26. Goodness Gracious, Great Balls of Evil
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
GOODNESS GRACIOUS, GREAT BALLS OF EVIL
AURORA
N ow.
Now.
Nownownow.
It felt like I’d just fallen asleep when the word began repeating in my head. For a moment, in my sleepy haze, I thought it was my body demanding Deke.
It did that.
A lot.
In the week since we’d shared our love, I seemed to have grown insatiable. Not just sex but being with him. Any distance felt like I was being ripped in two.
Thankfully, we hadn’t had to spend much time apart. Deke always joined our training sessions since he’d begun getting random memories that seemed off. Luckily, he was more in control of himself when they hit than I’d ever been. And I couldn’t even practice that because I couldn’t trigger a vision.
At all.
I’d tried.
I’d read their Absolve board over and over. I’d stared at the pictures. I’d researched anything and everything.
But there was nothing. I would be of no use to anyone if something happened. And based on the dread that snaked through to squeeze my heart, that time had come.
“Now.” Deke sat up and repeated, “Now.”
“You hear it, too?”
He was already climbing from the bed to get dressed. “Something is happening. Do you see what?”
“My brain is just repeating now .” Guilt and worry warred inside me.
Deke tilted my head. “It’ll be okay, my love. Get dressed. The others will be here soon.”
He walked out into the living room, and I heard voices as I rushed to throw on clothes. Leggings and a sweater seemed insufficient for what we were facing—what every molecule in my being screamed we were up against—but I didn’t have magicks armor.
I didn’t even have regular armor.
“Where are we going?” Juno asked. Contrary to the violence she usually seemed to thrive on, her mood was as somber as the occasion.
Like she felt it, too.
That urgency that was electric in the air.
“I don’t know,” Deke answered. “I just know something is about to happen. Something big.”
“Something massive ,” I corrected.
“Do you see anything?” Nate asked me.
I shook my head and raised my hands to my hair without even realizing I was doing it.
Deke gripped my wrists and stopped me from tugging at the strands in frustration. “We’ll figure it out, my love. Together.”
“Together.” Juno slapped her forehead. “You need to do it together.”
I raised my brow at her phrasing, but she wasn’t making a dirty joke—surprisingly.
She pointed at Deke. “You ignored your magicks for centuries.” She spun her finger to aim at me. “And you spent years ignoring it, praying for it to stop, and being drugged. Your gifts are not flowing because they’ve been neglected. Together, as the mates should be, you need to work for it. Channel it.”
Deke kept his hold on me and closed his lids, clearly willing to try.
I was also willing.
I just had no clue where to start.
Juno walked me through it, her melodic voice like the more effective mediation instructor. “Close your eyes. Good. Breathe in. Breathe out. Deeper in. Slower out. Feel your mate’s heartbeat in your chest. Feel their breath in your lungs. Powering you. Follow that connection. Trail it through your body to the center of your being. Tap into it. Let the walls around it crumble as it flows?—”
“In town,” I interrupted, seeing it perfectly. Even when I opened my eyes, turned, and looked at the three couples, I still saw the sprawling room with concrete walls and evil. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, I could do it because Deke kept me centered in the moment rather than overwhelmed in the future.
“The museum downtown,” Deke added, zeroing in on the exact location.
“I thought those were just tourist traps?”
“Based in history,” Juno said. “The accused. Absolve’s. And ours.”
Deke closed his eyes. “The alley to the left is empty. Inside is not.”
“There’s our meeting spot.”
Couple by couple, we poofed into the alley.
I wanted to go back. Run away. Get as far as possible from that alley where foreboding coated the thick air.
Stellan took an authoritative step toward the metal door.
“Wait,” Nate and I said at the same time. I gestured to him to continue.
His clenched expression was dark and sinister, especially with his head covered by his hood. “It’s been ages since we fought like this. Together. But last time did not end well.”
I forced out the words I didn’t want to speak. “This is a trap.”
I couldn’t see anything. I didn’t have a vision. But like Deke, I could suddenly feel the fullness of that underground room.
And they were waiting for us.
“We know,” Lennon said. “But if we don’t go in, whatever this sensation is will grow. Spread. I don’t want to think about how many innocent lives will be lost.”
“We won’t let it.” Lilith took his hand. “We’ll just have to make sure their trap doesn’t work.”
Determination went over our small group as we silently filed in and down a dank set of stairs.
