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ELIO
How much bigger of a clusterfuck could this war turn into?
First, Devyn is miraculously back from Earth, though I have no idea how. Then, this giant ugly assbag crawls up from the bowels of God-knows-where, tilting the odds in favor of the Malevs.
Only one thing is certain: none of us saw any of this coming.
Rafe must be fuming down there. He likes things to go according to plan, and this definitely wasn’t part of the plan.
“Ew, he’s even uglier up close,” Azarius yells over the wind as we soar around the big ass demon.
His hide looks like it was carved out of a mountainside, and I can’t imagine what kind of weaknesses he could possibly have. Maybe we can gouge out those terrifying red eyes.
“You can say that again,” I say, flapping my wings and taking us higher until we’re gliding just out of the Malev’s reach. In addition to his gnarly skin and creepy eyes, he has five-foot long horns spiraling toward the clouds and a spiked tail that drags on the ground behind him.
“He’s even uglier up cl–”
“Shut the fuck up.” I roll my eyes. Leave it to Azarius to joke around at such a tense, serious moment. “Get ready to drop.”
Azarius and I have fought together on several occasions, but never like this. Never against a giant demon. Never with the odds stacked so high against us.
Fear pools in my gut, but I fight the sensation.
We’ll figure a way out of this. The realm is counting on us.Devyn is counting on us.
“Ready,” I say, swinging us closer to the demon. He’s too preoccupied by what’s happening on the ground to pay us any mind, but that doesn’t mean we can let down our guard.
Az nods, his claws extending into six-inch blades, and he tenses in my grip. He might have a light-hearted disposition, but the fucker is deadly when he wants to be. A lethal assassin in a comedian’s body.
I cut sharp to the left, diving closer to the demon’s head, and I toss Azarius into the air. He plummets like a stone in water, diving for the Malev’s horns, and he barely misses being speared by one.
I exhale with relief.
Thankfully, the distraction works and gets the demon’s attention away from the monsters on the ground. However, it swipes a broad hand through the air to knock Azarius off his head, and nearly slices into Az’s thigh.
The giant is slow, its movements lumbering, and that leaves his middle open just long enough for me to dive with my claws out.
AZARIUS
A sword-length claw slices across my arm as the demon strikes at me a second time, and I cry out, leaping for the Malev’s other horn. Blood drips down my arm from the wound, pain rocketing through the limb, but I try to hold it together. Falling to my death is not the way I’d prefer to go out.
Gripping the thing’s horn with one arm, I kneel and experimentally punch it in the forehead. As expected, the skin is hard as rock, and my hit doesn’t faze him at all. He swings for me again, but this time I’m ready, and I avoid getting pummeled.
I stab it in the temple with my claws, but they hardly penetrate through the skin.
Fuck.
How can we beat something impenetrable? How do we injure it? How do we kill it?
The only thing I can possibly injure on this thing are its eyes, and I’m not too thrilled with the idea of climbing down its face. That’s pretty much asking to be thrown to the ground.
But there’s nothing else I can do from where I’m at, and the minutes are ticking by. We need to take this beast down one way or another.
Using the demon’s rough skin as handholds, I climb down the side of its head, intent on reaching its menacing red eyes. If I can blind it, we stand a chance. Maybe.
Hopefully.
I position myself, ready to leap for the thing’s giant, twisted nose, but the demon jerks abruptly, swinging its head from side to side. One of my hands slips, and I curse, trying to regain my handhold.
