She swung the sword, and a flash of green light cut our car in half. The two halves split apart.

  Isabella touched her ear. “Drones on me.” Her hair turned into chains, dug into the street, and pulled her out of the crashing car.

  My car half smashed into the depot wall, which threw me out.

  I did my best to land decently, but simply rolled on the street.

  Isabella stabilized, lifted above the street by her hair, and more of her hair turned into chains, grabbed her half of the car. She threw it in my direction.

  Before I managed to move, a man in combat armor knelt on my back, pressed a taser to my neck, and activated it.

  Electricity burst through my body, scrambling my nerves and muscles.

  The thrown car hit the man, knocking him off me before smashing him into the depot wall.

  I tried to move, but couldn’t. Damn it. I opened my mouth to speak, but no sound came out.

  Rifle fire exploded into the air, six men, three on each side, peppering Isabella with a rain of bullets.

  Her entire body turned into a yarn of chains, only roughly maintaining her original shape. The chains still formed her face, which smirked at my mother.

  Mom raised her hand, and an orb of green light popped out into reality. “Seize the target,” she shouted, and the green orb fired the first green laser beam at Isabella.

  Isabella’s entire form lost any human shape, and burst into a thousand chains that tore into the street and the depots. Metal screamed, and the chains tore apart the buildings.

  The men on the roofs all fell down, still shooting at the chains.

  A different man stepped up to me and grabbed me by the shoulder. Before he even had a chance to lift me up, a chain lashed him over the side of the head, knocking him out.

  The green orb lasers blew up a link in Isabella’s chain whenever it hit, but the chains reformed with other chains instantly. At the same time, Mom slowly progressed towards me, swinging her sword around to slash any chain that got close to her.

  Isabella’s chains sped up, tearing apart the buildings, grabbing people, and slamming them on the street.

  A helicopter descended from the sky. A broad cannon popped out from its side and released an electric blast.

  The chains shook as if in a spasm, chaotically flailing around. The electric blast turned into a massive, continuous lightning, which kept shocking the chains.

  Mother reached me, grabbed me by the arm, and pulled me up over her shoulder as if I weighed nothing. “We’re leaving.” She bolted into the street, inhumanly fast. A van awaited us behind a corner, side open, a soldier in full combat armor sitting behind the wheel.

  A drone descended from the sky, crashed into the van, and exploded.

  The explosion threw us back, though a shimmer of my mother’s shields protected us.

  Another explosion echoed from above us. Another suicide drone, which hit the helicopter.

  “Shit.” Mom dropped me on the street and gripped her longsword with both hands.

  Isabella’s chains arrived in a flood, filling the street, rolling like an avalanche.

  Mother tightened her stance, holding her sword in front of her. Green light covered the blade, and her shields, intensified to the point they wreathed her like a green aura.

  A chain burst up from the street between my mother’s legs and hit her straight on the chin, piercing all the shields.

  All the green light vanished, and Mom collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

  I still couldn’t move a muscle.

  The chains swarmed around, grabbed all the unconscious or wounded soldiers, and gathered them into a line.

  Isabella reformed into her standard form, except that her hair remained extended all over the soldiers. She removed all their helmets and arranged them into a kneeling position.

  Isabella stepped up to me and used the tip of her shoe to angle my face to look at her. “You seem to be alive.”

  I only shook when I attempted to respond, all my nerves completely scrambled.

  She smirked and moved my face to have a good view of the captive soldiers. Twelve people in total, one of them my mother.

  The chains shook them, and they stirred awake in the chains, groaning.

  “Well, well, well,” Isabella said playfully, and stepped to the captives. A strand of her hair stretched out, reached to one half of the cut-apart Audi, and fished out a weapon case from the trunk.

  The hair brought the weapon case to us, dropped it, opened it, and took out a pistol. The hair handed the pistol to Isabella.

  She weighed the gun in her hand, released the magazine, and after she saw it was fully loaded, she locked it back in.

  Isabella stepped to the nearest captive. “It’s all fun and games until it’s time for consequences.” She raised the gun to the first soldier’s head,

  “You can’t do this!” My mother shouted.

  Isabella smirked and squeezed the trigger. The gun fired. The bullet blew apart his skull, splashing the brains over the street.

  All the soldiers started shaking in their chains, screaming, swearing, and crying.

  “Ah, the music of my youth.” Isabella stepped to the next one, raised the pistol, and executed the soldier.

  She immediately moved on to the next one, whose brains she also blew out.