Well, everyone was silent but Juno.
She was singing “Push It.”
“Again?” Denny hissed.
“You know what it’s like when I get a song stuck in my head. Plus, this one helps me focus.”
We walked through an open doorway into what looked to be an expansive bunker. Lilith paused, scanning the room even though it was too dark for a normal person to see. She wasn’t normal, though. “No one is here. Are we in the wrong place?”
“No,” Deke said.
The oddest sensation rippled over me. It was a familiar one. What little power I’d finally tapped into at the apartment was smothered.
Dulled.
It reminded me of when I’d been in the drugged haze, just far more powerful.
Lilith took another step in, and it was just in time. Otherwise, she would’ve been cut off from the group when the heavy door closed suddenly, the tumblers echoing as they slid into place.
In the dim lighting, I could just barely make out the cots, chests, and metal shelves stacked with food lining the wall right next to us.
It’s like a military base mixed with a nuclear bomb shelter.
Military.
“Steve Jones,” I whispered. “Or Hale or whoever.”
“Whoever is right,” a gravelly voice called out. From an open doorway across the room, Jones strode in.
And he wasn’t alone.
Dozens of men and women filed in after him. More. I lost count, and they still weren’t done.
Unlike Jones’ pressed cargo khakis and tucked-in beige tee, the others wore suits and pretty dresses. They looked… normal. Like they could be someone’s neighbor. Friend. Church member.
But they were evil. All of them.
“I’ve never seen anyone so full.” Deke shook his head. “I don’t understand it.”
“Maybe being a dick is his dream job, and he finds it fulfilling,” Lilith said, joking past the fear evident on her face.
“We can’t poof back out,” Juno whispered. “No way to retreat and reassess.”
“There’s no time anyway,” I said. “You heard Lennon. If we leave, others die.”
I met Deke’s gaze. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him so distraught. He wasn’t scared for himself. He was terrified for me.
But I’d spent enough of my life being scared. I wanted to be brave.
Or at least fake it.
I gave him the most reassuring smile I could muster.
Then Jones stole our attention as he dramatically leaned to the side to see Lilith. “Good, you made it in before the door closed. That would’ve been inconvenient. It’s impossible to get you all in one place outside of the warded houses.”
“Well, you have us here now.” Juno held her arms out but inched back to touch the wall. “What’re you going to do about it?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Steal your souls.” Jones stepped back, and the others attacked.
Not with guns or knives. They must’ve known those would be useless.
But balls of gray fire. They weren’t big, but I knew that didn’t mean they wouldn’t hurt.
“Be careful!” Lilith leaned toward me to confirm my suspicion. “You weren’t there to see, but those are similar to what almost killed me.”
Then we dove apart before one took us both out.
While only a few people were launching those, the others were trying to corner us. Pin us down so we’d be easy targets.
“Fuck,” Juno said, narrowly avoiding a grabbing arm—one that Lilith swiftly broke—as she ran her hand along the wall. “I can feel their warding. It’s suppressing our magicks. But with these bastards trying to play flaming pickleball, I can’t focus long enough to fix it.”
Still dodging and weaving, we formed a protective half-circle around her without making it obvious. Deke lifted a man to throw him into another group, but it was too late.
One of the men caught on to what was happening. “Sir!”
“ A distraction ,” Juno’s voice pleaded in everyone’s head.
I assumed someone would kick or scream or knock something down.
Or go bowling for Absolve again like Deke had just done.
Instead, Denny began singing “Push It.”
Loudly.
And not particularly well.
I didn’t know all the words. Or really any outside of the chorus, but I joined in. As did Lilith.
Juno’s motions picked up, and I wasn’t sure if it was because the song helped her concentrate or because the Absolve assholes had slowed to try to figure out why we’d started an impromptu karaoke.
“Get them, you dumb fucks,” Jones screamed.
It kick-started the attack again, but they were too late.
“Got it.” Red flashed from Juno’s hand and seeped into the cement wall until the whole section turned red. It did nothing to slow the barrage of fireballs and violence, but it lifted the weight holding down the magicks.
We might’ve been outnumbered, but with our powers…
We were still outnumbered.
But there was at least hope, and I clung to it.
“We need to cut these numbers without risking blasting a ward,” Nate said, touching a man’s arm with Denny.
I thought that could cause a potential explosion—though maybe it’s worth the risk.
