The dark of death began to gather at the edges of my vision.
My crown heated, healing as best it could, blistering, a backdrop to the accumulated injuries. But my heart ratewas too fast. Breathing was impossible. I was dying. Eli tried to send me more of his power, but I shut the connection between us down. Not Eli. Not him too.
Screw it. I’d finish this.
I still held the blade. It was shattered. Not much of it left. The broken edge pierced Mainet at the juncture of his shoulder and neck, torquing down and in, curving.
Eli battered through my defenses. His hand in my mind. Guiding the blade into a perfect killing strike. Down. Into the Heir’s own heart. Through it. Out the other side of the Heart of Darkness.
Mainet roared again, this time with fury and pain. He rose up.
I ripped out the blade.
Heard a gunshot. Three more. Eli had fired vamp-killer rounds into Mainet’s head.
But despite being cut in half, the Heart of Darkness was still beating.
I caught myself on the altar. Lachish breathed out a final breath. The futures were colliding.
Molly’s song echoed high in the sanctuary, fierce. The angelic tones followed her call. Evan’s harmony dropped low.“Anam! Bri! Bua an tsaoil!”
Using the Mughal Blade like a sickle, I stabbed the point into Mainet’s chest. Curved my hand down. Shoving the blade into the new heart again, three times. Its rhythm shuddered and the tissues quivered. I stabbed it again, cutting it apart. Again. It stopped beating. I cut the heart out of his chest.
Eli was suddenly beside me. With his bare hands he lifted the chunked-up heart and lungs that did not belong out of Mainet’s chest cavity. Held them up and away so I could see what I was doing.
With the Mughal Blade I cut the veins and arteries attaching the heart and lungs of the Son of Darkness out of the vamp. The last time I had done this, Brute ate all the other parts of Joses Santana. Now, the werewolf backed away, growling low, so loud I felt it in my own chest.
I understood. This was demon smut and all the power of the two Sons of Darkness gathered in one body.
With the dripping blade, I pointed at the fire.
Eli threw the bloody mass on the brazier. It flamed high. A bonfire. Roaring. This time there would be nothing left to regenerate.
Walking on broken feet bones, one arm held tight to his side, Eli dragged me back. Away.
In the brazier, fire spit in a fountain of sparks. Everywhere the droplets of fire landed, new fires grew. In a heartbeat, the flames reached toward the damaged roof.
With the last sharp metal of the Mughal blade steel, I leaned in and began to cut off Mainet’s head.
Even with his brain scrambled, his body fought. Clawed into me. His fangs slashed and tore me as I sawed. But Eli’s hands on my shoulders steadied me. His heart beat with mine. Somehow the pain receded.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Aya crawl to my injured vamps and begin pulling them away from the fires. Others raced in and began to assist. There were people, my people, everywhere. Fire extinguishers sprayed. I gestured to the brazier and shook my head.
“Don’t put out the brazier,” Eli said.
I went back to the head. Cut and cut. The lace of jagged steel severed Mainet’s spine. The last threads of flesh. I cut through and shoved the head from the body.
When I was done, the final sliver of damaged blade shattered and fell. I dropped the beautiful hilt to the bloody floor. Looked at my other hand. At some point I had retrieved the Glob from my chest. My palm and fingers were scorched as if I’d put my hand on a hot grill. My flesh was once again seared into place around the Glob, palm and fingers blistered and weeping serous fluid. I picked up Mainet’s head and set it on the brazier. The flames licked high again. Searing.
As soon as the body was ashes as well, the rule of the Sons of Darkness and their Heir would finally be over. The pain hit. My breath fled and the room dimmed as I nearly passed out. “Burn it,” I whispered. But I knew no one heard me.
Molly’s and Evan’s singing earth and air magic and the angel song ended with long, plaintive notes, the witch and angelic tones slightly out of harmony, a faint difference in key. Hayyel sounded lost. Grieving. I looked up at thewall where he had manifested and the angel met my gaze. Waiting.
Leo picked me up in his arms. I gasped with breathless pain as he handed me to Bruiser. Bruiser, who was not dead.Not dead. Not dead. The words matching the last notes of angel song.
“Feed her,” Leo directed.
CHAPTER 27
