Simon entered the storm at a run, just as the Apocalypse vanished. A stroke of lightning brighter than the surface of the sun flashed towards him, but Simon showed it what he’d written on his hand with a Sharpie he carried, right after War had left him.

The lightning bolt didn’t like it, and struck something else instead.

He muttered the Saying Of The Kestrel while sticking his fingers out and curling them like a bird-of-prey’s talons, and he was airborne, buffeted sideways on the wind until he told it the 15th Secret Of Xun Zhihui and now that wind liked him, lifted him and cradled him and told the other winds Simone had wrought to stop bothering them, Simon was his.

He was over and in front of the demon he’d wrought. She was on her knees, holding herself, curled like a supplicant.She snapped her head up and snarled.

“You can go home peacefully, you gorram bitch, or I can send you home the hard way.”

“Fuck you,” she spat. “I’m your fucking god, now. Your soul is mine.”