I looked up from my crouching position. “Hey. Did Reyes send you?”
“He did. We haven’t spotted any yet.”
“Any?”
“The Twelve. As far as I can tell, they aren’t aware of your presence. Here all alone. At night. Completely vulnerable.” She scolded me with a gathering of her delicate brows. If I were anyone else, being scolded by a dead woman in an evening gown with makeup smeared down her face would have freaked me out. Thankfully, I was me.
I scolded her right back. “My uncle might be in there. Can you see anyone in the house?”
“I’m not worried about in the house. Reyes sent me to guard you, not your uncle.”
I straightened to my full height. She still had two inches on me. In my own defense, she was in heels. “Can’t you just do a quick look-see? Pop in and out and just tell me if she’s in there and who she’s with?”
She didn’t answer me. She was looking toward the drive, where another set of headlights was approaching. If they belonged to Sylvia Starr and she saw my Jeep, she could do anything to Uncle Bob, assuming she did actually have him. How that tiny lady could kidnap anyone was beyond me. We knew she’d drugged at least one of the victims, Mrs. Chandler’s husband. She could have used Rohypnol, but how would she have done that with Ubie? It wasn’t as though they were having drinks into which she could slip the date rape drug in the parking lot at the station.
And Ubie was a big guy. She would’ve had to use a lot to make him compliant. I just couldn’t figure out how she was doing it all. I might soon find out, however. The vehicle approached slowly, its lights making it impossible to tell what kind of car it was.
I ducked down again just as the lights flashed twice, then went out. Recognizing the wicked black muscle car, I hurried through the woods as Reyes killed the engine. I rushed into his arms before he’d found his balance, but he caught me to him and held me tight.
“You’re here,” I said, my fear for Uncle Bob easing knowing Reyes was there.
Then again, Uncle Bob had just taken him in for questioning for a crime he didn’t commit – for a second time. He might not be very inclined to help.
The passenger door opened and Cookie came flying out. “Is he here? Did you find him?” she asked, her gaze darting about wildly before she made it to me and embraced me with the enthusiasm of an offensive tackle.
“I don’t know yet, but what are you doing here?”
She gaped at me. “Are you insane?”
“She threatened to jump on the hood if I didn’t let her ride on the inside,” Reyes said. “She was very determined to come.”
“I can see that.” I nodded in approval, loving her all the more for her dedication. “But you have to get right back in that car, missy.”
“What? No. I’m going with you.”
“Cook, we don’t know what’s going on in there yet.”
“She has him,” Osh said, jogging back to us. “They’re in a basement below the house.”
Cookie’s hands flew to her mouth with a loud gasp.
I was right there with her. Fear consumed me in one spinal-tapping rush, and Reyes tightened his hold. “Is he —?” I started to ask the fifty-thousand-dollar question, but it got stuck in my throat.
“Is he alive?” Cookie asked for me, her voice soft with hope.
“For the time being. It was hard to see, but I think he’s been shot.”
That was all I needed to hear. We were out of time.
I took off, heading at a breakneck speed across the dark and uneven ground, having every intention of tearing through the front door and beating that bitch to a pulp.
Reyes was on me before I made it halfway. He tackled me in the clearing and we tumbled head over heels to a stop. Osh was right behind him, ready and waiting for anything crazy I might do.
I fought him, using the vast arsenal at my disposal to slow time and drop him to his knees. I needed him, so I didn’t want him hurt, but I wasn’t about to argue. I had to get to Ubie.
As he fought for a hold on my wrist, I twisted and turned the move against him. But he was a warrior. A general in hell and a champion on earth. And rather deadly at both. In hand-to-hand combat, I didn’t stand a chance. We fought for dominance. He was also trying not to hurt me; otherwise, I probably would’ve been whole wheat toast much sooner. But his reluctance to cause me physical harm was his weakness. I took complete advantage.
I was on top once again and just about to utter a word that would disable him momentarily, when Osh tackled me to the ground. We hit the rocky terrain hard and skidded across the landscape, his body taking most of the abrasions. But my lungs seized with the impact. My diaphragm contracted, making it almost impossible to take in air. The impact disoriented me, and I lost my grip on time long enough for it to crash back with a vengeance. Which disoriented me even more.
