On Midnight Wings

“No,” Heather assured him. “That’s Loki’s work, but he made it for Dante. For the Great Destroyer.”

“Then Loki’s gone mad.”

“I think stark raving mad would be more accurate.”

The fetid smell of decaying flesh, of spilled guts, festered in the air. A stench Heather could barely stomach even with her human sense of smell. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like for Lucien or Dante.

Heather headed for the stairs, freezing in place when a wailing scream from several floors above sirened briefly into the air, then died. Her skin goose bumped.

I feel like I’m running out of time, catin.

No, cher. I refuse to lose you.

I fought my way here, coffee pot, Taser, and gun, and I refuse to be too late.

Lucien stared up at the shadowed ceiling, his face troubled. “Maybe you should stay here.”

Ignoring his suggestion, Heather raced up the stairs, following her heart and her blood link to the fifth floor—and to Dante. She knew Lucien followed, knew neither one of them might be safe. As she ran, she chambered a round in the SIG. She hoped she wouldn’t need to use it, but if she did, she knew she’d only have one chance and one chance only. She trusted Dante not to hurt her.

She couldn’t say the same of S.

HEATHER PADDED DOWN THE corridor, making sure to keep to the right-hand wall because inside the opposite wall, beneath the now-vibrating plaster, wasps droned. Four rifts marred the wall’s surface in long, lazy lines and in those black depths, wasps crawled, their metallic bodies glittering like moonstruck mica in the dim red emergency lighting.

Four rifts. As though left by trailing fingers.

Heather found it hard to breathe, fear was an anvil on her chest. Looking up at Lucien, she saw the same fear shadowing his face.

<Hold on, Baptiste. Hold on, damn you.>

They found Dante in the last room on the left, tossing the contents of a mop bucket onto a cot holding what looked like a larger-than-life-size anatomy dummy and onto a gray-suited body crumpled on the floor. The pungent aroma of gasoline soaked the air.

“Mop water into gasoline,” Lucien said quietly. “That’s a new one. And I think we’ve found Loki—or what remains of him.”

And that was when Heather realized that the thing lying on the cot wasn’t an anatomy dummy, that given the body’s size and the golden eyes—still aware, still watching—it had to be Loki.

You think I want to escape?

Heather guessed that question was now moot. And after what the bastard had done to her, ransacking her mind, rifling through her memories, let alone what he had most likely done to Dante as well, she almost wished she could light him up herself. Almost. And it saddened her to realize that not even two months ago, she never would’ve considered doing such a thing.

“Will it kill him?” she asked Lucien.

“No, he’s Elohim. But I’m sure he’ll wish it would.”

Heather shook her head. “I can’t let Dante do this.”

“Leave it alone. Loki brought this upon himself. He more than deserves it.”

She started forward, intending to stop Dante anyway, but Lucien stopped her instead with a steel-fingered and taloned grip to her shoulder.

“Leave it alone.”

“I don’t think that’s a good—”

Heather heard the slide of velvet across skin, then saw Dante’s wings arch up over his head. Gold light glimmered in his eyes as he turned to look at her with a stranger’s gaze. Blue flames flared to life around his hands.

A song blazed into the air unlike anything Heather had ever heard before. It set her blood on fire, angelic symbols burning behind her eyes. A savage and furious song.

A beautiful song.

A song of chaos.

Dante turned away and tossed a lighter onto the cot. WHOOMF! Fast-burning flames engulfed the cot and the golden-eyed figure upon it, then swept across the floor to swallow the gray-suited body. The nauseating stench of roasting flesh rose into the air.

“Now the fucker will stay dead,” Dante said, something close to bliss on his pale face as he watched the roaring flames devour the room’s padded walls.

Freed from Lucien’s hold, Heather backed into the corridor, away from the heat and the smoke, gun in hand. A streak of motion, pale flesh and black leather, the heady scent of burning leaves and November frost, then Dante was standing in front of her, close enough that she could feel his heat. Or lack of it. A dark smile tilted his lips.

<Baptiste, wake up. Haul your ass out of the abyss, cher. Wake up!>

“Hey, catin,” Dante—no, Heather corrected, not Dante, S—said, his voice smooth silk and bourbon. Black and blue flames snapped along his fingers. With one quick motion, he yanked the SIG from her hand, tossed it down the corridor, then shoved the muzzle of his own gun against her temple, his finger tight against the trigger. Her heart leapt into her throat.

“I’ve been dreaming about this,” he whispered.

Then Dante finally answered her in the only way he could.

REALITY WHEELED.

The corridor vanished in an explosion of white, icy light. S’s finger spasmed against the gun’s trigger, but all he heard was the distant click of an empty chamber. He fell, convulsing, as the seizure had its way with him.

Pretty damned funny, really.

He’d tossed away a loaded gun in favor of the empty one Dante had picked up earlier in the corridor.

Reality wheeled.

The night whirls around Dante, a streak of pale clouds and glimmering stars and skeletal branches. He no longer feels Chloe’s hand. He tries to shove her away, tries to tell her to run, but his voice and lips don’t work either—numb and far away. He falls, the rain-beaded grass rushing up to meet him.

No escape for you, sweetie.

Reality wheeled.

Fire scorches her lungs. Blackens her skin. Devours her with relentless teeth.

Welcome home, S. Welcome back.

Set things to rights, cher. Make them pay in blood and fire.

You won’t save her, you know.

The truth is never what you hope it will be.

Yeah, and it usually carries a motherfucking shiv.

Reality wheeled. And wheeled. And wheeled again.

Dante’s song raged unabated into the night. Set it ablaze.

51 ANHREFNCATHL

DANTE’S SONG SLASHED INTO the night. An aurora borealis of blue flame undulated across the sky. The