Chapter 17

“Uh oh,” Emily groaned wearily. “I don’t think I can handle them going through adolescence again.”

“Hey Clarice, do you want to go to the movies with me?” Lexi asked shyly.

“How old are you, Clarice?” Calypso asked patiently.

“Still thirteen,” Clarice replied, rolling her eyes. “Did you think it was going to change overnight?” She looked at Lexi with an appraising eye. “Sure, I’ll go to the movies with you.”

“And how old are you, Lexi?” Emily asked wryly.

I just turned fourteen a few days ago,” Lexi replied importantly. “I’m old enough to go on dates now.”

“Sure you are,” Emily facepalmed.

“What’s going on out here?” Eric asked as he joined them. “It sounds pretty weird so far.”

“Apparently, that portal messed up their memories,” Calypso explained slowly. “We need to figure out how to unscramble their memories.”

“So can we make pancakes, Mom?” Aria asked, her eyes pleading.

“Sure, Aria, we can make some pancakes,” Emily answered in a troubled tone.

Aria let out a loud blast of flatulence and her voice suddenly boomed loud enough to shake the windows of the cabin. “Their minds have been trapped in childhood objects. Find the objects and destroy them to free their memories.”

“This is the part of Aria’s soul that inhabited the lore boar,” Calypso explained to Emily and Eric. She turned to face Aria, ignoring Lexi and Clarice as they rolled on the ground with laughter after Aria’s flatulent explosion. “Do you know why that portal became sentient?”

“The divine instruments are tools for shaping reality,” Aria boomed out. “After using them, ripples can affect reality in the world around them.”

“Do you still have any of the childhood objects that their memories might have been sealed in at your house?” Calypso asked Eric and Emily hopefully.

“I always meant to take them to a thrift store, but never got around to it,” Eric said sheepishly. “They’re all boxed up in the attic.”

Calypso opened a portal to the living room of their home back in the city. “Eric, can you show me where they are?”

“Of course,” Eric replied quickly, leading the way through the portal. He took her up to the second floor and pulled the attic stairs down from the ceiling.

Calypso opened another portal back to the front yard and speed ran all of the boxes out onto the lawn. Aria was waiting with Emily near the first portal, but Lexi and Clarice were nowhere to be seen. Calypso traced her spiritual link to the two of them and found them behind one of the large trees. Their lips were glued together as they held each other passionately.

“Well, that didn’t take long,” Calypso muttered, her cheeks flushing as the linked emotional states of their souls broadcast the passionate sensations the two teenagers were experiencing.

The three adult angels quickly unloaded all of the boxes onto the lawn and then looked to Aria questioningly.

“The elephant feels connected,” Aria boomed as she stared at the mess of toys and stuffed animals on the lawn. “Destroy it and it should restore Aria’s mental state.”

Emily vaporized the elephant with her eyes. They glanced at Aria expectantly.

“Why are all of our old toys all over the lawn?” Aria asked with a puzzled crease to her brow.

“How old are you?” Emily asked her intently.

“Is this a trick question?” Aria asked suspiciously. “I’m twenty-five, Mom. You have perfect recall as an angel, so I know you didn’t forget.”

Calypso and Aria’s parents sighed with relief, confusing Aria even more.

“What is going on?” Aria demanded in confusion. “And why in the hell are Clarice and Lexi making out like a couple of teenagers?”

“You were trapped in a memory of yourself as a nine year old,” Calypso explained patiently. “The memory trap was linked to one of your childhood toys. When we destroyed it, you came back to normal. Do you know what Clarice’s favorite toy or object was when she was thirteen?”

“She’s thirteen right now?” Aria asked, blushing as the emotional bond with Clarice and Lexi continued feeding Calypso and Aria increasingly intimate sensations.

“Yes, and Lexi’s fourteen,” Calypso nodded through her own blushes. “What did Clarice prize at thirteen?”

“Her phone,” Aria replied dryly. “She also liked the stationary kit with the wax stamps.”

They quickly searched through the clutter until they found a wooden box filled with envelopes, wax, and engraved metal stamps. Emily vaporized it.

“I don’t think that was it,” Aria announced, her ears burning. “Unless she decided to keep fooling around after her memory was restored.”

“Why are you two blushing so much?” Emily asked curiously.

