You know I'm angry when I use the F-word.
But God didn't seem to know or care how angry I was. He didn't show up. Didn't strike me down. Didn't so much as flicker the lights.
I looked at Agwusi. “Now do you believe me? You're insane. There is no God.” Then I strode out.
Chapter Thirty
I stormed down the hallway, trying to find that colorful living room and the door out.
Ty ran after me. “Vervain!”
“Where's the exit, Ty? It's time to go.”
“Go?” He kept pace with me. “What about the machine? What about Agwusi?”
“I don't know. I need to talk to my husbands and maybe the Squad. Leave her here. She's not going anywhere.”
Ty looked back down the corridor and then nodded. “All right. It's this way.”
He led me down a corridor and into the living room I remembered. We went out of the house, across the porch, and down the steps to the lawn. Glancing back, I saw that the building was a one-story structure plucked right out of Africa. White walls, wooden support beams, and a low-peaked roof. Peacock rattan chairs stood at both ends of the wide, wooden porch. A giraffe ambled past the house on its way to feast on the upper leaves of a tree.
Ahead of us was grassland spotted by trees, leading to the city I'd seen earlier. Souls had wandered over from it, just strolling through the grass, admiring the scenery and pettingwild animals as if they were domesticated. I ignored them and followed Ty toward the tracing shack. It was small, with just one room, but it resembled the main house.
Just as Ty reached for the door handle on the shack, the entire territory shook violently. Ty stumbled back, and I caught him, but then we were both tossed to the grass. I pushed up on my forearms to see the territory shiver. Not just the ground, but also the air and everything the territory contained. The giraffe vibrated like something from a horror flick, but it seemed undisturbed, continuing to graze on leaves that moved as wildly as it did. In the distance, buildings became ruins only to reform seconds later. They didn't crumble and rebuild—they instantly turned to wreckage before flashing back to what they were.
Then the souls screamed.
I got to my knees and stared across the shivering grass to the few souls who had wandered close enough to observe. They were splitting into two—duplicating. Then the duplicates flowed back into the originals. Merging, splitting, and merging again, all while they screamed.
“V, are you all right?” Ty stumbled over to me.
I nodded absently as I got to my feet and strode through the chaos. Something alien was in my chest. It wasn't trying to burst out, but instead, dig in deeper. It drew me back into the house. With every step I took, the world settled a little. When I entered the house, it went still.
“V!” Ty grabbed my arm. “What are you doing?”
As if I had surfaced from a dream, my awareness sharpened from dull, fuzzy thoughts to a clear mind. I looked from Ty to myself, staring at my chest as if I could see theinvisible hook that had pulled me back. There was an awareness with it, something I had felt before.
Something that predated time itself.
Suddenly, I remembered how the darkness had risen in me before. It had felt like this. I hadn’t triggered it after all. The machine had! It tried to form a bond with me, and my star rose to fight it off. The Trinity Star hadn't been going dark—it had been intimidating an invader.
“I'm fine, but I have to go back,” I whispered and drew out of his grip.
Ty followed me to the machine. Agwusi sat where Ty had left her, her stare calm as she watched me walk in and go straight to the machine. I wasn't being controlled anymore, but I hadn't forced the presence out either. I wanted to confront the machine and see its reaction. To learn your enemy's weaknesses, you had to study them.
I laid my hand on the warm metal of the god machine. No zinging shock came as I'd expected. Nor was there a rush of power. I saw flashes of light followed by a vision of souls lost in the cracks between realms, ghostly hands reaching for release. Gods took souls that didn’t belong to them, tossing them into afterlives that scared and confused the souls. Mistakes had been made, but not everything was a mistake. Gods hoarded souls, stealing power from them instead of releasing them to reincarnate. Improper judgment trapped some souls in hells they never should have experienced. These things caused an imbalance that clogged fate like a pipe, building up pressure. If someone didn’t act soon, the system would fail.
The next series of visions gave me hope. They showed how the machine would correct every wrong. Fate would flow, and souls would go to a single afterlife created by the machine. It would offer them what they expected while taking nothing in return. My Fey mother had helped to create the God Realm, so it was only right that I helped correct the flaws and free the prisoners held there. With me, the machine would function properly.
The vision sharpened. Narrowed. Truth was revealed. The Artificial Divinity couldn't function without something living to guide it. Machines are not infallible. They work under rules that can cause mistakes. A living consciousness was required to monitor an artificial one and teach it the intricacies of life. Only a living soul could judge a dead one. Agwusi had lied. The machine could take over for the Gods, but only if someone monitored it.
No, it was more than that. The next vision scared me so much that I yanked my hand away from the machine, breaking our physical and mental contact. As I backed away, I tried to banish the image of myself bound to the machine even tighter than I was to my husbands. Under my watch, no one would ever suffer again. No one but me.
“V?” Ty had a hand on my upper arm, and his head angled into my line of sight.
“The falcon cloak isn't enough.” I met his gaze. “It needs something more powerful than that to function properly.”
“What does it need?”
