Chapter 71
The Hot Springs Contingent
The Mississippi was still burning when the sky tore open a second time.
A perfect ring of violet fire bloomed above the river, smelling of cedar smoke, hot asphalt, and sweet tea gone feral.
A matte-black 1970 Chevy pickup shot through the rift like a bullet, tires screaming, and slammed onto the levee hard enough to make the ground jump.
The driver's door kicked open with a boot.
Remy Tsatoke stepped out.
Tall, copper-skinned Caddo, long black braid swinging down his back, Lakeside **Rams** letterman jacket (crimson sleeves, white body, big red ram head snarling across the shoulders) hanging open over bare, scarred chest. A copper-wrapped baseball bat rested easy on one shoulder like it had grown there. Coyote shifter, trickster-blessed by Chulëkonsis himself, grinning like the world owed him money and he'd come to collect with interest.
Right behind him, Celeste Valentina Morau Tsatoke rolled in on a blood-red skateboard that hovered an inch off the ground without wheels. Platinum-blonde twin tails whipped in the wind, ruby-red irises glowing like twin coals in fresh snow. Vampire blood wizard. No thirst. No weaknesses. Just pure, beautiful, unholy power wrapped in fishnets, a cropped hoodie, and the kind of smile that ended bloodlines.
Seras Nakamura (hair literally made of living flame, Lakeside cheer skirt) and Lucian Draconi (copper-scale dragon shifter, shirt permanently optional) brought up the rear.
Remy took one look at the Void goddess looming over the river (big as the Superdome, mouth full of galaxies) and let out a low, appreciative whistle.
"Well, I'll be damned," he drawled, pure Hot Springs, Arkansas dripping off every syllable. "Y'all threw a whole-ass apocalypse and didn't even text the Rams? Rude as hell."
Celeste flipped her board up into her hand, ruby eyes flashing.
"We felt the Veil scream from three states over," she said, voice like velvet soaked in bourbon and bad decisions. "Figured Louisiana finally needed someone with taste to save it."
Remy spun his bat once, coyote gold flashing in his eyes.
"Point us at the ugly one," he told me and Thorne. "We brought receipts, school spirit, and a winning record."
The Void goddess hissed, "More toys—"
Remy cut her off without looking.
"Ma'am, the last thing that called a Ram a toy got its spine used as a jump rope. Twice. And it still thanked me."
Then he offered me a fist.
I bumped it.
Celeste offered Thorne a lazy, ruby-eyed salute.
Seras cracked her knuckles; sparks flew.
Lucian cracked his neck; wings flared copper.
Thorne and I landed beside them, wings of fire and shadow still blazing.
All six of us turned toward the goddess and grinned the same reckless, beautiful, Southern grin.
The cavalry had arrived wearing crimson and white, and it was about damn time.
The South vs. the Void (Population: Zero)
The Void goddess swelled to fill half the sky, galaxies swirling in her mouth like she'd swallowed the universe and found it bland.
She clapped once.
The Mississippi answered, rising in a black wall of water studded with teeth the size of Buicks.
Remy didn't even blink.
"Celeste, darlin'," he called, spinning his bat, "mind handlin' the river?"
Celeste stepped forward, skateboard under one arm, ruby eyes glowing like brake lights in fog.
She snapped her fingers.
Every drop of water in that tidal wave turned crimson and froze solid mid-air (a thousand-foot wall of blood-crystal glittering in the moonlight).
"River's closed," she said sweetly. "Try Uber."
Seras leapt onto the frozen wave, surfing it like a fiery comet, and detonated the whole thing into a storm of razor-sharp, burning shards that shredded the front line of shadow-wraiths.
Lucian launched skyward, shifting mid-air into full copper dragon (forty tons of scales and bad attitude). He banked hard and breathed a lance of white-hot dragonfire straight into the goddess's chest.
Remy vaulted onto Lucian's back like he'd been born there, bat raised high.
"Rams on three!" he whooped.
Thorne and I rose to meet them (wings of fire and shadow beating in perfect sync).
The Sanguis Draconis blazed between us like a newborn star.
Six voices rose as one:
"ONE!"
Celeste flicked her wrist. Every shard of blood-crystal still in the air turned into spears and rocketed upward.
"TWO!"
Seras spun a ring of living flame around the spears, superheating them into molten glass.
"THREE!"
Remy slammed his bat down on Lucian's shoulder like a starting pistol.
Lucian roared and flew straight at the goddess's face.
Thorne and I dove from opposite sides, fire and shadow spiraling together into a single blazing helix.
The blood-crystal spears hit first (thousands of them, punching holes clean through the goddess's torso).
The fire-ring followed, expanding into a supernova that lit the entire Gulf Coast.
Then Thorne and I struck (fire and shadow merging into a perfect lance of white-gold light that punched straight through the wound Celeste had opened).
The Sanguis Draconis detonated inside her like a second Big Bang.
The Void goddess screamed (a sound that shattered every remaining window in New Orleans and probably cracked a few in Baton Rouge).
She shrank, fast, limbs folding in on themselves, galaxies bleeding out.
In seconds she was just the little girl again (barefoot, white dress, black veins receding).
She looked up at the six of us hovering above her, eyes suddenly, horribly human.
"I just wanted to go home," she whispered.
Then she crumbled into black ash that the wind carried gently away.
The rift sealed with a soft sigh, like the universe exhaling after holding its breath for too long.
Silence fell over the riverfront (broken only by the hiss of cooling glass and the distant sound of someone's car alarm finally giving up).
We landed in a rough circle on the levee, breathing hard, covered in blood, ash, and victory.
Remy was the first to speak.
"Well," he said, slinging his bat over his shoulder, "that's one way to get on the highlight reel."
Celeste dropped her board, rolled over to him, and kissed him hard (right there in front of God, the river, and what was left of the city).
Lucian shifted back to human, stark naked and grinning like an idiot.
Seras high-fived him so hard his hand smoked.
Thorne pulled me against his chest, wings folding around us.
"You okay?" he murmured.
I was covered in goddess ash and someone else's teeth, but I'd never felt more alive.
"Ask me after crawfish," I said.
Remy whooped loud enough to wake the dead.
"Crawfish it is! Loser buys (and the Void just got sent to the shadow realm, so I think she's payin'.)"
Celeste laughed, ruby eyes bright.
"First round's on the house of Tsatoke," she declared. "Second round's on whatever's left of the Council's dignity."
The sun breached the horizon (real, ordinary, beautiful dawn).
New Orleans was half-wrecked, but it was still standing.
And for the first time since the sky tore open, the Veil held quiet.
We'd just beaten a goddess with school spirit, a baseball bat, and Southern stubbornness.
The South: 1
The Void: 0