“Our souls formed an emotional link while we were in Eden,” Calypso explained awkwardly. “We can feel each other’s emotions, as well as sensations, apparently.”

“Oh,” Emily glanced back toward the large tree where the sounds of kissing was coming from. “That’s either going to be a lot of fun or really embarrassing.”

“I thought her guitar was her favorite object at thirteen,” Eric commented with a frown.

Aria snapped her fingers. “That’s right! I wasn’t even thinking of instruments.”

“Are we really going to have to destroy her first guitar?” Emily asked dubiously. “She really loves that guitar.”

“Let’s try breaking the strings and see if that’s enough,” Calypso suggested, opening a small portal into the cabin and pulling the guitar through. She quickly removed the strings and then let Emily vaporize them.

“What the hell?” Clarice’s voice gasped in confusion. “Lexi?”

“What?” Lexi asked, her voice full of insecurity and dread.

“Were we just making out?” Clarice asked in a perplexed tone.

“Yep,” Lexi replied warmly. “You’re a really good kisser for a thirteen year old. Have you been practicing a lot?”

“Thirteen?” Clarice repeated in a mystified voice.

Just go along with it for now, Calypso warned her. She quickly explained the events of the last hour to a shocked Clarice. Finding something of Lexi’s is going to be the hardest of all, so she might be stuck in her fourteen year old mental state for a while.

“Let’s slow down a little bit, okay Lexi?” Clarice suggested gently. “I don’t want to ruin things by moving too fast.”

“Okay,” Lexi replied in an injured tone, her face burning with shame.

“None of that now,” Clarice told her firmly. She pulled her forward and kissed her again before releasing her with a playful smile. “I just mean slowing down a little and get to know each other more. Okay?”

“Okay,” Lexi smiled back, her rejection forgotten.

“Lexi, what’s your favorite possession?” Clarice asked, her face full of interest.

“It’s silly,” Lexi murmured with a blush.

“I’m all about silly,” Clarice assured her warmly. “So? What is it?”

“It’s a fictional book that I re-read once a month,” Lexi answered shyly. “It’s about a goddess disguised as a girl that rescues another girl from her horrible parents and takes her on adventures all over the world.”

“That sounds pretty amazing,” Clarice said sadly. “Where do you keep it? Is it on a bookshelf in your room or something?”

“God no,” Lexi shuddered. “My parents would freak out if they ever found it. I keep it hidden under a floor board.”

Calypso opened a portal to the room in the home in Lexi’s memory and was followed by Aria as she went through. Using her spiritual vision she was able to locate the hidden cubby in the room quickly. She pulled the board up and Aria took the book out of the hidey hole.

“I’m going to scan this really quick so she still has a copy,” Aria informed Calypso quietly.

Calypso nodded as Aria quickly flipped through each page until they were all in her endless memory banks. When she was finished she vaporized the book.

“That’s that,” Aria said sadly. “We’ll have to find her another copy somewhere.”

“Yes, we will,” Calypso agreed firmly.

They heard footsteps move down the hallway before a balding man in his fifties entered the room with a handgun held out in front of him. When he found two angels in the room he blanched, his eyes bulging.

“You were the father of Lexi,” Aria pronounced coldly as her meridians changed to aggressive energy. She began glowing brightly as she glared at the man who sold his daughter to human traffickers.

“I did my Hail Mary’s, I’ve been forgiven!” the man bleated in terror. “Jesus has forgiven me!”

“He might have,” Aria growled in rage. “But I haven’t.”

Calypso laid a restraining hand on Aria’s arm. “I think you should bring him with us.”

Aria glanced quickly at Calypso and saw the steely glint in her eyes. She nodded and casually snatched the gun out of the man’s hands and crushed it. There was a loud pop as several bullets exploded in her hand.

“You’re coming with us, Henry,” Aria told him grimly.

He tried to back away, but she flashed forward and grabbed his arm, hauling him toward the portal. “There’s a special place in hell for parents like you, Henry.”

“Mercy! Have mercy!” he begged pathetically as she dragged him through the portal.

“Like you had mercy on Lexi?” Aria asked caustically. “Is that the kind of mercy you want?”

His legs had given out on him, leaving her to drag him along the ground, whimpering and praying.

“What have you got there?” Clarice asked eagerly as she and Lexi stood with Emily and Eric.

