Calhoun stared at the angels with shielded masks on their faces with a staff in each of their hands. The journey to this place had taken them more time than he had expected them to reach Heaven. Three hours twelve minutes and ten seconds counting. He had been counting the time since he had last seen Madeline, and with every second that passed by, the anger in his eyes only increased.
“Step away from the gates!” ordered one of the angels standing in front of the gates. “Heaven is no place for demons. You are not welcome here anymore, Lucifer!”
“Vladimir,” corrected the Devil, “I go by the name Vladimir. Now be good boys and open the gates.”
“Never!” shouted another guard. “We are the guards who protect the gates of Heaven. You shall not pass and will leave immediately!”
The other guards stood in position, ready to attack if the demons were to advance forward.
“Do you think I have come here to sightsee Heaven?” asked Calhoun, his eyes turned dark in anger. “You have something of mine, and I have come here to retrieve what rightfully belongs to me. Now move unless you want to die.”
The guard angels didn’t step away and stubbornly blocked both Calhoun and Vladimir’s way. Calhoun didn’t have the time to spare talking with the guards, and his wings flapped to raise him from the clouds like ground. Seeing this, the guards looked slightly confused as this person had black feathered wings, while the Devil had bat-like wings.
“If you are not going to step away, don’t blame us for burning you,” came the calm voice of Vladimir.
And in a blink of an eye, Vladimir’s trident came to clash against the staff of one of the guards who had not expected for it to come at them at such speed. Calhoun used his hands to fight the guards off so that he could get inside the gates. Being the Devil’s descendant, the ability to harness fire in the palms of his hand came naturally, and he used it against them.
The guards fought together against Vladimir and Calhoun, but Calhoun used the fire to burn them while throwing them far away from the gates so that they wouldn’t come back to attack them anytime soon.
The guards were persistent, and as expected, they weren’t easy to get rid of. Vladimir then said, “I will take care of these guards. Go find Madeline.”
Calhoun gave a nod, and he entered the gates of Heaven with his black wings flapped, moving the clouds on the ground.
Back in the heart of the Heaven where most of the people resided, Madeline had stepped out of the garden of Owe to see what the commotion was about. She had heard the angels instructing the other people to get back inside.
It being only a few hours since she had been admitted into Heaven, the curiosity got the best out of her.
“What’s going on?” Madeline asked a fellow angel who was going to walk past her.
“It seems a few demons are trying to enter Heaven and creating a stir. You should go back inside too,” informed the angel, and he walked away from there.
Madeline frowned, and followed the other set of angels running in a specific direction. Someone caught hold of her arm, and Madeline turned around to see it was another archangel she hadn’t met before, he had white wings too.
“Where are you going?” he asked, his eyes sharply looking at her.
“I heard that there was a problem,” she said, her eyebrows knitted together.
“It is just a small problem that has come up. You don’t have to worry about it…Madeline,” said the archangel. He had come here on the command to keep Madeline safe so that the demons would not be able to take her away from here.
“How about I walk you back to your place. The others will solve the problem in no time, and you can then take a walk outside here,” he offered.
When another collision took place, Madeline felt her heart beating loudly, and unconsciously, she placed her hand on her chest. She felt an unexplainable ache in her heart as if something from a distance was calling out for her.
Receiving a pointed look from the archangel who was waiting for her, Madeline nodded her head, obliging the man’s words as all the angels wanted to do was to protect them.
Following him, they made it to the front of a building, when suddenly she heard a clunk sound along with schittering noise like lightning. The archangel who had come along with her fell on the ground, and she saw a man standing there, who wore black gloves.
Madeline took a step away in fear, “W-what did you do to him? W-who are you?”
The person bowed his head, “I wish I could say it is good to see you again, Lady Madeline.” Madeline looked at him, confused. Did he just hurt another angel? Was it possible? Was the person dead? “Uriel will be fine. We have somewhere to go. Quickly.”
Instead of agreeing to what this person said, Madeline took a step back from him.
Even though Madeline knew Raphael when she was in the living world, her memory had been erased now that she didn’t remember him nor the help he had provided in the past.
“My name is Raphael, Lady Madeline, and I know you from the living world,” stated Raphael. He could feel Madeline worried and tense about what was going on.
“Why did you hurt him?” questioned Madeline. She looked down at the archangel who was lying on the ground, who was only trying to get her back to her safety. Could an archangel be hurt? Madeline didn’t know.
Raphael offered her a smile, “I believe my brothers are being irrational and are failing to see the situation in front of them. I know they will. I believe there’s someone who wants to see you.”
Someone wanted to see her?
