I lifted the Holy Chalice. Before tipping it over the pile of coins, Medea interrupted me, “Wait!” My hands quivered in midair, waiting for her command. “Just so you understand the weight of your decisions. Those are the thirty coins Judas accepted to betray Christ. They are the thirty seals that hold back the demon lords from this world. As soon as you pour your holy blood onto them, and they react to your demonic nature, the imprisoned Fallen will be free from their prison. They will rule this world once more.”
My body trembled. I had no idea what Medea spoke of. How could my blood be both celestial and demonic? That was impossible. And how would it free the demon lords who have been locked away for over two thousand years? My thoughts jumped to Hephaestus. He had mentioned something about me destroying the world if I left his shop, and that’s why he would have to report me to the Nephilim Council and kill me. He had said I would contribute to the destruction of Earth. Was this what he meant? Had he known that my blood could somehow free the demon lords and their legions from Sheol?
“Pour your blood over the coins,” Medea repeated, “or Melanie dies here and now.”
I chuckled, unable to believe that I faced a decision that meant the world or my daughter. It was the most outrageous thing imaginable.
“Joseph,” Xander’s voice boomed, “don’t do it!”
Medea whistled sharply, and her Anemoi resumed their assault on Xander, distraction him from offering me any further advice. “Your blood has to be willingly given,” Medea said to me, smiling like a wolf. “So, will you spread it over the coins, or will you allow your daughter’s blood to stain my floor?”
My eyes stung and a heavy, sour taste filled my throat as I lifted the Holy Chalice and poured my blood over the coins. The silver reacted, burning a brilliant white and causing me to lean back to avoid the heat.
When the last drops fell over the pile, Medea said, “Thank you, Joey. There is one more thing you should know. Though the fallen angels and demon lords belong to this world once more, Melanie does not.”
With a simple stroke—like moving a paint brush over a canvas or sliding a bow over a violin to create something beautiful—Medea created something abhorrent. Death. The lifeblood poured from Mel’s throat and splashed onto the traced wheel. Still frozen in shock and without the chance to react, a form appeared in the circle beside Melanie and Medea. A woman surrounded in a dense mist and wearing a red sword on each of her hips.
Hecate.
The Nephil reached for Mel, placing her hand on the gashing wound across my daughter’s neck, and she muttered incomprehensible words. After an eternal second, she pulled her hand away, dragging a duplicate of Melanie from her human body—a fuzzy, distorted rendering of my daughter now stood beside the Nephil.
I screamed and sprinted into the circle, but Hecate and Melanie had vanished in the fog. All that remained was my daughter’s body, now lying on the ground in a puddle of blood. I fell beside it at Medea’s feet. Everything else in the room fell to shadows. I placed a hand around her neck to stop the bleeding, and blood seeped through my fingers as I could do nothing to stop her death. It sent me into a frenzy.
“Melanie. Mel. It’s me.” I sobbed. My attempt to save her weakened and died after a moment. Lifting her into my lap, I held my daughter and rocked her for the first time since she was an infant. I don’t know how long we remained like that—long enough, though, for her blood to stop pooling on my lap. I had failed to save Callie seven years ago, and had failed to find those responsible for her murder. I had failed to save my daughter now, but her killer stood in the same room as me.
“I’m so… so sorry,” I muttered, closing her eyes.
I glanced at Xander who stood drowned in darkness, surrounded by the silhouettes of monsters. His celestial guns glowed with radiance on his hips. He hadn’t drawn them before, probably wary of shooting in such a confined space where a bullet could ricochet off a stone wall and hit Mel. But that concerned him no longer. He drew his pistols faster than a teenage boy takes off his pants, and he dropped an Empousa in that same motion.
Standing, I faced my daughter’s killer. “She was a child,” I said, gasping for breath. My entire body had tensed with rage. “Only seven.”
Medea showed her fangs. “Death is not what you think. Yes, her body is now useless to this world, but with reason. Her spirit, still alive and vibrant and young, has moved to another realm where it still very much lives. Just like her mother. She is now home, Joseph.”
The mention of Callie staggered me. “What does that mean? Her mother?”
Medea smirked, then giggled. “This is not the only world where a spirit can existence, and nor is it the only realm of existence that sustains life.”
Unable to listen to her smug voice any longer, I reached for my magic, forgetting that I had none. When I failed to reach power, I did what any other grieving, irrationally angry father would do—I charged the Priestess.
Another quick succession of gunshots echoed like splitting mountains throughout the chamber.
Medea raised an arm as I reached her, throwing up an invisible wall. I slammed into it, careening to the side, losing my balance, and falling on my ass. She chanted a summoning incantation,
