Epilogue
Nox - 1 Day
“I can’t believe your mother is Nyx,” Charlotte said. Professor Astor. The world-renowned expert on all things Greek mythology.
She was trying to maintain some decorum while perched on Bael’s lap since he’d reached out and dragged her down when she’d tried to pass.
“She’s one of my favorite goddesses. I mean… powerful enough that Zeus himself doesn’t mess with her? Epic. What was she like?”
“Intimidating. But there was a kindness there too.”
“What was the Underworld like?” Jo asked, handing a mug to Ace before sitting on the arm of his chair.
“Beautiful. And terrifying.”
“Beautiful?” she asked, dubious.
“Well, we kind of landed in the Elysian Fields. Which were every bit as beautiful as the stories—“
Lucifer snorted at that, and it took a lot of effort to keep my lips from curving up.
Ever since Daemon mentioned that Lucy got super upset when anyone mentioned how Hades took over Hell, I couldn’t help but notice it myself. And be a little charmed by it. It was kind of interesting to see how beings that we would otherwise think of as so different from us had the same silly, petty grievances that we did.
“The poppies were really pretty too,” I added, just to goad Lucy.
“I’m sure his ‘palace’ is stunning too,” Lucifer mumbled under his breath.
“Coulda done without the dog, though,” Daemon said, his fingers sifting absentmindedly through my hair.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “That’s the only dog I’ve ever met that I didn’t want to pet.”
“Guess I gotta get you a pet dog, huh?” Daemon asked, lips near my ear.
“Preferably one with only one head,” I specified.
“That might be asking for too much, given the state of the world,” Daemon teased.
“What’s so scary about a three-headed dog anyway?” Lucy grumbled to himself, flicking his lighter open and closed.
“Says someone who wasn’t chased by three snarling, snapping mouths full of, like, foot-long teeth,” I shot back. “Though your flesh-eating demon was pretty scary too. If I wasn’t with Daemon, I might have chosen death by the dogs over that thing.”
At that, Lucy straightened in his chair. “To be fair, they were never supposed to be able to cross into the human plane.”
“And, yet,” another voice said, coming down the hallway to appear in the study doorway in bloodstained clothes, “I had to get rid of three of them this week. Thanks for that, by the way,” she said, giving Lucy a hard look. “Like things are messy enough with the meddling old gods; the poor people are being picked off by Underworld creatures.”
“Just to be specific, they are creatures of Hell,” Lucy clarified. “Not the Underworld. The Underworld has… dogs,” he said with a flip hand wave.
Dale shared an eye roll with me as she pressed a hand to Minos’s shoulder.
“No, don’t,” she said when he grabbed her. “I’m covered in blood. And, I think, entrails.”
“What, exactly, are entrails?” Nova, Drex’s woman—the former vampire thrall—asked.
“The innermost parts of an animal or human,” Charlotte supplied.
“In other words, guts,” Jo said. “Mostly.”
“Exactly,” Dale agreed. “Their guts are almost human-like. But their brains are literally the size of a peach pit,” she said with a pointed look at Lucy.
“Can’t exactly have mindless yes-men if they have brains of their own, now, can you?”
“Um…” Dale said, waving around at the demons gathered in the library.
“Well, that’s different,” Lucy insisted.
“Care to elaborate?” Dale asked.
“Well, how were they going to come up with new, interesting ways to torture the worthy if they didn’t have brains of their own? Besides, they were supposed to stay deep enough to never be freed.”
“Guilty,” Lenore said with a grimace.
“Well, to be fair, you only freed me and my brother,” Daemon said. “We still have no idea how everyone else got here.”
“Probably that meddling Hades,” Lucy said under his breath.
Everyone in the room shared a secret smile.
It turned out Daemon was right; Lucy’s inferiority complex about Hades taking over Hell was kind of endearing.
“So what does everyone think of this Aggy witch?” Jo asked. “Do you think her plan stands a chance?”
“If she was able to hold off all those gods by herself, I think she has a good chance,” Lenore said. “It will depend on if whatever she uses to sustain her powers will be in abundance or not.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, all magic comes from somewhere,” Lenore explained. “My coven, we took from the earth and one another. Arick, he pulls from his plants.”
“Wait, that’s why he has so many of them?” Jo asked.
“Yes. Arick is incredibly powerful in and of himself, but he has to draw from the world to recharge himself. So he keeps the world inside his house.”
“That’s why they looked so much like they were fading,” I said.
