Heaven Must be Missing an Angel
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The unspoken, but obvious, plan had been that while the main group was distracted Iolaus would ambush the two with the children. His success at that was evidenced by the two floored and groaning thugs that Hercules hurdled as he charged down the road. But even the best made plans have flaws, and the one in this one became evident as soon as he rounded the corner and reached sea level.
The pirates had been on their way to join their buddies on the beach.
There were at least twenty men running up the strand; five had already intercepted the hunter and were busy fencing with him. The children were both huddled in front of a high sand bank, defended only by their rescuer's blade and body, both of which were working overtime. The corsairs were pressing in with eagerness, only to be driven back by an agile kick or a well timed slash of a sword.
Terror clutched at a semi-divine heart; Iolaus was surrounded by deadly steel and overwhelming odds. In his mind's eye the son of Zeus once again saw death in the form of a spectral horseman lowering and aiming his lance …
Hold on, buddy. I'll be right there!
Hercules picked up speed, charging in like an enraged bull, his head down and his shoulders hunched. Men went down like ninepins. He snatched up a tumbling sword as he passed and spun into a protective stance in front of his friend, ready to defend him to his last breath. "Sorry I'm late for the party," he gasped, discouraging a pirate's approach with a sideways sweep of his hand.
"Uh -" Iolaus sounded a little puzzled. "Yeah. Umm - Herc?"
"Uhuh?"
"Doesn't this usually work better when you and I are back to back? Its getting a little hard for me to hit people with you always standing in the way …"
What?
The complaint was more perplexed than hurt, but it also held a note of irked reproach. Hercules glanced out at the advancing pirates, looked down at the weapon in his hand and registered exactly where he was standing. His anxious terror gave way to a flustered sense of guilt. "Gods," he breathed. "I'm sorry, Iolaus, I - "
"Yeah, yeah," the hunter acknowledged a little testily, stepping out of his friend's shadow and taking up his more usual place at his side, "I know. Just - you don't need to be that defensive, okay? I'll let you know if I'm about to get killed. Again," he added pointedly.
"You might not have time," Hercules protested, sweeping on-coming pirates off their feet and driving back encroaching blades.
"I'll find it. I promise," Iolaus retorted, matching blow for blow and ducking occasionally. "Herc, you have to stop getting into a blue funk whenever I get into trouble. It's embarrassing."
"I - I know. I said I was sorry."
Pirates went down and stayed down; the two of them danced through familiar routine, their conversation punctuated by grunts and cries of pain from their opponents.
"Look," the hunter said, offering reasonableness, even though Hercules knew he had every right to be seething. "We're partners, right? And partners are supposed to trust each other, yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Well, I trust you. Can't you trust me to take care of myself? Against this kind of thing, anyway," he added, spinning round to plant a skilful kick in an exposed midriff. The pirate went down with a startled gurgle. Hercules picked up a burly thug and threw him into a line of his comrades.
"I do trust you," he admitted, recognising that he had a problem - and that he had to deal with it or risk losing the very thing he was trying to protect. The surety of this man's friendship - along with his loyalty and his love. "It's just the Fates I can't be sure of."
Much to his surprise, he heard Iolaus giggle. "Oh - ah," the hunter laughed, "- I don't think you need to worry much about them where I'm concerned …"
Now what's that supposed to mean?
He slammed startled heads together, threw the unconscious result into the next charging group and turned to stare at his partner with wary concern. "Iolaus," he said with feeling, "I can't help worrying." His arms went back with abstracted strength. Two more pirates went flying. "That day I lost you …"
"I know," his friend interrupted, intercepting the downward sweep of a sword and punching out the man behind it. "Herc - I can't promise not to do that to you again, but - please, just give me a little more space to work in, willya? I'm tougher than I look." He ducked an incoming blow but stepped away into another one; the strike took him clean across the jaw and sent him staggering backwards. "Ow," he complained, his face creasing down into momentary fury. "Do you mind?" he growled, launching himself upwards into a wild scissor kick that left both attackers in a groaning heap on the ground. "We're trying to have a conversation here!"
Hercules couldn't help it. He laughed, reminded - as he often was these days - just why it was that he loved this man so much. "Okay," he allowed, making a determined vow to himself, not to stop protecting his friend - never that - but to try and stop being so obvious about it.
