End of Night

Chapter Two

This isn't possible.

Wade is dead.

I saw him die.

But this god that stands before me with the blood of a friend on his hands is definitely Wade -at least, he is in the physical sense. This isn't the same, goofy demigod of Neptune that I knew -the one that wore giant floaties and was so devoted to the girl he loved that he became her Warrior. This is someone else entirely. A monster that I use to know.

His smile is wide but it is not kind. The gesture is not an expression of happiness, rather a dark sort of satisfaction. The monster in my friend's skin is proud that he killed Egan. That look of lazy amusement will haunt me for the rest of my long life.

"What happened to you?" Adam asks, horrified at what his friend has become.

Wade's bored blue eyes flick lazily to his friend. He half-smiles and gives a short, unkind laugh. "What happened to me?" He laughs again and spreads his arms out wide, inviting everyone to look at him. "I became a god!"

His next grin is wide and arrogant.

Adam is disgusted.

"What the hell is wrong with you? Wade, you killed Egan! He was one of your best friends! How can you act like that's nothing?" The demigod asks angrily, eyes blazing. He steps towards Wade, meaning to do something -anything- to stop our friend from continuing down this dark path, but ends up just staring at this new god, searching for some remnant of the silly demigod of Neptune we use to know.

Provoked now, god-Wade steps forward and glares down at Adam. Power hums from his newly divine pores, intimidating even Arawn and I. As a demigod, Wade had been incredibly hard to beat, but as a god? He'd be unstoppable.

"The demigod isn't dead yet. That was only his mortal shell," Wade says, his ocean blue eyes expressing how close he is to the edge. He extends a massive hand towards Egan's bloody corpse and, at first, nothing happens. Then a glowing red mist flows out of his mouth and dances in the air. I stare up at it, fascinated. What is that thing?

"This," Wade says as the mist collects above his outstretched hand, "is Egan."

A smirk tugs at his lips as he strolls down off the stairs. "You see, Egan here is in a very vulnerable position. He's not quite mortal, not quite immortal. I could release him and he would become a god, alive and well." The god pauses, looking up at us with a dark, sinister churn in his eyes. "But we wouldn't want that would we?"

Desperate to save my friend's life, I reach out with my mind and use my power to grab onto Egan's essence. I try to pull him to me, but Wade's hold on him is too strong, even for the goddess of death. So, instead, I begin to send the red essence my own energy, leaving myself dangerously vulnerable. Maybe with my help, Egan can make the transition to a god and then Wade won't be able to harm him.

Wade's eyes flick over to where I stand and narrow. His jaw clenches angrily and I know I'm caught.

"I don't think so, Thanatos," he grinds out.

Wade closes his fist and shatters what's left of Egan. The red mist fades away and all I know is pain. I drop to my knees, screaming and clutching my head in agony. Arawn drops to my side, begging me to tell him what's happening but I can't stop screaming long enough to tell him. To tell him that when Wade destroyed Egan's essence, he destroyed a piece of me as well.

I feel . . . wrong. There's a gaping hole inside of me and I don't know what's missing. For all I know, I could be human again -stripped of my powers. I collapse into my Warrior's arms, biting my lip as hard as I can to keep my screams silent. Blood leaks from my punctured lips and down my chin as I force myself to see through the pain.

Wade smirks down at me. "Such a shame," he says with false regret, "we could've used another god on our side."

"You sonofabitch!" Adam yells, charging the turned-god with his sword raised. Wade steps up to meet him with his own sword. Steel meets steel with a mighty clash just as the doors at the top of the staircase behind Wade burst open.

Through my blurred vision, I see Seraphina run in followed by a man with black hair and electric blue eyes carrying an unconscious Amora in his arms. His face is unfamiliar. He's not one of the demigods that volunteered to help us back at the Academy, in fact, he's not even a demigod at all. He's a god, one of Bel's I wouldn't doubt. Why is he helping Seraphina and Amora?

Seraphina stops dead on the stairs with her -Wade's- sword gripped loosely in her hand, eyes zeroing in on the ghost that's been haunting her for weeks now. The color drains from her face and she blinks once, twice, as if he'll disappear before her eyes. Trembling, she calls out with unshed tears in her voice, "W-Wade?"

The sea god freezes mid-battle and slowly turns to the demigoddess he swore on his life to protect. Seraphina lets out a choked gasp and runs to her Warrior, but he steps back. His sword hand shakes as he looks at her. Those reluctant ocean blue eyes drink her in and, for a moment, I'm looking at the real Wade again. His free hand reaches out as if to wipe the tears from his girlfriend's face, but stop mid-air and clenches into a tight fist.

We all watch in baited silence as he drops his arm to his side and grips his new sword until his knuckles turn white. Gone is the man who desperately loves the woman in front of him. The cold, cocky god is back with a smirk on his familiar face.

Seraphina, however, doesn't know what Wade has become and asks, "baby, what happened to you?" She places a small, shaky hand on the god's broad chest. Wade grabs it roughly with a cruel look on his face. "What happened to me?" He gets right in Seraphina's face as she trembles and begins to silently cry. "I died."

He shoves her away harshly just as Amora begins to stir in the new guy's arms.

Her pretty blue eyes open and the first thing they see is Egan's bloody corpse slumped on the floor. With her mouth open in silent horror, she grips mystery man's shirt in her fists and lets out a wet sob. "Don't look," the man says with a deep timbre as he pulls her closer, shielding her from her boyfriend's body. His electric eyes search until they find Adam and he puts Amora in the stone demigod's arms just as Wade begins to turn away from Seraphina, ready to finish his battle with Adam. Urgently the man says, "get her out of here. I'll hold him off but you need to hurry! The others will be coming soon."

Without a moment of hesitation, everyone springs into action around me. Adam, carrying a hysterical Amora, turns and runs towards the exit. Lena darts forward and grabs Seraphina, who's screaming over and over again that we can't leave Wade. She gives up fighting when we begin to hear the roar of water and the rumble of thunderclouds overhead and turns and runs with tears streaming down her face.

Arawn lifts me into his strong arms and I'm unable to do anything but lie there limply as he whispers that everything is going to be okay and he's going to make me all better again. He holds me close and runs out of the room, leaving the mystery god, Wade and Egan's body behind us as we flee.

We emerge from the concrete hallway into the night where Hades and the demigods wait for us.

Although we did manage to rescue Amora, we lost Egan and left Wade and the god with the electric blue eyes that saved Amora to die. I failed them all. If I hadn't so stupidly sent out my energy to Egan, Wade might not have been so eager to kill him and maybe I could have stopped Wade long enough for the mystery god to make it out too.

I look back over Arawn's shoulder and the last thing I see before I fall into unconsciousness is the warehouse, lit up with the blinding light of a lightning strike.