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She rose from the ground, fury in her eyes. Her halo was burning now too. But the flames weren’t red or orange. They were black. The scent of burnt cookies flooded my nose. No doubt about it—Ava was pissed.
“Go,” I told her, my voice frozen over. “Your schemes are not welcome here.”
Ava waved the octuplets forward. “Take Leda Pandora’s child,” she commanded them. “Kill anyone who gets in your way.”
But the octuplets didn’t move.
Ava spun around. “What are you waiting for?” she demanded.
The octuplets were a chorus of chuckles.
Ava snapped back around to glare at me. “This is your doing, Angel of Chaos. What have you done?”
“Oops.” I lifted up my hand, lightly shaking the bracelet dangling between my fingers. The eight tiny charms clinked together.
Ava hurriedly glanced at her wrist, where her bracelet had once been. “That is impossible.”
“Not impossible,” I told her. “It just took years of practice to perfect my pickpocketing skills.”
“Pickpocketing,” Ava repeated in disbelief.
“I learned it on the streets of Purgatory. I can teach you how to do it if you want.” I flashed her a grin.
Ava opened her mouth, but no words came out. Apparently, I’d rendered the demon speechless.
Her sister Grace, however, was laughing her ass off. “You pickpocketed Ava.”
Yes, she found that very, very funny.
“I guess that’s an attack the demons of Hell’s Army haven’t learned to defend against, it being rather scrappy and all.” I arched my brows. “It’s not a particularly divine skill.”
“No, it is not,” Grace laughed.
“I demand that you return my bracelet immediately!”
So Ava had gotten her voice back.
“No. I don’t think so. And, besides, these don’t belong to you.” I tapped one of the eight immortal artifacts attached to the bracelet chain. “I know what happened, what you were trying to hide from me. And I know what you were trying to hide from Grace. I’ve already told Grace that it was you who told Sonja where she was hiding with me, so Sonja’s agent could steal me from her.”
Ava glanced at her sister, who scowled at her.
“But Sonja’s agent wasn’t really loyal to Sonja at all,” I continued. “Aradia blamed Sonja for what happened to her friend Thea. So Aradia didn’t return me to Sonja. She raised me on Earth—until the day Sonja’s soldiers found and killed her.”
“I was following our plan,” Ava said to Grace.
“Plans sometimes change, Ava. And I trusted you.” Grace shook her head. “Well, no longer. You’re even worse than Sonja.”
I walked up to the octuplets and handed them the charms off the bracelet, one by one. Each of the eight sisters hooked her own immortal artifact onto her necklace.
“Thank you, Leda Pandora,” all eight said in unison.
Then they turned their eyes on Ava. That’s when the Demon of Hell’s Army made a speedy retreat from the battlefield.
Grace watched her sister fly off. “Serves her right for underestimating you,” she laughed. “Leda, you’re the chaos that throws a monkey wrench into the best-laid plans of gods and demons.”
My mother bowed her head to me and then to Sierra, then she also took flight.
“You know, I might have been wrong about Grace,” I said to Nero. “I’m more than just a weapon to her.”
“You might be more than a weapon to her, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t also a weapon to her,” Nero warned me. “Be careful.”
“Oh, I know, Nero. Things are never simple with gods and demons.”
