Finale

fabricated in a secret lab? I had to tell Patch. “Is the drink you gave me the same one you’ve been testing for Blakely?”

“Yes.” A crafty smile. “Now you understand what I’m talking about.”

If he wanted accolades, he wasn’t getting them from me. “How many Nephilim know about the drink or have ingested it?”

Dante leaned back on the bench and sighed. “Are you asking for yourself?” He paused with meaning. “Or to share our secret with Patch?”

I hesitated, and Dante’s face fell.

“You have to choose, Nora. You can’t be loyal to us and Patch. You’re making an admirable go of it, but in the end, loyalty is about taking a side. You’re either with the Nephilim or against us.”

The worst part of this conversation was that Dante was right. Deep down, I knew it. Patch and I had agreed that our endgame in the war was to come out of it safely together, but if I still maintained that that was my only goal, where did it leave the Nephilim? I was supposedly their leader, asking them to believe I was going to help them, but I really wasn’t.

“If you tell Patch about devilcraft, he won’t sit on the information,” Dante said. “He’ll go after Blakely and try to destroy the lab. Not out of a lofty sense of moral duty, but out of self-preservation. This isn’t just about Cheshvan anymore,” he explained. “My goal isn’t to push fallen angels back behind some arbitrary line, such as stopping them from possessing us. My goal is to annihilate the entire fallen angel race using devilcraft. And if they don’t already know it, they’re going to figure it out soon.”

I sputtered. “What?”

“Hank had a plan. This was it. The extinction of their race. Blakely believes that with a little more time, he can develop a prototype of a weapon strong enough to kill a fallen angel, something that was never even considered possible. Until now.”

I jumped off the bench and began pacing the floor. “Why are you telling me this?”

“It’s time to make your choice. Are you with us or not?”

“Patch isn’t the problem. He isn’t working with fallen angels. He doesn’t want war.” Patch’s only goal was making sure I stayed in power, fulfilled my oath, and came out alive. But if I told him about devilcraft, Dante was right: Patch would do everything he could to destroy it.

“If you tell him about devilcraft, it’s over for us,” Dante said.

He was asking me to either betray him, Scott, and thousands of innocent Nephilim . . . or Patch. A heavy weight roiled my stomach. The pain was so sharp, I nearly doubled over.

“Take the afternoon to think about it,” Dante said, rising to his feet. “Unless I hear otherwise, I’ll expect you to be ready to train first thing tomorrow.” He watched me a moment, his brown eyes steady but holding a shade of doubt. “I hope we’re still on the same side, Nora,” he said quietly, then walked out.

I stayed in the building several minutes, sitting in the semidarkness, surrounded by the bizarrely cheerful squeals and laughter of children trying to do the Hokey Pokey in roller skates. I bowed my head and hid my face in my hands. This wasn’t how things were supposed to happen. I was supposed to call off the war, declare a cease- fire, and walk away from it all to be with Patch.

Instead Dante and Blakely had plowed ahead, picked up right where Hank had left off, and raised the stakes to all or nothing. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t think Dante and Blakely, and all Nephilim for that matter, stood a chance at annihilating fallen angels, but I suspected that devilcraft changed everything. And what did it mean for my half of the deal? If the Nephilim waged war without me, would the archangels still hold me accountable?

Yes. Yes, they would.

Wherever Blakely was holed up, undoubtedly guarded by his own small and vigilant Nephilim security detail, it was clear he was experimenting with more powerful and more dangerous prototypes. He was the root of the problem.

Which put finding him, and his secret lab, at the top of my priority list.

Right after I found Patch. My stomach somersaulted with worry, and I sent up yet another silent prayer for him.

CHAPTER 10

I WAS A SHORT DISTANCE FROM THE VOLKSWAGEN WHEN I saw a shadowy figure taking up space in the driver’s seat. I stopped, my thoughts taking an initial dive into Cowboy-Hat-back-for-round-two territory. I held my breath, debating the wisdom of running. But the longer I debated, the more my over-active imagination waned, and the figure took its true form. Patch crooked his finger, beckoning me inside. I broke into a grin, my worry dissolving instantaneously.

“Skipping school for roller-skating?” he asked as I dropped inside the car.

“You know me. Purple wheels are my weakness.”

Patch smiled. “I didn’t see your car at school. I’ve been looking for you. Can you spare a few minutes?”

I handed him my keys. “You drive.”

Patch drove us to a gorgeous luxury townhouse complex overlooking Casco Bay. The building’s historic charm—deep red brick mixed with stone from a local quarry—placed it well over a hundred years old, but it had been completely renovated with gleaming windows, black marble columns, and a doorman. Patch pulled into a single-car garage and lowered the door, leaving us in cool darkness.

“New place?” I asked.

“Pepper hired a few Nephilim thugs to redecorate my studio beneath Delphic. I needed a place on short notice with upgraded security.”

We exited the Volkswagen, climbed a narrow set of stairs, walked through a door, and came out in Patch’s new kitchen. Wall-to-wall windows offered stunning views of the bay. A few white sailboats dotted the water, and a picturesque blue fog shrouded the surrounding cliffs. Autumn foliage ringed the bay, burning in vibrant shades of red that seemed to set the landscape to flame. The dock at the base of the townhomes appeared to be valet- access.

“Swanky,” I told Patch.

He handed me a mug of hot cocoa from behind and kissed the back of my neck. “It’s more exposed than I’d like, and that’s not something you’ll hear me say often.”

I leaned back against him, sipping my drink. “I was worried about you.”

“Pepper surprised me outside the Devil’s Handbag last night. Meaning I didn’t get a chance to talk to our Nephilim friend, Cowboy Hat. But I made a few calls and did some leg-work, starting with looking into the cabin he took you to. He’s not very smart. He took you to his grandparents’ cabin. Cowboy Hat’s real name is Shaun Corbridge, and he’s two years old by Nephilim count. He swore fealty two Christmases ago and willingly enlisted in the Black Hand’s army. He has a short temper and a history of drug abuse. He’s looking for a way to make a name for himself and thinks you’re his ticket. His proclivity for stupidity goes without saying.” Patch kissed my neck again, this time letting his mouth linger. “I missed you, too. What have you got for me?”

Hmm, where to start.

“I could tell you how Pepper tried to kidnap me this morning and hold me hostage, or maybe you’d like to hear how Dante secretly fed me a drink enhanced with devilcraft? Turns out Blakely, Hank’s right-hand man, has been tinkering with devilcraft for months and has developed a high-performance drug for Nephilim.”

“They did what?” he growled in a voice that couldn’t have been more enraged. “Did Pepper hurt you? And I’m going to rip Dante to pieces!”

I shook my head no, but was surprised when tears sprang to my eyes. I knew why Dante had done it—he needed me strong enough physically to lead the Nephilim to victory—but I resented his approach. He’d lied to me. He’d tricked me into consuming a substance that was not only forbidden on Earth, but potentially dangerous. I wasn’t naive enough to think devilcraft didn’t have negative side effects. The powers might wear off, but a seed of evil had been embedded inside me.

I said, “Dante said the effects of the drink fade after a day. That’s the good news. The bad news is I think