And to remember that the man was a hero and a seasoned warrior, that he could take blows and bruises, and if he complained about it, then he wasn't really hurt enough to count …
Besides, he considered as they resumed their defensive stance, back to back and ready for anything, this is one of those things I used to take for granted. Knowing that he was there to watch my back.
It feels good.
It feels right.
This is how we're meant to be …
"Why are we fighting these guys?" he asked, dodging an incoming sword thrust and slamming the back of his hand into the swordwielder's face.
"I dunno. They started it."
"Hand over the kids and maybe we'll let you both live," a gravel edged voice announced, it's owner waving men back so that he could take up a challenging stance - just outside of either heroes' reach. Hercules frowned, staring at the man. He was a broad shouldered figure, with a shaven scalp and three big gold rings through his left ear. Men were re-grouping to his rear, many of them looking the worse for wear.
Oh yeah, he remembered. The children …
He glanced behind him to make sure the youngsters were still safe, then shared a look of patient incredulity with his partner.
Has this guy being paying attention here?
"Are you dumb or deaf?" the pirate leader growled. He'd undoubtedly practiced that growl: it was intended to imply both menace and scorn in equal measure. The men gathered behind him started to edge forward, his stance inspiring confidence. "Just hand over those kids. Now."
"I don't think so," Hercules said, folding his arms and looking decidedly unimpressed. "Maybe it would be better if you and your crew just got back aboard your boat and forgot the whole thing. What do you say?"
"Those kids are worth a thousand dinars to me. You think I'm gonna turn and walk away from that?" The words held a decided sneer. "Do I look crazy?"
Iolaus snorted, not bothering to suppress his smirk. The pirate glowered at him.
"You think that's funny, shrimp? You'll be laughing on the other side of your face pretty soon."
Hercules put out a hand to halt his partner's reactive forward lunge and favoured the speaker with a look of patient regret. "Look," he said, still trying to be reasonable, "we're not here looking for trouble. These children clearly don't belong with you, so - we'll just escort them back to the road and you can get back to - whatever business you have to get back to."
"They are our business," the man snarled, taking a step forward. "And it's none of yours. Who do you think you are, sticking your noses in where they're not wanted?"
The hunter - who had thrown his friend a slightly irked look for being stopped mid bounce - broke into a knowing grin. "Well," he announced with relish, "my name's Iolaus. And - uh - he's Hercules."
The bald man's eyes went very wide. "Hercules?" he echoed, his voice taking on a decided squeak. The son of Zeus heaved a small sigh. There were occasional advantages to having the reputation he did, but he hated the way some people reacted when they heard his name. The pirate took a moment to recover his equilibrium. When he did, it was to adopt a fearsome scowl. "You think we're gonna be afraid of a name?" he asked. "Whatdya say, fellas?" He didn't get any answer, so he glanced over his shoulder with a frown. "Fellas?"
If he was looking for support, then he wasn't getting any. Behind him men were turning and taking to their heels.
"Fellas?" he questioned, spinning round and staring in astonishment as his entire crew fled down the beach and began to scramble into their boats. Hercules was watching them with puzzlement. He didn't think his reputation had got that bad. "Uh - fellas? Uh - " Their captain glanced back towards him with an almost apologetic expression. "Uhuh," he laughed a little nervously. "Umm …" His wary half smile dropped into total alarm - and then he too turned and began to race down the beach, yelling a desperate "Wait for meeeeee…" as he ran.
Puzzlement became utter bewilderment.
What the …?
A hand tapped hastily on his shoulder for attention. "Uh - Herc?" Iolaus announced anxiously, "It's - ah - not us they're running away from …"
He turned - and felt a cold shiver run down his spine.
The sand dunes were moving.
And not just moving but shifting, forming into an amorphous shape; a vaguely man shaped giant was rising to its feet, a swirl of grit filled wind dancing into being as the sand flowed upwards. Massive hands reached out and down, the fingers rippling grotesquely as they groped forward.
The young girl let out a piercing scream of terror.
Oh gods…
Suddenly, coming to Agiori didn't seem such a good idea at all.
It hadn't been the wary glances from the gathered men that had warned him. It had been the decidedly uncomfortable feeling which had begun to prickle his shoulder blades. As if his wings itched abominably. So abominably that he'd nearly manifested them, tempted to open them out to try and shake the irritation away.
He hadn't, although he'd only just caught himself in time. Instead he'd turned, alerted by that none too subtle hint that something was about to happen and that he wasn't going to like it.
