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  He hadn’t been a man when he’d killed the dragon in the Second Battle, but a grigori, the son of a demon. Rosalia wouldn’t tell the truth through his story, however—it would be the story of his sister, Anaria, who’d been the reason the nephilim had slaughtered so many vampires, including those Rosalia loved. Until six months ago, Rosalia hadn’t even known about Michael’s sister. Now her thoughts were filled with the woman who possessed such terrifying power and good intentions.

  Supposedly, the path to Hell was paved with good intentions. Rosalia hoped to make that path an expressway for Anaria and every one of her cursed nephilim children.

  Vincente shook his head. “Michael lied, yet you go to him now?”

  “Yes.” Michael was not perfect as she’d once painted him, yet he always came through when he was needed. But Michael couldn’t do that if he didn’t know she needed him. Rosalia smiled and flicked her hood up over her hair. “I have a little more faith in him than you do.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Anaria

  After the First Battle, Lucifer gained the throne in Hell, and as its ruler, the realm resonated deeply within him, strengthening his already considerable might. As the eons passed, he practiced his magic, using symbols and blood to increase his knowledge and power. He opened Gates to Earth and sent his demons into the world. He made portals to Chaos, where dragons with unharnessed magic reigned over a realm of stone and fire. From the creatures of both realms, Earth and Chaos, he took blood and bodies, and formed new life in Hell—the hellhounds, the basilisks, the nychiptera, and more—each terrifying and hungry. He named the act “creation” and said his powers equaled those Above, yet he was not satisfied. For although some of Lucifer’s creatures feared him and a few were loyal to the throne, none worshipped him.

  On Earth, however, humans had begun worshipping the seraphim, despite having little reason to do so. The Rules protected humankind; they did not have to fear the angels, who in their weakness never made examples of men or demanded their obedience. Lucifer was not weak, and so he schemed to create a race superior to humans—a race that did not have to follow the Rules and that could bring humanity to their knees. A race that would obey and worship him, as was his due. To that end, he carved symbols into the flesh of his chosen demons—including his most powerful and loyal lieutenant, Belial—and bade them to drink the blood and eat from the heart of a dragon. The spell transformed the demons; they left Hell and mated with humans. Five sets of twins were conceived, and in each set a child of light and a child of darkness were born. They were the grigori, and they possessed strength and power, just as Lucifer had planned.

  But Lucifer had not anticipated that the demons’ transformations went deeper than the physical, and that they might love their human mates and their children. The seraphim befriended and loved the children, as well, and so the grigori were raised as a family—not in hatred and fear, but with understanding and kindness.

  Of the grigori, Belial’s daughter, Anaria, was the most understanding, the most kind. Her goodness shone through to her soul as easily as the sun through glass. Though her dark brother, Michael, possessed greater physical strength and spirit, it was Anaria they each tried to emulate, and to whom they looked as a guide. She was their heart.

  Her heart she gave to another grigori—Zakril, one of the light twins and brother to Khavi. They married, and their lives were filled with a happiness that was marred only by the gradual change in their parents. Though the demons’ physical forms became more angelic than human or demonic, the corruption in their hearts once again resembled a demon’s.

  And so when Lucifer brought his dragon from Chaos to Earth and the Second Battle began, their parents joined the demon prince. The grigori, led by Michael and inspired by Anaria, stood with the angels and mankind, instead. Three grigori fell before the dragon and Lucifer’s demons, and much of the world burned. When Michael was killed while slaying the dragon, Anaria held him and wept—and when he returned to life, transformed by the seraphim and made a Guardian, her tears were of joy.

  Each of the grigori eventually made the necessary sacrifice to become a Guardian, and for hundreds of years, they lived in Caelum, training new members of the Guardian corps, and defending the Earth from demons and nosferatu.

  Their lives were full. They had both purpose and family. Anaria lacked only one joy, but it became a steadily growing blight to her happiness: She could not bear children.

  For more than a thousand years, she and Zakril tried to conceive. They Fell; they became Guardians again. Zakril eventually accepted that they could not have children, and found his joy in what they had.

  Anaria could not, and she would not give up.

  In secret, she went to Lucifer, and they struck a bargain: If he taught her how to create children, they would serve Hell’s throne. Though Lucifer hated to share his knowledge, he could not resist the temptation of commanding the children of a grigori, and so Anaria learned of the symbols and how to work their magic.

  They were not immediately successful, however. Anaria’s body would not conceive. Finally, they bargained with the human women suffering in the Pit—women who were not truly flesh, but spirit that manifested as flesh in Hell. In exchange for a quick burn and their souls’ release from Hell, they were impregnated with Zakril and Anaria’s seed. Hundreds of nephilim were born full-grown and stronger than most demons—but Anaria was disappointed, for her children could not physically leave the realm. Like the women who bore them, the nephilim were only spirit that manifested as flesh in Hell. They could travel to Earth only by possessing a human spirit as it entered Hell and by inhabiting that human’s body; on Earth, they could shape-shift into their own form temporarily, but a prolonged transformation risked the host body rejecting the nephil’s control. And as long as anyone who had to follow the Rules sat upon the throne, the nephilim also had to follow the Rules.

