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Coil’s scales ripple gold down his forearms as he lowers into a crouch, his tongue flicking once toward the infernal creatures closing in. Thorn’s bark-skin thickens over his hands and climbs toward his elbows, turning both arms into something built to hit hard and keep hitting.

Beside him, Flux’s body starts to change. His shoulders wrench wider first, shirt stretching across a back that packs on muscle by the second. His jaw pushes forward, teeth lengthening as dark fur punches through his skin and claws force their way from his fingertips. He doesn’t bother settling into one clean form. Just takes the strongest pieces he needs and leaves the rest human enough to fight.

Cali and Scar move toward the Conclave enforcers together. Scar breaks left, and Cali takes the right, no discussion needed. The first enforcer lunges, and Scar is already gone, vampire speed turning him into a blur while Cali ducks beneath another blade and comes up inside the bastard’s guard. Half-vampire is apparently more than fucking enough. They fall into the fight together like they’ve done this a hundred times, covering the gaps the other leaves without needing to ask.

Roxy plants her boots as another crack tears across the ceiling. Her hands shoot up and witchfire bursts from her palms, catching the first shower of falling stone before it can crush the three of us beneath it.

Around us, the Kings spread out. Wreck takes one step toward the chasm and stops. His head turns slowly toward the screaming below.

I know that look.

The screams pouring out of Hell change around him, thousands of terrified voices rising through the fire, and Wreck’s chest expands on a long, deep breath.

He feeds.

Every bit of fear coming off those souls pours into him. His gaunt frame starts filling out, shoulders widening beneath his cut as muscle packs onto bone. His claws lengthen. The hollows beneath his cheekbones disappear while something darker moves behind his eyes.

Another breath, he gets fucking bigger.

One of the infernal guardians charges him.

Wreck turns and smiles.

“Bad fucking choice,” Ruckus calls out.

Wreck throws out one hand, and everything he just took from the chasm hits the guardian.

The bastard stops dead.

Those burning red eyes flare wide as centuries of terror slam into it at once. Its claws scrape backward over the stone, its massive body actually retreating as Wreck keeps pouring fear into it.

The demons behind it feel it too.

One drops to its knees. Another claws at its own face. A third turns and tries to get the fuck away from whatever nightmare Wreck just shoved inside its head.

Wreck rolls his shoulders, now twice the monster he was thirty seconds ago. “Now we’re having fun.”

Ruckus tightens his grip on his blade and glances at him. “Remind me never to piss you off.”

Wreck’s grin gets wider. “Little late for that.” Then he launches himself at the guardian. “Well…” he mutters, eyeing the army between the Devil and us, “… guess we’re doing this shit the old-fashioned way.”

The Devil watches all of it happen and, for one heartbeat, his calm actually cracks.

He knows exactly what we’re about to try.

“Malgrave…” His voice doesn’t rise, only commands. “Stop them.”

Malgrave lunges, and the whole chamber detonates into motion at once. Echo drops to her knees in front of me, one palm flat against my chest where the hollow space still throbs, aching for what’s missing. Sentinel drops beside me on my other side, his burned hand hovering on my shoulder, his Holy Grace already gathering pale and gold along his fingers like he’s about to reach into a fire and pull something living back out of it.

“Close your eyes,” Echo says, though it isn’t really a command. It’s a promise. “I’ve got you.” She starts to sing. Not the blind reach that shattered a binding before she even knew what her voice was touching. This time, she knows exactly what she’s reaching for.

Her voice unspools slowly and deliberately, aimed with a precision that makes the hair along my spine stand on end. I feel it slide past my ribs and down through the hollow Malgrave left behind, pushing through layers of stone, fire, and distance until something answers.

Something I know.

My hellfire.

Somewhere in Hell, it hears her.