*  *  *

  Wrath lightning poured down from the heavens of Limina Mortis. The remaining demigods were scalded to death, screeching agony. It mattered naught to her. All that mattered was death.

  Within seconds she scoured the realm. Every last entity not with her was ash. Then her mind snapped back into action. He's not dead, he's not!

She pumped her legs as fast as she could.

Get to him! Get to him!

She fell beside him. Phenїx crushed her reaper's body up to her. Every bone of her male was snapped. His organs had gone cold. "NO! Nonono... baby?!"

Nïx started pressing over his heart, pushing, feeling with her new powers. But it was cold.

She keened out a cry. Mother, Father, God, please... help me. He's mine, he's always been mine.

Nothing. No answer. Her parents, Byron's God, no one was answering. She pushed harder on his chest, beating. She howled out a moan.

"Why the fuck aren't you answering!?"

Did they even know? Her throat tightened, her eyes scalding from the grief. Then her mind opened and followed the arrow that jutted from her male's chest. She knew. The final arrow had been poisoned with a dieumort's curse, a finishing blow.

There was no way to bring him back.

She keened and reached to pull it out.

Riora appeared in a rush. Her hands flew over her mouth and she screamed, "What in all the ungodly fucking hells?!"

She yanked the arrow out, staring at the poison. No. It was a Banemen's arrow. Not good enough.

Nїx's soul crushed inwards.

It's happened. My fate's happened. I couldn't...

Riora was kneeling beside her, talking. Nїx couldn't hear her. Her reaper had pulled off the impossible. He'd kept her alive. But not like this... not like this.

Lamia arrived, looking around frantically. She sank beside Phenїx, shaking her, "Phenїx. What..."

The goddess saw who it was Nїx was holding. She swooned. Then she crumpled next to her, holding her, "No..."

Phenїx cradled the body, her limbs trembling. Her reaper was already cold. As if her male had been dead for a week. She rubbed over his cheeks, staring hard. Willing life back into him...

Not like this... it wasn't supposed to be like this.

They had broken the fate. They'd won. Why did this happen?

Her eyes caught sight of one of his scythes. She reached for it.

That one... that will do it.

Riora grasped hold of her from behind. She flung back a hand, "Leave!"

"Don't," her friend crushed her into her arms from behind. Grappling her tightly. "Phenїx, don't."

Lamia held onto her as well. Before she could get a hold of the haft, Eros laid a heavy paw on the scythe end. The young wyrm stared hard through one eye at her.

-Do not do this, Phenïx.-

"I said leave!"

Eros' eyes narrowed and his head tilted back in anguish at the sound. Wyrms were just as susceptible to sorrow as Valkyries... she sobbed heavily.

"He made us promise, Phenїx," Riora held her even more tightly. "He made us promise. You have to fight this."

"He's gone, don't you understand?!?"

Lamia squeezed her face tightly and screamed in her face, "He's not! Not totally gone!"

Something in her clicked. Her mind opened with a rush. Lamia had lowered her mental blocks. Nïx could see. Her throat swelled when she felt her fellow goddess' mind. A goddess she'd once called 'goddess of some-some'.

The turmoil and anguish she felt wasn't just her own. She shook her head fiercely. "No... that's not... not... possible."

"It is," Riora intoned from behind her.

Nїx stared between Lamia and Riora. The fertility goddess rubbed her cheeks and kept staring at her until Nïx felt her breathing calm. Lamia's eyes softened, welling with tears, and she spoke softly, "Don't follow him. Not yet."

"We need to bring this matter before the pantheon, now," Riora commanded.

What did her reaper do? He would breathe. He would control. So could she. She was a goddess. Nïx was his goddess. Her mind went to fire with knowledge. She filtered past the pain, past the keening in her. Tracing back through everything that had occurred. She inhaled slowly.

I know what those bitches have done.