  Lucifer was not disappointed, however. The nephilim became useful to him; when demons on Earth broke the Rules, a nephil was called across the realms to slay them. And when demons within Hell, led by those who had been transformed with the dragon’s blood, rebelled against Lucifer’s reign, he sent the nephilim to kill them.

  Upon learning that her children had been ordered to slay her father, Anaria intervened and led the nephilim against Lucifer. Though the nephilim’s numbers were small, their strength devastated Lucifer’s armies, until Belial’s forces joined with Lucifer’s. They defeated Anaria and her nephilim. As punishment, half the nephilim were slain, and the others were imprisoned with their mother.

  When Anaria did not return to Caelum, the Guardians began searching for her. For years, they searched. They finally learned of her bargain with Lucifer and the children she had created, the war she had waged. Michael, Zakril, and Khavi journeyed to Hell and, with enormous effort, freed her from her prison. They did not free the nephilim.

  Centuries passed. Anaria dreamed of releasing her children. She dreamed of liberating Hell from the tyranny of Lucifer’s reign, and of freeing the tortured souls in the Pit. She dreamed that humans would no longer sin and always choose kindness and compassion over hatred and fear. She developed a plan that would fulfill all of her dreams.

  As her first step, she led a group of Guardians who shared the same dreams. Together, they slaughtered a human army.

  Michael did not allow her to take any more steps. They’d broken the Rules, and so he forced her Guardian companions to Fall or Ascend. His sister was grigori, however—and even though he stripped Anaria of her Guardian status and Gifts, her strength and power far exceeded a demon’s or nosferatu’s, and she posed a terrible danger to humankind. When he ordered his sister’s execution, his pain was as great as if he’d ripped out his own heart.

  Zakril saved Anaria and hid her away, though he told Michael that the deed had been done. For centuries, Zakril, his sister Khavi, Anaria, and the Guardians loyal to her hid from Michael, until a demon who had called himself their friend betrayed them. Zakril was sl
ain. Khavi was trapped in Hell, where Belial killed her husband, Aaron. And Anaria, who had been hidden away in a temple that only Zakril could enter, found the temple had become her prison.

  She remained there for two and a half millennia. Imprisoned, just as her children were still imprisoned Below.

  In Hell, Khavi, who bore the Gift of foresight, delivered to Belial a prophecy: Anaria would be freed. A dragon would rise from Chaos. Vampire blood would destroy the nephilim. And after the nephilim had been defeated, after Michael’s heart was destroyed, Belial would ascend to the throne.

  For two and a half thousand years, none of it came to pass. The names Anaria, Zakril, and Khavi were no longer spoken on Earth or Caelum. Guardians knew nothing of the grigori, the nephilim, or the prophecy. Michael continued leading them, never faltering. Civilizations crumbled, and men advanced in fits and spurts. Ancient cities fell to ruins and skyscrapers rose in their place. The Guardian corps carried on, though their numbers fell dangerously low.

  With one wager, everything changed. Michael risked Caelum and bet the heart of a Guardian against the heart of a demon, and won. Lucifer was forced to close the Gates to Hell for five hundred years. Many demons remained on Earth, however, and the Rules still had to be enforced—and so Lucifer released the nephilim, who possessed the bodies of humans recently dead and bound for Hell.

  Aware that vampire blood weakened them, the nephilim began massacring vampire communities. They freed their mother from her prison, and assisted her attack against the Guardians, where she collected a vampire’s blood that allowed her access to the Chaos realm. From there, she hoped to gain entry into Hell, where she would resume her battle for Lucifer’s throne. Her portal to Chaos unleashed a dragon that the Guardians fought and destroyed.

  Now the Guardians wait for her next move.

  Rosalia didn’t want to wait. She wanted to strike before Anaria did, though she didn’t know what form that strike would take, and she suspected that no one but Michael would be powerful enough to bring it about. She couldn’t compose Anaria’s ending yet.

  The nephilim’s end, however—Rosalia imagined that often. And although those scenarios took many forms, the result was always bloody.

  How to do it, though? She had nothing but time to contemplate a solution as she flew west, her wings beating a steady course above the Atlantic. Methodically, she reviewed everything she knew about Anaria and her children, went over the grigori’s story again and again, but she came up with few ideas.

  The nephilim were too powerful. Anaria was too powerful. If the Guardians faced off against them, singly or together, Rosalia saw only disaster.

  Halfway across the ocean, Rosalia caught up to the sun, slipped past another dawn and into the night. The moon had already set, deepening the darkness and making the shadows easier to gather. With her Gift, Rosalia congealed the darkness like glue. She wrapped it around her body and stretched the shadows, forcing them to carry her along. The wind roared in her ears; she thickened the shadows into a cocoon of silence. In the quiet, she raced through the dark, across a continent, faster than she could fly. Within ten minutes, she reached the bay east of San Francisco. Though in the early hours of the morning, the city shone brightly, busy with life.

  She pulled out of the shadows and spread her wings. Cool air sifted through her white feathers. Not far from the shoreline, a dilapidated warehouse sat inside a large fenced lot—Special Investigations’ headquarters.

