Fear bucked inside me – when a seed took root. A thought that started as an infinitesimal kernel burst inside me. I realized the problem: Where I came from, I was pure energy. An elemental made of spirit and light. That light, which was supposed to be as bright as a thousand suns, was being filtered through the human body I possessed. It should, at the very least, have sent their asses running for the hills, but it had done nothing more than made them sneeze. Their hide, thick and scaly, seemed impenetrable.

I had to set it free. I had to stop them from ripping Reyes apart. He materialized in a great mass of darkness, rolling around me like a sea of ink. He did it on purpose. So I wouldn’t see what was about to happen to him. So I would not have that vision in my head for the rest of my life. I heard the sing of his blade, a growl, a sharp whine. But even his blade wouldn’t kill them; I was certain of it.

I had to set it free.

As the beast on top of me tossed Artemis away like a rag doll, all I could think was I had to set it free. I took Zeus, the mystical knife that had somehow found its way into the hands of Garrett Swopes. The one that could kill any demon on this plane. The one that vibrated with power and strength, as though it were alive. As though it possessed a will of its own.

I didn’t want to die. If I died, Beep died. If I lived, a darkness would settle upon the earth, and all on it would eventually perish. Those were the terms Rocket had given me. While the choice was clear – not that it was much of a choice – I couldn’t help but question the legitimacy of Rocket’s vision.

Up to that point, I’d kept thinking all things in the supernatural realm, just as in the earthly one, could be manipulated. Satan could have fed Rocket false information about my demise. Rocket’s prediction that if I didn’t die, millions, possibly billions, of others would perish could have been concocted. A complete fabrication.

But maybe that was the plan all along. Maybe this had been in the cards since the beginning of time, and when my daughter took the bastard down – because she would eventually take the bastard down one way or another – it would not be from a life lived on earth, but one lived in another realm. Another dimension where her soul, her essence would grow into adulthood.

My final thought was of Reyes. Of his shimmering eyes and his lopsided grin. I was going to die anyway. I’d known it for weeks now. At least I could save Reyes. Before the hound could finish what it had started, I let my lids drift shut and promised my daughter I’d see her in heaven.

I heard Reyes call my name. Once. Twice. The deep timbre thundering across the sky. And then again in desperation. Softer this time. Pleading. He must have seen the dagger at the ready.

With his face on my mind and our daughter in my heart, I plunged Zeus into my chest. The searing pain was like nothing I’d ever felt. It hurt when it penetrated my flesh, but when it sliced through my sternum and pierced my heart, the agony was so quick and so sharp, my mind reeled from it, and I thought for a moment, just a moment, I saw heaven open up above me. I saw angels looking down. Not the cherubs of children’s tales, but warriors, tall and stoic and fierce. One of them, a dark-haired creature with wings that expanded across the horizon, raised a single, quizzical brow.

When my last breath as a human left my lungs, I felt a warmth spread through me. In the next instant, an incandescent light burst from my heart, as though by piercing it, I had penetrated the barrier between my earthly vessel and my spiritual energy. In one silent atomic flash, everything changed. I sent out the part of me that had been released, the essence of who I was, to each hellhound. Their razorsharp teeth glittered as I brushed a tendril of light along their scales. A fire spread throughout them, igniting each molecule until the beasts glowed like molten lava.

The hound closest to me yelped and twisted in agony, tossing his head back as though to bite the offending blaze. The silvery black dust of its coat disintegrated into a powder that drifted away on the wind. At the last minute, it charged forward, but by the time it reached me, there was nothing left but floating particles of blackish orange embers. Slowly, even those drifted away.

It happened again and again. Each lick of light caused a chain reaction that literally disintegrated the hellhounds where they stood until there were none left.

I scrambled onto my knees and looked down at Zeus. Then at my chest. Then at Reyes and Osh and Cookie, who were sprinting toward me. I patted my face, wondering if I were dead. I didn’t feel dead. In fact, I felt very much alive.

Reyes slid to a stop on his knees in front of me, his face a mask of astonishment.

Unable to wrap my head around the unrealized state of my demise, I examined my shirt. A crimson stain had spread over my heart, but my chest remained completely unmarred.

“How did you do that?” he asked me as Osh arrived in much the same manner.

Having not the faintest idea, I shook my head.

I examined Zeus and felt none of the power I’d previously felt from it. It had been drained of its energy, now able to do nothing more to a supernatural being than give it a paper cut. I stuffed him back into my boot nonetheless, realizing the true power of the dagger now resided inside me. And inside our daughter. It had fused us together, not only on a physical level, but on a spiritual one as well. And that bond had created a supernatural weapon of mass destruction. It was not something I could have done before. I could do it only through the power that Beep gave me. What strength I had, woven with Reyes’s DNA, combined to create a true child of the gods.

Reyes sat there stunned. Osh as well, and I was right there with them. Cookie, who would not have been able to see the hellhounds at all, seemed to be in a state of shock.