Page 105 of A Study of Blood and Ichor

Ghen spun slowly, appearing not at all shocked by my reappearance.

I let my fire and my shadows envelop me completely until I became a whirlwind of them. A looming siege of destruction.

“A fair fight?” he taunted with a smirk. “Are you so ready to reacquaint yourself with defeat at my hands after all this time?”

I did not have a shred of grace left in me to offer my brother a response. Not when my power rose within me like a surging wave, and not when my hands found themselves wrapped around Ghen’s neck. Not when I became every bit the monster the world would believe me to be.

My wrath was like a war drum in my head, accompanying the sounds of shredding muscle, the slick pull of tendons and the spray of ichor as we clashed. No matter how many blows we traded or how many times we tore into each other, there was no end to the cycle of the wounds we would inflict, only for them to heal moments later.

“You should know better than that.” Ghen laughed even as my shadows coiled around his throat. “We cannot be killed. We are as eternally cursed as our mother Herself. We can go at this until the end of time, brother, but it will always end the same. You will watch them die, and I will leave you broken until you come to understand your place. We are gods. And again, you have proved that these mortals are nothing but your weakness.”

“If they are my weakness,” I said, “then I never wish to find the strength to deny myself of them.”

Ghen sneered, nothing but sheer and utter disgust twisting his features into something unrecognizable. “Then you will continue to be nothing but a disgrace to us all.”

“Ghen!”

His head whipped over toward the sound of Ava’s voice at the same time mine did. She knelt on the ground beside Rory, her eyes burning red with tears not yet fallen, her hands coated in his blood, and her body curled over a sigil she’d drawn on the smooth concrete tiles.

It was Ghen’s sigil she’d painted in Rory’s blood, surrounded by the deep magic of a banishment spell. The achingly familiar whorls and symbols of the demon tongue sparked a hint of pride within me.

Ava caught my eyes, and I flashed her a nod. She was strong enough. She had been strong enough to summon him then, even as a child. She could banish him now.

She threw her hands down to the sigil and I gripped onto Ghen, keeping his hands bound behind him and my knee shoved into his back to lock him in place. Ava’s hair flared around her like a great pyre, kicked up by the wind and the magic she commanded. She was the striking image of retribution. An avenging witch.

When Ava spoke, her words were commanding, every syllable harsh and every consonant tipped in striking clarity. “Hear me archdemon, Ghen, son of Lilith, I banish you from this realm so that Gehenna may welcome you back home.”

The bloody sigil began to glow, and a crack cleaved through the night, a rift opening at Ghen’s feet. A great wind howled through the realms with a mighty scream, but Ava’s words remained clear and booming as she continued with the banishment.

As mighty as my brother might be, no demon, not even one of the Arches, could resist the magic.

“I cast you out, unholy demon, creature of the cursed night.”

Ghen snarled, a loud and strangled cry ripping from his throat. He struggled against my hold, but I remained firm. When I peered down, the rift had ensnared him, tugging him through the mouth of the great dark hole, inch by slow inch.

“I command you, son of the Dark One, to return to the cursed lands beyond the rifts. I banish you!”

Ghen reared back, his slitted eyes boring into mine beneath twisted dark brows. “When our mother is freed and comes to reclaim this world, I hope that you have made peace with your choices, brother.”

I sunk my fingers into his shoulder, my grip clawing into his flesh as I leaned forward to whisper against his ear. “You can send Her my regards, then.”

Then with a forceful shove, I thrust Ghen the rest of the way through the rift until the very last of him had been swallowed whole and all that remained were the echoes of the warm air breathing from Gehenna into the mortal realm.

Slowly, the crack between the realms sewed itself back together, mending the gap Ava had made. She kept her hands pressed to the bloody patio tiles even after the rift had closed and the sigil beneath her had burned away until nothing but the remnant of ashes was left behind.

Only then did I let my gaze fall to Rory’s body which lay at her side, and my breath caught in my throat at the sight of him. His blood appeared to have run rivers down his arms, those painfully long gashes laid open and as fresh as the day they were made.

Ava dragged herself to him, closing the inches between them and placing her hands on his chest, as if hopeful she might find a heartbeat. But we both knew there was none.

He had chosen his fate, and still I wasn’t sure if I was strong enough to let him go. Because truthfully, I believed that I needed him, maybe just as much as he had once needed me.

A soft “no, no, no” rushed out of Ava’s mouth on a hushed breath, her fingers shaking as she stroked them through Rory’s hair and swept them over his cheekbones. The tears that had pooled in her soft amber eyes spilled down over the freckles dotting her cheeks.

I thought I had understood it before, but only now seemed to realize the true hold she had over me—how much I had allowed her in and permitted such a being to ruin me completely. This mortal woman—this witch—I had wanted her from the moment I laid eyes on her. I could crave her for eternity and never be sated.

With her, just as it had been with Rory, all my faults and offenses of my past faded to no more than mere specks in the vast memory of my painfully long and horrid existence I so eagerly wished to forget.

They could have asked anything of me, and I would have done it. I would have given them the world if they wanted.

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