Ares eyed the fallen angel with disgust. “You haven’t entered Sheoul, which means you’re redeemable. Taking the agimortus will be in service to humans. Don’t you think that will be a good thing?”

“Good? Pestilence and his demons will be after me!”

“We’ll protect you.”

“The way you protected Batarel and Sestiel? Forgive me if I’m dubious about the quality of your protection.”

“Idiot angel.” Limos, who had been licking a blue lollipop, wagged it at him. “Those two thought they’d be better off on their own. That won’t happen with you. We’ll keep you nice and safe. And busy. Ares has a great video collection. Ooh, and a wet bar.”

“What are you people not getting? I don’t want the damned thing! If I have it and Pestilence kills me, my soul will belong to Satan. If he doesn’t, and one of your other Seals breaks, then I will turn evil because I bear the agimortus. It’s a lose-lose for me.” He nodded to Cara. “She’s human. Not meant to bear the agimortus, so she won’t turn evil.”

“You selfish shit.” Ares’s voice pulsed with mounting anger. “She’s going to die if she doesn’t transfer it. Do you want the Final Battle to begin?”

“Of course not,” Zhreziel snapped. “But if I’m not carrying the agimortus, I can fight on the side of good and win my soul and wings back.”

Oh, God. He was in a fight for his very soul. The nausea became a crashing wave that threatened to spill right out of Cara’s stomach.

“Say it with me.” Thanatos’s voice was wintry as he spoke into the angel’s ear. “Apocalypse. Armageddon. It will break in a matter of hours if Cara keeps the agimortus, because it’s killing her.”

“And if I take it,” Zhreziel shot back, “it’s only delayed. Either you or Limos will see the breaking of your Seal, and then you all turn evil. It’s coming, you stupid fucks. No matter what, it’s coming. And I’d rather fight against you than fight for you.”

A soft “pop” rang out as Limos pulled the lollipop out of her mouth. “You realize we don’t need your permission, right? So you should probably shut up now. We have to keep you safe, but we don’t have to be nice to you.” She gestured to the shelves of DVDs. “Ares has the complete collection of Miami Vice. We could torture you until you’re begging for Pestilence to kill you.”

“Release me!” Zhreziel brushed his hair away from his face, but it fell back, covering one eye as he swiveled around to Cara. “Please. Don’t do this.”

“Shut up.” Limos slammed her candy down on the bar top and wrapped her hand around the back of the fallen angel’s neck, forcing his gaze away from Cara. “Ares also has Starsky and Hutch.”

This was not at all how Cara had envisioned this going, and she swallowed sickly. “Can we hold off? Find another fallen angel who would be willing?”

“Even if some mythical willing creature existed at some point in time,” Limos said, “we’re running out of even unwilling options.”

Unable to bear looking at Zhreziel for one more second, Cara swung around to Ares. “So what are our other options?”

“There are none,” Ares said. “Do it.”

Stall. “I don’t know how.”

“Touch him with the intent of passing it. It should be automatic.”

She shivered, suddenly chilled to the bone. “I can’t.”

“You can.” Ares’s hands clamped down on her shoulders, and he dipped his head to look her straight in the eye. “You have to.”

“I won’t do to him what was done to me.” She took a bracing breath, steeling herself against what was probably a terrible decision. “I can’t do this against his will.”

Thanatos opened his mouth to say something—going by his thunderous expression, Cara could guess what—but Ares held up his hand to stay his brother. “Give us a minute.”

She allowed Ares to lead her to a quiet corner. “Listen to me, Cara,” he said slowly as if speaking to a child. “You’re dying.”

“Well aware of that.”

“If you give it to him, you’ll live. I can’t—” He cut himself off with a curse.

“You can’t what?” When he said nothing, she grabbed his chin and forced his eyes to meet hers. They were angry, but at the same time, sad.

“I can’t lose you,” he bit out. “I can’t be with you, not with Pestilence around, but I can’t lose you.”

She didn’t know what to say, but Ares did.

“Please.”