  “What do you want?” my mother shouted.

  Isabella stepped to the next person and fired. “That’s not how this works, Katherine.” She continued to the next one. Boom. Blood and brains on the street. “You attacked me, you lost, and so you will all die here.”

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  My mother screamed out. The chains holding her shook, but pushed her back down.

  Isabella arrived at her and raised the gun to my mother’s forehead.

  I tried to move and scream. I couldn’t do a thing.

  “Bang,” Isabella said, and spun the gun in her hand. “I’ll leave you for last, so you can watch your friends die first.” Isabella stepped to the side, aimed, and murdered the next soldier in line.

  I exhaled. Theatrics. She got me for a second though.

  Boom. Another soldier died.

  Before Isabella reached the next one. Heat burst through the air. The entire world around us darkened, and in an explosion of flame, an angel appeared flying above Isabella.

  He looked like a man in his forties with a perfectly trimmed beard, deep amber eyes, an expensive haircut, a dark red suit, a pair of massive wings made of flame, and a burning halo above his head.

  “Raphael,” Isabella said, and turned, smiling at the angel. “Came to save your fangirl?”

  “Stop playing games, Isabella. I’m taking them all with me.”

  She rolled her eyes. “They are my captives now. What do I get in return? They attacked me first. I was just driving around, minding my own business.”

  “While having kidnapped my son,” my mother shouted.

  “That’s a strong word.” Isabella smiled and glanced at me. “And pure misinformation. He’s over there. Ask him, Raphael, if he has been kidnapped. You know whether someone tells the truth or lies.”

  Cold sweat broke out all over my body.

  With a single beat of wings, Raphael flew to me. He landed near me, raised his hand, and warmth spread through my body. My nerves realigned, and my muscles calmed down.

  “Thanks,” I uttered to test if I could speak. It sounded fine, so I started gathering myself up. This bought me a few seconds to think. What was I supposed to say?

  I didn’t know.

  Raphael frowned, glanced back at Isabella and Mom, and then focused on me. “Are you with Isabella against your will?”

  Well, time to decide. If I were to say yes, he would take me away with my mother, and my life would return to peace.

  If I say no, I will get whipped, shocked, beaten, irradiated, forced into various life-threatening things… but I would also get to use the portal, save Francesca, and maybe even Tokyo. Moreover, with Isabella, I was about to have a life of my own while with my mother, the only thing that awaited me was a bland subservience in the name of my own safety.

  This wasn’t even a question.

  “No,” I said. “I’m working on something with Isabella, and my mother is overreacting.”

  “He has been brainwashed,” my mother shouted. “Or coerced.”

  Raphael turned and pinned my mother with a glare. “No. He lies that you are overreacting, but he is completely honest with the rest of what he said.”

  Isabella laughed in a way that froze the blood in my bones. She tossed the gun away, but caught it with her hair, which returned it into the weapon case. “There you have it. Now, the thing is, I’m not willing to let them all go. The redhead, sure, but the others are mine.”

  “That is unacceptable,” Raphael said with a calm voice. “I will return all faithful into safety, irrespective of your opinion.”

  “Oh, so you’ll fight me then?” Isabella’s voice lowered, and her stance tightened. “I’ve always wanted a pillow filled with angelic feathers, and yours will do just fine. You’re not beating me inside the city, especially when you’ve come so deliciously alone.”

  “A champion of God is never alone.”

  In a flash of light, another angel appeared straight behind Isabella. This one was a woman, tanned, blonde, in simple a simple suit and shirt, all white. Pure light made her wings and halo. “I beg your pardon, Isabella?”

  “Oh, hey, Lillith,” Isabella said in an innocently playful voice, visibly sweating as she turned towards the newcomer. “Long time no see. And, I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I was just about to say that I would be delighted to let them all go.” All the chains withdrew into the shape of Isabella’s hair, and turned to normal.

  “That’s what I expected.” Lillith spared me a glance. Her expression went through a quick slew of emotions that I didn’t recognize.

  At the moment, I activated the level scanner and caught all three of them, Lillith, Raphael, and my mother.

  Name: Lillith Johnson

  Age: 38

  Level: 99

  Name: “Raphael” George Ciampi

  Age: 52

  Level: 98

  Name: Katherine O’Connor

  Age: 54

  Level: 61

  In a flash of light, Lillith vanished, gone in a fraction of a blink of an eye.

  I gasped for air, as if my body had forgotten to breathe, and only now remembered to continue doing so.

