Page 54 of Cherry Moon

“Aki.” He clutched his neck, turning back over.

I stroked the side of his face, watching the flush of life return to his cheeks.

“You’re back.” I whimpered, the waterworks in full flow again.

Fuck me, did I shake. Like I had a fever, but a happy one.

My G is alive.

The tenshi were wrong.

Later. Deal with that later.

He let out a weak breath. “I’m…I’m here.” He winced. “And hurting.”

“Don’t try to move. I’ll get you⁠—”

“You will not defeat me, brother of The Taker!” Bony Hag woman roared outside.

I looked up, seeing she’d grown in size to about ten feet, looming over my brother.

He twirled the katana in his hand, backing away.

“I will claim you, vile creature,” she hissed. “Consume you all. Burn this wretched place to the ground.”

The ground beside her split open, a shadow slithering out. It shifted from a wispy cloud into a skeleton wrapped in the same rags she was, but without any flesh or hair, darkness swirling in its eye sockets.

It brandished a rusty dagger.

A second shadow slipped out of the ground, then a third.

“Incapacitate him,” Bony Hag commanded. “I want to see him bleed.”

The skeletons charged at Zach.

“Fuck.” I got to my feet, pain searing through my ankle up into my thigh. “Sorry, G. I can’t let him fight alone.”

“Do it,” he answered. “Kick her ass.”

Since I was without my katanas, I grabbed a potting trowel from an empty plant pot beside the tree, just inside the hourglass.

“I love you,” I told him, and climbed outside.

Bony noticed straight away, turning her huge body to face me. “The Taker is here.”

I flipped her the bird, emboldened by a fresh surge of adrenaline and relief from G being alive.

Man, I could do with a lie down.

She might be huge, but there were plenty of places to stick this gardening tool.

Like that tasty spot right there.

Indestructible didn’t mean she wouldn’t feel pain.

“Where is your beloved?” she questioned.

I rushed her, diving between her legs. She tried grabbing me as I went into a slide, missing my hair by inches.