Blood spilled free, but he didn’t release the sword as he pulled it free of his body and shoved it at her. The movement caused Aisling to stumble back a few steps; she regained her balance and lifted the sword. The angel’s head bobbed as he turned toward her, but I gripped his bat-like wing and jerked him back when he lunged at her.
With a fury-filled scream, Aisling swung the sword down again. The angel’s head rolled away before stopping with his black eyes turned toward us and his mouth parted. Aisling lowered her sword and wiped at the blood and dirt streaking her face as she gazed at the angel’s wings. They pointed into the air before they released their rigid position and slumped to the ground.
“Are you okay?” Aisling asked me.
“Yes.”
I pushed myself to my feet in time to see the remaining horsemen retreating into the small section of woods that still wasn’t on fire. As the last horseman vanished into the trees, the flames rolled over to consume what remained of the woods. Even if we got a group together to follow them right now, we wouldn’t be able to get through the fire. But Iwouldhunt them down if it was the last thing I did.
It was time to end this.
Unable to stop myself from touching her, I rested my hand on Aisling’s arm. She stiffened for a second before relaxing into my touch. Her exhaustion beat against me, but she stood proudly amid the rubble as she lifted her sword again.
Some of the craetons tried to follow the horsemen as they raced toward the woods, but the hounds took many of them down, and the fire pushed back the others. They ran parallel to the flames until they found an opening and vanished into the smoldering forest.
In the sky, the drakón still battled the angels, but only a dozen of the black-winged bastards remained as Raphael, Caim, and the drakón worked their way through what remained of them. An angel I recognized as Astaroth, thanks to his bloodred hair, rose into the sky as another version of him flew low over the land. Caim once said the angel who had risen to take Lucifer’s place could astral project, and I realized he’d split himself in two to avoid death.
The drakón closed its jaws over one of the angels while the other streaked toward the billowing smoke. Before it could vanish into the smoke, the other drakón plunged out of the sky and crashed into an angel, knocking him aside.
Two more versions of him materialized. One of them flew toward the woods while the other raced toward the angel the drakón hit. Before the two angels could get close to each other, Caim swooped down and grabbed the shoulders of one. He lifted it high into the air as Raphael unleashed a bolt of power straight into Astaroth’s chest.
Astaroth screamed as his body bowed and his wings unfurled behind him. His legs kicked in the air as if he were trying to run, but there was nowhere for him to go as the golden light illuminated him from the inside out before erupting from his mouth.
And then he exploded into ashes that poured over the land as the angel in Caim’s hands vanished. Silence descended over the battlefield as everyone watched the ashes float through the air to settle on the dead. Caim and Raphael were the only angels who remained in the sky.
“The fallen angels have fallen,” I murmured.
“Could some of them have gotten away or never come out of the woods?” Aisling asked.
“They could have,” I said. “But if any of them do remain, it’s not many.”
Gazing at the bodies littering the field, I tried to count the wings I saw amid them, but it was too difficult, and there was no way to know how many angels the drakón ate. Raphael and Caim landed on the field. They were so different from each other; one so fair and the other so dark, one a golden child and the other a fallen sinner, but they stood shoulder to shoulder as they gazed at the carnage surrounding them.
No matter how different they were, sorrow etched both their faces. Brothers and sisters, I recalled when Caim touched the wing of one of the angels. Raphael may deny they were his brothers and sisters, but he rested his hand against another fallen angel’s wing before pulling it away.
He said something, and Caim looked to him. Caim opened his mouth to respond before closing it, shaking his head, and looking toward the fallen angel again. Raphael reached for Caim before stopping so that his hand hovered between them. Then, he rested his hand on Caim’s shoulder, squeezed it, and walked away.
Caim remained where he was before lowering his hand and turning to survey the dead. Then he followed Raphael across the field and toward the wall. He didn’t look at any of the other fallen angels, but I suspected he was aware of the location of each of them.
This time when I draped my arm around Aisling’s shoulders, she didn’t stiffen but leaned into me as we stood staring at the carnage surrounding us. It had been the longest and worst night of my life, but many of our enemies didn’t survive.
And soon we would hunt down what remained of the rest of them.
Chapter Eleven
Hawk
Kobal knelt to lift the edge of the green cloak draped around the shoulders of what remained of the horseman. “I’m guessing Envy.”
Rising from his crouched position, he strode over to the overweight horseman. Corson, Bale, Lix, Caim, Raphael, River, Vargas, Aisling, and I followed him. Kobal nudged one of the horseman’s thick legs with his boot.
“Gluttony,” he said. Moving on, he stopped beside the one who was so thin his cheekbones stood out against his pale skin. “Famine.”
The horsemen had once numbered eleven but were now down to six as we’d already taken out Greed and Sloth. Contrary to popular belief, there were eleven horsemen and not four, but years ago, humans separated the seven deadly sins and the four horsemen. However, they were all horsemen.
Lifting my head, I gazed at the dwindling fire and the burnt-out remnants of trees rising from the smoke. With little left to feed it, the fire was burning itself out, but a golden glow still burned deep in the woods and smoke coiled into the air.
“We have to track them,” Corson said. “Before they can recuperate and devise another plan of attack.”
