And I pause. Anything is better than feeling powerless. But to be powerless is to be human. To be vulnerable is to be human. Being more than human doesn’t have to make me less human.
Artemis ran from us; she even ran from herself. She wrapped herself in as much power as she could find. If I do the same, how am I helping anyone?
Artemis raises her arms, and Leo shouts a warning. But she’s holding them toward me as though asking for a hug. She never asks for hugs. She never asks for anything. Gods, she must have spent so much of her life being terrified. My mom was right. Because while we went through all the same things—our father’s death, our mother’s emotional abandonment, the fire, our life of training and then hiding—I did it all with her protection. No one did that for her.
How broken must she have been to decide leaving was her best option? To betray and hurt and try to kill people who had cared about her? To chase down a god in order to feel like she had a purpose again?
I drop my sword. I care about all the wrong and evil she did. Of course I care. But it doesn’t change the fact that she’s my sister, and I’ll always love her, and I’ll always be there for her. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry you felt like you had no other choices.”
“You don’t have to worry anymore. Not about anything.” She takes another step toward me but freezes. She’s trembling. No, not trembling. Vibrating. A low hum accompanies it, and the light begins to build again. I turn and shield my eyes as another pulse hits us, threatening to throw me off the catwalk. I bear the brunt of it. It’s worse than being electrocuted. I feel fuzzy and numb and in pain everywhere.
“Artemis, stop!”
“I can’t,” she gasps. “It burns. I can feel it all—so much. Too much. I can’t hold it.”
I stumble toward her. “You had the book! Tell me how to make it stop! Tell me how to help you!”
The catwalk shakes as someone lands on it. Cillian’s father stands up from his long jump. “She cannot hold the power of a god. It will burn her alive.” He pauses, frowning. “Without a container, it will burst free and burn everyone.”
“Everyone in this room?” I have to get them out and then figure out how to help Artemis.
“Everyone, everywhere.” He shrugs, unconcerned. “The whole world. I am not a benevolent god, and my power is not kind.”
“The whole world?” All my jokes about apocalypses come back to haunt me. This is it. This is our prophecy. Arcturius never saw Eve’s mini hellmouth. He saw this coming, even if I didn’t. Girls of fire / Protector and Hunter / One to mend the world / And one to tear it asunder.
This is how the world breaks.
Cillian’s father stretches a hand toward Artemis, holding his palm up as though offering something. “I will take it from her.”
I look at Artemis. She’s still vibrating. “Will taking it away hurt her?”
He looks confused by the question. “No. It will kill her.”
“Then I need another option!” I have to get between Artemis and him, but there’s no way around her, and I’m afraid to touch her. If hitting the doom triangle with a sword left both my arms numb, I can’t afford to be out of commission now because I brushed up against her.
“She took what is mine. I will take it back.” He steps toward my sister, calm and measured. A flash of shiny hair and black sweater flies through the air and slams into him, tackling him off the catwalk and carrying him all the way to the other end of the cavern. Honora tumbles with him down the side until they hit a ledge. She looks up at me, face bloody and desperate.
“I didn’t know! I didn’t know. She was so sure she needed it. She promised she could handle it. I just wanted her to be happy.” Honora pauses to punch the hellgod as he tries to rise. “I got him. You save her!”
I nod and turn back to Artemis. She falls to her knees, the light building again to almost unbearable levels. I don’t know how many more pulses until it kills us. Until it breaks free from her and kills everyone.
“Leo, can you take it back?” I don’t turn around, keeping my squinted and watering eyes in Artemis’s general direction.
He sounds as worried as I feel. “Maybe. Probably. But the pyramid thing was an amplifier. The power’s so much more than what I put in there. Even if I can hold it, I can’t hold it for long. It’ll have the same effect on me. We need something to transfer it into.”
“We can play hot potato until we figure out where to put it.” I turn and hold my hand out toward him.
“Oh, come on!” Imogen shouts. I look at her, confused. “After everything she did, you’re still trying to help her?”
“Nina!” Rhys is backing away from Imogen, his crossbow raised and trained … on her. He has his phone in his free hand. “My grandma woke up. It wasn’t Artemis.”
