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No such luck

The dark-haired one was beco and chaos He smiled with beautiful white teeth "I think not Perhaps we’ll take payment from your friends and loved ones instead"

"I’al," I said "Sibellathere was one--ht," a silky voice said

Oh, gods, it only needs this

I turned slowly, hoping I hadn’t identified the speaker correctly Barachiel stood at my shoulder, cloaked in radiance fro a little bit, and the light show hinted at great white feathery wings unfurling at his back Then I blinked and the suggested shape blurred into the line of his jacket, but I knew better than to believe it was a trick offor a reason

"Corine has aligned herself with the host," he told the Luren "Should you choose to pursue this debt, it will be tantain the battle tonight?" He tilted his head, visibly charmed by the idea "I a I’m not the catalyst for the end of days or whatever"

"Are you sure?" Barachiel asked

I wasn’t

Inwardly, I quaked in terror This was tooforced on me I could see if I permitted Barachiel to protect me now, he would call the balance due later I wanted to cut free of all supernatural things and just livesince lost any ability to chart that course Yet I eary of bouncing fro on borrowed kar to unheard voices "Yes We are content to fire the opening salvo, Barachiel"

Uh-oh That had to mean they had some trick up their sleeves I feared Barachiel, and I didn’t want to work for hie match at my friend’s barbecue Sometimes my life sucked so much, there were no words So Not Good I had to stop this, somehow, but my mind was an utter blank; I had no cards left to play

The archangel whipped out a gleaed of a , like the knife Kel carried Moonlight ran like water down the blade In response, the three deht, barbed and serrated like hungry teeth

And that hen the screa started

Battle Royale

The party guests weren’t prepared for Areddon to break out amid cheese rolls and onion dip, so I didn’t bla

Half of theuessed the police were already on the way Unfortunately, it would be too late by the time the authorities arrived, and Jesse would have soed at the white-haired Luren, I wondered if this attack would be written off as cartel-driven, ascribed to Chuch’s past unsavory associates That being said, I understood the need for dae control Otherwise the paranor way, as a result of a Texas BBQ Talk about bizarre cause and effect

For once, I wasn’t in theto kill each other, notthe juicy bone between four hungry dogs; things almost never worked out well for the bone And if the Luren won, they wouldn’t wait to dragAs if he read els do that?--Barachiel cutI took it tobecause these deht He also seemed a little insulted that I’d even considered the possibility he could lose

Either way, it was no comfort No matter on, I lost

The Luren were fast for all their feral beauty; they encircled Barachiel His broad sweeps with the sword kept the for hied a flurry of feints and parries while people ran for their cars, yelling incomprehensibly at Chuch

The motion of their blades made me dizzy I couldn’t track Barachiel’sto be huht, sped up with special effects, only the slashes and blocks were real Barachiel slammed his sword so hard into the tall Luren’s that the de into a dozen shards The archangel didn’t pull his next blow either He took off the creature’s head, and it bounced in a spray of blood Demon blood was a little thicker, a little darker, and the smell was unmistakable The stench of sulfur and brientler aroood food

At that, the last reuests who had been frozen with shock and disbelief sprang intolike this quiet Surely everyone on the guest list couldn’t be in on the secret, so what the hell? But that ay low on encies to tackle that I didn’t even knohere to start

"My odds just got better," Barachiel observed, holding his swordsman’s stance

"If I die here or in Sheol, it makes no difference," the deht who co "No, perhaps you don’t You’ve rewritten your own history, after all"

So els or des, who lived in an alternate realave rise to alternatewith huh Neither could claim benevolence or altruis, whether it was as simple as entertainment or as ominous as power