Headstone directly behind!

Scott skipped sideways, easily avoiding a fall while simultaneously blocking an attack. Dante’s pores leaked blue sweat, but if he noticed, he didn’t show it. He shook his damp hair from his eyes and continued to hack and chop, his good arm visibly tiring. His thrashing strokes turned desperate. I saw my chance to circle behind him, trapping him between Scott and me, where one of us could finish him off.

A grunted cry stopped me in my tracks. I turned just as Scott slipped on wet grass, falling onto one knee. His legs spread awkwardly as he tried to regain his stance. He rolled safely away from Dante’s plunged sword, but he didn’t have time to climb to his feet before Dante pounced again, this time driving the sword deeply into Scott’s chest.

Scott’s hands curled weakly around Dante’s sword, impaled in his heart, trying unsuccessfully to dislodge it. Fiery blue devilcraft pumped from the sword into his body; his skin darkened to a ghastly blue. He feebly croaked my name. Nora?

I screamed. Paralyzed by shock and grief, I watched as Dante finished his attack with a clean twist of the blade, cleaving Scott’s heart.

I shifted my full attention to Dante, trembling with a hatred like I’d never known before. A wave of violent loathing rippled through me. Poison filled my veins. My hands curled into fists of rock, and a voice of fury and vengeance screamed in my head.

Fueled by this deep, abiding anger, I drew on my inner power. Not halfheartedly or hurried, or with a lack of confidence. I summoned every drop of courage and determination I possessed and unleashed it at him. I would not let him win. Not this way. Not with devilcraft. Not by killing Scott.

With all the strength of my mental conviction, I invaded his mind ded his and shredded the impulses firing to and from his brain. Just as quickly, I plugged in an unyielding command: Drop the sword. Drop the sword, you worthless, cunning, twisted man.

I heard the chink of steel on marble.

I glared nails at Dante. His dazed expression stared into distant space, as though he was looking for something lost.

“Ironic, isn’t it, that it was you who pointed out my greatest strength?” I said, every word dripping abhorrence.

I’d sworn I would never use devilcraft again, but this was one circumstance where I’d gladly bend the rules. If I killed Dante, devilcraft went too.

The temptation to steal devilcraft for my own flickered across my mind, but I flushed the idea away. I was stronger than Hank, stronger than Dante. Stronger, even, than devilcraft. I would send it back to hell for Scott, who’d given his life to save mine. I’d just picked up Dante’s sword when his leg bucked up, kicking it from my hands.

Dante catapulted himself on top of me, his hands vising my neck. I raked my fingernails at his eyes. I clawed his face.

I opened my mouth. No air.

His cold stare gleamed with triumph.

My jaw opened and closed uselessly. Dante’s ruthless face turned grainy, like an old TV picture. Over his shoulder, a stone angel watched me with interest.

I wanted to laugh. I wanted to cry. So this was what it meant to die. To give in.

I didn’t want to give in.

Dante pinched my airway with his knee, stretching sideways to pick up his sword. The tip centered over my heart.

Possess him, the stone angel seemed to calmly command me. Possess him and kill him.

Patch? I wondered almost dreamily.

Clinging to the strength that came from believing Patch was near, watching over me, I stopped resisting Dante. I lowered my scratching fingers and relaxed my legs. I succumbed to him, even though it felt like a cowardly, conceding thing. I focused my thoughts on gravitating toward him.

A foreign coldness rippled over my body.

I blinked, staring at the world through Dante’s eyes. I looked down. His sword was in my hands. Somewhere buried inside me, I knew Dante was grinding his teeth, uttering blood-chilling noises, howling like a miserable animal.

I turned the sword to face me. I pointed it at my heart. And then I did a surprising thing.

I fell on the blade.

Chapter  41

DANTE’S BODY EXPELLED MINE SO FAST, I felt like I’d been flung from a moving car. My hands snatched at grass, searching for something solid in a world that spun, tipping and turning over itself. As the dizziness faded, I looked around for Dante. I smelled him# before I saw him.

His skin had deepened to the color of a bruise, and his body began to bloat. His corpse purged its fluids, his devilcraft blood seeping into the earth like something living, something that burrowed away from sunlight. Flesh fell away, deteriorating into dust. After only a handful of seconds, all that remained of Dante were sucked-dry bones.

He was dead. Devilcraft was gone.

Slowly I pushed to my feet. My jeans were tattered and stained, streaks of grass rubbed across the knees. I licked the crack of my mouth, tasting blood and the salty tang of sweat. I walked to Scott, each step heavy, tears hot on my face, my hands hovering uselessly over his rapidly decaying body. I shut my eyes, forcing myself to recall his lopsided grin. Not his vacant eyes. In my mind, I played back his teasing laugh. Not the gurgling, gasping sounds he’d made right before dying. I remembered his warmth in accidental touches and playful jabs, knowing his body was rotting even as I clung to the memory.

“Thank you,” I choked out, telling myself that somewhere nearby, he could still hear my voice. “You saved my life. Good-bye, Scott. I’ll never forget you, that’s my oath to you. Never,” I vowed.