That was when I felt an ice-cold grip on my forearm. The departed socialite had wrapped her fingers around it and pulled at me, as though I were on a track with a train barreling down upon us and she was trying to drag me clear. Her eyes rounded as she looked at me. Her mouth opened to scream.
Then I heard it. A growl, guttural and deep and inches from my neck. I turned just in time to see Reyes dive toward the silvery black outline of a beast. It was so close, I felt its blistering hot breath fan across my cheek like dragon fire, causing an eruption of goose bumps over my skin.
The clock slowed of its own volition that time, and I watched in horror as a second hellhound bound out of nowhere and hit Reyes midflight; his body – like a swimmer’s darting through the water – buckled under the force. They soared over Osh and me, and plummeted to the ground in a whirlwind of dust and limbs. All I saw as they fought was the slick glint of its razor-sharp teeth. They sank into Reyes’s rib cage, burrowing deep into the flesh and bone there. Reyes showed no sign he’d even felt the bite. He ripped the beast off him and in one quick movement broke its neck. It crumbled with a whimper as another took its place. Reyes easily bested it as well, grabbing its jaw and jerking its head back until, again, the neck snapped. But something happened to the first one. After a moment, sparks of a silvery light glittered around it and it slowly regained its footing, shaking its head as though Reyes had only rung its bell.
It lunged and sank its teeth into Reyes’s shoulder as he fought a third one. The second one he’d taken out was already coming to, and I realized what a futile battle we fought. They really were indestructible.
One sank its teeth into his left thigh, and he went down onto one knee, but before I could get to him to help, I felt just how sharp those teeth were. The one closest to me turned its attention to Osh and attacked, knocking him to the ground as they tumbled and rolled. Another took its place instantly. Its teeth sank into my calf, and it pulled me into the darkness of the forest beyond. The socialite lost her grip, but she turned as another hound barreled down upon me. She stepped between us, her shoulders set in determination. It grappled her to the ground, its growls thundering against the silence of the night.
That’s when the magnitude of the situation hit me. The entire dozen hellhounds had made an appearance, and the departed, Reyes’s spies, whoever they were, fought beside us with a ferocity I’d never expected. I kicked at the hellhound dragging me into the brush, but my efforts served only to make my wound worse. Crying out in pain and fear for Reyes, I arched my back to get a better view of him. I could now see the beast’s outline better because it was covered in Reyes’s blood. Both of them were drenched in crimson. I heard a grunt in the darkness, but could no longer see Osh. Like a raging inferno, fear engulfed me.
I kicked at the beast again and it released me that time only to crawl over me, its mammoth body like a small house as it placed a paw on my chest. It spanned half my torso, the weight crushing me to the point of breaking.
Unlike the departed, the Twelve were even more invisible in the darkness, almost completely transparent, but the silvery black dust of their coats shimmered in the moo
nlight, allowing me to make out a shoulder here. An ear there. I looked to either side. My throat lay between two massive claws I could barely see past. The beast bent its head until we were nose-to-nose. His mouth quivered as he prepared to sever my head, but another growl mingled with his. I tore my gaze off the amber eyes of the hellhound and looked up. Another canine had materialized and was now in a deadly face-off against my captor.
Artemis pushed her head over mine until she was between us; then she rose up, forcing the hellhound back. Even if only inches, even if she bought me only seconds, I rejoiced at the borrowed time. Artemis quivered with anger, exposing her teeth in a vicious show of authority. She didn’t give their inconceivable difference in size a second thought. It reminded me of a scene outside my apartment once, where a Chihuahua had been attacking, mostly verbally, a huge pit bull. The adorable pittie didn’t know what to think about the miniscule assailant and seemed more worried about its ankles than anything else as the Chihuahua danced around it, snarling and nipping. But Artemis held her own. She slowly eased forward, David forcing Goliath back.
