And now Rafe Bogdani ended, as Damastes smashed a heavy heel down on Rafe’s skull, pulping the sorcerer’s face with a hideous crunch. The murder god never slowed as he powered forward and fell upon Edwards, tearing the man limb from limb in an explosion of entrails and unspeakable fluids that showered the scene in a rainbow of gore. Anastasia screamed, high and shrill. The girl’s mind would have been shattered forever, of that there was no question, had Xanthe not suddenly appeared between her and the body of her father. Xanthe used her thin frame to shield the girl from the bulk of that terrible tide.
Damastes snarled and batted Xanthe aside, much as he had Selene—but this slaughter nun received far less of his attention: his claws were sheathed, reserved for a better target. Anastasia, still screaming. Anastasia, whose death would complete the ritual, not to bind him, but to free him completely into the world. Without Nora. Without the guiding hand of justice. Without anything to hamper him.
“I’ve won!” he howled, delighted malice in his voice. He glanced over his shoulder to the woman who had been his home for so many years, eyes narrowed and calculating. “When you’re dead, I’m going to fuck your corpse until it screams.”
Trite, snapped the voice of Shelby.
Nora, frantic, cast around. Weapons were useless, she knew that, but it was better to die with a knife in her hand than with nothing but the blood that coated her fingers. At least then she could say she’d tri—
Damastes was moving, Damastes was bringing his claws down toward Anastasia’s throat, and the girl wasn’t screaming anymore, the girl was frozen in her fear at her impending death, the girl was a rabbit ripe for the slaughter, and this could not happen this could not happen this could not happen.
“No!” howled Nora in a voice that could have rivaled Damastes’s own.
The murder god froze.
Trite and stupid, murmured the Shelby side of her.
“What?” Nora’s voice was a whisper or a broken scream.
You made him. You shaped him. You own him. Shelby’s voice was matter-of-fact, and so real that Nora could have wept. He let you do exactly what he feared because he wanted so badly to be free. He’s your Heykeli. He’s your puppet now.
“Release me!” snarled Damastes, struggling to move.
“No,” said Nora again, more softly this time. “No.”
“I’ll spare you if you release me!”
“No.”
“The world—the universe—you could be a queen! You could have your revenge on everyone who ever wronged you!”
“No.”
“I’ll kill you. I’ll rip your entrails out through your crotch and swallow them like spaghetti. I’ll—”
“No,” said Nora again, soft and steady. The pain was back, arcing through her like ice. She welcomed it. She welcomed the darkness it represented.
He’s been yours since you said hello, whispered Shelby, and Nora knew it was true. More, she knew that if it was true, then everything that belonged to him was hers as well, from the greatest atrocity to the smallest transgression.
Everything.
Calmly she stepped past the frozen, snarling demon and picked up the ombrikos. The void surged within it, and the void within her answered. She could send him back. She could banish him back to whatever it was that waited for murder gods whose time was finished.
“Do it,” hissed a familiar voice. Nora glanced to the side, startled, to behold Selene staggering toward the altar, one hand clasped over the wound at her ribs. “Kill the bastard.”
Nora nodded, not quite capable of speech, and began, through the void, to pull the power away.
Damastes howled. The sound was rage and pain and fury, and Nora quaked to hear it. She kept pulling, letting the shadows spool back into the core of her, letting them wrap tight around her heart.
You can’t send him back to the void, whispered Shelby.
Why not? Nora demanded silently, of no one but herself.
He’s too big. Put him back and another cult will free him. His sister is already banished, and she’ll be looking for some payback. If you banish him, he’ll be on her side.
As much as murder gods had sides, beyond “drown the world in blood.” Nora kept pulling, feeling the strength and confidence—the Indigo-ness—fill her lungs.
But we’ll have time.
No. Shelby’s silent voice was soft, almost apologetic. We won’t.
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—
I don’t mean me.
Nora hesitated, the shadow strands nearly slipping through her fingers.
She knew.
She’d known.
She’d known since she saw the video, saw her own teenage body bound and struggling, seen the trauma and the shock. People didn’t walk away from something like that. They didn’t survive it. They didn’t live and thrive and become superheroes.
She’d been dead since the ritual that bound her to the demon she was now struggling to control. She couldn’t banish him without killing herself—and that might have been worth it if she’d been sure the banishment would take. But she wasn’t. She couldn’t be. Ripping him out of her entirely would wrest the ombrikos from her control, and Damastes would be free despite everything. It was the last trap.
There had to be another way.
He roared. She yanked as much power as she could, wrapping herself in shadows, and was Indigo once more, even as he broke free.
“Foolish child!” he howled, and lunged for her.
Damastes was the source of her power: he was the coal that burned in the furnace of her heart. But the engine was not the machine and never had been. His claws closed on empty air as she shoved the ombrikos into her pocket and leaped, lithe and swift and unstoppable. She yanked again, pulling more of the power out of him, into her.
“Mortal fool!” he shouted.
“The fight doesn’t go to the one who yells the loudest!” she replied, and slammed both feet into his temple, knocking him sideways. For a moment, he staggered, reeling, subject to the limitations of his mortal form. He snarled. He grabbed for her.
She was gone.
The shadows spat her out behind him. She grabbed for his power again, pulling harder and harder, until he began to dwindle, borrowed body warping toward the familiar, beloved shape of a woman who had never existed. He shouted in horror as his claws melted into Shelby’s soft, clever fingers, as his fangs retracted.
“No!” he snarled. “I won’t be stopped! I won’t be contained! I wo—”
His words cut out as his mouth vanished, covered by a shell of hardening flesh. Nora had a momentary glimpse of his eyes, widened in something that looked almost like respect, before he folded in on himself like a puzzle box, becoming small and square and almost inconsequential.
I’ll be back, whispered a voice that was neither hers nor Shelby’s, and the box fell to the ground, landing with a soft splash in a puddle of blood.
“I know,” Nora said, releasing Indigo and staggering forward under her own power to scoop it off the ground.
It seemed so small. It was the largest thing in the world.
“What did you—?” asked Xanthe.
“He’s mine. He made that clear when he let me build him a body. You own what you build.” Nora’s hand involuntarily tightened around the box. “He’s not going to hurt anyone for a long fucking time.”
“And you get to stay a superhero,” said Xanthe.
“It’s a decent consolation prize, since it seems I don’t get to be a human anymore.” Nora wrapped herself in shadows again, making the box disappear into a place where no one else would ever even dream of finding it. Her smile was a knife slashed across the throat of the world, and for a moment—just a moment—Xanthe looked afraid.
“All right,” said Indigo. “Let’s mop this shit up.”