Chapter 44.3

With a wide smile, Amara looked forward again. She closed her eyes briefly, focusing on the feedback from her horns, before angling towards a pocket of warmer air and riding it higher. As her eyes flared, the warm pocket began to expand, giving Amara the perfect conditions to easily climb. Her wings continued working to bring them higher into the sky, and while she wasn’t flying straight up this time, she still ascended incredibly quickly. Every muscle in her body seemed designed for this, and all the frustration she’d felt being cramped up in Vee’s car vanished in the face of her newfound, absolute freedom.

Within minutes, they’d climbed above the lowest clouds, and the world underneath them seemed to vanish. Amara leveled out just inches above the fluffy barrier, even tilting side to side occasionally to let the tips of her wings skip across the condensed vapor. Vee joined in as well, leaning down to run her fingers through the clouds. She flinched in surprise, likely at how sharp the sensation was due to their speed.

Once she finished, she planted her hands on Amara’s back, pushing herself into a sitting position as she took a deep breath. Amara wrapped her tail tightly around Vee’s waist and, moments later, felt the angel lift her hands entirely off Amara’s body.

A magnificent, triumphant shout filled Amara’s ears as Vee threw her fists in the air. Her joy was infectious, and Amara quickly joined in as well, squeezing Vee with her tail to show comradery. Seconds later, Vee stopped to catch her breath and leaned forward again, returning her arms to Amara’s shoulders. She was laughing and giggling the entire time, her lustrous voice music to Amara’s ears.

She couldn’t remember the last time Vee had ever seemed this carefree.

“Let’s fly into a cloud!” Vee said excitedly.

“Are you sure?” Amara responded. “We’ve gotten pretty close, and they sting like crazy at this speed.”

“Yeah, maybe for regular people. Come on! Don’t be such a buzzkill!”

Amara laughed and started picking up speed, aiming for one of the larger clouds underneath her. As they closed the distance, an idea popped into her head, and she connected with her hellfire to summon two new pieces of illusory clothing. Now holding two pairs of sleek, sporty protective glasses, she handed one up to Vee before donning one herself. A second later, Vee lightly squeezed Amara’s shoulder, signaling she was ready.

With a deep breath, Amara angled down and plunged them both into a massive, fluffy cloud. It felt like diving headfirst into a pressure washer; torrents of sharp water vapor struck her body, but due to her demonic resilience, it actually felt quite nice.

She also couldn’t see a thing. Her vision extended no more than a few inches, bringing back memories of running through thick snowstorms in her childhood. The water vapor even felt like snow, buffeting her face as if it were sharp hail, and she accidentally got a mouthful of cloud as she tried to take another breath.

After the initial shock passed, Amara turned her attention to how the rest of her body reacted to the change. Feedback from her horns made her intimately aware of where the cloud’s temperature fluctuated, but it was also clear that her ability to read air currents was greatly diminished inside the weather phenomenon. Her wings had slightly more trouble holding altitude, and she needed to correct their height a few times, but otherwise she felt just as comfortable flying inside the cloud as she did outside.

Their experiment ended a few minutes later as Amara burst from the cloud back into the light of day. The warmth of the sun felt fantastic compared to the chill vapor of the cloud, and she dispersed the glasses she’d given herself and Vee.

The angel on her back was laughing again, and she leaned close to Amara’s ear. “Fuck, I’m absolutely soaked! Can you take care of that?”

Nodding quickly, Amara knew exactly what Vee wanted. However, just before summoning a burst of heat to dry their clothes, a more nefarious thought crossed her mind. She looked up at Vee with a devious smirk, then shouted “You mean a spin cycle, right?”

“Wait, what?!” Vee shouted back. Amara wrapped her tail even tighter around Vee’s waist, only giving her a second to prepare before she dove down.

Her wings tucked back as she angled down, and she forced them into a sharp spin as they began to fall. She continued adjusting her wings, as well as the temperature of the air around them, as she tried to accelerate their spin even faster, and found herself screaming with excitement along with Vee, whose iron grip around her neck nearly made it difficult to breathe. She broke off the spin after only a few seconds, and once she’d leveled out over the clouds again, Vee playfully smacked her on the shoulder.