“We thought it was time to see what our goddess of the forsaken thought of this miserable bastard,” Aria declared grimly.

Pitiless gazes stared down at the man from six pairs of angel’s eyes. Lexi stepped forward, her face filled with loathing. “Hello, Dad. Did you get my college tuition paid for yet?”

Henry gaped at the sight of his daughter. She stood in all of her angelic glory, both sets of wings arched out while golden eyes burned into his terrified eyes with disgust. She stood glaring down at him, on a knife’s edge of obliterating him as Calypso felt her mind relive the horrors of her childhood. After a minute of intense struggle, Lexi finally turned her face away in disgust. “He’s not worth the stain on my soul killing him would leave.”

“Yes he is,” Clarice declared fiercely. She flashed a brilliant white as rage suffused her meridians. A beam of brilliant white light shot into the man, vaporizing him instantly.

Lexi staggered as she saw him destroyed, then flew into Clarice’s arms, sobbing bitterly as she wept for the parent’s she never had. Clarice held her close, whispering comforting words as she opened her meridians and flooded Lexi with love and comfort.

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“Clarice doesn’t play around,” Eric murmured in a shell-shocked voice.

“Good,” Emily nodded approvingly. “If she hadn’t done it, I would have.”

“Or me,” Aria added grimly.

Calypso felt a ping reverberate through the meridians of the world as a node she recognized experienced something traumatic. She opened a portal immediately and stepped through. She had barely stepped through when Aria shot after her protectively.

“What’s up, Calypso?” Aria asked, looking around the crowded university campus warily. She wrinkled her nose as she smelled demons. Without a word, she blurred toward an enclosed dumpster wall and tore the gates off, tossing them behind her. Two demons had Jason pressed up against the wall. The first demon was nearly seven feet tall and was holding Jason by the neck. His eyes were bulging as the demon slowly squeezed the life out of him. Aria immediately fired a beam into the wrist of the demon, vaporizing his hand and part of his arm. Jason dropped to the ground gasping for breath and coughing hoarsely as the two demons whirled around to face her.

“What do we have here,” Aria smiled at the two demons brightly. “It looks like a couple of bullies.”

The demons stared at her golden eyes and nested wings in dawning horror. They were pinned inside with her with nowhere to run.

“If you try to run, I’ll vaporize you before you can say Beelzebub,” Aria told them conversationally. “It’s time to start talking. Why are you attacking Jason?”

The smaller man licked suddenly dry lips nervously as he stared at her fearfully. She could hear a crowd of students gathering behind her with their phones raised up high. Luckily, Calypso was the focus of their attention. She was a few dozen feet away, walking slowly toward Aria.

Aria made a connection to their speech nodes. No need to make them talk when she could make them think.

She’s going to kill us no matter what we do. There’s no point in talking if we’re going to die either way.

“You have two options,” Aria informed them calmly. “You can answer my questions and live, as well as have the option to become angels again. Or…you can die right now.”

What’s she talking about, becoming angels again? That’s impossible.

“You two stink, but I’ve smelled worse, so I don’t think you are unredeemable,” Aria told them gently. “Do you want to become angels again?”

The taller demon watched her warily, not speaking. Fortunately, he didn’t have to.

This has to be some kind of trick. What kind of sick angel would use the hope of being redeemed as leverage to make us talk? Does she think we were born yesterday?

“I want to be an angel again,” the shorter demon mumbled weakly.

“That’s impossible, you idiot,” the taller demon growled disdainfully. “She’s taunting us.”

“Calypso, I believe both of them would like to be redeemed,” Aria told Calypso, never taking her eyes off of the demons. “You’ll need to regrow the arm on the tall one though. I vaporized it to stop him from choking Jason.”

Calypso quickly connected to the vortex near the demon’s navels, then flashed into brilliant light as she burned out a part of their spirit. The two former demons were gaping at her as their meridians were flushed of darkness and flooded with light. Silver tears ran down their cheeks as the emotional overload hit them hard. Aria moved past them and pulled Jason to his feet. He was still struggling with his windpipe. It had been partially crushed by the demons powerful grip.

“Jason needs healing,” Aria informed Calypso, picking the struggling man up and bringing him out to Calypso.

