Page 47 of Between Bloode and Death (Between the Shadows #5)
CHAPTER
FORTY-SIX
Val didn’t know what the hell to do. Talon was in a fight for his life while Grizz and Nergal, possessing a powerful gargoyle, fought in the air, on the ground, and everywhere else.
They blasted through shops in the bazaar with force, and she did her best not to be where they would suddenly appear, landing like meteors and taking out entire shops at a time.
She wanted to get to safety like everyone else scrambling around her but also wanted to be close should Grizz need her. For so long, he’d helped her at great cost to his eventual rest. She owed him.
The feel of Aisha falling hard pulled at her, and she collapsed to one knee. Just in time, since a chunk of building would have nailed her in the chest had she been standing.
Aisha!
The witch was no more than a whisper of goodbye.
Val waited, but for the first time in her life, her essence didn’t return to her. Khent had been right. Vladimir would take all her dead and consume them, consuming Val as well.
She couldn’t let that happen.
Never let him find you, dearest, she suddenly remembered her mother saying. You find him first and make him pay.
Talon screeched, in trouble.
She rushed around another mass of rubble to see him struggling in the grip of several galla demons.
So focused on Talon, she didn’t spot Vladimir waiting for her with an ugly staff in hand.
He lowered it to her chest, and she froze.
A rush of pestilence embraced her, trying to force its way into her eyes, nose, and mouth, through her pores.
“Die, bitch.” Vladimir laughed.
The memories returned, all that hateful laughter echoing while he killed everyone she and Talon loved.
Talon jerked away from the demons holding him, his memories clear as well, and glared at Vladimir.
To her shock, Vladimir reminded her of the four-eyes they’d fought on that mountaintop. Vladimir of the Void was no normal human. Instead, he looked demonic, skinny and huge, taller than anyone mortal. His skin was tar-black, his eyes a marbled gray, black, and crimson and boiling with rage.
She opened her mouth to laugh at him, letting the poison in. Knowing it wouldn’t hurt her. Not with her resistance to toxins and Khent’s energy buoying her, allowing her to float on a sea of hatred and vengeance.
The necromancer didn’t look so sure of himself as she refused to go down. She pushed the staff aside. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for years.”
“As have I,” Talon said, now a naked human with a blade in hand. He stood a few feet behind her, the demons around him in pieces. Instead of flying at Vladimir with talons and feathers, he leaped at the necromancer and stabbed him in the heart, knocking him on his ass.
None of this was according to plan. Val wanted all her pets here, now, but the logistics would be a major pain without magical help.
Vladimir burst into laughter, still gripping the staff.
“Talon, get back.”
“No. You’re not the only one with a plan. I—”
He disappeared before Vladimir swung his staff around to infect him.
“Talon?” Where the hell had he gone?
Grizz landed perilously close, rolling at the last second to avoid crushing her. Instead, he bowled into Vladimir, knocking him down. Grizz hurried to return to Val.
“Ah, my staff,” the other gargoyle rumbled. “Good of you to bring it, Vladimir.”
Val didn’t know what to do, but at least Talon hadn’t been touched by it. The few Beast Brigade shifters seemed to have vanished as well.
Heck, so had everyone else from the bazaar except for Grizz, Val, and a host of hungry shadows—demons—searching for food while their demon god and his pet necromancer played tug of war over the staff.
“Grizz, let’s go.”
“Not yet,” Nergal said, sounding chipper. “I’m having fun. I love life!” He stomped over to Vladimir and ripped the staff out of his hands. Then he tore Vladimir’s head off.
Val watched in fascination and horror, unsure about how to feel. She’d waited twenty years to get revenge only to see Vladimir killed so quickly.
“He was mine,” she said stupidly.
“I know.” Nergal twirled the staff in his large, stone hands. “Oh, don’t worry. He’ll recover soon enough. Death doesn’t stop that one for long.”
“Er, okay.” How the hell would she kill him then?
“My stone, Valentine?”
She took a step back, protected by Grizz. “I have no idea what you mean.”
“I believe you.” The gargoyle holding Nergal deep inside looked more statue than human, not able to grasp the complexity of having flesh as strong as stone, like a real gargoyle. Plus, the eyes were flat, a dim gray only a shade lighter than his rocky skin.
“I can’t give you what I don’t have.”
“Ah, but you do have it. The magic is buried deep inside you. The essence of an ancient deity. It’s what allows you to work so much death magic, what allows you to live without all of your soul intact.
Because pieces of you are everywhere, aren’t they?
Even in Vladimir.” He gripped his hand tightly then opened it, and a spark floated to Val and into her, making her feel whole.
She gasped. “Th-thanks.”
“Of course, dear one.” He studied her. “We’re about to get company again soon. And I would much rather discuss this in private. I’ll make you a deal. A life for a life.”
“No deals.”
He scoffed. “Now that’s not very sporting. What if I were to allow you to fight Vladimir to the death? His life for yours?”
“But you’re planning to kill us all anyway with the Staff of Blight.”
“Well, that’s true.” He tapped his chin. “Yet I won’t let Vladimir live. And I had planned to let him rule as one of my minions.”
“He doesn’t plan on staying a minion.”
Nergal laughed, and his evil mirth made her shiver. “Oh, I know what our naughty necromancer wants. Eternal life in the chaos that comes. Not Hecate’s special ending, but a brighter, funner—and yes, that is a word, I looked it up—way of existence where nothing has meaning except more of nothing.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know. Neither does Hecate, and that’s the problem. Had she come to me first, looking for help to retrieve her Bloode Stones, we could have bargained. I didn’t have to take all hope from everyone. But now I kind of have to,” he said apologetically. “I have a rep, you know.”
“What?” Val didn’t like his sudden, intense focus.
“Watch this.” Nergal yanked the staff up and tapped it twice upon the ground. Everything living within a five-foot radius, except for her and Grizz, turned to green puddles of goo. “Gross, am I right? But not gray! That’s the kicker.”
“Because everything in Irkalla is gray and boring?”
“Bingo. You’re much smarter than you look.”
“Thanks.”
He chuckled.
Val gave Grizz a last command. She would have liked to see Khent one last time, but better she deal with this crazy underworld god now before he corrupted everything on the planet. She’d known she wouldn’t live past her meeting with Vladimir anyway.
It had never bothered her before. But now, accepting the love she felt for Khent, she wished she could have had more time with him.
To Grizz, she commanded, Now.
He tightened his arms around her and launched them both at Nergal. She grabbed the head of the staff just as Nergal put his hand around her throat and Grizz tried to crush Nergal’s head into pieces.
As her vision wavered, Val knew she wouldn’t have the strength to hold out. Talon, the shifters, everyone would die.
Including Khent.
The thought of his dark gaze never looking upon the world again hurt. She knew Khent wasn’t afraid of death. A warrior and scholar in any form, Khent would endure and thrive even.
But Nergal wouldn’t let him or any of the others go to their peaceful afterlives. He’d trap them all in his gray doom for eternity.
She refused to let that happen.
Instead, she let the memory surface, the one she’d kept suppressed since she’d first been enspelled to forget. Yet it had never faded, just been ignored.
A deal from a being who wanted to come back.
A life for a life, Nergal had proposed. The same proposition the being inside her offered.
Yes, she whispered to the being before passing out.
And the world shuddered as the Liminalities across the cosmos yelled as one, “No.”