God's Gone AWOL

[3] *intense screaming* (Part 3)

"Do you think it heard my prayer?" Bentley asked.

"I don't think so..."

At that precise moment, both of them felt a rush of evil energy coming from behind. Bentley spun Atticus around and pulled him out of the way, just in time to avoid being crushed by a giant stone foot. The angel statue hadn't disappeared, it had just moved. And now it was trying to step on them like ants!

"HOLY—!" Bentley started.

Before she could finish her shouting, Atticus grabbed onto her waist. Seeing how it's stomping was easily avoided, the statue switched tactics, this time swinging it's arm back. Just as the giant white fist collided with the ground, the two little figures of Atticus and Bentley disappeared in a flash of light. The earth shook with the impact, and a deep, filthy hole was left where the statue had punched. But the targets of the blow were completely safe.

The angel statue wasn't phased. It's perfect smile remained plastered across it's face, even as it pulled its fist up from the earth and looked around for the two little pests that had been there just a moment before. Although the movements of the statue were slow in proportion to the rest of its body, it was so damn large that just one step of it's giant foot covered several meters of ground.

"It looks like you were right about angels not liking you,"

"Why do you say that like it's a good thing??"

Atticus and Bentley couldn't fly very far, as they couldn't move over or through the hedges. But at least they could get far enough away so they wouldn't be squished. Hearing their voices, the statue looked up and saw them standing on the other side of the garden. Keeping it's horrible frozen smile, it yanked an innocent, well-trimmed cypress tree from the ground. Dirt sprayed everywhere as roots were forcibly pulled out into the open air, displacing a significant amount of soil-dwelling creepy-crawlies. Then the tree was thrown directly towards where the angel and the demon were standing.

They moved out of the way easily. As for the tree, it collided with the hedge wall behind them and the pair became a tangled pile of shrubbery. Atticus sent out a golden spell as retaliation, but it only made the statue stumble slightly. He had already figured out that this thing was obviously not a normal garden decoration, but he'd been expecting more of a reaction to his magic. It seemed as though there was some sort of protective spell or dangerous enchantment on the statue, meaning it would be much harder to deal with than they originally thought.

"Get to the door," Atticus told Bentley.

She nodded. The two vanished, then materialized again beside the golden trap door. Bentley tried desperately to pry it open, with Atticus shielding her. She pulled, yanked, tugged on the wood, but to no avail. It would not budge. Meanwhile, Atticus was sending spell after spell at the quickly advancing angel statue, desperately trying to slow it down. But his attempts were also unsuccessful, and the great big angel just kept getting closer.

"I can't get it open," Bentley said, "I think it's latched, but there's no doorknob or handle or anything,"

Abandoning the statue, Atticus spun around. Sure enough, there was a round hole in the door right where a knob would typically go, but the latch-mechanism inside was different from a normal door. They wouldn't be able to open it manually without the fitting handle. He quickly reached for one of the nearby rose bushes and unthinkingly broke off one of the stiff, sturdy stems.

"Use magic to open it." He handed her a rose.

She nodded and accepted it. Then she drew her thumb across the thorns, intentionally pricking herself so blood would flow. Atticus resumed his constant barrage of spells against the statue while Bentley hastily painted a b****y array on the surface of the door. Unfortunately, the statue appeared to be becoming more resilient, not even stumbling at the impact of Atticus' spells and approaching at an alarming rate.

"Magic's not working!" Bentley said, jimmying the door again and again.

The spell painted on the surface was glowing effectively, but the stubborn trap door just would not open. A few meters away, the angel statue reached for one of the decorative marble columns, pulling it out of the ground as easily as it had done with the tree. But instead of throwing this time, the statue raised it up like a baseball bat and swung it downwards. It hit right where Atticus was standing and exploded on impact, sending shards of marble flying in every direction and causing a rather horrible amount of noise. Once the dust cleared, the statue looked around with its painted golden eyes. But there was no trace of either Bentley or Atticus in the rubble.

This was because the two of them were pressed together in the shelter of another cypress tree. From the other side of the garden, Atticus watched the statue stomp around in frustration. Bentley had been squished into the manicured branches and couldn't see what was happening. She could only see Atticus, distracted and pushing her further in.

"Well this is just great," She said bitterly, "I'm so glad Micaiah gave us that hotel address. This is exactly what I was hoping would happen today,"

"Keep your voice down. That thing might hear us." Atticus was too afraid to his eyes off the statue.

"What are we supposed to do about the missing doorknob? Is this an awful scavenger hunt or something? Were we supposed to have picked it up somewhere along the way?"

"Bentley, be quiet,"

"If you don't like hearing me speak, go find your own shrub to hide in. Why are you so close to m-mmph!"

He'd slapped his hand over her mouth.

