Page 48 of The Demon’s Due (Bedeviled #5)

Jared Casey, Natán, Delacroix, Dmitri: the Four Asshats of the Apocalypse exploited fears and promised strength in their speeches and posturing. They kept us at each other’s throats instead of bringing us all together to stand against the darkness.

That wasn’t who I was. Or who I aspired to be.

I’d revealed my true nature to everyone: the good, the bad, and the monstrous. Now I was asking them to do the same, to embrace what they’d been taught to fear, to not only save the world, but change everyone’s idea of us.

That required enormous trust and courage on all sides.

The fact was that magic had a price, and the world was paying.

But half shedim could end the debt.

It would be costly, but maybe sharing the price as our half-shedim selves would transform the debt into something else.

Hope.

“If there are any half shedim here, I need you,” I yelled.

“Right now! I know you’re scared, and historically it hasn’t gone well to reveal yourself, but without our magic, the Luce will win.

Stay in your natural human form, and when you join me, balance your shedim and Eishei Kodesh magic.

Everyone spread the word.” I instructed task force members on the comms to do the same.

There was a horrible stretched-out moment when the crowd didn’t move, then people pulled out phones.

I raced back into position, once more careful to balance my magic when I added it to our backburn.

Lighter crimson threads from other half shedim around the world spooled through my blanket. I wove them into my own magic base, the paler strands darkening once they were pieced with mine.

The Luce struck again and shuddered, but while it faltered, it didn’t stop.

Ezra helped an elderly Black woman onto her knees next to me. I added her strands to the blanket.

“Thank you for coming forward,” I said. “I’m Aviva.”

“It’s my great pleasure.” The woman smiled calmly at me through a face of wrinkles. “And I know who you are, lovely. Goodness, you’ve been on the news! I’m Eleanor.”

“We need more half shedim,” I said into the comms.

“Incoming,” a bunch of operatives replied.

The sudden wash of light crimson in my synesthete vision made me sway.

“Steady,” Ezra said, grabbing my shoulders.

I was locked into my synesthete sight, but no sunset had ever looked so glorious.

The entire world was laid out for me. Yes, there was the damage and Luce magic, but there was also the majesty of all the flame colors working in tandem, and, most wondrous of all, strands and strands of light crimson yarn.

I burst into a crazed cackling, working outward to connect them as fast as I could into what amounted to a giant sock wrapped around the Eishei Kodesh magic spanning the globe. Every subsequent section I connected to mine darkened in color.

“What’s funny?” Michael asked.

“I’m knitting.”

Ezra snorted with laughter.

Our cocoon blunted the Luce’s strikes, giving the Eishei Kodesh magic a fighting chance.

“I have no clue what’s happening,” Joe said, “but this is making a difference.”

“Operatives!” Ha-joon snapped in our ears. “Give it everything you’ve got!”

I hit a faraway section where the yarn felt bright and familiar. Maud .

The Luce redoubled its assault.

Sachie screamed. I snapped out of my synesthete vision in time to see her crash to her knees, her body contorting as the healing magic tried to force perfection through her.

Two healers, including Chaim, bolted to her side.

Darsh and Silas came closer, swaying like leaves in a breeze, wearing identical fierce expressions like they defied the Luce to come get them—or Sachie.

Ezra shot them a tormented look, but he didn’t leave Eleanor’s or my side.

I slid back into my synesthete vision. My magic knitting project had strands missing. I reached out, seeking those half shedim whose magic had just been there, but they were gone. Jagged dark light rushed in to fill the holes they’d left behind.

Tense directives flickered over our comms, but I didn’t have time to pay attention. What I was doing had worked. What had gone wrong?

Sweat burned my eyes from the effort of keeping the shedim magic wrapped around the magic flame band while it flowed, changing course with it as necessary.

The Luce was weakening, its forked veins disappearing, but the broken parts of the backburn weren’t healing properly even with our operatives pouring everything they had into it.

We shedim could protect the Eishei Kodesh magic from further damage but we couldn’t fix it.

Our wildfire was dying, and if we didn’t make the blaze a bonfire again, the Luce would triumph.

