Of Evil and Angels: Book II

By Steaphan Kay

Book II continues Alyssalee's story; once an orphan, now taken under the wing of her new paramilitary family—the Undivine. Maybe it was the draw of being a part of something meaningful or the pull of her Undivine girlfriend, Sophie, but she was all-in on their mission. Hand in hand, Alyssalee and Sophie face the next chapter of the fleshmonger plague that threatens the Solar Unity. On the one hand, there's Alyssalee, reckless and unsure of her powerful mind-hacking abilities. And on the other, there's Sophie's steadfast love, keeping Alyssalee grounded. Together, they're a force that transcends the notion that love never dies.

What started in the immersive game world of Sword of Sanctity as a means to possess players has bled into the real world. Alyssalee, Sophie, Commander Cole, and the Undivine's Chief Nerd, Bits, return to the game to save lives and get answers. But it's not just the laity that's in harm's way. The fleshmonger boss wants the Undivine eradicated. And now, the dark being's lust for absolute power leads him to set his sights on Alyssalee.

All that Alyssalee knew of what it is to live, to die, to love is shattered. Confronted by unfathomable supernatural forces, impossible decisions must be made, But how far will Alyssalee go to protect the ones she loves?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Uncanny Publishing LLC
• Release date: Oct 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781735247939

Book preview

Chapter One

The Trainee

Sweat tickled Alyssalee’s neck, soaking her training uniform. The intense exertion caused her to suck in harsh breaths, but they were those of a trained athlete. The Undivine drill instructors made the training unbelievably challenging. Odd, considering a bunch of nerds made up the group. Alyssalee started the tenth set of pushups, and metallic tones accompanied each dip, like notes ringing out from a cymbal. Half of the yin and yang necklace she shared with Sophie gently tapped the titanium sheath of the blade on her back.

Bits and his team had manufactured a remarkably light weapon for its size. Still, Alyssalee would have kept the blade on her back, regardless. The thought that it was never far from her grasp comforted her. That’s the way she needed it to be. Too much was at stake for her to risk being unarmed. The fleshmonger boss had it out for her—in a bad way.

Chief nerd, Bits, oversaw the forging of the scimitar made specifically for her. He mapped the Damascus layers to Alyssalee’s alpha and beta waves using AI machining, similar to the radio frequency etchings on keycards.

She didn’t get how the channeled layers worked together, but somehow the sword resonated with and amplified her brainwaves. Along with the doctors, Bits found a way of making a mind-body circuit board of sorts. They based the science on the therapy they used for her recovery. The treatment successfully removed the paralysis after her galactic excursion to the Radcliffe Wave. Her apoplexy was the handiwork of the fleshmonger boss’s torture. The doctors hypothesized that the agony disconnected her mind from her body. Alyssalee liked to think her coma-like state didn’t result from the pain—that’d be weak. She figured her body shut down as a self-defense mechanism.

Of course, on the happy day of her induction into the Undivine, the fleshmonger sycophants had attacked. The Undivine referred to them as skeletons because of how they painted their faces white, contrasted against the black they used for their eye sockets and always with hoods draped over their heads. Some thought the skeletons’ attack was an initiation ritual, but Alyssalee knew better. The fleshmonger lackeys were so misguided they believed their overlords would teach them how to live beyond the grave—even giving them positions of power. Their leader—the boss—wanted to take Alyssalee off the board. Or simply take her.

The carny-looking villains carried out the sneak attack not long after Cole presented her with the token of Undivine membership—the vicious scimitar adorned with her new family’s moniker. The sophisticated technology making up its design made whether it was a sword or a device unclear. Was it still as strong as other swords? With mindfreed abilities driving it, could it be even stronger?

Receiving a symbol of the hacker militia was nice, but it was the belonging that mattered most to Alyssalee. She frequently caught herself partly unsheathing the scimitar and running a finger over the etched crimson lettering—Undivine. It sent a chill of excitement through her every time. She belonged somewhere now.

After the day’s training, she often sent fingercomms to her friends back at Sisters of Light. The orphanage was the only other home she’d known. And with every conversation, the sisters had an abundance of questions about how her boot camp was progressing. Alyssalee would share stories of her accomplishments and how she excelled at being a soldier. Some of the more hard-line sisters were wary of what she was doing with, what UNUM considered, an anarchist group. Other sisters trusted her judgment and were proud of her for forging a fledgling partnership between the heavily armed UNUM and Undivine groups that formerly opposed each other.

