She wasn’t lying.

  “Then why didn’t you just ask? I was raw enough. I would have done it.”

  She looked sad. Genuinely sad. “Would you have understood that I needed to go to Hell? Would have have understood why? You were a Divine for all of three days. Even now, I’m not sure you’ll understand.”

  “You went to Hell on purpose?” I asked. “You’re right, I don’t understand. But I guess that’s why we’re here.”

  I felt one last pinch from Ulnyx, and the cracked glass shattered. It was like being released from a hypnotic trance, with all of the clarity and understanding flooding into me at once. I don’t know how Rebecca had done it, but the Were had helped me escape.

  “It wasn’t enough to survive, was it? Not for a demon. You needed to become the Queen.”

  This whole time I had been pinning the title on Charis, sure that she was the one trying to trip me up. Demon Queen was a title, not a name. The most powerful female demon on Earth. But why the glamour? Why try to keep me from seeing it? Another test?

  “I need more than that,” she said, reaching out and touching my hand. “You once asked me if we could be together. We can, Landon. I want us to. I went to Hell because I needed to learn. I returned because what I was taught will allow us, you and me, to change everything. Angels, demons, and humans living together. A future for all of us. A future for the two of us.”

  Some of what she said were true, but not all of it. I realized with a start that whatever spell she had put on me, it wasn’t to keep me from identifying her as the Demon Queen. It was to keep me from recognizing her lies. That she had told them at all was my hint that she had no idea the charm had been broken. Which part had she been lying about?

  “Gervais told me about your plans for the future,” I said. I decided to keep dancing to her tune, to see what she might reveal.

  “Gervais is almost as simple as Reyzl,” she snapped, her eyes flashing empty and black for the barest of instants. “What he thinks he knows, and what is true are two completely different things. There’s a war, Landon. A hidden war whose boundaries aren’t as clearly drawn as Heaven versus Hell. I know you’ve been tracking the messages. It’s how I lured you here.”

  ‘Lured’ was an interesting choice of words. Would I have heard it before, or would I have heard something else? “What is the war about? And what do you need me for?”

  She smiled again, leaning forward so that her… Cho’s face was close to mine. “Change,” she said. “Justice. Power. The end of an old, tired God.”

  Did she say God? I fought to stay composed. “Mankind is part of this new world order?” I asked.

  “Of course, my love,” she said, her eyes dilating, her voice a coo. “The dark brothers and sisters will need sustenance in the days to come, and all of us can benefit from slaves.”

  It took all of my will to keep up the charade. She had said “my love.” It was no lie. She had also said she intended to use humans as slaves and meat. My stomach turned.

  “As for you,” she continued, “your power is obvious. And there are other things I want from you.”

  She was standing now, leaning towards me, her lips hungry. I wasn’t ready to show my hand, so I leaned forward and joined her in the kiss. It was deep, and emotional, and I could feel her power burning through her saliva and licking at my soul.

  “What about Sarah?” I asked, once the kiss had ended. It had taken my breath away, despite the fact that a good part of me was finding her words repulsive. There was still some piece in there somewhere that knew absolute evil, that embraced it and found succor in it. It was the part of me that still cared for her, and it had a strong voice.

  “She’s our prize,” she said. “It’s her power that will end the old God, and allow a new one to take His place.”

  A new one? “How do you replace a God?” This wasn’t balance. This was betrayal beyond anything I could have imagined.

  “Just say you’re with me, and you’ll see.”

  I took a deep breath. I closed my eyes. I focused on Rebecca-as-Cho, mentally reaching for the strand of power that I knew had to be connecting them. It wasn’t hard to find, her energy was so great that it writhed and pulsated in a huge, bright, tendon.

  “How can I say no to you?” I asked.

  “I knew you wouldn’t,” she said, smiling.

  It was time to end the charade. I took hold of the tendon and squeezed it tight, causing Cho’s eyes to open wide and his jaw to fall slack. “You’re the fool,” I hissed. “You either overestimated yourself, or underestimated me, but be assured that I’ll stop you. This is the realm of man, and it’s going to stay that way.”

