Invocation: Tyrael
In the dark of the night Delilah was still in the room. She had lighted the fire again and, kneeling on the stony floor, was drawing a complex pentacle with white chalk. No book to guide her but her hand wasn't trembling; she obviously knew what to do, as if she was used to do it often or as if she had seen the pattern so often that it was in her mind forever.
She looked up once, to relieve her hurting back, and threw a brief glance to one of the two portraits hanging on the wall. It was representing a woman oddly looking like Delilah. The girl's gaze was quite quizzical but no word passed her lips. Instead she bent down again and resumed her work.
She was a perfectionist for, though the pentacle was done and visibly being exactly as it should have been, she spent one more hour rectifying tiny details here and there - even where there was nothing to rectify - until she ran out of chalk. Then she sat on her heels, contemplating her work, and a sort of anguish seemed to invade her eyes. Was she trying to delay the moment she would have to step into the pentacle?
She sighed, stood up and went to take a bath. Once thoroughly clean she clothed herself in a dress hardly deserving the name, since it was just a piece of cloth used only for decency. So, dressed in white, her long wet hair spread on her naked shoulders, barefoot, she came back in the room and stepped into the pentacle. She knelt on the floor, sat on her heels, entwined her fingers in a complex way on her lap and closed her eyes. Softly her voice rang in the invocation song:
"I call upon the Archangel in all my purity, I respect and bow to the Immortal one. I call upon the Archangel and ask for my request to be granted in my mortal world."
Endlessly, tirelessly, she sang the words over and over, without her moving an inch. When her voice broke she bent down, pressing her brow against the cold stony floor. She had failed in her call.
Not easily defeated, she straightened up, just in time to see the air twinkling silver in front of her. Suddenly, before her very eyes stood a man with wings - no, an Angel! She stood up proudly, unconsciously matching his carriage.
"I am Delilah, daughter of Lilith," she said clearly.
"I know. I already answered your mother's calls."
"I present myself to you in the original state," she said then, following exactly the ritual.
"Not exactly, there's still this white piece of cloth," he retorted, mischief gently sparkling in his eyes.
She blushed and then she noticed that he was standing on the pentacle - instead of outside - as if mocking her hard work. Pride made her forget her embarrassment.
"Well," she said acidly, "if you are such a joker, I don't think you are fit for the work I have in mind. I do apologise for calling you then and you may depart if you wish."
The Archangel laughed.
"Touché, Delilah, daughter of Lilith! But not very nice from you. I do assure you I am fit for whatever work you have in mind. Would you care to come out this pentacle? It is somehow very disturbing to me to see that you think to be needing a pentacle when talking to me."
Confused Delilah was about to take the offered hand, already out of the safe inside circle of the pentacle, when he suddenly swept her in his arms to put her back in the circle.
"On second thought," he said into his ear, "remain here a moment more."
He precipitately went out of the pentacle and she thought with a bid of sadness - and shame - that no matter how hard she had worked on the pentacle, something obviously was still wrong since it didn't seem to protect her as it should have. The Archangel - how could one differentiate an Archangel from an Angel? - looked like he was expecting something and something did effectively happen: air twinkled silver again and Delilah held back her breath: had her call been so strong for having two Angels answering it?
The newcomer was a girl and she turned to Delilah, obviously not having seen the other Archangel who backed silently.
"I am Shela, messenger angel, and I came to you to inform you that your call will not be answered."
Delilah's eyes went wide.
"May I know the reason?" she asked prudently, mechanically noticing that Shela had appeared outside the pentacle as should have the first one.
"It has been decided that your call was too dangerous. No proper Archangel would respond to a call performed in such conditions!"
Delilah understood perfectly she was referring to her outfit and she blushed again.
"But this is how the ritual has to be done!"
"Your ritual is too old. Rules have changed since," said Shela imperturbable.
"How must I perform the call then?"
The Angel looked surprised.
"How should I know?"
"And why should you care?" Delilah added mentally, for it was only too obvious that Shela was just waiting for the moment she could depart.
"I will report your question to the Council though."
Suddenly Delilah had enough.
"No, do not bother. I think I'll be just fine on my own. You two can depart, I'll do without you."
"Two?" repeated Shela.
She turned around and for the first time, she noticed the other Angel.
"Tyrael! What are you doing here? Permission for you to answer that call was not granted!"
"I didn't wait for you to decide," shrugged Tyrael. "You were taking too long and she would have left the pentacle, had I waited longer."
"As if you care for it," Delilah thought fiercely.
"Sorry for intruding, but if she is commanding you while being a mere Angel, then you are not an Archangel, are you?"