“Ezra!” I blinked at him, shaking synesthetic afterimages out of my vision. “Pour every ounce of Prime healing magic through our blood bond.”

He scanned my face. “Where are you hurt?”

“Not me. The planet. Could using each other as conduits save it?”

“Maybe? But Avi, I—I don’t know what that will do to you.” The fear in his eyes made my stomach twist.

“Do nothing and it’s game over,” I said quietly. “I have no intention of dying. Not before I get that chocolate mousse.”

His laughter was a broken hollow sound, but he placed his hands over my heart. “Ready?”

I looked around my beloved city at my friends and family and strangers who’d come together. This might be my last glimpse of them.

“Ready,” I said.

The moment Ezra’s magic surged through our blood bond, my entire body ignited with sensation.

It wasn’t pain. It was power, raw and electric, racing through every cell.

My skin buzzed as if a million tiny lightning bolts danced across it, and the crimson glow that emanated from me was so intense that those nearby shielded their eyes. My hair stood on end.

I gasped as magic cascaded through me and into the earth. Each heartbeat sent another pulse through the crimson threads I’d knitted, transforming them from protective covering to a healing essence that mended the fractured Eishei Kodesh band wherever they touched.

I was everywhere and nowhere, stretched across continents yet anchored by Ezra’s hands on my heart.

The Luce couldn’t keep up. It was like trying to solve an equation that kept changing its variables.

Weeds sprouted from cracks in the sidewalk and a sparrow’s trill broke the unnatural silence, followed by another, then another, as though nature itself was celebrating its return.

An awestruck gasp rippled through the crowd.

Light exploded out of the ground.

“The rift is back!” someone cried.

Its harsh light had mellowed into a soft gold glow, like a sunset, while the unnatural color in the sky faded, returning to a cloudless blue.

My hands were the needles, our shedim and Eishei Kodesh powers the fabric, and Ezra’s magic the special sauce pulling it all together.

Together we’d knitted our broken world whole again.

Reports poured in from around the world over the comms. The Luce was gone, vampires had been restored to good health, and the earth was once more perfectly imperfect.

We broke into deafening cheers with lots of high fives and hugs.

Ezra grabbed me. His lips crashed against mine with a fierce joy that stole my breath, his hands steady and strong as they pulled me against him. The kiss deepened, wild and exultant, a celebration of life surging between us as powerful as the magic we’d wielded. “I love you.”

“I love you with all my heart, but Zee?”

“Yeah.”

“I never want to knit anything again.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “I’m happy to take on all the knitting in our relationship forever, mi cielo.”

Eleanor broke away from the knot of operatives hugging and cheering her to pat my cheek. “You’ve made an old woman very happy.”

I angled my body to protect her from the spray of champagne.

“Maybe we could have lunch sometime?” I rolled out my neck. “It would be nice to connect with other half shedim.”

As we exchanged numbers, a younger Black woman joined us. “Gran, you’re a superhero!”

“Aviva, this is my granddaughter, Lisa,” Eleanor said. “Seeing as I helped save the world, I deserve to spend the afternoon at the casino.”

“Yeah, okay.” Lisa smiled fondly at her grandmother. “You card sharp.”

“Poker?” I grinned. “You should meet my sister. She’s a multiple world champion.”

“That sounds fun. Call me soon.” Eleanor and Lisa said goodbye and walked off.

“You done good, Avi.” Silas one-arm hugged me. He and Darsh were once more the picture of vampiric vitality.

“Look at you two, fresh as a newborn’s ass,” I said.

Darsh grimaced. “We’ll work on your metaphors, but thank heavens I don’t have to adjust my skin routine anymore. It was bankrupting me.”

We watched Ezra and Silas nattering excitedly to each other about how they should go rock climbing to celebrate.

“Hanging off a cliff by your fingertips doesn’t say ‘we just saved the world from magical annihilation,’” Darsh grumbled. “Why can’t they do spa days like normal people?”

“We don’t want them at our spa days, babe,” I said. “That would not be restful.”

“Good point.”

Gemma accompanied me to Sachie and Michael. “If you’d suggested using shedim magic that way in the original briefing, we would have said it was impossible.”

“Sometimes,” I said, voice rough with exhaustion,“impossible is exactly what we need.”