The amulet’s magic fire didn’t stop. It burned through her heart and spread until it crawled over every inch of her body. She roared with anguish.
Kushiel hoisted his fiery sword high and darted toward her. He brought the longsword down on the protective circle. The weapon clashed with her shield.
The pentacle cracked. Its pressure fell down like the veil of a tabernacle, cut from the top, as if severed by heaven itself.
Lilith’s eardrums popped, ripping away the raging, thrashing storm, the cloven-hooved stomping of the legion, the grousing demon and the pompous angel. The rumbling earth fell silent.
Her pentacle fragmented. The circle’s power dove into the earth, cutting like a giant blade, cutting deep, deep, down.
Kushiel tumbled back, toes over ticker, like a castoff tissue. Haniel was kicked aside, and he and all his minions rolled like stones. Lilith couldn’t hear. Maybe she should have been more worried about the protective circle, but her agony continued to grow. She’d been deafened, but now she could move. She flicked at the amulet and realized it was sinking into her.
Its round, flat back bored a hole in her chest.
I must have ruined the spell, and the magic has turned on me. Or maybe Fate was right and it’ll kill me.
While she began thinking of ways to make it stop—such as dousing it with salt, performing an exorcism, or smashing it to pieces—the cord holding the amulet split, and each frayed end speared into the side of her torso, gaining leverage for the amulet to work its way deeper. She screamed, but the sound was watered down even in her head. She clawed at the talisman, but its round edge burrowed below her skin.
She panicked, scratching at her chest, ripping at the flesh, but it was no use. The amulet fused to her sternum, hard as an exterior bone, gleaming amber against her pale skin.
The angel’s wings flared, and Kushiel drew back his sword and charged again. Haniel and his legion had found their feet and—seeing the angel resume his attack—stampeded across the courtyard, frothing, foaming, eyes wild. Each monster fought to get to her first.
Her chest burned. Her bones boiled. Something new and dangerous corkscrewed through her spine.
Light flared so bright it was more like a sound, a shriek, which blasted outward. Hot waves rippled through the air. The blast exploded outward and upward, on and on.
Chapter 31
The courtyard was empty. No angel. No demons. No dead vampires.
No stone fort.
No trees.
Not even a blade of grass.
Lilith sprawled on black, fertile soil seeping with blood and bone meal.
Her chest burned with a worming pain where the amulet had implanted itself. She reached down and touched its tawny surface, and power twanged through her, into her, cutting deep. The talisman had set down roots, interweaving itself in her spine.
The spark—whether it was the Light of Creation or the damned Black Spark, she didn’t know—roused. Swelled. Tangled up in the amulet’s veins and pushed back. The talisman dug deeper, scraping her spine.
Lilith grit her teeth and left it alone.
The ring had burrowed deep in her thumb, submerged until only the top of the pearl was visible above the skin. All around these new ornaments, her body raged with pain. Her knee and heart especially.
She propped herself up and considered the battleground. Footprints, a chasm in the earth, errant angel feathers. No corpses. The dragon’s heart was a lump of coal, cold. She tucked it in her pocket. All of the mirrors had broken, but the third one shattered as if something had exploded from the inside.
Rain coursed down her face, and she wiped blood and soot out of her eyes. Her nostrils stank with lingering brimstone. The entire courtyard smelled like a mixture of piss, sulfur, rain, and fire.
She staggered to her weak, tormented feet. Her dress hung down in tatters, she’d lost a shoe again, and the gashes in her skin were white and bloodless.
Castle Island was a bald, black, broken stretch of land surrounded by the ocean. Buildings on the horizon burned, half-demolished, probably ignited by the amulet’s blast.
Lilith had no idea what was going on or where anyone had gone. The amulet buried between her breasts behaved like a stone, dull, heavy, and benign. Turning its cheek to the world, denying culpability, as if it had nothing to do with the fresh wasteland scorched into Boston soil.
She’d managed to perform the spell and unbind the amulet, but she had no clue how to wield heaven’s weapon. She decided it didn’t matter.
She’d made an enemy of a devil and slain an angel of heaven, but she’d survived. She’d bested heaven and Destiny. She remained free. Agonized, miserable, starved, but free. And euphoric. She had her health, her spark, the amulet and its power. Everything else was a problem for another day. Until then…
A weird, tenuous joy mingled with her fatigue.
She took off her last shoe, stared at her dirty toes and the busted ankle. Her soles sank into the rich, black earth. Mud squished between her toes. Her heart soared high, delirious enough to lift her off the planet and set her soaring through the skies.
Storm clouds abated, fled. Stars gleamed down at her, crystal clear and promising.
Lilith left everything behind, including her shoe, and walked into a dark, dangerous, beautiful world.
Victorious.
For now.
Series
The Exalted Series
A long-lost vampire matriarch returns to claim her throne, and her madness ripples through the supernatural world. The regime change sparks the apocalypse and unleashes a rabid disease.
Follow hunters like Simon as he tries to save his best friend—and all humanity.
The Exalted books precede the Muttopia novels.
Muttopia
The post-apocalyptic world fills with supernatural monsters and the gunslingers tasked with killing them. The protagonist, Kaidlyn Durant, is a weathered hunter when the story begins, but a sudden shift in werewolf behavior opens her eyes to a beautiful world beneath prejudice and fear.
About The Author
Native to Northern Michigan, Elizabeth now resides in the blistering heat of Phoenix with her carefree mastiff puppy and snobbish cats. She has a tendency to drink too much coffee and read too many books.
Connect
Website: www.ElizabethBlakeWords.com
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