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Bunny lifted her hands at the last second, only just managing to stop the crow from pecking her face.
“Good heavens!” Connie exclaimed, rushing to her daughter’s aid. The Soul Dealer watched on with amusement as the crow continued to round on the women, until a loud crash in the tunnel outside draw his attention.
“What the—”
He peered around the edge of the door just as a snow-white feathered wing slapped him forcibly in the face. With a groan, the Soul Dealer stumbled backward into the cell, clutching his nose. A river of blood gushed down the front of his shirt.
“Not so great to be wing-slapped, huh?”
Bunny was normally against animal cruelty, but this damn crow had attacked her three times too many. She drew back her fist and launched it, watching the bird the way she would a softball from the batting cage. Her knuckles connected with it and the bird screeched, before careening off into a corner of the cell. It hit the wall, and then vanished in a puff of the same kind of shadowy smoke the Soul Dealer had handcuffed her with.
One foe down, she could finally look at the man standing in the doorway.
He was just as tall as the Soul Dealer, but this guy had muscles upon muscles. Two thick bands of what looked like gold leather crisscrossed over his chest, attaching to a brown leather belt holding a huge sword, the belt itself looped through a pair of loose white pants. On anyone else, it would have looked laughable, but there was something about the way this dude’s strawberry-blond hair and tan set the whole ensemble off that didn’t strike Bunny as funny at all. Not. In. The. Slightest.
And then, of course, there was the fact that he had two huge, snow-white wings behind him, incandescent in the pool of light that seemed to have opened up to the Heavens above him.
“Show off.”
The familiar sardonic voice made Bunny’s heart leap into her throat.
Death glared sideways at the angel as he pushed his way through the doorframe. His dark eyes searched the shadows, finding her first and Connie second. And then they found the Soul Dealer.
“You sonofabitch.”
Bunny’s gaze switched from Death to the man he was glaring at. The Soul Dealer’s hands came away from his nose and lifted in a placating gesture that was nullified by the fact his face looked like a serial killer’s crime scene.
“There’s a way we can both benefit in this situation,” he started to say, as shouts and explosions sounded in the tunnel outside.
But Death wasn’t going to let him get another word in edgewise. He rushed across the cell like a bull running toward a red flag, arms snapping up so he could plunge his hands right into the middle of the Soul Dealer’s chest.
Bunny and Connie both gasped, while the angel turned to fight whoever—or whatever—was coming at them from the tunnel.
“Better make this snappy,” he shouted, as the steel of his sword clashed with something that sounded suspiciously like bone.
Death grunted, his face twisted in anger. He jerked himself backward, and as he came away from the Soul Dealer’s body, he pulled a weedy shadow skeleton right out of the man’s chest. It struggled in his grip, to no avail; he held it up above his head with both hands threaded through its ribs.
“Caw!”
The shadow-crow burst forth from the creature’s skull right into Death’s face, forcing him to let go. Both shadows vanished into this air with a sound that reminded Bunny of Pop Rocks candy crackling on her tongue.
“Holy shit,” she breathed, standing up and offering her mom a hand.
“Time to go,” Death said grimly, helping Bunny with her mom. “Nice to see you, Connie.”
“And you,” her mom said, as much fondness in her expression as their pressing situation would allow.
Suddenly, the angel ducked back into the doorway. “We’re clear—for now. But I don’t know how long. Better book it.”
“Don’t need to tell me twice,” Bunny said with reverence, clinging to her mom’s hand as they made for the door.
“Since when?” Death asked, deadpan, bringing up the rear.
“Since you always have a cryptic-as-fuck way of explaining everything,” Bunny shot back over her shoulder, crouching as she followed her mom and the angel through the tunnel. Beyond the wooden plank walls, it sounded like Hell was exploding. She sure as shit didn’t plan on being stuck like a pig in a chute when it did.
She’d known she wouldn’t be able to remember her way back out of the rabbit warren system, and she was right. Her breath was coming in short, ragged bursts, and she was worried they were going the wrong way.
Don’t worry,the angel’s voice sounded in her head. I know the way. Trust in me.