He didn't.
The monster surged up from nowhere, a hulking thing that shaped itself out of the dunes. At first it was nothing more than a distorted hump, shifting and moving as if something beneath it struggled to be free, but it soon took more recognisable shape. Tussocks of grass slid away as it pushed up, forming itself from the soft grit beneath. The crude, mishapen head emerged first, sand pouring like twin rivers from its deep and cavernous eyesockets and leaving behind the gleam of a faint, sorcerous light, evidence of the unnatural power which commanded its summoning. Broad, heavy shoulders lifted the massive head higher; long, crudely shaped arms pushed it higher still. The ground around it was flowing like water, sucked in to the churning maelstrom which was giving it birth.
Iolaus had delivered his warning with wide eyes and an open mouth, his hand groping for his partner's shoulder while he stared in utter disbelief at what he was seeing. At what he was feeling; power crackled around the thing like the static that proceeded a storm, and it was shivering though his light gifted senses, setting every nerve end tingling. He hadn't felt the like since they'd left Egypt; this wasn't divine power but elemental magic, fundamental forces gathered and directed by sheer force of will.
Sand rippled like water as the creature's long arms groped towards the terror stricken children. The girl let out a piercing scream.
"Get them out of here!" Hercules ordered, throwing himself towards the monster with a grim look on his face. His words galvanised the startled hunter into action; he too darted forward, hard on his partner's heels, and hastily snatched up both youngsters. Sand shaped fingers, each thicker than his waist, scooped up through the space where they'd been standing, the palm of a vast hand emerging out of the ground.
"Gods," Iolaus exclaimed, staggering backwards, the children clinging to him with fear tightened fingers. The hand surged after him, fluid sand shaping and reshaping so that palm and fingers turned down, ready to snatch and seize hold. Its shadow loomed over the warrior as he scrabbled for a firm foothold in the soft surfaces left by the creature's emergence from the dunes. Abruptly, Hercules was there, a solid defense against the ponderous menace.
"Go," he barked, barely glancing over his shoulder as he waded in to the attack. Clenched fists slammed into the reaching palm, sending a mini-earthquake shivering through the creature's arm. The huge fingers pulled back in reaction, the ends of the digits disintegrating into a cascade of scattered debris. "Go!"
The hunter didn't need the second admonition; he was already heading towards the water at a run, a child tucked under each arm and his shoulders hunched to protect them from the deluge of grit that followed their retreat. The ground was quivering under foot, the forces which were shaping the huge elemental sending out ripples of disturbance that washed back and forth across the beach like waves. Iolaus leaped over one such undulation, then leapt onto the next, using its impetus to surf across the surface of the beach.
He skidded to a halt only a few feet from the water's edge, and hastily glanced around for further direction. On one side of him the bay curved away in a smooth sweep of gleaming sand, backed by more of the soft, scrub covered dunes. Out at sea, a panicked boatful of pirates were struggling to board their ship, which was being tossed by a rolling, pounding surf. On the other side a spar of old cliff stabbed out across the otherwise sandy bay, its jagged rock surfaces cutting across the high water mark and down into the tidal reach. This close to the water it had been reduced to little more than a crumbling line of stone teeth jutting out of the sand, but it promised better shelter than the exposed, open side of the bay.
"That way," he ordered, dropping both children back onto their feet and giving them a little push in the right direction. "Run!"
Another tremor shuddered through the ground. The youngsters needed no further encouragement; they took off at full pelt, the boy seizing the girls' hand as they hurtled along the damp edge of the strand. Iolaus watched them long enough to be sure they had a good head start and then turned back, knowing that he couldn't leave his partner to face the menace alone.
Hercules was having problems. The monster hadn't bothered to develop legs; instead it was oozing its way onto the beach, to all intents and purposes a man shaped giant wading waist deep towards the waterfront while it tried to swat the irritating fly that impeded its progress. Its moves were heavy and ponderous, the sand from which it was made shifting and reforming like some impossible fluid; wherever Olympian fists landed a blow the surface billowed away, only to flow back again immediately.
Gods,Iolaus reacted, staring at the unlikely sight of the Son of Zeus battling a heap of sand. A huge fist slammed downwards, barely missing the figure it dwarfed as he dived and rolled away. The palm hit beach and went on going, the wrist and arm seeming to dip into the ground as the impact shattered the monster's fingers into a cloud of dust and grit. Hercules bounced back to his feet in time to see the massive hand lift free from the fresh surface of the beach and reach for him a second time.
