On Midnight Wings

and again, hoping that the cuffs have somehow weakened.

But they haven’t. And his strength is draining away along with his blood.

“For nothing is hidden but will be made clear, nothing secret but that it will be known and brought to light.” Warm breath touches the cup of Dante’s ear. “I see your light within. I shall bring it forth,” Moses promises. “As God commands.”

His fingers grasp the edges of Dante’s cut skin and yank, peeling it back to reveal the wings that aren’t there.

Dante screams . . .

REALITY WHEELED.

My turn.

S stood in the doorway, one pale, blood-smeared hand braced at either side. A thin trickle of blood trailed from one nostril. Pain pulsed behind his eyes. But it had nothing on the rage pulsing inside his heart. He studied the figure kneeling inside, stinking of fear and piss.

Michael Moses. Former Jesuit priest. Current penitent monster.

No, that’s Purcell. SB agent. Current maybe-penitent monster.

Who gives a fuck?

S stepped inside. Blue flames crackled to life around his hands, filling the room with an eldritch light. “I know you, motherfucker,” he said, his voice holding just a dash of dark wonder. “You ain’t Papa. But I know you.”

I know you. I remember.

“My gift to you,” the fallen angel said.

“And who the hell are you?”

“Loki, little creawdwr. And your gift is Moses and Purcell, Wells and Moore, Papa and Mama Prejean—anyone you wish him to be. He’s ground zero for your night of reckoning.” Loki stepped from the corner his tall, lean-muscled body clad in a suit tailored for the black wings folded behind him.

Tall as the Nightbringer. Short, red hair. Familiar.

Like one of those Russian nesting dolls.

Gotcha, Papa.

“And what do you get out of it?” S asked.

“The right to stand at your side,” Loki replied. “Not to bring forth light, but the darkness hidden within. I shall guide you on your path. I shall be a pillar of fire by night and a column of smoke by day.”

S felt a cynical smile tilt his lips. “As God commands, yeah?”

The fallen angel lifted nearly incandescent eyes to S’s. “The only God here is you. A dark and bloody God. An Old Testament God. A God for whom an eye for an eye should never be enough.”

S laughed, the sound dark and coiled and amused. He slanted a look at Purcell-Moses-Who-the-fuck-ever. “Guess that means I’m gonna need to see what’s under your skin.”

“I WAS AFRAID OF that,” Lucien said after Heather described what had happened when she’d tried to get Dante out of the sanitarium. He hefted the bucket—beheaded gas can, really, stolen from his donor’s car—of blood. “If this works, it’ll get us in and Dante out.”

“If it doesn’t work,” Heather said, “I’m going in, regardless. I won’t leave him alone.” With Loki. With himself. With his past. Cold fingers closed around her heart. With his madness.

Run.

I refuse to lose you, cher. If you fall, you won’t fall alone.

She watched as Lucien splashed the sigil on the outside of the door with half of the bucket’s contents, then moved to open the door and hold it when he gave her the nod. He tossed the remainder of the blood clotting in the bucket across the threshold, then threw the empty bucket aside to clatter against the sidewalk.

Slanting a quick glance at Hekate, Lucien stepped past the door and across the threshold in one long-legged stride. No convulsions. No sudden jack-knifing to the floor. No dead spider imitation. Excitement curled through Heather.

“It worked,” she said, knowing she was stating the obvious, but it was worth stating.

A smile brushed Lucien’s lips. “Indeed.”

“They are coming,” the Morningstar said, his gaze on the cloud-scudded sky. “I knew they wouldn’t wait. Not when we’ve been gone for so many hours.”

Heather heard a rush of wings—dozens, maybe hundreds—the sound filled the night. She joined Lucien inside the building. “How did they find us?” she asked.

Lucien’s expression iced over. “Gabriel most likely had us followed.”

“We’ll hold them,” Hekate said. “Go. Hurry.”

Closing the door, Heather raced up the stairs, Lucien right behind her.

“KILL ME FOR MY own actions, not for the actions of a sick priest bastard I was against from the get-go,” Purcell blurted—and S was pretty sure he was Purcell. So someone inside kept claiming. “Fight me man to man.”

“Like you did me? Trussed to a table?” S crouched down in front of Purcell. Drank in the adrenalized scent of his fear. “I think you said something about taking me apart and burning each piece until nothing but ash remained, then flushing those ashes down the goddamned toilet. Does that sound about right?”

Purcell gave a low groan. “Just kill me, you motherfucker. Get it over with.”

“Over that?” S laughed. “Hey, boys will be boys, yeah? We can take it. But little girls? That’s another fucking story.”

“You should know,” Purcell said, his tone the resigned register of a man on his way to visit the death chamber. But no lethal injection here. No. Nothing so clean. Welcome to Ol’ Sparky, motherfucker. “Right? You have first hand experience.”

She was eight years old and you slaughtered her. Just like you’ll slaughter Violet and Heather and anyone else who gets close to you. It’s what you do. It’s who you are.

“C’est vrai,” S said in a monotone. He reached up in a blur of movement and snapped Purcell’s neck. The SB agent toppled bonelessly to the floor. S rose to his feet, his heart a wasteland.

Loki applauded politely. “Beautifully done. Perhaps a bit too quickly, but with practice—”

“Practice makes perfect, yeah?” S asked, closing the distance between them.

“Definitely. And I’m the perfect tutor.” Loki grinned. “I will teach you everything you need to know and I’ll show you how to walk your true and proper path.”

“No need, Papa. I already am.”

Power crackled along S’s fingers. Reflected blue in Papa’s ever-widening eyes. The stormy scent of ozone filled the room. S felt his hair lifting into the air.

Papa dropped to his knees. “The Great Destroyer,” he breathed, eyes bright.

Kneeling in front of Papa, S cupped his child-pimping foster father’s false face between his flame-wreathed hands and kissed him hard on the lips. “For Chloe,” he whispered. Releasing him, S stood. And watched.

Blue flames spread throughout Papa’s body, glowing beneath the skin like sapphire embers. His Loki skin- suit dissolved, revealing the structures beneath—muscles, tendons, ligaments.

“Let’s see you hide now, you fi’ de garce. No more Russian nesting dolls.”

Papa screamed.

But not for long.

“BY ALL THAT’S HOLY,” Lucien whispered, staring at the flesh-and-bone throne situated in the middle of the third floor corridor. “Tell me that Dante didn’t—”