Page 67 of Chaos Demons

“Ah… yeah… well… good?” I said. “I’m glad you’re here now.”

Macaria nodded. “I shall help any souls who were taken this day to a peaceful death and return Melinoe to Hades with me.”

“Yes… do that. Thank you.”

“Your Reverence?” Grey asked with a sly grin that was just for me as he stepped up beside me.

There was a note of mocking in his tone, but also… an acknowledgment of that title. And when he leaned in to kiss me, it was with the same reverence and worship he’d always shown me.

I pulled him close and held him tight, glad that the horrors of the day had finally come to an end. As our kiss deepened, our aspects swirled around each other, and I remembered how it had felt when I’d first met him, how his aura of power and command had dominated me. Now my power far surpassed his. His void might want to suck me in, but I’d be the one doing the sucking now!

Okay… bad choice of words…

… or not,my horny self said with a giggle.

I forgot about the words and the world and everything else, as I sunk into Grey’s embrace.

“Get a room,” Eva shouted at us.

I ignored her.

ANAIS

The clean-up took mostof the rest of the day.

I’d assumed the damage was irreparable, but I’d been wrong. Two gods showed up and began setting things back the way they had been. Ptah — an Egyptian daemon of creation and building — reformed structures in a matter of minutes while the Greek daemon Mnemosyne smoothed over people’s memories, helping them make sense of the day’s events, or forget them entirely.

Grey told me the two of them were a sort-of clean-up team which was called in whenever the feuds of daemons and gods spilled over into the mortal world.

Except not everything could be remade or forgotten.

Most of those who had died were permanently lost. The news told tales of an earthquake, and some buildings were left in ruin to illustrate this. Osiris and Anubis were able to restore a few to life, if their souls were willing and their bodies still intact. But for far too many that wasn’t the case. It had been a devastating day.

For most New Yorkers, this would just be some natural disaster, and soon enough, most of them would move on with their lives. Kids went trick-or-treating that evening, smiling and joyful, but I was on the other side of the veil now, the side that would remember what happened here today.

Macaria took Melinoe to Hades — good riddance — and Nari was set to go before a tribunal of gods to decide his punishment. Grey told me his punishment would most likely be a few centuries in one underworld or another, while Ramsey and Fen would be chastised and punished as well, though not as severely, since — for the most part — they had been trying to fight against Nari’s minions.

I was very happy they weren’t being sent away to some underworld, but still, I felt… unsettled.

Between the devastation of the city and my emergence as a goddess, I was overwhelmed and on edge.

Grey took me home, but when I walked into the front room and saw the destruction my guys had caused that morning… I just couldn’t stay there.

Donny suggested we take this opportunity to renovate the brownstone and Grey offered his penthouse as a temporary residence for my whole family.

I was so very grateful.

My family packed up what we needed and by that evening, we’d moved in with Grey. I was surprised to learn Grey’s penthouse had a whole other floor to it, below the main floor.

There were enough rooms for all of us and enough space that we wouldn’t be running into each other. Grey gave me his room and that night we curled up together. He held me, stroking my hair and whispering his affection until I finally succumbed to exhaustion.

Harmonia stopped by after breakfast the next day and soothed the remaining trauma still clinging to my soul. Except once I was calm, I noticed that she seemed pensive and distracted, which was odd for the usually peaceful daemon.

“I… have a theory,” she said, finally breaking the silence between us. “I don’t want to say anything yet, I need to do a bit more research. I’ll be back for dinner tonight, and hopefully, I’ll know more by then and be able to speak with confidence.”

“A theory about what?” I asked.

“You’ll see,” she said cryptically. “It’s nothing bad, I promise.”

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