She lifted her mate's body in her arms and turned to both Lamia and Riora. Her body flashed, a new sheath of scarlet and platinum silk enwrapping her figure. The better to see her male's blood on her.

"Take me to Olympus, now." Her eyes flashed to silver. "God, DAMN them all!"

*   *    *    *   *

Olympus

Pantheon Hall

"What is this about?"

"Phenїx has ascended."

"How?!"

"Are you certain?"

The whispers surrounding them fell silent when she strode past. The other goddesses were appearing in droves now, their cadres missing. In such matters, there was to be no one else but the goddesses in attendance.

In this, the law held sway, as ever.

Phenїx gazed around the massive hall as she walked in. The legion of eyes she saw made her stiffen. She was still weeping.

She swiped her hands over her cheeks. Then she choked when she saw what was covering her fingertips.

Gold. She was weeping liquid gold.

She blinked, and held up her chin. To the hells with it. Let them see.

When she caught a glimpse of herself in one mirror in an anteroom, she stopped to gaze. The pale platinum-blue and gold lines that criss-crossed her features made her breath hitch. I look like Mother.

No, not quite. Her eyes were covered more than Freya's. And her mother's cheeks hadn't sported the branches. They had just been a spare couple lines there. Looking down over her form, she thought the threads were fine. The two-inch black stilettos were also well-wrought, but they needed an extra something.

She focused and added blades to the outer edges.

There. A Valkyrie always had a weapon at her disposal. Then she saw the goddess of the hunt approaching her.

Skathi walked out from one of the adjacent anterooms, walking over as swiftly as she could, without appearing hurried. She was somber, as she always seemed to be. But her neck went stiff when Lamia and Riora brought the body in behind Phenїx.

"Phenїx, who...?" she paused when she considered Lamia's weeping face. She leaned close to Phenїx. "Is this why you called us?"

"Among other things," Nїx intoned softly.

Skathi's voice was a murmur, "You're weeping."

"Yes."

The frost giantess frowned, her gaze falling on the body, "The reaper?"

"I'll explain. Are they all here?"

"They will be, shortly," Skathi answered. Then she leaned in close. Conciliatory, but her tone was cautious. "Your ascension is not made official yet, Phenїx. You must be cautious, you are calling on some of the oldest in all our pantheons away from their heavens."

Did her distant aunt finally reveal some of her worries for her? Or were the goddesses starting to feel some of the turmoil from the Accession?

Nїx didn't mind overly much, either way. It would make what she had to do all the more timely. She needed to shake things up and overturn the nest.

"All will be brought to light in good time, but this will not wait any longer," Nїx answered.

Skathi searched her openly, and she returned her gaze. After millennia of staring down the fates, seeing the fears of Skathi's prey in her eyes hardly even touched her.

And at that moment, her soul wanted one thing. An end. But not yet. Not until I show the rest what they've done.

Skathi whispered, "Phenїx, I don't like that look."

"I don't like what I'm feeling," she answered softly. "Now, allow me this. Please. Step aside, aunt."

Skathi's irises flickered to gold. It was the first time in many years since Nїx had called her that. Then the huntress bowed her head minutely, allowing her to move on. Lamia and Riora followed, and Skathi took up the trail position, her eyes perusing the body.

Once they'd made their way off the second level to the dais at the front of the amphitheater, Phenїx recognized the smell of roses and bergamot on the air.

Sanctuary.

The scent was intended to remind everyone that there was to be peace at this meeting. Instead, all it did was remind her of how they had kept this matter hidden behind a veil.

The marble columns towered high enough to swallow a small skyscraper. In times of contested rulings, the upper tiers would be filled with cadres of demigods and demigoddesses, awaiting their leadership.

No mortal feet had passed into this inner sanctum. And very few immortals could boast of it.

The marble floors were decadent, richly inlaid with precious rubies, diamonds, and sapphires. Here and there emeralds sparkled. When light was allowed from the roof, it presented a dazzling spectacle. Yet today the roof remained closed, the only source of light the firepits scattered between the columns.

