My cage was now at the lip of a pit—a massive pit filled with thick, black sludge. It bubbled up into thick arms and plucked the flying gods out of the sky. No one escaped this time.They were drawn, shrieking and flapping, into the sludge. Even the horses were pulled down with their riders.
I couldn't scream anymore. My voice had gone hoarse. I knew it was over. They were dead. They were all dead. I had held one hope through the battle—that Torrent might reach us and unmake Katila. If any of the gods could kill this motherfucker, it was Torr. And he had said he would do it to save his loved ones.
But Torrent was in the pit with Artemis. With all ofmyloved ones. He hadn't stood a chance. None of them had.
The surface of the sludge roiled as the gods fought to remain afloat. I watched until the end, my heart stuttering as the sludge went still. Gone. All of them gone. The only comfort was that without my magic, I didn't have to feel them die. But I almost envied them. I was trapped there. Alive. With an insane man who had danced out of the Void and destroyed my life.
“I told you I would handle him,” someone whispered. “Why did you come here?”
I looked to the right.
There was Ekwensu, sitting cross-legged on the ground beside my cage.
He sighed and shook his head. “But I suppose I can work with this.”
Something glowed on his neck. A pendant. A crystal point.
A slurping sound pulled my attention back to the pit. The sludge bubbled. Rippled. Then it spewed forth a tide of bodies. Gods and demigods gasped as they hit the ground with wetsmacks. The sludge drew back into the pit, leaving them clean and whole on the rim.
“What the—?” Katila jerked about, searching for the one who had saved his enemies.
I looked to my right, but Ekwensu was gone. If he even was Ekwensu, which I was doubting more and more. Once again, he had sounded nothing like the Nigerian god.
“No!” Katila shrieked as the army gained its feet. “No! The pit will have you! No one escapes the black poison!”
The pit bubbled again.
The gods around the rim paused.
Every eye focused on the oily surface of the pit.
Suddenly, another eruption came. The gods dashed back from the pit. But the sludge didn't attack them. It wasn't moving on its own.
Souls flew from the black poison, mouths open in soundless screams and arms extended. Toward Katila. The hoard focused on him. A terrible rushing sound came, melding with thick slopping as the human souls of Naraka flew out of the pit of poison and launched themselves at the God of Hell.
“The Yamaduta,” I whispered.
Katila had killed the guardians of Naraka. He had consumed them and stolen their magic. He thought he could control Hell alone. But there's a reason that underworlds such as Naraka contain multiple gods. One man cannot sail a ship. A boat maybe, but not a ship. Not of this size. And definitely not a prison barge.
Katila the Fool had left the wailing souls in the first hell alone. He probably figured they were too focused on their empty baskets to notice that the Yamadutas were gone. But the others couldn't be left to wander about alone. So what did he do? He stuck them all in the pit and left them to the poison. Maybe he intended to come back and consume them eventually or maybe he didn't want to bother with souls that didn't possess magic. Whatever the case, he had put several levels worth of souls into a pit and forgot about them. But they hadn't forgotten about him.
They flew into Katila in a swarm, his body jerking like one of those shooting victims in a movie. Side-to-side rapidly, his expression shocked. He screamed, but it was cut off by a soul diving into his mouth. The black poison went with the souls, seeping into Katila and infecting him. Souls dove into him dripping black goo, then flew free of him, glowing pure white. It went on for several minutes, several long minutes, but no one else moved during that time. No one wanted to draw attention to themselves.
At last, the tide of black souls stopped. The spirits, freed of poison and the pit, floated away, hopefully to the Void where they could be reborn. Katila crumpled to his knees, completely black. Poison oozed from him. When he hit the ground, he made a splat. His knees burst like popped balloons, and he fell forward onto his face. With the impact, his entire body exploded into a puddle like a wicked witch hit with water.
My cage disappeared. Poof, gone. I stood up warily, watching the black goo gather itself, then bubble and gurgle its way back into the pit like a living thing.
“Ding dong the witch is dead,” I whispered.
Chapter Forty-Eight
“Vervain!”
I don't know who shouted my name, but my husbands came running for me en masse. I met them halfway. As we hugged and Viper removed my manacles, the other gods gathered around us. And as they drew in around us, the sides of the pit also drew together and closed.
I jerked away from my husbands as the ground sealed over the poison. Then, as if to say, “You've outstayed your welcome,” the tracing building appeared in the pit's place.
“What the actual fuck?” Fenrir growled.
