“Cari!” a low, male voice shouted.
The human.
She turned, Shadow sweeping behind her, to relish the brilliant blue light of his soul. She heard his heartbeat in her mind. Ba-boom, Ba-boom. Smelled the earthy funk of sweat, iron, and semen. Could almost taste the sweet salt of him.
She’d been wanting him. It’d been so long since she’d had a man and now was as good a time as any. Blood beat between her legs in anticipation. She was alive!
The human grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the door. The fae trapped above screamed with her passage.
Not now, pets.
“What the pitch was that?” he demanded.
Such passion. She laughed and twined an arm around his fine shoulders. Put her mouth to his neck.
“Francis!” the human yelled. “The wards. Now!” Then lower. “Got to get you out of here.”
The bug appeared holding a stone. Or maybe the stone was holding him. She couldn’t be sure. It could go both ways with greed.
The human dragged her toward the foyer, wrapped his arm around her waist, and pulled her close to his hard body as he opened the door. “Your nose is bleeding,” he growled.
She licked her lip. Sweet. Delicious.
The thin veil of Shadow cloaking the place disappeared. What a curious thing.
“Now,” the human said and pulled her across the threshold.
Outside, the sky was blue blue blue—a day sky—not Twilight black. She tilted her face upward and opened her heart to take the sun inside her, while her entourage screamed at the searing heat.
“What did Francis do to you?” the human demanded when the door slammed shut.
Francis? Oh, the bug. Yes. She sent a flick of Shadow back, heard the crisp shatter of glass, the cry of the fae . . . the scream of the bug as the dark ones took him.
The human looked at her in horror, which was not quite the same as passion—she was about to instruct him thus—but a searing light across the way had her earthly eyes squinting.
Her mood soured as she recognized what had disturbed her.
“Angel,” she spat.
Patience. Watchfulness. Preparedness. These are required when hunting a cunning rat.
Xavier kept his distance from the Vauclain wards, but took his adversary’s measure.
Cari Dolan.
The father, Caspar, had been scorched from the Earth, but the plague had passed over the heir. And of all magekind, she was the first that needed to die.
Cari Dolan’s death was imperative.
Ignorance is not the same as innocence. Youth is not the same as purity. Blood will out. Dolan House required destruction, or every other effort was lost.
Thus far, she’d been protected by exposure—television crews at her place of business and cameras held by the rabble of humans at her home. This age was too filled with technology to hope for secrecy. He’d had to let her pass by him too many times.
But the time had come. His enduring patience had indeed provided.
Divine light filled Xavier with scorching purpose. The world could not suffer her to live. Not again. Never again. He dropped his sign, proclaiming The End of the World, to reach for his spear. He lifted the heavenly weapon, primed his arm, his aim sure, and hurled it toward the witch.
Detective Anderson flew at the vagrant. Where had the fucking yellow spear come from? He hit a wall of strength, as if the old man’s body were made of solid rock. Brian’s 200 lbs didn’t even shift the vagrant’s balance; Brian bounced back, hit a park bench cock-eyed—his still-healing ribs screamed. Wheeling toward the Vauclain property, he watched the spear cut through the air to where Cari Dolan and her companion stood.
And he groaned with relief when the aim faltered.
Mason shoved Cari behind him, heard the dull cough of her body hitting the wards. The dense concentration of Shadow went out of her as a steel-bright spear whizzed by them. It hit the Vauclain wards with a warped tang that all but shattered his teeth.
Cari whimpered at the sound. Her hands gripped him at his sides.
Mason drew his gun and fired, the report barely kicking back to his wrist. His weapon, treated with Shadow, never missed.
But the old man snatched the bullet out of the air with his bare hand and dropped it on the ground beside him.
What had Cari said? Angel?
Kaye Brand and Jack Bastian had stopped the hostilities between Shadow and Order. Had something happened? Was this war?
Mason locked eyes with the angel across the street in the small park. He was old and dirty—looked homeless—and yet absolute in his perfection. The way he stared at—or through—him was uncanny.
Mason drew himself up. His gun was a joke, so his best defense—for Cari and himself—was his soul. An angel wouldn’t hurt a human. They were bound to protect souls, and if Jack Bastian told the truth—though Mason wouldn’t put it past him to lie—then this angel wouldn’t go through him to get to a mage.
“Your life will be a noble sacrifice. Cari Dolan needs to die.” His voice carried effortlessly across the street between them as the angel started forward to finish what he’d started.
Shit. Mason glanced at Cari. Her nose was bleeding. She was half-collapsed against the Vauclain Wards.
He needed a different kind of weapon. Less predictable.
Mason lunged for a man-hole cover on the sidewalk. As soon as he touched it, Shadow pushed through the metal, overcoming and replacing the bonds of the atoms with Mason’s will. The bolts holding the cover in place spun at his command, and Mason lifted and flung it in a desperate wind and release.
The thick, metal disk cut through the air, propelled by magic. It hit the side of a speeding car—a red M5—which fishtailed. And hit the back of a Prius, accelerating the vehicle to strike the angel at his hip. He went down. Score.
Mason, chest heaving, backed again to Cari, who’d smeared the blood from her nose across her cheek. Her eyes were still glazed.
And the motherfucker angel was getting up again. The zigzag wreck of the cars slowed him slightly, as did the drivers now opening their car doors.
Mason looked around for more ammo—he hated clean and tidy streets. Saw the spear stuck like a sliver of sun in a bush. Grabbed for it.
He’d held all sorts of things with sharp ends, but never a spear. He made to clutch it with both hands, but the weapon was already morphing in his grip to a slender sword, lighter, easier to wield. Yes, much better for hacking up angels.
The angel in question smiled as he gained the sidewalk. “You must be an emissary of Order for the weapon to change into the required blade of the moment.”
Mason raised the sword. “Believe me. I’m not.” He didn’t like any of the angels he’d met.
“The weapon reveals it to be a foregone conclusion,” the angel said. “You will be angelic. Perhaps momentarily.”
The angel’s arm licked out, but Mason’s stray instincts had him already dropping to evade. He swiped simultaneously.
The angel dodged, but not before being slashed along his side. Scarlet bled into his rent shirt. Mason rolled back up, but the angel’s reflexes were superhuman. He got there first, jabbing Mason in the back so that he went down again, vulnerable, on all fours.
Then the angel lunged toward Cari.
But not before someone else got in the way.
“On the ground!” a man shouted, gun drawn and pointed at the angel.
Mason grabbed a breath and spun to his feet. He hadn’t even noticed the other man’s approach. Seemed like a plainclothes cop.
Another cop, backup, appeared and braced himself opposite. “Let me see your hands!”
A third joined them, gun ready. But this one looked over at Mason, his eyes blazing with terrible white light, so Mason knew him for an angel, too.