A strategic maneuver, it allowed the goddesses to remain sheathed in shadow. And since their eyes, like immortals, turned with strong emotion, their reactions would not be as easy to discern.

All these measures were useless against her sight.

"Phenїx Ever-Knowing, what is the meaning of this?"

Her gaze caught the goddess who had spoke. Morrigan. Six feet tall, willowy, auburn haired and emerald-eyed, Morrigan was a Celtic firebrand who cared only that others recognize her prowess upon the battlefield. To her, warriors of the olden times had beseeched for strength and victory.

Her face was hardened, clearly striving for patience. She uniformly lacked it when she deemed someone was wasting her time with 'trifling' matters.

The rest of the lower floor had now filled. The goddesses were all here. She inhaled slowly through her nose. Must be calm.

Phenїx kept her tone level, "I have come here to address you all as your daughter, your sister, and as a fellow goddess. Tell me, Morrigan, do you not recognize the male Lamia has brought before you?"

The goddess inspected the body that Lamia and Riora had laid on the low-slung table that crowned the head dais. Her eyes flickered recognition. "Reaper."

"Correct. More appropriately, his name is Byron Dekker. Some of you know who he is."

"The death of a single immortal is hardly a concern worthy of calling us away from our realms to these hallowed halls," Sekhmet called while approaching.

Nїx turned to regard the death goddess with a glare. The very first thing she wanted to do was rip her heart out. She deigned not to follow the urge.

She answered, "It concerns me greatly, Sekhmet, when you were one of those who dispatched this immortal to deathbrush me."

The death goddess held up a hand with a placating wave. Sekhmet appeared unconcerned.

"There were worries you might fluctuate. Clearly, you have not. And so what if you killed the reaper? His kind is loathed among our numbers."

"He reaped two of the demigods that raped me, Sekhmet!"

Persephone burst forth from the crowd, hatred in her face. Now a goddess, the turned mortal had had to contend with the atrocity that was committed, and the lies that were perpetuated against her and Hades. The death god, for his part, had continued to protect her, and the bounty had been outstanding for millennia.

None of which mattered. She was still followed by gossip and heavy whispers. Enough to crush her kind soul. For a moment, it looked as though Persephone was about to go to blows with the more ancient goddess.

"How dare you treat him so ill?!" she shouted.

Sekhmet held up both her hands, palms up. Her face showed remorse. "I by no means infer that what the reaper did then was not a good deed, Persephone."

Persephone settled a moment, and Sekhmet continued with a wave, "While that is commendable," she inhaled slowly, "Clearly, he has overstepped his bounds and attempted to reap Phenїx before her ascension." Sekhmet shook her head with a sigh. "He has gone to his Hell."

Credit where credit was due. If not for her knowledge, even a trained investigator wouldn't have noticed the off tone. "You lie very well, Sekhmet," Nïx murmured.

The older goddess glared. "I beg your pardon, daughter?"

Nїx felt ire burning up her mind. "I am never your daughter, Sekhmet. I am Freya's." She bit the next words out, "And I will not grant pardon to one who helped try to assassinate me."

"That is an outrageous accusation to level in this hall!" Loviatar shouted as she stepped forward.

Willowy and with deep brown hair, she did not appear half as dangerous as she truly was. It was part of her charm, in a certain way. She appeared innocuous, merely one of dozens of such witches who had strived early on to ascend and succeeded.

Nïx's eyes narrowed, "Is it?"

She gazed around the assembly. She waved behind her, conjuring a dozen gold-gilded mirrors across the room. Each over forty feet tall, all large enough to be seen in every corner of the amphitheater.

"Allow me to enlighten you all what happens when a reaper fails to answer a summons of deathbrush."

The mirrors' glass smoked, then cleared that now the goddesses could witness a cold desert. Perpetual night remained, with only a single full moon overhead. Byron stumbled down a sandy dune, grimaced.