  I pulled the plug on her, and Cho tumbled backward into his chair. His eyes closed, and then opened. The archvampire laughed.

  “I told her you wouldn’t do it,” he said. “Her love for you clouds her judgement.”

  I didn’t have time to reply, because it was all I could do to duck back away from his fingers that stretched and sharpened into razor claws. His pupils vanished in a sea of black, and his fangs hung out over his lip.

  Screams filled the restaurant. Cho came at me, his body a blur of motion, leaping over the table. I focused, lifting the table up and slamming it into him, pushing him upwards into the ceiling. He left a dent in the plaster before he fell back to the ground, landing on his feet.

  My Sight exploded as six more vampires revealed themselves. She had hidden them from me.

  “Where is she?” I shouted at Cho, rushing forward, leading with my fists. He ducked away from the blows, the smile still on his face.

  “You can still change your mind,” he said. “Stop this now. She wants to be with you. You saw the gift she left you.” He came back with an attack of his own, his claws moving faster than I thought possible, catching my chest before I could move beyond them. It hurt, but it healed.

  I could still hear the screams. I twisted my head and saw that the other vampires weren’t coming for me. They were attacking the patrons. I looked back at Cho. He stood motionless, waiting to see what I would do.

  “You don’t need to save them,” he said. “You aren’t one of them. Not anymore. It isn’t your job to protect them. Come with me, be a king and claim your queen.”

  “I’d ask you to send her a message from me, but you aren’t going to live to do it,” I said, overtaken by the total calm of absolute understanding. I focused, throwing Cho against the wall and pinning him with solid air. “Wait there.”

  I grabbed the closest weapon at hand, a steak knife lying on the nearest table. Screams still drowned out any other sound in the room, though the vampires were thinning the ranks in a hurry. I leaped on the nearest one and jabbed the knife into the back of his head, letting the silver blade sink through his skull. He cried out and dropped the woman he had been drinking from, falling face-first to the floor with a kick to the back of his spine.

  He should have been out of the fight, a silver shard in his brain more than enough to keep him down. I watched while his hand reached around, seeking the blade. When he found it, he pulled it out, and the wound immediately closed over. I looked back at Cho, who was laughing in his prison. I realized why he had been familiar to me. I realized why all of the vampires were familiar to me. My blood was running in their veins, passed from the Holy Grail to Rebecca’s lips, and from Rebecca’s body to theirs.

  The room fell quiet, the bodies of the people who had been enjoying a quiet night out at a fine restaurant left scattered on the floor. Some had been drained, others just put down like no more than meat. I reached for Ulnyx’s power, but I knew I couldn’t fight all of them like that. The Were’s form was massively powerful, but it was also massive, an easy target and difficult to maneuver in confined spaces. I swung my head in a circle, searching for anything that I could use. There was nothing that would be enough.

  “You’re fortunate, Mr. Hamilton,” Cho said, still trapped in my cage. There was no point wasting my energy on it. I let him go.

  “Why is that?” I asked as he walked over.

  “She wasn’t lying when she said she needed you.” He reached into his pocket, taking out a small black box covered in seraphim scripture. It bore a resemblance to a Rubik’s cube, one made of polished ebony and inlaid with gold. “It’s hard to hold a diuscrucis. At least when they resist.”

  I didn’t need him to tell me what it was, I had met its former inhabitants only hours earlier. So that was why they had been set free. I looked over his shoulder at the window behind him.

  “You won’t make it,” he said, placing the box on the ground in front of me. “Avriel was careless. He didn’t ward his trap from use by demons.”

  My mind was racing, trying to find a way out. I could reach the window, I was sure of it. Whether I would have enough left to survive the fall was the real question. I would have to find out.

  Cho started speaking, his voice smoothly reciting the language of God’s children. The scripture on the box began to glow, softly at first but gaining intensity. I could feel it pulling at me, beckoning to me. I was out of time.

