World After

The cloud explodes, spitting out more darkness, growing ever larger. A low buzzing quickly turns into a thunderous roar.

I’ve heard this before.

The sound of swarming scorpions.

Everyone is silent and still while we all watch the roiling cloud rush toward us.

Uriel raises his arms like he’s ready to hug the crowd. “We have our confirmation, brothers and sisters. What we have been waiting for. What we have been bred for. What we have lived, breathed, and dreamt of is finally here!”

Uriel’s voice feels like a booming command in my head.

“We will be like—”

Gods.

“—Heroes of Old!”

He takes a deep breath. “Finally.” Another breath, his chest swelling with satisfaction. “It’s time for Judgment Day. The legendary apocalypse is HERE!”

Chpater 55

AS EVERYONE takes a moment to absorb what he’s saying, the horde of scorpion locusts hurls toward us.

I want to shout that he’s lying. That the scorpions are his creations, not biblical locusts. But I lose my chance because the crowd goes nuts.

Warriors raise their swords and stab the sky. They shout war cries that shatter the twilight.

Their wings flex, bursting out of the sheaths that disguise them.

Madeline’s carefully placed feathers fly everywhere. Glitter and fluff float into the air and drift like a scene in an old-time ticker-tape parade.

I shrink back, wishing I could disappear. Ironically, Andi does too, so that we continue to look like a matching set.

Bloodlust pulses in the air like sprays of pheromone. The air is thick with it and getting thicker.

Then the terrible thing happens.

Beside us on the stage, a warrior grabs the angel-parts dealer and lifts him above his head. The guy squirms like a kid as his glasses fall off. The angel heaves him into the crowd.

A hundred arms grab the poor man and pull him down into the engulfing center of the angelic masses. The man screams and screams.

The multitude shoves each other to try to reach the man. Bloody bits of cloth and bigger, wet chunks I don’t want to think about fly out of the place where he landed.

The warrior angels rage and yell as they restlessly jostle each other, cheering on the ones tearing at the man who is drowning in their violence.

The crowd is peppered with humans.

From here, the humans look small and terrified as they realize what’s going on. Most of them are women, and they look especially vulnerable in their scanty dresses and heels.

The scorpions thunder above, darkening the sky as they fly by. The wind gains force from countless wings, mixing with the shouts of the crowd. The frantic energy whips up the bloodlust in the drunken warriors.

People panic and run.

And like cats whose instincts get triggered by a fleeing mouse, the warriors pounce.

It’s a massacre.

The ones trapped in the center of the crowd have no place to run, although they try. It’s too crowded for the angels to use their swords. They grab the humans with their bare hands.

Screams fill the night as the center of the crowd tightens in on itself while the edges disperse as people fan out. The angels seem to enjoy the chase as they let humans run away from the crowd before tackling them.

One warrior punches his fist into a waiter’s stomach and pulls out a stringy, bloody mass that can only be his intestines. He drapes them over a screaming woman like fine jewelry. The angels around him roar their approval and punch their fists into the sky in a crazed frenzy.

From the stage, I can see the color of blood spreading across the crowd in a spill that just won’t stop.

Andi is screeching in panic. She turns and runs, hopping down from the stage and into the night.

My instincts yell at me to do the same but the stage is the least crowded, the safest of all the areas I can see. But being on stage during a riot is like being under a ten-thousand-watt spotlight when every cell of my body needs to be hiding in the dark.

Even Uriel seems to be at a loss as to what to do. The jerky motions of his head and the tense expression on his face when he turns to talk to his aides tell me this isn’t part of the plan.

He meant to get everyone drunk, excited, and riled up enough to break taboos tonight. But he clearly didn’t expect this. Maybe if he was a warrior instead of a politician, he would have predicted their response. He would have known that their veneer of civilized behavior was just waiting for an excuse to be shredded.

In pockets of the crowd, angels who’ve been shoving each other in the race to catch a human start throwing punches at each other.

It’s turning into a brawl as well as a massacre. Some of them take to the air to get more room and the chaos becomes three-dimensional.

Chpater 56

MY PERIPHERAL vision has been tracking a movement that’s just now coming to my attention. Someone is hurrying through the throng toward the stage.

I try not to let my imagination leap to where it wants to go. But I can’t help it. I’m not usually a girl who hopes for a damsel-in-distress rescue but no matter the odds against it, this would be a freakin’ fantastic time for Raffe to come and sweep me into the sky.

But it’s not him.

It’s Beliel. His giant shoulders cut through the chaos as he shoves his way forward. My eyes search the crowd behind Beliel for Raffe but I see no sign of him.

