I grinned and lowered my hands. I’d sent two shots of my power at him and felt the demon die. The anger in me was boiling again, and I felt more demons approaching us, alerted from the death of their comrades. As they came in, we were still cloaked. They didn’t know where I was at first, but all of them zoomed in on Kellan. Aumae wasn’t cloaked and he held her, making him the obvious target.

One after another, I shot my energy at them. One after another, I felt them die from my blast. Kellan fought as well, but he wasn’t the power force that he’d been at the house. Aumae was limp in his arms, barely conscious, but it wasn’t long before we were making our way back up the cave. More and more demons flew down to us, but we shot all of them down. As we got to the mouth of the cave and stepped out, an army of demons waited for us, floating in the air above the water.

I looked down. I couldn’t help it. The water had been serene and beautiful before. It was angry now, splashing over on itself, boiling upward. Each wave had darker waters than the last until the entire pool was a mass of churning black waves. It fed off the demons. As one dipped down, the water spewed upward to touch it. The higher demons kept more calm water below them, but it was still a rolling mass of evil, in liquid form.

“Shay.”

I turned to him.

“I’m going to put Aumae on the ground. I need my hands free to fight them. Do not touch her. Guard over her. They will try to take her with them, but they can’t have her. The minute they do, they’ll go to the underworld. We can’t follow them there.”

I nodded. “I will protect her.”

“Don’t touch her. I mean it. You’ll just hurt yourself, and none of us will make it out of here.”

He caught my gaze, and I saw the countdown in his eyes. I felt it within me. Three. Two. One. He laid Aumae down and leapt into the array of demons in the same moment. Two of them rushed for her, but I blasted them back. They seemed surprised, and I remembered that I was still cloaked. One by one, a demon tentatively floated toward her, but I sent each back, killing most of them with one blast. A few were more courageous, going almost too fast for me to shoot them. It never worked. I always caught them, sometimes just by a foot, but my power sent each of them reeling.

I stood back and saw how they started to rush around me, around Aumae. They realized I stood beside her, shooting them. They were trying to figure out where I was, trying to touch me. None of them came close, but it was a matter of time. I couldn’t move Aumae, a fact they hadn’t realized yet. If too many of them overtook me, I wasn’t sure if I could fight them all.

As a wave of ten started to get closer to me, I tried to shoot into them. As one was taken down, another one replaced it. The wall of demons kept coming, closer and closer to me, until I feared they could feel my breath.

Then Kellan shouted, “Down!”

A tree was thrown into the group. I ducked just in time, and it sailed over my head, knocking the whole row of demons over me. I spun on my heel and took aim, shooting the tree instead of the demons. It burst into flames, white flames, and engulfed all of the demons still attached to it. They exploded, sending white sparks into the air. As those floated down onto more demons, killing them, I hoped none would touch Kellan. Then I turned again and saw another wave of demons coming at me.

This time I reached for the nearest tree and lifted it. I sent it myself at them and lit it on fire as soon as it touched the demons. This routine kept happening before the demons fell back once again. They couldn’t find me to fight me so they turned their focus on Kellan.

The circle doubled in size around him. Kellan drew them above the water and then he yelled to me in his head, “On three, light the water.”

“NO! It will hurt you, too. You need to get out of there.”

“I will. I promise, but count to three and don’t hold back. It has to be the exact same time.”

I closed my eyes, hating what I heard, but lifted my arms anyway.

“One…Two…Three!”

I gritted my teeth and sent everything I had at the water. My energy sparked it, and it quickly grew into a rolling flame, like an exploding volcano. It burst into the air, wanting to extinguish itself somehow, but it caught the demons. All of them were sucked down into the fire, and one by one, I felt them each extinguish. They died, and as the air seemed to get lighter with the passing of one by one, I found myself praying. Words I didn’t know spilled from my lips, and I tasted tears beside them.

I hoped against hope that Kellan had gotten out. He must’ve gotten out. It had been his plan. As the last demon burst into flames, I opened my eyes and saw another bright explosion in the air. It sucked the remaining evil from the air, the woods, the cave, and even the water. It engulfed onto itself and then vanished.

“Kellan!” I screamed. I couldn’t see him anywhere. “Kellan!”

He poked his head out from behind a tree, a few feet behind me. Chuckling, he glided down to me. The black armor that had grown over him disappeared, as did mine. Somehow I knew both of them appeared because of him, but it was another question I’d wait till later to ask. At that moment, as soon as his feet touched the ground in front of me, I threw myself at him. He caught me and it felt so right, his body to mine. I savored the feel of it, the realness of him again.

“Thank goodness,” I whispered against his neck and hugged him tighter. I wasn’t sure if I could let him go.

He hugged me back for a moment, squeezing tight before he let me go. As he stepped back, I wanted to leap at him again, but forced myself to stay. Instead, I watched as he knelt beside Aumae and rested his hand to her cheek. After a moment, he looked back at me. “She took in a lot of blood. She’ll need help. We’ll have to take her to someone.”