Shela winced openly at the term 'mere' and threw a dark glance to Delilah. Tyrael had an amused smile.
"I am an Archangel. I'm the one you called for."
"I called for an Archangel, not you specifically."
"Not so. You said 'I call upon the Archangel', thus referring to me."
"You or another, I don't care. By the way, I don't care at all now so, as I already said it, you may depart."
Her tone of voice was implying that they should already have left.
"Seeing how you treat us, it's no wonder the Council refused to grant your request," sneered Shela.
"The Council should have granted it," remarked Tyrael. "The call was done as it should be."
Then, struck by an idea, he looked at Shela more closely.
"You are breaking the law, Shela. Why do you lie?"
She didn't answer.
"You knew I would have to answer anyway. I'm bound to her family."
"Are you my guardian angel?" asked Delilah surprised.
"'Guardian angel'!" exploded Shela. "As if we Angels hadn't anything better to do that watch over people of your kind! Your free will forbids you to ask for such."
"Why does she hate me so? I agree my outfit is hardly decent, but I didn't have the choice!"
"You are Delilah, daughter of Lilith! Your mother was a Demon and you will become one, you will be a traitor to your kind like the one who had your name before you!"
Delilah became white, then red under the insult.
"Shela, watch your tongue!" snapped Tyrael.
"But can't you see it? She's trying to seduce you and you are falling for her! Remember what Delilah can - and will - do!"
"She is not that same Delilah! It's just a name, Shela, and she didn't even choose it!"
"If you don't mind, go solve your angelic quarrel elsewhere. The door is that way," said Delilah, now very angry, pointing at the ceiling. "The night is almost over and I would rather sleep than lose my time with childish Angels."
"There, she had avowed it herself: who else but a Demon's child would call Angels in the dark of the night? Maybe she can even not stand daylight without suffering!"
"And I can do without your clever remarks," said Delilah acidly. "No human child would laugh at such a poor joke. I don't know if you Angels really enjoy that kind of humour, but I rather doubt that Baal is going to."
At the name of the demon prince, air became suddenly suffocating and a wind of darkness swept through the room, half-erasing the pentacle. Delilah didn't seem bothered by it, as if used to those phenomena. Tyrael was very calm, but Shela panicked.
"Do not pronounce His name! It's very dangerous!"
"Dangerous! I had to protect myself from His kind even before I knew to walk, don't you think this house is protected against Him? Thank you for reminding me, as soon as I have the time, I shall protect it against yours too, it will avoid this mistake of mine to happen again. Now would you care to leave me alone? I have work to do and our favourite Demon is hardly going to wait for me to be ready before striking."
"What are you pretending to be?" cried Shela.
"I don't pretend, I am. As for what I am... Well, I am a sort of guardian angel, except that I guess I lost the Angel part when a Demon took my wings. So only the Guardian is left and, contrary to the myth you have built, I really guard humankind from the Demons."
"You'll betray them! You are just waiting for the right moment!"
Delilah knew she was near the moment she would lose her control.
"That is really enough. I thought I would warn you that the prince of darkness had awaken again, but I'm thinking I would have better let you in your blissful oblivion. And to think that I delayed important work for this invocation! Oh well, I wasn't going to invoke a Demon, was I? I mean, either they hardly need me to tell them their master is coming back or else it's making my job tougher. But I'm talking and you are certainly dying with desire to go back to your paradise where, hopefully, no Demon will ever go. Or maybe if we humans fail into stopping them will they manage to reach you."
"You said enough, Delilah, Shela got the point," interrupted Tyrael.
"Tyrael!" protested Shela. "You don't believe her, do you? She can't be a Guardian! The Demons would defeat her in a sigh!"
"Sorry for not be looking like a scarred warrior with huge muscles rolling under the skin, I guess this would have been more to your tastes," mocked Delilah. "Think a bit, if intelligence is not only the prerogative of humans and Demons! You have been called in a house protected against Demons and you doubt me? Maybe I should have asked the priests to tattoo 'Guardian' on my brow?"
Tyrael was obviously enjoying very much seeing Shela being humiliated by a mere human, but Shela wasn't. Before she could say anything, Delilah continued:
"Your Council itself established the Guardians, for the point of us warning you and fighting with you. Now if you think that we are inferior and worthless, that's your problem, go discuss it with your Council! And now go away, I'm really busy with the demon prince coming back."
Still angry she walked out of the pentacle under Shela's stupefied eyes.
"Are you mad, girl? Nobody leaves the pentacle while still in the invocation!"
"Sorry but as you are taking your time to leave, I thought I could use that time for something important. You can resume your quarrel if you want, but not too loudly, please," she concluded, leaving the room.