But the man didn’t turn to dust like the others Denny had touched at the nasty house.
They disappeared completely.
That would’ve been an effective way, but it was unlikely Absolve would line up in a single file, lift their sleeves, and patiently wait their turn to vanish.
Even if they all really did look like people I’d see in line at the market or bank.
It’s seriously disconcerting how normal they look—minus the hatred aimed at us, of course.
If only we could reason with them, but they’re gone. Empty .
I moved as the vision of Deke filling the apartment hit me. As it played, I tried to force it into his head, too.
“ Explode them by filling them with furnishings ?” Deke asked back in my head, catching a fist and twisting the arm back to break it.
In multiple places.
“ No. Well, maybe? You said you can fill empty things. Can you return their souls ?” I asked.
He shook his head and then froze.
Not in thought.
In a vision.
I wasn’t a fighter. I didn’t have smoke or magicks.
But I did have Deke.
And I’d be damned if anyone was going to take him from me.
Launching myself to where he stood, I guarded his prone body. I kicked out. I swung my arms like windmills. I… I wasn’t sure what the move would be called, but it probably resembled a rabid opossum trying to fight off a moose.
And then I had actual rodent help.
Mice scurried across the floor, helping me attack my target with vicious squeals and sharp teeth.
Right until some monster kept fireballing them to explode.
If we could get that door open, maybe there’s a less explosive animal around. I bet a bear would help a moose kick their asses.
Arms wrapped around my chest from behind, and I jabbed my elbow back. Hard .
The grunt in my ear was a familiar one.
“Like the night we met, my one,” Deke wheezed.
Only he could make that tackle in the woods sound romantic.
He reached over me, and the fiery sugar of his magicks filled my nose even before I saw the green smoke. It coated a guy, but he didn’t even notice it, much less fall to the ground in a heap of pain.
“He’s a void. Fully and completely soulless,” Deke said.
I was out of ideas. And as we knocked them down just for them to rise back up, I was also running out of hope.
“Bald guy is less smudgy,” Lilith said before doing a flawless, graceful roll. She landed up on her knees behind a guy and slammed her fist up into his crotch.
It was equally flawless and graceful in a badass way.
Deke tried that guy.
“What’re you doing?” I asked as I ducked the fireballs.
Ones that were traveling less distance and flaming smaller.
We’re tiring them out. We just need to keep this up for three to four… business years.
“My humanity,” Deke said.
I didn’t know what that meant, but it wasn’t time for him to draw me a diagram.
“It’s not enough. Lace your fingers with mine and hold tight.”
I did as he said, and his magicks changed. The green twisted with gold, separate but connected.
Complete.
The man stopped mid-punch and fell to the ground, but not in pain.
Not physical at least.
“Why?” he cried, holding his head. “Why did I do that? I just wanted a better life.”
We moved on to the next target, but he didn’t react as he created a fireball and launched it at the man sobbing on the floor.
Thinning their own herd.
Hopefully, none of these assholes are so brain-dead, they take out a warded one.
“Blond hair about to get Juno,” Lilith rushed out before adding a shouted warning. “Juno, behind you!”
Juno ducked from where she was using her magicks to restrain anyone she could touch, but Stellan was already there. His demeanor and body language looked slow and calm, but he was moving fast .
Deke sent the green and gold magicks to the man, but that one didn’t fall to the ground crying. He grabbed the Absolve guy next to me. “You said we’d be powerful. That women would be throwing themselves at us. I just wanted to drink beer and play video games, but you dragged me into this with lies and empty promises.” As he yelled, he punched him. Over and over and over until his face was mush.
“Beard,” Lilith said next before gagging.
I looked over to see that Lennon had his hand wrapped around the forearm of an Absolve that’d been reaching for Lilith.
The man wasn’t dead from Lennon’s hand on his bare skin. That was too dangerous when we didn’t know who was a bomb waiting for their fuse to be lit. But his green-tinged skin hung from his bones. Puss oozed from his eyes, nose, ears… Basically every orifice. He fell to a weak pile but still breathed.
“Which beard?” Deke asked.
“The patchy pube hair one,” Lilith said.
Another shot of green smoke. The guy—who couldn’t be older than me—stopped. His eyes widened.
He pulled a knife from his back pocket and ended his own life in a gruesome way that belonged in a horror movie.
A banned horror movie.
“Close your eyes,” Deke ordered, but I shook my head.