Calypso sang three quick words of power. Jason took a relieved breath of air through his healed windpipe. The bruises that were forming were gone now.

“Thank you Aria and Calypso,” Jason panted gratefully. “I thought I was a goner. I guess I really can just pray to you if I’m in trouble.”

“It’s not prayer, you goose,” Aria snorted wryly. “It wasn’t you calling out for her either. She can sense when you are in trouble.”

“Did she really just change those demons into angels?” Jason asked in awe.

“She did,” Aria nodded with a pleased smile. “I’m glad they were redeemable. We killed a demon lord earlier today who was not.”

“Wait, I thought demon lords were supposed to be super powerful,” Jason said in surprise.

“We’ve learned a lot since the last time we talked,” Aria told him with a rueful shake of her head. “Calypso is a Seraph. She’s the highest order of angel. There are only eight other Seraphim in the entirety of existence. Since she raised us to angels directly, we are Cherubim, which is the second most powerful class of angels. We’re also the only class of angel that can kill immortal beings. Demon lords are significantly weaker than us. The one we killed was one of the two strongest demon lords here on Earth, and it was like stepping on a bug. But the most important thing that’s happened since we last talked is that Calypso has figured out how to redeem demons back to angels, so all of the angels that were forcefully changed into demons can be redeemed. We’ve already redeemed close to a hundred demons.”

Calypso had been talking with the demons while Aria spoke to Jason. She had healed the missing arm that Aria had vaporized. They were slowly recovering from the emotional storm that followed a demon redemption.

“Would you two mind telling us why you were attacking Jason now?” Aria asked the two angels with a raised eyebrow.

“We were ordered to rough him up to within an inch of his life,” Drejan replied quietly, his eyes still filled with joy. “They didn’t tell us why, but we believe they were trying to send a message to you that your friends would be harmed if you didn’t stay away from the agency.”

Calypso was already making a portal that opened up into the hospital where she had healed Aria and Clarice before he finished speaking. Julia leapt out of her chair in surprise when she saw Calypso walk through the portal.

Aria quickly followed her, the smell of demon stench strong in the hospital. She blurred up to the third floor and grabbed a demon that was aiming a crossbow over the third floor balcony toward Julia on the main floor. He gasped as she appeared, his finger squeezing the trigger. Time slowed down around Aria as she shot down the drop to the main floor and grabbed the crossbow bolt out of the air right before it hit Julia. Julia let out a small scream when Aria suddenly appeared in from of her, hovering in the air and holding on to the bolt inches from her hose.

Aria opened a portal beneath the fleeing demon’s feet that dropped him onto the floor in front of her. He sprang back to his feet to run away again but was rooted to the spot as Aria held him in place by the back of his neck.

“What’s going on, Aria?” Julia asked, her eyes wide with shock.

“Some demons were ordered to harm the people that we love,” Calypso informed her darkly. “We are making sure that doesn’t happen.”

There were over a dozen people filming them with their phones already. Aria sighed as she imagined what the demon run media would say about her this time.

“Would you like to be redeemed as an angel?” Aria asked the demon in her grasp. He had continued struggling to escape to no avail. “You’re pretty stinky though, so I imagine you’ve sunk yourself pretty deeply in evil.”

A feral scream was his only reply. Aria pulled the human mask off of his head, revealing a red scaled demon with small nubs on his head. “I wonder if they look more demonic based on their level of evil.”

Julia recoiled in horror as she witnessed the demon behind the mask. There were gasps and a few screams as the audience saw the face of a demon.

“I didn’t want to vaporize him while he looked human with everyone watching,” Aria explained to Calypso. “Are we going to stick to only redeeming demons who are willing?”

Calypso nodded, her eyes sad.

Aria vaporized the demon quickly, eliciting startled exclamations from the spectators. “Who else do we need to check on?”

“Julia, where are James, Malek, and Latecia?” Calypso asked quickly. “Just think of the places in your head.”

Julia gave her a strange look but complied. Calypso opened three more gateways. Aria sniffed each one for a whiff of demon stench but smelled nothing. Malek gave her a startled look from his office at home as he saw her stick her head through the portal.

“No time to talk,” Aria told him quickly. “Just making sure there aren’t any demons around. We’ll chat soon.”

