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“Except it wasn’t Venom. It was an immortal artifact. And those do hurt you.”

“Oops?” I smiled at him.

He shook his head. “I taught you better than to throw yourself recklessly into the line of fire.”

“Maybe I need another lesson.” I licked my lips at him.

“You two are so cute that I might vomit,” Colonel Fireswift snapped.

I chuckled.

Nero offered me his hand. “Can you sit up?”

“Sure,” I told him. “No problem.” I tried to sit up—and nearly fell back down. “Whoa, that demon packs quite the magical punch.”

“Which is why you jumped into his stream of magic.” Nero looked like he wanted to sigh, but he was too proud to do it in front of Colonel Fireswift.

I shrugged. “It worked last time.”

“Last time? Only you would throw yourself into the line of fire of a super-powerful demon. Twice.” Horror crept into Nero’s voice. And maybe a hint of admiration.

“Stash and I encountered the mega-demon on Faris’s world last week,” I explained. “But last time, he only attacked with Venom, which you know my body absorbs like a sponge. Since then, he’s upgraded his arsenal to include immortal weapons.”

“What do you know about this demon?” Nero asked me.

“Not much. Besides that he hits hard and likes to steal Nectar from the gods.”

“That…thing is stealing from the gods?” Colonel Fireswift said with obvious disgust.

He glared across the room at the mega-demon, who was too busy battling Cadence and Damiel to notice. Not that he would have cared about Colonel Fireswift’s opinion of him. After all, he’d come here to kill the gods.

“The demons are stealing Nectar from the gods?” Nero asked. His tone was more level, more analytical than Colonel Fireswift’s.

“Yes, though I can’t imagine what a demon would want with Nectar,” I said.

“To rob the gods of their magic,” Fireswift said immediately.

“Yeah, but if all the demons wanted was to rob the gods of that power, they could destroy it rather than steal it. That would be much easier.” I frowned. “No, they must need the Nectar for something.”

“What difference does it make?” Colonel Fireswift demanded. “Right now, all that matters is we stop that demon. We can figure out everything else later.”

“I hate to admit it, but Fireswift has a point,” said Nero.

He watched the demon fighting Damiel and Cadence. His parents seemed to be holding up all right for the moment, but then so was the demon. They certainly weren’t putting much of a dent in that armor. There was something special about it…

“The armor must be an immortal artifact as well,” Nero decided.

“I was just thinking the exact same thing,” I said. “We always operate on the same wavelength, Nero.”

“If you two start flirting again, I will shoot you both,” Colonel Fireswift told us, and I didn’t doubt him for a second.

“I guess if we’re going to stop the demon, we need to remove its armor.” I pulled out my phone.

“I’ve already tried calling for backup,” Colonel Fireswift told me. “That hell demon is jamming the signal.”

“Oh, I’m not calling for help. I’m going to try out a new toy.”

Colonel Fireswift looked at Nero. “If she blows up the gods’ hall, they will very likely blame us for it.”