“The fallen angel—or demonic—language. Angelic is its own thing. To answer your question, though, if I knew where you could learn the demonic language, I would have learned the language long ago. But the information is protected, unavailable due to the potent danger it possesses. You’ll have to find it on your own.”
Silence crashed over the cab once more, and I allowed it. Why not? I had a lot to mull over and figure out. We’d spent all day working on how to activate my powers, and now Gladas had told me I could use Fallen sigils to focus my magic. Maybe a nap was in order after the day I’d had. Hanging around a crazy hermit lady and a Demi and having a gun shoved against my face by a Raven and using my new demon magic really tuckered a guy out.
I closed my eyes and searched for that elusive thing people call sleep.
A booming horn and oncoming, blinding headlights forced me awake. I squinted in the glare. “What the fuck is that?”
I glanced over at Gladas, but he was no longer behind the wheel. In his place sat my seven-year-old daughter. She had pale skin and dark, tangly hair that writhed around her shoulders like a clump of worms. Her head didn’t reach above the steering wheel. I doubted she could see through the windshield.
Mel gazed at me with black sockets. Dark blood poured from them, and she grinned, showcasing a mouth filled with sharp, red teeth. “The light only destroys,” she said, opening her door and jumping from the car. Wind ripped into the vehicle.
“No!” I shouted, turning to watch her bounce across the highway. As I did, the car exploded in a shower of glass and light and a thunderous crunch, and everything around me went black.
I jolted awake, springing forward and gasping. The seatbelt locked, pinning me tight against the backrest. I panted, cold sweat running over my body, sticking my clothes to my skin. We were stopped, parked on the edge of the street. Outside, the forest had morphed back into cityscape—lights from the street and the buildings and the traffic illuminated the wet night.
“Hold on,” Gladas said, covering his phone with a hand. “We’re back in Sacramento. You had a nightmare?”
I shook my head and wiped drool from my mouth. “No. Just a wet dream.” I yawned and stretched out my arms, my heart hammering in my chest.
Gladas lifted the phone back to his ear. “He’s fine.”
“Is that Xander?” I asked. “Let me talk to that skid mark.” I reached out my hand and wriggled my fingers for the phone.
After a second of hesitation, Gladas said, “He wants to speak to you.” He handed me his cell.
“I miss you, beautiful,” I said.
“What do you want?” Xander demanded.
“Wow. Someone is sour tonight. Did Annie not butter your biscuit the right way? I know how peculiar you are about that.”
Gladas glared at me, and I offered him a patient finger, turning my back to him. “Do you have any weapons I could have… not borrow, but have. Victor’s Secret informed me that I can use Nephilim runes with my”—I almost said demonic, but speaking to the celestial-lover Xander, I decided against it—“new ability. The runes will only carry the full power of the Nephilim language, which apparently is just the tip of what I’m capable of. Either way, it’d be easier to fight Circe with a focus than rely on raw power I haven’t even begun to understand. You dig?”
“Put me on speakerphone,” Xander said.
“Okay.” I moved the phone from my ear and tapped the screen. “You’re loud and clear.”
“Gladas, how will that work? Will we be able to sneak weapons into the warehouse?”
The big guy beside me kept his eyes glued to the road, even though we were parked. “No,” he said after half a minute. “Annie and I would have disarmed you two after defeating you.”
I scoffed. “See,” I said, “that’s the most unbelievable part of your plan. How does a schizophrenic lady and a middle-aged man defeat my boy and me? Imagine if a Jedi paired with a Sith and they worked together. And don’t even mention Rey and Kylo, or I’ll smack you. We’re more like Anakin and Obi Wan if they had stayed BFFs when Anakin decided to go off the deep end. In other words, ain’t no Cursed human and Demi about to defeat us.”
“Unless they had set a trap,” Xander said. “And our bullets had bounced right off the Demi’s body, and they had weapons trained on us. Then maybe they could have defeated us and delivered us to Circe.”
“You know,” I said, “just because it seemed like that’s what happened, didn’t mean that’s what actually happened.”
Gladas tapped on the steering wheel. “I can bring weapons in, though I don’t usually carry. I don’t believe guns should be accessible—”
“I’m going to stop you right there, broseph. No one wants to hear your political ramblings about my right to bear arms. You can have an opinion, and that’s valid. But don’t tell me about it, because I would rather clean my ears out with powdered glass.”
“I liked him better when he slept,” Gladas said, trying to make a funny.
I obliged his humor and laughed with as much forced sarcasm as I could muster.
“Can you get away with carrying a knife into the room with Circe?” Xander asked.
Gladas pondered that for a moment. “Probably not. Remember, Circe hates me. She gave me the power of a Demi so that we could be together, and I rejected her for Annabel, who she also hates. And Circe knows that feeling of disdain is mutual.”
“And she won’t suspect that we’re working together to defeat her?” Xander asked. “That you two switched sides?”
Xander didn’t see the way the Demi responded to that question, but I did. His body went completely rigid, and he lowered his gaze to the side, hesitating for a split second. To anyone else, especially someone on