Disappointment kicks me so hard, I want to start crying.

I need to find a way out of this.

Alone.

Lots of distraction—that’s good. Murderous angels everywhere—that’s bad.

That’s about as far as my frozen brain will go.

Beliel climbs onto the stage and shoves his way through the angels surrounding Uriel.

The screams, the yells, the smell of blood all assault me. My brain and muscles want to seize up and it takes everything I’ve got to keep myself from vaulting into the lethal crowd like Andi did. My choices are to stand here until angels converge on me or run into the slaughter and hope against hope that I can sneak out of here.

I’ve never had a panic attack and I’m hoping I’m not about to now. But I’m hyper-aware of what a flimsy, inconsequential creature I am compared to these demigods. Did I think for a second that I could have my own agenda among them? That I could beat any of them? I’m a little nobody, a nothing. By all the laws of nature, I should be crawling under a table and crying for mommy.

Only, relying on mommy is what other people do.

I get cold comfort from that. I’ve always been on my own and I’ve managed okay so far, haven’t I?

In my head, I run through a list of vulnerable body parts that makes size and strength irrelevant. Eyes, throat, groin, knees—even the biggest, toughest men have vulnerable spots that take very little force to damage. This thought soothes me enough that I can start looking for a way out.

As I survey the scene with a little less panic, I notice someone new on the stage stairs.

Raffe stands on the steps, as still as a statue, watching me.

In the twilight, his white-wing covering sparkles like stars in the summer sky. I never would have guessed that beneath that covering lies a pair of scythe-edged demon wings.

Does he recognize me yet?

Uriel’s group begins leaping off the stage and taking to the air like a multi-winged organism. Beliel is the last to leave. He opens his stolen wings to their full glory and starts to beat the air.

Raffe leaps and tackles him.

They slam onto the stage with a bang, but no one notices one more pair of warriors fighting.

We are now the only ones left on stage. Below us is the shrieking slaughter. Above us is the seemingly never-ending mass of scorpions thundering through their flyby. In between, it’s a drunken angel free-for-all with some even having mid-air collisions.

A bloodied angel thunks onto the stage from above.

So much blood streaks from him that it splashes onto my dress. His shoulder is badly ripped like he got scraped against the pointy tip of a lamppost. But he doesn’t seem to notice as he jumps up, instantly ready for more.

I become acutely aware that I’m the only human around.

Chpater 57

WHAT I wouldn’t give for Raffe’s sword right now.

The bloody angel takes a step toward me.

I snatch a high-class steak knife from the table and kick off my heels.

Or I try to.

One of my heels refuses to come off without a helping hand. Either my foot has swelled or the shoe was too small for me.

I don’t know a single fighting art that doesn’t require good footwork, and I’m pretty sure that having one bare foot and one in high heels is not a recommended technique.

My dress is also a problem. It’s full length and shapely. It looks great but doesn’t exactly give me enough room to kick. My legs are the strongest part of my body and I’m not about to hobble myself in a fight for the sake of modesty. I slit my knife through a seam, ripping the skirt all the way to my thigh.

I angle the knife so it’ll slip between his ribs when I stab.

The throat is a better target but I’m too short to go for that with this beast. At least not on the first thrust. The second move, after he’s taken a hit, is another story.

He almost smiles at my knife as if that just adds more fun. He raises an eyebrow when he sees that I’m holding it like I know how to use it. But his sword stays untouched in its scabbard as if this massacre and brawl don’t merit the use of his sword.

His eyes are focused on my knife and face. Easy to do since my hands are up near my face in a fighter stance.

But my heel is still on my back foot, several inches higher than my front foot. No way can I have decent footwork limping around like this. So I do the only thing I can do.

I kick him in the face point blank with my high heel.

He wasn’t expecting that.

The angel flies back off the stage.

“It really is you,” says Raffe.

He’s staring at me, stunned. His fist is mid-air but paused in the middle of pummeling the hell out of Beliel who is bloody and staggering.

He starts a slow smile that melts my bones.

Beliel interrupts the moment by butting him in the head.

Raffe staggers back.

Beliel takes a good look at me. He smiles like he now knows a secret. His teeth are covered in blood dripping from his gums.

He jumps off the stage, sweeping his wings.

Raffe leaps and grabs Beliel’s leg. He yanks back, keeping him from taking flight. Raffe is about to get his wings back.

I yank off my remaining shoe, ready to dive in and help him.

Before I can move, though, the bloody angel I kicked off stage drags himself back up from the mass of seething bodies.

Boy, does he look pissed.

My heel caught him in the nose, which now looks exploded on his face. His once festive mask is now like something out of a horror flick.