Chapter 15
The words hung in the air like a death sentence. My stomach dropped somewhere around my ankles. Which, considering I was currently carrying three magical weapons of mass destruction masquerading as babies, was quite the feat.
Jean-Marc's laptop decided to have what I could only describe as a technological nervous breakdown at that moment. The screen that had been flashing more alerts than a Vegas casino suddenly went completely, utterly, spine-chillingly dark.
"Well, shit," I muttered. Sometimes eloquence just wasn't in the cards.
The silence that followed was the kind that made your skin crawl.
It was the exact opposite of the comfortable quiet you got on a lazy Sunday morning.
This was the ominous, hair-raising, something-very-bad-is-about-to-happen kind of silence.
The kind that turned every horror movie victim into a complete moron who decided investigating creepy basement noises was a stellar life choice.
Even the ocean seemed to be holding its breath.
And my experience with Things Going Catastrophically Wrong had been vast as of late.
So, it was about as reassuring as finding a black cat under a ladder during a blood moon while someone walked over your grave.
I shifted uncomfortably, trying to find a position that didn't make me feel like the triplets were using my uterus as a bouncy house. Every time I moved, they seemed to rearrange themselves. Now wasn’t the time to be playing musical chairs with my internal organs.
"That's not good," Jean-Marc announced, staring at his laptop screen with the expression of someone who'd just realized they'd accidentally sent an email with a sex tape to their entire office.
His fingers flew across the keyboard as if he were trying to defuse a bomb with five seconds left on the timer.
"All the energy readings just flatlined.
Every single site across three continents went dark simultaneously. "
I struggled to my feet with Aidon's help. His warmth was the only thing keeping me from completely losing my shit. "When you say not good, are we talking 'forgot to pay the electric bill' not good, or 'ancient psychotic witch is about to end the world as we know it' not good?"
"No idea. There was a complete shutdown," Jean-Marc replied, his voice doing that thing where it cracked like he was going through puberty all over again.
"It's like someone just pulled the plug.
The monitoring equipment is working fine, but there's literally nothing left to monitor.
It's like trying to tune into a radio station that's been wiped off the face of the earth. "
Nina shook her head, sending her brown hair flying over her shoulders. "That's impossible. The network covers thousands of sites. They can't all just... vanish."
"They haven't vanished," Artemis said. Her silver eyes were tracking something the rest of us couldn't see. Probably because we weren't ancient goddesses with unlimited power. "They've been drained. Completely."
Nyx stepped forward, studying the screen with the kind of intense focus most people reserved for their tax returns. She had the sort of concentration that came with knowing one wrong calculation could result in a very expensive tax bill. Or potentially life-threatening consequences.
"She's not preparing to attack," Nyx announced. Something in her tone made my blood turn to ice water. "She's already begun."
Her hands started to glow as she reached for the monitor again.
I held my breath, half expecting Jean-Marc's laptop to go up in smoke.
Magic and technology had about as much natural compatibility as cats and bath time.
The screen flickered and danced like it was at a disco.
Sparks of light danced across the display.
Miraculously, it managed to stay functional.
"Wait. Look," Nyx said, pointing to new patterns spreading across the display like some kind of digital cancer.
Her finger traced lines that began pulsing with ominous energy, connecting points across multiple continents.
"The corruption network is collapsing inward.
She's still pulling everything into a central location. "
"Everything, everything?" I asked. “Is the magic gone? Is the world going to implode?”
"It's not all of the magic," Asterion said, staring at the screen as if it had personally offended him. "She's pulled in every drop of stolen power she's accumulated over the past century. It's all being funneled into one location."
"How much power are we talking about?" Aidon demanded. "I want to know what I am looking at when I go after her."
I snorted before anyone else could answer. "She'll be gone by the time we get there, Yahweh. Trust me, she wouldn't paint this big a target on her back and then stick around a second longer than absolutely necessary. She’s stupid, not suicidal."
"Your mate is right, Aidoneus. She's got enough power to level a small country.