“What?”
“Artemis didn’t try to kill her. Imogen did.”
Imogen flicks her wrist, extending her sleek metal baton. She swings it up, catching Rhys under his chin and sending him sailing off the catwalk and down into the cavern.
“No!” Cillian screams. He scrambles back along the catwalk, looking for a way to get to his boyfriend as Rhys tumbles down the side and lands at the bottom near the pile of demon corpses, still and unmoving.
“If you want a prophecy done right,” Imogen growls, turning toward us, “you do it yourself.”
30
IMOGEN PULLS A KNIFE OFF her well-stocked belt and throws it at Leo. He dodges, but she pulls another, bigger blade. She’s between Leo and me, blocking him from getting to Artemis. I want to help him, but that would mean leaving Artemis unprotected.
“I spent my whole bloody life trying to keep their prophecy from coming true. Protecting the world.” Imogen ducks a swing from Leo, dodging nimbly around him. I hope she’ll try to sweep his legs or push him—I know from experience gravity’s claim on him is so intense both are impossible—but she’s been paying attention. She moves faster than him, blades whirling, making sure he can’t get past her. “But you know what? The world sucks.”
Leo rushes her. She twirls away with a dancer’s grace, then, to my horror, grabs his arm and uses his momentum to spin him right off the catwalk. He looks at me as he falls over the edge, his horror mirroring my own.
He’ll be fine. He has to be fine. But now I’m on my own. Against … Imogen?
“I don’t understand.” I keep myself between Artemis and Imogen. Imogen is barely breathing hard, knife still in hand. “You’re my friend. You’ve always been my friend.”
“I’ve always been there for you, that’s true. Because I was assigned to you. To kill you, actually. Well, one of you.” She shrugs. “My mother decided to take a shortcut and go for more power since the Watchers wouldn’t let her just mercy-kill one of you. The prophecy needed two, after all. And it’s not like your mother didn’t have a spare.”
“The fire at our house!” The realization is horrible, but then I do the math. It doesn’t match up. “But your mother was already …”
Imogen smiles. “Yes, after my mother died horribly, the mantle was all on my shoulders. The fire should have worked, but no, you two just had to survive. And then your mother ran back to the Watchers. I waited for years. I couldn’t risk getting caught and missing my chance. If I wasn’t there to do it, no one would. And, god, they were so protective of you two.”
I’m braced for attack, but she’s just standing there. After the last blast from Artemis, I’m still shaking and off balance. I don’t feel anywhere close to myself. “The fire was you. You. You’re …” My head is spinning. “All this time, you wanted us dead?”
“Only one of you. I would have killed Artemis, if it makes you feel any better. But then last fall happened. And for a few brief moments, I thought that was it. I thought it was your apocalypse, and that we had failed to prevent it. That I had failed. And you know what? I was relieved. Happy, even. Because all these years my job has been protecting a world that couldn’t give a shit about me or my mother. I’m sick
of it. I’m sick of all of it. Your prophecy was the very last one in the book, and I’d hate to deny the earth its grand finale.”
“You can’t be serious!”
“Follow your instincts, Nina,” she says, her voice a syrupy sweet corruption of herself. “If you feel like it’s right, then it’s right. I even made your sister a murderer, and you still forgave her! All you had to do was shove that sword in her stomach and release the power to end it all. God, you are so hard to corrupt, you know that?”
I shrug. “Hufflepuff.” My mind is reeling, but I finally realize why she’s telling me all this. Why she isn’t attacking. She doesn’t need to. She only needs to delay us all long enough that the power becomes too much for Artemis. I draw a stake and throw it straight at Imogen’s head. The blunt end hits her forehead, snapping her head back. She staggers, then rights herself.
“Actually, I know which one of you I can kill, finally. It’s pretty obvious who the world breaker is. I won the bet with my mother. She never did pay her debts, though.” She moves a wrist in a lightning-fast flick, and a sharp pain hits my shoulder. I look down to see a knife embedded in it. “If it’s any consolation, you’ll only beat us to the finish line by a few minutes.”
