“I’m—I’m flying,” I said, my voice high with astonishment.

He laughed softly. “Actually, you’re hovering.” He reached toward me and took one of my hands and like magic I fell into his arms. My favorite place to be.

“How—? What did you—?” I looked up the side of the cliff, then back to him. He waited patiently, letting me absorb what had just happened. “How did you—? I don’t—” I stopped, assessed the situation, then looked back up at him. “I think I peed my pants.”

He tightened his hold. “You aren’t wearing pants.”

“I think I peed my fuzzy bottoms.”

Jared arched his brows, but I had a thought.

“If we live through this, Brooke and Glitch have got to try that.”

Throwing his head back, he laughed out loud, the sound rich and luxurious and welcome. It caused a fluttering sensation to rush over me, like butterflies, like warm water.

After a moment, he sobered and leveled a reluctant stare on me. “They’re coming.”

I turned and saw the descendants scrambling down the face of the cliff like monkeys, strong and sure-footed. The sight was disturbing on about seven thousand levels. While there were fewer of them now, only six or seven left, they were still coming, still hunting.

Loosening his hold, Jared lowered me to the ground.

I pulled on his bloodied shirt. “Run!”

He looked back at the advancing enemy.

How had he taken out at least half a dozen nephilim and managed to beat me to the canyon floor? But he’d paid a price. He was hurt. Blood was oozing from between his ribs and down the side of his head, a crimson river trailing under his collar.

Someday, I would get used to seeing him beat to heck. It was a day I looked forward to. Actually, I looked forward to any day that did not end here and now, making this one my last.

I pulled again. “Jared, we have to run.”

“What?” he said, sharing another teasing grin. “Leave now? When I have them right where I want them?”

They jumped down from an impossible distance, landing one by one in front of us. I toppled back, but Jared caught me to him. Then Vincent was there, still holding his stomach. Jared had hurt him, and that made me happy inside.

Jared pushed me behind him protectively. I latched on to his arm as he draped it across my body.

“This is where you wanted them?” I asked in a whisper.

“Those were some very good friends of mine,” Vincent said, planting his feet and glaring. “The men you just killed.”

“You’ll see them again. Very soon, in fact.”

He scoffed. “I told you, it doesn’t work like that for us. We’re bastards, remember? When your kind decided to go rogue and join the gang down here, God was not happy.” He pointed to the heavens. “He kept the one thing from nephilim that he gave every full-blooded human on Earth. Souls. So, no. I won’t be seeing them anytime soon. They’re gone. Just like you’re about to be.”

He started forward, but Jared stopped him when he said, “I am the last being you should challenge.”

“Why?” he asked, his tone full of contempt. “Because you’re an arch? You archs are all alike. So supreme. So powerful. But you.” He spit at Jared’s feet and I couldn’t help but notice there was more blood than saliva. “You are the worst. You were given a power far beyond anything the others have, the power of life and death over humans. You could kill them all with a wave of your hand. With a thought.”

That was disturbing.

“And yet you’ve squandered that power as callously as humans squander the lives they’ve been given. They appreciate nothing. They worship food and drugs and movie stars.”

“What do you hope to gain by tipping the scales?” Jared asked.

“No, no, no,” Vincent said, wagging an index finger at us. “Balancing the scales. Thanks to the carrot stick, they’ve already been tipped.”

Did he just call me a carrot stick?

“Do you have any idea what will happen if the darkness of hell is unleashed on Earth?” Jared asked.

He tried to laugh but grimaced instead, a tight expression full of pain. Blood had pooled between his teeth and dripped down one corner of his mouth. “A darkness that cannot enter us? A hell that cannot destroy us? By the time the fallen are done with this world, there won’t be enough humans left to run a convenience store. And it will become ours. We’ll rule like kings.”

“Or fools,” Jared said. “Just because you can’t be possessed doesn’t mean the darkness can’t affect you. There’ll be nothing left to rule.”

“Mr. Dyson has a plan.”

“Mr. Dyson? Is that the man who opened the gates of hell ten years ago?”

“The one and only. Let’s just say he’s the architect and we’re the contractors. We don’t ask for much. Just a little corner of the world to call our own without the interference of human overpopulation. I mean, six billion? Really? We’re just hoping for the extermination of a few billion, just enough to restore the balance.”

As they spoke, the descendants circled us, their blades at the ready, yet I couldn’t help but notice their bravado had vanished. They were scared of Jared. It showed in the circular shape of their eyes, in the slight parting of their lips.

“He has forsaken us. Why should I worry about what happens to his world? To his pets?” He glanced around at his cohorts, then back to us. “Get them,” he ordered. “Only this time do it right.”