Page 86 of Destined for Eternity
“It is an odd thing,” Raguel said after finishing a whole pizza. “But human food has a way of energizing me.”
Remiel nodded. “I’ve noticed the same. I believe it is because the longer we stay on Earth, cut off from Heaven’s infinite grace, the more we need other ways to renew ourselves.”
“It’s true,” Jeriel agreed. “That is partly how I’ve sustained myself during long assignments, and I cannot complain as long as the food is good.”
Bartol wouldn’t have dreamed he’d ever sit with Lucas and three archangels eating pizza. Not only that, but that they would be companionable. In less than half an hour, they’d emptied every box. He stared at their unlikely group, sitting on the gym floor in relaxed, easy-going poses, unable to believe the sight before him.
Lucas gave Bartol an ironic smile and shook his head. “I know what you are thinking and it surprises me as well.”
“We must never speak of this day with anyone,” he vowed, a hint of humor in his voice.
“To our graves then.”
The floor creaked where they’d left Kerbasi lying alone. They turned to find the man rising, and the blanket falling from his naked body. Once he was fully upright, he hovered several inches over the floor, and then his previously hidden wings snapped open. They were stark white now with tinges of black at the top. Before, they’d been gray. His hair was still long and black, but his skin was more golden and less olive than before. Those were minor changes compared to what Bartol detected with his supernatural senses. The power emanating from the former guardian was far greater than he’d ever had before and was closer to the level of an archangel.
Kerbasi’s previously silver eyes glowed with white-gold. “Where am I?”
“You don’t remember?” Bartol asked.
He settled his bare feet onto the floor, unbothered by the broken glass. “I do not.”
Bartol frowned and addressed his father. “Is that normal?”
“It happens…sometimes.”
“What is your last memory?” Remiel asked, moving toward the newly risen archangel.
Kerbasi frowned. He ran his gaze across all of them until it settled on Lucas and he pointed at him. “You. I remember receiving you for the first time in Purgatory when you were less than a thousand years old, and you’d been brought to me for punishment because you’d slaughtered a male sensor you’d come across in a village. By my estimation, you are far older now.”
Bartol’s eyes rounded. Lucas was more than twenty-five hundred years, and he’d been imprisoned in Purgatory many times since his first stay. How could the former guardian have lost a millennia and a half of memory?
Raguel appeared shocked as well. “This is unexpected.”
“But not unheard of,” Remiel said, lips thinning. “It has happened a few times after a conversion process, though the memory gaps were not quite as long.”
“Will he stay that way?” Lucas asked, appearing unsettled himself.
Jeriel rubbed his chin. “Not forever…I think.”
Kerbasi stared down at his naked form, confusion knitting his brows, then noted his altered wings. “What has happened to me?”
“We’ve changed you into a demon slayer now,” Raguel replied, coming forward. He grabbed the folded robe the former guardian had set aside and handed it to him. “I will begin training you once you’ve had time to recover.”
Kerbasi’s gaze studied Bartol’s father. “I do not understand.”
His entire bearing was different than before. He stood taller and more confident, and the evil mischievousness that had once glinted in his eyes was gone. Now, the man was just raw power and lacked the personality that once shaped him. Even his voice sounded different. It was stronger, more authoritative.
“You will come to understand with time,” Raguel replied.
Kerbasi snapped his wings closed. “I do not wish to wait.”
Bartol and Lucas glanced at each other, both having no idea what to make of the man they’d hated for so long. What would he become like now? They only had a couple of days until the summit with the demons, and Kerbasi had a lot to learn if he was to assist them.
“Tomorrow,” Raguel said, exhaustion in his voice. “We must rest for the night first.”