A howl behind him made him turn. Her reaper's lips bared in a snarl.

Kur'orog appeared in a trace, his mouth slavering.

"It's my turn now, reaper!"

In an instant he'd bitten down into Byron's shoulder, mincing off a chunk of flesh. Byron howled and swung, battering off the demigod's mouth, twisting, then wrenching the demon's head at an odd angle.

Even as that one fell, another three demons appeared, laughing and slicing off his fingers, his toes. Gulping them down like they were the rarest of meats. Then another bowled him over, chomping into his stomach.

Byron screamed.

Lamia and a dozen life and fertility goddesses wretched up their food and ambrosia. Others were dryheaving, eyes watering. Even many of the witch goddesses had turned pale.

"This is the curse of the reapers," Loviatar intoned. "After the atrocity of murdering outside their own authority."

Byron reappeared in another location, his eyes haunted. He was whole. He clenched his jaw and muttered, "Keep going, Dekker."

Another wail in the distance made him turn. His eyes narrowed. Then he grinned. "Taro."

"You ready for round forty, reaper?" the demon smiled.

Her reaper shrugged, "How'd that last broken rib feel to ya, bitch?"

They charged each other, then another demon – she didn't recognize this one – cut Byron's leg out from under him. Byron shrieked fury. Taro bit into his neck, appeared to relish feeling her male's heartbeat against his lips.

Phenїx trembled. The sight made her want to scour her soul from her body.

"This is also what happens when they disobey a lawful summons of deathbrush," she whispered.

"Too true, sister."

That voice... Nїx turned. The voluptuous form that eased its way forward was one she intimately knew. Whiskey-amber eyes, curling sable hair. The other goddesses of the pantheon eased their way out of hers in a show of respect.

Hel.

The eldest daughter of Freya and Wóden was gorgeous, her stride lithe. Her goddesshead was now lighting over her features. Unlike some, hers was a dark kohl, formed in the shape of deep maroon crow's wings that fanned out from her eyes back and over her cheekbones to her ears.

Those same amber eyes of Hel's had witnessed the deaths of countless kings and queens. She had brought thralls of every ilk to heel with a flick of her wrist. As one of the goddesses of death in the pantheon, she was one of the very few who intimately knew the reapers and their origins.

She was also one of Nïx's closest siblings of memory. Decades of time spent in Valhalla, and during that time she intimately recalled her sister visiting from her own realm of Niflheim.

Hel had taught her much. Almost as often as Freya or her mother Zahra had.

Phenїx gave a half-bow. "Hello again, my sister."

"I am curious, little sister," Hel tapped a blood-red fingernail to one of her teeth. "Why do you wish to bring this matter to our attention?" She quirked her head to one side, "Is there any proof to your accusation?"

"Yes," Nїx nodded. "You see, I only just met this reaper two weeks ago. And yet, as it turns out, my knowledge has revealed to me several discrepancies in the charges made against this immortal male. As well as this."

She turned to address the mirror with a wave of her hand.

"Firstly, a mosquito plague... designed just so that it would target only a single Lorean species and alter their chemical signature." She pinned the dark witch goddess that had conjured just such a disease. "Reaper chemical signatures."

The projection in the conjuring mirror shifted. A Louisiana swamp. Byron swatted several mosquitoes off himself. Then pulled a facemask over his jaw. His thoughts projected.

God, why'd you make these little bloodsuckers, seriously!?

The rest of the goddesses looked around, confused. All except Loviatar.

Nїx's tone went cold.

"I was fated to meet this reaper years ago on that Louisiana battlefield," she explained smoothly. "But I couldn't even smell him after he stepped through that swarm."

A multitude of the dark goddesses merely shrugged or inspected themselves, as if it were a weather report. Loviatar's face held no small amount of pride for her deed.

Hel, meanwhile, was curious. "Phenїx, what does it matter whether you were to meet him then?"

