from breaking the Shield spell. She stiffened and fell before Victor’s blade reached her.
And then I saw why. Behind her hunkered a huge nightmare of a thing. Too many heads and mouths and hands, all bloodred. It pulled six bloody pincers out of Liddy’s back and reached for Chase. Chase crumpled as if she’d been hit by a Taser. Victor’s sword, which I thought had broken Liddy’s spell, instead finished its intended arc and sliced the creature in half.
The creature shuddered, then fell into a pile of quivering flesh. Flesh that started smoking in the rain. Victor grabbed Chase and dragged her away. He ran back for Liddy, but he was late, too late.
The creature went up in a screaming bonfire of flames, so dark, it hurt to look at it. And somewhere in that flame had been Liddy.
This was a slaughter.
Chase coughed and rocked, as if she’d hit the ground from a height and was trying to kick-start her lungs. Blood and rain splashed across her face. That nightmare creature had done some damage.
From the edge of the clearing, I saw another beast moving fast, liquid on four legs.
Greyson. No longer a man. All pissed-off hell-spawn creature, somehow more familiar and less frightening than the Hungers and horrors, coming straight for Chase. He tore through the Hungers, sucking down their life, their magic, and then spewed that magic at the other creatures, boiling them until they burst into flame.
I didn’t know where Hayden was. Didn’t know how Greyson had gotten away from him. But there was another killer on Greyson’s heels. Just as fast. Just as frightening. Coming down heavy enough I could feel the vibration of his stride under my feet.
Stone.
And he looked angry.
Greyson pounded toward Chase, throwing Hungers to the ground, laying a path of destruction behind him.
Allison, my dad said. Get close to Greyson.
I intended to do just that. Then I intended to stick Zay’s sword in his chest.
I understood the pain Chase must be going through. She still loved Greyson, even though he wasn’t human anymore. I could forgive her for siding with him, for wanting to defend him. But I would not let that keep me from killing the bastard.
If you kill Greyson, Dad said, you will kill the part of me inside him.
You’re not supposed to be alive anyway, I said. Get rid of him, get rid of you. How is that a bad thing?
Because without me, you’ll never be able to bring Zayvion back.
A chill washed over my skin, colder than the rain. Stone leaped and landed, hard, in the middle of Greyson’s back. I heard bones break. Chase screamed as if the pain was hers to share, and maybe it was. She pushed up to her knees, and feet, and stumbled toward Greyson.
Victor did not stop her, too busy with the half dozen Hungers that surrounded him.
Hayden was back, at the northernmost edge of the field, swinging his broadsword like a one-man army, and yelling at the top of his lungs.
Zayvion is trapped, my father said. They did more than push him through the gate. They locked him there. They are using him there. He will never return.
No, I thought. That’s a lie.
My hand jerked, and I nicked the side of my thumb on the glass and steel blood blade I carried. Zayvion’s blood blade. I hadn’t moved my hand—my father had.
What the hell? It was a small cut, but blood ran freely from it.
Blood to blood, Allison.
I didn’t know what he was talking about, or why it mattered. He drew on the magic in the air, maybe used some of the magic in me, and I felt the tight, intimate tingling of a Truth spell spread through me, spread between us.
Zayvion is locked on the other side of death, my father said, and I felt the truth of it like a fire against my bones.
I thought Truth spells were bad on the outside. Having someone inside of my head bonding through Truth hurt. But it was very, very clear that my father was not lying.
I believe I can free him and send his soul back to his body, back into life. If you regain the parts of me Greyson now holds. And if I cross over into death to find him now. His time there is at an end. He is dying.
I didn’t want to hear that, didn’t want to feel that truth burning through me.
We can do it later. After the battle. After we win. You can help me