Not good, the hunter registered, glancing around for some kind of weapon that might assist in the uneven battle. The creature was wreathed in magic and constructed out of living sand. If Hercules hitting it wasn't slowing it down, then an ordinary sword was hardly going to do it damage. They were going to need something that delivered a little more firepower than that.
Which he had, of course …
His fingers had reluctantly started to reach for the unseen hilt that nestled between his shoulder blades when his eyes fell on a length of timber that lay sprawled across the strand, half in, half out of the ocean. Much better, he grinned, letting his hand drop with a sense of relief. Drawing the sword of the Aeon had to be his last resort - and he wasn't there yet, not by a long measure.
"Hey, Herc!" he yelled, racing across the beach and dipping to drag the sodden timber out of the surf. It was a broken ship's spar, a tangle of metal rings still jingling at its tip and the whole thing a good twelve feet long at least. Hercules leapt back from the monster's advance and turned at the call, the stern frown on his face relaxing a little as he caught sight of his partner struggling to heft the unwieldy length. "Try this," Iolaus suggested, staggering away from the sea and barely managing to balance both himself and the heavy timber; the surface of the beach was rolling almost as violently as the surf. He tossed it forward with a decided effort, tripping over his feet as he did so; he landed face down in a tangle of damp seaweed while the spar arched through the air in a wobbling arc.
The son of Zeus stepped forward and easily caught it one-handed, bringing the other hand over to seize it further down the length and turn it into an oversized quarter staff. He grinned, hefted its weight once to get the feel of it, then swung back into battle, striking out with confidence. Iolaus picked himself up with a grimace, spitting sand.
I left the Reverie for this?
Hitting the ground had hurt - mostly because it had chosen that exact same moment to hit him back. The churning disturbance was still rippling out from around the monster's waist; the waves of force were being quickly absorbed by the soft sand - but they were also lifting some of the more solid rocks which littered the strand and shoving them about like oversized game counters. The hunter scrubbed abstractedly at a bruised shoulder and flexed the joint beneath his fingers as he circled round, watching the unlikely and mismatched combat between man and mountain.
What is this thing?
Hercules was making slightly more impact with the spar than he had been with his fists. Even so he was still fighting a losing battle; each sweep of the wood was carving a slice through the creature's fluid form - only for the gaping wound to be filled almost as soon as the weapon had left it. At least he had slowed its pursuit of the children. Clearly the son of Zeus had begun to hurt it enough to be considered a threat rather than a nuisance; the elemental had turned and was now flowing towards him with menacing intent.
Oh-oh …
Iolaus had figured out his partner's strategy - and, barely a breath afterwards, had spotted its fatal flaw. The swatting blows, delivered with grunting strength, had lured the monster close to the water's edge. As it was constantly renewing its physique from the surface which supported it, it had begun to pick up the damper sand from the lower tidal reach. The weight of water seemed to be slowing it down - but was also giving it firmer substance, turning it from a churning, fluid form into a solid, compact shape.
Solid enough, in fact, to land substantial blows. The ground shuddered as a fist the size of a house slammed down into it. He saw Hercules stagger, thrown off balance by the impact, then yelled a startled warning as the creature's other hand scooped round, its fingers curling in to snatch and grab.
"Herc! Behind you!"
The son of Zeus spun, jerked round by the yell almost as if it had been a physical thing. The length of salt seasoned wood slashed down, severing sand sculpted finger tips, then swung sideways as its wielder attempted to apply matching damage to the curving palm. The spar hit something solid; it bowed alarmingly, then broke with a savage snap, the sound echoing across the breach. The damaged hand completed its sweep - and, instead of snatching up the figure it was reaching for, simply engulfed it. Hercules vanished into a maelstrom of choking sand, still holding his ground, but overwhelmed by the weight of the giant it supported.
"No!!"
Iolaus had been holding back from joining the assault, well aware that his own slight weight and strength would have made less impression on the monster than a mosquito bite. He'd been trying to study the thing, watching in case he could figure out a more effective way to fight it. But the sight of his partner being swallowed up by the thing was more than he could bear. He launched himself forward without a moments thought or hesitation, charging in with a howl of anger and anguish that would have made a mortal opponent's blood run cold.
