Sariel

No good deed goes unpunished.

I was having lunch with Uriel and Seraph when I got an urgent call from the hotel.

“What? Did she say why?” I said. I was acutely aware of the other two listening in on the call. “Alright, I’m on my way.”

Seraph, Uriel, and I were the only three S-class Enhanced Lifeforms, also called ELs. The Kraej Company’s secret EL process had turned us from regular humans into superpowered soldiers. In all the world, only these two were my peers. All three of us were stronger, faster, and more deadly than any human warrior could be.

Uriel was a big, burly martial artist who was my childhood friend from the same hometown. With my magic and his fists, we were unbeatable.

Seraph…

He was the perfect EL soldier, equally good at the sword and magic, and both men and women swooned over his flawless features and long, black hair.

I’d probably hate him if he wasn’t one of only two people who understood what it was like to be me.

“What’s this? Your girlfriend checked into a hotel? When are you going to introduce her to us?” asked Uriel. He was in good spirits today. The war had aged me a few years, but it had been worse on Uriel. Though he was only three years older than me and Seraph, he looked more than a decade older. There were deep lines around his mouth and at the corners of his eyes that shouldn’t be there yet.

“I didn’t know Sariel had a girlfriend.” Seraph’s tone of voice was coolly amused. Of the three of us, Seraph seemed the least affected by the war, at least outwardly. He looked the same as ever, but recently he spoke less and hardly ever left his apartment except for work.

“She’s just a girl I was helping,” I said.

The situation didn’t seem that urgent, so I finished my meal and told them about Asteria before I went to check out what she was up to. The hotel staff had called to tell me that she’d asked them to call a taxi for her because she wanted to go to the abandoned Parian temple.

“A heal artifact?” asked Seraph. His golden eyes lit up. Among all the other magicians I knew, Seraph was the most dedicated. He was almost as passionate about magic as I was.

I silently took the artifact from my jacket pocket and showed it to him.

“It’s the highest grade. I’ve never seen such a perfect artifact,” said Seraph.

“How much would something like that cost?” asked Uriel. “Can we pool our credits and buy it from her?”

“Not likely,” I said. “This type of artifact is almost legendary. You can’t buy this with just credits.”

In battle, we had magicians who healed us, but Seraph and I would love to have our own heal artifact, even if we had to share it.

“Why don’t we all go to see this girl?” said Uriel.

“Her name is Asteria,” I said.

I wondered how she would react to the other two ELs. Would she be unafraid of them, too?

***

Ubsola, the Parian Temple, was due to be demolished next year to make way for a more efficient bus route. The temple used to serve a community of Parians, the native people who used to live on the eastern coast before more recent settlers had displaced them. The family of Parian priests who owned the temple in Kraej City had failed to pay property taxes for hundreds of years, so the city had seized it.

When we got to the temple complex's gate, I saw that they were standing open. The ground was littered with bits of metal that were probably the remains of the padlock and chains that had been used to secure the gate and keep trespassers away.

“Looks recent,” said Uriel.

“If she’s really a healer, then her magic is more than strong enough to do this,” I said.

“I wonder why she’s here,” said Seraph.

Suddenly, I felt a surge of anima from beyond the gate. Then a pillar of bright golden light as tall as a skyscraper shot up from the middle of the Parian temple complex.

“What the frag?” I said.

We all started running towards the light. Had she done that or was she in some sort of danger? Perhaps the temple had an artifact she had inadvertently triggered.

We burst into the clearing to see a remarkable sight.

Asteria was kneeling in front of a makeshift altar. She had piled flowering branches from nearby trees onto a large rock and scratched a crude star shape on the ground with the goddess Elyon’s name written above it.

I stopped a few meters away. The others followed my lead.

Asteria’s hands were clasped together and her head was bowed in prayer. An enormous amount of anima poured from her and turned into golden light that flowed into the sky.

“It’s just light? What’s she doing?” asked Uriel.

“How would I know?” I said.

