On Midnight Wings

unravel the spell binding Loki.

Ah, child, what have you done?

He lowered his hands as the wybrcathl continued, each information-drenched trill deepening the chill he felt inside. Loki held not only Dante, but Heather as well. Detecting her scent in the parking lot hadn’t been wishful thinking, after all. Lucien stared at the bespelled building, wondering how Heather had managed to get past whatever spell Loki had spun into motion to keep mortals out and realizing she might not be completely mortal anymore. And as for Loki—

“He plans to help Dante become the Great Destroyer,” Hekate whispered in shocked tones, “then guide him in the world’s destruction.”

“If Loki succeeds, then your son must die,” the Morningstar said, his grim gaze piercing Lucien to his very core.“Even if it means Gehenna dies along with him.”

“Then we need to make certain Loki doesn’t succeed,” Lucien growled.

“What would you suggest we do?” Hekate asked, frustration shadowing her face.

“That you both get out of the way.”

Lucien wheeled around to face the blood-glyphed building. He took a deep breath, centering himself, gathering power, then closed his eyes. He smelled ozone, pungent and thick, felt his hair lift into the air, like midnight lengths of seaweed carried on the electric tide of his power. His hands knotted into fists at his sides. He sensed the Morningstar and Hekate backing away from him, heading for the parking lot’s gates.

Lucien opened his eyes. And voiced his wybrcathl, unleashing his pooled power through his vocal cords in a sledgehammer of sound. Car windows exploded in each vehicle, one after another, a shower of glass tinkling against the pavement while car alarms blared and beeped in cacophonous accompaniment.

The sanitarium’s windows blew out simultaneously, shards of glass raining to the well-manicured grounds and parking lot in a gleaming, deadly shower. As though rapped by a giant fist, the front door buckled inward at the same time.

Lucien ended his song, hushed his power. He bolted for the nearest shattered window, but when he grabbed hold of the windowsill to haul himself inside, he was hit by another pipe bomb of devastating pain. Releasing his hold, Lucien fell to the ground, glass crunching beneath his knees.

Hekate rushed over to join him. “What happened?”

Something very close to despair tightened Lucien’s throat. “The bastard didn’t just paint the blood sigils on the windows and doors.” He looked up into Hekate’s concerned eyes. “He painted them on the windowsills as well.”

Hekate offered him a hand and Lucien accepted it. Her grasp was cool and strong as she pulled him up to his feet. “Then we shall look for another way in,” she said.

But as the minutes melted away and the sun began to sink into the horizon in a blaze of furious color, Lucien’s heart sank as well.

Time had just run out.

“Since we’ve failed to get inside,” the Morningstar said, “we need to convince Dante to come out to us. Lure him away from Loki’s influence.”

But a dark suspicion had rooted itself in Lucien’s heart, a suspicion he now voiced. “He’s my son and half Fallen. The sigils will keep him inside, just as they keep us out.”

As Loki had intended.

Lucien reached for several Sleeping minds, but found only one rising from dreams—Silver’s—and filled it with the day’s grim and frustrating revelations. As he did so, he saw a car pull into the parking lot, then screech to a halt. A man in a black suit climbed out, gun in hand, his expression a blend of disbelief, determination, and shock as he stared in Lucien’s direction.

“Would blood wash away the sigils?” Lucien asked Hekate, eyeing the mortal. “Or act as a bridge across?”

“Not Elohim blood, no. It would be repelled by the spell. But mortal blood . . .”

The man’s face blanked as Loki’s spell kicked in and he started to get back into his car.

A dark smile tugged at Lucien’s lips. “Good.”

He moved.

FACE PAINTED WITH BLOOD symbols like some goddamned primitive hunter, helmet cam strapped into place, and gun in hand, Purcell made his move as the first stars appeared in the darkening sky. The shards of glass strewn on the lawn—thanks to De Noir and his pulverizing vocals—echoed the glittering starlight above.

And speaking of De Noir, he and his pals stood in the parking lot’s heart, engaged in some kind of winged confab. An unhappy one, too, judging by all the scowls.

And no wonder. They were still outside. Standing amidst all that twinkling glass.

And it was that very glass that had made Purcell abandon his original plan to slip into the parking lot, sidle over to the far edge, and use the parked cars for cover as he made his way to the sanitarium’s side entrance.

After De Noir’s little opera of destruction, Purcell had realized that he’d never make across without giving himself away as bits of ex-car windows crunched beneath his shoes. But thanks to De Noir, Purcell no longer needed a door to gain access to the building.

Skirting the parking lot altogether, Purcell stealthed his way through the overgrown field on the other side of the sanitarium’s fence to the back of the building and the truck delivery bay.

Purcell walked in careful and deliberate steps to the empty window beside the now-dented back door. A few shards of glass jutted up from the sill like broken teeth. Hands gloved for just this very reason, Purcell pulled the last bits of glass free and placed them on the pavement.

Tiny bits of pulverized glass crunched beneath Purcell’s gloves as he grabbed the windowsill and hoisted himself up and over.

He was inside.

46 FALLING APART WITH BREATHTAKING SPEED MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE LLYGAID COMPOUND

“HOLY HELL,” VON GROANED.

Taiko drummers had somehow taken up residence inside his skull and were now busy pounding the living daylights out of his brain. Slitting open one eye, he did a quick survey of his surroundings from the cold rock floor he was sprawled upon.

Moonlight trickled in through chinks in the timber and rock walls, revealing a stone-encircled well in the small, unlit building’s center. Weathered buckets and cobwebbed tools hung from nails hammered into the walls.

The cool air smelled of old wood pocked with decay and insect husks, of rust and moss and dank rock, of deep, still water—and not at all familiar.

Don’t know where I am, but at least it ain’t a jail cell. I think.

Von opened both eyes reluctantly and eased himself up into a sitting position, pulse thundering at his temples. “Crap.” Hunching forward, he closed his eyes again and rubbed his aching forehead with his fingertips.

Ain’t had a hangover in decades, what the—

He never finished the thought.

Memory poured into his mind in a nightmarish flood of images—Dante missing, Heather stolen, Merri’s stay-awake pills, Holly with her angry baby blues and her black-kilted llafnau.

Looks like you’re skipping out on me again.