Standing near the front of the building, I waited with Bale for Pride and Death to arrive. They wouldn’t come with the first wave of fighters; that wasn’t the way they worked. The wayIhad worked with them. No, they would send in those they believed far more disposable first, which was most of their army.
If those demons were slaughtered, they might retreat, which was something I couldn’t allow to happen. This had to end today. I would not spend the next day, week, month, or year not knowing where they were or when they would next appear.
I’d never expected to find myself standing on this side of things, and I’d still very much like to kill the varcolac, but I wouldn’t walk away from Bale, and my decision to kill War had placed a bull’s-eye on my back. I couldn’t allow my fellow horsemen to live, because they would not let Bale or me live. And I would do anything to keep her safe.
I flexed my hands as my gaze traveled over the demons gathered around us. The illusions made it look as if our numbers were in the hundreds, but not including the hounds, there were only two dozen of us.
We’d all separated to stand in the middle of the illusions. We were small traps scattered throughout to ensnare our enemies. The hounds had done a good job of tearing up the snow, so it was impossible to tell the fresh prints from the old ones.
They outnumbered us, but we had the golden angel. Pride and Death knew this, so they were either hoping their numbers could overtake ours before Raphael could do much damage, or they had a plan for him. I couldn’t fathom what that plan might be, but my fellow horsemen weren’t stupid.
Caim soared back into view and dove from the sky in his raven form. When he landed in front of Fiora, he transformed back into a man and shook the snow from his wings.
The wind howled through the trees, but most of the ones around us were only fifteen or twenty feet tall, with much smaller trunks. Some were only a couple of feet tall, and a few were tiny ones fighting to survive. Once the enemy made it to this patch of smaller trees, we would be able to see them better, and they wouldn’t be able to hide from us.
I lifted my sword from where I’d planted it in the snow. The weapon had come from Lix; the skellein hadn’t looked thrilled about handing it over to me, but he eventually released the blade, took a sip from his flask, and turned away from me.
I figured his release of the blade was a small concession to him liking me, so I grinned and promised not to kill him with it. This promise amused him a lot less than it did me.
“They're only fifty yards away,” Caim said. “They have some interesting demons with them.”
“Then those are the ones I’ll take out first,” Raphael said.
The golden angel planted his feet in the snow that nearly reached his knees. When sparks of life emerged at the tips of his fingers, an uneasy feeling churned in my gut. I was standing behind him now, but I knew what he could unleash with his power, and I didn’t want it “accidentally” directed at me.
However, though he had less loyalty to all those around me than the other demons gathered here, he wouldn’t purposely hurt Bale either. Still, I didn’t like being so close to this heavenly power.
Death and Pride knew what he could do with it, yet they were still coming. It made no sense to me. We were sneakier than this. We manipulated others into doing our bidding, but we weren’t at full power yet, and they wouldn’t be strong enough to affect everyone here. And I suspected none of us were strong enough to have any kind of effect on Raphael.
An uneasy feeling crept down my spine. “Caim, what’s behind the hotel?”
Caim looked to me and frowned. “Nothing but more trees.”
“Are you sure there’s not more craetons coming at us from behind?”
“I surveyed the land a few minutes ago; there’s no one there.”
“Survey it again.”
Caim stared at the brick building separating us from the trees behind us. His gaze flicked to me before going to Fiora.
“Iknowthem,” I said. “They wouldn’t come at us like this unless they had something else planned. We haven’t lived this long because we’re reckless.”
Without a word, Caim rose into the air and transformed into a raven before flying out of view.
“What do you think is going on?” Hawk demanded from where he stood fifty feet away with Aisling.
“I don’t know.” But I didn’t tear my attention away from where Caim vanished. “But they know Raphael is here. After what we witnessed at the wall, there is no way Death and Pride would march straight at him. We don’t have any drakón,and your queen isn’t here, but Raphael is still enough of a deterrent for them to come up with another plan.”
“They can’t hide an army,” Magnus said. “I am the last and most powerful illusion demon alive, and it would drain me to attempt it.”
“I didn’t say they hid an army. They could have something else.”
“But what?” Bale asked.
“We don’t know what was at the other end of that tunnel in Eldorata. We don’t know everything frozen in the world Mytaz created.”
Lifting her chin, she set her jaw. “I don’t care what they throw at us; we’re going to destroy them all.”
