An explosion?
No one seemed overly concerned, so Scotty leaned against the archway between the kitchen and the living room and waited for her sister, Raika, and Idess to do whatever it was they were going to do.
It started with chanting—Idess in an ancient angeliclanguage, and Aleka in a Sheoulic dialect. Then little fires sparked in the organic matter. Aleka poured liquids into the stinky bowls while Raika, her eyes glowing garnet, watched. They mixed stuff and chanted, and it was all so banal…until the dried blood in the big bowl began to liquify and bubble.
Raika, arms outstretched and palms up, pivoted to face Eva.
Suddenly, an oppressive thickness settled over them, and everything went still.
Except Raika’s hair, which whipped around as if she were caught in a windstorm.
Eva gasped, and curiously, Scotty felt a weird tug in her chest. As if something inside her was being pulled.
“It’s working,” Raika rasped, lifting her palms higher as Eva’s head fell back, her mouth open as if in a scream, but nothing came out.
Nothing that Scotty could see, anyway.
Logan clung to Eva, his expression a mask of worry and fear, his eyes bloodshot and glistening with unshed tears. Poor guy—
Pain, as if a fist or an alien had punched through her rib cage from inside, absolutely wrecked Scotty. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t cry out, couldn’t even collapse to the floor. She just stood, frozen, as a sensation of losing a part of herself, like an organ—maybe her heart—held her in place.
Then it was over, and she slumped back against the wall, exhausted and shaking, just as Eva collapsed into the chair, her head tucked against Logan’s chest.
The blood in the bowl sloshed upward, spinning into a funnel that made grotesque wet sounds. It started to form limbs, a vaguely female form…a head.
It rose higher and higher, becoming more recognizable as a female. Long hair, slim waist, breasts.
Harvester.
“No!”
Reseph’s roar drowned out the wet, squishy sounds. Scotty wheeled around in time to see him charging the partially formed body, his summoned sword raised, poised to lop off the head.
“Kill her!”he screamed.
Limos blocked his path. He wheeled hard to the right, only to get tackled by Ares and Thanatos. They took him to the floor, Thanatos pinning his shoulders and Ares straddling his legs.
“It’s not Harvester’s blood!” Hatred burned in Reseph’s eyes, his struggles growing more violent. “It’s Lilith’s!”
Oh, shit.
Scotty tasted bile as she looked at the figure. It was solid now, skin forming on the feet and spreading upward. The thing twisted and writhed, its eyes, now fully formed, gleamed with dark evil.
“I destroyed Harvester’s blood,” it said in a raspy hiss. “And now I will have her power and her—”
Scotty finished what her uncle had started. She hadn’t even realized she’d moved until she stood there, her summoned blade dripping.
Lilith’s nearly fully formed body turned to liquid, and her blood splashed to the floor.
For a few heartbeats, everyone stood still as the growing implications of what had just occurred sank in. They’d failed.
“How?” Aleka croaked. “How could this have happened?”
Ares helped Reseph to his feet. “Lilith must have found Harvester’s blood before you did and swapped it for hers. She probably arranged for Wraith to find it exactly where and when she wanted him to.”
“I don’t understand,” Aleka said. “What was her plan? Is she dead now?”
“No.” Raika, her eyes and skin back to normal, crouched on the floor and dragged her finger through a splash of blood. “Harvester’s Grace mixed with Lilith’s blood, and she was controlling it from afar. Like an avatar. The plan was probably to join it with her physical body. The power Lilith would have wielded…”
