He leans forward. “If you use your trigger, you’ll die for certain. If you use your trigger in the Pure Branch, they’ll die along with you. The secondary trigger will be a moot—”
“The old me left me some very important messages in secret,” I interrupt. “And now I think I understand what I’m supposed to do as a last resort, ensuring Jahl dies and this isn’t all for nothing.”
He’s quiet for a moment, until he finally asks, “Care to share?”
Sticking out my hand, my gaze stays locked on his, as I respond. “Only if you’re willing to make a deal with the Devil’s daughter.”
Chapter 26
PACA
Pulling on my crown, ensuring it’s securely on my head, I stare into the mirror. My breaths are shaky, even as I shove a handful of popcorn into my mouth and chase it with some chocolate liquor, guzzling until the entire jar is gone.
When I return my attention to the mirror, I find all four my boys in the reflection. Our war paint is on—skeletal paint marking our faces. I can’t believe they didn’t even put up a fight when I requested it, simply to distract them from the intensity of the moment.
Then again, they haven’t denied me much of anything these last few days. They would wait until the possible end to finally give me everything I want without a fuss.
“At least you look badass,” I point out, smiling…but only getting stern looks in return.
“It’s time,” Lamar says in a quiet voice from the doorway.
A few days of debauchery isn’t enough. A few days to relish this moment in time where they’d give me anything…isn’t enough. I need a lifetime. Plan A has to work.
My confidence rattled and my knees trying to give, I turn like I’m one thousand percent positive we’re going to all make it out of this alive.
They easily fall in line behind me, serious and stoic, as we follow Lamar out the door.
My siblings are lounging casually against the walls, all eyes on us as we silently move down the hallway that slowly morphs into the Hall of Sick Fame.
Pictures emerge on the walls, all images of us in our past lives during the glory days of fun, sex, and limitless time.
My purple dress sways, the slits at the hips giving the warm air a space to kiss my thighs with each step I take in my gladiator-style sandals that lace all the way up above my knees—my latest level-up attire after I faced the angelic smiting.
My boys slowly morph into their gladiator clothes, something I can only see in the mirror at the end of the long hallway that seems to steadily grow longer and longer.
Lucifer steps into view, as Lamar steps off to the side, and I move toward him with all the false confidence I can muster.
He gives me a disappointed look, a sneer, and then disappears from sight, not bothering to wish me luck.
Several of the guards lower to one knee as we pass. Hera tips her crown to me, and I flip her off as I keep walking. She smirks, as Lilith does the same.
I give Envy a small glare, before turning my attention to Manella, who looks less eager to send me off to the gallows.
“Try to come back,” he says before he disappears.
The mirror wavers, and I keep walking, stepping through it just as I was instructed to do earlier when Lamar gave me a rundown of how this will go, since we can’t siphon during the lockdown.
The mirror spits me out in Purgatory, where Fluffy and the horses are awaiting us.
Rafael and several other angels are awaiting us as well. Rafael’s eyes meet mine and hold steady, before he gives me a subtle, barely-there nod about our secret agreement.
“We’ll be in lockdown the moment we leave here, but we’ll be watching you. We’ll be able to hear you as well, so just let me know when you’re ready for the cage to open,” he tells me.
He blows into his hands, and a white dove magically appears, cooing as it bounces to the edge of his fingertips and flutters up into the sky, hovering over us.
It’s not until now that I notice a crow already hovering there as well, red eyes glowing as Hell views the exchange from the safety of lockdown.
“Enjoy the view,” I tell the dove and crow with a curt smile. “Make sure no underlings see this. It’d ruin my street cred if all of Hell knew I, The Apocalypse, was about to save the world and all,” I add with a sweet drawl, batting my lashes as I glance back over to Rafael.
The angels have their ‘serious’ faces on, so I decide to quit while I’m ahead.
We climb our rides, readying ourselves for the trek over the ground that can’t be touched unless you’re pure…or have creatures who break the rules.
Taking a shaky breath, I give Fluffy a small pat, and she takes off, racing toward the Pure Branch. My stomach tries climbing up my throat, because the second we’re inside, it’ll be an all-out battle to the death.
The guys are silent, and my spine gets stiffer and stiffer the closer we draw to the dark sludge I can see from here.
The second we reach the edge, I hop off Fluffy.
“I’ve got it from here. Go hunt those unicorns,” I tell her, patting her side.
She doesn’t wait around to see if I change my mind.
The guys dismount and join me in staring ahead at all the sludge that is already taunting us with screeching laughter, as the puppets begin forming, rising up in their forms.
“You shouldn’t have sent her off so soon. What if your fire doesn’t burn through this the way you theorized?” Jude asks quietly, his eyes facing front as we all take in the damning battle that’s about to come.
Swallowing thickly and refusing to second guess myself, I point out, “I can barely ride her as it is. I doubt I can manage to battle, ride a bull, and pull off an impossible win in the final hours against a thing no one believes we can beat. If I can’t burn through it, then this is all pointless.”
Another long spell of silence descends as the laughter inside the cage grows into a deafening echo.