She giggled at their use of the term boot camp. The words didn’t fully describe the experience. The Undivine provided instruction more like special operator training than providing the foundations of military soldiering. Alyssalee’s other achievements in life paled compared to this, the most challenging endeavor she’d ever undertaken. And she loved it.

Alyssalee considered it an honor that they selected her. One couldn’t apply for a job in the paramilitary organization. The Undivine only recruited unicorns. Usually, the selection centered on anti-UNUM accomplishments, special nerd skills, or in Alyssalee’s case, elite mind hacker abilities discovered covertly in the holocade game, Sword of Sanctity.

Unlike how UNUM instructed their paladins, Undivine trainees couldn’t wash out. Her new family didn’t let each other fail. This didn’t mean that the instructors gave them a pass for areas they were weak in, such as combat or physical training. Instead, their battle buddies worked harder to level up their brothers and sisters. So far, Alyssalee was on the helper versus the help-ee side. Being on the giving end was how she liked it, even though she got fewer breaks, had less time to eat, and sacrificed the already minimal sleep they allowed.

Helping others led to the paramilitary group’s formation twenty years ago during the Uprising, as the militant leaders of UNUM murdered people en masse. The Undivine’s founding charter protected the persecuted from being imprisoned or disappearing for simply having differing spiritual-political views. To the dismay of many intransigent Undivine leaders, they cooperated with UNUM in recent months. Most believed UNUM was just trying to save face as the truth behind the fleshmonger scourge contradicted the doctrine of the One Unified God. The blight of fleshmongers saw UNUM and the Undivine unite for the good of the people. At least, that was the goal of the Undivine—unchanged from their founding.

UNUM was about power. If demons weren’t real, UNUM was a sham and people would hold its teachings untrue. UNUM demanded spiritual, moral, and political control of the populace. The fleshmongers’ use of seemingly harmless technology, like the Sword of Sanctity game to propagate possessions across the globe urged cooperation between UNUM and the Undivine. Prior to this arrangement, the Undivine kept their command centers hidden from UNUM. Even now, they only divulged need-to-know locations to them for their limited collaborations.

On the perimeter of the Sierra Nevada Command Center was the Undivine training camp. The area was nothing like the ancient gloom of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where the sisters raised Alyssalee. Sure, the region was wet and gloomy like every other place on earth, just not as built up. This was one of the few remaining places on the planet where the clouds would occasionally thin, revealing the sky. The few that could afford to live outside of cityscrapers made homes here just for the occasional glimpse of the sun and stars.

The clouds above them cleared for a few minutes. The instructors stopped hand-to-hand drills to let the group enjoy the anomaly.

ALYSSALEE COULD TELL the end of drills was nearing from the level of groans and muscle failure among the recruits. The instructors had the trainees spread out in a part sod, part mud clearing. The constant grime ingrained the earthy scents in her brain, like training-induced PTSD. Most of the group had mud caked on them after face-planting from exhaustion during push-up drills. But her face remained clean today. Today was special weapons day.

Special weapons varied by trainee, depending on why the Undivine recruited them. Some had advanced hacking tools as weapons; others specialized in mindfreed abilities. Alyssalee had swordplay training for her unique scimitar. It was a combination of mind hacking and combat fencing. The instruction was custom developed for Alyssalee because the Undivine had never had a candidate with her abilities. The upside of this unique training was that it involved some of her favorite people—Commander Cole, Bits, and a recent addition to the Sierra Nevada Command Center, Master Liberi.

Master Liberi was an angel, just like Cole. His one and only love since the twelfth century was the sword. And over the centuries, Liberi had mastered every form of martial swordplay. So advanced were his skills, that he developed his own technique, Liushui. Liberi explained the attacks and defenses of Liushui as an ebb and flow of energy between combatants. Cole guided Alyssalee’s mind-hacking discipline while Bits monitored her brain activity with a diagnostic ET. Cole and Bits consulted each other to refine how she leveraged the synergies between the sword and her abilities while training with the sword master.

Master Liberi amazed Alyssalee with how he combined his mastery of the sword with feats only an angel could pull off, like instantly changing grips and lunging. The distinction between fleshmongers and angels couldn’t be better illustrated than with Master Liberi. Angels existed on the human plane as a projection of their former living selves. In contrast, fleshmongers occupied the bodies of living souls to carry out their depraved desires. Being an angel required mastering the art of appearing mortal to the living—an arduous charade. The simple act of walking on the earth without falling through it took persistent concentration. And yet Master Liberi carried out fencing training with the highest expertise, as if he walked the earth with his body and soul intact.