“Keep going.”
We continued, his humanity mixing with my light to wake them up. It wasn’t everyone. But combined with those that Juno had subdued in her red nets, Lennon had rotted to just a few porch steps from death’s door, and Nate… well, him being actual Death, we were able to dwindle their numbers.
“Bravo,” Jones called, giving up his spot as a reserved commander. “I’d hoped we could do this the easy way. It’s been a long time coming. Don’t you agree, Thanatos?”
Other than shuffling their bodies so his protectively blocked Denny, Nate ignored him.
“We had to do it the hard way last time, but I’m rather fond of this body. As I recall, your mate found it attractive when she called me to get rid of you.”
“What the fuck did you say, Hale?” Nate bit out.
“ Hale ?” The man let out a loud, taunting chuckle. “You still don’t know who I am, do you?”
“An asshole member of Absolve.”
“Maybe this will jog your memory.” His brows furrowed, and his voice changed. Smoothed out. “Of course I’ll help you, Thanatos. I’m your friend. Your only friend in your long, miserable life.”
Nate looked like he’d seen a ghost. Worse, actually, since I doubted a ghost would faze him. “No, John Wilmot is dead. I saw him die. Joseph Martin?—”
“Joseph Martin was a pawn. A nothing. Easier to manipulate than even you. I’ve always been good at blending in as a low-level follower while I pull the strings from six moves ahead. Isn’t that right, Detective?” Stellan didn’t give the reaction he hoped for—or any reaction, so he returned to taunting Nate. “I planted the idea in his head just as I planted the clues that led you to him. I timed everything to perfection, if I do say so myself. Unfortunately, you four didn’t die. The curse was probably hell for you all, so that’s some consolation. But now I have you four. Not only that, you have your mates. It was worth the wait.”
“It can’t be him. This man isn’t empty. He’s full,” Deke said in our heads.
“How? He was soulless last time. You can’t regrow a soul,” Nate shot back.
Deke lifted his head in understanding, and rage tightened his body. “No, but you can steal them. That’s why he’s so full. It isn’t just his soul. It’s countless ones.”
Despite Juno knocking out part of the wards, we still couldn’t get free. Even if we could, we wouldn’t leave.
We were created to fight.
“Worth the wait how ?” Nate asked to keep him talking as Juno’s red crept along the floor and ceiling.
“Because you’re more powerful now that you’ve found your mates.” He looked gleeful, like a kid on Christmas. “Do you know how easy that’ll make the rest of this? Not that humans are particularly hard to control.” He pointed up. “People go through these museums daily, taking pleasure in death. Some of the accused weren’t even exonerated until recently. Can you believe that? Yet people joke about how the bitches deserved it. About how they’ve got a list of people they want to accuse next. But it’s not a joke. Not really. The way hatred and fear spread then is nothing compared to now. It’ll be beautiful.”
Revulsion filled me, the feeling of doom returning like I was still sitting in a pew.
“And everything you went through was for nothing,” he continued. “When we end this shitty world, no one will even know what you’ve sacrificed.”
The only thing that kept me from collapsing—other than we didn’t have time—was Juno’s magicks working their way over.
Almost. Almost.
“Uh-uh,” Jones-slash-whoever said with a condescending wag of his finger. “If you’re thinking of using your magicks on me, I’d think again. Kill me, and this whole city goes. Maybe the state. Maybe more.”
“You’re not a demon,” Nate stated, stalling for time. I could see it in the darting of his eyes. “You’re human.”
“Correct.”
“Then how did you die? How are you alive and in this different body?”
“I can’t give away all my secrets and powerful allies.”
“I have nothing,” Nate said in our heads.
“ Neither do I, dammit ,” Juno added.
No one did.
But still Juno’s red crept along.
“Kneel,” Jones ordered. “Give up your souls, and I’ll let you keep your life. You can be together.”
I wanted a life with Deke more than anything in the world.
Almost.
But never at the expense of other lives.
Once the ceiling, floor, and walls were covered in red, I knew what that meant. We all did without saying anything.
The Four were going to take out that monster. End Absolve. Save the future souls while Juno’s magicks contained the blast.
And we were going to die while doing it.
Mates reached out to squeeze hands. Or touch butts, since Juno grabbed a handful of Stellan’s ass.
We made peace with what was about to happen.
The sacrifice we would make.
I said I wanted to be brave…