Fairy War

Chapter 24

Our small strike team – reinforced by fairies, Pixies, and a handful of Elion's men – teleported as close to the White House as we could, though I was disappointed to discover this wasn't close at all. The city was in flames, fallen fairies and Wraiths patrolling the streets, and the only signs of human life were the occasional faces that peered out from between drawn curtains.

We edged forward, trying to avoid direct conflict but keeping an eye open in case any civilian needed rescuing, and making sure to avoid the patrols raising the alarm. While most of us were evenly spaced out, Niana insisted on sticking close to me, although I had to admit I was glad she was nearby.

Elion's prediction had evidently put all of us – well, the ones he'd warned – on edge, although we were doing our best to hide it from the others.

Suddenly, Nightshade – who was at the front with Selina – put his hand up, causing all of us to stop at once.

Me, Niana, Mickey, Crystal, and Finarae crawled over to see what had caused the sudden halt, and when we reached the top of a hill from which we could see the grounds of the White House and the road in front, we realised it was crawling with troops, while burning cars and dead bodies littered the road outside the gates.

"Either we lost our element of surprise or there are more soldiers in Feth'rael's army than we realised," Nightshade said with a sigh. "There's no way we can sneak past that many."

"Could you do what you did at Fort Knox?" Mickey asked Selina, without diverting his attention from the scene in front of us. "That would make this a hell of a lot easier."

"That spell took far too much energy," Selina replied, shaking her head. "Never mind the fact there were far fewer people to knock out at once... no, trying to maintain that disguise takes too much of my strength to perform two spells at once."

"We knew this wasn't going to be simple," Niana said with a sad smile. "I guess we'll just have to fight our way into it." She looked at me and then the others. "I'm up for it if everyone else is?"

"C'mon," Mickey said. "Less talking, more doing – we can use the cars as something approaching cover." He took off as soon as he'd finished speaking, forcing the rest of us to follow behind as quickly as we could.

Those of us with the magical blades Elion had provided kept one hand on them at all times, well aware of the likelihood of us facing Wraiths at some point during this battle.

We reached the gates unmolested, and when we peeked through them from behind the wall we saw that the enemy had dug trenches all the way towards the entrance of the structure. There was no obvious way across the lawn, but Nightshade was scanning the scene, evidently formulating a plan in his mind.

"Seraph," he said, turning to one of Elion's soldiers, "could you and your fellow creatures keep the Wraiths distracted while we fight our way into the building?"

"I'm not sure we can pin them all down," Seraph replied, "but we'll keep as many as we can from obstructing your progress."

"That's all we can ask," said Nightshade, flashing him a rare and appreciative smile as we started moving out from behind the cover of the border wall.

Suddenly the air was filled with the sound of arrows whizzing past us, a collective sigh of relief escaping our lips as we realised the majority were being fired from our side towards the suddenly alert guards.

Nightshade had stabbed the first guard we reached before he could so much as shout the alarm, battle being met violently as even Marek used either weapons or magic to fight the enemy. Niana and I were fighting side by side, and when a Fenrir got near enough to attempt slashing at my face, it found itself being beheaded thanks to a skilful swing from Niana.