“They did?” Lenore asked, looking concerned.
“We can drop off more plants, right?” Jo asked, looking at Ace. “To make sure he has all the power he needs.”
“We’d probably be rescuing them from certain death at the home improvement warehouses anyway,” Nova piped in.
“So… girls’ trip?” Jo suggested.
Which, hilariously, caused a chorus of demonic growls from around the room.
The girls, equally amused, decided to pile on.
“Oh, what are you grumbling about?” Jo asked, barely holding back a smile. “We’ve got a witch, a demonslayer, and a demigod. No one would stand a chance against us.”
“Not fuckin’ happening,” Drew snarled.
“We could stop for brunch!” Nova said, not even trying to keep from smiling.
“Yes!” Jo agreed.
“Maybe some manis and pedis,” Dale joined. “My nails are looking rough.”
“Absolutely not,” Minos said.
“You gonna join in the fun?” Daemon whispered to me, fingers tickling my side.
“Depends.”
“On?”
“Are you gonna get all grumbly and protective too?”
“We’ll go to the fuckin’ plant store,” Drex declared, getting a little laugh out of Nova.
“What? On your motorcycle?” she shot back. “How do you expect to bring a monstera back on a bike?”
“The fuck is a monstera?” Drex asked, getting head shakes from the other demons.
“I’ll go with the girls,” Lucy declared.
“Your penis-mobile isn’t going to work either,” Dale said, making a snort escape me.
“Lucy… commandeered a red sports car,” Ace explained.
“If anyone here objects to theft, the owner was dead inside of it,” Lucy declared, making the women let out a mix of groans and laughs.
“Sometimes, having a full soul around you all is… interesting,” Charlotte said, shaking her head at the lot of them.
“Well, if it helps at all, even losing a tiny piece of your soul to become immortal,” Nova piped in, “still makes this whole thing,” she went on, gesturing vaguely, “interesting.”
“You lived among vampires, and these guys are shocking?” Dale asked.
“Different vibes, I guess,” Nova said with a shrug.
“They do dress quite nicely,” Dale said, getting another low grumble from Minos. “But you have much nicer hair,” she said, petting his head while giving the girls all a look.
We all immediately understood it. It said: For creatures of hell, they sure are sensitive.
“Anyway,” Jo said. “We’re going to drop off plants to Arick. And Aggy, if she’s still there. And I guess you guys can come if you want.”
My gaze slid around the room, finding a certain affection for everyone gathered around. I’d known them for almost no time at all. Yet I felt a kinship with them, a connection I hadn’t anticipated.
They were going to be my family, I realized with a swelling sensation in my chest.
I’d been so alone after my father’s passing. And aside from my mother, I didn’t have anything nice to say about my actual blood family.
It was nice to know I was no longer alone, that I had community, family.
All thanks to Daemon.
I leaned close to Daemon’s ear. “I really love your people,” I told him, meaning it.
“Even Lucy?” he whispered back.
“A bit begrudgingly, but yes,” I admitted.
“Good,” Daemon said, wrapping me up tighter. “Because you’re stuck with us for eternity now.”
“Good.”
“Hey, Charlotte,” he called, making her look over.
“Yeah?”
“Any idea what a demon/demigod baby would be like?”
She thought on that for a second before admitting, “I have no idea.”
“Hmm,” Daemon said, shrugging. “Guess we’re gonna have to find out firsthand then.”
Daemon - 1 month
“Got another one incoming,” I said, making my way down the stairs to find Ace, Jo, Drex, and Lenore in the study.
“Another what?” Ace asked. “Demon or human?”
“Human this time,” I said. “I could see the blood from the second floor.”
“Guess we’re up then,” Jo said, looking at Lenore.
At first, Ace and Lycus had a lot of objections to their women and their newfound need to aid and heal the wounded humans.
The problem was, these women we’d all chosen were stubborn as fuck. There was no talking them down from their individual missions.
And as a former nurse, Jo felt it was still her duty to mend. Lenore, who had all the herbal training from her coven, was a happy assistant.
We’d had no fewer than fifteen half-dead humans happen our way over the past few weeks. Running from gods, from demons, but mostly from their fellow men who had formed roving gangs with a thirst for violence.
“Interesting, isn’t it?” Lucy asked, standing with me in the doorway, watching the human woman collapse into Jo and Lenore’s arms.
“What?”
