Chapter 88

The crack of thunder silenced the trapped congregation as the golden hues of the chandelier were snuffed out, plunging the fae into an uneasy darkness of gasps and frightened outrage.

Luna Arkavis realized with a sinking feeling that Lucille was not in the crowd.

Her sister would have smelled her by now and sought her out.

She kept watching the crowd with the light of the moon that was falling in slants through the high glass panes of the church, waiting for Lucille’s glossy red hair to part the mix and give her lip for

“Wandering off on your own again!”

Luna could still hear her sister’s voice in her head as her knees hit the carpeted tile of the altar, and she broke down with weeping, pressing a shaky hand to her mouth to tamper the flow.

The banging on the ceiling-high double doors of the cathedral that had stopped sometime after

Luna entered and started up again.

This time the tempo was strange and different. The growls piercing the air around them didn’t sound like anything Fae Lucille had ever heard.

“What’s happening, Reverend Markov?” “Have you locked us in your den to kill us all?” A bald-headed witch screamed suddenly, barreling defiantly to the altar, the wetness glistening on her cheeks.

It hadn't helped that Luna didn’t recognize her. She whipped around suddenly, counting several more witches in the morose crowd. If the witches were here, it meant their coven had fallen. Whatever was outside had been eaten; she gobbled it up like it was one of her mother’s chocolate sugar muffins.

“Pray to you, Hegralda, and do not fret.” “We are quite safe here.” The priest boomed reassuredly, but the witch only answered him with a scoff.

Luna wished Reverend Markov had not said that, because in the split second it took for the echo of his baritone to reach the back ends of the church, what looked to Luna to be a two-headed Hell Hound broke through the high arch of the glass windows and snapped up Reverend Markov’s head before she could blink.

Silence descended before the congregation screamed out of their shock, scurrying backwards until they’d run out of crawl space as the Hell Hound shook its singed, black fur thoroughly, and its red luminous eyes followed the shrieking crowd as smoke puffed from its snouts.

Luna Arkavis was shaking in her shoes, rooted to the spot, as she watched blood pumping from the Reverend’s still upright body, the red running down his portly frame until he toppled headless down the small altar stairs.

Bullets of stained glass beat down on Luna as more of the winged hounds pounded through the windows, tearing off heads as they went.

Luna thought quickly, diving under the dark wood pews as another Cerberus—a large, winged dog with three fire-breathing heads—whizzed by her head, clipping her with its scaly wings.

“Christ almighty!” A pale, red-mouthed vampire gasped, squatting beside her.

Luna had to pinch her bony thighs so she wouldn’t break into nervous giggles; she didn’t think she would see the day a vampire took the almighty’s name.

The werewolves were fighting back all around Luna; she even thought she spied a couple of trolls with their shiny white swords.

Luna knew deep down they were no match for the shadow beings that seemed to have flown straight out of hell.

“We need to get out of here!” She stammered harshly to her pale friend; the vampire was watching her oddly when she turned to look at him, no doubt wondering how she’d taste.

“Follow me!” She yelled over the ruckus, snapping the undead out of whatever spell her beating heart held him in.

The pair scrambled to their feet just as the weight of the chandelier crashed into the warm space that had housed their heads. Luna swallowed loudly, hunched her dress about her, and ran out the back exit of the cathedral, the vampire’s cape flapping behind her as they dove into the street.

“Hell’s gates!” The vampire whispered, stunned to a standstill as they watched the carnage unfold in Armagetton.

Now that the fog had lifted, leaving the streets in a painting of washed-out grey and navy blue skies, Luna, the full skirts of her white dress still in hand, could see clearly. And what she saw made her scream and scream and scream some more.

The Invaders were not human at all! Beasts of prey with no thought other than killing—not like the Armagetton fae were completely human, but at least most of them had human forms mixed in with their magic.

As far as Luna could raise her doe-colored eyes, she saw stone-winged gargoyles flying through the air, tearing up fairies with their iron claws and granite teeth. Werewolves and Hellhounds, vampires and shadow-bodied wraiths painted Armagetton with blood and black goo.

Luna smelt something sweet suddenly; she could almost taste the burn of candy on her tongue before iron clanged against iron behind her.

“Watch out!” The vampire from the cathedral was holding back a skinwalker’s axe with his blade. It was not one she had ever seen before, with a dull orange glow shining from in-between its ribs as flames danced in the empty sockets of its eyes.

Luna leaped away, cowered, and watched as the Skinwalker pressed the blade of its axe straight through the Vampire’s body; it seemed to be grinning.

“No!” She screamed, slapping her hands against her cheeks in horror.

And then the streets went silent. Every head turned in her direction. Luna could have sworn it felt like Armagetton was holding its breath, fighting with the remainder of its strength before shuddering and falling away. An ancient mustard tree is breaking and falling.

That was when the fireworks really started.

A Minotaur—a giant beefcake of a man Luna could have sworn was up to twenty feet tall with a bull’s head—roared a few feet away from her, raising its double-sided Labyrinth sword high in the sky as if summoning great power before bounding with footfalls that seemed to shake the earth and heading straight for her.

Luna knew she needed to find cover, but she couldn’t seem to move, enraptured by the rings of black smoke that left the bull’s nose and the red luminous blood thirst in its eyes.

“Run Luna! Get away! Back to the chapel! Hurry! “They want you!” Damon, the disowned prince of Hades, shook her roughly. His eyes were bright golden orbs of rage fitted into beautifully tanned skin.

He pushed her, seeming to grow in height before charging at the Minotaur, his own silver sword raised high.

Luna watched as the Minotaur gripped him by the neck and shook him roughly, the way one would shake a petulant child, before flinging the Demon Prince behind him.

She shrieked when she felt a hot hand wrap around her ankle, scalding her into reality before managing to kick it off and running back to the cathedral, all the fury of Hell hot at her heels.

Luna could see the beginnings of a large white portal opening at the end of the street where the cathedral stood, slowly being sucked into the void.

“Heavens please!” Luna prayed, tripping as she felt the rake of the Typhon’s tentacled claws dig into her back. She could smell the sulphur of the army now, a hair’s breath away, as she reached the portal.

Lightning crackled through the rift like static as Luna raised both hands in a shield around her face before diving in, head first, as the rift closed with a sucking sound under her feet.