It wasn’t real! Not real!My mind screamed at me even as tears burned my eyes and a scream lodged in my throat.
It would become real soon if I didn’t do something to stop it. Leaping onto Corson’s back, I dragged him down beneath me. I flinched as I waited to hear the whistle of the sword, but the battle waging behind us was the only noise in the tunnel.
“What are you doing?” Corson grunted.
“Onoskelis,” I whispered, naming the angel from my vision. “She’s ahead of us.”
His head turned toward me as I searched the shadows for any hint of the threat I’d witnessed.
“She… she killed you,” I stammered. “Your blood, I felt it on my skin. I smelled it. It wassoreal. We have to go back.”
“I’m not that easy to kill,” he replied in a disgruntled tone.
“You never saw her coming. I didn’t either, but she’s there. I can feel her in my bones.Wehavetogoback,” I repeated more urgently.
“There’s no way out back there.”
“No, but the others are back there. Death is ahead of us,yourdeath.”
“I will protect you with my life.”
“Not when there’s no reason to. We’re going back or, so help me, I’ll fire an energy ball into your ass that will have you skipping back to the others.”
“Sometimes I wish we’d never shown you how to use your abilities,” he grumbled.
“Too late. Now, let’s go.”
Peeling myself off him, I tried to remain behind him, but Corson pushed me ahead. “She won’t kill me,” I reminded him.
“Don’t care, go.”
The talons that extended from the backs of his hands occasionally scraped against rock as he ran down the tunnel behind me. Rounding a corner, Magnus, Lopan, and Hawk came into view as they worked to fend off the manticores.
“What are you doing back here?” Hawk demanded, and Magnus looked tempted to choke me.
Lopan froze in the middle of chewing off the leg of one of the manticores. The look on his face was that of a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He tore the paw the rest of the way off. The manticore trumpeted and flew out of the tunnel
“My queen—” Lopan started and tossed aside the paw.
“The angel, Onoskelis, is behind us,” I said, trying not to look at the blood staining Lopan’s mouth. He looked anything but sweet now. “She killed Corson.”
“What?” Magnus and Hawk blurted. Lopan’s gaze went to Corson and a baffled expression came over his face.
“In my vision! She killed Corson in my vision, and she’s coming!” I rushed to explain.
“What do we do now?” Hawk inquired.
“Unless you can fly, we make a stand,” Magnus replied.
Lopan scurried forward and set his caultin on the ground. Behind him, one of the manticores slid further into the cave. Corson rushed past me before the manticore could move any deeper into the tunnel. He sliced the manticore from its waist all the way to the tip of its tail with his talons. The creature screeched and flung itself backward, only to be replaced by another.
A cold sweat coated my body as an impending sense of doom filled me. I moved closer to the others while they struggled to keep the manticores back. We were pinned in here, but we weren’t outnumbered yet.
Settling my fingers against the wall, I ran the tips of them over the rough rock as I worked on drawing life from them. I rested my other hand against the pocket of my pants where I’d placed the rose Lopan gave me and harvested more energy from it. I built a ball within my palm as I searched the shadows for Onoskelis.
I could feel her hunting us, but a sense of calm descended over me while I waited for her. I was so focused on killing Onoskelis that I didn’t realize silence had descended behind me.
Turning my head, I watched as Magnus, Lopan, and Corson staggered away from the end of the tunnel. Hawk stepped closer to me and rested his hand on my shoulder, causing a greater influx of life to surge within me. I opened my mouth to ask what was going on just as the manticores parted to reveal two angels at the end. Between them, the angels gripped the sagging form of a creature I couldn’t make out.