“What about the Littles? You took care of them. You can’t want them dead.” I tug the knife free, hissing at the pain. If I were in charge of treating myself, I would have cautioned myself not to remove the knife until professional help was available. But I’m not in charge of treating myself. I’m in charge of fighting Imogen. I need to get Imogen out of the way so I can figure out how to help Artemis. A quick glance over my shoulder reveals my sister trembling so fast her edges are blurring. Her eyes are squeezed shut, and she’s got her arms wrapped around herself like she’s trying to hold it together through sheer force of will.
Imogen laughs. “Like they’re really better off growing up? I’m doing everyone a kindness. Putting this whole spinning hellhole out of its misery. Did you ever think about why every other dimension is a hell, but somehow ours isn’t? Joke’s on us. We’re the original hell dimension, baby. We’re just too stupid to realize it.” She launches herself at me in a flurry of fists and kicks and flashing blades. My shoulder and the disorientation from Artemis’s discharge slow me down. I’m fighting to keep her away from Artemis but not to kill. Imogen is holding nothing back.
She grins, swiping a knife across my forearm as I try to block her. I get in a kick to her side, but she twists, absorbing the blow and elbowing me hard in the face. I stagger back. A searing pain, and I look down to find yet another knife sticking out of my lower abdomen. How many knives does she have?
I tug it out, my hands slick with my own blood as my brain registers yet another stern caution for removing a knife from a wound without any way to stop the bleeding. I can barely see Imogen because of the light behind her.
Oh no. Behind her. I let her get between Artemis and me. I can run and tackle her off the catwalk, but then Artemis will be up here alone. I don’t think I could get back to her in time. I’m going to have to throw Imogen off, even if it kills her. I rush her, but she’s ready. My vision is dazed by Artemis, so I don’t see Imogen’s club as she swings it at my leg. I fall to my knees, my right one unusable with pain. I grab for her, but she dances back toward Artemis. There’s the particular metallic click of a gun being cocked.
“No hard feelings. I’ll see you on the other side, okay?”
I hang my head. I have nothing left. I lost. Artemis protected me for so long, and I couldn’t return the favor. “I’m sorry, Artemis.”
Imogen screams. I look up to see two blindingly brilliant arms encircling her. Imogen’s clothes light on fire, and in the blink of an eye, she’s consumed. Where Imogen was is only Artemis.
She meets my eyes and smiles, an agonized expression through gritted teeth. She’s all blurry, literally falling apart. “Saved you.”
I crawl to her, and she drops to her knees.
“Kill me,” she whispers. “That might stop it.”
I wrap my arms around her. She tries to push me away, but I hold her tighter. It’s searingly hot, but I’m stronger than Imogen. I’m stronger than anyone except Artemis. I hold her against the vibrations, and, to my surprise, they calm down. “I’ve got you, and you’ve got me. We’re strongest together.”
She squeezes me back and holds me up while I hold her in place. All the darkness in me, everything I’ve been through, all the ways it’s changed me. It wells in me, carrying me past what I’m capable of. We’re here because Artemis walked in her own darkness for so long, feeling like she was the only person who could face it. But Buffy and Faith showed me the truth: We’re not alone in the dark. Not as Slayers, not as sisters, not as friends. Not when we hold the people we love as close as we can. The heat is unbearable, but for Artemis? I can bear anything.
“Nina!” The catwalk rattles as Leo runs across it. He puts a hand on Artemis’s shoulder. “I can take it, but I need somewhere to put it.”
“Give it to me.” Cillian’s father’s voice rings through the cavern. He drags Honora onto the catwalk and drops her. She groans, twitching. “I am the only option.”
“You’re not.” Cillian emerges from the cavern. His face is streaked with blood and dirt. Rhys limps behind him. “I’m half god. Let’s give it a shot.”
Cillian’s father radiates menace and power. “I will kill your friends one by one while you watch, and then burn away your humanity to see if anything is left in the ashes of my divine—”
Honora kicks him so he once again falls off the catwalk. She rolls onto her back, breathing hard. “Save her.”