  I heard the elevator door slide open. I heard the boom of a gun, and felt the sting of buckshot rip into my flesh. Cho stumbled backward, his chest spreading open, his skin hissing. Three more shots fired, and I heard the cries of pain from the other vampires. The smell of frankincense filled the air.

  “Well,” said a voice from the edge of the elevator. “Are you going to stand there, or are you going to escape?”

  I was going to escape. I ran to the elevator, bending down and grabbing the box on the way. When I reached the doors, a meaty hand grabbed my shoulder and threw me inside. Two more rounds fired from the shotgun, peppering the vampires with more of the buckshot.

  “How?” I asked. The shot was only slowing them, but it was working a lot better than the silver had. The elevator began its descent.

  “Plastic shot,” he said, “filled with holy water.”

  I looked up at my rescuer. Way up. He was a monster of a man, at least seven feet tall, with thick arms, thick legs, and a round middle. His long wool overcoat made him look even bigger, hanging from broad shoulders down to his size twenty-something combat boots. He had long brown hair with huge sideburns and a heavy goatee that made his eyes look tiny and lost on his face. He was holding the shotgun in one hand like it was some kind of toy, using his other to reload it.

  “We’re not going to make it,” I said. I focused my Sight above us. The vamps were forcing open the elevator door and starting to come down.

  “Take a look around, Landon,” he said.

  I looked down. The Divine I had Seen earlier were encircling the base of the Tower. Touched, but not like any Touched I had ever met before. Just like the behemoth in the elevator with me.

  “If you could get me a clear shot, I’d appreciate it,” he said.

  I focused, ripping the metal around us away so that he had a good view of the vampires crawling down the side of the Tower. He fired again, and the lead vamp stopped moving as its face was shredded. A moment later I heard an even louder pop, and the demon was ripped from its perch and tossed aside like a rag doll.

  “You know my name, but I don’t know yours,” I said.

  “Ezekiel,” he said. “You can call me Zeek.” He held out his massive ham hand. I took it and gave it a strong shake. “You’re lucky M’lady has been keeping an eye on you.”

  Two more pops, and another scream as a vampire was blasted from the Tower. A shout sounded from the ground, and I looked down to see that Cho had skipped the climb. He was already earthbound, finding the shooters and tearing them apart. The moment our ride touched down, I made to head in the archvampire’s direction. Zeek grabbed me.

  “I said escape,” he said, pointing across the street to a plain gray van.

  “They’ll die,” I said, throwing his hand from my shoulder.

  He nodded. “They’re ready to die. I don’t like it either, but there’s no other way. You can’t beat Cho right now without bringing the world down around you.”

  I knew it was true, and it wasn’t time to bring the world down around me. Not yet. I let him lead me to the van. I could see Cho watching us as we pulled away, his mouth covered in the blood of Zeek’s allies, that damn smile still on his face.

  Chapter 16

  We drove in silence for the first ten minutes, Zeek’s mind surely on the fate of his comrades, my mind reeling from the discoveries I had made. The biggest one, the one that was twisting the knife in my gut deeply enough to be twisting Josette too - Rebecca was fighting for the wrong team, and Sarah was with Rebecca. No, that wasn’t it. Sarah was helping Rebecca. I had no proof, but I was sure of it.

  I could have agonized over what I had done wrong in watching out for her, and helping to raise her. Too much ‘ninja training’? Not enough attention? Not enough affection? I knew it was none of those things. She was a real diuscrucis, and like it or not evil was in her nature. So was good, which meant there was still hope. Just as much as I was sure she was helping Rebecca, I was just as sure that the new Demon Queen had manipulated her into doing it. Maybe all it had taken was to put her in front of Gervais with the opportunity to get even.

  Still, I longed for a minute to breath, to try to relax and close my eyes, to get back to Josette so we could work our way through everything together. I’d even welcome Ulnyx at this point, to lend me his demonic perspective. There had to be some benefit to having his soul mixed with mine beyond an enhanced sense of smell and the ability to shift into a huge smelly monster. I had a feeling minutes to breath would get harder to come by, not easier.

