AN:// HAPPY HALLOWEEN BABIES! This book is almost done and I WON'T LIE, I'm super excited for it - not only because it allows me to start working on the sequel, but because it allows me to start focusing on a  different (but familiar) series instead!!!! EXCITING! 

Chapter 27

The sky only became darker.

The shadows grew legs that walked themselves across the grass, crushing the life beneath their feet. She waited for the sun to reappear, to drag them back to the pits in which they'd risen from but there was no such luck.

They only seemed to double.

Bonnie grabbed the candle that was smoking underneath her, throwing it into the damp grass. Her gaze flicked from the smolders to the shadows, but nothing was working.

Shouldn't they have retreated now? Wasn't the portal closed?

Panicked, she looked over to Kimaris whose skin had paled. Without wasting a moment he charged forward, his hand reaching to his back.

"Get back to safety!" He yelled, gripping one of his shining arrows in his fist. "Don't come out until we get you!"

The wind drowned out her shouts of refusal, and she watched helplessly as Kimaris collided with the wall of tar that had grown as high as the mound it came from. The sound they made resembled the thunder that had boomed minutes ago, and the sparks that followed were not lightening, but blinded in the same way.

Blindly, Bonnie stumbled backwards in the direction that the fire burned, its light pouring through the darkness that had taken over the expanse. She'd been so concerned with Kimaris that she hadn't noticed it encapsulating them, trapping them in its tomb. She looked back at the blurred silhouettes, still pushing against the haze.

One figure exploded into a million pieces as Kimaris yanked his arrow from its chest, jumping through the crackling fog it left behind. His hand gripped onto Gremory's shoulder, forcing him to finally pay attention to what was happening around them. But he barely moved, it's as though he was frozen, unable to find the will to take action.

The air had lost oxygen, and Bonnie's lungs were turning to stone, stalling as they tried to expand. She wanted to go to them, to help, but she didn't know how. She could just make out Kimaris' mouth shouting something at his friend, and whatever it was had made him finally get up off the ground, fists clenched.

Kimaris moved as though he'd practiced the routine a thousand times, his body twisting through the air like the arrows he shout from his hand. Bonnie wondered if he'd ever used a bow, or if he;d just found this way more successful, it felt as though a bow would only stop the fluidity.

Beside him, Gremory found his feet, and from his waist uncurled the long glittering snake like whip. As a demon arched it's back and sprang for the red haired man, there was a crack across the landscape and in a blink, it too sparkled into the air.

Relief surged through Bonnie, they could do this. Finally she managed to reach the pyre that her and Kimaris' hands had built, and there the air was light, breathable. Perhaps it was more than just a beacon. At this point, she would believe anything.

For a moment positivity seeped into her, and the panic that had rooted itself deep into her bones lifted from them, as though a foot had stepped off of her back. The two weaved in and out of one another, diving as the other leaped, crouching as one would fly. In the blur of the smoke and fog, Bonnie could almost believe that there were wings sprouting from their backs, carrying across space that was too large for a human to leap. But they didn't have wings.

And they didn't have the upper hand.

As the demons grew smaller, the sky grew darker, and the wind began pick up every spec of grit that littered the ground. It pulled it towards the gaping mouth of the mound, the sound of a wind tunnel sucking the life from them. The boys were too busy fighting the remaining demons to notice, but Bonnie did. There was a coldness that had not been there before, a hardness in the slow thumping sound that had started to vibrate into her feet.

Something was coming.

"Kimaris!" she screamed, trying to warn them. "Gremory!"

Nothing. They remained wrapped in their fight, secure in the knowledge that they were overpowering the forces that been poured onto them.

The mound crackled.

But these were demons—legions sent by someone.

The black mass pulsed.

And there were always stronger legions.

The pounding stopped. And Bonnie's ears rang.

The tar poured again, but this time slowly, meticulously, as though testing the ground for the very first time. The boys had moved away from the center of the field and it was out their line of sight, they would not see it coming.

Bonnie did not feel the heat of the flames behind her, or the wind scratching her cheeks with ice. She could only feel the dread winding itself through her, her eyes transfixed on the clawed hand that had begun to take shape.

It was so big. Bigger than the one who had attacked her in that cafe a mere few weeks ago. Larger than the demons that hid themselves in Bifron's hole, hell bigger than all the ones he had put together. This thing swallowed the scenery, it's skeleton forming from the nightmare it had crawled through, the cracks echoing with every flash of light.

She flicked her gaze to the figures who still did not see it, and she wondered how they did not know. But when she stepped forward to try and get closer to them, the atmosphere engulfed her, choking her. She understood now—they could barely see anything in front of them; they were doing everything to fight off the monsters they knew were there. But this was new. Dangerous.

It would kill them.

She shouted again, but it was though she'd sung into a black hole, the sound swallowed before it even left her lips. She saw the sparks of light from where their weapons made impact with the demons, and could imagine how hopeful they felt, how determined they were to rid every one of them.

But they did not know.

"Guys!" she tried again, already knowing it would not work.

The thing stretched its neck, sharp spikes growing from every piece that only grew bigger, and taller.

She prayed she could make them hear her.

Something was burning in her chest, a need to speak, to scream. It clawed its way from her gut and into her throat; the heat licking the back of her tongue. Her heels dug into the mud below.

'Hear me,' she demanded, eyes burning as they tried to find her friends in the shadows. 'Listen to me'.

It grew again, teeth like swords glinted in the flames that licked behind her and she did not even try to ration how that would be possible, but it was. This thing was not possible. It couldn't be.

There was a grip on her neck, one that threatened to silence her or make her cry out she didn't know, but it made her nails dig into the palms of her hand, rooting herself in this moment.

She had not believed herself before, but they had made her—she had to believe she could do this.

She strained to find one of them in the fog, but she knew really it was the taller of the two she needed. She took a deep breath, calming the turbulent waves that threatening to knock her over, and she closed her eyes for a moment, imagining him in all of his stoic beauty.

When she opened them, she could see him. Not clearly, but he was there, twisting below another demon that had tried to outsmart him like all the others before, and he was there ready to impale it with a swing of his hand. As he watched it disappear, she sucked in the deepest breath that had ever past her lungs, and when it released, only one word flew from her mouth with a force that rippled through the haze and cleared a path straight to her target.

Like an arrow shot from a bow.

Kimaris.

In an instant his eyes found her, surprise glowing in them but attention, fully. She wanted to smile in relief that he had found her, but she could only point to the creature that had finally fully formed and was rearing it's ugly head towards the place where a sky should be.

Kimaris shook the moment from his shoulders before turning to look where she had pointed, and for a brief second the fog dissipated and a bolt of lightening shot across the sky, lighting what was there. She did not have to see his face to know that for the first time; she was witnessing Kimaris' fear. At the moment she got to watch him, Gremory had spotted his expression and had looked up too, his whip curling around him in defence. The two stood together, ants against a goliath, and just as the darkness swept them away again, she saw Kimaris' hand reach for Gremory's shoulder, and his steel eyes turn to look at her own more time before smoke enveloped them.

They could not beat this.

She did not know why she knew this but it was as true as the ground beneath her or the structures behind her, something inside told her she knew this truth.

The structures behind...

A voice crawled its way into her ears, picking at the knowledge buried within the creases of her brain.

A guardian angel...

Wings flapped in her distant memory, hands slowly unfolding the pieces of ribbon that tied them all together.

Maybe someone else had the power.

Perhaps this had been it all along.