“It’s okay. Same here.”
I held up my hand, the same pale translucence creeping in. It flickered as I clenched it, like a candle threatening to go out.
“I saw the blood on the Devil’s chest,” Maureen muttered, her voice low and sharp. She glanced in the direction he ran. “He’s wounded. Good.”
I wanted to tell her not to celebrate. But I didn’t. Not when I was the one who stabbed him.
Abominations, blades flashing, surrounded Luke as he cut them down one after another—barely flinching, barely breathing. He kept glancing around, eyes scanning the chaos as he edged closer to the split tree. He didn’t move like a hurt man. Maybe…maybe he wasn’t mortal yet?
“That’s good, isn’t it?” Maureen asked. Her tone didn’t match her words. She placed a hand on her hip, lips pursed in a way that meant she was thinking too hard and about to do something dangerous.
“He must not be mortal yet,” I said, dodging the real question.
Maureen shook her head. “He is. We all are. Even Harvest.”
She flicked her still-flickering fingers. “But those two? They’re monsters in the shape of men. They don’t go down easily. You’ll have to kill them twice, maybe more.”
A monster.
The pit in my stomach grew heavier.
“Here. Take Jerry. Your weapon’s with August.” Maureen unstrapped her transparent side, removing one of her twin blades, and handed it to me.
“I have one.”
“That dagger’s not big enough.”
She jerked her chin toward something behind me.
I didn’t want to look.
But I did.
A horde of abominations lumbered toward us through the trees—dozens of them, moving slowly but steadily, teeth gleaming, eyes hollow.
“Well, at least they’re slow,” Maureen muttered.
Then we ran straight into them.
???
My muscles burned. Everything ached. And still—they kept coming.
We’d kill a dozen, and a hundred more would take their place.
“There has to be a portal device Harvest’s using somewhere,” I shouted to Maureen, grabbing the back of her shirt and yanking her away from a creature’s claws an inch from her face. I drove my blade through its neck, twisting. Blood sprayed as I yanked the weapon free and kept moving, dragging Maureen along with me.
“Then let’s find it and destroy it,” she panted.
We ran together, hacking through the tide of Harvest’s abominations. They were relentless—never-ending. The area around the vortex was completely overrun. I couldn’t see Luke anymore. Or Harvest. Or even the rest of my family.
“Where are the others?” I gasped, panic lacing my voice. “Hades, we’re surrounded—”
As if Nova had heard me, the answer came.
From our right, hundreds of abominations suddenly exploded, chests tearing open in synchronized bursts of crimson. They crumpled in place.
Maureen and I shared a wide, breathless grin.