Artemis had distracted the beast long enough for me to get to my boot. I gasped for air as my fingers sought and found the hilt of the blade there. In one quick move, I pulled Zeus out of my boot and slashed at the hound. I felt resistance when the blade met flesh, when Zeus sliced into the hound’s side, but the beast whipped around and caught my forearm in its mouth with lightning-quick speed. Teeth sank to the bone. Pain rocketed through me.
With the beast’s attention averted, Artemis went for the jugular. She lunged forward and sank her teeth into its neck, but did they bleed? Could she really do it any harm? The weight of its paw on my chest was causing the edges of my vision to blacken; then a sharp, scalding pain splintered my body in two. The beast had cracked one of my ribs. I cried out as another gave way, my eyes rolling back as nausea roiled up like an ocean wave to drown me. I felt my lung fill with blood as fragments of bone punctured it. Breathing grew even harder as the beast fought Artemis, using me as its canvas.
I glanced across the landscape. Reyes fought as though unfazed by the beasts’ teeth and claws, by the massive amount of blood loss, by the fact that we were facing almost certain death. His expression void of emotion, his instincts on automatic, he finally untangled himself from the melee and sprinted toward me. Before he made it, however, another creature dived for him. He slid underneath it and caught two handfuls of its fur, then slammed it into the ground. It yelped as another of its kind tackled Reyes to the ground. They rolled farther away from me. That seemed to be their goal, in fact. To keep Reyes as far from me as possible, all the while ripping him to shreds.
Fighting through the pain, I welded my teeth together, lowered my lids, and gathered my energy, forced it to my core until the molecules compressed to the density of marble, until the pressure built like steam with no escape route. In one violent eruption, light burst from me, exploding into the atmosphere like the blast from a nuclear bomb.
The beast that stood over me winced and jerked away with a startled whine. It faltered and fell to its knees, but regained its footing just as quickly. Then it shook its snout and snorted as though it had sniffed something it didn’t like. Glancing about, I realized that was the extent of the damage.
It didn’t work. It had stunned the hounds momentarily, but they were back in full form in no time. Their disorientation lasted just long enough for Reyes to make it to his feet before one pounced again.
I lay there hopeless.
It didn’t work.
It didn’t work.
It didn’t work.
The beast sank its teeth as another dived for his jugular. Tiring, Reyes blocked its lethal jaws and hooked a leg around to break its neck. Instead, they both somersaulted, the beast ending up on top again, blood dripped from its snout as it watched him. Another one eased forward, and they exchanged silent glances. As though plotting. As though planning their attack. The second one crept around and crouched, ready to pounce.
Reyes glanced at me then. His face streaked with blood almost exactly like the first time I’d seen him, when I was in high school and Gemma and I were out in the middle of the night, trying to catch shots for a school project. He had the same look then that he had now: Acceptance of his fate. Approval of his impending death.
He whispered to me in Dutch, his voice soft and unhurried as it traveled over the terrain and into my ear. “Houdt haar veilig,” he said: “Keep her safe.” Beep. He was talking about Beep.
Then he relaxed against them, let his arms and his head fall back, giving them clean access to his jugular. When a black mist raised out of him, I realized he was going to keep them occupied with his physical body so he could fight them with his incorporeal one. But they would kill him before he could do any damage. The other departed were gone. The beasts were too strong. Too fast.
Fear bucked inside me – when a seed took root. A thought that started as an infinitesimal kernel burst inside me. I realized the problem: Where I came from, I was pure energy. An elemental made of spirit and light. That light, which was supposed to be as bright as a thousand suns, was being filtered through the human body I possessed. It should, at the very least, have sent their asses running for the hills, but it had done nothing more than made them sneeze. Their hide, thick and scaly, seemed impenetrable.
I had to set it free. I had to stop them from ripping Reyes apart. He materialized in a great mass of darkness, rolling around me like a sea of ink. He did it on purpose. So I wouldn’t see what was about to happen to him. So I would not have that vision in my head for the rest of my life. I heard the sing of his blade, a growl, a sharp whine. But even his blade wouldn’t kill them; I was certain of it.