The elemental didn't even seem to notice. As the slight figure hurtled across the strand towards it, it turned back towards the line of broken cliff where the children had taken refuge and began to wade in that direction, seemingly unperturbed by the agitated disturbance which boiled beneath its surface, marking the spot where its semi-divine captive struggled desperately to break free.
Herc …
Iolaus threw himself at the churning sand, his hands sinking into the abrasive surface and finding nothing but skin shredding fragments of rock. Somewhere in the depths of the creature's guts he caught a glimpse of ivory fabric and he reached for it, plunging one arm in right up to the shoulder and groping blindly through the shifting sand. This was clearly sufficient disruption to get him noticed, although hardly enough to cause serious damage; the monster's hand swung down and simply brushed him off, the way a man might a buzzing fly. This close to, the power which shaped the creature had tangible force; it jolted through him like a thousand tiny lightning bolts while the blow sent him flying backwards to land, sprawled and breathless, in the edges of the surf. He picked himself up, gritted his teeth and charged in again.
Another sweeping blow sent him rolling away again, bouncing across seaweed draped and barnacled stained rocks before a rolling breaker put a halt to his progress. He emerged from the water dripping, bruised, and more determined than ever. The signs of desperate struggle beneath the elemental's surface were growing weaker and more erratic. Somewhere, just beyond his reach, his partner was exhausting both his strength and his air supply.
Think, Iolaus, the hunter chided himself, anxiety tying a tight knot inside his stomach. Think! It's just pile of sand. There's got to be a way …
He raced to catch up with the monster again, circling round to the back so as to avoid the sweep of it's long arms. It was right at the water's edge by now, and the lower part of its body was almost solid, clogged tight with waterlogged sand. Good news for the children it sought, since its pace had slowed to a sluggish crawl, but very bad news for the man it currently contained, since he'd shortly be adding crushed to the list of damage he was taking.
This thing isn't natural. Something
- or someone - created it. And if it was created, then it can be destroyed
…
But how?
Had Michael been there, he might have made a gentle - and amused - couple
of suggestions, but the archangel was too busy fighting his own war - defending
the ramparts of heaven against a demon warrior princess - to worry about the
concerns of one exiled angel or the fate of the soul he had been charged to
protect. Iolaus had yet to learn the true strengths of his new nature, and
even if he had got them figured out, was still too inexperienced to
employ them with real effect. He might have earned his place as a warrior
of heaven - but his skills had been forged on earth and it was to those
skills that he turned now, drawing on what he knew, rather than trusting to
instincts he didn't even know he possessed.
If the mountain won't come to me, he reasoned, suddenly recalling the gleam of sorcery in otherwise empty eyes, then I'll just have to go to the mountain …
Action followed the thought. He was running out of time as certainly as Hercules was running out of air and he didn't have the luxury of thinking things through, even if he'd been the kind of man who did; since his entire life - and most of his afterlife come to that - had been spent leaping in feet first, he did just that - and took a running jump, straight onto the monster's back.
The maneuver was remarkably successful. He'd half expected to submerge completely, swallowed up the same way Hercules had been, but while the surface beneath him was a shifting, sticky mass of damp sand, into which his hands sank wrist deep, it seemed to be solid enough to support the rest of him. Of course, his own weight began to pull him earthwards as soon as he'd landed, but he kicked in the toes of his boots and began to drag himself upwards, not so much climbing as swimming, scooping huge handfuls of dampened sand down the unstable surface and packing them firm just long enough to scrabble that little bit further. He wasn't entirely sure what he was going to do once he reached his goal, but he knew he'd figure something out. He had too.
Hold on, Herc. Just hold on …
It was hard work and harder going. The surface was unstable and shivering with a power that numbed his fingers and tingled right through him. It took the elemental a moment or two to notice his intrusion, but when it did, it reacted by shrugging its shoulders and trying to shake him off. He clung on doggedly, dragging himself higher with determination, driven by the comprehension of the battle that was still churning through the monster's guts.
Nearly there …
He risked a glance down, and wished he hadn't. The elemental was a good thirty feet tall and from that distance even the soft sand of the beach looked like a decidedly unforgiving surface to land on. He looked up instead - and immediately realised that there was a hand reaching down for him; the creature had paused to grope over its shoulder, no doubt trying to rid itself of the annoying irritation that was currently scrabbling up between its shoulder blades.
