Chapter 36

  AWAKENED WARRIORS

  The monstrous creatures slid through streets and across rooftops like living shadows, guided by a single instinct:

  to find the witches… and wipe them out.

  Inside the improvised shelter, the hybrid demons had settled all of them on the floor, wrapped in blankets. The only entrance was blocked by stacked furniture forming a precarious wall, and both guardians watched it without looking away, knowing that sooner or later something would strike from the other side.

  —What do you think might have happened to the others? —murmured Malek, a young demon with small horns and bright green eyes fixed on the door with contained terror.

  —To whom? —Gyko replied, violet-skinned, with pointed ears and a tail ending in a stinger. As he spoke, he made sure the witches were still breathing.

  —To the people of the Order of Atlantis… and the other hybrids… —he swallowed—. Don’t you find it strange that we haven’t seen anyone else?

  Fear trembled in his voice.

  —Malek, calm down… —Gyko stepped closer and wrapped his arms around him—. Your brother is strong. I’m sure he’s fine.

  —I don’t know, Gyko… —Malek whispered, clinging to him as if he could lose him at any moment.

  Then…

  The door echoed.

  A dull thud made the walls vibrate. They both pulled apart instantly, staring at the barricade.

  Malek’s eyes flared with an unnatural green. The light flowed like liquid serpents down his arm, solidifying into an energy katana that gleamed with emerald hues.

  Gyko’s nails began to grow, warping until they became claws streaked with violet, sharp as demonic blades.

  The furniture creaked.

  The barricade shook.

  They knew it wouldn’t hold much longer.

  Malek looked at Gyko.

  And amid the fear, the chaos, and the death drawing closer…

  He leaned in and kissed him with desperate tenderness.

  As if that instant

  were the only thing in hell

  that could not be taken from them.

  Two of the creatures burst through the shattered barricade, sliding over the furniture like unleashed predators.

  Malek changed in an instant.

  He was no longer the frightened demon clinging to Gyko.

  Now he was a warrior.

  He tightened his grip on the hilt of his green katana and hurled himself into the attack, spinning between tentacles and organic blades, cutting with surgical precision. Every movement was fast, elegant, lethal.

  Gyko did not fall behind.

  With superhuman agility, he dodged blows by mere inches, and with every slash of his claws he left violet streaks in enemy flesh. Wherever his nails touched, corruption spread like an inner fire: the creatures shrieked as a purple infection consumed them from within.

  Malek severed tentacles, sending them crashing to the floor…

  but they grew back, twisting toward him again like regenerating serpents.

  —They won’t stop!

  Without hesitation, Gyko grasped the edge of Malek’s katana.

  The blade split his palm open.

  Violet blood spilled forth and slid along the metal, clinging to it as if alive, forming glowing veins along the blade.

  Malek understood instantly.

  He lunged forward.

  At the same time, he extended his other hand, and a second green energy katana formed in his grip. Now he fought with both, creating a whirlwind of strikes that forced the creatures to retreat, keeping them away from the defenseless witches.

  —They’re coming in from above! —Gyko shouted.

  He didn’t think.

  He just moved.

  He leapt onto the wall, ran along it, spun in midair, and landed among the invaders descending from the ceiling, cutting, tearing, infecting. Every enemy he touched began to writhe slowly, consumed by the violet poison.

  Then he saw it.

  One of the creatures was lunging at Diya.

  Gyko stepped in its path.

  The blade-shaped arm pierced straight through his torso.

  Even so, he didn’t scream.

  With his bare hands, Gyko drove his claws into the creature’s chest and tore out its black heart, destroying it from within.

  They both fell.

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  The monster died first.

  Gyko after.

  —GYKO! —Malek’s scream tore through the shelter like an open wound in the world.

  And for an instant, even the monsters seemed to pause…

  as if the pain carried by that name

  had eclipsed hell itself.