I had to set it free.
As the beast on top of me tossed Artemis away like a rag doll, all I could think was I had to set it free. I took Zeus, the mystical knife that had somehow found its way into the hands of Garrett Swopes. The one that could kill any demon on this plane. The one that vibrated with power and strength, as though it were alive. As though it possessed a will of its own.
I didn’t want to die. If I died, Beep died. If I lived, a darkness would settle upon the earth, and all on it would eventually perish. Those were the terms Rocket had given me. While the choice was clear – not that it was much of a choice – I couldn’t help but question the legitimacy of Rocket’s vision.
Up to that point, I’d kept thinking all things in the supernatural realm, just as in the earthly one, could be manipulated. Satan could have fed Rocket false information about my demise. Rocket’s prediction that if I didn’t die, millions, possibly billions, of others would perish could have been concocted. A complete fabrication.
But maybe that was the plan all along. Maybe this had been in the cards since the beginning of time, and when my daughter took the bastard down – because she would eventually take the bastard down one way or another – it would not be from a life lived on earth, but one lived in another realm. Another dimension where her soul, her essence would grow into adulthood.
My final thought was of Reyes. Of his shimmering eyes and his lopsided grin. I was going to die anyway. I’d known it for weeks now. At least I could save Reyes. Before the hound could finish what it had started, I let my lids drift shut and promised my daughter I’d see her in heaven.
I heard Reyes call my name. Once. Twice. The deep timbre thundering across the sky. And then again in desperation. Softer this time. Pleading. He must have seen the dagger at the ready.
With his face on my mind and our daughter in my heart, I plunged Zeus into my chest. The searing pain was like nothing I’d ever felt. It hurt when it penetrated my flesh, but when it sliced through my sternum and pierced my heart, the agony was so quick and so sharp, my mind reeled from it, and I thought for a moment, just a moment, I saw heaven open up above me. I saw angels looking down. Not the cherubs of children’s tales, but warriors, tall and stoic and fierce. One of them, a dark-haired creature with wing
s that expanded across the horizon, raised a single, quizzical brow.
When my last breath as a human left my lungs, I felt a warmth spread through me. In the next instant, an incandescent light burst from my heart, as though by piercing it, I had penetrated the barrier between my earthly vessel and my spiritual energy. In one silent atomic flash, everything changed. I sent out the part of me that had been released, the essence of who I was, to each hellhound. Their razorsharp teeth glittered as I brushed a tendril of light along their scales. A fire spread throughout them, igniting each molecule until the beasts glowed like molten lava.
The hound closest to me yelped and twisted in agony, tossing his head back as though to bite the offending blaze. The silvery black dust of its coat disintegrated into a powder that drifted away on the wind. At the last minute, it charged forward, but by the time it reached me, there was nothing left but floating particles of blackish orange embers. Slowly, even those drifted away.
It happened again and again. Each lick of light caused a chain reaction that literally disintegrated the hellhounds where they stood until there were none left.
I scrambled onto my knees and looked down at Zeus. Then at my chest. Then at Reyes and Osh and Cookie, who were sprinting toward me. I patted my face, wondering if I were dead. I didn’t feel dead. In fact, I felt very much alive.
Reyes slid to a stop on his knees in front of me, his face a mask of astonishment.
Unable to wrap my head around the unrealized state of my demise, I examined my shirt. A crimson stain had spread over my heart, but my chest remained completely unmarred.
“How did you do that?” he asked me as Osh arrived in much the same manner.
Having not the faintest idea, I shook my head.
I examined Zeus and felt none of the power I’d previously felt from it. It had been drained of its energy, now able to do nothing more to a supernatural being than give it a paper cut. I stuffed him back into my boot nonetheless, realizing the true power of the dagger now resided inside me. And inside our daughter. It had fused us together, not only on a physical level, but on a spiritual one as well. And that bond had created a supernatural weapon of mass destruction. It was not something I could have done before. I could do it only through the power that Beep gave me. What strength I had, woven with Reyes’s DNA, combined to create a true child of the gods.