Jude ran into the room and stopped at the far door. He barked again and disappeared through the doorway.

“I thought we didn’t want to divide our forces,” I mumbled as we jogged after him.

The next room was about the same size and shape as the previous one, but it was empty. There were copper-red stains on the stone floor.

Jude had already gone ahead to the next room. I heard him bark, and the sound of a sword clashing against stone.

I ran ahead and through the doorway, my own sword drawn. I needn’t have worried. Jude had already killed the soldier there and left him on the ground. The wolf turned around, his face covered in blood, his tongue hanging out in a macabre doggy grin.

This room was much like the others, except that each side was stacked floor-to-ceiling with cages. And inside the cages were the missing Agents. They all appeared to be sleeping.

Samiel was already running to Chloe, whose vivid purple hair practically glowed in the gloom. He tore the cage door off its hinges and lifted her out. A second later I was at his side, feeling for her pulse.

Her heart was still beating. On her neck were two puncture wounds. I opened her mouth with my fingers to make sure that she hadn’t been turned, and was relieved to see ordinary human canines.

Jude had transformed back into a human and was opening the other cages. Nathaniel lifted the sleeping Agents out and placed them on the floor while I checked to see if they all still lived. I also checked to see if they were all still human.

Two of them had the sharp, pointy canines of a vampire.

“Better take care of them now,” Beezle said.

“How can I do that?” I said. “They’re no threat to me.”

“They were turned by vampires working with Azazel,” Beezle said. “If you leave them, it will be two more soldiers you’ll have to kill later.”

I knew that what Beezle was saying was right, but it didn’t make it any easier. These were my colleagues, people I’d worked with at the Agency. They had been kidnapped, likely tortured, and turned against their will.

Killing them didn’t seem like the preventive medicine that Beezle made it out to be. It seemed like murder.

“I’ll do it,” Nathaniel said, holding his hand out for my sword. His eyes were very grave.

I shook my head. “No. I should do it.”

As I brought the sword down to their necks one by one, I wondered whether their deaths had been foreseen, and if so, where were their Agents?

I saw their souls emerge, but no Agent appeared to take them to the Door. They both looked at me expectantly, one man and one woman, both about my age. I thought the man’s name was James and that his cubicle was on my floor, but I wasn’t certain.

“I can take you to the Door,” I said, “but I have some things to do first.”

“Whoa, Madeline Black is here for us?” James asked. He seemed impressed for a moment; then he looked down at my right hand. “Wait—you killed us?”

I’d forgotten I was holding the bloody sword. “You were turning into vampires.”

“And you killed us even though we’d done you no harm?” the woman said. “No wonder you have such a bad reputation.”

“Look,” I said. “I’m sorry I killed you, but it was pretty likely you would have died in this war Azazel is about to wage. If you’ll come with us, I’ll take you to the Door once we get the other Agents out of here safely.”

“I don’t want to go with you,” the woman said. “I’m an Agent. I can take my own self to the door.”

“Yeah, I think I can handle it,” James said.

They both broke free of their ectoplasmic cords without my assistance, and floated upward through the ceiling.

“Well, that’s just great,” I said, kicking James’ body. “I’m sure the Agency is going to harass me for allowing their souls to escape.”

“I thought we’d agreed that the Agency was going to harass you no matter what you do,” Beezle said. “The bigger problem is this—how are we going to get fourteen sleeping Agents out of here?”

“Wake them up?”

Jude shook his head. “I already tried. It’s like they’re sedated.”

“And I’m sure we can’t do something easy, like make a portal out of here,” I said to Nathaniel.

“Not as long as we are on Azazel’s property,” he said.

“We can’t call J.B. for help, because the Agency people are being jerkwads,” I said, ticking off points on my fingers. “Lucifer is conveniently out of touch again. We can’t make a portal. What can we do?”

We all stared helplessly at one another.

“I can’t believe it’s come to this,” I said angrily. “We’ve found the Agents but we can’t get them home?”

“It’s only a matter of time before Azazel sends someone down here to see where we’ve gone,” Nathaniel said. “And I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to go back upstairs through the army.”

“I agree,” I said, and then stopped.

Something was coming. I could hear it moving slowly through the outer rooms. The ground trembled slightly as it approached.

“Meeeeat,” it crooned.

“Oh, no,” I said.

We could probably hold off the nephilim. We might even be able to kill it. But that would cause a lot of ruckus and attract the attention of Azazel and his army.