Risen: Beginning of a Legacy

Chapter Nineteen: Uriel

Uriel entered the Labyrinth realm. A hellish melody of screams, pleas and voices racked with despair filled the air; a dense smog of grief and torment. Uriel watched as amongst the fiery tombs, eternally collapsing corridors and the flames, Horde; greedy and ferocious tore apart the souls and bodies fleeing all about her. Her dark enjoyment of the Horde's destructive power trickled down her spine.
     For so long she had thought this side of the war was the enemy, that Satan and his followers were everything wrong with the world.
     How wrong she had been.
     Elysium was chains.
It destroyed everything; extinguishing personal happiness if it went against protecting the 'greater good'. Her wings shot out curling around her protectively as her mind went unbidden into her past, the pain and betrayal still burned her throat and caused her eyes to cry blood. Turning about sharply, shaking out her wings as if the motion could also shake off the emotions rising up inside. As she took in the area around her, she cursed anew at what she saw.
     The main problem with Labyrinth was that the corridors changed. The maze of long confined passages only obeyed one being.
     'The walls betray you my beauty.'
His seductive voice told Uriel one thing. His protégé pleased him.
     'Another productive training session my Lord?' she asked.
In a subtle move she attempted to wipe her blood tears from her face. Her lord and Master moved to her side, taking her face in his hands and trailing his lips over her tear tracks to drink in her blood. His malevolence coiled about them as he drank in her pain, the sparkle of enjoyment thick in his gaze.
     Uriel waited for him to come down off her purity high. Despite being loyal to him, her blood still tasted of Elysium and Satan could not help but indulge in that elixir occasionally. His evil matched only by his memory of the pure exquisiteness he had forsaken.
     'When did my beautiful children last remind the earthlings of who controls the shadows, the daemons within?' he asked.
Uriel brought her gaze up to his; humour glinted in it.
     'I'd say they've earned another trip. We don't want to be forgotten.' she replied.
She trailed her fingers over his torso, scratching him a little with her nails. Their discussion was congenial but Uriel could feel her wings twitch with excitement.
     The feathers were hungry for spilt blood, the cries of innocents were the greatest lullaby. She watched as a Horde stormed past the two of them and fell upon a soul fleeing from another corridor that had just opened into their passageway.
     The spirit screamed; the sound piercing the air around them, as said Horde plunged its nails into the gut of the soul. It shredded the soul like tissue paper, ripping apart the spirit with glee. With the soul absorbed into the Horde's body the daemonic creature grew stronger and more dangerous.
     'Shall we let them play in our favourite academy?' Satan asked.
     'They deserve a little fun.'
His hand absently coiled into her hair as they watched the slaughter in front of them. 'There is a stain in that school we need to move against.' he whispered.
     Uriel almost didn't hear the aside, but catching it just about, she turned again to face him.
     'Do you wish me to take care of someone, malevolent one?'
     'No, no, my beauty, what's world destruction without its complexities?' he replied.
Uriel smiled; her aura now seductive. Satan flicked his hand and the lead Horde daemon oozed out of the shadows beside them. It bowed; the hissing and spitting clearly its desire to address Satan. 'Take one of your battalions to Angyali forest in Scotland; find the castles within its valleys. Toy with their defences, and bring me blood.' Satan commanded.
     The Labyrinth erupted with daemonic sound. Malevolence finding a voice and the dark, harsh rasps, hollers and growls of approval surrounded Uriel. The sound was power, it was darkness and it made her very feathers shiver.

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