Page 85 of Grave Curse

Hades fanned a wild punch at Tyr’s jaw, opening up his side and back. Tyr took advantage. Something crunched when he plowed a massive fist into his uncle’s ribcage. The crowd did a collective wince, but I could only watch in mesmerized silence as Hades staggered away, a wounded animal believing there could still be a way out.

There was none.

I knew it, even if Hades did not.

Tyr moved in again, his attack as relentless as the tide. He danced his way in front of his uncle then kicked him directly under the chin as if Hades’s head were a football. His head snapped back, and I smiled as I caught two teeth flying off into the shadows.

The force of the kick spun Hades around before he crashed to his knees. But the instinct to survive yanked him back up almost immediately, though his legs seemed to be made of rubber. He staggered, then surprised me by launching a fierce jab toward Tyr’s Adam’s apple. But Tyr simply dodged it, leaning to the right before grabbing Hades’s extended arm and punching the elbow up sharply. Another horrible sound, this time a sharp snap, hit my ears half a second before Hades’s scream of pain, his arm now dangling at a grotesque angle as he howled like an animal.

“Beg me to end it for you now, old man, and the pain will stop,” Tyr said, barely out of breath. So far he hadn’t even been touched. “Beg me.”

“Fuck you, you piece of shit! I’ll kill you for this! I’ll kill you, kill you so fucking dead—”

“So you’re not there yet. That’s good. I’m not even warmed up, and you still have teeth to lose.”

Oh, how I loved this man.

“I get it now,” Tyr said, his voice as deadly as anything he’d thrown at Hades so far. “It’s no wonder you always went for Ginger, first a young girl and then a young woman, whenever you were in the mood to stick it to me. You fucking weak gasbag, you passed your prime about a generation ago, didn’t you? And you knew it. You knew it, so you hid it behind acts of cruelty.” Hades launched a drunken one-armed attack, which Tyr easily avoided, as light on his feet as a boxer. “You would’ve lost the Chicago Gravediggers long before now if you’d tried taking your fists to me, so you took them to Ginger, again and again. And every time you did, you fucking blamedmefor her torment. I’ve been able to stomach a lot of your stupid shit, but that is something I’ll never forgive.”

Then Tyr moved so fast it was impossible to track. He was just suddenly attacking Hades with a one-two punch to the face,and I was sure more teeth parted ways with his mouth. His jaw went sideways, and then time seemed to slow for me as I saw a punch land in a place I knew better than anyone how utterly it destroyed a person.

The solar plexus.

Hades crashed to the ground, vomiting and trying—and failing—to breathe.

Yessss, I thought with a glee so dark with vengeance I could all but feel it boiling from my eyes.Yes, Hades. Gasp. Gasp uselessly while the pain drowns you. Gasp while you realize this is what death feels like. Gasp, you vile monster. Gasp.

As Hades curled up on the parking lot’s pavement, Tyr looked up at me, a question in his whiskey-colored eyes.

I tilted my head and looked back to Hades while he made the same hiccupping noises I had made when I had struggled for my next breath so long ago. Seeing him struggle was so, so satisfying. Part of me wanted to stand there and watch him gasp out of his bloody, toothless mouth like a fish out of water. But if I did that, I couldn’t get on with the rest of my life.

It was over.

The fight.

The war.

Hades.

It was all over. Now…

It was time to let it go.

As if brushed with a miracle, my throat suddenly unlocked.

“Finish him, Tyr. Then let’s get busy making babies.”

With a grin as wild and free as I suddenly felt, Tyr turned back to Hades crumpled form on the pavement and braced himself behind him. Yanking the semiconscious leader of the Chicago Gravediggers up by his scraggly ponytail, Tyr’s gaze again found mine.

“The Chicago Gravediggers are no more, and with that club, also dies the Colgrave curse. Long live the Gravediggers.”

“Long live the Gravediggers!” My roar of approval mingled with the triumphant war cries of the Gravediggers as they circled Tyr, watching their chosen leader as he at last ended the terrible reign of Hades Colgrave.

Epilogue

One Week Later

Tyr

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