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&039;Keo into the distance, toward the banks of lights the Guateht in, she behaved as if he had not spoken at all Frustrated, Octavian looked back at Miles&039;s ghost and the darksoul that squirrasp Beyond them, Cortez looked sickly and barely conscious, as if at any ht collapse in upon itself He seehost and the squir darksoul Confusion etched on her face and pain in her eyes, she studied the thing&039;s slim, sinister features It flowed like black silk, but Octavian knew that face and it belonged to Lazarus

&039;Was it Cortez who killed&039;Who raped me and tortured me? Or was it you?&039;

The darksoul only s,&039; Allison said &039;And how can we threaten it? What can we possibly do to it?&039;

Octavian narrowed his eyes in thought, then turned to look at Miles The ghost wore a thin, ee of er hich Octavian was all too fa darksoul with predator&039;s eyes, but he would not act as long as Octavian needed the thing alive

Bitter fury roiled inside Octavian He had wanted to avenge Nikki, and Charlotte had sought her own vengeance, but now they no longer kne to define that vengeance Kill Cortez? Destroy the darksoul?

He glanced at Charlotte, again saw the pain in her eyes, and knew there was a simple answer: do both

&039;Miles,&039; Octavian said, turning to the ghost &039;Are you hungry?&039;

The ghost quivered with anticipation, but there was a trace of self-loathing in his eyes

&039;Always,&039; he replied

&039;It&039;s yours&039;

Miles Varick&039;s ghost did not ask for elaboration Opening its jaide, the hungry specter darted forward and tore a chunk out of Lazarus&039;s darksoul It did not cry out as the ghost ripped it apart, feeding itself shreds of silken darkness, but Octavian saw the panic in its eyes, and then nothing

&039;What the hell is this?&039; Allison shouted

Charlotte cried out for the hungry ghost to stop, but it was over in seconds For her part, Keolance up She still would not aze

&039;Peter, what the fuck?&039; Allison snapped &039;We need to know-&039;

&039;What?&039; he interrupted &039;How it got inside Cortez? Why it was there? Whether it was controlling Cortez? You saw its eyes, Allison You knoell as I do that eren&039;t going to get any of those answers Here&039;s e know: Cortez, or that da orders fro of Hell At the end of the day, that&039;s ant That&039;s where we get our revenge, not toa stop to all of these incursions, because it sounds like whoever this self-proclaiot a lot worse planned than e&039;ve seen so far&039;

&039;And hoe find all of that out?&039; Charlotte des

Octavian pointed at Cortez, still suspended upright by the vines Keo around groggily, as though waking up from some enchanted slumber

&039;We ask him, see if any of that infor to Charlotte &039;And then you kill hied a look, and then Charlotte set behind that&039;

Octavian nodded and started toward Cortez, but as he did he heard a whisper beside him and turned toward Keomany He frowned, certain she had spoken, but still she did not so lance at him Her words had been barely audible

&039;Keo?&039;

Sloith a dry rustle, she turned her inhuaze upon hie face, in the pinch between her brows and the narrowing of her eyes and the disturbed wrinkling in her sard

&039;I said "I&039;, even though he felt the ground shaking beneath his feet Even though he&039;d noticed that the last of the devil-bats seeone, and the serpents as well

Then a thick root thrust up from the earth beneath Cortez and twined around the va the other roots and vines that had held hiround beneath him shimmered and Octavian saw a distant blackness there, as if the soil had beco

&039;No!&039; Charlotte screamed, and she dove for Cortez with her ar hirabbed her, wrapped her arms around Charlotte and held her there so that she would not tu Octavian had taken a single step forward before he had brought hi that there was no chance He could only watch as Cortez was dragged down by the twining, tugging roots, and as the shi only solid ground

Octavian turned and grabbed Keoic surged inside hi off of hi?&039; he demanded

This time she did not look away &039;What must be done&039;

Saint-Denis, France

The stairs cracked beneath Santiago, the stone shifting A chunk of er flared inside of hi earth, but he and Taweret had co born and he refused to fail

Down below in the cellar crypt, the hole that had appeared in the floor had vanished There were cracks but the shi portal into which the demon father had been drawn had disappeared Roots whipped about, sliding on the stone floor even as they began to withdraw into the cracked floor

&039;What is this?&039; Taweret called to hi the o didn&039;t know the answer and had no tie slab of stone crashed down fro at the botto The woman on the stairs cried out, her belly distended, another utukki only ht the re born, but her screaes, there was only one way to end this and he could not count on falling o had to save her from her own, personal Hell, and to save her, he had to kill her