She knew how much it cost him to beg. “I wish I could,” she said softly, and he stepped back as if she’d slapped him.

“Dammit, Cara.” He thrust his fingers through his hair and paced for a dozen strides before returning to her. “We’re in a war where there are no rules, no room for pity or kindness. The loser forfeits not just life, but the entire f**king Earth. Transfer the agimortus. Now.”

“There is always room for kindness,” she said. “Forcing this on Zhreziel would be an epic violation. I know this for a fact. This would be as bad as killing him. If I did it, I’d feel stained, Ares. Ruined.”

Ares slammed his fist into the wall. “Do it, dammit!”

“No.”

Ares regarded her with shuttered eyes, his calm more frightening than his rage. “Fine. Die. Bring about the end of the world. What’s it matter to me? I’ll be evil and won’t give a shit.”

“There’s got to be another way.”

“There’s not,” he roared.

She jammed her finger into his chest. “Yelling at me isn’t going to do anything but make me dig my heels in deeper. You haven’t learned a lot about women in your thousands of years, have you?” In the background, Limos snorted, and Ares pegged his sister with a glare. Cara snapped her fingers, bringing his head back around. The stunned expression on his face, the you-dared-to-snap-at-me look, might have made her laugh if the situation wasn’t so we’re-all-going-to-die. “You said you were some sort of military commander or general or something, and you have a kind of innate strategic knowledge. Well, use it and find another way out of this. Because I’m not transferring the agimortus to that fallen angel.”

Twenty

Ares needed a minute. No way could he stand in that room and look at Cara for another second. Too much emotion was tripping through him—anger, fear, hurt. It was all so unfamiliar, hitting him hard and all at once, that it was clouding his ability to think straight. His brain was working on ways to force her to transfer the agimortus, ranging from pleasant things like f**king her into capitulation, to dark, sinister ideas like blackmail or torture. Not her torture, but he’d bet he could get that fallen angel to beg her to transfer it.

She’d hate him forever for that. But she’d be alive. And the world would be whole.

He stepped outside, inhaled a lungful of sea air that was tinged with a smoky hint of hellhound. Hal was nearby. Maybe his sire would show up and give Ares the satisfaction of carving his heart out.

“Ares.” Limos gripped his elbow just as he was about to punch through the side of the building. “She isn’t a warrior.”

He ground his molars so viciously they hurt. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means she doesn’t have your ‘win at all costs’ mindset.” The white flower in her hair slid out of place, and Limos grabbed it, tossed it to the ground in an uncharacteristic display of annoyance. “She wants to do the humane thing, and she isn’t thinking beyond that.”

“She should. She could bring about the end of the f**king world.”

“I’m not happy about that, either,” Limos said. “But we’ve got to give her time.”

Frustration and anger hummed in his skull, spreading down his spine, into his organs, and all the way to his toes. “Time is a luxury we don’t have.”

“Well, duh. But we can’t force her.”

“Yeah, I can,” he ground out.

“You are so stubborn.” Limos stomped on the flower, smashing the thing flat in the sand. “Let me talk to her.”

The hum became a buzz as dark energy coiled inside him. On his arm, Battle thrashed hard enough for him to feel a pinch. Odd. He snapped his gaze to Li’s arm, and damn if Bones wasn’t doing the same thing on his sister’s skin.

“What the—” He broke off as a shock wave of energy hit him like a nuclear blast. He stumbled back a step, knocked off balance. “Limos…”

“I feel it,” she gasped. “Oh, shit, what has Pestilence done?”

The tug of battle was like a million ropes attached to his organs, stretching tighter and tighter, until he wanted to blow apart. “War,” he breathed. “A war just started.”

The pound of Thanatos’s footsteps turned to thunder as he burst from the doorway. “I—” Shadows swirled around him, and he groaned. A gate opened, sucked Than into it, and he was gone.

“No!” Limos grimaced, and then she was sucked through a similar portal.

Cara. This was a trick of Pestilence’s and he knew it. The tug grew more powerful with each dragging step toward the house. His feet were leaden even though his body sang with the need to fight, the need to be engaged in whatever battle was going on.

