But Malahidael had never been an Archangel. He and his partner, Lailah, were lesser angels, similar in rank to the level that she held in the legions of Hell. And his angelic female half was safely across the vast Atlantic Ocean. And he was young in this form; vulnerable to the dense, dull reactive metal she had used to block his senses. Yet he was here, surrounded by allies, and those same allies, while less powerful than angels, had been disturbingly formidable. Her own forces—which she would never call allies, as all denizens of Hell were untrustworthy and self-focused—were nowhere to be seen, either run away or more likely neutralized by Malahidael.

Success, so close a few minutes ago, now seemed entirely distant and, in fact, her very survival might now be jeopardized. No, it would be better to retreat.

She bounded backward again, much farther this time, intending a thirty-foot jump, but instead slammed to a halt with a bone-jarring impact against hard stone and asphalt at twenty feet. She instinctively kicked off the immovable object and forward rolled, feeling a whoosh of air as two massive items swung past her moving form.

She danced sideways, spinning to look behind her. A towering form of rock, dirt, and pavement loomed almost the same height as the brown bear could stand, but massing two or three times more. Stone arms were crossed where it had tried to catch her in a crushing hug.

An elemental. Wind brushed the back of her head and she turned, face first, into a blast of fire so hot it immediately melted the pavement at her feet and turned the steel side of the broken Toyota into a glowing red circle two feet across.

She felt the slate-colored skin on her face blacken and crisp but then she got her SHUKUR up in front of the flames, the Hell blade shielding her from further damage.

Shock almost froze her fatally, the sight of a fully formed dragon of Fairie, albeit a small one, hovering in front of her. Just in time, she sensed the attack from her side, turning and moving into it, brushing aside Malahidael’s blade and kicking him backward with one massive leg.

The dragon’s fire attack broke off, as she was too close to the fallen angel, so she kept up her own attack, charging God’s holy warrior, spear set to pin him to the ground. His head tilted to one side and his body language changed, coiling into something new. Something entirely different—deadly and unknown. He was smiling, but it was the cold, vicious smile of her brethren. Almost as if she fought a fellow demon, one cloaked in the trappings of Heaven.

She was now seriously off her stride, surrounded by elementals, dragons, bears, werewolves, and an entirely too powerful witch, facing down a truly frightening hybrid of Heaven and Hell.