Destroyer blood.
Rian grinned that shit-eating grin. He grabbed me by the arm and threw me. I rolled across the ashy dirt, then slammed into the landing gear of the burned-out helicopter. Something in my back snapped.
I opened my eyes just in time to see Rian stake the crow to the ground. The crow tried shifting forms to get away, flickering from Lonely’s human body to the crow and back again so fast I could see the fighting on the other side of him as if he was see-through, but he couldn’t escape. His soul was pinned down.
Rian pulled the knife out of Lonely’s boot between shifts and pried open the crow’s mouth.
Cut off the wings, cut out the tongue, stake to the ground, light on fire.
That bastard had the Sword of Judgment, but he was going to kill Lonely the long way. No need to go with the easy, sure thing when you knew you were going to win the war. Might as well enjoy yourself.
My shotgun was gone. I swiped my hands out in both directions, but there was nothing. My hand skimmed across rocks that had melted into the dirt. Under the ash and dust, that nuclear explosion that tore the Dark Mansion apart had turned everything into melted, glassy stone.
I wasn’t even sure I could hold a weapon if I found one. The pain throbbed down my chest, through my arms, to my fingertips, weakening my muscles. I tried to get up, but my legs wouldn’t move. The vamp healing couldn’t kick in with the Destroyer blood cutting off the crow magic. The best I could do was pull myself along on my stomach.
Lonely cawed and coughed blood. Rian picked up the lighter and hairspray can Flamethrower-girl had dropped when they shot her.
Other crows were diving at Rian now, screeching and pecking. He turned the hairspray at them and lit it up, backing them off.
I tried to crawl faster.
Rian sprayed Lonely down with fire.
Off to my right, another crow got shot out of the sky. It shifted to Talitha when it hit the ground. She raised an AK-47 and took aim just in time for a foot soldier to saw her legs off with a .50 cal machinegun.
Clarion and two other coyotes were facing off with a pair of angels swinging curved longswords. One foot soldier laid Clarion’s shoulder open to the bone. He yelped, limp-running while dragging one useless leg. Another curved longsword lodged in a smaller coyote’s skull.
Back toward the fencerow, I could hear yelling and gunfire. Naomi’s teams getting intercepted and slaughtered.
In front of me, Lonely’s burning corpse lit up Rian’s sick grin in flickering yellow. Oily black smoke curled up into the reddish-brown sky.
“Every single creature who fought on your side, Tough,” Kathan yelled. “Every soul in this desolate redneck shithole—they’re all going to die tonight, and they have you to thank for it.”
All around me, fallen angels were ripping apart coyotes and crows and humans.
There were more of them than there were of us—more of them than there had been humans and NPs living in Halo—and they couldn’t be killed. Even if I had been in perfect health, it wouldn’t matter. There was nothing I could do.
There was nothing I could do.
I punched the ground so hard that the bones in my fist splintered and stuck through the skin over my knuckles.
You promised! You said if anybody called on You, You would answer. Colt called. Dad, Sissy, Ryder— I heard Mom screaming for You! Where were You? You promised them and You let them die! You were supposed to be the one thing I could count on and now I can’t even—
The ranting in my soul stopped making sense and turned into a howl of rage and pain. I pressed my face to the ground and I emptied my dead lungs into the dust. Soundless, pointless.
I wrapped my arms around my head. My heart slammed against my breastbone like a sledge hammer.
This isn’t supposed to be me! I’m not Your holy fucking champion. I can’t be. Do You even know half the shit I’ve done? I can’t save anyone. Cold tears dripped off my face, into the dirt and ashes. Don’t take it out on them, please. I’m the one who never got it right. Hell, I didn’t even try most of the time. I’m sorry. But don’t let Kathan win because of me. Please.
The ground shook like the world was about to crack in half. A screaming wind tore through, flipping over two SUVs from the Dark Mansion circle. Overhead, thunder boomed and crashed until I thought my eardrums had been perforated.
Then everything stopped. I took my arms off my head. The crows, coyotes, fallen angels, what was left of Naomi’s team… No one moved or breathed. Everybody was waiting to see what would happen next.
My heart beat. Just once.
A voice whispered, “The very second he does…”
Then the sky ripped open.
PART III: ME AND MY HOUSE
Tough
The sound of the sky ripping was so loud that I thought it would crack my skull open. I clamped my hands over my ears, but the noise kept going and going. The red-brown bloodstain that had been the sky for the last two nights peeled back, taking the darkness and the moon and stars with it.
Out of the rip poured light brighter than any sun I’d ever squinted hungover eyes at. There was a sound with the light—that heavenly music I’d been listening for my whole life. The music was so full and so real that I could feel it filling up every space where only air had been before. Wherever the