She repeated the quick explanation with James and Latecia. Calypso closed the gateways, and they turned to face Julia. Jason had followed them through the gateway that was still open to the campus of MIT. Several students were taking video of the gateway, some of them working up the nerve to stick their hands through experimentally.

Another gateway opened and Lexi and Clarice walked through to join them, their eyes scanning the area for danger.

“Do we know where the demon responsible for ordering this is yet?” Clarice asked briskly.

“No,” Aria shook her head. “The two redeemable demons at MIT were just grunts with no real knowledge of their command structure.”

“I know someone who can probably point us in the right direction,” Clarice smiled slightly. “I think it’s time to visit Krajen again. I’ll bet he’ll have some intel on where to find those responsible.”

“Julia, how many sick children are there here right now?” Calypso asked, her eyes soft.

“Three right now,” Julia replied, her eyes lighting up with hope. “Could you visit them while you are here?”

“Of course,” Calypso replied with an affectionate smile. She looked around the hospital with her spiritual eyes for the tainted auras of sick children, then opened a gate to the room with the first child. “Thanks, Julia. If you ever end up in trouble, we’ll be here before you know it.”

“So I noticed,” Julia responded with a grateful smile.

Aria followed Calypso through the portal into a room with an eight year old girl who was sitting in a bed playing on a phone. She was hairless, with dark circles under her eyes and gaunt cheeks. Her eyes widened as she saw a glowing Calypso come through the gateway.

“Hello, Melany,” Calypso smiled warmly at the girl. “Let’s get you healed.”

Melany’s eyes lit up with excitement and awe as she felt the overpowering presence of Calypso’s aura wash over her. Calypso walked up to her and sang a few words in the language she now knew to be the divine language of creation. She no longer required entire songs to heal. The girl glowed brightly for a moment as her eyes grew bright with vitality. Unlike her previous healings, which resulted in removing the illness, she now had a much greater command of her powers. The girl’s hair quickly grew out on her head and her gaunt cheeks filled out with a healthy glow.

The door opened behind them and the girl’s mother came into the room and gasped as she saw the angels in front of her daughter. Calypso held her hand out to the girl and she got out of the bed with an exuberant smile on her face.

“Melany?” her mother whispered in wonder, tears filling her eyes.

“Mom!” Melany cried out excitedly. “Calypso healed me!”

Calypso smiled as Melany’s mother rushed forward and pulled her daughter into a tight embrace, sobbing in relief. Calypso embraced the two of them, filling their souls with love.

“It was nice to meet you, Melany,” Calypso told the excited girl with a tender smile as she stepped back and opened a portal into the room of the next sick child.

“Thank you!” Melany’s mother cried out gratefully, her eyes filled with gratitude and wonder.

It felt wonderful to be healing children again. Calypso felt a sense of nostalgic contentment as she finished healing the last child, an eleven year old boy who was fighting a flesh eating bacteria that had already resulted in his legs being amputated. She had left him with new legs and a heartwarming embrace.

She sighed as she thought about how many other children needed to be healed throughout the world. She portaled back to where Julia sat at her desk, surrounded by people peppering her with questions about her relationship with Calypso and the other angels. When they saw Calypso return they fell silent and retreated from Julia’s desk several steps.

“Julia, how soon until the live project will be ready to go?” Calypso asked, cognizant of the watching eyes and phones.

“It will be ready within a few hours of when you give the word,” Julia responded, her eyes alight with anticipation. “We finished all of the preparations last night and can have everyone ready within a few hours.”

“Let’s get started then,” Calypso decided, feeling the millstone of time that dominated the lives of mortals. “Will 8:00pm Eastern time work?”

“That should give us plenty of time,” Julia assured her with an exuberant grin. “We’ll have everything ready.”

“Wonderful,” Calypso beamed at her. “I’ll see you later tonight then.”

“Jason, can you come with us please?” Calypso asked the young man as he stood off to the side awkwardly, clearly unsure of whether he should have even followed them through the portal.

He nodded quickly and followed them through a portal back to the cabin. As they exited, Emily and Eric joined them.

“Let’s get you some food, young man,” Emily told Jason as she blurred into the cabin.

“It’s so weird having someone who looks so young call me young man,” Jason murmured in bemusement.

Eric laughed, nodding his head in agreement. “I’m still having a hard time recognizing her now. It’s been thirty years since she looked this young.”

