Chapter 25

Note: Thanks to Alex for beta reading this!

Mrs. Bella Lucina raced up the stairs on the east side of town. It had burst out into a store of some kind. The shelves were almost all bare, one knocked over by the dungeon erupting through the floor. A bag of flour lay burst in the corner.

“Let’s move!” Mrs. Lucina cried, the angel eager to get in the air and fight. Mrs. Baldwin was already heading out into the street with her basilisks to evacuate the halflings. Poor Baaghi had to stay behind, but she would be needed if things went badly.

The moment the angel was outside, her halo flashing bright, she flapped her white wings. She took to the sky. She rose, her heart pounding so fast. She was so ready for this fight. She would not let Leo down. Nor the halflings of this city.

The sphinxes followed her up into the air, Talalo at their lead. They beat their black wings, their dark-red manes fluttering. The group rose above the city. Mrs. Lucina surveyed the are, searching for the fiery phoenixes that controlled this part of the city.

They were circling farther to the south. A group of five pale-skinned women. They had round breasts that jiggled as they banked towards them. Each of them had red-feathered wings instead of arms and matching plumage. They screeched in rage as they banked over and soared towards the angel and her sphinxes.

“Get ready, girls,” Mrs. Lucina cried as they winged to fight the phoenixes. Her halo glowed bright.

A beam of light fired from her halo and lanced at the lead phoenix. She flapped her wings hard, rising just above it. The beam flashed beneath her tits. The phoenix all roared in fury. The two groups hurtled closer.

This is going to be bad, the angel thought, fear rippling through her.

“It’s okay,” Mrs. Zoe Baldwin said as she moved to the frightened halflings. The motherly dryad had such a welcoming look on her brown face. Her leafy-green hair rustled about her shoulders. “We’re here to help you.”

The halflings retreated from her the way a whipped dog would from the raised fist of an owner. They expected her to hit them. A child wept, such a little thing. The mother in Mrs. Baldwin was so angry that they would be so frightened by what was happening.

She bent down and scooped up the child. She lifted him easily in her arms. “It’s going to be okay. Let’s go. This way to safety!”

The blue-scaled basilisks were moving through the streets, trying to be friendly. Not the best monster girls for this, but they were corralling the halflings out of fear, if nothing else. All that mattered was the evacuation.

“Follow me,” the dryad said to the group as she held the child. “We’re getting you all to safety. My son, Lord Leo, sent me to save you.”

“Lord Leo?” a halfling woman said, a baby in her arms. “He sent you?”

“That’s right,” Mrs. Baldwin said and hurried to the dry goods store. “Let’s get you all to safety. How does that sound?”

She handed the child to another halfling woman. She ushered them to the shop, looking up in the air. She sighed as she watched the sphinxes and Mrs. Lucina close with the phoenixes. The fight was about to start.

The dying.

“Let’s keep moving,” Mrs. Baldwin said, keeping her tone light and breezy. Like there was no danger to them at all.

Lana Fulmine never thought she would be racing upstairs to go into battle against hippogriff monster girls. That she would be given such responsibilities as to deal with marauders. If she didn’t win the fight, the halflings would be in trouble.

So many lives were on her shoulders. She wasn’t that broken, coked-out movie starlet any longer. She was someone better than her old self. Stronger. More resilient. Her number one fan believed in her. She would not fail Leo.

The quetzalcoatls slithered up the stairs behind her, moving on their green snake tails, their rainbow wings folded behind them. Lana stepped into a cobbler’s shop. The smell of leather filled her nose. Rich and strong.