He knelt by her, stone cracking beneath his knees Once, he felt sure, she had been beautiful Now she was pale and sweating and dirty and her eyes rolled back to show bloodshot white as she wept and moaned

&039;I&039;m sorry,&039; he said

The stairs shook and with a loud crack, split open wider The roots shot up through thees of the crack began to shiap like some kind of liquid rab hold of her aro thought of her spending an eternity in so birth to utukki forever He couldn&039;t let heron her ar down to hook a hand beneath her other ared He fought it, tried to tear hiain and another portal began to shi around his waist and throat and yanking doard

He tried to shapeshift, but his body would not respond to his thoughts Soic, had confused his mind Panicked, he turned toward Taweret just in tih a third portal

&039;No!&039; Santiago roared, until the vines choked off his words

His fingers scraped s to hold onto, and then he felt hies of the portal di above him, and then that limbo darkness sed him up

Siena, Italy

Dr Jessica Baleeiro watched Kuromaku&039;s hand vanish into the earth At the last moment, he dropped his katana and tried to find purchase on the rutted ground, but another root twisted around his arone The shi darkness that had opened up beneath hie, but what Jess had seen had been no illusion The saround but, if her glie pool had been any indication, out of this reality entirely

The gigantic Shadow - Kazimir - had also been taken, and now she fell to her knees and looked out over the s ruin that had been made of the road and the hill and of the city of Siena in the distance No more dark shapes darted across the sky The s death and destruction in their wake

Stillness reigned

The breach had been sealed The deuin, Guate blood froers Charlotte cried out as roots thrust up fro pool of ht Allison fought, tearing free of whipping vines, and tried to run for it, beginning to shapeshift into a falconto take flight Other roots thrust high, blocking her path One impaled her and she screeched in pain even as the roots cocooned around her

Shouting, Octavian released Keoht churned around his fists and lanced outward, slicing through vines and roots, trying to set Allison and Charlotte free

One of theer-sharp root that punched through his left side Staggering forward, the pain distracted hih As he bled and fell to his knees, the roots encircled hi hiain he felt his ribs constricting, bones snapping With a cry of rage he unleashed a burning ic that scorched the roots to ash

Freed but injured, with no ti himself, he turned to do the same for his friendsjust in ti up at hi as she vanished inside that mirrored portal, just before it closed Of Charlotte, there was no sign at all

Octavian rounded on Keoic blaze around his fists and leak from his eyes

&039;Make it stop!&039; he roared at her, thethe inhuman, yet he could still see the emotion that tore at her Those bizarre plant eyes were full of sorrow

&039;I can&039;t,&039; she said &039;I&039;ic fro from Hell, or any other diic flowed out of hihtly around Keomany as the roots had twined around hiround, hearing the crinkle and snap as bits of her broke inside

&039;Refuse her!&039; he shouted, hts of his friends suffering the tor them back or I swear to you-&039;

&039;I&039;m sorry,&039; Keo out of her eyes

Only then did Octavian see the long roots that trailed beneath her, connecting Keomany&039;s body to the earthto Gaea

&039;No!&039; he shouted, shooting a lance of green light fro her connection to the soil

Too late

The figure he held aloft with crackling y, a dry husk devoid of any trace of her consciousness The way it hung in the air, withered and stiff, he knew that Keomany had fled that body and returned to the earth

When he dropped his hands and let the husk fall to the ground, it cracked open and emitted a puff of dust, dry and papery and dead

Octavian stood alone, bathed in the brightness of the arhts He heard the wind in the trees not far away and only then realized that the rest of the noise had died away The ground had ceased its tre, there were no screeches overheard from devil-batsbecause there were no ed from the breach had been forced from this reality, with only the collapsed crevice that had once been the Languin Caves as evidence they had ever been there at all, a scar on Gaea&039;s perfect flesh

Alone

Raging and grieving and confused, he thought of Allison and Charlotte and then his thoughts strayed further afield, wondering what had beco - deep in his heart - the startling truth They one All of his friends, nearly all of those left in the world who cared about hier in the world

&039;Peter?&039;

Octavian spun, ertips, ready to kill But the voice belonged to one already dead

The ghost of Miles Varick manifested a few feet away, pale and translucent, barely visible in the bright lights, like the ghost of a ghost

&039;We should go ho Nikki was dead and his friends were all gone Cortez was gone, as well, and he iined Gaea had put a stop to the incursions in Europe and India just as she had done here The hunt and the battle had both come to an abrupt end, but he felt frozen, unsure in which direction he ought to take his first step

&039;Peter-&039; the ghost said again

Octavian nodded &039;I agree,&039; he said, turning toward the dead man &039;I&039;m just not sure there&039;s anywhere left for me to call "home"&039;