Christine shivered. She shouldn’t like being the subject of such scrutiny from him. It shouldn’t feel so good.
“How good are you at multi-tasking?” she asked, laying out her plan.
Altair smiled and nodded. “One modification and we should be good.”
He told her. Christine adjusted her plan, then called the witches to her side and explained to them what was going to happen. She received some incredulous looks, but to her surprise, none of them argued. They knew they needed to try something new, and what good was the dragon shifter if he couldn’t help them use new tactics?
“Everyone ready?”
The witches had organized themselves as she asked. Today, she was leading a team of eight, though with Linny down and Altair on her team, there were only six left to execute her plan.
It would be enough. It had to be enough.
“Go,” she commanded.
Thick fog billowed out from Altair’s hands, rolling up and over the riverbank, spreading wide and high. She watched him work, the murky clouds quickly obscuring the lines for hundreds of feet in either direction. It should be rolling forward as well, toward the treeline, blocking the Fae’s view of the river.
“Okay, ready,” Altair grunted, his eyes vacant as he focused on his next task.
Christine got the final nod from her other team. “Do it.”
Air swirled under her feet and the feet of the five other remaining witches. A moment later, they were boosted from the ground. She yelped in surprise at just how fast the ground receded below. Two discs of fast-moving air carried her teams upward in clumps of three.
In seconds, they were a hundred feet above the battlefield, looking down at the treeline, with the sun at their backs.
Abruptly, the fog cleared as Altair focused entirely on supporting the witches. Movement appeared at the treeline as the Fae came forward to renew their attack on the riverbed. They didn’t bother looking up. Using hand signals, Christine indicated targets. A second later, the witches attacked.
Red beams lanced down from the heavens, and two of the Fae disappeared in purple flashes, sent back to the Abyss. The pair of remaining faeries cried out in surprise and ducked back toward the trees. Christine’s teams launched a second attack.
Her attack blasted one from its feet, while the fourth escaped. With six witches focusing on the one creature as it shook itself and got back to its feet, the stunned Fae didn’t stand a chance.
The ambush was broken, and most of her team had survived. Christine breathed a sigh of relief, shouting to Altair that they could come down. Her knees were a little wobbly as she touched down, but overall, she was none the worse for wear after the experiment.
“Good job,” she said. “Now pay your respects and get into the forest. Let’s not dawdle out here in the open. The arena is still running. We aren’t done.”
The witches darted forward, pausing to tap Linny on the forehead, the universal training sign of ‘way to die, dummy’. The downed witch took the taps with good nature.
“Fan out in a line. Altair, left flank. Me, Jessie, Gardener, Becks, Ashley, Vanessa. Move it!”
They formed the line and advanced through the forest. It rapidly grew darker, the trees losing their shine, turning black and dead, though they held on to their leaves. Noises sounded from deep in the darkness.
“Easy,” she said, injecting as much calm into her voice as she could, hoping the others could feed off it.
She saw them growing nervous, looking this way and that. The bright sun of the riverbed was a distant memory by now. Darkness, the increasing smell of sulfur, and the growling of invisible hunters was putting her team on edge. Distracting them.
“Stay together. They won’t attack us while we’re organized,” she said calmly. “If we splinter, they’ll take us out. Altair, Vanessa, I want you to slowly drop back. We’re going to form more of a circle. Back and in. Ashley and I will form the side. Jessie, Gardener, Becks, you’re the vanguard.”
The group continued to move forward, adjusting their shape as they went.
“Is it just me, or is it getting warmer in here?” Ashley asked several minutes later.
Christine had noticed it too.
There was no time for her to respond to the question though. One moment, they were surrounded by dark forest. The next a giant blade cleaved through the forest, swiping away trees and setting the forest aflame. A mighty roar sounded as their next foe revealed themselves.
“Shield dome!” she shouted as the war-axe came around and swept back down toward them, only to slam into a greenish protective field that protected the witches.
The pause gave Christine time to lick her lips and wonder just what the hell she was supposed to do against a demon. The twenty-foot-tall creature with blood of pure fire stared down at the band of witches, laughing as he hauled back on his onyx-colored axe, etchings in its design filled with ever-flowing lava that flew far and wide, setting everything it touched on fire.
“It’s a demon,” Altair whispered beside her, seeming mesmerized by the burning horns that extended another five feet into the air over the creature’s head, adding to its terrifying visage.
Creatures darted out of the darkness now, nightmarish things, all black, with six legs, a lizard-like mouth and four bright-orange eyes on either side of the skull. They leapt up onto their hind legs as they hit the shield, razor-sharp claws slicing at the barrier, trying to penetrate it.
“Stay strong,” Christine said as the blade crashed down again, shaking her team, bending some of them, but not breaking. None even went so far as to take a knee. They could hold it off.
“A demon,” Altair whispered again from behind her, in awe.
“When I say so,” she said, a plan forming. “Jessie and Becca, you will go for the legs. Gardiner, hit it in the crotch so hard the angels hear it upstairs. Ashley, Vanessa and I will keep the
