She pressed her palm to the open wound, which he’d inflicted far from any dangerous artery, and her eyes blazed with pure, flaming rage. “I will kill you—”
She reached for the gun at her other thigh, as if she really would blast his face off.
Ruhn bolted down the stairs before she could take aim. Holstering his own gun, he raced onward, leaving her to bleed behind him.
* * *
The waterways of the Eternal City were old, and strange, and unfriendly.
Tharion hated them. Especially with the amplified power in his veins, freed from its bonds. His body and soul recognized the very essence of his surroundings. They did not like what they encountered.
There was no mer court in the river wending like a snake through the city. There was barely any life at all beyond bottom-feeders and skittering things that clung to the shadows.
Above, the world was chaos. Armies and missiles and wings.
Here, the sounds were muffled. The water whispered to him where to go, where to bring the bag of sealed antidotes. Flowed with him, guided his powerful tail, right to the grate in the riverbank. His gills flared as he hauled away the metal. As he swam into the dark, lightless tunnel and switched on the aquatic headlamp he’d had the good sense to bring.
And with the water guiding him, Tharion swam like Hel for the Asteri’s palace.
* * *
Bombs ruptured, and it was so much worse than the past spring. Brimstone missiles rose from the city, from the Asterian Guard hidden within it, from the mech-suits stirring to life atop Mount Hermon—
So much destruction. Hyperconcentrated angelic wrath.
Atop one of the hills beyond the city, Bryce was gasping for breath, a bit dizzy, as she yanked the Mask from her face. Hunt ran for where the Prince of the Chasm stood overlooking the dark beasts swarming toward the city walls and said, “Phase Two starts now.”
Bryce mastered herself enough to stagger up to Aidas and Hunt. The armies of Hel, both terrestrial and airborne, all hungry and raging, were no fucking joke.
She knew it had been the only way. To stand a chance, unleashing Hel had been the only way. Even so, its army was petrifying, allies or not. She had to trust that Aidas and the other princes had them on tight leashes.
“They’re almost close enough,” Aidas said, clad in black armor akin to Thanatos’s. Bryce could only assume that his brothers were either among the fray or overseeing their own divisions of the teeming black mass.
There was nothing to do for a moment but watch the Asterian Guard decide they had the beasts on the run and begin advancing beyond the city walls.
Wings fluttered nearby, and Isaiah and Naomi touched down beside Hunt.
“Ready?” Isaiah asked, clad in the black battle-suit of the 33rd.
“Soon,” Aidas said. The angels still maintained a healthy distance from him, but had at least lost their disbelieving, wary expressions in his presence.
The Asterian Guard swept out into the hills and valleys below, their mech-suits marching among them, and where they struck, demons died.
“Do you think,” Aidas mused, “that they have any idea what’s about to happen to them?”
“No,” Hunt said, smiling darkly. “And neither does Rigelus.”
Bryce slid the Mask back on, and its ungodly, leeching presence ate into her soul. But the star inside her seemed to hold the Mask at bay.
“That’ll teach him to think he can outsmart us,” Naomi said.
The Asterian Guard, white plumes of horsehair on their helmets shining bright in the daylight, advanced through the field of demons. The feet of the scores of mech-suits among them shook the earth.
“I think the three legions he sent to Nena,” Naomi said, “will be in for quite a surprise when they find that half of Hel’s army is still there and waiting for them.”
Isaiah said, with no small amount of satisfaction, “They should be getting word to the Asteri right about”—he checked his phone—“now.”
“Perfect,” Aidas purred. “Then we’re ready.”
“Messaging Declan,” Naomi said, typing into her phone. The Fae warrior was waiting in the van, the hacked imperial military network laid bare at his fingertips.
The Asteri’s mech-suits halted mid-stride. The Asterian Guard paused, glancing at the fancy new machines that had malfunctioned all at once. The glowing eyes of the mech-suits faded and died out.
“Magic and machines,” Isaiah said. “Never a good combination.”
“It’s a go,” Naomi said, reading a message on her phone. “Do your thing, Quinlan.”