The crab loomed, mandibles working, and the water around it roiled like a pot on the boil. Anna was frozen at the pool's edge, mud sucking at her ankles. For a heartbeat she was stuck there, then panic hit and she slid backward. Alex crawled to his feet and scrambled away, Jude lunged with a hand out as if he could drag her free, and Alicia clutched the red-haired girl and screamed,
"Don't you dare go near it, you'll die!"
The beast sidled closer, huge armored claws scraping the stones. It paused, eyes like black coins fixed on Anna, and then raised a massive claw.
I lifted a hand without thinking, and a golden shield blossomed around her. The claw slammed into it with a thunder that threw the three kids and Alex to the ground, grit in their mouths. The shield shuddered, but held.
Showtime
In that moment amusement was tickling my chest.
I cloaked myself and let the Angelos persona take form, white toga brightening until it looked like a sunrise on cloth. Wings unfurled from my back, broad and feathered, and I stepped out of the invisibility like someone arriving at the theatre for the final act. A silver spear with a gold tip condensed in my palm, weightless and terrible.
I launched it. The spear struck the crab's arm, embedding itself in chitin. The creature recoiled and flung the spear away, and for a moment it looked like it might get away with it. I snapped my fingers and the spear hung in the air, stopped as if I'd paused a clock, then obediently spun back into my hand.
I landed at the pool's lip, toga and wings catching the moonlight.
"We need to stop meeting like this," I said softly, because dramatic one-liners in the heat of battle were inexplicably satisfying.
The crab lunged, claws flashing. I shoved a telekinetic shove into it, the force driving it toward the waterfall. I slammed a fist down on its crown as it hit rock. It went down with a splash and a howl that sounded like a rusted gate being ripped off its hinges. Green ichor leaked from its mouth.
It thrashed, claws carving the water into geysers. I swung the spear, but the blow met resistance. The spear cracked the air where it passed, then passed through the shell, and a portion of an arm came away under my strike. The wound of a crack the spear made sucked the air in, an instant where the world tried to heal itself and failed. The creature screamed and scrambled, pinned against the rock.
I pressed harder with the telekinesis, welded it to the stone, then drove the spear under its belly. The thing went limp. I eased my hold and it sank, a great, dying shape swallowed by the pool. The water stilled.
I hovered over the pool and let my wings settle. Anna stared up at me with eyes wide and bright, a mixture of terror and stunned gratitude. The others edged closer, hesitant, like animals approaching a strange yet harmless fire.
I dispelled the shield and smiled, warm, practiced, the kind a priest or a conman might use.
"Light of the Lord be with you," I murmured, because rituals comfort people and I had a taste for the theatrics now.
Anna's breath hitched. I lifted her out of the mud with a gentle telekinetic tug and set her down on dry ground. Her chest rose like she'd been holding her breath for a year. I let the pool absorb a measure of my essence, and it ran over her, cleansing and cool. She blinked, shuddered, and then gave me a smile that threatened to break my resolve.
"Thank you so much, Lord Angelos," she whispered.
She folded into indignation a moment later.
"Last time you disappeared and left me to find my way. Why did you do that?" she pouted, small and human and perfect in her annoyance.
"I had somewhere else to be," I said, light in my voice. Truth and avoidance were cousins in my world.
Jude shuffled forward, eyes bright with new courage. "Are you, like, a god?" he asked, hope and fear braided together.
"I am a servant of God," I corrected, letting a little myth roll off my tongue.
"Angelos, messenger of the First Heaven." I landed,
The soles of my feet pressed into the softened earth, which I had just blessed to cradle me like sandals.
"Good," I added, more practical. "I will escort you home. Do not pull stunts like this again. Respect your parents. Obey the curfew. If I had not been here, you would be dead."
I tapped Anna on the head lightly with a finger. She flinched and then laughed, breathless and incredulous.
"Same goes for the rest of you," I said, and motioned for them to form a line.
I walked before them, my footprints glowing faintly, a soft trail of gold that faded after me. They followed like ducklings. At the tunnel they paused. One by one they crawled through until only Anna remained.
"You should go, you need to rest for the day tomorrow," I said, amused despite myself.
She hesitated, eyes lingering on me as if she could memorize my face. Then she crawled inside and disappeared into the dark.
I pressed my palm to the timber and sealed the tunnel with a length of palisade wall, locking it gently but firmly in place. I turned, dispelled the Angelos disguise until I was invisible again, and crossed back through the settlement gates.
The statue in the square had become my anchor, my home. I was becoming difficult to exist just as a soul in this world. I hovered for a moment above it and slipped into stone like i was sinking into quicksand. The cold marble swallowed me and then, impossibly, cradled me.
The world dimmed, and for the first time in a while I fell into a sleep that was not the shallow, omniscient dozing of a creator, but the deep, honest rest of someone who had earned his rest.