XANDER

I don’t have time to deal with my emotions. My brother’s death. The threat of Hell.

The devastating evil I saw when the angel revealed my memories.

We don’t have time.

I have no doubt, Vee, as she is now, could kill Seth, but will she survive?

The girl with her face now on Heath’s chest jerks with convulsions and blood streaks her face. In the last few moments, her skin became luminescent. She’s emitting power, and the change is killing her.

“How do we do this?” I ask Joss as he approaches. “How do we take Seth down and help Vee when she needs us?”

Joss shakes his head. We’re more lost than we’ve ever been.

“He can’t be dead, he can’t.” Vee grips at Heath’s jacket and I turn my face, unable to look at Heath’s head snapped into an unnatural angle. “He’s Death. He can’t die.”

“Vee. We need to kill Seth,” I whisper and stroke hair from her damp cheeks. “We don’t have much time now the angels are dead.”

Vee wraps herself around Heath and kisses his face, his eyelids, his mouth. Her body wracks with pain and sobs. Vee shakes and more light illuminates her body.

My stomach turns because I know what’s happening to her.

We failed, and there’s nothing we can do.

Vee grips Heath’s hair and keeps her mouth on his, hands on his chest as she curls her body around him. I keep my hand on her back, and Joss sits nearby head in his hands as we watch the girl we love in her own Hell.

“Do you think Hell will still exist when I destroy the world?” muses Seth.

His voice comes from nearby and Vee doesn’t move.

Has she given up?

I close my eyes and turn to him, weak. I’d fight him, but what’s the point? None of us could take him on. We’ll use the last of our energy and time in this world to help Vee. I look to Ewan, slumped on the ground with us, and he nods in silent understanding. Vee’s lost. Too lost to help us.

And I don’t want to live if Vee dies.

Vee breaks from Heath, and a determined strength pulls her to her feet.

“That was a tender goodbye to your dead lover,” scoffs Seth. “Almost brought a tear to my eye. Do the others get a goodbye kiss?”

Vee seizes me around the neck and kisses me, mouth hard on mine. I’d wrap my arms around Vee, but her kiss hurts my heart. Literally causes it to swell with pain, and a sensation of poison spreading through my veins follows. This strange creature half Vee, half Order grips me hard, and I struggle to keep my footing. My heart pushes harder and, with her mouth on me, I can’t breathe.

Oblivion to match what the angels threw me into earlier overwhelms. I sink down with dread flooding through.

EWAN

Chaos always wastes time. He revels in watching others struggle, to watch the pain his acts cause as if he feeds on the suffering. This god doesn’t want a swift and neat ending. He wants to see us broken, the way he once wanted us divided.

But I still have fight left inside.

I will fight for and with Vee.

Seth watches Vee and Xander’s kiss through narrowed eyes, and Xander grips her in an attempt to stay upright. Does Seth know what she’s doing? Because I do. She’s trying to give him Order.

“Okay. That’s enough. You’re making me want to vomit.” Seth steps toward the pair.

No.

Xander survived Seth’s attack. Heath didn’t. Joss almost lost. I’ve no doubt what will happen to me after my next move. But I can’t let Seth interfere with what Vee’s doing.

Am I strong enough?

I muster every ounce of strength in my body and slam into a distracted Seth. I’m twice his human bulk, but half the being he is. Seth loses his footing for a fraction of a second before righting himself and snapping his attention to me.

“Really? Didn’t you learn last time? You can’t touch me, Ewan.”

He steps forward to meet me head-on. I don’t flinch staring down at him—into the void in his blackened eyes. “I’m not finishing this any other way than watching you burn,” he says, his voice growing huskier as he takes on a darker shape.

Seth’s form grows, still human but half as tall as me again. He darkens in the way Vee has lightened and. I take a step back and look up at him.

I won’t back down.

I can’t let him drop his focus on me and realise what Vee is doing.

But I’m fucking terrified.

The figure reaches above his head, head tipped back and both palms open to the sky. Directly above, the grey day becomes night as a black gloom spreads through the sky obliterating the remaining daylight. Sudden, encompassing night.

But this isn’t the night sky. The stars and moon don’t shine in the black. The air around stills. A heat grows around us, and I struggle for breath as the pitch envelops my lungs.

The cloud cracks like thunder overhead, the sound deafening, and blue light crackles to the ground behind Seth. He’s illuminated for a second and then merges back into the shadows.

What the fuck do I do?

Above, blue and purple energy sparks and dances across the dark sky and to the horizon.

Chaos finally reached his end game.

A bolt from above hits me, unlike anything I’ve felt before. I stagger before landing on my knees. Shocks run through me, over and over, and my body sparks with the energy thrown from above. I gasp for air. For the strength, I need to stand and do something.

But what good are Pestilence’s powers against Chaos?

In the corner of my eye, Vee breaks away from Xander and my spirits rise as she turns to us. I hear nothing but my laboured breathing. The air thins as the oxygen leaves.

The last thing I see as the crackling magic above hits me is Vee dropping to her knees beside Xander.

JOSS

Ewan falls at Chaos’s feet, and the triumph on his face flashes in and out of view as the storm above rages.

But this isn’t a storm. This is the end of days. The Reckoning, the angels promised.

The fucking angels.

I glance at Leoc’s blood on my hands and anger heats my skin. The story would always lead to an end here—the Four Horsemen, Vee and Seth. Order and Chaos. But the angels, the double-crossing bastards, tried to make this their own story. They wrote the book and wanted to choose the ending.

But we will create our own.

Vee and Xander remain on the ground and my last hope fades that she somehow passed her power to him. Vee still burns with the same intensity, face smudged by blood and dirt and her body convulsing as she fights against the Order leaving her body.

The fierce emotions from the last few days have faded around me. But there’s a horrific reason I’m not overwhelmed by them anymore.

Heath and Ewan no longer feel.

Heath’s lifeless body rests beside Vee and Xander. Ewan lies in the worst place he’d want to die—Chaos’s feet.

I sense Xander is alive. But he’s on the edge.

“That was too easy,” Seth calls out. “C’mon, Vee. I’ve killed two of them. Where’s this so-called goddess power? Or are you scared you’ll die too? I can make it quick and easy if you want.”

I’m knocked sideways by a dark bolt from Chaos’s hands. I land awkwardly and the new agony shooting through isn’t from the magic, but the shattered bone in my leg. He walks towards me and looks down.

“You were kinda nice to me once, Famine. Not that it makes much difference now.” He lifts his hands upwards and the blue light darts from above to touch his fingertips.

Chaos looks down as the blue on his fingertips darkens to black, the colour crawling along his arms and to his neck. The black webbed pattern creeps across his face and ends where his eyes become holes holding a vision of his universe. Black. Empty.

The twisted visage Chaos created magnifies the smug, satisfied smile, and he draws his hands back. The magic crackles as more bolts shoot down from the sky to meet his hands.

“But thanks for being the nice guy.”

Chaos lifts his palms in my direction. Focused dark magic flashes across the small space between us. I meet his eyes and stare into the oncoming oblivion. I won’t turn my head away. I won’t cower. He doesn’t get to enjoy my fear in death.