the snake in its most fearsome form yet: a monstrous serpent bigger than any demon python or anaconda from some cheesy horror movie.

Taylor smiled as she ran her fingers over the freshly stained wings. She was an angel! A week earlier, she was a human girl, and now she had crazy-impossible-beautiful wings growing inside her back. Granted, she had been dating an angel and fighting alongside the demons to protect the earth, but she was still only a human, before. But somehow she had evolved like others had before her. She was still waiting on the test results, which would hopefully shed some light on the remarkable transformation she had undergone.

Naturally, her hand slid down to the second tattoo, on her ankle. Her thoughts reverted to her most recent dream. Awakening from the dream, she hadn’t been scared or upset; rather, she had been surprised. It had been months since she had dreamed of the black serpent. The last time was when Gabriel had entered her dream and plunged his sword into its evil black heart. She wanted to know why the slithering Evil had made such a sudden reappearance. That’s why she needed to talk to Gabriel, among other reasons.

Still bored, Taylor began playing with a lock of her hair, twisting and twirling it on her finger, braiding it and pulling it apart, flipping it in the air. It was the lock she always played with when she was bored. The white one. Taylor wasn’t blonde all over; rather, she had acquired a single lock of white-blond hair when she had been changed. At first it had annoyed her, but now it was growing on her.

Taylor had only been back at college for a week, but was already growing tired of the daily routine: get up, go to class, eat lunch, more class, dinner, study, bed. After all she had seen and been a part of in the last few months, she wasn’t ready for routine just yet.

She considered phoning Gabriel, but something stopped her. Most of her life she had relied on her instincts—her “good gut” as her mother used to call it before she was killed by a drunk driver. One of the few times Taylor had ignored her gut was when she had trusted Gabriel implicitly, and had almost died because of it. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.

Now, her gut was telling her that something was wrong. She knew without a doubt in her mind that something terrible had happened.

Chapter Four

An hour earlier.

Despite all that had happened—from the kidnapping of his parents and their subsequent rescue, to Taylor’s evolution to an angel and her destruction of most of the Archangel Council—the daily grind of the Great War went on. Most of the soldiers had heard rumors of the events that had taken place on the Warrior’s Plateau, but few of them knew the details.

The daily battles continued as scheduled; angels and demons fought—and died—while the real fight was being fought behind closed doors, in the minds of their leaders.

Gabriel Knight yearned to fight again. Now was the time to strike, while the Archangel Council was in ruins, while Dionysus doubted himself, while they had a chance. For once, Clifford, the head of the Eldership of the demons, agreed with him. He said they were developing a plan, but that Gabriel needed to be patient.

He ran a hand through his wavy, sandy blond hair in frustration. Gabriel’s request to fight in the day’s battle had been rejected. Clifford had said he would have a much larger role to play in the War,