  “We seem to be done here,” Raphael remarked. Flame spread out from him, wrapped around all living and dead soldiers, including my mother, and then they all vanished in a burst of flames.

  Isabella straightened her blazer and pulled her phone from her pocket. She swiped for a moment on the screen. “All right. Clean up is ordered, and they will bring us a spare car.”

  I looked over the demolished street. Buildings torn apart, blood everywhere, demolished cars, and a helicopter. An absolute massacre.

  Why didn’t I want to throw up?

  I just watched Isabella execute six people. They weren’t some villains or criminals. They were my mother’s friends, or mercenaries, or a mixture thereof. And it couldn’t be called self-defence as they were defeated and immobilized.

  And yet, I didn’t feel sick at all. “What did you do to me?”

  Isabella graced me with a smirk. “Surprisingly easy, isn’t it? To watch people die by my hand.”

  “It shouldn’t be. I’m supposed to be horrified, vomiting, traumatized. I’m not. What did you do to me?”

  She giggled. “Actually, nothing. Your adrenaline is going crazy, because you met Lillith and survived.”

  I realized cold sweat covered my body, breathing fast and shallow, though stabilizing. Adrenaline, huh? Probably not. I was fine even before she appeared. “Who is she, anyways?”

  “The Vatican Inquisition’s enforcer. She used to be its leader but gave the spot away to a council of angels. She is the strongest of them all, not by much, but is by far the most dangerous one. Your subconsciousness picked up on that, so it’s now going wild trying to process what it saw as an almost-death situation.”

  “Would she have really killed me?”

  “Nah, she doesn’t kill people. She burns out their eyes and destroys their spiritual core, so they lose the ability to do magic.”

  My mouth gaped open. “That’s somehow even worse.”

  “You still have the option of ending yourself in that case, but yeah, it’s pretty annoying. Anyways, rest up a bit. The plan with the gate is unchanged.”

  She cut the explanations off. I let it be though. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know all the answers. All I wanted to do was to get back into the portal.

  To my luck, the clean-up crew arrived in about fifteen minutes.

  Four black vans came in, accompanied by three sedan Hyundais. They cleared out one sedan and moved the contents of Isabella’s former Audi into the new car.

  We left off and made it to the portal site.

  The depot looked the same as yesterday, even more fortified, if anything. They added extra signs outside and red tape over the roads.

  In there, I just went on with the preparation procedure.

  Simon and Marge were monitoring the gate and gave me a backpack with a fresh supply of steel pyramids and spider drones. They also gave me a flash disk that I was supposed to stick into the original pyramid and then toss back through the portal.

  Next to the equipment, they also packed a large pile of supplies. Dried meat, cans, water, and medicine.

  That wasn’t for me though. Those were supplies for Francesca, which I didn’t even ask for.

  Embarrassingly, I didn’t even think about asking for them.

  When I put on the backpack, I looked at Isabella with a new appreciation.

  Thanks.

  I didn’t say it, but I should have.

  Finally, I picked up the guns, the grenades, the short shotgun, and the assault rifle.

  All were slightly different from yesterday, but the same in the idea. With everything ready, I started putting on the hood and helmet.

  “Tighten it properly,” Isabella said. “The outfit will protect you from radiation for twelve hours, if it’s undamaged. The moment it gets damaged, you start getting irradiated and should evacuate. We are not cooperating with the japs for this one, so don’t look for their agents. Look into the backpack’s side pocket.”

  She could have told me that before I put everything on. With a grunt, I put down the backpack and opened the side pocket. Inside, I found a large black box with a lot of cable sockets.

  “That’s a universal power source. The pocket on the other side has cables. Find a PC, server, a laptop, or any device that works, and search it for information about how far the demons have spread. Alternatively, your new phone might be able to connect to the internet, depending on what the infrastructure looks like at that time.”

  “My new phone?”

  Isabella reached into her pants’ pocket, took out a phone, and tossed it to me. “Should work on your retinal scan and fingerprints. Internal password is Isabella, capital I.”

  I caught the phone. Looked like any other phone, except thicker and heavier. “Why is it so big?”

  “So stupid people can use it,” she said, and smirked. Simon and Marge both chuckled. Isabella smiled, visibly pleased. I needed to learn to laugh on command. “For real though,” she added, “It runs on a miniature reactor. The self-destruct command in the system makes it explode into a decent-enough explosion.”

  Of course. I pocketed the phone, repacked my backpack, and put it on.

  Well, here goes nothing.

  I entered the portal.

  TG