Page 255 of Psycho Gods

Fifteen dead in total: fourteen foot soldiers and the last devil from the devil legion. I had a terrible feeling about the last death.

I wrote out the numbers numbly.

Forty-four soldiers were left, less than half the hundred men and women we’d started with.

So many dead.

The angels didn’t bother to show up to give the report. A sign of their defiant cowardice.

I spoke in a monotone voice to Dick. He was optimistic and thought the war was going well.

Behind him, Lothaire stared at me with an intense expression. “You can do this. Keep going.” He mouthed. “It’s almost over.”

I gave him a small smile.

It was strange to have a parental figure that cared. It was even stranger that a violent one-eyed vampyre was my father.

I never saw it coming.

He beamed at me like he was proud.

Warmth filled my chest.

When the screen clicked off, hives broke out across my chest. There was only one infected settlement left on the map, but unlike Dick, I had a bad feeling in my gut.

The next day, the men returned.

Two days later, the angels told us the new coordinates in a monotone voice. They’d worked fast.

There was no time to recover.

No dallying.

Once again, we went to war.

Chapter 51

Aran

THE RECKONING

Schlimazel (noun): a consistently unlucky person.

DAY 34, HOUR 22

We RJE’d into a blizzard.

This was it.

The forest outside the last infected settlement.

The battle that would end the war.

Even with layers of protection, the freezing temperatures hurt as the snow pummeled us. My eyes stung as my lashes crusted with ice.

Forty-four of us trudged forward through the storm.

Hunched low.