In contrast, Cole stuck to handguns and rifles as they required much less effort to orchestrate than hand-to-hand combat. Alyssalee referred to poor emanation as being squishy, much to the irritation of the commander. Squishiness happened when an angel couldn’t project a believable shell of a body. Firmness aside, there was no hiding the respect she held for angels. On top of the skill it took to pull off being tangible, angels could travel anywhere on earth insanely fast.

But mastering these skills took time. A lot of time. Cole mentioned that traveling at the speed of light and stopping at a particular location on earth was like parking a levtrans on a pinprick while traveling at two hundred miles per hour. A miscalculation during angel-travel and one might be on the moon’s wrong side instead of the desired destination on Earth. The only surefire way to get to an exact location was for an angel to return to their grave or wherever most of their remains rested. Alyssalee experienced this firsthand when the horned fuckers left her stuck between the living and the dead.

Cole traveled at the speed of light to find her. For him, it was decades of soul-crushing loneliness as he searched, eventually rescuing her. He had to teach her how to soul-walk back to her body. If not for him, she would have been lost floating around the Milky Way forever.

Chapter Two

Master and Protege

For a girl raised in an UNUM orphanage, Alyssalee found the coed showering fascinating, fun even. She’d only seen illustrations of the male anatomy, not the real thing, and now it was close enough to reach out and grab. Not that she would ever want to touch the diseased finger-looking things. The mere thought of one of them in or around her sent bile rising.

She let the suds of the shower do their work as she wondered if angels bothered to emanate genitalia. Maybe even took liberties on the dimensions. Then her musings drifted to the look on Gwendelyn’s face if she stepped foot into an open-minded locker room like this. That’d be priceless. Gwendelyn had been her roomie at Sisters of Light and seldom even changed her clothes in front of Alyssalee.

Stepping back from the jets of steaming vapor, she shook out the long strands of her thick, black mane. A whirl of hot air replaced the steam with radiating torrents that caressed her body, leaving it dry. This was a pleasant departure from years of using old-school towels. The Undivine had a predilection for deploying technology wherever they could, and she enjoyed the hell out of it.

The worn-out trainees showered and dressed, moving like the stately sisters of her previous home. Alyssalee wasn’t among the sluggish, though. She had a training appointment with Master Liberi. The faster she got there, the more minutes she’d get with him. It didn’t matter how early she made it. He’d always be there, ready to train. Maybe he never left the studio. He was an angel, after all; it wasn’t like he needed to go home.

Alyssalee arrived for training with her hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. She wore the required uniform for trainees—black compression leggings and a bright lavender top with her last name stenciled on the back in big white letters. Without looking up, Master Liberi unfolded his legs and rose from his perch at the head of the studio, wearing the classic garb of a sixteenth-century noble.

He liked to meditate while waiting for his students. Well, there were only two other two student sworders. Alyssalee quickly donned a gambeson, though she doubted any blow would come her way that the sword master didn’t send deliberately. Early on, Liberi informed her they wouldn’t be using dulled practice-swords. He stressed that respect for life and limb only came by the vicious edge of a blade. Of course, Liberi was a soul-walking angel, so the protective gear was irrelevant to him; not that he would have needed it anyway.

Liberi wore his typical black and gray doublet and trunk hose combination. He walked to the center of the studio and gave her a slight bow, which she returned lacking any elegance. Are you prepared, il mio studente? he asked.

Always, she said with a mischievous grin.

After centuries of travel, Liberi spoke several languages, but always with the heavy Italian accent of his homeland. Even then, his words were few and precise. His method of instruction was through demonstration and whacks with the back of his blade when she didn’t follow through with a technique.

Her abilities brought a new aspect to swordplay, and Liberi devised new parries and thrusts as she mixed defensive maneuvers with sword-enhanced projections. To Cole and Liberi’s frustration, when she was surprised by an attack, she frequently improvised mind hacks, completely abandoning sword technique altogether.

Cole and Bits—her neural coaches—had not yet arrived for the lesson. They weren’t to blame as she was a good fifteen minutes early. She was encouraged by how invested they were in her success, probably more than the sword master himself. So much so that after her sessions, when Alyssalee documented and practiced any new projection-augmented techniques she learned, Cole and Bits would often stick around to critique.