The fog hanging over the cemetery burned gold and gray as the sun’s rays sliced through it. Ignoring the fire clawing my shoulder as I drew out Pepper’s dagger, I staggered out of the cluster of headstones and into the open cemetery.

Strange lumps littered the grass, and as I came closer, I saw them for what they really were: corpses. Fallen angels, from what I could tell of what remained of them. Just like Dante, their flesh fell away in seconds. Blue fluid wept from their carcasses and was immediately sucked up by the earth.

“You did it.”

I spun around, instinctively hardening my grip on the dagger. Detective Basso tucked his hands in his pockets, a grim little smile playing at his mouth. The black dog who’d saved my life just a few short days ago sat stalwartly at his ankles. The dog’s feral yellow eyes stared up at me contemplatively. Basso bent down, rubbing the mangy fur between his ears.

“He’s a good dog,” Basso said. “Once I’m gone, he’ll need a good home.”

I took a cautious step backward. “What’s going on here?”

“You did it,” he repeated. “Devilcraft is eradicated.”

“Tell me I’m dreaming.”

“I’m an archangel.” The corners of his mouth crooked, almost, but not quite, sheepishly.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”

“I’ve been on Earth for months, working undercover. We suspected that Chauncey Langeais and Hank Millar were summoning devilcraft, and it was my job to keep a close eye on Hank, his dealings, and his family—including you.”

Basso. Archangel. Working undercover. I shook my head. “I’m still not sure what is happening here.”

“You did what I’ve been trying to do. Get rid of devilcraft.”

I digested this in silence. After what I’d seen these past few weeks, it took a lot to surprise me. But this certainly did. Good to know I wasn’t entirely jaded yet.

“Fallen angels are gone. It won’t last forever, but enjoy it while we can, right?” he grunted. “I’m closing this case and heading home. Congratulations.”

My brain hardly heard him. Fallen angels, gone. Gone. The word yawned inside me like an endless hole.

“Good work, Nora. Oh, and you might like to know we’ve got Pepper in custody and we’re dealing with him. He claims you put him up to stealing the feathers, but I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear it. One last thing. Consider this a thank-you of sorts: Go for a nice, clean cut through the middle of the mark on your wrist,” he said, sawing his own wrist with the side of his hand in demonstration.

“What?”

A knowing smile. “For once, just trust me.”

And he was gone.

I leaned back against a tree, trying to slow the world long enough to make sense of it. Dante, dead. Devilcraft, demolished. The war, nonexistent. My oath, fulfilled. And Scott. Oh, Scott. How would I tell Vee? How would I help her get through the loss, the heartache, the despair? Down the road, how would I encourage her to move on, when I had no such plans for myself? Trying to replace Patch—even trying to find happiness, however small, with someone else—would be a lie. I was Nephilim now, blessed to live forever, cursed to do so without Patch.

Footsteps rustled ahead, cutting through the grass, a familiar sound. I stiffened, poised to attack, as a dark outline emerged through the fog. The figure’s eyes raked the ground, clearly hunting for something. He crouched at every body, inspecting it with a hurried fervor, then kicked it aside with an impatient curse.

“Patch?”

Hunched over a decaying body, he froze. His head whipped up, his eyes narrowing, as if disbelieving what he’d heard. His gaze locked with mine, and something undecipherable moved in his black eyes. Relief? Solace? Deliverance.

I ran in a frenzy the last several feet separating us and threw myself into his embrace, digging my fingers into his shirt, burying my face into his neck. “Let this be real. Let this be you. Don’t let me go. Don’t ever let me go.” I started crying freely. “I fought Dante. I killed him. But I couldn’t save Scott. He’s dead. Devilcraft is gone, but I failed Scott.”

Patch murmured soft sounds in my ear, but his hands shook where they held me. He guided me to sit on a stone bench, but he never released me, holding me as though he were afraid I’d drain through his fingers like sand. His eyes, weary and red, told me he’d been crying.

Keep talking, I told myself. Keep the dream going. Anything to keep Patch here.

“I saw Rixon.”

“He’s dead,” Patch said bluntly. “So are the rest of them. Dante released us from hell, but not before taking our oaths of loyalty and injecting us with a devilcraft prototype. It was the only way out. We left hell with it swimming in our veins, our lifeblo, our liod. When you destroyed devilcraft, every fallen angel being sustained by it died.”

It can’t be a dream. It must be, and at the same time, it’s too real. His touch, so familiar, caused my heartbeat to soar and my blood to melt— I couldn’t fabricate such a forceful response to him in a dream.

“How did you survive?”

“I didn’t swear an oath to Dante, and I didn’t let him inject me with devilcraft. I possessed Rixon just long enough to escape hell. I didn’t trust Dante or devilcraft. I trusted you to finish them both off.”

“Oh, Patch,” I said, my voice trembling. “You were gone. I saw your motorcycle. You never came back. I thought—” My heart twisted, a deep ache expanding to fill my chest. “When I didn’t save your feather—” The loss and devastation crept inside me like a winter chill, relentless and numbing. I snuggled closer to Patch, fearing that he might vanish through my hands. I climbed onto his lap, sobbing into his chest.