"I don't know! No one does."
"Bullshit." The woman's desperation was clear in her gaze. "You will tell me!" She turned her attention to past-Death, digging the knife into her neck.
Past-Death met her gaze. "You know what, Harmony? I do know where it is. But I won't tell you. Kill me, and you can rot in Hell right beside me."
"Deidre!" Gabriel called sharply. "Tell her -"
Harmony wrenched past-Death's head back. "Say hello to Darkyn you bitch."
Past-Death closed her eyes. In the moment before death, she was certain of one thing.
She'd never, ever betray her Gabriel, not for power or her life. This was what love was: putting someone else above her own interests, something Gabriel had done to her his whole life. I understand now. The realization made her want to sob that it took her death for her to understand what was truly worth living.
Lightning slashed the sky overhead, and a burst of wind knocked her and Harmony to the ground. Stunned not to be dead, Past-Death lay still for a long moment, sucking in deep breaths of air. She started to crawl away on her knees, anxious to reach Gabriel or the safety of the palace.
Harmony snatched her and dragged her back, shoving her onto her back and climbing on top of her.
"This ends now!" the death dealer shouted, knife at past-Death's throat.
"Holy gods and goddesses." It wasn't the infuriated death dealer on top of her or the bite of the blade into her neck that had past-Death's attention, but the sky overhead.
Harmony glanced up then sat back.
Past-Death stared as the inky black tendrils of the storm snaked across the sky, writhing as if they were real. They were followed by clouds too dark to allow the smallest sliver of light through, a black hole devouring everything. Clouds dropped from the sky, snatching up death dealers and tossing them into the center of the storm, where they were completely swallowed.
The form of the remaining ogre whirled round and round in the sky above the palace until it, too, was sucked into the black hole at its center.
"Get the fuck away from my mate!" Gabriel's roar split the air, his sword flying over past-Death's head to impale a nearby death dealer.
Harmony ducked the dagger he threw and rolled off her, yanking more weapons free as she leapt to her feet.
Past-Death scrambled up, was pushed back by the wind, and clawed her way to her feet once more. The storm was snatching dealers off the rooftop left and right, the screams and chaos blinding her as much as the hair she couldn't keep out of her face.