Marina growled under her breath, and her mind swelled in a raucous panic. She flitted her eyes over the crowd of monsters gaining around her, her senses overloading from the growing amount.
Wait.
Panic was what he wanted her to feel. This was his game—to overwhelm her with the false Daemon and his illusions. All to preoccupy her.
Ash.
Her breath caught, and she whirled around.
“Mansi! Vivi!” Marina whipped one last swirl of darkness from her wrist, slicing off the limbs of the illusionary beasts that remained on the battered rooftop.
Mansi’s back met Marina’s.
Viviana materialized at Marina’s side.
Marina gripped their arms tightly, and the world tilted as her obsidian carried them across the magical boundary to the Blood Heretics’ compound.
The perimeter of the painted walls came into view. Bedlam roared in the streets outside its entrance, the manufactured monsters of Chaos in a massive brawl against Ronin’s witches.
Blood burst from the eldritch animals as they stepped on runic traps set near the building. Many of the witches sent knives sailing with their magic, the blades coated with Ronin’s blood to numb the beasts before carving them up on the asphalt. A ruby trail led into the nearby sewer grate from the constant carnage.
Marina caught a glimpse of a Daemon leaping over the mortals, sliding across the ground into the body of their headquarters—toward her nephew.
The gnarl in her chest constricted.
Above, the familiar gleam of a single bird soared up into the sky, away from the savagery.
“Help the Blood Heretics!” she called to Mansi and Viviana. “Kill as many of these bastards as you can!”
Viviana gave her a solemn nod, periwinkle electricity crackling in between her fingertips, hungry for release.
A wolfish grin split across Mansi’s face as she gripped the machinery at her hip: a small cluster of bombs filled with sharp caltrops. A tight strap held more of her wicked inventions around her torso. “Let’s fuck up these hell spawn, rip them limb from limb.”
Marina laughed. “You’re insane, andgodsI’m glad you’re my friend.”
Mansi sang out an enthusiastic sound as she jogged alongside Viviana down the corpse-littered stairwell.
A choir of horror surrounded Marina as she ran through the halls of the witches’ base: guttural screams, ferocious growls, the slicing of meat and bone.
Syrupy blood caused the soles of her boots to cling to the tile with each frantic step. Gaunt, detached arms of the creatures rolled across dead witches with deep tears in their torsos.
It was pure mayhem, and if Acacius were here, he would’ve been proud. In fact, it was the perfect cover-up for Soren’s plan. The deities would assume it was all Acacius’s doing, as the whole scene reeked of his Ruin. The manipulation and sleight-of-hand were executed with sickening precision.
Marina bolted through the labyrinth of halls, teleporting in wisps of her Night past any Daemon she came across. She would not fall for Soren’s deceit any longer. He wanted her to fight, expend her mental energy.
As she jumped a set of stairs and rounded one final corner, Marina’s eyes located Ash with his back pressed up against the wall at the edge of the corridor. He cowered behind his father and Theon, his small frame shaking uncontrollably.
Marina’s heart compressed at the sight.
Ronin looked between his son and the creature caught on his piercing briars, its body slowly crumpling to the tile. The barbed, scarlet vine retracted and shot forth once more, wrapping around another monster and squeezing its bones to dust.
Another lunged for Ash, only to be caught by the sharp ends of Theon’s icy spikes.
Ash flinched and let out a cry, his eyes filled with terror as he watched Theon sling the dead creature off to the side, just to slash a frosted weapon into the torso of a second and a third.
A primal sense of protectiveness rose up in Marina.
She looked over her shoulder at the rest of the dimly lit hall, blinking through the disarray of monsters and witches. That had to be the purpose of all this—keep them distracted and fighting so when the moment presented itself, Soren could steal Ash right from under their own protection.
