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My mind jumped back to the day we’d gotten inside—and what we’d found there. According to Zarion’s notes, he’d found a weapon with the power to decimate an army of demons.

Meanwhile, someone else had found a weapon to decimate an army of gods.

That couldn’t be a coincidence.

“Oh, no,” I muttered.

An explosion detonated, blasting the room’s doors off their hinges. Smoke poured into the gods’ hall, followed by a large, armored figure in black.

“The mega-demon. It’s here.” Stash drew his sword. “Everyone get back!” he shouted at all the gods in the room. “That thing is a weapon. It can kill a god.”

As bejeweled gods fled, armored ones closed in. I cut in front of them. I had to make it to the fiend first. Whatever power that terrible thing wielded was, I was immune. The gods were not.

I grabbed a piece of cake off the table, twisting and warping it with my magic until it was a heavy stone slab, which I hurled at the mega-demon. He pivoted to the side, drawing a sword as long as I was tall. And when he swung it, immortal runes lit up the blade.

“Oh, shit. He has an immortal weapon,” I muttered, a second before a magic beam shot out of the sword.

Pain exploded out from where that magic hit me, right in the middle of my chest. And it spread, crippling my body, system by system, breath by breath. I felt my knees collapse out from under me. I fell hard, my head crashing against the floor.

16

THE MEGA-DEMON

Icouldn’t move. I could still feel my body—and, more specifically, the pain blazing through it—but I couldn’t so much as wiggle my toe. I’d rolled a bit after my head had hit the springy wood floor, so at least my face wasn’t planted to the ground. I was stuck on my side, my back squeezed against something hard and uncomfortable, likely one of the concrete columns. That gave me a halfway decent view of the ballroom battlefield.

And it wasn’t pretty.

Devlin’s team had engaged the armored mega-demon. The two sides were exchanging magic, bullets…and furniture. The decorations were in pieces, the food scattered everywhere, the buffet tables toppled. Some of the gods had taken cover behind them, but even that thick wood wouldn’t protect them when the mega-demon unleashed his explosive attack.

“Why don’t they flee?” I wondered, smiling when I realized I’d spoken aloud.

My muscles were finally starting to wake up. If only I could regain control over more than just my mouth.

Nero’s chuckles echoed in my mind. You truly believe you’ve ever had control over your mouth, Pandora?

You’re here? I asked him, hope surging in my chest.

Almost. I just need to get through this barrier.

I managed to crank my neck enough to get a look at the only way into this room. The doors were gone, but a sinister magical glow coated the doorway, blocking access.

Well, that explained why the gods hadn’t escaped. They were trapped in here. We were all trapped in here.

A similar spell had covered the control room back in Purgatory. So did that mean the mega-demon was behind those mutant rats? And, if so, why?

An explosive force blasted the doors open, and Nero stormed into the room, closely followed by Damiel and Cadence. The mega-demon immediately stopped firing at Heaven’s Army and turned to intercept. He’d found a greater threat.

Be careful, I transmitted to Nero and his parents. That mega-demon has the power to kill a god.

Mega-demon? Damiel repeated, his amusement evident in his tone.

He builds up a mega-charge on his armor until it releases a Venom shockwave, killing any god caught within the blast radius.

That sounds a lot like the mirror opposite of Zarion’s weapon, Cadence commented. The weapon to kill demons.

You think Zarion’s weapon is a person too? I asked.

According to what we’ve discovered about it, yes, said Damiel. Also, the weapon’s already been deployed.