Prologue
The silence in the office was almost sacred. On the floor, on his knees with his eyes tightly shut, the young novice clutched the wooden crucifix so hard his knuckles turned white. His voice came out in a focused, calm, and deeply sincere whisper:
"Heavenly Father, may Your light dispel the darkness surrounding this house. Protect the innocent from the shackles of evil, send a warrior from your celestial militia to fight what hides in the shadows..."
BOOM!
The blast was so violent the ceiling cracked. The boy was thrown backward, landing flat on his butt on the Persian rug as the window glass exploded into a thousand shards. A thick cloud of black smoke and suffocating dust instantly invaded the room.
"Ow, my head!..." an irritated, hoarse, and purely earthly voice echoed from the midst of the smoke. "What the hell is this?! Who turned out the lights?!"
The novice, still coughing and trying to wipe the dust from his eyes, grabbed the crucifix and pointed it forward with trembling hands, but he didn't back down.
"W-Who's there? A warrior of light?"
The smoke cleared a little. In the center of the room, a tall boy with bright, vivid red hair was trying to dust off a perfectly ironed white dress shirt. His tie was half-crooked. He was staring at his own hands, which were full of crumpled financial report papers.
"Warrior of light, my ass!" the redhead screamed, his voice rising in pure hysteria as he waved the papers in the air. "I was at my desk! I had two minutes left before punching the clock to go home! What kind of sick joke is this?! Where is my computer?! WTF?!"
The novice blinked, completely confused by the language of this "heavenly messenger." But when he looked further back, his heart nearly stopped. From the back of that office boy grew two massive wings of crimson feathers that slammed against the bookshelves, and a long, sharp-tipped demon tail whipped the air with pure fury. To make matters worse, two sharp, black horns ripped through his red hair.
The young believer’s eyes widened in total panic, but he tried to maintain his biblical logic:
"You... you have horns. And wings of blood. I spent the entire night praying to God... and He sent me a hysterical demon?! Vade retro!"
The redhead stopped screaming at the papers. He looked down at the novice on the floor as if he were the most insane person on the planet.
"Demon?! Are you stupid or do you just run headfirst into walls? I'm in accounting! I have health insurance!"
"Look in the mirror!" the novice yelled, pointing the crucifix toward the wall.
The Halfling, huffing with rage, marched over to the large, gold-framed mirror. The second he looked at his own reflection, the office nearly came crashing down.
He saw the horns. He saw the claws at the tips of his fingers. He saw the gigantic red wings and the tail moving on its own behind his legs.
The red-haired boy let out a high-pitched shriek that almost shattered whatever glass was left in the house. He grabbed his own horns, pulling at them in absolute panic.
"WHAT THE f**k IS THIS ON MY BACK?!" he spun around toward the novice, screaming, completely out of his mind, advancing with his claws out. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME, YOU HALF-BAKED PRIEST?! TAKE THESE HORNS OFF ME NOW! WHAT KIND OF DRUG-TRIP SPELL WAS THIS?! I HAVE A MEETING AT EIGHT IN THE MORNING, WTF!!!"
The novice could only hug the Bible tight against his chest, looking up at the ceiling with a desperate, naive innocence:
"Lord... I think there was a glitch in the delivery line of my prayers..."
