But most of all, the sour smell of fear, so fucking thick and powerful that it makes me think I’m missing something big.
Someone screams loudly in terror nearby before their pleas cut off.
“T—they’re all ghosts!” another legacy shouts. “No! Mercy! Please, have mer?—”
His voice cuts off as birds shriek somewhere nearby.
Ghosts? Are we in danger again?
Shit—isshein danger?
Godsdamn it, I need control. I need to get to her.
My dragon is suddenly restless and angry about something, but I can’t get a fucking grip or sense anything happening in my own body until something slams into my head. I topple, pain rocking down my neck and spine as the world spins.
Just like that, the dragon retreats to hide from the pain that it can’t shift to tolerate. I wrench back control and sit up, blinking at the chaos surrounding me. It looks like I was hit in the head by a chunk of Crypt’s bronze enclosure that somehow shattered, but besides that…
Holy fucking fuck.
There are ravens and ghosts everywhere—at least, I’m pretty damn sure they’re ghosts because they hover and fly around, are slightly see-through, and make my hair stand on end. But they’realso able to touch the legacies who are screaming and trying to get away.
Some of the ghosts disappear into the bodies of elite legacies, who immediately fall to the street to writhe in agony with foaming mouths. Other ghosts taunt the people trying to flee, pulling them in strange directions, dancing creepily around them, or lifting them off the ground to drop them from high enough to break their legs.
I realize most of the elite fuckers can’t see where to run because they don’t have eyeballs anymore. Gawking, I watch a big raven attack the face of one of Everett’s other snobby parents, pecking at his eyes as the well-dressed air elemental screams and thrashes, gusts of wind exploding uselessly from his hands.
Royal blue flames are devouring two huge wooden stakes nearby, proof that my dragon got involved. I get to my feet, turning and searching as my heart pounds—until I spot Maven and immediately break into a smile.
Hell, yes. That’s my mate.
Tearing her way through the screaming legacies, my violent, sexy keeper looks every bit the daughter of Death as she reaps souls left and right. She’s a fucking force of nature, with that spine-chilling smile on her beautiful face as ghosts and fluttering ravens surround her.
When a wolf shifter snarls and leaps at her, she gracefully dodges aside before her scythe cuts him clean in half. A magic attack is flung at her from some other panicked elite, but it bounces harmlessly off her when she bats it away with a softly glowing hand. She turns to swing her scythe again, moving like she’s dancing as she and her otherworldly army slaughter everyone who hasn’t managed to escape.
I’m ready to help my dark queen kick ass and take names in this black-and-white city all day, but I notice Silas sitting nearby,soaked with gasoline as he rocks himself, red magic hovering around his fingertips. One of his eyes twitches as blood drips steadily from his nose.
I glance at Maven demolishing our enemies with gleeful fury, then back at this fae, torn.
Finally, I sigh. Damn it. He needs to snap out of this.
I move toward him, lifting my hands to show I’m not a threat, even though my head is starting to split as the dragon inside me writhes.
“Si. Hey, buddy. You in there?”
He startles and scrambles away from me.“Nach ti’faieth!”
“Gesundheit.” I crouch beside him, grabbing his blackened-finger hands to stop him before he can fling magic at me. “You’ve gotta stop. Your nose is bleeding again.”
Silas blinks at me several times before seeming to focus. A particularly shrill scream sounds nearby, drawing our attention to the chaos.
All the cameras have been destroyed. Several elite legacies are now fighting each other, which is odd until Crypt appears from Limbo, literally skipping as he enjoys the bloodbath. He kicks aside two shredded corpses, grins maniacally over at us, and triumphantly holds up…fingers.
A whole bundle of them.
Then he vanishes into Limbo again. Fucking psychopath.
“That’s…real?” Silas checks, his voice slurring.
“The ghosts and birds and our stone-cold, badass demigoddess? You bet.”