"Shela," commanded Tyrael, "you heard the message, go warn the Council. We must be ready. I'll stay here to help Delilah."
"Take care of not helping her with an halfling," hissed Shela, "you know how dangerous it would be."
On those words full of spite, she disappeared.
Delilah entered the room again, clothed in a long dress of dark green covering her from neck to toe and her hair was tied up.
"I preferred you in white," said Tyrael casually.
"I know the view was more entertaining, but I find it very humiliating," she answered dryly.
"At least, you are out of the pentacle."
Delilah began to erase what was left of the diagram on the ground and said without looking up:
"I don't recall asking you to stay."
"You didn't either, but I assumed you had forgotten."
"Actually I didn't. I don't care how you used to work with my mother, that is how you work with me: you answer my call, you take the message and you leave. Period. You are still here?"
"I thought that maybe you had a question: how is it that Shela was blocked outside your pentacle and I wasn't?"
"I agree that's a good question," acknowledged Delilah, not tamed for so little. "But I never said I wanted to know the answer."
"Delilah, don't be so hostile. I was actually more a friend to your mother than an invoked ally and I asked her to modify all her pentacles so that I could intervene if something went wrong. Though she always respected the ritual when calling me, I often came here of my own will."
"If you were more a friend, why didn't you prevent her from being killed?" accused Delilah. "I was fifteen when she died and, as if loosing my mother wasn't enough, I lost my Guardian mentor too! All her books disappeared with her and the priests were counting on me and... and I hadn't any way to know what to do! So maybe you wonder why I'm drawing the same pentacles as my mother: it's because one I was often helping her and two I was watching her invoke. By the way, I don't remember any Tyrael."
"Your mother usually called me Tyr."
A silence.
"You look different than before."
"You could see me? You shouldn't have been able..."
"Of course I could! I'm a Guardian!"
"I'm sorry," apologised Tyrael quite nervously. "I didn't think that making the books disappear would complicate your task. I assumed the priests would take that as a sign and leave you alone! But no! Your family had always given so much and Lilith went already too far... You could only be destined to be a Guardian! I'm stupid. You were presented to them at your birth, weren't you? So they wrote your name in their book, 'Delilah, daughter of Lilith', and those four words were enough to seal your fate!"
"You tried to get me out of this?" asked Delilah incredulously.
"I tried, yes, pitiful try... I didn't even have the time to watch over you after that and when I heard your call, I was almost wondering what took you so long! I'm not a very good guardian angel..."
"Shela said there weren't any."
"Shela doesn't know everything," shrugged Tyrael.
"Why does she hate me so?"
"She already didn't like your mother and now here you are. She thinks that if the priests named you like this, it's because they foresaw you betraying them later."
"Well, first of all, I am not my mother and second, maybe I'll betray them when I'll be fifty and before that, I'll have fought thirty years loyally. Should I already pay for something I didn't do?"
"Don't ask me, Delilah, I do not condemn you. Then remember something else: Shela said your ritual was too old. She was referring to the new law voted around Lilith's death. Love between humans and Angels is now forbidden. Even if love is unrequited, even if there are only doubts, both sides are chastised."
"Silly," sneered Delilah. "We are here fifty or seventy years and then we die. Why would you Immortal ones care for us? And we mortals are not stupid enough to get interested in immortal people."
"The case existed, believe me. The proof is the ritual. Shela saw it as dangerous because you were alone. The ritual had been set at the time where Angels were believed to be all male. So invocators were using pretty young maidens to be in the pentacle and do the call, and then they were dealing themselves with the Angels. It's well-known that Demons and Angels have something in common: they both crave for the daughters of Man."
"I knew for the Demons, but not for the Angels," said Delilah, slightly blushing.
"There're some chances Shela is spying on us right now to see if I'm falling for you. I would love to make her believe this, but the moment is grave and it's dangerous."
"Thus the halfling thing she said before leaving?" asked Delilah, inspecting the ground to make sure the pentacle was fully erased.
"You weren't supposed to hear this."
"This is my house. Nothing happening in here can remain unknown to me."
"Anyway, enough speaking about Angels. I mentioned the Demons earlier; speaking of them, you really shouldn't have said His name earlier."
"At least, it caught your attention and got Shela quiet for a brief instant."
"He's always listening."
"I know, but this place is well defended against Him. You can shout His name if you want, the only reaction you'll get is the same as earlier. Actually no matter how loud you say it, or sometimes if you even think it, He will hear it, but He cannot touch us here."
"How did you become so good in defence against Demons?"