  “Where are we going?” I asked Zeek, breaking the silence at last. I could see the guilt and pain written on the man’s giant face. I could smell the intensity of his emotions.

  “I’m taking you to M’lady,” he replied. “Two hours to the airport, another two to Zurich. We’ll be there before dawn.”

  Back the way I had come. We’d likely be flying over Gervais’ chateau, where Izak and Lylyx were waiting. “I need to make a phone call,” I said, reaching into my pocket and pulling out my cell.

  It rang twice before Lylyx picked it up. “Lylyx, it’s Landon. You’ve got to get Izak, and you’ve got to get out of the chateau. Tell him to take you somewhere safe, I’m sure he knows where.”

  “Landon, are you okay?” Lylyx asked. Her concern was sincere.

  “I’ve been better, but I’ll survive,” I replied. “I want you to survive too. Where’s Izak?”

  “He’s still down in the basement with Gervais, but at least the screaming stopped a while ago. I came upstairs. I can be evil, and I can be cruel, and I can kill anything that tries to stop me from getting what I want, but this was something else. What’s going on?”

  I couldn’t imagine anything that would rattle a Great Were. It made my skin crawl. “I don’t have time to explain. Just get him and get out. I’m pretty sure there are some nasty demons headed your way, and I don’t think even Izak can take them all. I’ll call you again when I have more time.”

  “Okay,” Lylyx said. “Stay safe.”

  I looked over at Zeek. Something told me that was going to be a hard request to grant. “You too,” I said. I hung up.

  “Lylyx is working for them,” Zeek said.

  “Not anymore,” I replied. “That’s why I need to get her someplace safe. Once Rebecca finds out I took over the pack, she’s going to be out for blood.” Not to mention, she had been surprised that Izak was still alive. There was no way she wasn’t going to try to rectify that miscalculation.

  He raised his eyebrow. “You took over the pack?”

  “I absorbed the soul of their former alpha, a Great Were named Ulnyx. He told me about some loophole that let me challenge for position.”

  Zeek’s laughter boomed and echoed in the van. “M’lady is going to love that one,” he said. His mirth spent, he returned to glowering. “You said Ulnyx?” he asked after another breath. “I knew a were once who went by that name. It was a long time ago.” His small eyes rotated towards me. “Ulnyx is a pretty uncommon name, even for a demon. Maybe he knows me? I went under a different name back then. They called me Tobias the Grand.”

  I felt Ulnyx kick, hard. Zeek smiled, a friendly but malevolent smile. The demon’s power surged in me, and I sensed the memory flooding forward, overwhelming my defenses, and dropping me towards darkness. Zeek’s smile faded, his brow furrowing. I heard him say my name, but then he vanished in the present.

  “Uncle, look!”

  Rolix is excited when he sees the red flag raised high in the center of the village, a signal to the outlying properties that the King’s Fair is in town. I look over at the pup and smile, the fair always means good hunting.

  “Do you think they’ll have acrobats, like the fair back home?” he asks.

  At nearly sixteen, Rolix is barely a pup any longer, the time for his first hunt upon him. It’s the reason we’ve traveled so far, from the familiar humidity of the Delta to the coldness of the west. Along the way I have taught him all that I know about survival, and some of what I know about thriving in our world. It’s rare for the alpha to embark on a First Hunt with any of the brood, but Rolix is his father’s son, and his father is the only one in the pack I can trust. This is the depth of our bond, forged in the blood of our enemies and strengthened by domination. Rolix is also the closest I’ll ever come to offspring of my own.

  “You are a pup still, Rolix,” I say. “But come nightfall you will have outgrown acrobats and magicians. If you haven’t, you won’t survive for long.” It’s a cold reality, one that all of the pack must be prepared for if they’re to survive.

  Rolix growls and nods in agreement. “I know that Uncle. Since it is my last day to enjoy it; I want to savor it one final time, before I cast it from my mind forever.”