Whatever he was about to say is lost in a terrible screeching sound, like two huge metal plates being scraped together. There’s a flash of light so intense that for a few seconds I think I’ve been blinded, and fire breaks out all over my body. As my sight returns and I thrash at the flames covering me, I see dozens of shards of light floating through the air. They’re all that remain of the Old Creature.

The shadows settle around Bec, and her head moves, eyes following one scrap of light to another, watching with grim satisfaction as they blink out. She blows on one that drifts close to her mouth, laughing softly as it catapults through the air.

Kernel grabs my arm and makes a wheezing noise. The flames didn’t take hold on him—one of the advantages of having no hair—but there are ugly scorch marks across his face, and a hole in one of his cheeks where the heat burned through his flesh. He tries to drag me away, but I pull against him and lock eyes with Bec.

“I’ll kill you before this is over,” I vow.

Bec shakes her head. “No.”

“I’ll rip your head from—” I begin, but she cuts me off.

“The fight with the Old Creature drained Death, but it’s recovering swiftly. If you don’t leave now, it will destroy you, seize all three pieces of the Kah-Gash, and claim victory early.”

“Like you care what it—”

“Get the hell out of here, fool!” she screams, and the fear in her eyes hits me harder than any threat. With a heavy heart, I wrap an arm around Kernel and dive through the window of green light, roaring with rage and frustration, knowing all is truly lost.

Shark, Timas, and Kirilli are waiting for us on the asteroid, sitting close to the window, talking in low voices. They don’t spot us immediately. It’s only when Kernel groans and staggers away from me that their heads shoot up and they leap to their feet.

“Well?” Shark barks hopefully, figuring Kernel’s return must be a positive sign.

“We’re sunk,” I tell him, and the hope flickers out in an instant.

“The Old Creature wouldn’t help?” Kirilli asks.

“No. But even if he had, it wouldn’t have mattered. Bec followed us. She’s in league with Death. They crossed shortly after we did and killed the Old Creature.”

“What are you talking about?” Shark frowns. “Kernel’s the only one who can build a window that quickly.”

“Not anymore,” I chuckle mirthlessly.

“You mean she could come here at any moment?” Kirilli gasps, eyes flicking from one stubby outcrop to the next, searching for unnatural shadows.

“No,” Kernel says. “She can’t see the lights. She said she could only mimic what I do, and go to the places I’d been to when she touched me and absorbed my memories. She can’t track me.”

“Thank heavens for that,” Kirilli smiles.

“She can find the ark,” Kernel tells him. “She’ll lead the demons there.”

Nobody looks unduly upset. It’s hard for us to care about the ark. Earth’s in trouble. People we know and love are going to die. So what if some spaceship trillions of miles away faces the same threat? Our world is what matters most. To hell with the rest of the universe. We can’t think that big.

“What happens now?” Timas asks as Kernel and I sit and stare at the dead landscape of the asteroid. “Are you going to return to the ark?”

“I wouldn’t be able to find it,” Kernel sighs. “Bec has a perfect memory, but I don’t. The Old Creatures guided me there and back. I don’t know how to locate it by myself.”

“Well, it’s an ill wind that doesn’t blow anyone a bit of luck,” Shark beams. “I guess that means you have to come back with us now.”

“For all the good I’ll do,” Kernel grumbles. “Maybe I’ll just stay here and wait for the universe to end. It’d be a lot simpler.”

“But nowhere near as exciting.” I stand and shake blood from my face, using magic to heal the damage to my ears and nose. I don’t feel depressed. I have a sense of destiny clicking into place, of things playing out the way they were always meant to. We’ve tried every angle we could think of and they’ve all failed. We’ve passed the point where we can save the day with a cunning plan. We’re puppets of fate now. There’s no use worrying about events we can’t control.

“Where next?” I ask cheerfully.

Nobody meets my gaze. They don’t have any ideas. We had targets to aim for up to this—Juni Swan, the Shadow, Lord Loss, the Old Creature. Now all we can do is return home, put up a good fight, and accept annihilation with a rueful grin.

“We could…,” Timas says, then falls silent.

“If Bec is part of Death, and we kill her…,” Shark begins.

“There are other Old Creatures…,” Kirilli murmurs.

“Kernel?” I cock an eyebrow.

The surly teenager shrugs. “It doesn’t make any difference.”

“Then take us to Prae Athim,” I decide. “If I’m going down fighting, I want to go with my faithful pack behind me.”

We find Prae, a few units of soldiers, and my enhanced werewolves battling demons and a bunch of zombies outside a small town. We fall in beside them, surprising and delighting Prae. No time to exchange pleasantries. I howl at the werewolves, letting them know their leader’s back. They happily return the howl and fight with renewed vigor, keen to impress.

Larry breaks away from the carnage and loops around me, snapping with excitement, sniffing me all over to ensure I’m the real deal, not some demonic doppelgänger. I bark a few commands to the last survivor of my original pack, telling him to stop sniffing and get back to fighting. As he bounds away, calling others to his side, I focus on strays around the edges and pick them off as they try to sneak away. I don’t care whether they’re demons or zombies. Some of the others have a hard time slaughtering those who were once living people, but they’re all the same in my wolfen eyes.

It doesn’t take long to bring the demons and zombies to their knees. The pack had control of the situation before I arrived. My presence merely speeds things up. Within minutes we’re relaxing on a mound of mutilated corpses, cheering because it’s what you do to celebrate a victory, even though it’s just one small triumph in a doomed war.

“Didn’t expect to see you again,” Prae grins. “It’s been hell here. I thought you’d fallen on some far-off demon world.”

“Not a hope,” I smile wryly, running an eye over my pack, noting the new arrivals, yapping at some of those I recognize from before.

“What’s been happening?” Shark asks, and Prae quickly brings us up to date. Earth’s in a lot worse shape than when we left. Six weeks have passed. Windows are opening at a rate of four or five a day. Demons are having their wicked way in most countries. The Disciples, mages, werewolves, and soldiers have been fighting doggedly, but I see desolation in Prae’s eyes. When we left for Lord Loss’s realm, people still had hope. Not any longer. From what Prae tells us, realization has set in across the globe. Even those who’ve avoided contact with the demons know they’re living on borrowed time. They go through the motions, but without any real expectation of victory.

The zombies came from nearby. Prae says hundreds of them—and even more demons—are massed outside a city a few miles away. A lodestone must be buried somewhere close. Once Bec located it, the demons set to work, assisted by one of their treacherous mages, and opened a tunnel. Hordes of demons pushed through with vicious glee, and the dead have been coming back to life to help them.

There’s a strange magical energy in the air, which Kirilli recognizes from when he fought the Shadow on the ship. Death used that energy to reanimate the corpses, and it’s pulled the same trick here. The blank-eyed zombies are driven by a force they have no control over, killing recklessly, slaves to their ever-hungry master.