The dove and crow grow restless above us, as the forms continue growing in quantity, slamming into the cage wall.
I really hope Rafael is right about timing this.
“When the cage opens, we’ll have just a few short seconds to enter before it slams shut,” Gage states as though he’s reminding everyone.
“I go in blazing, and you guys ride like the wind to fend off the fray. Then, when I’ve weakened him, hit him with a Unity Strike,” I add, shaking out the last of my nerves.
Fighting back the tears and ignoring the fear of losing them forever, I steel myself.
One of the puppets forms in front of me, and I stare into its hollow eye sockets.
“Surrender yourselves. You shall not defeat me.”
Cracking my neck to the side, I stare at the evil pile of goo body. I guess someone forgot to tell it my motherfucking name.
Chapter 27
GAGE
I snatch Paca’s hand, pulling her to me, and she sucks in a breath of surprise just as my lips crash to hers. My heart is pounding out of my chest, the worst feeling in the world inching up my spine.
Terror. Sheer, unguarded terror courses through my body without restraint for the first time in my entire life.
I don’t want to lose her. I don’t want to lose them. I don’t want to fight this fucking battle.
Her arms wind around my neck, and she drinks me in, kissing me just as hard, as I cling to her with more desperation than I can dignify.
She makes a hungry moan, and I kiss her harder, as her fingers twist and tangle in my hair. She pulls me closer, her touch just as desperate as mine.
She breaks the kiss abruptly, breathing heavily as her head drops to my chest.
“I love you too,” she whispers so softly I barely hear it. “I’ll say it again the second we return.”
I hold her to me tighter, letting my eyelids flutter shut, idly wondering if this would be any easier if it didn’t feel like we wasted so much time fighting her.
Or if we’d simply destroy the world, roll
the dice, and cling to her if we’d remembered, even an ounce, of how much stronger that bond was before it was blasted away with the life we can’t remember.
“It’d be great if you could remember something from before,” I point out, still considering simply destroying the world.
“I’ll never remember,” she says quietly.
My brow furrows, and I glance down, just as she peers up and says, “The weapon is just the vessel—my body, my essence, my very core of my existence. The ammunition is me. That Paca freely gave her life, without even using the ammunition in the way intended, inviting death so easily. She genuinely died, so she could come back and start anew, shifting pieces around on the chess board, and preparing for the checkmate of all checkmates. Because she was a strategist with a formidable foe for the first time in her extremely long life. I’m still her, but I’m also me, because I’ve lived a different life and loved a different way.”
Lifting my hand, I tuck her hair behind her ear, my fingers brushing the warm metal of the black crown.
“Just as you’re all different from the men who mourned her loss until they couldn’t take it any longer,” she adds on a soft whisper.
I don’t get to process anything, because the second a tear rolls down her cheek, Ezekiel tugs her hand in his and spins her to him. His lips crash to hers, and she drinks him in the same as she did me, kissing him hard.
“I never thought we’d find a girl who loved us equally. A woman who could divide herself so easily between us,” I murmur to Kai, as Ezekiel makes Paca choke back tears through a small laugh from whatever he’s just murmured against her lips.
“Now we could lose it all, and we’re not fucking heroes,” Kai states in a quiet, somewhat angry tone as he watches the two of them.
Jude moves to my other side, just as Kai goes to steal Paca from Ezekiel, taking his turn. He lifts her, and she grins against his lips when she kisses him.
“We walk away from this alive,” Jude reminds me, rehashing our own private plan Paca knows nothing about. “If that thing is too hard to kill, we get back out,” he goes on, lifting the amulet Rafael gave us for a quick ejection, in spite of the very complicated instructions on how it works.
“The champion didn’t have time for something like this to work, but we can buy time. We’re five instead of one,” he adds.
I nod, agreeing, even though it feels hollow and uncertain now that we’re standing here in front of this cage.
“Surrender yourselves. You cannot defeat me,” the chorus of voices continues to warn.
Just as Kai releases Paca, Jude is on her, kissing her like I’ve never seen him kiss any other woman. Her arms go around his neck, and she leans up on her tiptoes, pressing against him as he runs his hands down her back.
We all wait. To each of us, she’s dropped that L word that once gave us the creeps when other women tried to use it. But with her, it’s as if we found what we spent so long searching for, without realizing it’s what we were searching for.
Jude kisses her more desperately, and I take an unconscious step forward, watching as he tries his damnedest to convey the thing we all found so much easier to convey.
He finally breaks the kiss in frustration, and Paca’s eyes water as she smiles a little sadly up at him.
“Don’t try so hard. We both know you’re just not there yet,” she whispers so quietly I almost miss it.
Jude stares down at her with a clenched jaw, muscles visibly tense. He’s there. He’s just unable to stop holding back.
We need her at her strongest, but it’s not fair to expect him to figure out what we can’t even find a way to explain.
She pushes away from him, turning her attention to all of us, and takes a deep breath, before glancing over at the hovering dove.
“We’re ready,” she tells it.
The crow squawks, and she flips it off, before turning to face the cage again.
All my muscles grow tight, and my heart rises to my throat, pounding so hard it feels as though it’s going to escape my body. My eyes move to Paca, whose attention is solely on the cage before her as her own eyes turn volcanic.
