Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.
My mind had deteriorated past comprehensive sentences and moved right on through to repeated cursing. It was all I had. That or blind panic.
Everywhere I looked, my rag-tag army was falling to Bridget’s superior forces, and she, the bitch herself, was practically sparkling with glee. At some stage she’d started riding an armor-wearing lion and was using her raised position to throw flesh-eating spells in my soldiers’ faces. It was horrific, and I wanted nothing more than to beg her to stop. Stop the pain, stop the killing. These people didn’t deserve to die for Bridget’s ego.
Just when things started looking the most hopeless, when my strength of will started failing and my previously unshakable faith in our victory dissolving, another soul-shattering sound ripped through the salt flats, accompanied by a blinding light that caused everyone to pause and shield their eyes.
When the light faded, I blinked rapidly to clear my vision and looked around. Cole and Vali had landed not far from me and were covering their faces with their huge wings, but despite the lack of active fighting, everyone seemed exactly as they were moments ago.
Everyone—except the Four Horsemen.
They each lay writhing on their backs, knocked from their mounts by glowing beings with radiant, eight-foot-wide wings outstretched behind them. Those same beings now stood over the Horsemen with the tips of their gleaming swords pressed to the junctions between armor plates on the demons’ necks.
“Get fucked,” Caleb breathed, appearing beside me and staring in awe. “Are those…?” He trailed off, his jaw working but no sound was produced.
“Angels?” I murmured back. “Sort of looks like it, doesn’t it?”
“Shit yes,” Wesley said softly, coming up on my other side. “Cal you owe me a hundred bucks for angels being real.”
Tearing my eyes from the seemingly angelic beings, I frowned at the two of them. How had they ended up so close to me when we were all supposed to have been spread out down the battlefield? Now that I knew what to look for, I spotted Austin a scant fifty feet away and the panting form of a huge black hellhound just past him.
Fuckers didn’t trust me to stay alive all on my own.
Bridget seemed to recover moments later, and I watched as she tried to kick her lion into motion. The poor shifter, though, was still staring awestruck at the winged creatures and didn’t move an inch.
Growing visibly frustrated, she formed a ball of mage fire in her palm and made as if to lob it at one of the new arrivals. But even a moron could have guessed that this was not the right time to reignite a fight. These beings had just appeared from nowhere and thrown a bucket of ice water on the entire battle. Not a single person—other than my psychotic mother—made more than the slightest of movements.
“Stop!” A voice like peeling bells echoed through the silent battlefield.
Bridget’s hand froze—I assumed against her will—and the fire extinguished from her palm. Directly in front of her, another flash of blinding light flared, and when it cleared, a fifth winged creature in flowing white robes stood towering over her.
From where we stood, I couldn’t make out the angelic creature’s face, but her hair was cropped short and her delicate arms held out a sword that stood taller than most men. Certain this was not someone I wanted to get on the bad side of, I stayed still and silent. Observing.
“Bridget of the Ban Dia, you are guilty of many crimes against our combined magical races, and it is my supreme pleasure to be tasked with delivering your sentencing.” The creature’s voice was like windchimes when she spoke, but even I could hear an element of smugness in those words.
Looked like Bridget had been poking more than one hornet’s nest recently.
The being raised her voice, projecting it in a way that not a single combatant could have not heard what she said next. “All of you misguided fools who fight for this woman, you are being afforded one chance at redemption. This battle has been lost. Leave now, and your transgressions will be forgotten in the records of the eternal powers.”
Countless supernatural beings from Bridget’s side scrambled to do as had been suggested, loads using portal runes to disappear right there on the spot, while scores more just started running full tilt across the salt. Whatever it took to get the hell away from this failed war they’d been involved in.
“Generous of them,” Wesley whispered under his breath, and I flicked him a quick look, not wanting to take my eyes off the angelic creatures for too long.
“The Horsemen have no place in this realm. What have you bargained in exchange for their help?” the leader of the winged things demanded of Bridget. Her wings were somewhat wider than the other four angels, and the feathers seemed almost like they were edged in gold, making them look both beautiful and deadly at the same time.
I needed to strain my ears to hear Bridget’s response.
“My soul,” she admitted in a strangled sort of gasp.
Oh, you dumb bitch. And to think she called me arrogant…
“Oh dear,” the angel murmured with what sounded a bit like a chuckle. “Well, in that case, I won’t mete out your punishment myself. You have sealed that all on your own.”
“You… you’re not going to kill me?” Bridget babbled, and my eyebrows shot up.
What the actual shitting fuck? They’re surely not letting her go…
“I’m not,” the angel confirmed, then turned slightly to point a slim, elegant finger at me.
Wait. Why is she pointing at me?
“I leave your fate to your blood daughter. Isn’t that fun?” This time there was no mistaking the amusement in the angel’s voice, and it was becoming rapidly clear that maybe they weren’t the impartial holy beings they were always made out to be.