"Shush,"

As though he had been struck by a bolt of lightning, Atticus was zapped back into reality. He looked down and quickly realized what he'd done. An inexplicable feeling rushed over him and the angel's hand was retracted immediately.

"I was literally one second away from biting you, you know. Why'd you do that?" Her eyes were covered in a deep layer of red.

"For someone who hates other people, you really talk an extraordinary amount," He said, "Now be quiet for the love of God, or I'll use more than just my hand to shut you up."

Bentley didn't say anything else.

Now that he could no longer be distracted, Atticus shifted his gaze back to the lumbering statue. It was swinging around randomly, kicking over the other statues and uprooting trees. As he watched it, Atticus started thinking about it's relation to the trap door they couldn't open. He thought about all the other doors they had come through. How they all had round golden knobs that opened nicely. And how this one was missing its knob.

Atticus stared at the statue's serene face, frowning slightly.

"It's the eyes," He said.

"What?" Bentley asked,

"The doorknob... It's in the eyes of the statue,"

Those painted gold eyes weren't painted at all. They were metal spheres, stuffed into the eye-sockets of the stone face —and they would have to get them out in order to open the door.

"You distract it." Atticus pulled Bentley out of the bush, "I'll handle the rest,"

"Wait, what??"

But it was too late, Atticus had already charged out. Luckily, being a distracting force of nature was one of Bentley's most-practiced skills. With a little sigh, she jumped forward and let out a clear wolf-whistle. Immediately, the giant marble figure spun around, those shiny, golden eyes staring in her direction. As soon as she got its attention, Bentley blew it a little kiss.

"Hey, ya big sexy thing," She said loudly, "You lookin' for me?"

A ginormous fist came smashing down, but Bentley wasn't that easy to get rid of. With a devilish smile, she effortlessly hopped out of the way.

"Ooh, looks like somebody is in a hurry to get physical," She flirted relentlessly, "Sorry, but I don't like moving too fast in relationships,"

Atticus knew for a fact that this was a lie, but he chose not to say anything. This whole time he had been storing up his divine energy, swirling it all into one specific, over-charged spell. If he focused all his energy on one attack and went back to using brute-force, perhaps he could aim a hit at the statue's head. If nothing else works, try blowing it up.

He watched as Bentley leisurely dodged a couple more blows. She had to make sure it was a near-hit every time, so as to keep the statue focused on her and not her companion. Even though he knew she was perfectly fine, Atticus still felt anxious watching her twirl about so carelessly.

"Would it be possible for you to actually fight back somehow, instead of just dodging every time?" He blurted out.

"I'm only capable of fighting with my words," She yelled back, "Does this thing look like the kind of angel who engages in civil-debates?"

All of the sudden, the statue stopped trying to squash Bentley and turned around. Atticus' shouting had alerted it to his presence. It seemed to decide that Bentley wasn't easy enough to kill, and immediately changed targets, charging directly towards its fellow angel.

Atticus really couldn't wait any longer. All the stored up energy swirling at his chest, although not as powerful as he would like it to be, would have to do. With the flash of his eyes, a great glowing ball of light hurled itself directly into the statue's face. Dust flew, but the stubborn rock still held together. Luckily the spell was powerful enough to send the fake angel stumbling backwards again.

Bentley saw her chance and took it. Two shimmering red cords shot out of her sleeve. They each wrapped tightly, once, twice, several times around each stone arm before anchoring it to the ground. It struggled violently, but Bentley was infinitely more powerful, even in her slightly weakened state. For now, it was completely restrained. Atticus conjured his angelic blade and flew forward. Even though he knew its smile was fake, he still found it hard to carve the eyes out of such an endearing face. So he closed his own eyes and blindly stabbed downwards.

"Bentley!" He tossed one of the eyes over.

The moment she caught it, her concentration was broken and the bindings on the statue dissolved instantly. Atticus quickly rolled off and the two scurried over to the golden door together. Now half-blinded, the statue rose to its feet and resumed chasing after them. Even though his divine energy had been depleted somewhat, Atticus still faced It head on, prepared to fight in any way that he could. Behind him, he heard Bentley fidgeting around, but no sound of success.

"Open the door," He said anxiously.

"That's what I'm doing!"

"Do it faster!"

"How d'you know you didn't grab the wrong eyeball in the first place?!"

A few meters ahead, the statue reached down and plucked something off the ground. It was the jagged remaining half of the column it had used to attack them before. As it raised the improvised weapon over it's head, Atticus mirrored it by drawing out a protection spell in the air over himself and Bentley. However, before either of the weapons could meet, someone pulled on his collar from behind.

The door was shattered into pieces by the statue's brutal hit. But Atticus and Bentley were already on the other side.

And they were falling again, through another endless void of darkness.

Except this time, they were safe.

...