Nїx stilled the quake in her heart. Out of all those assembled here, it was painful to know the truth. Her own half-sister...

Phenїx walked closer, tiptoeing from one colored sheet to the next. Remembering when she had been skipping on rocks back in Valhalla. Hel had joined her on more than a few of those occasions.

"I am getting there, sister," she smiled stiffly, "But secondly, you yourself also instituted changes to the laws of the reapers," she explained. "You modified the codes, forbidding direct contact between a reaper and the demideity he was to escort, unless!"

Nїx paused with a raised finger, then continued, "A god threatened me with death."

Hel and Sekhmet were unperturbed. By the laws of the goddesses, they were protected from any legal action while instituting changes in matters involving lesser immortals.

Hel bowed her head, her mien matter-of-fact. "This is correct, sister."

Nїx pointed out, "Before that, standard procedure was for any reaper to make his presence known to his demideity upon volunteering."

Hel wagged her eyebrows, "True, sister."

That gentle lift of her brows was so much like Nїx, it was uncanny. It stuttered another painful beat through her heart. She had picked up so many of her cues from her family. She throttled back on her rage, remembering her male's control.

Breathe, Nїxie.

"I am curious," another voice interjected.

Her eyes took in the entity with an aplomb coral red dress sheathing her frame. Tahwit was a force to be reckoned with. The ancient goddess had long been forgotten by mortalkind, but among immortals she was renowned as one who helped give life to the vampires.

Her eyes were meant to be gleaming emeralds, but some of her power font had been drained, recently. Now they appeared as dull as old grass. She was also diminutive, scarcely five feet and a couple inches. Her fangs were shockingly long against her lips.

Tahwit inquired. "After the atrocities these reapers engaged in, what does all this matter?"

"Which atrocities were those, Tahwit?" Phenїx shrugged. "I know of none."

"They slaughtered us in numbers incomprehensible to one so young," the goddess spoke archly.

Do not gut her yet, Nїx reminded herself forcefully. But that flippant tone was enough to make her see red bleeding into her vision. A thought occurred to her. Bite back.

Nїx smiled her fangs widely, playfully, "A mere fifty gods is incomprehensible?"

"Mind your tone, Phenїx!" Loviatar snapped. Her eyes had turned from their previous hazel to bitter red in a split instant. "You have not been recognized by this pantheon as a goddess, yet!"

Well, that had gotten a rise out of the witch. She let loose an inner sigh of relief. About time. Cracking that façade the witch wore was paramount to helping make her case to the rest of the pantheons.

"And yet, I appear to have ascended." She patted down over her form, feigning wonderment. "How astonishing!"

Riora remained quiet, observant, as did Lamia and several of her closest allies.

"Get to your point, Phenїx!" Morrigan snapped.

"Explain why this reaper was dispatched to watch me," she tilted a finger to the body. "Yet then," she planted her hands on her hips, "he was cursed after he assisted me in ascension?"

Her spitting the words made Morrigan flare up, then halt. She craned her head to the side. "You are saying this reaper was not hunting you?"

"Indeed, you were not aware, Morrigan?"

The goddess licked her lips once, then wagged her head side to side. "No. I was not aware." She pursed her lips a moment, considering, and then nodded, "And this does raise a question."

"That it does," she concurred, then shifted to peer at Tahwit. "And it would appear I was also hounded by demideities who were in league with you, Tahwit."

Phenїx passed images of the demigods over the projection. Gorrum's ten-foot-tall visage made Persephone go white in the face. "Him."

Aphrodite was quick to reach over and hold her up. The others stared. When Taro's face appeared, Persephone shivered. The bounties that had been placed on those demigods had been left on the walls of the anterooms outside. Phenїx had noticed five of the seven had fallen and broken.

When Tahwit saw the images, she huffed and waved it off. "Hardly," she sneered. "I had them sent away from my court the moment I heard of their attempt on our sister Persephone's body!"