  The exterior of the building had surprised Rosalia the first time she’d seen it. After Deacon had led Irena to the catacombs and Irena had destroyed the nosferatu feeding from Rosalia, they’d brought her here. She’d woken up inside the warehouse, where everything was modern and new. She hadn’t expected the disrepair on the outside, but she should have. It was the first lesson Michael taught each of them: Appearances were almost always deceiving. It didn’t require full-blown cynicism, but a healthy dose of suspicion never hurt.

  Or it ended up hurting less. Rosalia could’ve probably exercised her cynicism a little more often.

  The warehouse door opened into an empty white corridor. At the end, a novice disguised as an older gentleman in a butler’s uniform waited behind thick glass. With her Gift, Rosalia could have slipped into the building without using the entrance or bothering with security, but doing so felt rude. Though every Guardian was welcome at the warehouse, this facility and Special Investigations wasn’t hers. She presented her identification, instead, and submitted to the retinal scans designed to verify the identity of shape-shifters. Once admitted, she passed into a hallway, walked past offices and conferences rooms. They were mostly quiet now, though a few Guardians and vampires sat at desks, typing on their computers and speaking various languages into their phones.

  She reached the warehouse’s hub, where corridors headed in four directions and stairs led to the second floor. From the passageway across the hub, the psychic hum of a Gate reverberated through her mind, warm and gentle. With a few steps, she could cross into Caelum, a city of marble shining beneath a never-setting sun. She turned left, instead, seeking either Jake or Selah, two Guardians with the ability to teleport. Rosalia’s Gift could carry her through the dark, but she couldn’t go to a specific person unless she already knew where they were.

  She found Jake in the tech room. The young Guardian stood in front of one of the computers, his hands clasped behind his shaved head, staring at the machine like he wanted to shove his boot through the screen. The scent of fried circuitry hung in the air.

  She’d heard he’d picked up another Gift after he’d been transformed a second time. Apparently he was still working through the kinks.

  Jake glanced at Rosalia when she said his name, then did a double- take.

  She wasn’t surprised by his reaction. She hadn’t been in contact with any other Guardian since taking Deacon from Prague to her home. She was, however, surprised that he managed to keep his eyes on her face. Whenever she’d seen him before, his gaze had always been glued to her chest.

  God had been generous when He’d created her—and He was either kind to the men who looked at her, or cruel enough to test their character every time they did.

  “Hello. Jake.” She waved her hand, hoping to snap him out of the surprised expression that was rapidly turning into uncertainty. “Ciao. I know I have dropped in on you, but I need to speak with Michael. Will you take me to him?”

  His eyes widened. His gaze hadn’t dropped yet. Impressive. “Uh, yeah. But I don’t know if I can—”

  “Will you try? It’s important.”

  “But, you can’t—Shit. I need to tell you . . .” Doubt flooded his psychic scent. He ran his hands over his head, obviously flustered. “Hold on, okay?”

  He vanished.

  Rosalia smiled and closed her eyes. In the darkness, she listened. Upstairs, the novices chatted and played the card games that doubled as practice. Most of the rooms on the second floor were empty. Six months ago, she’d tried to seduce Deacon in one of those rooms, hoping he’d warm to her. It hadn’t worked, and she’d left—disappointed, frustrated, angry. She’d thought he’d been beaten by another vampire, rejected by his women, and tossed out of the community he’d once led. She hadn’t known his partners Eva and Petra had a demon’s knife to their throats.

  Now knowing the true circumstances, she respected that he hadn’t accepted what she’d offered. Not that she’d been very good at seduction. She’d never included it in her repertoire of talents.

  Perhaps she should have. She wasn’t likely to get the chance again, and she’d have liked to know what it was to be with him, even once.

  She also liked to console herself by imagining that he’d turn in a terrible performance. A suck and a thrust and a haul off.

  Heartbeats and a rustle of clothing told Rosalia that Jake had returned—but not with Michael. Irena and Alejandro accompanied him, still unsteady on their feet from the teleportation. Rosalia lifted her brows at Jake. Maybe he’d thought she just
needed assistance slaying a demon. Alejandro and Irena were undeniably perfect for that. But they weren’t who she needed now.

  Jake shifted his feet, looked both apologetic and uneasy, so she turned to Alejandro.

  “Thank you for coming, but—”

  “We aren’t Michael,” Irena said.

  Rosalia glanced at the other woman. She didn’t know Irena well—had avoided her, in fact. Though small and compact, Irena’s loud laugh, brassy hair, and the serpent tattoos winding her arms drew attention, and Rosalia felt exposed just by proximity. She preferred to wait quietly and watch, unnoticed. She could not do so next to a woman who wore leather longstockings and a white fur mantle. Alejandro, however, was more like Rosalia, and the resemblance went deeper than their height and the darkness of their hair. Though Alejandro hadn’t been raised by a demon, he’d been a noble during the Spanish Inquisition, and it had taught him subtlety and how to maneuver gracefully around his opponents—in both his speech and his use of the sword. He and Irena were two of the oldest, most respected Guardians, but Irena was right: They were not Michael.