“Me?” I squeaked out.
At the same time, Bridget exclaimed, “Her?”
“Yes, her.” The angel removed her sword from where the tip had been resting against Bridget’s chest and unlooped a glowing cord from around her waist. With a flick of her wrist, the cord snaked around Bridget’s form and tightened, effectively trapping her inside a straightjacket. “Because I think Kit damn well deserves the closure she will get from handing down your sentence.” The angel turned toward me then, revealing her face for the first time, and I sucked in a sharp gasp at her familiar features.
“You, my sister, have the power to end her pathetic existence right here and now—condemning her soul to an eternity of torture. Or you can let her live. It’s your choice.” She raised her eyebrows at me when she suggested letting Bridget live, and gave a pointed look at Ruptura around my neck.
Ah-hah, sneaky, sadistic Lucy. Some things never change.
“That’s quite the choice,” I murmured, pretending to think on my options as I stepped closer and marveled at my best friend’s new—and improved—form. While before she had barely scraped five-foot-two, she now towered over me. Part of that, I was sure, had to do with the enormous wings holding her hovering above the ground.
The hollow darkness inside me that had taken up residence ever since that horrible day—ever since holding Lucy’s lifeless form on the floor of the atrium and knowing that my mother had killed her—was gone. In its place, warmth and light sparked. Hope was sparking.
She was here. Lucy was freaking right in front of me in a physical form… It was all I could do not to throw myself at her and start sobbing like a damn baby.
Then again, I’d probably get snot all over those glossy white wings of hers, and I doubted whether that was really the ‘done thing’ with angels.
“My rope will hold her magic bound until your choice is made,” Lucy advised me, quirking a brow like she could see what was going on in my head. “So, there isn’t a rush.” She paused, looking like she was debating her next words for a moment. Seemingly decided, she let her bare feet touch down on the salt ground in front of me.
“Luce…” I whispered, feeling a lump form in my throat and I needed to swallow past it.
“Hey girl,” she whispered back, keeping our exchange private. “Thank you for everything you did to avenge my death.”
This squeezed a sob out of me. “But you are? Dead?”
“Sort of,” she gave an elegant shrug, and her feathered wings rippled. “Maybe I can come back and explain it all to you sometime, but right now”—she mimed looking at a watch, which she wasn’t wearing— “I have to go. We’ve already broken a few rules, but you know me.” She gave me a mischievous wink, and my heart squeezed painfully inside my chest.
“Will I see you again?” The question came out in a cry, and tears streamed down my face.
The grin Lucy gave me lifted my spirits though. “Now that I have my wings? Just try and freaking stop me, Kit-girl.” She smacked a quick kiss on one of my cheeks, then glanced over at Bridget, who was furiously tugging at her glowing bonds. “Take your time on this one, and keep my cool, glow-y rope thing safe when you’re done? It’ll give me an excuse to come back and see you. Now watch this cool-ass shit.” Extending her wings wide again, she beat them once to lift herself a foot from the ground. “Love you, chick.”
Without waiting on my reply, her wings flapped again, but this time they pushed so much force into the ground that she rocketed into the sky and disappeared with a flash of light.
For a long time, I stood there staring up into the sky at the spot she’d just disappeared from… but there was no further sign of her, and I had an insane Ban Dia with delusions of world dominance to deal with.
“Where did the rest of them go?” I asked, looking around and noticing that the other four angels and the Horsemen were all gone.
“They all took off at the same time,” Wes answered, picking his way over the corpse of a snake creature. “It was scary-well-coordinated, really.”
“The Horsemen, too?” I scanned what was left of our battleground and saw no sign of the demonic creatures and their mounts.
Caleb mimed a puff of smoke and shrugged. Sounded like they’d taken Angel-Lucy’s advice and high-tailed it home as well. Leaving us alone to deal with Bridget.
“What do we do now?” Wes touched a light hand to the small of my back, and I leaned into his comfort. “And was that seriously just Lucy—Lucifer—with wings?”
I barked out a harsh laugh, wiping away the excess tears from my eyes. “Yeah, so it seemed.” I sighed and looked down on my pathetic, bound bio-mom. “Caleb, can you and Aus start portaling our troops out of here? This fight is over. Make sure they’re getting the medical attention they need.”
“Sure thing,” he responded, eyeing up the struggling Bridget. It seemed like the more she thrashed, the tighter her bonds became. “What about her?”
“She’ll keep,” I murmured, reaching down and hauling her to her feet by her blood-crusted hair. “Let’s get this cleaned up first and find out if Lachlan and Vic are still alive.”
Caleb nodded, rubbing at tired-looking eyes. “You got it, Kitty Kat.”
“Now then”—I gave Bridget a toothy grin— “let’s let you stew in fear and anticipation for a little while, shall we?”
Her cheeks blanched, but to her credit, she didn’t break eye contact with me. Maybe I got more than just my looks from her after all.
