Page 112 of Claim the Twilight
A shadow falls over me, and I force my eyes open to look upon the wrath of Loviator.
“How did you escape?” she demands. “Tell me!”
“Fuck you.”
Her boot meets my face, delivering me into the stars. Laughter claws its way up my throat.
“You fool. I would have let you live,” she says. “But now…” Her boot finds my ribs.
It’s over for me. But at least Orina will make it out.
That’s my only consolation.
Chapter 46
ORINA
Damn, I missed my celestial blade. Taking down a cold one took twice the effort without it, but cutting tendons and opening a few major arteries slowed it down long enough for a white wing to intervene with his celestial weapon.
Ordell fought beside me, his body in part shift to allow him the use of his beastly claws. Lorenzo focused on incinerating the huge insectile creatures that had burst up from beneath the earth to swarm us, while Nyx buried her blades in whatever came at her. Sin and Ramiel acted as aerial bodyguards, swooping down to tear critters limb from limb or break a cold one’s neck before rising out of reach.
Between us, we culled Loviator’s army, but more kept coming, spawning as if from the ether.
How much longer? Where was the echo?
I managed to take a breath and look past the horde to the black cloud that was Loviator. Closer now, but stationary? Why had it stopped?
“Orina!” Ordell snagged me around the waist and out of the path of a cold one’s jaws, and a white wing’s blade cleaved its head off a moment later.
“Focus,” Ordell growled in my ear.
“What the fuck!” Nyx cried out.
My head whipped toward her to find her in the grip of a huge black blob.
The kind that had tried to kill Ezekiel on Raffleton Street.
Sin and Ramiel swooped down to attack, but black appendages shot out from it and latched on to them, holding them at bay as it advanced on Nyx.
She twisted on the spot, attempting to slice at the inky rope wrapped around her waist. She jerked as it yanked her toward it, a crimson hole opening, ready to swallow her.
“NO!” I dashed into a blur, coming to stand beside her, heat sweeping down my arm as I brought my sword up. The metal blazed with blue flame, slicing into the viscous body of the beast.
It shrieked, high-pitched and horrifying, releasing Nyx and the fallen.
I swiped at it, flames turning orange then purple. “Get back!”
The creature obeyed, shrinking as it retreated.
I raised my sword, ready to stab it, when a gray mist appeared between us, coalescing into a figure.
The echo from my dream.
“Don’t!” She held up her hands. “It doesn’t want to hurt you. It’s in pain.” She turned to the blob, muttering soothing words, and the mass grew smaller and smaller until it was the size of a large dog. “Sleep now.”
The blob vanished.
“What did you do?”
