Chapter Forty-Two
Forty-Two
Resurrection hurts real bad.
I feel something ripped from me, some elemental essence siphoned from my blood, sucked from my marrow. It is…excruciating. And exhilarating. And eternal. And ephemeral.
There’s a coppery taste in my mouth. But even stronger is the scent of freshly tilled earth damp from the rain.
Strong arms surround me, and there’s a cacophony of noise.
I have to peel open my eyelids as though my lashes are stuck together with sleep crusties. Tolliver’s face is above me, eyes red.
“Oh, thank you,” Tolliver breathes, and then without warning his mouth is on mine.
It’s a quick kiss, sloppy and rushed, but it sends a flurry of butterflies so strong that it momentarily drowns out the pain. When Tolliver pulls back, his glasses are misted up.
“I can’t believe—” I cut off, clear my throat. “I can’t be—” I shake my head. “I can’t—” I blink, lifting my hand to my throat. “Is that my voice?” It’s like a record scratch or glass splintering in my throat.
“Elle,” Tolliver says, breath heaving. “I don’t mean to alarm you. But you…have horns.”
“Resurrection side effect,” I grumble. I sound like a garbage disposal had a baby with Kermit the Frog. “Update, please.”
Tolliver looks like he has more to say about the whole I-turned-into-a-demon thing, but he pushes past it.
“Um, okay. Bleeding’s stopped, but I can’t tell if your internal—”
“Not me,” I say, waving off his medical report. “Everything else.”
“Oh.” He nods. “Demons—all fled, so no one to destroy the codex. The femur rune is only half working, so we haven’t gotten a hair yet, so I still haven’t made the banishment potion.”
I groan. “Oh, awesome. So we’re screwed.”
All the lights are out and a cold winter wind whistles through shattered windows. There are no demons left, but there’s also no sign of CJ or Ezra.
“Where’d everyone go?”
“The roof.”
I roll my eyes. Of course Hades wants to have a dramatic showdown on a Gothic turret.
Tolliver stands and holds out his hand. I take it, but before he can pull me up, I recoil. My fingers end in hooked, blackened claws. I turn my hands over to see the outlines of charcoal veins webbing up my wrists and forearms.
“Elle,” Tolliver prompts, hand still outstretched.
To his credit, he only flinches a little when I wrap my hand around his. As he hauls me up, there’s a sharp metallic crack, and I feel the snapping of joints and sockets. I gasp and pull my hand away to find Tolliver’s prosthesis crushed.
“Oh my god, Tolliver,” I whisper. Try to whisper in a demon voice. I look at him in horror. “I didn’t—I mean, I’m so—”
“You’re so strong,” he says, looking at his ruined limb. “I’m so glad that wasn’t my other hand.”
“I promise I’ll get you a replacement,” I babble. “Whatever you want. Cosmetic. Utility. Hell, it can shoot missiles out of the fingers if you want.”
Tolliver cuts me off. “Babe, you gotta go kill Hades.”
“Oh, right. Shit. Okay.”
I take the winding staircase—why is it always winding—two steps at a time.
The door to the roof is already open, occasionally smacking against the stone in the wind.
In the center of the turret stands Hades, her robes whipping against her, hair flying back.
In front of her Ezra grips the runed femur with all his strength.
CJ is on one knee, not bowing to Hades but rather under the strain of their telempathy.
They may have Hades trapped for now, but it won’t last long.
I’ve maybe got a few minutes—two, maybe three, tops—to grab her hair and complete the ritual.
Ezra’s eyes flash wide when he sees me, and he drops the bone, breaking the binding.
Okay, maybe no minutes.
“Hades!” I yell, and it cuts through the wind like a machete.
For a second, she remains frozen—and I think maybe the binding is still intact, but then she turns slowly. When she sees me silhouetted in the doorway, her jaw drops. For the first time since I resurrected her, she seems at a loss for words.
“Care to renegotiate?” I try to sound cavalier, but it comes out menacing because of the whole demon thing. This is going to make conning people so much harder.
“You absolute fool,” Hades spits.
“What did you do?” says another voice, and Rook steps from behind Hades, mouth agape.
He’s still in his demon form: clawed hands, charred veins, curved horns.
I give him a sarcastic smile and point between the two of us. “Hey, twinsies!”
He doesn’t laugh.
Hades’s jaw ticks. “What was even the point of all that? Were you wanting the power? I will always be more powerful. I could end you with a flick of my hand.”
“Well, yeah,” I say, “and I can just keep bringing myself back to life. That’s kind of my thing now.”
Hades laughs roughly. “I told you. You can’t kill me. And I can kill you as many times as I want.”