“We’re going to broadcast to all of the hospitals tonight,” Calypso informed him, her eyes sparkling. “As soon as we’re finished, we’ll be ready for the live broadcast to destroy the nanobots whenever you are.”

“It’s pretty much ready,” Jason grinned in anticipation. “We’ve got a team of over four thousand people working with us on this operation. They were all people you healed. Some of them are actually working in the intelligence agencies and have given us access to the backdoor trojans they use. I would suggest we do it right after you finish with the hospitals so that they don’t have time to react.”

“Well done, Jason,” Calypso smiled gratefully at him.

“Did you just say backdoor trojans?” Clarice asked Jason with an amused upraised eyebrow. “Is this more…jargon?”

Jason blinked at her, then his face burned with embarrassment. “Um, yeah, it’s another technical term.”

“Just ignore the adolescent,” Aria told Jason dryly.

“Come in and sit down, Jason,” Emily called from the cabin. “You’ll work better on a full stomach.”

Jason grinned eagerly. “I won’t say no to that. She really is an amazing chef.”

“Kind of ironic that she can’t eat anymore,” Eric commented, shaking his head ruefully.

“Fortunately, the tradeoff is well worth it,” Emily responded fervently.

Now that she could remember being human, Calypso firmly agreed. The positive energy filling her system with bliss all of the time was like a drug that never wore off. She felt a pang of sorrow for the angels who had been forcibly transformed into demons, believing there was no turning back. It truly was a kind of hell to live with the memory of bliss while having a toxic hunger for power replace that feeling. Driven by the compulsion of their demon lord, they were forced to commit acts of cruelty and horror.

They went up to the veranda on the second floor and found areas to stand and enjoy the view where they wouldn’t look like they were watching Jason. She remembered his self-conscious attitude when eating in front of beautiful angels.

“I’ve got the invite ready to send out to everyone later this afternoon,” Aria informed her as she joined them near the edge of the veranda. “We’ll be sending out Zoom and Teams invites. Our friends in the hospitals will have the kids either in one of the conference rooms where they can watch the video or tuned in on devices in their rooms. They purchased a lot of used tablets to distribute to the people who are too sick to leave their rooms.”

“Thank you for setting all of that up, Aria,” she smiled gratefully at Aria.

“There’s something I wanted to show you before we get started this afternoon,” Clarice informed her with a mysterious smile.

Calypso blinked, glancing at Aria’s curious expression and finding no help. “Is it something here at the cabin?”

“No, it’s a secret,” Clarice grinned at her mischievously.

“Hopefully a secret far away from here,” Emily muttered under her breath.

“It’s not even on Earth,” Clarice hinted with a teasing sparkle in her golden eyes.

“Good,” Emily grumbled good naturedly. “We don’t need any more power outages.”

Calypso felt her cheeks heat up as her gaze flickered over to where Clarice was relaxing, sitting on her wings on a tall chair and leaning back with her crossed legs stretched out onto the railing in front of her. Clarice saw her blushing face and a slow, seductive smile spread across her face. Calypso’s breath quickened, which she knew was instinctive since she didn’t need oxygen. Butterflies erupted in her stomach as she stared back at the promise in Clarice’s eyes.

“Power outages?” Jason asked curiously.

“Maybe we should go now,” Calypso suggested quickly, her meridians surging with sudden desire.

Clarice stretched languidly, her eyes never leaving Calypso’s. She stood up and opened a portal to the planet beneath the sun. There was small cabin on the endless grassy plains. Calypso frowned at it before turning back to Clarice.

“Did you teleport that there?” she asked, her voice a little breathless.

“Yep,” Clarice nodded with a triumphant smile. “It took a little while to figure out, but I eventually got it. Shall we?”

Calypso went through the portal, her hands shaking with sudden nerves as butterflies tried to lift her off of the ground. The portal closed behind them and Clarice took her shaky hands in her own as they walked the twenty feet to the cabin.

“You doing okay?” Clarice asked, her eyes concerned.

Calypso felt slightly breathless as she stared into Clarice’s beautiful face. Golden eyes filled with love and concern stared back at her tenderly. In answer, Calypso pulled her into an embrace, her lips seeking out Clarice’s as the desire flooding her system took control. Clarice smiled and met her lips with a passion as strong as her own.