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it!” Vee said, her voice tinged with mock anger.

Amara laughed hysterically before responding. “I know, I know… you want me to turn up the heat, right?”

“Yes! Wet clothes are so annoying!”

“Okay, but, how hot?” Amara asked. She was having too much fun messing with Vee, and another thought entered her mind. She held up a hand, manifesting a burst of hellfire a safe distance away from Vee, before throwing it in front of her. It exploded outward before freezing in midair, creating a large ring of purple-tinged fire a few dozen feet in front of them.

“You wouldn’t dare!” Vee shouted.

“Hold on tight!”

Vee screamed again, her voice laced with laughter as she held Amara tight, and soon they’d reached the ring of fire. Amara quickly tucked her wings behind her, covering Vee to keep her safe, as she dove through the ring while expertly avoiding the flames present.

Once they’d passed through entirely, she opened her wings again and laughed as Vee hit her again. “You know, two can play at that game!”

She reached out her hand, which was now coated with her own angelic flames, and cast them forward. They exploded outward, just the way Amara’s had, and formed a ring of white, glittering flames. This ring was smaller, likely as a form of playful vengeance, but Amara welcomed the challenge. She took a deep breath, picked up her speed, and tucked her wings beside her as she raced towards the angelic target. As they began passing through, she spun them around in a tight corkscrew, marveling at how quickly she’d adjusted to more difficult aerial maneuvers.

Once they’d both had a moment to quiet down their laughter, Amara turned up towards Vee again. “Are we even now?”

“Not until you actually dry my clothes off!” Vee teased.

With no more devilish thoughts in her mind, Amara finally expanded a pocket of thick warmth over herself and Vee. The process wasn’t instantaneous, as Amara didn’t want to risk burning Vee, and it took several minutes to safely dry them both off. The water in their clothes slowly hissed as Amara chased it away, and while they waited, she settled into a comfortable glide.

“Wow,” Vee muttered. “It’s so peaceful up here. I could get used to this.”

“Oh yeah?” Amara asked. “You make it sound like we’re gonna make this a regular thing.”

“Why not? Just the two of us, completely above all the nonsense that’s been happening at school. There’s no Coven up here, no mad cult leaders, no monsters. Just an angel and a demon that somehow ended up as best friends.”

“Where to next?” Amara asked.

“Surprise me,” Vee whispered. She hugged Amara tight, even briefly nuzzling her face into the back of Amara’s shoulder.

With no more desire to test out her aerial maneuverability, and the two of them now completely dry once again, Amara looked around to orient herself. She checked the position of the sun, picked a direction, and slowly angled towards a new heading. Small habits quickly formed as she adjusted to her place in the sky; checking air currents, watching for birds, occasionally shifting to different heights to take advantage of pockets of warm air.

The higher they flew, the more Amara grew aware of a strong jet stream miles above the ground. The air blew considerably faster, making it much easier for Amara to continue her eastward trip. She made a note of the wind patterns as they traveled, curious how difficult it would be to fly against the jet stream rather than with it.

Leaning further into the strong air current meant climbing even higher, which gave both Amara and Vee a chance to test their natural resilience to the environment. Breathing grew more difficult at a certain point, but they were both able to use their innate abilities to adjust accordingly. Over the course of several trips up and down through the jet stream, they both experimented with their abilities to test how they could alter their bodies for the extreme heights. Amara’s changes were a bit more literal, as she was a shapeshifter, while Vee seemed to use her angelic magic to create small pockets of calm, breathable air around her face.

With the wind at her back, Amara made fantastic time. Although the drive to the quarry had taken several hours, they’d returned to the skies above Aurelius University in less than half the time. The campus looked tiny from their current height, and as much as Amara wanted to soar down to tell Nick and Tessa the good news, she had other plans for the day.

Less than an hour later, they’d reached the edge of Lake Michigan.