“We’re supposedly the evil ones,” he said, sipping his coffee. “Yet this is what the humans do to one another.”
The collapse of the world as they’d known it had indeed brought out the true nature of the humans.
Some were working hard to build community, to all work together to create gardens, makeshift schools and hospitals, to take in displaced and needy people, forming their own mini societies.
More, though, turned greedy and ugly, roving around the world with too many weapons and not enough sense, looking only to pillage, rape, and kill. For the thrill of it. Because there were no longer consequences for giving into their base, wicked instincts.
I’d been happy to leave Hell—and all the torture—behind when I came to the human world.
Suddenly, though, I wouldn’t mind shoving a metal poker up the asses of some of these humans again.
Lucy’s eyes glowed red as the girls half-dragged the horribly beaten and bloodied woman past us and into the house.
“We had purpose,” he said, jaw tight as he looked at the woman and her bare, bloody legs. “We did terrible things. For good reasons. Just the threat of us kept the majority of humans in line. Now, look…”
“I keep hoping the gods will… do something,” Nox said, coming down the stairs, looking at the blood drops on the hallway floor.
“They don’t care about the humans,” Lucy said.
“But you do?” she asked, not unkindly.
“I always did,” he said, glancing up at the sky. “Isn’t that what we argued about most, Dear Old Dad?” he asked the sky.
“I thought you were too prideful,” Nox said. “You know that whole ‘pride goeth before the fall’ saying.”
“Let’s say I had some very valid questions that someone did not like.
“I fell. Then I chose to spend my life punishing those humans who took their free will to do evil things. In a way, He and I have been working together for ages,” he said, nodding toward the sky. “It kept things… mostly in balance. Now, look at things…” he said as the woman howled from somewhere deeper in the house.
“I really wanted to believe that human goodness would prevail in hard times,” Nox admitted.
“Did you?” Lucy asked, tone just shy of condescending.
“Humans have shown a long history of helping one another in trying times.”
“They have also shown a long history of murdering over silly, imaginary lines on a map,” Lucy said with an eye roll. “Of inventing thousands of ways to torture someone without the sweet release of death. They have killed, maimed, raped, and burned across centuries with no signs of becoming less cruel. They’re a failed experiment,” he added.
“I want to disagree with you,” Nox said, wincing as the woman in the back of the house cried. “I’m going to go give her some rest,” she added, patting my chest as she moved past me.
I was still adjusting to seeing her so healthy all of the time. She’d gone from sleeping sixteen-hour stretches to barely needing a few hours to be fully charged and ready to take on the day.
Which she typically spent integrating herself with the other women, playing with the kids, cooking, helping Lenore tend to the cold frames that were still producing food for everyone who needed it, planning a giant garden for the spring to help feed the humans that kept coming our way, half-starved, cleaning, and learning healing from Jo and herbs from Lenore.
She’d melted in so effortlessly; it was like she’d always been around with us.
Her powers to put people into a deep sleep definitely came in handy when we had injured humans staying with us. And, once, when one of the babies was cutting teeth, miserable, and everyone had hit their max trying to coddle.
Lucy and I moved into the study, finding Ace talking to Charlotte, likely discussing the gods yet again. To what end, though, I had no idea.
“Any word from Seven or Aram?” I asked.
“Phones aren’t working,” Ace said, waving over at his that he still had plugged in. Just in case.
I knew he was worried about our missing brothers. And, of course, Red. Especially with the world the way it was.
We all were.
Last we’d heard, Seven, Aram, and their women were on their way back. But that had been a while back.
“Nyx had nothing else to say?” Ace asked Charlotte.
“I think she has a certain loyalty to her kind,” Charlotte said, shrugging. “She worries about the humans too, but she won’t tell us how to… rein in the old gods either.”
“How is she doing?” I asked when Nox walked into the room, her eyes sad.
“She’ll make it,” she said. “But… she’s been through it. She said there’s this roaming group of men the next town over. They’re just going house to house, killing and assaulting. Even when the people freely give up all their food.”
“Excuse me,” Lucy said, standing, grabbing his coat, and charging out of the house.
“What was that about?” Nox asked as I moved across the room toward her.
“Best guess? A little devilish justice,” I told her.
“I feel like I should object. But, gods, those men deserve whatever Lucy wants to do to them.” She let me lead her out into the hall before she wrapped her arms around me tight. “It’s so ugly out there. I wish we could be doing more.”