  Malek beheaded the two creatures guarding the entrance with a single fluid motion. Their heads rolled across the floor, still convulsing, as more horrors tried to force their way through the shattered doorway and others descended slowly from the ceiling like hungry parasites.

  But Malek no longer saw them.

  He ran to Gyko.

  With a desperate slash, he severed the arm of the creature still impaling him and forced it back. The energy katanas dissipated from his hands as he fell to his knees beside his partner’s body.

  —Please… answer me… —he shook him, refusing to accept the obvious—. Please, don’t leave me…

  Tears fell freely, unstoppable.

  The entire world seemed to have narrowed down to that motionless body.

  —Wake up… —he whispered, his voice broken.

  He gave him one last kiss on the lips.

  With impossible tenderness amid the horror, he closed his eyes.

  When he stood up…

  His green eyes burned with pure fury.

  The two katanas reappeared in his hands.

  From that moment on, Malek was no longer fighting to win.

  He was fighting so that Gyko’s sacrifice would not be in vain.

  Creatures kept pouring in through the door and from the ceiling, and he held them back however he could—blocking, cutting, tearing, holding the line with a body that no longer felt exhaustion.

  Then he noticed something.

  The enemies descending from above came to a halt.

  Small explosions shook the exterior.

  Reinforcements.

  A second later, Kiran dropped lightly through the opening in the roof, landing amid dust and debris. He immediately ran to Diya, checking that she was still alive.

  —There are too many… —he said, his voice trembling—. We couldn’t defeat the Totnes. Only Gabriel and Tatiana survived… I think. They’re outside, fighting these things…

  He looked on the verge of collapse.

  —I need them to wake up… we’re far too few… —Malek said, exhausted, pointing at the unconscious witches—. Didn’t you see the other humans and hybrids?

  —It’s just us… —Kiran replied, looking at Diya—. I don’t understand where the others are.

  Malek frowned and pointed at his arm.

  —You used too much power. Look at your veins.

  The sickly blue throbbed beneath Kiran’s skin.

  —I know… —he murmured—. If I keep this up, I’ll pass out… or die.

  Then a soft groan broke the air.

  They both turned their heads.

  Among the pile of witches, two figures began to move.

  Diya.

  Max.

  They were waking up.

  And with them, perhaps,

  the last chance

  for that night not to end

  in total slaughter.

  —My head… —Max murmured, bringing a hand to his temple as he sat up. Around him, the witches still lay on the floor, unconscious, barely breathing.

  Diya’s eyes snapped open.

  The burning in her arm made her gasp. She looked at the wound through blurred vision and sprang to her feet, still unsteady.

  —Did you do it? —she asked, moving toward Kiran with uneven steps.

  —The witches are no longer under the Totnes’s control… —he replied, his voice heavy with exhaustion—. But we couldn’t defeat it. It summoned creatures. Gabriel and Tatiana are outside trying to keep them from getting in.

  He looked at the unconscious women.

  —It wants them dead. All of them.

  —Gabriel… —Max whispered.

  Without waiting another second, he ran toward the barricade. He raised both arms and, with a sharp gesture, the stacked furniture slid aside as if pushed by an invisible force, throwing the door wide open.

  —Max! —Diya shouted.

  But it was already too late.

  She and the others ran after him, leaving behind the refuge that, for a few minutes, had been the only thing standing between the witches…

  and extermination.

  Gabriel and Tatiana were surrounded.

  The tide of creatures was closing in on them. Gabriel swung the scythe, forcing them back with every strike, while Tatiana, already out of ammunition, smashed with the butt of her shotgun, shattering skulls and limbs with pure fury.

  Then…

  Max ran toward them.

  His eyes swept over the ground littered with remains: severed tentacles, blade-shaped arms, fragments still twitching. Two curved, bladed limbs suddenly rose, torn from the ground by his telekinesis and flying into his hands.

  The creatures noticed him.

  The magic gave him away.

  A horde changed course and charged straight at him.

