Daimon (Guardians of Hades #6) - Felicity Heaton Page 0,18
still have it.”
Meaning there was a chance they could still open the gate? Cass glanced at it, a brief look to check that it wasn’t forming. The flicker of violet light had disappeared, leaving no trace of the gate behind, other than the power she could feel humming in the air and in her bones.
In the split-second she took her eyes off the ball, daemons poured from the portal. Ares and Daimon leaped into action, launching into the midst of them. Several of the human-looking males hissed and grunted as the waning light of day hit them, causing wisps of smoke to rise off their clothes. The rumours about daemons were true then. Most of them couldn’t handle sunlight without getting burned.
They backed off towards the portal, their gazes seeking shadows. The rest surged forwards to meet the brothers.
Marek swept past her, rushing to join his brothers as they fought to hold back the daemons, stopping them from nearing the gate. Caterina followed hot on his heels. Cass watched as the hybrid cast a barrier in front of the brothers and the stronger daemons slammed into it. Blue hexagonal glyphs appeared in a wave and disappeared.
A curious power. Effective too.
But it cost Caterina.
She wobbled on her feet and Marek turned back to her, grabbed her wrist and spun her so her back was to his.
Together, they fought a wave of daemons as they piled around the edges of the barrier, breaking left and right. To the right, they ran right into Daimon and Ares, who were combining ice and fire with devastating effect, ravaging the enemy forces.
Cass cursed when something caught her eye and looked to her right, to the other side of the roof, beyond where the gate was located.
Violet-black smoke boiled there, writhing and spreading.
Another portal.
She wasn’t surprised when the two other Erinyes stepped out of it, looking like twins, a perfect reflection of Marinda with their blue-green eyes and blonde hair twisted into a Greek plait across the tops of their heads. These two wore form-fitting black clothes though, leather pants and tanks that showed off their figure.
Cass had always tried to get Mari to dress a little more like her, a little more provocatively to make the most of her figure. Cal would have a heart attack if he saw Mari dressed like her half-sisters.
Shadows rushed across the rooftop, snapping at the black tar and each other, sapping the warmth from the air as they passed Cass. She shivered and watched, fascinated as they rose up from the ground and launched at the Erinyes in a malevolent wave. The two furies broke apart, leaping over the sharp spikes of the shadows and rolling under others, evading them all. The points of the shadows slammed into the rooftop, piercing it before they dissipated.
Another wave of shadows rocketed towards the two.
Cass lent them a hand, launching several spells, twisting spears of red and gold that shot through the air, aimed at points where she hoped the Erinyes would be foolish enough to leap into their paths.
One of the Erinyes managed to evade them all, but the other wasn’t as fortunate. She cried out as a spear sliced through her left calf and hit the roof.
“Sister!” the second Erinyes shrieked and launched towards her, faster than Cass or Keras’s shadows could track. She pulled her fallen sibling up just as a shadow reached them, and the injured one gasped as it stabbed into the roof where she had just been.
The two Erinyes turned as one towards the gate.
That violet light flickered brightly again.
Everything and everyone went still, all eyes shooting to the gate.
Time seemed to slow as Cass summoned more spells to her fingertips, her breath hitching as she waited for the gate to expand.
Only it didn’t.
A thick earth wall shot up before her, a dome that swept over the point where the gate was located, obscuring her view of the Erinyes. The rich brown mud baked in an instant, small cracks forming across it.
“Tell me you all just saw that too?” Ares grunted as he backhanded a daemon and sent him flying across the roof into two more, knocking them over the edge. They screamed as they fell to the road far below and then silence.
“I saw it,” Daimon offered.
“How can they cast a portal so well but their ability to command the gate has weakened just as mine has?” Mari kept her eyes on the dome covering the gate, her fingernails turning into short claws as she