Deciding not to wait for them, she positioned herself, eye to eye with her instructor. Alyssalee reached to her back and pulled out her glimmering blade, with a barely audible hum of metal. As she raised the sword and pulled it to her chest in line with her body, she remained dead silent. Master Liberi returned the salute with breathtaking elegance.

While taking an en garde position, she considered the weapons he chose. Today, Liberi sported a short sword and a dagger. He kept her guessing, with a different selection of razor-sharp armaments and techniques every lesson. She sprang into action with an overhead slice, which he parried effortlessly with a forte that sent pain shooting through her tendons. She shook it off and increased the distance between them and softened her focus on his body, looking for any tells that might reveal his next move.

As usual, there were none.

She sprang again, but Liberi circumvented her running attack, dodging with instinctual precision. He met the advance with a quick riposte that set Alyssalee off balance. She threw up an invisible barrier that caused an otherwise deadly thrust to be absorbed by an unseen mesh. She rolled to the side and got back to her feet.

After round after round of attacks, Master Liberi finally left—or provided—an opening, and Alyssalee moved in with a vicious center cut. Liberi deflected and stepped into it, forcing her over his leading leg. The room spun as Alyssalee lay on the cold floor, grasping to understand what had just happened.

No one who fights fair fights to live, the sword master said sternly. I made an opening. You did not exploit it with a kick. He walked around her, eyeing Alyssalee as if a specimen in a lab. We heft blades, but that doesn’t mean this is only a sword fight. No one is scoring this match. You will not get a trophy. She opened her mouth to argue, but Liberi silenced her with a wag of his finger. To be the last one standing, you do what must be done.

Understood, Alyssalee replied, barely audible.

Several more rounds followed, with Alyssalee attempting to press Liberi’s sword, so she could get a thrust in. The slight curve of the scimitar made it more proficient at slicing moves, but she could still score points with a well-executed thrust.

On days like this, with no touchés making it through Liberi’s defenses, Alyssalee wished she could just project attacks at will. Her abilities would not comply with this desire, though. The most opportune projections only worked for her under significant threat or duress. Cole said, with practice, she could project at will. That reminded her—Cole was late, which was out of character. Bits wasn’t as reliable but almost always made it to her sword lessons. Though, she had to admit, it was a pleasant break not having to wear the ET so Bits could monitor the sword integration with her mind hacks.

Attack, answer, parry. This continued for several more minutes. Alyssalee’s eyes burned from the sweat running down her face. The exertion of her previous training paled in contrast to the battle she was now in. Several more smacks from the flat side of Liberi’s sword chastised her errors.

And then it happened. An innate fluency took over, and Alyssalee stopped thinking about her attacks and attacked with instinct alone. After a missed slash, she immediately renewed her offensive with a feint that Liberi bought. She took a precisely placed sidestep, followed by a downward crush. With Alyssalee’s blade nearly touching Liberi’s nose, an unfamiliar look crossed her teacher’s face. She would have thought it was shock if she didn’t know better, but he quickly composed himself.

Touché—molto bene, Alyssalee. Very good, indeed.

Warmth flooded her, leaving her skin prickly. Thank you, she said and was quickly met with a smack of his sword on her thigh.

"Thank you, Master Liberi," he barked with barely a bite.

The doors to the studio slammed open and a frantic man in a shimmering metallic morning suit burst into the room, accompanied by a small entourage. Gold and black stripes on the man’s pocket square and necktie meant he was of the elite Scholae Paladin corp. Both Liberi and Alyssalee took en garde positions, unsure of what was happening. Sure, there had been a truce of sorts between UNUM and the Undivine for months, but the paladin leadership was fickle.

The entourage pulled slim rifles from under their tailcoats, but the paladin leading the group waved them down.

Are you Alyssalee Quiteria? he asked, struggling for air as if recovering from a sprint.

Before she could answer, two dozen Undivine poured in, trapping the paladins from behind. This is escalating quickly, she thought as the paladin raised his hands frantically.

We aren’t here to fight, he yelled. I only want to find Alyssalee Quiteria.

Alyssalee stepped toward the man and sheathed her scimitar.

You found me, Alyssalee replied, unsure if this answer would lead to an unpleasant outcome. She did, after all, once destroy an entire battalion of paladin forces single-handedly.

