“Thomas Hobbes called. He wants his thesis back.”

“Children are innocent and pure. We spare them a lifetime of misery. In a brief flash of pain, their souls join our god in the glorious eternity of the afterlife.”

“How very noble. Your god feeds on suffering.”

The ma’avir gave me a condescending smile. “All gods feed on suffering. Without it, there are no prayers or offerings. Mankind is selfish. They give only when they have to. If this world was idyllic and life was just, what need would there be for gods?”

The more he talked, the higher the chance I had of learning why he was in Atlanta. But he was too high up on the food chain to let something slip unless I got him agitated. I had to bait him.

“The Christian God doesn’t require blood sacrifice.”

The ma’avir laughed softly. “Oh, but he did. Their god thirsted for blood, he demanded it, and when his ratings slipped, he hid behind a kinder, softer version of himself. How many died in that humble god’s name? How many killed for the martyr? Firstborn sons were his favorite.”

That’s right. Keep ranting. “And yet his followers flourish.”

The ma’avir sneered. “The gullible who willingly swallow lies and the blind who shut their own eyes for the fear they will see the truth. The cults of Abraham. The biggest con of the modern world.”

How to insult Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in three sentences or less. “Tell me, when I kill you, will you pass into the glorious eternity of the afterlife and bask in the love of your god?”

He smiled. “Eventually when I die, yes. But it won’t be today, and it won’t be by your hand.”

He was very sure of that. I leaned forward. “One thing puzzles me. Perhaps you can clear it up, given your vast knowledge.”

“I shall do my best.”

“Those Abrahamic religions you sneer at chased your god out of the world, because nobody wants to sacrifice their children and their future to a rabid glutton eager for the next hit off the sacrificial altar. Since nobody knows who he is, Moloch is starving for followers and he had to be reborn. He became flesh.”

The ma’avir stared at me. Hold on, I’m getting to it.

“So, answer me this, high priest. If I kill you now, and you pass through the mortal veil, what will you find on the other side? Your glorious eternity is empty. Your god isn’t there. He is in Arizona digging in the dirt. Your soul will float in nothing, lost and alone. Do you know what hell is? Hell is the absence of god.”

His face rippled. Ha! Direct hit. I sank his battleship.

The ma’avir opened his mouth. “Say what you wish. Fight with everything you have. Struggle, kick, bite, none of it matters. He wants you and you will come to him. You will dedicate yourself to him, and when that moment comes, you will beg to bring him your mother’s head on a silver platter. You will weep tears of gratitude when he devours her eyes.”

“That’s beautiful. You should write that down. If my journey is so inevitable, what are you doing here in Atlanta? Why not just wait for me?”

He leaned forward, the flames inside him flaring. “I will carve you into pieces and bring them to my god. The drop of power you stole will keep you alive, and when you awaken half a century from now in his fiery embrace, we will speak again.”

Fear hammered a cold spike through my heart. I could see it in my head, my body in pieces, clinging to life, aware, watching, but powerless as everyone I cared about died one by one. I had to kill him. If he won, what kind of world would I wake up to?

The high priest showed me his teeth, blood-red fangs made of fire. “I can hear your heart flutter. I watched you walk around this city you used to call home, wearing pretend arrogance like armor. Now you understand. He is a god and you are still an abandoned child craving approval and shivering in the dark.”

The fear crystalized into a new emotion and I let it fuel me. “Fear isn’t the only thing that can make a heart flutter.”

“What else is in your heart, orphan child?”

“Rage.”

I spat power words, a command from a language so old, it shaped magic itself. “Sert ranam girreh!” Bar the city gates.

Magic pulsed from me in a flash of blinding pain, splashing against the boundaries of the room, and burst into an invisible wall, cutting us off from reality. My grandmother used this spell millennia ago when enemy armies besieged Shinar cities.

The ma’avir recoiled.

I leapt over the desk, Dakkan in my hands, and stabbed at the priest, aiming just under the breastbone. The spearhead shone with red as it sliced the air. I had brought two canteens full of vampire blood primed with my own. An hour ago, when I took up my post behind the desk, I had coated Dakkan in the blood mix and solidified it, turning the metal spearhead into a razor-sharp blood weapon.

The ma’avir turned to smoke. The spear pierced him and passed through with no resistance.

The swirl of smoke surged to the window and rammed the invisible magic wall, turning solid for a micro-second. The magic tolled in my head like a giant bell being struck with a hammer.

I stabbed at him and he went ethereal again. My spearhead shredded smoke.

The high priest streamed toward the door and slammed into my wall again. I thrust at him before the sound of the impact rolled through me. Dakkan met only air. Missed again. Damn it. I couldn’t stab smoke, and he couldn’t break the wall unless he turned solid. Fine. I could keep this up until he got tired or I got lucky.

We danced across the room, him throwing himself at the boundary and me trying to nail him with my spear to it. The world shrank to the clump of smoke and the tip of my spear.

Where was the fire? Absorbing Moloch’s eye granted me some immunity, but it had limits, and a high priest would burn through them in a single blast. Why wasn’t this room a sea of fire?

Using the language of power took a hefty chunk of my magic. I could hit him with another one—I had a whole arsenal at my disposal—but there was no guarantee it would work. He was holding back, and until I knew the full extent of his power, so would I. The blood spear would work just fine.

Stab. Stab. Stab.

My spear sliced through solid flesh. Fire splashed the magic wall, and then the ma’avir was smoke again. Nicked him. I just had to be a hair faster.

The smoke turned into fire. A glowing nebula of light and heat splayed out near the ceiling and contracted, like a star collapsing into a tiny white-hot spark. It shot across the room like a bullet, shrinking into a blinding mote of light, and bit into my wall.