" Artemis tracked the display with the kind of focus a hawk uses when spotting prey.
"She will be a challenge even for your father.
Depending on how efficiently she can channel it.
She's managing to pull from every magical source within range. Including us."
"What?" I choked out as exhaustion settled into my bones like lead weights.
"She's trying to draw from every practitioner within a thousand-mile radius," Nyx said matter-of-factly. "She's essentially creating a massive magical vacuum and pulling power from anyone and anything with even a spark of supernatural ability."
"Wait, hold up," Nina said as her gaze skipped around the gods. "How can she just take power from gods? I mean, how did you guys survive this long if it was that easy for someone to just... drain you?"
"We can stop her from taking anything from us." Artemis's silver eyes now blazed, and I feared for my daughter’s life.
Aidon crossed to Nina and put an arm protectively around her. "It takes significant energy to maintain our barriers. It doesn’t leave much to fight her."
That explained why they suddenly all looked like they were trying to solve advanced calculus while getting root canals. Without anesthesia. It also explained why I felt like I was being snacked on by a magical vampire with a serious case of the munchies.
"The supernatural communities across three continents will be feeling this drain," Asterion observed. "Her actions are essentially starving the entire magical network to feed her transformation."
"Clever bitch knows how to limit my resources," I muttered as I fought the urge to have one of them teleport me to the site regardless of what I said. "Drain the competition before they can mount an effective defense. It's like she read the Evil Overlord Handbook and actually paid attention."
"The question is," Artemis said slowly, "how long can she keep drawing like this without destabilizing the entire magical ecosystem? Just because she isn’t drawing directly from the ley lines anymore doesn’t mean she can’t cause a major collapse."
"Based on these readings," Jean-Marc said, his fingers dancing across his keyboard, "not long. The power fluctuations are already causing feedback loops in the ley line network.”
“If she keeps this up, she's going to cause magical earthquakes," Nyx added.
"What the hell is a magical earthquake?" Nina asked, looking between the gods.
"They make regular earthquakes look like a gentle massage," Aidon replied dryly. "Trust me, kiddo, you don't want to experience one."
The babies decided to join the conversation then, in the most dramatic way possible.
Heat blazed across my abdomen, and their magic erupted outward.
It made the air around me shimmer with raw power.
But this wasn't the gentle warmth of their usual defensive barrier that I'd grown accustomed to.
It was almost like someone had cranked a radio to full volume and broadcast directly into my nervous system.
"Jesus Christ on a pogo stick," I gasped, pressing both hands to my belly as the sensation intensified.
The heat spread up my spine and down my legs, making my entire body feel like a tuning fork that had just been struck.
"They're conducting a magical orchestra in there.
With a full percussion section and a really enthusiastic brass ensemble. "
"What are they trying to tell you?" Artemis asked, moving closer with the kind of fascination usually reserved for discovering a new species. Her silver eyes were practically glowing with interest.
"Give me a second," I said through gritted teeth, trying to focus on the chaotic symphony of sensation and emotion flooding through me. "They're... excited? No, that's not right. I have no idea. All I can say is that the sensations are urgent."
Through Lyra’s parasitic connection to the babies, I saw her standing in the center of a ritual chamber carved from black coral.
The walls pulsed with veins of stolen power.
It was a macabre version of a circulatory system.
She was wearing jewelry that held some of her stolen power.
There was more than one necklace around her neck.
Dozens of bracelets ringed her wrists. And every finger had a ring on it.
She was also wearing a crown. The pieces were beautiful in the way that poisonous flowers were beautiful.
Gorgeous, mesmerizing, and absolutely deadly.
"Those artifacts," Artemis barked, making me realize the babies were showing everyone what I was seeing. "I haven't seen them since the original Pleiades were stripped of their celestial status. Those are fragments of the sisters' essence."
"She's literally wearing pieces of their souls." Asterion’s words made me want to vomit. "That's not just theft. That's desecration of the highest order."