"You mean, how is it I know so much about Demons while I don't know a thing about Angels? Because I'm a Demon's child of course."
"I'm not Shela, Delilah."
"Very well. You remember what I told you earlier? I know only two invocations: invocation of the Archangel and invocation to the Demon. Despite her reputation, my mother didn't know the later. I know it because I'm a student in demonology."
Nothing of what she had said before had managed to surprise Tyrael, not even when she had said the demon prince's name aloud, but this left him speechless, gaping.
"Did I hear it right? You, a Guardian, are a student in demonology?"
"I am. I can name you all the known Demons if you want and probably some not known," she supplied easily.
"If you know so much about them, He probably knows about you too."
"Of course He does. I shouted His name at least three times a day during two years while I was setting up the defences of the house."
"Why demonology? Why not angelology?"
"I always thought it more useful to know about one's enemy than one's ally. I mean, you are supposed to be my ally, so normally I just have to invoke you and ask you some questions if I want to know something. I can hardly do that with a Demon, can't I?"
While listening to her Tyrael was looking at the table where the chessboard was.
"So very clever game, this one," he mused. "Archangels, Demons and Guardians, all fighting against the other, alliances being done and undone... Generally the Guardians decide which side is going to win. It's so rare to see the side on its own able to win."
"Except if the Guardian player is a poor player," said Delilah, coming closer. "Or if the side on its own is used to fight alone."
"Do you play this game?" inquired Tyrael.
"There was a time, I was playing it with my mother and the priest's emissary being here that day. I often had to play the lonesome side and, believe me, I did win, more than my share."
"So you are a good general?"
"No. I'm a good lonesome wolf. This is why I don't need you. My mother maybe called you so you would work with her, I don't."
"So you are going to defy Him and His armies all alone?"
"Yes I will. I am more resourceful that you think I am. I don't need someone to tell me what to do."
"The funny thing is that I won't. You will give me orders, for you are my general, Delilah."
"What?"
"Honestly, Delilah, calling one single Archangel doesn't send all the angel armies against the demon armies. First the Council is sort of testing you and the danger, meaning that if humans can get rid of it without angelic intervention, it's just for the better. The only case we would really attack the demon armies without any human help except for the incantation is if He takes Himself the commandment of His armies."
"Then go tell your general to get ready," Delilah said wryly.
"Is it that bad?"
"Listen, I don't know what you Angels do in your little paradise, but during this time, I was working hard. I looked into the limbo of knowledge, I worked with the priests of the whole land and I even summoned things I shouldn't have, so let me tell you that it is bad."
"Alright, then where and when do we begin, my general?"
"I am starting last week, what I should have done if not for this stupid invocation. There is no 'we', Archangel Tyrael. There is only me. Is it understood?"
"No, Delilah. I owe to your mother..."
"I am not my mother! I am not Lilith, I am Delilah! If you are going to stick around, you better remember that."
"Does that mean you allow me to stay with you?"
"No, but since you don't want to leave when I tell you to, I guess I'll have to get used to have you around. Though I would rather have you hiding those wings of yours."
"You are harsh, Delilah. I'm not your enemy."
"No, if you were, you would be dead by now. But I guess I owe to my mother to let you live."
Tyrael winced visibly.
"I don't want to know how mean you'll be to your enemies when I see how you are with your allies."
"Allies? Oh yes, you are my ally. I had forgotten that. I thought you were just my soldier."
"Maybe if we manage to have enough soldiers, I could be a captain?" he asked hopefully.
Delilah, surprised, looked at him and laughed despite herself.
"You never give up, do you?"
"Not when it's about to bring a smile on someone's lips."
"You can hide your wings?"
"No, but those not knowing my nature won't see me, except if I choose so."
"You know how to ride?"
"I happen to know, yes."
"Great. Be ready in ten minutes!" she exclaimed, disappearing in another room.
"For what?"
Delilah's head appeared at the door.
"We are going to see the priests."
"Which priests?"
"All of them."
Tyrael mentally sighed.
"How many are they?"
"Something like ten or twelve: Chyraz, Vitriana, Shuqra, Irlenuit, Furtifer, Illustra, Zeloran, Ordreth, Varaxador, Nyras and, of course, Vortigern," she supplied quickly.
Vortigern was the god of the Demons - among others - and had the reputation to be impossible to satisfy.
"Will Vortigern's priest accept to answer?"
"Actually the priests of Zeloran, Ordreth and Vortigern are quite hard to convince, but there's always a way to convince them."
"Which way?"
"You just have to choose carefully the money you pay them with," shrugged Delilah disappearing again.
Tyrael couldn't just ignore her last remark: it was too scary!
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