Oops …
Iolaus scrambled sideways, barely avoiding the reaching fingers, and quickly arrived on the shelf like shoulder. When he tried to stand up he started to sink, so he threw himself onto his stomach and squirmed the remaining distance in a hurry, reaching the monster's square cut chin and climbing onto its cheek. Dark shadows loomed between him and the sun; the elemental was deliberately placing the palm of one enormous hand against its own face and scooping inwards with its fingers. He had less than seconds before it plucked him free, and he used every one he had, hastily tugging the dagger free from his boot and throwing himself upwards to stab the blade deep into the nearest eye socket.
Power surged down the striking warrior's arm like a river of fire. The monster arched back in a twist of pain. Its fingers clenched convulsively, ripping the hunter free from his precarious perch and tossing him away, high in an arching curve, his body tumbling over and over as he rose into the air. His senses were spinning. The magic had discharged itself through the metal of his blade, the convulsion running down his arm before overwhelming the rest of him. The remnants of it still arced through his frame, little shivering pulses of shock and pain. Somewhere, far below, he saw the mass of sand which had been the elemental billow out in a swirling, chaotic cloud as the creature suddenly lost all its unnatural coherence.
"Whoo-hoo," he muttered breathlessly, since there was no air left in his lungs to actually give it the whoop of triumph it deserved. He'd reached the highest point of his trajectory by then; gravity took over and he started to fall, still following that curving arc as he hurtled downwards, towards the waiting teeth of the eroded cliff line. "Whoa-hooa …"
Reality snapped back in with a vengeance. He twisted over, his limbs flailing desperately as he realised that the world was rushing up to meet him with frightening speed - and the instincts that he didn't even know he had took over.
Wings of gold unfurled under the late morning sun, pinions spreading wide to catch the air; they bit down, once, twice, a sweep of strength that claimed the sky - and the angel was no longer falling, but flying, lifted by the wind. Not very elegantly, it had to be said. While the act of flying was unquestionably an instinctive one, the art of doing so was something only mastered with plenty of patience and practice. In the long weeks that had followed his return to the mortal world, Iolaus had only ever dared flex his cherished wings once or twice, at night mostly, when he was alone and completely unobserved. He'd never actually used them until now - and in that time, caught up in the wonders of rediscovering the joys of his life, he'd survived the memories of glory, of living the light, by pushing them firmly to the back of his mind.
Which was why he'd forgotten - if only briefly - the sheer ecstasy of flight.
It caught at him now, the intoxicating sense of freedom, which - along with the heady sense of elation that manifesting his true self always seemed to bring - nearly turned his head completely. For a breathless moment he hung suspended in mid-air, primaries tilted out to keep his balance, secondaries spread to catch maximum benefit from the gentle flex that kept him aloft. Another second and he might well have succumbed to temptation and soared upwards in a leap for the sky, carried heavenwards by a powerful beat of his wings, heedless of all other demands for his attention.
So it was probably fortunate that a second was all it took for the leading edge of the sandstorm to catch up with him.
Gods …
He had neither the skill nor the experience to cope with that sudden buffet of wind. He instantly lost lift and dropped out of the sky like a late autumn leaf shaken free from its tree, blown this way and that while he struggled to regain control. He landed awkwardly, barely avoiding being slammed into the waiting teeth of the cliff, and the leg that took his weight buckled under him so that he went down onto one knee. Once down, he stayed down, hunching over and hastily wrapping his wings around himself for protection while the air rained stone and grit in all directions.
Iolaus, he pointed out to himself, wincing as rocks the size of hens eggs bounced off his upper coverts and sand scoured through his feathers, you're gonna *have* to get in a little more practice …
If he'd had the confidence - and the skill - to use his wings in the first place, then he'd have been able to help Hercules before he got into serious trouble. As it was, his best friend had been nearly smothered by a walking sand dune, and was now somewhere in the middle of this, enduring the same bruising assault without the benefit of a layer of gold to keep the worst of it away. It didn't matter that Hercules was the son of Zeus and could survive things that would tear a mortal man apart; by thinking like that mortal, Iolaus had nearly gotten them both killed.
A fine Guardian Angel he was turning out to be.
Gods - I hope Herc's okay.
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'Heaven Must be Missing an Angel'- Chapter Two. Disclaimer:This
story has been written for love rather than profit and is not intended to
violate any copyrights held by Universal, Pacific Rennaisance, or any other
holders of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys trademarks or copyrights.
© 2001. Written by Pythia. Reproduced by Penelope Hill