A deafening, wind-tunnel sound kicks in, raging suddenly, as a burst of fierce air almost knocks me off my feet. Paca dives forward, and my eyes widen, as my body follows as if compelled to do so.
This is it.
The moment we’ve spent every waking hour preparing for these few short weeks, against an opponent who has had eons to hone its skills.
Purple fire blazes out, and the ground quakes beneath our feet, as Paca digs her heels in, lifts her hands, and smirks when the tar-like substance burns back.
The wind shuts off abruptly, and I note that we’re definitely inside, along with our horses, who’ve apparently fucking decided to follow us like they’re not going to get in the damn way.
The air is redder in here than it seemed through the Pure Branch outer shell, and thinner. It smells like endless sulphur, and I fight a gag, as Paca continues to break the ground to pieces and burn away the puppet tar.
“Paca, look out!” Jude shouts as a black wave of the sludge lifts from the ground behind her.
It bursts into flames in the next instant, the purple fire shattering it into ashes, as Paca moves forward, not really exerting herself to clear a path. At least that’s a damn good fucking sign.
I get distracted, seeing the most intense, focused, determined look on her face, as her dress whips in the wind.
As if it wants to rattle her, the stars above us start swirling faster and faster, spinning into a dizzying cyclone over our head until there’s a steady humming. Then, those streaks of faux stars start slashing down like burning rocks aimed right at her.
My breath catches, but Paca just continues walking, undeterred by the assault she easily deflects. A deafening roar shakes the ground we’re on, as those flaming rocks crash to the ground all around her.
Kai starts toward her, slamming his triton into the ground. The tar all around begins lighting up red, as he yells with the effort, as Paca gets lost amongst the dust and fire.
All the red tar suddenly sprays into a pile of ash, but Kai stops abruptly when we spot Paca emerge, walking through smoke at her leisurely pace, with those intense, volcanic eyes and her devilish smirk.
“Watch her back!” I shout, reminding them of our job, as though they don’t already know that.
Jude slings out his scythe, slicing through the pulse of power that almost catches me off guard, since I’m too busy watching Paca. The wind splits around us, his scythe parting the funnel of it that would have surely knocked me back into the massive hands sticking up out of the ground and reaching for me.
The creepy neigh of my horse resonates, just as it crashes into a stretched pile of goo beside me, obliterating it with some wonky power I can’t even begin to describe.
Well, I’ll be damned. The horses do have a purpose.
“Watch your own back too!” Jude gripes, chasing away the laughing puppets, as we prepare to play by Paca’s plan that scares the hell out of me.
Watch her back.
Keep our distance.
Prepare our strike.
Repeat.
It seems too simple now.
Ezekiel roars with the effort it takes for him to peel through the section of tar he’s supposed to rid the ground of, channeling his toxic power into the puppets that don’t react.
“My power is ineffective. Kai!” he shouts.
Kai flips through the air, even as I stand still, unable to look away from Paca. I lose track of all of them, my heartbeat thudding in my ears, as the fog ahead begins to clear and a lone figure’s shadow appears just a little ahead of Paca.
As if it wants us to remember we’ve invaded its territory, the ground begins to quake, the air starts to heat, and the whole sky of stars begins swirling this time, growing faster and faster above our heads as gravity seems to cease to exist all around us.
Everything begins floating up—tar, debris
, boulders…rattling all around us as the humming overhead turns into an ominous whirring.
My feet dig into the ground, fighting against the force that’s trying to drag us toward them. The ground quakes, and purple fire sprays into the air all around Paca, as thunder and lightning crash overhead.
The wind grows more and more unbearable, the abrasive sand grinding across our bodies as they simply stare at each other through the ring of fog.
That’s when it steps out, and those collective voices sound over the wind, causing my stomach to coil with dread.
“You cannot defeat me. You die this day.”
Chapter 28
PACA
The fog parts, and before me, a human-like form steps forward through the staggering wind as though it’s as easy for it to walk through my force as it was for me to step through its.
Wearing a top hat, a tattered suit, and a mimicry of our skeletal-face war paint, it comes into full view. A chill slithers all the way up my spine, as my hair whips against my face.
Pulling the chakram from my hip, I grab my hair, lift it, and slice it off at my shoulders, letting the chopped off portion blow into the wind.
“Shall we stop posturing now and get this party started?” I ask it, lifting my other chakram.
It lifts its hand, white teeth sticking out as the skin around its mouth recedes more and more, steam flowing from the melting face.
“Surrender yourself,” those voices say without it ever moving its mouth.
It’s a little less intimidating in this form.
As my chakrams catch fire, I slide one foot back, posing for attack, and smirk. “You first.”
Chapter 29
EZEKIEL
My eyes widen, my heart drops, and my body stiffens when Paca launches the chakrams in the first strike.
Fire blazes up, and I lose sight of them for a split second. In the next, Paca is on its other side, and the chakrams are battering it in unrelenting strikes, one right after another as she goes all out.
One Apocalypse (The Dark Side Book 4) Page 21