They turned on her, growling and snapping with Artemis right beside them as she did the same. The fact that Denise was a snarling, garish parasite wasn’t that surprising. It was more the fact that she didn’t kill Beep when she had the chance. She’d had ample opportunity, and I had no idea when she’d ceased to be Denise. Days ago, apparently. Possibly weeks. Then why wait? And how could a demon, a being of pure evil, pass so effortlessly as a human? It had delivered a human baby, for heaven’s sake. It had quite possibly saved Beep’s life. And yet we’d had no idea what she really was. Even Artemis didn’t know.

The bikers had joined in the fight. Donovan, unaware of the hounds in the room, broke a chair over Denise’s head, and Eric was using a fireplace poker as a sword. Michael just kind of stood back and soaked it all in. He was never one to rush into anything.

A third beast surrounded her, and I could tell she expected Lucifer to help her. How foolish to expect quarter from a man who would create his own son just so he could inhabit his body. Ethics were not his strong suit.

She hissed at the beasts, swiped as Eric got a little too close with the poker, and fell when the hounds converged, each ripping a piece of her apart.

I turned away. Even knowing the real Denise had probably been dead for days now, it wasn’t easy to watch.

Once the beasts were finished with her, they slowly circled Lucifer. Only, that happened to be my husband’s body they were about to rip apart.

I summoned Artemis back to me before glancing at Mr. Wong, now able to see the incredible power that encased him, and silently pleaded with him not to let the Twelve kill my husband.

“You sent me to protect you at all costs,” Mr. Wong whispered to me, though I could hear him clearly. “He is a threat. There is no help for it.”

Fine. I was back to fighting hellhounds.

“Hey!” I yelled at them, crouching down as though I would attack them.

“You would give up your life for his?” Lucifer asked.

“Of course, you idiot.”

He smiled. “Rey’aziel is very, very unhappy about that.”

“Yeah, well, he would be.”

A hound snapped at him, and in that instant when his focus swept to the hound, Osh was at my side. He no longer had a choice. Reyes was about to die, and I was the only one who could send Satan back to hell and save my husband in the process. He wrapped his arms around me, leaned in, put his mouth at my ear, and whispered my celestial name.

What hit me next was like an epiphany times infinity. It all made sense.

In an instant, a power like I’d never felt before flowed through me like lightning in my veins. Just like Reyes told me, with the knowledge of my name came billions of memories. I remembered my realm, my people, the gods that came before me. The memories were like flashes of camera light, only a million at a time. Then another million. Then the next. I remembered the creation of my universe and every universe thereafter. I remembered the wars. So many wars. So many lives lost, both celestial and mortal, each species of intelligence a little different from the others, yet each capable of a love greater than life.

And I remembered my decision to shift onto this plane. Though Reyes had seen me centuries ago, I saw him first. Knew he was capable of greatness. Called dibs.

God promised to leave earth to humans, to leave them to their own devices. He could only intervene if asked, if prayed to. In His infinite wisdom, however, He found a loophole. Another god could keep Satan at bay. And that god’s human child could destroy him.

I understood. I knew why my daughter—our daughter—was such a threat to Lucifer. She truly was born a human. She was conceived from both of our human sides. There was nothing supernatural about her conception. About her birth. She was human through and through. True, she would be a human with extraordinary gifts, but she was human nonetheless, and she would be his downfall. This was why I’d agreed to come. I knew my purpose, and I knew hers. I knew what she would be capable of.

But for now …

I smiled at Lucifer, at the monster inside my husband, and while he looked like the man I’d fallen in love with centuries ago, the man who would do anything for our daughter, for me, he was not. He didn’t have a key to the void like Reyes did. Locking him back in the basement would give our daughter time to grow, to become stronger, to learn how to defeat her grandfather and destroy him forever.

Lucifer had raised his hand, blocking the light flowing out of me. Then he realized what had happened. He panicked.

“You have no jurisdiction over me!” he yelled, backing away. “Your ordination precludes authority over anything other than mortals. Only one born of humans can command me, can embrace or deny what I offer. Put simply, that was the deal.”

“I am human.”

“You are a god hiding behind the rotting layers of human flesh. You are no more human than I.”

He had a point.

I walked over to him, grazed my fingertips along the hides of the hounds as I wound through them, and stood nose to nose with my husband’s father. I placed a hand on his chest, moved it seductively to his heart. Interest leapt within him. Then I reached inside him, searching for the immortal being cowering there.

He grinned and wrapped one hand around the back of my neck and one on my jaw, preparing to snap my neck.

His voice grew hoarse. “Honey, in this universe, I’m the big, bad wolf,” he said, enjoying the thought of my death. “That shit doesn’t work on me.”

I grinned back and every muscle in his body flexed as he twisted my head around. Or tried to. Even with all his strength, with all his incredible power, he was no match for the seven original gods residing within me.