I pout. “I thought you needed me. To build you an army.”
“I needed someone malleable,” she snaps.
“You need a descendant of Persephone.”
Hades lets out a frustrated growl. “Do you know how many descendants of Persephone are out in the world? She wasn’t like the rest of them, keeping their families small.
She didn’t care about siloing power.” Hades takes several steps toward me, heels clicking on the wood floor, and I tense.
“I can kill you as many times as I need to. I’ll just send Rook out to find someone else to do the spell. ”
I’m tired of the evil monologue. Let’s get this over with.
I take a step forward, almost stumbling. It’s been a long day. I’ve died, been resurrected, and had my elemental essence irrevocably changed. Despite all that, I have a half-formed plan that only gets some of us minorly injured.
But then, out of the corner of my eye, I see a shadow cutting across the sky, the flutter of wings, a single glowing eye.
Crowlene soars past Rook, fast as lightning, plucks a hair from Hades’s head, and then disappears into a shadow.
For once, her timing is perfect.
Hades scowls, clutching the grimoire to her chest. It’s covered in my blood, and Hades’s hands are stained with it. “Whatever you have planned, it won’t work.”
I nod. “Actually, you’re right. What I had planned won’t work. I was going to con a demon into destroying the codex, but they’ve all gone and taken their hellfire with them. So unless Rook volunteers…Oh, wait.” I tilt my head, staring at my hands as though I’m just seeing them for the first time.
I am now well and truly a demon. I have the claws and the voice. And apparently the horns.
But I also have the nonphysical attributes: demonic magic. Specifically, hellfire.
I’m going to be honest: I have no clue how to do this.
There was no instruction manual, no welcome packet, no pamphlet called So, Now You’re a Demon.
But as soon as I think it, as soon as the desire for the flames rises within me, black mist begins to swirl around my hand.
I feel the power build inside me, different than the resurrection magic.
That felt like it was an extension of me, something as natural as singing or dancing.
This feels like it’s being pulled from me, like I’m gnawing off my arm to free myself from a trap.
“No,” Hades growls. “You’ll never get your brother back if you destroy the book!”
I smirk. “It’s a codex, bitch.”
Flames burst from my open palm, and I thrust my hand toward Hades, as though I’m pushing her away. A stream of hellfire shoots toward her, and before she has time to react, the book is consumed by it.
Hades drops the grimoire to the stone, screaming in anger as the crackling flames begin to spread out from the ashes of the codex. She, herself, seems resistant to the fire as she steps over it and through and charges toward me.
I step to meet her, my hand flying out to catch the staff of her bident. She’s stronger than me, but I’ve been in my body my whole life. She’s only occupied hers for a couple days.
I push back and cluck my tongue. “Oh, Hades, Hades, Hades.” I say her name three times as the spell instructs.
I’m hit with an overwhelming aroma of decay, withered leaves, cypress, and the chill of the grave as Tolliver douses Hades with the potion of banishment, now complete with the hair Crowlene grabbed.
Hades gasps. Behind her, I see Ezra has hold of the bone again and CJ is holding Rook back.
I start chanting. “Audite me, spiritus vitae plenus.”
“NO!” Hades roars, pushing back against me, both of us grappling with the bident, but I now have an unnatural strength flowing through me.
“Relinque lumen, redi ad umbras.”
“Stop it!” Hades snaps. Something like lightning crackles up the weapon.
“Magicae fluit per medullam profundam.”
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” she says. “You’re not sending my soul to Tartarus. I can come back.”
I just smile, pulling the bident and her closer, slipping the tower obol into her pocket.
“Dormite nunc in somno aeternum.”
Hades’s hand releases the weapon, and she’s pulled down to her knees by an invisible force, a string running through her heart, dragging her to the core of the earth.
“Audite me, spiritus vitae plenus,
Relinque lumen, redi ad umbras.
Magicae fluit per medullam profundam,
Dormite nunc in somno aeternum.”
Like with the resurrection spell, I’m consumed by the power.
But unlike the resurrection spell, I’m filled not with light but with darkness.
I’m lifted into the air, hovering over Rook’s mansion as stygian beams shooting from my eyes, my extremities, including now, I guess, my horns.
Hades’s cries fill my ears, and something about her fear feeds me, nourishes me.
“Audite me, spiritus vitae plenus,
Relinque lumen, redi ad umbras.
Magicae fluit per medullam profundam,
Dormite nunc in somno aeternum.”
As soon as I hit the last syllable, it’s like an explosion bursts out of me, a blast of energy surging outward. I’m wrapped in darkness, wave after wave of magic pulled from me. And when it ends, I’m left gasping on the stone floor of the turret, and Hades is gone.