"And yet they returned when a summons of reaping was made on me," Phenїx argued coolly. "Just as they did during the Accessions of the Primordial Wars."

Hel spoke up, "That is hardly a concern for you, my sister. Weren't you the one wishing to join us as the goddess of all Accessions to come? What business then is the past?"

Phenїx's eyes narrowed to slits. "It becomes my business when it concerns the fate of my mate."

Sharp gasps cut from the throats of many. But among them, she caught the glint of hidden glee among the guilty parties. She waved a hand, and a projection of Byron appeared as she remembered him in the jungle.

"My mate. Byron Dekker. The first resurrected soul of the reapers."

"Five of you originally made a summons, ordering my mate to not interfere while I achieved my ascension. Instead," Phenїx glowed slightly. "Byron responded to an extreme threat, portaling me away from Gaia."

The goddesses stared between each other, perplexed.

"What was this threat?" Hel asked.

"The dark power spikes that were seeded into my ascension," she answered. "And himself."

"Wait." Morrigan raised a palm. "What do you mean, himself?"

She replayed their opening fight. Then flitted back to Byron in Limina Mortis. He was pummeling on a boulder. Pausing. Thinking.

Step one, present self as extreme threat to her life.

Step two, survive long enough to talk her out of killing me... yeah, that'll be a cinch.

Step three, get her the hells away from Earth so they can't track her.

Step four, figure out what's going on with her foresight.

Step five, keep her safe. No matter what.

"Then he broke the summons," Hekate blurted out. "Deliberately."

"Yes, Hekate."

The witch goddess was flummoxed. Her voice dropped to only a murmur, "He knew he was damning himself from the beginning."

"Exactly." Nїx bit down on her lip hard enough to draw blood. "Even then, his desire as my mate to protect me was foremost in him, even when I did not recognize him and he couldn't be brought to admit it."

"Loviatar, what have you committed?!" Hekate shouted.

Loviatar raised up a palm, her expression guileless, "The reaper was a threat to us all. I implanted a scent in his blood stream. If he appeared with ill intent, we would smell him coming!"

"And it almost worked, didn't it?" Phenїx asked. She replayed her interactions with him on their first day meeting. "Lost in my foresight, I only recognized a vague threat in that Louisiana swamp."

She pinned the witch with a look.

"I almost permanently killed my own mate that day."

The enormity of that act made others in attendance shiver with fear. Loviatar shrugged and flung up her hands as though she had no answer to the accusation.

"I cannot say for certain," she said. The witch stumbled a moment, seeking another explanation, "Perhaps your reaction was more adverse because of the initial dosage."

That had been the plan. Byron's dieumort hadn't appeared by accident. Phenїx knew now that someone else had interfered. Someone who had as much to lose as her.

"And my reaction to him was dulled, even two years after the fact, because you changed his scent that much," Nїx's voice was a mere whisper, yet all heard it.

Hel interjected, "Forgive me, sister, but it sounds as though Loviatar was looking out for the pantheons as a whole."

Phenїx notched a brow. "So what then of the assassins sent to collect my head over that time period? Or the fact he was continually watching over me, killing off threats I wasn't even aware of?"

"Commendable," Hel stated smoothly. "But his orders were bound by the law."

Her half-sister must have been the one to give that instruction, then. Nїx inspected her nails for a moment, "And keeping me away from threats was outside the law, my sister?"

Hel remained silent a moment. Thoughtful. Then she sighed. "Phenїx. It is an Accession. Under most circumstances, we are under directives not to interfere in the actions of the immortals."

Riora had heard enough. The circular arguments were ridiculous to her. She pushed to the fore, shouting, "Kali, this month you hold the Paring Rod. You are to be seen in such matters of law. If you know how to reverse this judgment, now is the time!"

