A Scale of Sapphire

Aoife

It took less than five minutes to reach sunrise. I would’ve compressed time to go faster, but I wasn’t sure whether Cass would survive that. From the air above the village, I could see the pandemonium below. Some folks were running, a few pursued an elusive ratfolk, but most were just milling about, confused.

A few of them, however, were fighting. There were about a dozen of them, and they’d engaged the angels with a spray of bullets. They were losing, but they were fighting, and very soon, they’d have help. They just had to hold on while Cass and I started nabbing swords, then they could really fight back.

Speaking of angels and their swords, three of them were heading towards us right now. Two were familiar. They were cherubim, the same kind Cass and I had fought in Cyrus’ lair. The third was different. It was rings and wheels and flames and eyes. I knew this kind existed, Matt and Chelsea had told us about them, but none of us really knew what they could do. We had to play this carefully.

The two cherubim blinked out of existence, and I dropped into a steep dive, anticipating their attack. An instant later, they flashed back into being above us, both missing their initial swings, but sandwiching us between them and the eye thing in the process. That’s when the eye thing made its move, flaring brightly before firing off its beam attack.

Why the hell does it have a beam attack?

I flared my wings aggressively, swooping upwards and twisting into a roll, narrowly dodging the blast. This sudden maneuver had two consequences. First, it put me in reach of the other angels once again, and I took a shallow cut to the flank as a result. Second, it meant that for a few brief moments, I was completely upside down. “Fight, Aoife!” Was all Cass could say before she fell.

We’d planned for this. I knew that. I knew I had to trust her, but it was hard to let her fall. Even still, I managed to grit my teeth, pump my wings hard, and start building altitude. Without needing to worry about Cass, I put time in a choke hold. I couldn’t do this for long, I needed to save my strength for Cyrus, but a couple seconds of frozen time was enough for me to clamp my jaws on the angel who’d struck me, carrying it up with me.

By the time I released my grip, both on the angel and on time itself, its wings could no longer support its weight and it fell. Now positioned once again above the angels, I shrieked as I let my icy breath loose on them. They evaded easily, but I wasn’t trying to hit them. I just needed their eyes on me as Cass, now a half a foot shorter and sporting butterfly wings of her own rushed in from below.

Willow was small. Her blood could only make so many potions without hurting her, but this was absolutely worth it. We couldn’t know for sure how long it’d last, but at least right now, it let us catch these two by surprise. Before the remaining cherub even knew she was there, Cass had rammed her golden blade into its back, and it fell like the other.

Now there was just one left. The hovering mass was keeping its distance, and the golden flame around it was growing brighter by the minute. Even from a distance, I could feel the heat radiating off of it. I was fairly confident my ice magic could overwhelm it, but it would take time, and in that time other angels could approach. I needed to kill it fast without getting too scorched in the process, but I couldn’t figure out-

Bang!

Right, Cass still had her gun. If there was ever a time to use it, it was now.

Bang! Bang!

Three shots was all it took, the metal rounds lasting just long enough to pierce its gelatinous form. It dropped from the sky, and once again, Cass and I could breathe.

“Nice work, Aoife! Only god knows how many more to go!” Cass had zipped up to my level and was coasting alongside me, looking no worse for wear. She carefully loaded three more rounds into her revolver before she turned and nodded at me. “Let’s give those folks on the ground some support! As soon as the others arrive, we can start hauling swords over to ‘em.”

She was right. That was the plan, but honestly, I was starting to feel a little unsure. There was fighting in the streets, at least a dozen more angels in the air, and yet somehow Cyrus had yet to appear. He was planning something. He had to be. This was his lair, his home turf. He must’ve planned for any potential attacks. The fact that he hadn’t showed up could only mean he was doing something more important elsewhere, and I dreaded to think of what that might be.

Either way, there wasn’t much we could do. The battle had begun. We couldn’t back out now. I just had to hope that whatever he was planning was something we could handle. With a twist, I stooped into a dive, descending on the nearest angel like a massive bird of prey.