C

an’t say Amaya didn’t suspect this would happen. It was just a matter of time, but damn! Demon traps to take down the UnHallowed, then Spaun and Darklings to clean up those who escaped the traps, like their former boss.

She had to get the UnHallowed out of here.

She dove for the house and was blocked by two winged creatures in her path. Two throwing stars slowed them down enough for her empyreal blade to form in her palm. Swipe left. She let the momentum spin her, carry her behind the span, and swiped again. Both died without their heads.

Amaya veered right, back toward the house. Five winged Spaun headed her way. She flew into the midst of them, her sword in one hand, her dagger in the other. She thrust her sword into the pasty neck of the nearest and pitched his body into the two behind him. Ducking got her out of the way of a set of two-inch claws. She came up behind and speared the Spaun between the shoulder blades. Then tossed her dagger into the eye of the next one. The Spaun yanked the dagger free while his friend disintegrated on the edge of her sword. Two throwing stars to the abdomen slowed it down and a sword to the neck ended it. The last one charged her.

Amaya didn’t run. She flew toward him and brought her sword up across its abdomen. He fell away in two separate pieces. Nothing remained when the parts landed. But more were coming, a never ending stream of them. Now, they surrounded the house. At least they weren’t pouring inside. In fact, they turned away from the mansion as if facing a new threat.

Three hundred yards away, shadows gathered to form a black hole in the midst of the demons. What now! flashed across her brain a second before the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen flew out of the hole—The Archangel of Death. Flames danced on top of a black skull, orange wings that seemed as tall as goal posts flared on the back of his leather jacket and covered his body. His sword—a monstrous double-sided weapon with a skull imbedded around the pommel, glinted in the trickle of moonlight illuminating the field. One swipe cleaved five Spaun into pieces. They fell like shattered dominoes on a cardboard field and vanished between blinks. Next, Sam extended his hand and incinerated fifteen Darklings. Nothing was left of the ethereal wisps. Not even ash, but especially, no bodies. This time, the Darklings weren’t inhabiting humans.

Sam landed in the middle of enemy forces. He fought as she imagined the Archangel of Death would, without mercy. Everything that came at him died, evaporated out of existence.

Claws dug into her side. She pin wheeled, spinning in the air, trying to dislodge the beast attached to her.

“Don’t kill her,” someone screamed, and she was free, falling, yet free.

Her wings opened, stopping her freefall close enough to the ground to lob off the heads of a few Spaun. She swung around to flank Sam. “The UnHallowed are trapped in the house. We have to free them.”

“Leave!” His voice a guttural commanded that bruised her ears, in a tone that expected complete obedience.

She stopped herself from covering her ears, which ached slightly less than her eyes from meeting the twin flames blazing in Sam’s eye sockets. “I’m not leaving you to fight alone. I’m not leaving any of you!” Especially not Bane. She refused to leave him trapped in that house. She fought off another Spaun, but more kept coming. A lot more. They pulled away from Sam and headed toward her. Everything walking or flying made a beeline her way.

“They want you! You have to go. Now!” Sam shouted as he took to the air, killing everything between him and her.

“No,” she snarled, and followed him back into the air, taking the fight to the army. She fought harder, but they kept coming.

“I will draw them to me. Give you a chance to escape.” A rotation of his shoulders and his wings eviscerated an unnamed demon thing.

Gergos. The lizard-like demons with the ability to fly, but their poisonous skin is what makes them deadly. The knowledge popped into her head.

She gripped her sword. “We can take them.” Nothing she’d seen led her to believe anything different. Sam was invincible.

“I’m not at full strength. It’s a matter of time—”

An arrow slammed into his shoulder, spinning him to the right. His sword slipped from his hand as he cartwheeled in mid-air. She backtracked the arrow to a spot inside the tree line one hundred yards away, in time to see a Spaun dip the arrow tips into a vat of luminous liquid. The essence clung to the arrow tip as it was notched and released.

Grace! Where had they gotten such an amount? Amaya darted in front of Sam. He was the best chance the UnHallowed had, not her.

He knocked her away and took two arrows—center mass. She screamed, even though he didn’t. His flames extinguished and his black skull receded behind his human façade as he went into a free fall.

A handful of Spaun swooped in. In a spiral of wings and bodies, the Archangel of Death continued to fight even as he went down, taking Darklings and Spaun with him. Acceptance mixed with agony blazing from his darkening sockets, that’s what would stay with her until her dying day.

He landed with an earth-shaking thud. Hundreds of demons piled on top of him, until none of Sam remained to be seen. Her scream died, along with her belief that she was invincible. That victory was hers for the taking. That, in all things, she would prevail.

Amaya had a choice: stay and fight to the quick, bloody end, or leave and regroup. Get Michael. Get somebody, something, anything, and come back and kill everything that stood in her path. She wanted the former.

Instead, Amaya formed a dimensional pocket. Her last sight was of Darklings streaming into the mansion, dragging an unconscious Sammiél behind them.