  The blades floated around Max like deadly satellites. He felt no fear. Not even as an army of nightmares advanced toward him.

  The two limbs shot forward.

  They pierced skulls, punched through bodies, shredded dark flesh… and then returned, spinning once more around him, dripping with something that was not blood.

  Tentacles and blades tried to reach him, but Max raised small energy shields at the exact points of impact, deflecting lethal blows by mere inches as he kept running.

  Diya didn’t hesitate.

  She summoned her spear. She raised it and charged it with her magic, becoming a luminous beacon in the midst of chaos. The creatures were drawn to that energy like insects to a flame.

  Max reached them.

  —Scutum!

  A force field deployed around the three of them, a dome of vibrating energy. The creatures hurled themselves against it, climbing over the barrier, striking it, trying to break it just to reach Diya…

  As if they knew

  she was the key to everything.

  Diya fixed her gaze on the blue veins snaking beneath Kiran’s skin.

  —Protect him —she ordered, pointing him out to Malek.

  —You’re not going alone —Kiran growled, stepping toward her—. I’m not letting you.

  Diya shook her head slowly.

  —Our promise was to protect each other… —she whispered—. Now it’s my turn to protect you.

  Before he could reply, she hurled her spear. The weapon struck the ground several meters away, vibrating with arcane energy. Diya opened her hands, and two circles of lavender light appeared above her palms, slowly spinning, levitating like tiny moons.

  Max watched her, his heart racing.

  He knew what she was about to do.

  And he knew it was madness.

  The force field around them shifted, adapting as the creatures stopped climbing it.

  Tatiana stepped closer to Max and held out a small metal marble, glowing with a faint, pulsing light.

  —Take it. —she said—. You know what it is.

  Max took it.

  A vibration ran up his arm and into his chest.

  —Nexus… —he whispered.

  The word electrified the air.

  The marble levitated between his fingers and began to radiate an ever-stronger lavender light, as if a fragment of another plane were awakening within it.

  And, for the first time since the Totnes had descended from the sky…

  Something else

  had begun to answer.

  The alchemical steel marble began to deform.

  It stretched, split open, fractured into lines of light… until it transformed into a curved scythe attached to a chain. The blade was black and gleaming, with a pronounced curve and an edge that reflected light like an obsidian mirror. A lavender glow surrounded it completely, like an unnatural halo.

  The handle, cylindrical in shape, was wrapped in bands and covered in golden runes that pulsed softly. At its base hung a metal ring from which a long dark chain emerged, also bathed in the lavender glow.

  At the end of the chain dangled a second handle, smaller, identical to the first, acting as a counterweight… or as a secondary grip for death.

  Max contemplated it for barely a second.

  Then he ran toward Diya, the weapon levitating at his side, circling him like a hungry serpent.

  From afar he could see her unleashing chaos: disks of lavender light flew from her hands, slicing through creatures as if they were shadows.

  Max stopped for an instant, calculating a route through the tide of monsters.

  —To hell with it.

  There was no time for calculations.

  He plunged straight in.

  Creatures were sent flying as Max shoved them aside with bursts of telekinesis. Others he caught with the scythe’s chain, wrapping it around their bodies to immobilize them…

  and then, with a sharp pull, the black blade came down.

  Heads fell.

  Bodies split apart.

  Lavender light carved lethal trails through the air.

  And in the heart of hell, Max advanced,

  not like a fugitive…

  but like a chained storm

  forcing its way toward Diya.

  —Ready? —Diya asked, looking at him with a smile that mixed defiance and fire as she gripped her spear.

  —Always.

  Max took the second handle in his right hand and the chain in his left. The scythe hung suspended at his side, swaying slowly, tracing a lazy arc, like a predator waiting for the order to strike.

  The lavender light of the weapon bathed their faces.

  Around them, the monsters gathered, hissing, writhing, preparing for the final assault.

  Two figures facing a tide of nightmares.

  And for the first time since the night began…

  The horror was not alone.