The Hindu goddess was clearly baffled. She held up her four hands in submission, "I don't know what to do! It's been eons since the reapers were here! Death made an agreement, a bond we foreswore to!"

"Exactly," Sekhmet stated firmly. "We would never harm, nor aid, the reapers directly."

"Indirectly, an entirely different story, yes, Sekhmet?" Isis intoned from where she stood with three of the other Egyptian and Ethiopian goddesses.

Sekhmet waved it off, "How crude would such a thing be, Isis?"

"And yet, you did," Phenїx stated. She glanced over at the Moirai. The three crones were sheathed in their powers now, clearly watching the fates. Then she cast her gaze to Pronoea.

"Tell me, sister oracles," Nїx asked. "Were you all aware of the vow I almost broke when my mortal mother passed?"

Pronoea tilted her head softly at that. "This was not made known to us. Why?"

"Would it interest you to know I received a vision of my mate's death twenty-five hundred years ago?"

The oracles shuddered. Kloutho intoned softly, "Show us, sister."

The moment that she did, the oracles among the procession turned wrathful.

"What the hells is this abomination!?" Kloutho shouted.

The other goddesses peered at the oracles in their number when they saw their faces filled with not merely wrath, but also fear. And sorrow.

"Would you care to explain?" Hekate offered.

"As oracles, we are granted the ability of foreseeing fates and altering them," Atropos called. "But this vision is poisoned!"

"Indeed," Kloutho stated. "It is fixed. Such a fate for one's mate is never to be made known to an oracle. It debilitates her inner eye and her heart."

"This sort of mental image has driven more than one of us to the brink of annihilation," Pronoea chanted gently. Then her eyes flared red with wrath. "It is forbidden to cast such a vision into our minds!"

"Phenїx admits that she foresaw this herself," Loviatar argued. "Her own failed vow brought this back upon her."

The oracles turned almost as one to face the dark witch. The air had turned still. Phenїx sighed. Loviatar had just told them something that only an oracle should know.

"She desired to foresee her mate's face. A glimpse of who he is or was to be," Pronoea bit the words out harshly, her visage going wild, adamant. She pointed to the mirrors she was standing next ro. "This vision was deliberately planted."

The oracle goddesses swiveled their gazes around to peer at one of their own. Dike, one of the Hoirai. A bringer of justice.

Dike raised her hands slowly in supplication. "I was told that this vision was one of justice against the demon Taro! I was asked to assist, nothing more."

"Indeed, the Hoirai speaks truth," Phenїx nodded. "It was a season of justice for that abomination. By my male's hand."

Among their numbers, the wife of Prometheus was the most observant. Or perhaps she was always just the first to speak, like Nїx. "The vision was poisoned with the death of her mate by another, then," Pronoea answered. "Themis, who did this?"

The Titaness felt over the mirror a moment, then turned to Sekhmet. Themis' eyes narrowed. "Sekhmet. You did not do this alone."

The death goddess shrugged. Her mien said she was not telling. Instead she wafted a hand.

"I fail to see how any of this matters. The reaper was a threat to us. Yet Phenїx is alive," she said. "What is one immortal life compared to one of our own pantheon?"

Phenїx seethed. For all of her gifts, finding the one who helped orchestrate all of this was still beyond her reach. That infuriated her.

Lilith, the bitch from the original hell, was going to pay, if it was the last thing she ever could do while she was sane.

"You wove the pantheon's laws against my own mate," she growled. "He fulfilled them."

"It would appear that that is incorrect, considering he revealed himself, and he clearly had sexual liaison with you," Sekhmet gloated while showing a projection of the two of them in bed together.

Someone had peeped in on Riora's dream plane, after all.

"True, but there's a problem with your logic," Nїx disputed while she walked up to her and her sister, "You cannot institute limitations on goddesses and who they choose to be with. And I gave myself to him. I broke the reaper's law, not him."

Phenїx sighed, quietly picking a piece of lint off her new gown. "Since I was the one to break these laws, Hel, what would you say is to become of me?"

