Fallen Academy: Year Four (Fallen Academy #4)(53)

Raphael flipped over and pumped his wings so he was facing us, suspended in mid-air. “Let’s ride on the roof of the buses until visibility clears. We could be flying into a trap or going the wrong way.”

At his words, the hair on my arms stood up on end. He was right—this was war, and we could totally be flying into a trap. The second we’d entered, one of the demons could have seen us and flown ahead to bring word to Lucifer.

Lowering ourselves, we landed on one of the armored vehicles. Standing on a moving bus, and not falling over, was harder than you’d think—even with wings. The top hatch popped open after a few moments, and Noah peeked his head out, probably to make sure it was us and not some flying demons.

“Oh, good. I was—” His words were cut off when the bus slammed on its breaks and his head disappeared as he was thrown into the bus. All of us who were topside lurched forward, but quickly pumped our wings, taking to the sky to keep from becoming roadkill.

Looking out onto the road to see why we’d stopped, my jaw popped open at the sight of hundreds of skeleton horses with glowing green eyes.

New demons.

Oh, Lucy, you’ve been busy.

Atop some of the skelehorses were Castor demons. I’d barely had time to register that this was a full-scale army, when an energy burst slammed into me from the side, knocking me to the ground, and spraying sand all over my face. Turning my head to follow the direction of the attack, I saw a grinning Castor demon not ten feet from me, building another wave-like energy burst in his hands.

Effortlessly, I pulled my shield over myself and jumped to my feet, extending it to Lincoln who stood beside me, sword drawn. He’d flown down to the ground the second I’d been thrown off the bus.

“How far back is our army?” I shouted, trying to crane my head to look behind us.

“We’ll have to hold them off until they get here,” Lincoln answered through gritted teeth.

I realized he didn’t know any more than I did. Walking on foot was much slower than riding or flying, but they couldn’t be too far behind. I hoped.

The busses’ doors opened, and Fallen Army soldiers poured out onto the cracked red earth, to fight by our side. Yet, our small numbers were nothing against this fleet of horses.

“Anyone know what special powers the horses have?” I asked nervously.

Michael and the other archangels were watching the advancing evil soldiers warily. It looked like we were about to discover these demon’s new power together.

“What’s it doing?” Lincoln pointed, while staring wide-eyed at the nearest skelly.

Its eyes were really glowing green, like way more than before.

“I don’t know, but I’m going to kill it,” Michael declared, taking one step in the direction of the bug-eyed skeleton horse. One second Michael was standing there, and the next, the skelly’s eyes had… exploded. A hot lava-like substance shot from its eyes and tried to spray all over Michael, but he blasted into the air to avoid it. We all stumbled backward as I tightened the shield protecting Lincoln and myself. The lava shot across the front of the bus, and the metal and rubber tires melted right before my eyes, in a stinking mass of molten iron.

Oh shit. This was the stuff of nightmares.

We were way out of our league here. The Dark Lord had known we were coming, and he’d built a freaking lava-spewing army to protect him.

‘Oh, hell no. These anorexic horses aren’t going to stop us.’ Sera pulsed at my hip.

I’d forgotten she was there. Hell, I’d forgotten what it was like to fight with her, so used to doing it by myself ever since she was taken.

Pulling her out, I thinned my shield in one spot at the front.

‘Watch this,’ she boasted. A thin laser beam of light shot from the tip of Sera’s blade, and cut into the horse nearest us. Where her beam of light hit, the horse lost a limb—technically a bone stump, since it didn’t have flesh.

“Yes!” Michael roared and advanced forward, cutting the horse’s head right off in one swift move. The green glow that had once lit up its eyes was no more.

‘I was just getting started. Watch this.’

A thicker beam of light shot from my dagger, and I cut my arm across the advancing horses in an arc. Over a dozen of them were sawed in half at once.

‘Oh my God!’ She’d been holding out on me. ‘Do that when we see Lucy,’ I told her.

‘Oh, I’ll do that and more,’ she promised.

As a group, we advanced on the skelehorse army, and took them down one by one. Sera was able to take out the first few in the front lines and make a path for Michael to get to the ones farther back. I dropped my shield so that Sera could shoot her laser of light at will.

Lincoln was tied up with a Castor demon, while I was advancing deeper into the line of psycho-lava-eye-beam-horses. Sera was just preparing for another burst of light when someone grabbed me by the hair, and yanked hard, until I was flush against their chest.

“The Dark Prince has been waiting for you,” A silky rich voice cooed in my ear.

In one swift move, Sera was knocked from my hand, and then I was being pulled upward into the sky by my neck. I couldn’t breathe, and all rationale went out of my head when I realized I was being dragged across Hell by an Abrus demon. He had my wings pinned with his legs, hooking his ankles around my middle, but my throat was taking the brunt of his force.