Crescendo

“Why?”

Rixon slipped the gun out from under his shirt and used it to motion deeper into the fun house. “Keep walking.”

“Where are we going?”

He didn’t answer.

“The police are on their way.”

“Hang the police,” Rixon said. “I’ll be finished before they get here.”

Finished?

Stay calm, I told myself. Stall. “You’re going to kill me now that I know the truth? Now that I know you killed my dad?”

“Harrison Grey wasn’t your dad.”

I opened my mouth, but the argument I expected to come flying out didn’t. The one image splayed across the forefront of my mind was of Marcie standing in her front yard, telling me Hank Millar could be my father. I felt my stomach heave. Did this mean Marcie was telling the truth? For sixteen years I’d been kept in the dark about the truth behind my family? I wondered if my dad had known—my real dad. Harrison Grey. The man who’d raised and loved me. Not my biological father, who’d abandoned me. Not Hank Millar, who could go to hell for all I cared.

“Your dad is a Nephil named Barnabas,” Rixon said. “More recently, he goes by Hank Millar.”

No.

I stepped sideways, dizzy with the truth. The dream. Patch’s dream. It was a real memory. He hadn’t been lying. Barnabas— Hank Millar—was Nephilim.

And he was my father.

My world threatened to crash down around me, but I forced myself to stay in the moment a little longer. In the far back of my mind, I shook my memory, frantically trying to remember where I’d heard the name Barnabas before. I couldn’t place it, but I knew this wasn’t the first time I’d heard it. It was too unusual to forget. Barnabas, Barnabas, Barnabas …

I grappled to fit two loose ends together. Why was Rixon telling me this? Why did he know about my biological father? Why did he care? And then it hit me. Once, when I’d touched Patch’s scars and gone into his memory, I’d heard him talk about his Nephil vassal, Chauncey Langeais. He’d also talked about Rixon’s vassal, Barnabas….

“No,” I whispered, the word slipping out.

“Aye.”

I desperately wanted to run, but my legs were wooden, stiff as posts.

“When Hank got your mum pregnant, he’d heard enough rumors about the Book of Enoch to worry that I’d come looking for the baby, especially if it was a girl. So he did the only thing he could. He hid her. You. When Hank told his mate Harrison Grey that your mum was in trouble, he agreed to marry her and pretend you were his.”

No, no, no. “But I’m descended from Chauncey. On my father’s side. On Harrison Grey’s side. I have a mark on my wrist that proves it.”

“Aye, you do. Many centuries ago, Chauncey entertained a naive farm girl. She had a son. Nobody thought anything particular about the boy, or his sons, or their sons, and so on through the ages, until one of the sons slept with a woman outside of wedlock. He injected the noble Nephilim blood of his ancestor, the duke of Langeais, into another line. The line that eventually produced Barnabas, or Hank, as he seems to prefer recently.” Rixon gestured impatiently for me to put two and two together. I already had.

“You’re saying both Harrison and Hank have Chauncey’s Nephilim blood,” I said. And Hank, a purebred first- generation Nephil, was immortal, while my own dad’s Nephilim blood, diluted over centuries just like mine, was not. Hank, a man I hardly knew and respected even less, could live forever.

While my dad was gone forever.

“I am, love.”

“Don’t call me love.”

“You’d prefer Angel?”

He was making fun of me. Toying with me, because he had me right where he wanted. I’d been through this once before, with Patch, and I knew what was coming. Hank Millar was my biological father and Rixon’s Nephil vassal. Rixon was going to sacrifice me to kill Hank Millar and get a human body.

“Do I get any last-minute answers?” I asked, my tone edging toward challenging, in spite of my fear.

He shrugged. “Why not?”

“I thought only first-generation purebred Nephilim could swear fealty. In order for Hank to be first- generation, he’d have to have a human and a fallen angel parent. But his father wasn’t a fallen angel. He was one of Chauncey’s male descendants.”

“You’re overlooking the fact that men can have affairs with female fallen angels.”

I shook my head. “Fallen angels don’t have human bodies. Females can’t give birth. Patch told me.”

“But a female fallen angel, possessing a female human body during Cheshvan, can produce a baby. The human may give birth to the baby long after Cheshvan, but the baby is tainted. It was conceived by a fallen angel.”

“That’s revolting.”

He smiled faintly. “I agree.”

“Out of morbid curiosity, when you sacrifice me, does your body just become human, or do you possess another human body for good?”

“I become human.” His mouth curved slightly. “So if you come back to haunt me from the grave, just know you’ll be looking for my same handsome mug.”

“Patch could show up any minute now and stop you,” I said, trying to be strong, but unable to stop the unbearable shaking in every limb of my body.

His eyes laughed at me. “I had my work cut out, but I’m confident I drove the wedge between the two of you about as deep as it could go. You got the ball rolling by breaking up with him—I couldn’t have planned it better myself. Then there was the constant fighting, your jealousy over Marcie, and Patch’s card—which I drugged to toss in just one more seed of distrust. When I stole the ring from Barnabas and had it delivered to you at the bakery, I had no doubt Patch was the last person you’d run to. Swallow your pride and ask for his help? When you thought he was hooked up with Marcie? Not a chance. You played right into my hands when you asked me if he was the Black Hand. I made the evidence against him overwhelming when I answered that yes, he was. Then I took advantage of the turn in our conversation to mention the address of one of Barnabas’s Nephilim safe houses as Patch’s, knowing full well you’d go snooping around and probably find memorabilia from the Black Hand. I canceled the movie plans last night, not Patch. I didn’t want to be stuck inside a movie theater while you were all alone in the apartment. I needed to follow you. I planted the dynamite once you were inside, hoping to sacrifice you, but you got away.”

“I’m touched, Rixon. A bomb. How elaborate. Why didn’t you keep things simple and just march inside my bedroom one night and put a bullet between my eyes?”

He spread his hands in front of him. “This is a big moment for me, Nora. Can you blame me for wanting a little flourish? I tried posing as Harrison’s ghost to lure you close, thinking how fantastic it would be to send you to the grave thinking your own father had killed you, but you didn’t trust me. You kept running away.” He frowned a little.

“You’re a psychopath.”

“I prefer creative.”

“What else was a lie? At the beach, did you tell me Patch was still my guardian angel—”

“To lull you into a false sense of security? Yes.”

“And the blood oath?”

“A spur-of-the-moment lie. Just to keep things interesting.”

“So basically you’re telling me nothing you’ve ever said to me was true.”

“Except the part about sacrificing you. I was dead serious about that. Enough talking. Let’s get on with this.” Using the gun, he shoved me deeper into the fun house. The rough prod tipped me off balance, and I stepped