Hel leaned forward. Her kohled eyes glowed sickly-green in the dim firepits. "Then, little sister, sad to say, but you should stand judgement."

The fertility goddesses turned in horror to Hel.

Nїx smiled. Well, then.

"Hel, you know what else I know?"

Hel seemed to revel in the pain glittering off Nїx's form. Her lush lips were smiling daggers. "Enlighten me, little sister."

Nїx came close.

"I know that my beloved has suffered over eight hundred deaths already since he entered the real Hell," she whispered. "And I know that for every death, I am invoking a quarter of an eon of like pain and agony upon your decrepit bitch-ass soul when you are reaped."

She wound back and slammed her fist into Hel's stomach. A full-on goddess' curse. It took instantly. Her beloved reaper's books were truly full of delicious surprises.

Hel dropped like a stone to the floor, wheezing, horror crossing her face when the curse struck. The entire pantheon's structure quaked. Goddesses everywhere flared to life.

"You fucking dare?!" Sekhmet roared. "A fellow goddess?"

Nїx turned and lifted the bitch with every ounce of her vigor, throttling her. To Hell with planning. To Hell with being knowing. STRIKE!!!

Her Valkyrie lungs shrieked fury incarnate, "FUCK your goddesshood! After all the shit I've endured, all the petitions, all the heartache, the death! I've gone above and beyond for countless mates. I have shown I'm worthy!"

She squeezed. The deliciousness of the other's windpipe going out was an ancient joy.

"And after all that I've done, you'd deny me my mate, the love of my existence!?!" Nїx howled. "I will kill all of you, and then I'll condemn myself to his real Hell!"

Sekhmet's eyes flickered. She sputtered a gasp when she grasped the truth. Phenїx the Ever-Knowing was to be her harbinger of doom.

Loviatar shouted, "We cannot let this happen! No demigoddess or goddess has been slain in these walls! It is forbidden!"

She started at Phenїx, two poisoned blades appearing from her sleeves. Then Lamia stepped forward, her entire form glowing. Her life force propelled a gleaming gold blade into her hands. A flash covered Lamia's form, brighter than a nova. A black wreath crowned her head. Lamia's visage morphed into that of her other nature...

Nyx.

She preferred to allow her visage to remain placid, virile, pleasing. But when provoked to true wrath, the goddess of night and its passions was one which even the dames of darkness feared. Olympus' air went from pleasing roses to grave dirt in an instant.

The ancient goddess squared off with Loviatar. A sliver-moon flickered over her head. Her eyes turned to a flaring mixture of gold-and-black. Nyx snarled, her tone ugly.

"Move on Phenїx, and you fucking end, you slimy slut of a witch!"

Loviatar's pallor went pale. The cavalcade drove apart suddenly, the goddesses rearranging into their allegiances. Loviatar backed away, realizing too late that she courted the wrath of one of the original primevals. And there would be no quarter given.

Hel's eyes lifted. Then her face turned to unspeakable dread. "POWERS, NO!"

Something like a supernova wave blasted over them. Dozens tumbled to their knees. Nїx remained standing in spite of the shock, her hands squeezing delectable pressure on Sekhmet's throat.

She spared a glance in the direction of the blast.

A cloaked figure stood, staring at the magick projections of her mate contending with a pair of Invidia in his Hell. Thirty feet tall at first, the figure's scythe was cloaked in powers ancient and innumerable. He swiveled over to Byron.

Death stared upon her reaper's body.

The amphitheater had gone cold, dark, the sconces completely burnt out from the vacuum that had blasted out over the pantheon hall.

He lifted his cowl and skull mask back, revealing an angular and supernaturally handsome visage. The god of All Ends couldn't have chosen a finer countenance, other than her beloved.

The Grim Reaper's ruby-red eyes flitted up to take in the dumbfounded goddesses.

*    *    *    *    *