Chapter 38
Chapter
Thirty-Eight
Sy
“What the actual fuck?” Louis echoed, and we all stared at the fucking infant.
Fortunately, Ruin was still bound by the five elements despite his shrunken size, the chain of dark material—enhanced by dark flame and shadow death—still firmly attached.
“That is the evilest baby in the universe,” Cade said, taking a cautious step back.
I didn’t blame him. That thing freaked everyone out more than the void god at his full strength and height.
“Whatever!” Silas yelped. “Just push that evil baby to the other side already!”
“Do it, wolf!” Louis shot back. “Go ahead.”
Isis and Nephthys struck at the same time. Ancient power erupted from them, earth and sky combining into a force that made the air hurt. The stream shot toward the baby Ruin—
“No!” Barbie and I shouted in unison.
Barbie’s dark flame burst from her hands, intercepting the deities’ attack before it could reach Ruin. The powers collided in a shower of fizzling sparks in the middle of the infinite room.
“He can still feed on your power,” Barbie warned, positioning herself between the two deities and their former tormentor, “baby or not!”
Their forms shifted in agitation, their edges crumbling faster. Frustration rolled off them in waves that made my skin itch.
Barbie threw out her hand again, her dark flame—infused with Killian’s death power—wrapping around the evil infant like a cocoon. She lifted him, chains and all, and hurled him toward the fog marking the boundary to the void.
The baby hit the fog and bounced back like a rubber ball, landing exactly where he had started.
“It cannot stay here!” Isis snapped in panic. “The abomination will eventually break free! No prison in this realm can hold him forever.”
I wanted to help, but Ruin craved my magic above all else. One drop of my power might give him the strength to break his bonds. That was why Barbie and Killian had positioned themselves as a wall between us, even though Ruin had been reduced to an infant.
“It must be sent to the void!” Nephthys shrieked. “We have guarded this path for eons, waiting for his final fall!”
Barbie tried again, using pure force. The baby sailed toward the fog and bounced back again. Killian sent his death shadows to shove it through with the same result. The evil infant in its chains just rolled around the center of the infinite room like the world’s worst, most unwanted toy.
“Shit! Shit!” The heirs looked at each other in growing panic. “We can’t get rid of this ticking bomb!”
“We have to get rid of it!”
“Yeah, genius, tell us how!”
Barbie stalked over to the baby with a determined stride. She grabbed the chains and started dragging him toward the fog. Killian joined her, taking half the weight.
The sight was surreal—my sister and her mate hauling a chained infant. Anyone seeing it without context would have called every child services agency and police force in existence. Part of me wanted to record it; social media would have lost its collective shit.
Together, they headed down the path beyond the fog, the evil baby bumping along behind them.
“Barbie, wait!” I called, hurrying after them with Rowan at my side.
“Stop!” She didn’t look back. “Everyone go back. If we have to step into the void to dump this thing, then that’s what we’ll fucking do.”
“What if you don’t come back?”
“We have to risk it. Killian and Tyson will be with me. I won’t be alone.”
An approving dragon’s growl tore from Killian’s throat.
“Not a chance we’re letting you do it alone!” Silas surged forward. “If we do this, we do it together.”
“You all have responsibilities to the realm,” Barbie argued.
“Fuck the realm,” Louis snapped with feeling.
“We live and die as one!” Cade added.
“That’s unrealistic,” General Baal commented from behind us. Apparently, he’d decided to tag along, too. “Everyone dies alone.”
Cassius and Rock fell in step as well, refusing to be left behind.
We marched deeper into the fog like the world’s strangest parade. Barbie halted so suddenly I crashed into her back.
“Force field!” she called out.
“A ward,” Cade corrected, his wand already out to test the barrier. “Shit, it’s stronger than anything I’ve ever felt.”
Everyone immediately began attacking the unseen wall with their respective powers. At one point, it flickered under our combined assault, offering a fleeting glimpse of what lay beyond.
Blue flame danced on the other side—not normal fire, but something alive, aware, and vicious.
“The flame is sentient!” Cade cried out. “It’s guarding the passage.”
“Step back!” Barbie called, tossing her dark flame at it. The blue fire danced with hers like old friends reuniting. The ward, however, remained as solid as ever.
“The Living Flame!” Isis’s dismayed exclamation sounded beside me. The deities hadn’t bothered walking; they could project their consciousness anywhere in this space at will. “It wasn’t there before. Nothing passes it. Not even the Titans, the oldest beings.”
“What is this Living Flame?” Silas demanded.
Shit, this was bad. We’d come so far, done the impossible, and now we were stuck at the finish line with an evil baby we couldn’t dispose of.
Barbie traded a frantic look with me, sweat beading on her forehead.
“If we can’t ship out this evil baby, we’re fucked!”
“We’re so fucked!”
Then everyone was talking at once, voices overlapping in a hysterical clamor.
“Calm down and think,” Cade said, though he was on edge too. “There has to be a way. Just think!”
“Nothing is ever easy,” the archdemon murmured behind us.
“You can think and think for a fucking million years,” a young woman’s rich, musical voice called from beyond the barrier. “It won’t help you.”
The Living Flame parted like a curtain, and she stepped through.
My brain short-circuited.
She looked a lot like Barbie, with the same terrible attitude, though she had perfect, flowing purple hair that belonged in a shampoo commercial, while Barbie had bouncing golden curls that defied any attempt at styling.
“Fuck me,” Barbie whispered, and I couldn’t have said it better myself.
“Hard pass.” The girl smirked.
Shit. Just when we thought we’d handled the biggest crisis of our lives, the universe threw us a curveball shaped like our big sister—guarding the gates of the void with a sentient fire that even Barbie’s dark flame couldn’t counter.