Thank the One Unified God. He took a deep breath to steady himself. "It’s my daughter. They’ve taken her. She must have been playing that game," the paladin said, as Cole pushed his way through the crowd.

"UNUM is more than capable of locating a child, especially your child. Why do you need me?" Alyssalee asked as her stomach sank to the floor.

Intel says you are the most skilled at fighting them—the fleshmongers—in-game or out. You are the best hope for recovering her, he said. The paladin looked around as if about to be punished for his next words. "We’ve learned of your unique skills."

Alyssalee almost laughed. She wanted to say, Yeah, you learned, all right. Through the blazing inferno I brought down on an entire UNUM detachment. But she held her tongue.

Cole stepped between them. You could have just sent over comms. You didn’t need to tranquilize several of our security patrols.

There isn’t time to go through the bureaucratic channels. Every minute that passes... He stopped, voice quivering. Clearing his throat, he resumed. I need to find her now. Please.

The man fumbled to activate his fingercomm, placing his index finger to his temple. A projection of a teenage girl filled the air in front of him. She was frolicking around a grassy field chasing a fur ball of a puppy. This guy is good, Alyssalee thought, suspecting the paladins used this technique with their own hostages. Her name is Heather, Heather Dulot. Please forgive my haste. I am General Dulot of the Scholae Paladin.

Cole shook his head with a frown, his lips parting.

I’ll do it, Alyssalee blurted. I mean, Commander Cole, can you excuse me from New Recruit Training to help find this girl?

Cole let out a heavy breath, crossing his arms, an even deeper frown splitting his brow.

Commander, a professional courtesy? I traveled from UNUM Command. Abandoned my post to be here, General Dulot pleaded.

Cole raised his gaze to the general. Very well.

The general exhaled loudly and muttered words of praise to the One Unified God.

Lieutenant! Cole called, looking over his shoulder.

Yes, Commander? a lanky man said, stepping in front of him.

"Set up a field command center on the training grounds. This is the only area our guests may occupy."

Yes, sir, the man said, rushing out of the room.

General, you don’t have a clue how gracious the commander is being, considering UNUM recently orchestrated an assassination attempt against him, Alyssalee said coldly.

The man nodded as his eyes darted between Cole and her. I’m in your debt. He turned to leave and added, And I always repay my debts.

The weight on Alyssalee was immediate. Convincing a teenager to change the direction of their life? She was happy to leave this type of work to the clergy. But now it was on her—not just to save the girl’s life, but maybe her very soul.

And then the spiraling dread fell on her as she realized she would be entering Sword of Sanctity for the first time since she nearly died playing the game.

Chapter Three

Alliances

Heather Dulot devoted all her free time to Sword of Sanctity, a fanatic much like Alyssalee used to be. Heather’s father forbade her from playing, and rightly so from Alyssalee’s perspective. The game became an IRL battleground for the integrity of human free will. For now, the Undivine were confident they had countered the fleshmongers’ ability to possess players with a game patch they had leaked. Heather’s father didn’t share this confidence, and as much as Bits was Alyssalee’s nerdy hero, she knew he didn’t have all the answers all the time.

Knewarc’s PR department countered the bad press by attributing the abnormalities to a necessary update in the encephlotrak’s device drivers to protect susceptible customers. The studio crafted a story about how people with pre-existing mental conditions could encounter a tiny psychotic break when playing. They deployed the update that, behind the scenes, looked for anomalies in neural activity which would trigger an immediate disconnect from the game. This approach worked reasonably well, but now there were hints from both UNUM and Undivine intel that the fleshmongers were up to something new.

UNUM stationed General Dulot and his daughter at the Unicity headquarters in Toulouse, France. The sole reason for his reassignment was to investigate new fleshmonger activity. Ironically, this was where Heather went missing after supposedly spending the night at a friend’s house. The teenager had mastered ways to evade various tracking tech, no thanks to her father’s occupation. They guessed Heather stayed hidden using an off-the-grid SoS arena over a proxy and a stolen account.

The general brought Heather’s diary, and as Alyssalee sat in a corner, legs splayed, thumbing through teenage angst with an occasional chuckle, a scribble caught her eye. It was unmistakable, even with the hasty rendering. The horn gave away the secrets of the pencil scratches—a SoS beast. It stood to reason she’d choose the opposing faction of the templars—Heather likely associated templars with UNUM’s paladins.

I think we are looking for an Al-Mi’raj, Alyssalee announced over the hive of