My Life From Hell (The Blooming Goddess #3)

The End Of The World As We Know It (Part 3)

My head cleared enough to hear Kai yelling at Fee to leave. Festos shook his head and Kai grabbed him by the shoulders. "Go!"

Fee took in the situation. He knew that it was down to Kai and me. And despite all his power, his presence was now a distraction we couldn't afford. He looked at me with dull eyes and I forced myself to nod. As much as I wanted him here, not to fight but to comfort, I couldn't lose him, too. One more reason to wrap this up as fast as possible. Fee and I were going to need each other tonight.

He understood. Blowing me a sad kiss, he disappeared.

Kai took my hand. Resolve flowed through me. Let Hades and Zeus do their worst. Kai and I had love on our side and we would win. We'd make the minions ours, turn them on our fathers, seize their power, and save humanity from destruction.

It would all be over.

Kai threw up a shield of black light as we stepped onto the ritual location. I stayed on alert, ready to keep blasting even as I spoke. Between us, we'd deal with whatever they threw our way.

It was a good thought. In theory. Thing was, they didn't throw anything at us. Instead, Zeus and Hades began to chant. The wind picked up and the air grew cold. But beyond that, not much happened.

A wide smile broke across Kai's face. "They're trying to start the apocalypse. One above and one below. But it's not working."

I felt hope blossom within me. Zeus and Hades chanted more insistently, their faces clouded, turning splotchy with anger. I could have danced. The big top gods were achieving squat. Kai and I were going to win. I knew it. I felt it.

I squeezed Kai's hand, turned to face him, and spoke the first line of our ritual. "Katabaino."

"Anabaino," he replied.

Zeus roared and fired a thunderbolt that burst Kai's shield into thousands of fragments of toxic light. It knocked us to the ground, our momentum rolling us away from my father's next killing blow.

A staff appeared in Hades' hand. He struck the ground twice. Jagged cracks opened up in the earth, sucking everything into their depths.

We got to our feet, hands still clasped, and ran. Forget staying in place to do the ritual. Our lives depended on outdistancing the earth that came toward us like a wave. I prayed that saying the words in the general vicinity would be enough.

"Di'erota, sthenos gignetai," we chanted.

The ground disappeared from beneath Kai's feet. He stumbled and went down.

Ironically, it was only the shockwave coming off Pops' next lightning strike that kept me from falling into the hole as well. It hit and hurled me sideways. The mocking laughter started again.

Kai. I had to get to Kai. The total and absolute terror of him not by my side, of losing him while my vision unfolded before me, gave me the jolt of adrenaline I needed to keep moving.

Dazed and bleeding, I crawled to the lip of the hole on my belly. Nothing else mattered but Kai. Without him, there could be no victory. I didn't care that the minions continued to swarm me with their deadly assault. I fired another shockwave, almost carelessly, clearing the skies. But I wasn't re-charged with the same level of light.

Festos' magic ring was running out of power.

A shadow fell over me. Zeus raised his thunderbolt ...

... and missed as Kai shot out of the hole to physically tackle my father out of the way.

It bought us precious seconds. Our eyes locked and in perfect unison we chanted the last line of the ritual. "Di'erota, menos gignetai."

The world went still. The minions hadn't returned. I think that Zeus and Hades were too shocked that we'd completed the ritual to do anything. We all stood frozen, waiting to see what would happen.

The ground beneath me bucked with a force no Richter scale could measure. Kai and I couldn't get to our feet. The world shuddered so violently that we were flung around like rag dolls.

I couldn't understand what had happened. We'd done it. We'd said the ritual. We'd stopped Hades and Zeus.

Hadn't we?

A roar split my eardrums. It wasn't just loud. It was all-consuming. The noise slithered into me and punched me from the inside.

My eyes bulged at a tsunami of water rushing toward us. So much that I wondered how there could be any left in the ocean. It was one atrocity too many. My mind snapped and I stared, hypnotized.

Stumbling to his feet, Kai scooped me up and jumped a hundred feet out of the torrent's wake. Another jump. More distance.

With each leap, my bones jarred and my teeth rattled. But it snapped me back to attention. I gaped as Kai kept us heartbeats ahead of the deadly wave. A final jump. He landed us on a cliff overlooking the temple grounds. We were safe from the water.

But when I finally let out a relieved breath, the sky burst into flame.

It creeped me right out of my skin. My nails dug into my palm and I scrambled backward through the black ash covering the ground. Tiny puffs of it burst up with each step, settling back down to coat my feet in fine black powder. The world smelled like electrical smoke and burnt dust.

I heard Hades laughing hysterically. Like he'd just heard the best joke in the world.

Water, fire, earth. air. Every single element heralded death.

I stared in confusion. In horror. Desperate to make sense of the senselessness.

Zeus closed the distance between us in a single stride. The destruction didn't affect him one bit. He squatted down to speak to me, eyes glittering with amusement. "One above. One below. Alive. Awake. A key. It is no more. It is no more."

"What have you done?" I screamed, hanging on to Kai for balance as the earth continued to break around me. I swung my head to look at him and shivered. I'd never seen this expression on Kai's face.

Dread didn't cover what I felt seeing my all-powerful boyfriend stare at the sky in perfect horror.

"We've brought the apocalypse." Kai turned stricken eyes to mine. "You and I."