Page 71 of Killer of the Bells
My monster didn’t make a peep when I tapped into it. That bog witch might actually have known what she was talking about.
I wondered what would happen if I tried some of the magic I’d been too afraid to touch. Too bad there was nothing around to kill.
As if on cue, my phone buzzed in my pocket. It was Gareth. When I clicked to answer, Gareth didn’t let me speak; he just jumped right in. “Meet us at the coordinates I’m sending. We’re two hours from you, so I expect to see you in twenty minutes.”
“I’m bringing Echo,” I informed him.
“Bring the fucking Easter Bunny if you want, just be there.”
“Hey, Echo,” I poked him in the nose to bring him out of the dreamy state my magic had put him in. “Want to go do some crime?”
Echo glowed brighter and said, “Yes, please.”
I wondered if he was going to stay that way, or if the glow would fade over time. I would find out. Echo and I had all the time in the world.
Epilogue
ECHO
“Did you see the way I popped out both of Lyle #3’s eyeballs at the same time?” Baz asked everyone for the third time.
He’d been incredibly proud of himself for being instrumental in the brutal murder of the Lyles—the nickname Baz and Vix gave to the cultists. According to Gareth, they’d called themselves the Order of the Truth, but we all thought it was super fucking lame, so the Lyles stuck instantly.
It had been a long, drawn-out affair, and for the most part, I sat and snacked in the Humvee—the larger one—while glowing up a storm. Gareth had pulled out all the stops for the fight with the Lyles, and since the smaller Humvee wouldn’t fit all of the toys he wanted to bring, he decided to bring both.
Gareth is the epitome of the sayinggo big or go home.
I sat safe and snug inside with Vix and watched the show on a screen in Gareth’s mobile command central. Apple was at home with Adam, while Vale, Gareth, Baz, and Paris were outside dealing with the cultists.
Yes, Paris had gotten involved, too, even though everyone acted like he was a real-life angel. According to Vix, they’d upsetthe local animal population due to all the sacrificing they’d gotten up to. They were taking out the small, fuzzy things as well as the human ones.
It was a pretty dumbass decision, because Paris and his woodland army had turned what could have been a tricky fight into a one-sided bloodbath.
“Yes, Baz, everyone saw you,” Vale drawled lazily as I brushed some of the chunks of human out of his hair for him.
“Except Lyle #3!” Vix chirped. “You know… because of how he didn’t have eyes anymore?”
Vix really was a precious little bean of a person. Twisted, but still somehow managing to be innocent at the same time. I could understand why everyone was so protective of him.
Vale had been correct when he’d said Vix was the most protected person in the group. He had two dogs—Delilah and Trixie—following him around everywhere he went. Apparently, Trixie could move through shadows and snatch him out of harm’s way at a moment’s notice while Delilah protected their escape. It was a pretty neat trick, and it explained a lot about what had happened during the attack on the house by the Dawn Initiative.
Vale had been amazing during the fight as well, popping heads off of Lyles left and right, but the real MVP of the battle was Gareth for single-handedly killing the boss.
It turned out that the Lyles had found enough people to sacrifice in order to turn their fake god into a real one, and by the time we got there, the god had been snacking away on a buttload of kidnapped people. It hadn’t discriminated at all, either. It had been chowing down on the Lyles just as much as it had anyone else, but for some reason, the Lyles continued to defend their god to the bitter end.
Humans, am I right?
I can say that now because I’m not human anymore, and let me tell you, even in the short time I’d been that way, I was absolutely loving the upgrade.
“I’m personally a big fan of the time when Echo caved in the face of that first guy who got into the Humvee,” Vix said.
Yeah, it turned out that The Cody hadn’t told us everything about our new bond because I’d gotten a LOT stronger. I discovered that tidbit when the god had used a massive tentacle to rip the door off the Humvee.
Gareth had grabbed it and used the tentacle to strangle the new god to death (Thanks, Gareth!), but while he was in the middle of that, a few of the Lyles had gotten inside. Trixie vanished or ate one of them (I’m still not sure what she does with people when she drags them away.), and I punched one of them in the face as hard as I could, and he maybe kind of exploded.
Just a bit.
“I wish I’d seen that,” Baz said mournfully. “Vix said you managed to punch that Lyle so hard, it sent bone shrapnel into the throat of the Lyle behind him. We were all running to save the two of you, but there was nothing left for us when we got there. Echo, if it weren’t so amusing to see the way Vale acts around you, I’d be upset that you’re putting my job in danger.”
