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THE ORIGINAL SUPERNATURALS

I t was just so easy. Defeating the original supernatural beasts wasn’t even a challenge. Of course it wasn’t. I mean, come on, I’d taken out the first one when I was only twelve. Single-handedly. Now I had four years more of experience, and Troy Fireswift by my side.

“As far as sidekicks go, you’re not half-bad,” I told him as the vampire beast fell dead to the ground with a thunderous roar that shook the treasure chamber.

He snorted. “Who says I am the sidekick?”

“I do. But only because I’m generous.” I allowed a smirk to slowly curl my lips.

Troy mirrored my expression, though his smile showed a bit more teeth. “Cute.”

“Of course I am.” I snatched the ring off its pedestal. “Cute and badass.”

“You know, badass, one of these days, you’re going to meet an enemy that you can’t one-hit,” he warned me.

I laughed. “That hasn’t happened yet.”

He rolled his eyes at me. “Do you ever get sick of being so perfect?”

“Nope.” I pointed at his boots. “You might want to take care of that.”

He looked down to discover that his shoelaces were on fire. He quickly stomped out the flames. “How did that happen?”

“It happened when you were throwing fire potions around with reckless abandon,” I told him. “You should try showing off a little less.”

For some reason, my statement made him laugh.

I frowned. “What?”

“You’re hilarious, Sierra.”

The heavy stone treasury door creaked open, and we prepared to leave. But a team of soldiers marched into the vault, barring the way. They were gods.

“What are you doing here?” I asked Stash, my mom’s cousin.

“We’re here to escort you home.”

I sighed. Of course they were.

“You guys couldn’t find the vault before. So how did you find us now?” I asked.

“We followed the trail of dead monsters,” Punch said with glee.

They were all here, all my mom’s friends from Heaven’s Army: Stash, Patch, Punch, Devlin, Arabelle, Octavian, and Theon.

“You’re even more trouble than your mother,” Octavian observed, and he too looked quite pleased with the notion.

My mom had weird friends.

Then again, my dad’s friends were weird too.

His friend Harker enjoyed doing wing pushups.

His friend Li had his entire bookcase sorted by color.

And General Silverstar ironed his shoelaces and ate the same three meals every day.

Ok, so technically General Silverstar was Dad’s grandfather, but still. He was the weirdest one of all.

“What are you doing here?” Stash demanded.

The question wasn’t directed at me. It was for the new arrivals, a team of demon soldiers.

“Grace sent us,” said Aerilyn, the notorious dark angel trickster.

She was another one of my mom’s cousins.

“Well, Faris sent us,” Stash told her.

Aerilyn’s brows lifted slightly. “To find Sierra?”

“Yes.”

She smiled. “Same.”

Great. So my parents had asked the King of the Gods and the Queen of the Demons to send their armies to come find me. The armies of heaven and hell were out searching for me like I was some kind of lost puppy. How embarrassing.

The gods and demons spent the next fifteen minutes alternatively glaring at one another and fighting over who got to drag me home kicking and screaming. And all the while, they were blocking the way out.

I couldn’t teleport in or out of this weird chamber—it must have been something in the rocks—so I was stuck.

I could have bowled over the demons and gods, but if I did that, my parents would ground me for the next century.

They still might. I had snuck out of the house and gone looking for the rings against their explicit instructions.

“Thank you, guys. You can go. We’ll take it from here,” my mom said as she squeezed between Aerilyn and Stash to enter the vault.

Dad was right behind her. He was dressed for war. In addition to all the armor and weapons, he wore a blank expression.

Crap. I was so grounded.

“Lord Faris instructed us to bring Sierra to him,” Devlin told my mom.

“I’m sure he did,” she replied with a tight smile. “But I’m telling you to leave.”

He frowned.

“We were also instructed to bring Sierra with us,” said one of the demons.

“You may all remind Faris and Grace that we are Sierra’s parents, not they,” she continued.

“There is a chain of command to be follow?—”

“Furthermore, you guys can remind Grace and Faris I’m on both councils,” she cut him off. “In other words, all of you can get out of my way now before I smite the lot of you and have a very good time doing it.”

The gods and demons withdrew, some looking more willing than others. Mom asked Stash to bring Troy back home, which left me alone in the vault with my parents.

“You have tears in your clothes,” Dad noted. “And blood on your skin.”

“I’m fine,” I assured him. “Just a few minor bumps and bruises. None of my injuries were severe. They’ve all already healed.”

Mom winced. “I am trying real hard not to think about how you got injured, Sierra.”

“Look at her, Pandora. See the proud, excited light in her eyes.” Dad addressed me now. “I take it that means you were successful?”

Wait, no lecture about running off alone? I held my breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“Yes. I got them all. All sixteen.” I dug into my pockets and fished out all the rings.

My parents just stood there, silent and…no, not angry. They definitely weren’t angry. They looked resigned, like they’d decided I was a lost cause and there was nothing they could do about it.

“Look, I’m sorry I went off after the rings when you told me not to,” I said.

“It’s just that I knew I could find them, and we had to find them before Lavinia did, and then Troy showed up and, well, he might have egged me on a little.

And I know I shouldn’t have, but I was…” My voice trailed off.

There was something so wrong about the expressions on their faces. “What is it? What happened?”

Mom took a slow breath, then said, “While you were out, Cadence came to us with important news. She’s been reading through the Immortal books. And she’s figured out what Lavinia is trying to do.”

“Which is?” I asked eagerly, leaning in.

“The rings are more than the sum of their parts,” Dad told me. “They link together to form a necklace. But only after all the rings are powered up.”

“And how are they powered up?”

“Each of sixteen rings can be powered up,” Dad said, pausing to glance at the dead beast on the ground. “By killing the corresponding original beast. The magic of the beast—ancient, primal power—is then transferred to the ring.”

“Once all the rings are powered-up—once they’re primed with that magic—they can combine into a necklace,” Mom said.

“What does the necklace do?”

“It combines the powers the rings absorbed from the sixteen original supernaturals,” she said. “The person who wears the necklace can perform a ritual to become the ultimate being, someone who will wield powers far beyond anyone or anything we have ever seen.”

“Lavinia,” I gasped. “That’s what she’s planning on doing. She is going to make herself that ultimate being.”

“And then she will take her revenge.” Mom glanced at Dad.

“We’ll stop her,” he declared.

“Stop her? But I’ve already helped her!” I looked at the sixteen rings in my hands. “I thought I was stopping Lavinia by getting those rings and defeating the beasts, but I wasn’t. I was actually activating them for her. I was giving her everything that she needs.”