Page 38 of Winners, Losers, and Champagne Kisses
Benji’s PTSD was terrible when I first found him. Pax and I walked him through every episode and now he mostly only had them on his birthday. Benji had killed countless Coalition members because he thought it would make him feel better. It usually just triggered him and sometimes, he was a mess for a few days after.
Jeqon was different. The Coalition was his idea. We all wanted him dead. Benji knew his parents were alive, and he had a face to put all the blame on now. IwantedBenji to take his power back and rip him to shreds. Benji at the top of his game was unstoppable.
Benji when he was distracted could very well catch the business end of that knife.
We needed to find him. We didn’t have to fight our way through a bunch of crazed angels with dangerous weapons. Jezebel had killed them all. Kat was using her vampire speed to gather all the knives and bring them to Hephaestus to destroy with his god fire.
The rest of the angels that weren’t actively dying had stopped fighting. Finally. They realized Jeqon was gone, and they were left with us. I wasn’t sure if they heard Pax when he said he was out of magic, but even if he was out and couldn’t take their wings, Jezebel could just sing and either kill them or put them to sleep. Their knives were gone, so they would be helpless against us unless they could make it somewhere to paint that sigil and banish them.
Let that whole pantheon deal with their shit. I had to find my hybrid. Medusa was nearly hysterical because she was worried about him. She was our center and completed our bond. I wouldn’t reach out to Benji telepathically because I didn’t want to distract him, but I could stillfeelhim.
“He’s in the backyard,” Pax said.
That was exactly where I was feeling him. This was a massive property, and I didn’t want to risk Benji. Dionysus was already on it.
“Grab me and I’ll portal us there.”
I was a little shocked when Yahweh landed with us in the backyard. His circus and monkeys were at the front of the house and he never did break out that smiting power. Medusa said exactly what we were thinking. If something happened to Benji, any one of us would have stabbed him with that knife.
Benji’s shadow wolf was circling Jeqon, whose wings were mangled. I knew how this played out. Benji was just fine mentally, and I was just so proud of him. He’d come so far from that traumatized eighteen-year-old we picked up on the side of the road.
Benji had fucked up his wings and disrupted his power, and then he got Jeqon away from the fight. He let the angels think Jeqon abandoned them when the fight was starting to turn because he wanted to play with his food. Benji didn’t just want to kill Jeqon. He wanted him utterly beaten and broken before he ended it.
But that fucking knife. Jeqon lunged at Benji and Benji tried to poof behind him. Under any other circumstance, you couldn’t hit or stab smoke. Everything just passed through it, which was why shadow demons were so deadly when they were shifted. I heard Benji let out a surprised yelp of pain when the knife actually sliced off a piece of his shadow.
Then, Jeqon looked totally panicked when he froze in place and couldn’t seem to move. Yahweh stepped forward.
“I forgave Lucifer for rebelling because I gave him every reason to. Icouldhave forgiven you for what you did, but you hurt countless innocents to get my attention. I could have forgiven banishing me or even wanting to kill me, but not who you hurt to get there.
“I could smite you where you stand, but you hurt most of these people more than you hurt me. So, I’m going to hold you still while they do what they want to you. You put their lives in the hands of humans and now I’m putting yours in theirs.”
Damn.I didn’t think he had it in him after he didn’t kill a single angel on the battlefield after all the stories associated with his vengeance. I needed to check on Benji first. Benji popped around Jeqon buck naked in his human form.
“Holy shit, Adolf Shitler shaved off a piece of my perfect ass. Someone tell me I’m still pretty.”
Benji didn’t have a mark on it and he still had the ass of a ballet dancer, but there was this piece of his shadow that was angrily buzzing around Jeqon. The knife didn’t have the same effect on a shifted shadow demon than it did on everyone else, but I had a feeling there was going to be consequences with that little piece of shadow that was separate from Benji now.
That little piece of shadow flew right between Jeqon’s eyes and straight out the back of his head, killing him instantly. Then, it did a circle pinching all of Benji’s mate’s asses. Yeah, it was going to be a problem.
“It’s appropriate my ass got sentient and killed Adolf Shitler,” Benji said. “It sparks joy.”
Medusa tackled Benji, and we all piled on top of him.
“You know I love you, right?” Medusa said. “I love all of you.”
Benji’s little piece of shadow was buzzing around us. We were going to have to find a way to put that back. I didn’t know if Benji was controlling it or it was sentient and killed Jeqon on its own, but either way, it was going to cause chaos.
Poor Sheriff Riddle if that thing was on the loose.
Ipeeled myself off of Benji and got up off of the ground. That little piece of Benji’s shadow seemed like it wanted to alternate between playing in my hair and pinching my butt. I had a working theory on how that little piece got cut off, but Benji didn’t meet the same fate as everyone else who dealt with the business end of that knife.
He wasn’t flesh and blood when the knife struck him, so whatever was causing the damage couldn’t infect him. I was grateful for that, but hopefully, we could find a way to reunite him with that little piece of shadow.
“So, my circus and monkeys are up front. I wanted to save as many of them as I could, but I could just feel that it didn’t need to be me that stopped Jeqon,” Yahweh said.
Actually, he was right. Benji needed this. He knew his parents were alive. His mom was safe, and we knew where his dad was to get him out. The last thing he needed for closure was to kill the person responsible for all of this. I was so mad before, but I was glad it went down like this.
“Thank you,” Cas said, holding out his hand.
