up the head at my feet and broke into a run, throwing it as hard as I could at Gris-gris. In his magical trance, he didn’t see it coming. The impact knocked him to the ground, and I was on him a moment later.
Time seemed to slow down as Bioshock raked my body with his blue-green bioelectric power and Senka drained my energy with her yellow vortex powers. Odyssey opened fire on me, as did Machinegun Guy, one of Demolition’s posse, spraying me with the Vulcan cannons embedded on each of his arms. Fighting through the ranged assault, I reached Gris-gris just as he was recovering from the impact. Bullets and plasma bolts raked my back, but I ignored the pain, reaching for his magic bag and tearing it from his hands. A black, powdery smoke wisped from the open end of the pouch, forming into row of rising souls, their faces nightmares of teeth and rage. Sigils that were traced along the leather glowed bright through my fingers, their magic tearing at my skin.
“No!” Gris-gris croaked, but I put my knee on his chest, keeping him in place, and grabbed the back of his neck with my free hand. My hand sang with the pain, like lava bubbling my skin, and I could smell the wafting odor of burning flesh. The dark spirits surrounded me, readying to attack, but I stuffed the voodoo bag into his mouth and slammed my hand hard against his jaw to force it closed. Gris-gris eyes widened and he tried to let out an agonizing scream as his mouth and tongue were roasted by the burning power of the magic bag. The spirits slashed at me, then spun a vortex of power sucked into the black hole-like maw that was forming around the voodoo man’s mouth. The nearest villains, Senka and Bioshock, stopped their assault on me and stepped back, knowing that something was going terribly wrong.
Gris-gris tried to say something, and the world erupted in blackness.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I don’t know how long I was out, but when I came to and saw the devastation that Gris-gris’ voodoo powers gone awry had unleashed, I almost cried. The landscape had changed for miles, as if a meteor had scoured the ground from space. The ground was black, desolate, and the air was exhausted and burned. A red mist hung low, mixed with ash and dust, carried along the lingering breeze. Strewn about the charred ground were bones and body parts, pieces of armor and abandoned weapons. Little was identifiable. No one had survived the ruination.
Nearby lay the corpse of the beautiful Athene, her goddess armor pristine despite the horrible injuries to her body. Next to her was Demolition’s upper torso, his burned skin welted and cracked and his innards spilling onto the blackened ground.
The magic bag had exploded like an atom bomb, razing the army of villains from the face of the earth. Only Odyssey stood, but it was still and silent, its power source extinguished by the cataclysm. A glance at Major Aussie’s cabin told me what I already knew: Gris-gris’ power had scourged the land and nothing of the beautiful house remained. Even the vast lake had been evaporated in the explosion.
It took me a few moments to realize that I was naked; my clothes had burned off and I steamed like a potato pulled straight from the oven. The only article of clothing that remained was my boots, though they were charred and blistered. My skin tingled as I felt my enhanced healing kicking in, meshing the damaged flesh back together. But in the meantime, my flesh was split and raw, blackened like a burnt steak. I touched the top of my head and heard the distinctive hissing of burning flesh from my fingertips. I expected my head to be as bald as Major Aussie’s, but my hair was undamaged for some reason.
My face was swollen and sore, so much that I felt the blood thrumming through my forehead and neck as I tried to account for all the pounding injuries. I looked at my hands and saw them covered with red gore that was a mixture of grit, gristle, and blood. In fact, I was caked with the stuff from head to toe, and it was because of it that I couldn’t fully gauge my injuries.
I looked far into the horizon, trying to see how extensive the damage had been, when I realized that I had won, against insurmountable odds. I had