Page 47 of Fated Angel

Colt mutters a spell, cloaking her from all eyes above and below, and then turns back towards the enemy. He spins his hellfire swords in his hands with a flourish and crosses them before him. His lips spread into a dark grin.

“Kill them!” he roars to his companions, and the fight begins with a clang of metal.

Colt leaps towards the leader of the group, but he’s ready. The man’s face contorts in some sick kind of glee as their swords cross and sparks fly between them. “Was she important to you, demon?” he hisses.

“They’re all important to me, you bastard.” Colt pushes forward with all his might, his wings boosting the motion. Man and demon fly across the open yard of the academy and bash into a brick wall behind them. Dust flies, broken bits of brick exploding into the air at impact.

“Too bad,” the man coughs. “They’re all going to die today!”

Colt grinds his teeth and pulls his right hand back, his infernal sword shortening to a dagger. “The only ones dying today are your forces!”

The man cackles with demented laughter, but the sound is choked off as Colt’s dagger pushes through the gap between ribs and plunges into his heart. The laughter becomes a gurgle, and the enemy’s eyes bulge.

“This can’t be… The Grigori promised immortality!” he says, spitting blood.

“The Grigori lied, you fool,” Colt growls, yanking the dagger out of his chest and watching the man’s body fall to the ground, dead.

Colt turns to face his forces just in time to see Gabriel’s angels flying in from above. For a moment, Gabriel and Colt’s eyes meet and there’s a grim understanding between them. They will never get along, but for today, angels and demons fight on the same side.

“Lydia? Lydia!”

Colt’s attention is jerked back toward the fight as Kenna’s voice splits the air. The ground is littered with bodies, mostly cultists, but a few of their own. Colt’s eyes scan the battlefield, looking for Kenna, and see her running forward with another small contingent of Order members. She falls to her knees in the blood-soaked mud and pulls Lydia from the arms of a woman Colt hadn’t realized had joined the fight.

“What have you done?” Kenna whispers as Colt walks up to them. She wipes Lydia’s hair from her blood-stained face as tears drip from Lydia’s eyes.

“There was only one choice to be made,” Lydia whispers, her pale hand shaking as it covers Kenna’s.

“But the cost?” Kenna whimpers.

“Worth it,” Lydia gasps and her vibrant eyes slowly go dull.

“No, no! Lydia!” Kenna gasps.

Colt sinks to a knee next to Kenna and lowers his wings around both women. “She knew the cost, her sacrifice is one of great honor.”

“We could have found another way…” Kenna grinds out, her body vibrating with fury. “There would have been another way!”

“Lydia is a hero, Kenna. Without her, we’d never?—”

“I know!” Kenna snaps, but as she turns to look Colt in the eyes there’s no hatred in her own. “I know…”

A horn sounds somewhere deep in the academy grounds and Colt and Kenna look towards the sound.

“The second wave is coming!” someone cries.

Colt rises to his feet as people come to claim Lydia’s body. He helps Kenna to her feet and puts a supportive arm over her shoulder. “Let's give them Hell!” Colt snarls.

“For Lydia, for all innocents that have fallen and will fall if the Grigori succeed,” Kenna agrees.

“Let's go save the world,” Colt whispers, and lunges back into battle as wave after wave of armed men run out of every door and window in the academy like an oozing miasma of death.

The battlefield grows with dead and dying as spells and hellfire are cast over the earth. From above, the angels strike with heavenly swords and pikes, each with celestial fire glimmering on the blades. The battle seems to be in their favor, the cultists dropping like flies, when Colt hears an ominous whoosh.

Almost too late, Colt looks up and propels himself backward as a large boulder plummets from the roof of the academy. With a curse, he shields his eyes from debris and the plume of dirt that comes with it.

“Another! Here comes another!” someone screams.

Colt looks up as stone after stone is rolled off the roof of the academy and his forces are crushed into the dirt. There isn’t enough time to sound a retreat, the boulders just keep coming.

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