One second I'm verbally middle-fingering the Gucci Gutter Slut, the next I'm doing an impromptu flying lesson across the foyer. Fun fact: drywall? Not as soft as it looks in the movies, and trust me, I've been thrown through enough walls to be a fucking expert.
I peel myself off the floor, spitting out plaster and what might be a tooth, to find myself face-to-face with a witch with a vengeance.
"Morgan, kill that little shit—this weak witch, and get me the hell out of here!" Lilith screeches, sounding exactly like she did when she'd ordered her "children" to torture others for her sick amusement.
Morgan—Witch Bitch 2.0—stands over me like some twisted queen, those hate filled eyes screaming, "I snort nightmares and shit curses." Ancient words slip from her lips, each syllable cracking the air violently. "Mens dominari," she hisses, and suddenly my body's not my own anymore—like someone's rewiring my brain with barbed wire.
Emily's counterspell hits like a divine bitch-slap. "Ignis protego!" Blue flames erupt between us, shattering Morgan's mind-control spell into a shower of magical sparks.
I stagger through the wreckage of Lilith's dinner party from hell, following a trail of bodies and broken furniture straight to the ballroom. Behind me, Emily and Morgan's magical cage match sounds like Latin for "fuck you" meets reality-bending chaos. But something's wrong—Erik's about as likely to ghost a fight as I am to join a monastery.
I scan the chaos until—ah, fuck. My stomach drops as I spot him crumpled in a dark corner of the ballroom, head twisted at that unique angle that screams, "Someone's been playing chiropractor from hell." I know that look intimately—Rhyland's favorite move during my more "rebellious" phases and Emily's go-to solution when my amnesiac ass got too rowdy for her witch-sitting abilities.
"Well, Silver Sorrowpants, it looks like someone adjusted your attitude," I mutter, kneeling beside him. "Though I gotta say, this is a bit dramatic even for you." I hoist his deadweight over my shoulder, and that's when I see it—karma's middle finger glinting under a broken table.
Azrael's ring, complete with that world-ending Soul Stone, just chilling there like the world's deadliest party favor. I drop Erik (sorry, bro, priorities) and blur toward it, but Morgan's stray spell hits like a metaphysical freight train.
"That is mine!"
The ring goes airborne like a cursed Frisbee because of-fucking-course it does. I scramble after it, dodging Morgan's"Mens dominari!" while Emily's counter-curses light up the air like supernatural fireworks.
A blur of feathers and talons dive-bombs for it like some crackhead pigeon on a mission. My hand closes around the ring just as the bird's talons snatch something off the marble. I stuff our apocalyptic jewelry into my pocket like it's plutonium wrapped in dynamite, then blur back to Erik, who's still doing his best impression of a broken action figure.
Just in time to see Rhyland emerge from upstairs with Dani cradled against his chest. Holy shit—she looks like death warmed over, and the rage on my brother's face promises the kind of violence that makes our maker's tantrums look like a toddler's timeout.
Just another family reunion, chez Lilith. At least no one's on fi—
"Inferno circulus maxima!" The mansion erupts in flames as Emily's voice rings like that of a vengeful witch from hell.
Blue flames race along the walls, climbing higher than the roof, turning the whole place into Satan's ass. The heat's so intense it's making my eyebrows crispy even from here.
Well, fuck. Me and my big mouth.
"Move your undead asses! This won't hold forever!" Emily shouts over the roar of her magical inferno.
Rhyland blurs down the stairs with Dani cradled against his chest. We haul ass for the cars, Erik's dead weight still flopped over my shoulder like the world's most expensive gym equipment. Behind us, the mansion's windows explode outward in a shower of glass and chaotic energy. Whatever Emily just pulled from her magical hat, it's big enough to register on the Richter scale.
I dump Erik in the back of the Mercedes with all the grace of a drunk moving company. Emily staggers out of her ring of hellfire, looking like she just went ten rounds with Doctor Strange. I blur over, scoop her up before she face-plants, and zip back to the car. She lands in the backseat with a grunt that promises future revenge.
"Drive!" Rhyland roars from the passenger seat, Dani still clutched to his chest like she might disappear if he loosens his grip.
The Mercedes roars to life, its tires shredding pavement as we tear out of there like bats out of hell. In the rearview mirror, Emily's magical inferno transforms Lilith's pretentious mansion into Vancouver's most expensive light show—it seems Rainbow Brite has a flair for dramatic exits.
Our maker might be a psychotic bitch, but she's like a cockroach—impossible to kill. Still watching her bougie paradise go up in flames? That'll slow her entitled ass down. At least long enough for us to get the hell out of dodge.
"So, you gonna tell us where thehellyou disappeared to, or are we playing otherworldly charades?" I can't help running my mouth—it's kind of my brand. But Rhyland just keeps that 'I'll murder the universe if it breathes wrong' stare locked on Dani.
"Is she—" The question dies on my tongue as I glance at Rhyland. His face carved from stone—but his eyes? Pure Viking murder.
"Just drive, goddammit." His voice could freeze hell itself.
Right. Driving. I can do that.
I slam the gas pedal to the floor, the Mercedes eating up asphalt like it knows what's at stake—forty-five minutes to the tarmac, where our jet's waiting.
Just forty-five minutes of praying Erik's neck heals, Emily doesn't pass out, and Dani...
I press the pedal harder. Some questions are better left unasked.
