Page 275 of Mayhem and Minnie

“And I salvaged it.”

“You…” She swallows. “You went into the furnace after it?”

I wink at her. Of course I wasn’t about to let my hard work go to waste.

“Would it work?”

She takes it from my hand, handling it with great care.

A smile pulls at her lips.

“You valued it enough to save it,” she murmurs softly. “I should have valued it more, too.”

“So it works?”

She nods.

The demons blast the shield and another crack appears in the ice.

Sweat beads over Minnie’s forehead as she gets to her knees and places the ring on the floor. Next is the blood. She’s about to cut her own flesh when I stop her.

I take out my retractable blade and cut a straight line across my palm, letting the blood pour over the ring.

“Marlowe.” She gasps.

“Another offering.” I smile at her.

She wants to argue—I can tell. But there’s no time for it.

She’s getting paler by the minute. Hell, if she lost even a bit of blood, I’m sure it would have had an adverse effect on her physique with how weak she’s becoming.

She gives me a tight nod and gets to work.

Splaying her open palms over the blood-covered ring, she starts chanting in a foreign language.

Another blow to the shield creates an even larger crack. One that leads to a myriad of tiny fissures across the entire sphere. From my left, some pieces of ice are already starting to chip off.

Fuck.

It’s only a matter of seconds before they’ll poke a hole in the shield.

I rush to the area that’s about to rupture, and I place the crucifix against the inner part of the ice. When the next ball of smoke hits the weakened area, it’s diverted by the holiness of the crucifix.

Sweet.

I’ll have to ask Minnie later what the deal with holy objects is, especially since she mentioned it doesn’t matter what religion they come from—they’re all hallowed all the same.

That crack is safe for now.

Minnie continues chanting.

But the smoke balls concentrate on the upper part of the sphere now. The sides clear out, the demons becoming visible again.

The holes in their chests have enlarged as they channel that dark energy from within. It spills out of their bodies and spirals out in the air, going up five, six feet before descending with full force over our icy dome.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

With their concentrated efforts on one particular spot, the ice shield is quickly weakening. First, it’s the fissures. Then the small chips on the outer side. Then comes the first crack.

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