Leo puts both of his hands on Artemis while I hold her. I don’t know if it’s going to work, and for a few blistering seconds I’m sure it won’t. But she gradually goes still and colder until she collapses into my arms. I check her pulse, desperate, barely able to see with the burned light images on my vision.
Her heart is beating. She’s still alive. I cry, cradling her. Cillian rushes to Leo, who is as blindingly brilliant as Artemis had been. Leo puts both hands on his shoulders. “Are you sure?” he gasps.
Cillian swallows hard but nods. “Better me than the hellgod who wants to kill you all.”
Leo puts his forehead against Cillian’s, and he slowly dims. Cillian gets brighter, but not in the unstable way Artemis and Leo did. He seems to somehow come even more into focus, every feature in perfect clarity, to where I could swear I can see each eyelash from here. He’s high-definition in a fuzzy world. His skin isn’t brown anymore so much as metallic, gleaming in the harsh cavern lights.
“You good?” Leo falls back and sits.
“Yeah. Yeah.” Cillian looks down at his own hands in wonder. “I—I think I got it.”
“It will overpower you!” Cillian’s father shouts from where he’s clinging to the side of the cavern. Each exit has been filled by one of the remaining zealots. Two of them have my mother and Esther at knifepoint. My mother looks at Artemis in my arms, and I try to smile to reassure her, but it’s weak. The zealots all have crossbows trained on us, and none of us are in any shape to fight our way out.
“You cannot hold it forever!” the hellgod shouts. “You are a bastard, a half-breed, and I will kill everyone you love while you watch. I will bleed them dry while you—”
“The third form,” one of the black-cloaked zealots chants, pointing. But they aren’t pointing at Cillian’s dad. They’re pointing at Cillian. They all drop to their knees. Cillian rolls his eyes.
“No,” his father screams. “I am your god! I am the only god left in the world! I will kill everyone you—”
“Can you stop him, Nina?” Cillian looks at me, desperate.
I don’t even know if I can stand up. “I’m—I’m tapped out. And you saw how little the crossbow did to him. I could …” Decapitate him? Would he be capable of recapitating himself? He might not be at full power, but he’s still a hellgod. “We can try?”
Cillian�
�s eyes are brimming with tears. “You were a pretty good dad for a while there,” he says.
“You do not deserve anything of me. I will tear that one you seem to love limb from limb,” the hellgod answers, pointing at Rhys. “But first, I will end the one who made this all possible.” He leaps through the air, grabbing the edge of the catwalk where my mother and Esther stand, unarmed. He pulls himself up and reaches toward Esther. She and my mother back up but trip on the kneeling zealots behind them.
“Nina!” Cillian cries, terrified.
I don’t know what to do. We can’t have come this far to watch this happen now. But I can’t get over there in time. No one can.
No. Not no one. “Tsip!” I shout. She pops into existence on a catwalk across the cavern.
“You can take someone beyond reality if they don’t mind all their molecules being dissolved?”
“Yes!” She nods enthusiastically.
Cillian points at his father, tears streaming down his face. “Do it.”
She shrugs and disappears. Cillian’s father has one moment to look truly godlike in his wrath as he looms over our mothers before Tsip pops in next to him and then pops him right out of existence.
We all sit in the ringing silence left in his wake. Tsip reappears empty-handed. I feel a sudden rush of relief that she’s actually empty-handed and not holding any eyes. This is already too much trauma for Cillian to process.
“Are you okay?” I ask him. I know his father was an evil hellgod who was going to kill all of us, but he was still Cillian’s dad.
Cillian shakes his head. His brow is furrowed, but he still looks more like he belongs as a display of fine art in a museum than a real person. “My da died a long time ago. That wasn’t him. Not really. It had to be done.”
Across the way, my mother helps Esther stand. Esther is crying as she turns to hurry back through the catwalks to find us.
I’m struck with the thought that Cillian turned out to be the only one of all of us actually qualified to be a Watcher. He was faced with an impossible choice, and he chose the world. But we’ll be here for him, forever. We’re his family. And I think he knows it.
Chosen Page 27
