“I know pain. We’re friends, pain and I.” The teenager fed more and more blue light into my arms. “It will pass. Just beyond the place where you think you can’t take any more, there is a numbness. You’ll get there, and the pain will be manageable,” she told me sagely.

A whimper caught in my throat as my hands started to involuntarily lower with fatigue.

Emberly’s hands latched onto mine with a viselike grip. “Brielle.” Her voice was low and controlled. “I don’t want to scare you, but there are over a hundred demons on this campus, and they are all headed this way. If you drop the shield, we’re all dead. I can’t fly in this pain, and I can’t fight off that many. You are our only hope.”

Oh God. She had some kind of telepathic ability or something.

Over a hundred?

Mrs. Greely, the injured….

“They got away,” Emberly informed me, but I knew she might lie to keep me sane right now.

Wait. She could read my mind this entire time and didn’t tell me?

“It’s not polite,” she explained.

I was about to retort when, beyond the translucent wall I’d built, I saw blobs of people walking slowly our way. As they neared and their figures became clearer, my stomach dropped.

“What. The hell. Is that?” I gasped.

It was… a pack of three-headed Hellhounds.

Emberly sighed. “New demons. Lucifer is really cranking them out.”

Without a word, one of the Hellhounds slammed into the wall, and it shook. The other demons, encouraged now, began to batter the wall in unison, and my shield flickered. Burning pain laced up my arms and my knee started to wobble, causing me to fall to the side.

Keeping my hands up, I cried out as I slumped down to sit on my heels. A gap formed on the side of my shield, and a Monkshood demon slipped right through before I could close it again.

Emberly jerked in the direction of the Monkshood demon, who was beelining for my students.

“Don’t make eye contact! He can control your mind,” I shouted behind me, trying my best to hold this damn shield. I wanted to give up—my arms were on fire, and my energy was depleted—but I found that space Emberly spoke of, just beyond the pain. It was a numbness, like she’d said, and it spread through my limbs, momentarily giving me a small measure of relief.

There were sounds of fighting behind me, but it was the blue glow that had just walked through the door that had me transfixed.

“Brielle!” Lincoln wailed. Each and every demon ceased its battering on the wall, and spun to look at the small army that had just arrived. It was hard to tell from so far away, but it looked like Michael was with them.

“Emberly!” the Archangel cried out, confirming my assumption as blue shards shot from his weapon, goring some of the demons in attendance.

Thank God, backup had arrived.

“I’m here!” she grunted, followed by the sound of knife hitting flesh. Peering back, I saw that the Monkshood demon was dead.

“Brielle, don’t drop your shield!” Lincoln rumbled, as clangs and growls rang throughout the space.

Easier said than done, husband!

“Die, you demon douchebags!” Shea’s Demon City accent roared from somewhere in the room, bringing a slight smile to my face.

She’s okay.

I couldn’t see much unless someone was really close to the shield or had glowing magic, but I could pick out voices when they yelled around me.

“Whoa, this shield is weird.” Chloe’s voice joined the group.

“Super weird Brielle magic,” Luke agreed, and it brought tears to my eyes to know that when I’d reached out, all of my friends had come back for me.

I was loved. I never wanted to forget that.

“I can’t hold it much longer!” I shouted when my arms shook yet again.

Dizziness threatened to overtake me. I was tired as hell, in pain, anxious, and damn near passing out. How much time had passed already? It felt like hours.

“You have to!” Lincoln shouted, and I peered through the shield to see a streak of dark hair had just entered the room.

“Scarlet?” Catia shouted.

“I’m okay!” Scarlet called out from behind our little pocket of safety.

My arms were quaking like they were holding a jackhammer, and the shield started to flicker.

“Chloe, look out!” Shea cried.

Luke let out a blood-curdling scream. The kind of scream you give when a beloved friend sustains a mortal wound. Under that type of stress, I could no longer hold the shield. The protection crashed to the floor like liquid jelly, leaving a physical mess behind and unveiling the full extent of the war before me.

My eyes scanned the room, horrified to see so much blood, but they only grazed the fight, stopping on Chloe’s limp form.

“No!” I cried, picking up my sword only to have it fall from my fatigued fingers. I was useless. Instead, I burst from the ground and let my wings carry me across the room to where Luke was holding Chloe’s lifeless body, wailing in misery as he rocked back and forth.

Her gut had been ripped half open; there was so much blood, I couldn’t even process what I was seeing. Yet, the blank way her eyes fixated on the corner of the room told me she was dead. I’d seen enough death in my life to know when a soul had left a body.

“Noah!” I roared, calling over the healing Celestial as he battled with a Yew demon. He killed the demon quickly, running to my side where I was already calling up my healing magic. An orange buttery glow left my fatigued hands and coated Chloe’s open guts, only to pass right through her and disappear.

Luke looked up at me in horror. “What does that mean?”

I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to guess. Noah was beside me now, working his own healing magic, brighter and stronger than mine. All around us, demons fought Catia, Shea, Michael and Lincoln to the death. A quick glance at the back of the room showed Emberly was protecting my students.

I’d messed up. I’d dropped the shield.

Noah’s light surrounded Chloe like a cocoon before dissolving. His hands shook as he set them on his thighs.

“Noah, why are you stopping?” I shook him. “Heal her!”

Noah turned to me with tears lining his eyes. “Bri, I can heal some pretty horrific injuries, but I can’t bring back the dead.”

No.

Luke’s wails twisted the knife in my heart even further.

“Raph?” I asked hopefully. Where the hell was the Archangel of Healing? If anyone could reverse this, he could. Right?

Noah shook his head. “Even he isn’t capable of that.”

“I can’t bring back the dead…” His words formed a crazy idea in my head.

“Luke, can you run with her?” I asked.

The bear shifter swallowed his sob and nodded. “Why?”

“I know someone who can bring back the dead.”

Nine

We burst from the gymnasium, Noah, Shea, and Luke with Chloe in his arms behind me. Noah had wrapped a hoodie around her abdomen to secure her wound.

“Brielle, this is insane!” Noah shouted, following us out into the moon lit night. There were still a few demons on campus, the sirens blaring, but I also made out the shadowy figures of Fallen Army soldiers fighting them. We’d been totally ambushed, but it looked like things were getting under control now.