In a few seconds, anima stopped flowing from the girl, and the pillar of light faded in intensity a little. Asteria got up somewhat gracelessly. She was wearing denim cut-off shorts, a white T-shirt, and blue sneakers. The more contemporary outfit made her look even younger than the last time I’d seen her.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said to me. She eyed Uriel and Seraph. “I see you’ve brought your friends with you.”

To my surprise, she didn’t seem fazed. Nor was she gawking at Seraph like most people did when they first saw him.

“What’s this about?” I asked her as I waved my hand at the pillar of golden light.

“Ah, it’s so annoying that my friends haven’t been able to find me. This will let them know where I am,” she said.

“You realize the police will be here soon to check what’s happening?” I said.

“Then it’s a good thing you’re here, isn’t it? Please let them know it’s just a harmless light spell,” said Asteria.

I would normally balk at being used like that, but I really wanted to buy that artifact, so I went back to the gates. A police car was pulling up just as I arrived. I was known to be slightly eccentric, a fact which came in handy today. It didn’t take much explaining before they radioed in the report that the golden light was just me testing a new spell.

When I returned to the others, I saw that they’d taken benches from the church. Asteria was seated in the middle with the two ELs flanking her. I could tell that Uriel was keeping most of his weight on his legs since normal wooden benches were too fragile to support his weight. There was a large picnic beside Asteria that she must have brought from the hotel.

“Everything alright?” asked Asteria. She looked even tinier than normal when she was seated between those two.

“It’s fine. How long is that light going to last?” I asked.

“As long as I want it to,” said Asteria.

Strange. She was no longer feeding it anima, but the pillar of light hadn’t faded. I examined the pattern she had scratched on the ground; it didn’t have any purpose I could see. I couldn’t figure out how she’d done it. What kind of artifact made a pillar of light?

Behind me, the other two were talking to Asteria.

“A heal artifact would be very useful,” said Uriel.

“Of course,” said Asteria.

“Why don’t you sell it to us? After all, you have a spare,” said Seraph.

“Sure, why not?” said Asteria.

“We’ll talk with your friends when they arrive,” said Uriel.

“Eh, you can talk to me. It’s my artifact. Anyway, I hope they arrive soon. I’m sick of waiting for those slowpokes,” said Asteria.

“If you don’t want to wait here, you could leave a note for them and wait for them at the hotel,” said Uriel.

“Hmmm. That might be for the best. You three might be shocked if you see my friends,” said Asteria.

“Shocked? Why? Are they duris?” asked Uriel.

“What are duris?” asked Asteria.

Duris was a Vinleaf word meaning “devil” or “demon.” I’d almost forgotten it wasn’t the proper name for the humans in what remained of Eatuhea, who claimed to be descended from the giants of old.

“Sorry, I meant the bergrisi,” said Uriel. Bergrisi was the more polite term for Eatuheans.

“Bergrisi? Giants? Well, one of them is as big as you. Maybe bigger. But that’s not what I meant,” said Asteria.

“Bigger than Uriel? Then he is a giant,” I said as I walked back to them.

“No, but they’re cosplayers. That’s why I thought Sariel here was one of my friends,” said Asteria.

“Your friend cosplays as Sariel?” Seraph almost smiled.

I could see the two of them thinking of what a Sariel cosplayer must look like. Probably some sort of horrible travesty of me, shorter, obese, and wearing a cheap wig.

“Aren’t you glad you met the original?” I said to the girl.

She covered her mouth and looked away. “I wonder what he’ll say. I wish I had a camera.”

“Do you want to leave a note?” Uriel took out a small notebook and pencil from his coat pocket.

“Thanks, I think I’ll wait a bit. I bought lunch for me and my friends. Do you want some?”

“No thanks, we just had lunch,” I said.

Asteria took out a cheese sandwich and a sweet pastry from the picnic basket and started eating. We chatted about the weather, the trains that were never on time, and the latest mock meat fad.

“Someone’s coming,” I said.

“I hope it’s one of them!” said Asteria.

In a few minutes, the sound of someone running towards us changed to the sound of someone walking at a more sedate pace.

Then it came out of the woods.

A doppelgänger.