“Who’s next?” I inquired of Lucifer’s followers.
For a second, silence continued, and then more of the craetons turned and fled into the woods. Others were unable to flee and resumed the fight. Most of the remaining fallen angels took to the sky and swooped into the trees. River turned away and ran toward her brothers.
Turning from the palitons she’d been fighting, Onoskelis shoved the barta demon out of the way and snatched Gage from the throne. Closest to them both, Caim lurched toward her before realizing he still held Bailey. He glanced around for somewhere to put the child, but the barta demon was already advancing on them. Caim kept hold of Bailey as he flapped his wings to rise out of the barta’s reach.
Gage squirmed in Onoskelis hold, trying to break free, but she kept him pinned against her as she lifted off the ground. I ran toward them, my bones grating with every step as I followed River through the tumble of dead bodies. I tried to catch her, but with her head start and my injuries, she remained fifteen feet ahead of me as she darted in and out of those battling around us.
“Gage!” River screamed.
“I don’t think so,bitch!” Verin shouted as she charged out of the fray at them.
Leaping forward, Verin caught hold of Gage and yanked him from Onoskelis’s arms before the angel could make it five feet into the air. Verin drove her sword forward as Gage landed on his back with an audible thud. Verin’s sword plunged into Onoskelis’s belly, and she sliced it upward. Blood spewed from the angel’s mouth, but she managed to unsheathe the sword at her back. Swinging it down, she cleaved into Verin’s neck.
I shoved aside the craetons in my way, ignoring the blood spilling over my lips as I ran. Yanking her sword back, Onoskelis lifted it and swung it down again. Verin threw up her hand to try to protect herself. The blade sliced through Verin’s hand and cut the rest of the way through Verin’s neck. A sense of loss clenched my gut when Verin’s severed head hit the ground.
Onoskelis dove for Gage at the same time River threw herself on top of him. Onoskelis’s hands twisted into River’s shirt as her wings flapped rapidly. “River!” I roared when the angel rose with River in her grasp.
Blood spilled from Onoskelis’s belly and onto River as she flew. River tried to right herself, but Onoskelis entangled one hand in her hair to keep her head down while the other remained entwined in the back of River’s shirt. River blindly unleashed a ball of energy into the air over her head. Onoskelis ducked back to avoid it.
Chasing after them, I dodged a manticore tail before punching through the chest of a demon who lunged at me. I tore its heart out as Crux leapt up to tear away its head. The hounds ran forward to come together in a V formation that cut a pathway through the craetons in between me and Onoskelis as she flew toward the woods.
Aiming for Onoskelis’s back, a wave of fire erupted from my palm and shot across the air toward her. Onoskelis must have heard it coming as she twisted to the side to avoid being hit by it.
It had been enough to distract her though, which allowed River to swing her hand up in front of her. She blasted Onoskelis in the face with a ball of fire before hitting her with an energy ball from her other hand.
Onoskelis shrieked and released River. Spinning through the air, River somehow managed to right herself so that her feet would hit the ground first. It didn’t matter, at her height the impact would still kill her.
I pushed myself faster, ignoring every one of my broken bones and battered muscles as River fell. She didn’t scream, but her eyes were squeezed shut as the air whipped her hair straight up behind her.
She was thirty feet from the ground when Onoskelis dove at her with her wings folded against her back. Her fingers caught in River’s shirt. River’s weight and momentum plunged them down another ten feet before Onoskelis stabilized them both. The angel jerked River up and rose with her once more.
A loud roar filled the air and a drakón plunged out of the sky. Blue fire streaked behind it as it bared down on the two of them with its jaws wide open. “No!” I bellowed, knowing that the drakón could consume them both in one gulp.
Onoskelis tried to dart to the side to avoid it, but the drakón’s jaw clamped down with a crunch that echoed over the open land. The closing of the jaws severed Onoskelis so cleanly that the stumps of her arms remained standing in the air as her hands remained locked on River’s shirt and hair.
River remained airborne for a millisecond. Then, gravity won out and Onoskelis’s remains fell away as River plummeted toward the Earth from a height of at least a hundred and fifty feet. My legs moved faster than they’d ever moved before as I raced across the ground toward her.
The drakón swept back toward the battle. It roared again before unleashing a torrent of fire on the craetons running toward the woods. Their screams were silenced by the drakón swooping down to scoop them up and swallow them whole.
River was only forty feet above when the massive shadow of the other drakón soared over me and toward River. With a grace I’d never expected from the skeletal beast, it dipped below River. The blue fire surrounding it went out before she crashed onto it. Dirt and grass shot out from beneath my feet when I skidded to a halt beneath them. River kept her hands in the air as if afraid that, if she touched it, it would snatch her off its neck and eat her.
The drakón touched down without a whisper of noise. It curled its tail around its side and turned its head so the flickering blue flames of its eyes met mine. I continued toward the creature as River remained unmoving. A puff of smoke coiled out of its nostrils, and blue fire rose to encircle its tail but went no further when I neared.
“What’s going on?” River called out to me.
The other drakón landed in front of its partner. Blue fire engulfed it as it prowled across the ground, its tail swishing back and forth in warning for everyone to stay back. Every step it took left the perfect imprint of its bony feet and car-sized claws in the dirt.
“They’ve been following you,” I realized.
“What?” River asked, her hands still raised in the air and her skin three shades paler than it had been.
“They’ve been followingyousince Hell. Not hunting, not tracking us for Lucifer, but watchingyou. They’re protecting you. Slide down, slowly.”
She gazed at me for a minute before resting her hands on the neck of the drakón. It snorted two puffs of smoke and shook its body as if her touch pleased it. “Easy. Be a good boy… girl… it,” River said as she ran a hand over the vertebrae of its neck.
When the drakón lowered its head and placed it on the ground, River froze before creeping forward. She slid down its neck, across its skull, and down its nostrils to the ground. She stared at the drakón for a minute before resting her hand on its nose to give it a pet. “Thank you.”
It rubbed its nose against her hand before nudging her away. When River was five feet away from it, blue fire erupted over its body once more. With a flap of wings, the drakón rose into the sky with its partner. River glanced back before running toward me and throwing her arms around my shoulders, heedless of the fact I was covered in blood, but then she had a fair amount on her too.
