Page 41 of Angel's Vengeance

There was no time to interpret anything about her situation other than to make sure her lungs were still pumping in the good stuff, which was quickly dwindling in supply.

Before she could even sit up, a heavy cloth was draped over her and Rhode’s arms were beneath her knees and upper back, lifting her lax limbs from the precarious position they’d yet to rise from.Her world became impossibly darker and ten times more confusing as her body fought for air.

“Where ...What ...I can’t?—”

Labored breaths and deep grunts were the only answers to the questions she struggled to force out.The smoke was thick but not so engulfing that it had a perpetual source.Though Neela couldn’t see much beyond the small fragments of light peeking through the bottom of whatever Rhode had draped her in—the curtain from the photo booth, she realized—she knew enough of the arcade’s layout to know they were going in the opposite direction of the main entrance.

Seconds later, Rhode shifted her weight and barreled through a separate door.When asphalt finally kissed her knees, she whipped the curtain off her head and sank back against the side of the building.A lone smoking canister was rolling around on the ground outside of where they’d originally entered, sputtering its last clouds of black-to-gray-to-finally-fading-to-white smoke like a windup toy on its concluding rotation.

“A smoke bomb.Not fire,” she coughed out.Her mental gears clicked into place before she even had time to explain.She’d watched enough myth testing to know exactly how long a smoke bomb lasted and why it was used.

It was the decoy before detainment and lasted two minutes max.

Rhode was already on his feet, blue flames bursting brighter and higher along every inch of him.Startlingly white metal swirled behind eyes she almost failed to recognize.His power was stronger, hotter, and infinitely more menacing than what she’d seen of it before.

The flames licked around his body like silent sentinels shifting into attack formation.Except no flames were firing back at them, which meant?—

“It’s not magic,” she cried.“It’s just a smoke grenade.Nothing’s burning!”

“Not yet.”

The growled warning was all she heard before a line of angel fire punched out from his taut arms and slingshotted off his fists toward two bodies draped in black tactical gear who had leaped out of a stowed ride vehicle.

She hadn’t even noticed them.Shit, where had they come from?

Then the blood in her veins froze as she took in their appearances.Black skull caps protected pale bald heads.Facial tattoos that, from that distance, could easily be mistaken for eye black.But the gold irises flashing high and hard in her direction?Those gazes were as familiar as her own.

Charmers.

Whatwasn’tfamiliar, though, was what the men carried.Mortal artillery weapons.Not magical ones.

Charcoal-gray clouds drifted overhead, smudging the darkening sky and casting final swathes of shadows over the concrete walkways and alabaster signage.

The sun had just about gone down enough for the demons to risk an appearance in the last wisps of daylight.Neela mentally tried to tabulate just how much time she and Rhode had lost by indulging in fanciful fun and racing hearts in the arcade.Too much.The demons had found them.

Foundher, judging by their choice of weapons.

“Rhode!”

Her cries were lost to screams as one charmer took Rhode’s flames right in his shoulder, while the second one threw himself behind a metal garbage can, leveraged a gun she’d never seen before over the lid, and fired.

Neela was barely to her feet when Rhode shifted his stance and reared back so his chin was facing the sky.In the most amazing deadly dance, the flames coating his massive chest rose even higher and snatched the fired red and white circular pellet out of the air, incinerating it instantly like the world’s most efficient bug zapper.

The resulting cloud singed her nose for a brief moment but didn’t affect Rhode in the slightest as his fire protected him from the residue.

When the tickling in her nose finally subsided, she realized why Rhode wasn’t affected by whatever they’d fired at him.The bullet didn’t contain dark magic.It was a nonlethal projectile filled with pepper spray and meant entirely for her.

Shit, she needed a weapon.Something.Anything.They were in literal demon territory, throwing a dance party on Cyro’s roof, and it was only a matter of time before backup was called in the form of corrosion bombs, acid attacks, and chemical warfare specifically designed to destroy the angels in their metallic forms.

Rhode had blades, but they were back in the arcade with their coats.Should she risk running back in?The charmers obviously weren’t prepared for him, only her.

“Hide,” Rhode barked.“I have them.”

“The hell you do!They’re not after you.They’re after me!”

“They’re not after anything except their own ends.Now, run!”

“They can’t kill me, remember?”

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