“You’re doing a lot,” I reminded her. “And we’ll do more as we figure out how to. We’re still… learning and planning. Action will come.”
“Yeah,” she agreed, pressing her face into my neck, breathing me in. “Want to go help me forget for a while?” she asked, her voice already thick with need.
Fuck yeah, I did.
Nox - 1 year
Everything changed. Slowly, all at once, then slowly again.
It was a different world than it was a year ago.
But at least some things hadn’t changed.
Namely, the family we had created in this sprawling mansion full of an absurd number of fireplaces and, now, candles.
Hell, the girls and I had a whole candle-making workshop going in the basement.
We all could thank Lenore and her rustic coven for teaching her things that would help us all endure the end of life as we knew it.
We all became verifiable experts at the things that kept us halfway sane: candle making, herbs, gardening, wood chopping, and some solar energy that allowed us to have music or movies on occasion.
Sure, almost everyone under the roof was immortal, but that didn’t mean we wanted to live forever without some basic luxuries.
“How are the hydroponics going?” I asked Lenore when she came in from the kitchen.
“They’re all sprouting already! I’m so excited for some fresh greens again. We went through those cold frames faster than usual.”
“We were feeding more mouths than we expected.”
Both the babies being born and the many humans who came to our doors seeking help.
“Which is why Lycus is building me a bunch of new ones. And a proper root cellar to store everything we are going to be growing this year.”
“Have I mentioned recently how badass you are?” I asked, getting a little head shake from her. “I just grew up this way, is all,” she said, waving it off. “Though, it is handy I can make it rain when I’m sad. The crops never fail. And, well, there are a lot of things to be sad about in the world lately.”
There were.
But there were good things too. Positive change. Things to hope for again.
Humans, as they’d proven time and time again since they’d first appeared, were resilient. They had innate goodness, a desire for justice, the need to rebuild no matter how many times everything they’d toiled over got knocked down.
Little by little, that was what they were doing. Striving, expanding, creating community, rebuilding everything that had been taken from them.
“So, are you ready for today?” Lenore asked, giving me a soft smile.
“Absolutely.”
“No reservations?” she asked.
“Did you have them?”
“I think we all had some. The idea of giving a piece of our souls was scary. Not knowing if it would make us different, less empathetic.”
“You are the most empathetic person I’ve ever met. You and Jo have done so much good.”
“I guess maybe that, you know, helps. That you have us around to see as examples of how little the spell changes you.”
“It must have been terrifying for you,” I said, realizing how much she had been willing to risk for forever with Lycus. She’d gone through with the spell for immortality, not knowing what it would do to her.
That was a hell of a lot of love.
And, honestly, I could relate.
I thought I’d loved Daemon back in the cheap motel room, when we walked hand in hand through Hell, when I’d dragged his nearly lifeless body out of the car and to his door, when I’d tended to him with no signs of improvement for days, when he’d woken up and told me he saw an eternity with me.
But, somehow, each day that passed brought with it more love, more certainty that this was the only man for me.
Yes, even if he had an annoying habit of leaving his clothes scattered around the floor. Or deliberately disappearing just when he knew everyone was going to get started on chores.
He was a shameless slacker in some regards.
In others, he went above and beyond. Especially when it came to showing me just how much he loved me.
Which was why I had a ring on my finger. And was about to give away a little sliver of my soul to spend forever with Daemon.
We didn’t really need to ‘rush into’ it. I was partly immortal, after all. There was plenty of time. But it felt right to do it a year after I first watched Daemon being dragged into the cellar by my siblings.
We’d even floated the idea of traveling all the way back up to those very woods where our love story started.
Unfortunately, we had no idea what was going on with my siblings. And our entire family didn’t need to suffer at the hands of Oizys, Ares, or Eris just for us to get a full-circle moment.
The woods behind our home were just going to have to do.
“It was scary,” Lenore agreed. “But not as scary as the idea of not spending my life with Lycus.”
“And now you have little demon babies,” I said, smiling at the idea of how they were the perfect mix of their demon dad and witch mom. When they were angry, little horns poked out of their heads. But when they were sad, they made storm clouds gather and rain pour down.
I had maybe spent a fair amount of time wondering what little demigod demon babies might be like. Horned, for sure. But would they be masters at hide-and-seek? Would they grow to be rebellious teens who had handy dandy shadow cloaks to use to sneak out of the house?
We weren’t there yet.
We were still enjoying the hell out of our alone time together.
But we both talked about another generation, about the qualities we hoped the babies would inherit from us.