As he went through the doorway, he felt as if claws had grabbed him, were spreading his rib cage, and agony clouded his senses. Laughter erupted, a hellhound snarled, and then Ares was sucked into the vortex that would drop him in the middle of a conflict and leave him powerless to leave until the worst of the blood had been shed.

Hal’s pained cry rang in Cara’s ears and vibrated through her entire body. A rapid drain of energy forced her to catch herself on the wall. She’d been standing in the great room, waiting for Ares and Limos to come back inside, while trying to avoid Thanatos’s disapproving gaze. When he suddenly tore out of there, she hadn’t been too concerned… not until Ares shouted for her and Hal yelped.

Legs trembling from the sudden weakness, she hurried outside and was instantly surrounded by Ares’s demon guards. She couldn’t tell most of them apart, but she knew Vulgrim by the silver ring that pierced his left horn, and Torrent by the slash of white on his broad snout.

Torrent backed her toward the entrance as Vulgrim barked orders that had the other Ramreels shifting into various fighting stances.

“You need to get inside,” Vulgrim shouted. “Now.”

“But Hal—”

Torrent gripped her arm and dragged her toward the patio. “If your beast hasn’t dematerialized to Sheoul already, our men will find him. You have to—” A spray of blood erupted from Torrent’s mouth, splattering Cara’s neck and chest. Horrified, she lurched back, her gaze glued to the arrowhead that jutted from his breastbone. Dear God, the weapon had punched through two layers of chain mail and his thick body. “Go… now…” He crashed to his knees.

“Torr!” Vulgrim’s agonized bleat turned the warm night air into a chill shroud. He spun around and caught his son before he fell over, but even in the dark, Cara saw the death cloud that glazed over Torr’s eyes.

The other Ramreels charged in the direction the arrow had come from, heading straight toward the glowing red eyes of a snowy demon horse and its unholy master perched on top. An arrow sailed out of the pitch black, nailing another of the Ramreels between the eyes. Strange demons charged from out of the dark. Humans… at least, they looked like humans… ran with them, their hands clutching wicked, bloodstained weapons.

The agimortus seared her chest, becoming a red-hot brand. The oily, slick feeling boiled up, feeding her terror as a hideous skeletal thing snared her by the hair and yanked her backward. She swung wildly, missing the creature. Remembering her self-defense training, she slowed. Concentrated. She swung again, this time landing a punch in the demon’s hollowed-out belly.

Vulgrim was suddenly there, head bowed, ramming his great horns into the demon. The crack of bones and a pained screech rang out, and the force of Vulgrim’s hit knocked her down. The silver flash of a blade glinted in the lights from the patio, and the demon’s head rolled past her.

“Get inside.” Vulgrim lifted her to her feet. “My tesmon cannot lose you.”

“Tesmon?”

“Herd father.” He tugged her toward the door. “Ares.”

His furred arms closed around her protectively, and they stumbled onto the porch. A blade came from out of nowhere, slashing at Vulgrim’s face. He deflected it with his horn, which sheared off like a carrot under a cleaver. The blond man who’d swung the weapon dove for Vulgrim, taking him down to the ground. Another man came from nowhere with an ax, and in horrible slow motion, Cara saw it coming down in an arc over Vulgrim’s neck.

A million images flashed in her head, and she saw the face of the man she’d killed at her house in the expressions of the guys attacking Vulgrim.

If you want to survive, if you want those you care about to survive, you may need to make sacrifices and do things you never thought you’d do. Things you might find distasteful, that go against everything you’ve ever believed. Reaver’s prophetic words were like a soundtrack that went along with the images, and without hesitating, Cara allowed her gift a full charge, nothing held back.

With a battle cry, she lunged, gripping one man on the shoulder and the other by the waist. Energy sizzled down her arm and through her fingers. The effect on the men was instantaneous; blood and tissue spurted from their eyes, noses, mouths, and ears. Their bodies swelled like balloons, and as they hit the ground, they broke open into steaming piles of gore.