Page 37

"I figured I'd find you two arguing your way out of medical care instead of resting," Camael noted before his gaze cut to Jace. "Don't bother fighting them on leaving. I've never once won that argument, and I outrank everyone in this house."

"I know precisely how stubborn warriors are. I had to try," Jace said, as he gathered a roll of gauze and a small case of vials from the counter, tucking them into a satchel slung across his shoulder. "I'm prepared should things go sideways again. Try not to let that happen."

"We’re dishing out patrol areas," Camael said as if Jace hadn’t spoken. He nodded toward the hallway. "Come upstairs. I want your input before anyone sets foot outside these wards again."

Abraxos grabbed a clean shirt from the shelf as they followed Camael out and up through the house to the war room, where the tactical map still hung pinned to the wall. Abraxos's gaze moved over the red string crossing over itself. Izzy and Donovan had built the thing earlier. Izzy was there with a sword strapped to her back, and Donovan was next to her, waiting for permission to head out.

"Amelia caught a presence at the edge of the wards an hour ago," Camael said, tapping a spot on the map that backed onto the mansion's rear property line. "She couldn't get a read on intent, but it's been sitting there long enough that I don't believe it's a passing scout. Without leaving the grounds, she could only determine a likely position.

“Given the direction of her hits, we need to check this place,” he continued as his finger traced a line leading to a neighboring estate. It was an old Garden District property that had gone to seed sometime in the last decade. "This place provides high ground and dense cover while being close enough to keep eyes on the house without tripping the outer wards."

"How do you know that?" Sarah asked curiously. He loved how inquisitive she was. She was constantly gathering and cataloging every piece of information she could get her hands on.

"Because I've hunted every kind of demon out there and for longer than your species has had a written language," Camael told her. "Whatever's out there wants information, not a fight. It'll pick a spot it can abandon fast. That property backs onto three others through broken fence lines. There are good escape routes in every direction."

"We need to go now, before it decides it's heard enough and moves somewhere we can't find it." Sarah's hand drifted to the black mark on her palm. Abraxos caught the flicker of unease crossing her face before she smoothed it away.

Camael's eyes moved between the two of them, weighing something Abraxos couldn't quite read. "I'm sending Izzy with two of my angels to hold the perimeter and run word back if anything bolts. Jace goes with you in case either of you needs him in the field this time instead of on a table after the fact." His jaw tightened. "The rest of us are checking other hotspots within a three-block radius. I want a status check the second you have eyes on whatever's out there before anyone engages."

"Copy that," Izzy said, moving toward the door with Donovan and the two junior angels falling into step behind her.

"Try to take this spy alive,” Abraxos announced before everyone headed out. “I want to question the bastard.”

“You mean torture,” Elsie pointed out.

Abraxos shook his head, and Sarah chuckled as they slipped out through the kitchen, avoiding the warriors still patching the porch. The others peeled off into groups. Izzy was already at the tree line getting her angels into position. The night air outside carried the same pressure it had all evening. The weight made Abraxos edgy.

Sarah felt it too. He could tell by the way her shoulders had gone tight. And the way her hand kept drifting toward her palm before she caught herself and stopped.

"Which direction should we go?" he asked her as he scanned the tree line at the edge of the property. He’d follow what Camael said, but he trusted his mate’s instincts above all else.

"The mark's pulling me that way." She pointed toward the neighboring estate as Camael had suggested. Its iron fence was rusted through in places, and its gardens had been swallowed by vines nobody had bothered to cut back. "It's stronger than it was inside the house. A lot stronger."

Something cold settled low in Abraxos's gut, a feeling he didn't trust and liked even less. "Doesn't seem like a spy would elicit that kind of reaction," he pointed out, dragging a hand through his hair as he stared at the place where the disturbance had been. "Maybe we shouldn't go. Only a powerful being would do that."

"We're going," Sarah informed him, already several strides ahead and marching toward the exact trouble he wanted to avoid. She didn't so much as glance back to check if he was following. Abraxos exhaled hard through his nose and lengthened his stride to catch up with his mate. He'd known her response the second the words left his mouth. Her determination was another thing he loved about Sarah.

Jace fell into step on his other side. The easy warrior vanished instantly and was replaced by a fierce fighter. He was a Dark Warrior down to the marrow, built for this kind of walk into the unknown. It showed in the flat, assessing sweep of his eyes across the tree line.

A dagger had appeared in his hand without any visible movement to produce it. The blade caught what little light there was as he scanned for anything that so much as breathed wrong. "If you start bleeding again," he warned in a voice pitched low and edged with something that wasn't quite patience, "I want you to tell me immediately. Not after you've already lost enough grace to power a small city."

"I won't make your masterpiece look bad," Abraxos shot back, glancing down at his shirt as if he could see the healed wound through the fabric.

They crossed the property line low and fast. Sarah's breath came quicker than it should have for the pace they were keeping. Her brand was doing something again. He had to fight the urge to throw her over his shoulder and carry her away. If he thought she would stay in the mansion, he would do exactly that.

The old mansion loomed out of the dark like a wound in the skyline. Its windows were boarded. Its columns had gone gray and split in several places. A magnolia tree had grown wild against the back corner. Its branches were clawing their way through a collapsed section of the roof.

"Look over there." Sarah's voice dropped to barely a whisper as she crouched behind an overgrown hedge. She pointed toward a section of the backyard where the grass had gone black in a rough circle. "That's not natural decay. Something evil has been standing there recently."

The ground answered her before Abraxos could respond. A low tremor rolled up through the soles of his boots. The earth was deciding it didn't want to hold together anymore. Sarah's hands flew up, and the black mark there flared bright enough to throw shadows against the hedge.

"It's not watching from a distance anymore," she breathed. "It knows I'm here."

The cellar entrance behind the magnolia tree tore open with a sound like stone grinding against bone. A creature from nightmares hauled itself out of the earth. It was nothing like the scout demons that had come through Sarah's shop window two nights before.

It rose to its full height once it straightened. Abraxos had to tip his head back just to keep the thing in view. It was a good two heads taller than him. Its shoulders spread out wide enough to swallow the ruined house whole behind it. For one strange second, the old place just wasn't visible anymore.

The hide covering all that mass was a deep, wet grey, shot through with veins of neon green that throbbed. Boils crowded every inch of its face. They were swollen tight and glistening as if they were ready to pop. They were packed in so closely together that they'd eaten whatever bone structure might have been under there to begin with. Abraxos immediately began cycling through what Titan it was. He wasn’t as familiar with them as he was demons because they’d been locked away for millennia.