“Nerissa, did you ever figure out if angels can be infected by the curse?”
“My tests were inconclusive,” she replied.
I kept walking. “Stay here,” I told her.
I had a feeling things were about to get really hairy. Valora had always hated her half-sister Nyx. She’d been looking for a way to get rid of her for centuries.
Nyx had been gone for days. And all that time, no one had known where she was. What if…what if Valora had given Gypsy the curse, had her infect Nyx, then tricked Nyx into using her siren magic. When the sirens I found in Purgatory had tried to compel the shifters, their magic had turned against them, compelling them to do whatever the shifters told them.
If Nyx had tried to compel Gypsy while infected with the curse, then her magic would have turned against her too. And she’d been under Gypsy’s control ever since. Gypsy didn’t even need the control collars to make Nyx do as she said. Nyx’s own magic was doing it for her.
And now Nyx was here, at the gala of gods and demons. A gala that never would have happened if Nyx hadn’t ‘caught’ Gemini and Sagittarius, the so-called perpetrators of the curse. No, the gala would have been postponed because it was too risky to hold it with a curse-creating maniac on the loose. But with two curse-creating maniacs secure in a Legion prison, the gala could go forward.
But what was Valora trying to do with Nyx? Stop the alliance between the gods and demons?
No, this wasn’t a purely political move. One look at Valora’s dour face was enough to convince me that this was personal. Valora wanted Nyx to kill the other six ruling gods and the seven ruling demons. It was an act of blatant revenge for how they’d wronged her, how they’d discarded the goddess who had once been their queen. In the aftermath of the massacre, she would be named queen again, and Nyx would be sentenced to death for her crime. Sure, that would kill the alliance too and make it damn near impossible to defeat the Guardians, but Valora wasn’t thinking about those consequences.
But how would Nyx kill thirteen deities at once? She was a powerful angel, a demigod. Even so, deities were even harder to kill than angels.
I moved toward Nyx. I had to act quickly but without drawing attention to myself. Neither Valora nor Gypsy could realize I was on to them. I didn’t know how Nyx was going to kill all those deities, but I knew I had to stop her. The fate of this world and all others depended on it.
I was just twenty steps away from Nyx.
Maybe Valora had found a way to turn the First Angel into some kind of magic bomb. And if the gods and demons were close enough to her when Nyx blew, they’d die with her. Valora would probably appreciate that even more, the idea of her enemy blowing up all her other enemies with her.
I had to defuse that bomb. Somehow. I didn’t even know how.
Only ten steps to go.
Damiel moved into my path. “Hi, Leda. How’s it going?”
I looked past him, keeping Nyx in sight. “I can’t talk right now, Damiel.”
He looked from me, to the First Angel. And that’s when I realized he knew what I was doing.
“Nyx isn’t your enemy,” he said.
“I know. I’m trying to help her.”
“How?”
“I don’t have time to explain. You just have to trust me.”
Damiel didn’t move out of my way. Nyx could blow at any moment. I didn’t have time for this nonsense.
“Damiel, move. Or I’ll move you.”
“Nyx isn’t your enemy,” he said again, with the same exact intonation.
“Are you a damn robot now?”
“No.”
He still wasn’t moving. This was getting ridiculous. Damiel had never been so dense before.
Oh, shit.
I realized he was infected too. Just like Nyx. But if Damiel was being controlled by Gypsy, then why had he been helping me train my mental defenses all this time?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Leda,” he said. “I haven’t seen you since we all had dinner in your apartment.”
“You’re not making any sense,” I replied. “And I didn’t say anything to you.”
“No. You didn’t say it. You thought it. I can read all your thoughts, Leda.”
“You’re reading my thoughts?”
“Your mental defenses are so weak right now,” he told me. “She’s whittled them down to nothing.”
“Who?”
He shook his head. “How many times did she attack your mind these last few days?”
“No one attacked my mind these last few days except you,” I growled at him.
“Aren’t you listening to me? That wasn’t me you saw. It was an illusion.” Damiel’s voice dropped lower, darker. “And Nyx isn’t the one being controlled. You are, Leda.”
29
Last Ritual
Damiel faded away. Everyone and everything faded to white.
Except for Faith. And the smell of cookies.
“You,” I said to the sixteen-year-old girl. “It’s you. You’re the one Damiel warned me about. It’s your magic I keep smelling everywhere. You’re the one behind the curse.”
“Yes.” Faith didn’t look triumphant or boastful. She just looked determined. “I’ve been following you longer than you realize, watching from afar.”
“How long?”
“Since you found the dead vampires in Purgatory.”
So every time I’d smelled cookies, that had been Faith using her magic.
“Why were you watching me?” I asked her.
“To make sure you realized that all the victims are connected and the ‘curse’ was contagious.”
“You planted the strip of leather with the vampires’ symbol on it near the fire elementals. And you wanted us to find you in that barn with Drummoyne’s ring on you.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re pretty smart,” I told her. “But you’re also pretty crazy. And whatever you are trying to do, I will stop you.”
“Why do you have to make this so difficult?” she sighed.
“That’s what I do.”
A soft meow drew my attention downward. I found Angel standing beside me in this great white nothingness.
“What are you doing here?” I asked my cat.
She didn’t explain why she was here with me when everyone else was gone. Then again, she was only a cat. Just because I wanted to believe she understood me, that didn’t mean she actually did.
“Now, let’s get started.” Faith sat down on an old wooden rocking chair that had spontaneously materialized behind her. “We have a lot to get done.”
Two knitting needles appeared in her hands. Rolls of yarn popped up all around her. As Faith rocked, she knitted. Since I was guessing this was some kind of a vision or dream, the yarn had to represent something. Maybe it meant she was creating something. She had mentioned she had a lot to do.
“What exactly do you want to get done?” I asked her.
Faith glanced up from her flashing needles. “Isn’t it obvious? I want to black out all the world’s magic.”
She sure didn’t dream small.