“Speaking of,” she said, looking up at the ceiling as one of her kids let out a sound that was a bit more demonic than human. “Someone is awake. I’ll see you in the woods in a few!”
With that, I made my way upstairs, ready to throw myself together.
The world wasn’t anywhere near having stores to go and shop in anymore. So getting a fancy new dress for the ceremony hadn’t been an option. But with some help from Lenore and the other girls, I’d thrown together a pretty enough outfit.
“There you are,” a voice called as soon as I opened our bedroom door.
But it wasn’t Daemon inside. He’d been dragged with Lucy and Bael to comb the woods to make sure there would be no threats to our ceremony later.
It was my mother.
“Hey! What are you doing here?”
“I heard this is an important day for you,” she said, turning in that way she always did, her shadows dancing around her like a skirt.
“It is,” I agreed, not sure how she got that news, but definitely not disappointed that she’d shown up.
Nyx wasn’t exactly… maternal. I guess you couldn’t expect that from a primordial being. But she was there for me. She never missed a month to bring me more ambrosia. And when she visited, we always sat and chatted. She even got on with Daemon.
The point was, she hung around. She showed up.
“I’ll be glad to know I will have eternity with you,” she told me. “I brought you something to celebrate,” she said, waving toward the closet door.
Turning, I found a dress hanging on the back of the door.
No.
Not just a dress.
The dress.
The one I had dreamed about.
It was made in shades of gray and black with some sort of shimmer to it that made it seem alive. I bet when I put it on, it would have so much movement that it would seem to be dancing around me, much like the shadows around my mother.
“Oh, it’s perfect,” I said, running my fingers over the silky material. “Where did you find something like this?”
“I have my ways,” she said. “You needed a proper gown for this day.”
Tears pricked my eyes as I turned to give her a smile.
“Thank you so much. Are you staying for the ceremony?”
“I am.”
And she did.
She stayed with me as I changed, helping me style my hair and apply my makeup—things I never knew I’d been missing all my life.
Then, arm in arm, we followed the girls out into the woods.
“You will be giving me some of these, correct?” Nyx asked, jiggling one of the club babies on her hip, getting belly laughs out of the baby that had my mother’s face softening.
“Oh, yes.”
“I think I will enjoy being a…”
“Grandmother,” I told her, watching her nose scrunch up.
“Surely we can come up with another name than that.”
“Nana? Meme? Gigi?”
“Nene,” Lenore suggested.
“That might do,” Nyx decided, nodding. “I think I will be a good Nene.”
“Weekend trips to visit Nene in the Underworld,” Charlotte mused.
“If Hades isn’t still holding a grudge about the poppies,” I said.
“Perhaps he would have gotten over it by now,” Nyx said as the baby reached up and tugged her long, dark hair. “But Momus has been goading him about it. No worries; another hundred years or so, all should be well.”
“You’ll give my daughter many of these,” Nyx said, jiggling the baby when we made it to the clearing where the men were waiting for us.
“As many as she wants,” Daemon agreed, his eyes roaming over me in my new dress, the heat clear in his eyes.
Nyx held onto Lenore’s baby as she began the spell that would chip off a little piece of my soul as I bound myself to Daemon for eternity.
It wasn’t exactly a wedding ceremony. But it wasn’t not one either.
So once it was done, we did seal it with a kiss. Long, lingering.
By the time we came up for air, the woods were cleared.
I remembered the girls telling me how the ceremony made them all need some alone time.
Even as I thought it, the heat bloomed through me.
When I turned back to Daemon, I saw the redness in his eyes, the horns poking out of his skull.
Which only managed to ratchet up my own need.
Hands roamed then, slipping up under my dress, sparking little fires that spread until they consumed me—and us—entirely.
We went down on the forest floor, where we took turns being on top, our cries filling the woods as we moved together for what felt like hours.
Until, at last, we came hard together.
My head was still thrown back, my breathing ragged, my heart hammering, when Daemon’s fingertips gently traced over the red scratches on my hips from his talons just moments before.
“That was good practice,” he said.
“Practice?” I asked, my mind still not quite working right.
“For all those grandbabies we have to make for your mother.”
“At least three, I say.”
“Four.”
“Four sounds good too,” I agreed as he sat up to press his lips to mine.
“But I think we need to do some more practice first,” he said, already growing hard inside me again.
“Definitely more practice,” I agreed, melting back into him.
XX