Eve's breath caught, then was exhaled in rush. "I think so."

"Then get there. Quick."

Raguel unfolded from the back of his bulletproof Suburban and slipped on a pair of sungla.s.ses. Before him stood the headquarters where the garrison commander, Colonel Rachel Wells, oversaw the nuts and bolts of what was left of Fort McCroskey and the adjunct installations.

He had called ahead and she was expecting him, but the tone of her voice had warned him of trouble ahead. Debunking the ghosts was important to her for a reason he had yet to discern. But her motivation was moot. He would persuade her to postpone the filming of the ghost-hunter show long enough for his team to purify the area. A few days, at most, were all he needed.

Montevista exited the front pa.s.senger seat. With practiced movements, the guard straightened the fit of his navy blazer, effectively concealing the bulge of his shoulder holster and gun. From behind dark sungla.s.ses, the Mark scanned their surroundings with a sweeping glance. "I can't stand feeling vulnerable."

"You have the strength of an army in you."

"Flattery won't save you if we're attacked by whatever butchered Molenaar today. You and the students should be on the move as we speak, sir."

Raguel brushed a careless hand down his dress shirt. The time for leisure was over and his change of attire reflected that. "Charles Grimshaw will circle us for a while before he strikes again. He just wanted us to know he was here, hunting."

Montevista looked at him. Although the Mark's shades were dark enough to be impermeable to mortal eyes, Raguel's enhanced vision saw through them as if they weren't there. The Mark was clearly taken aback.

"Grimshaw did this? How do you know?"

"Molenaar was hunted by an animal. He was targeted because he was the weakest and slowest member of our group. And the manner in which he was killed was a message, one guaranteed to reveal the sender."

"What is the message?" Sydney asked. She was a pet.i.te blonde, less than five feet tall. Delicately feminine, she downplayed her fragility with a severe chignon, starkly cut pantsuit, and b.u.t.ton-down dress shirt. Like Montevista, she wore dark shades and her right ear was wrapped with an earpiece that kept her connected to the rest of his security detail.

"He intends to cut off G.o.d from the people-hence the decapitation of a crucified man-through those who are lacking and vulnerable."

Montevista's hazel eyes narrowed consideringly. This was why Raguel trusted him with his life. The Mark examined everything. "How is that Grimshaw's signature?"

Raguel moved to the walkway that led to the headquarters entrance. On the lawn to the left, a bronze statue celebrated a person or event rather than the hand of G.o.d who guided all. He looked away, noting instead the number of cars in the parking lot and the proliferation of uniform-clad soldiers scurrying like ants around the various buildings.

"Charles once told me that Infernals are not an accident. He claimed they were created by design and our time here on Earth is merely a test. Survival of the fittest, he said. One day, only the strongest and wiliest will remain. That is who G.o.d seeks, he claims. Not the most faithful, but the most ruthless."

"What do you think, sir?" Sydney asked.

"I think Charles lost his originality with age. His actions are not motivated by survival of the fittest; they are spurred by his own misplaced grief and self-recrimination. Nearly everyone blames G.o.d when they lose a loved one. I expected better of him."

Montevista's face took on a stony cast. "The loss of a child is something you could never understand unless it happened to you."

Raguel was well aware that Montevista-a former police officer-had approached the acquitted murderer of his six-year-old daughter and fired six rounds from his service revolver straight into the man's heart. One for each year of her life. It was why Montevista was marked.

"The Lord gave," Raguel murmured, "and the Lord hath taken away."

"Job 1:2021," Sydney offered.

"It's a brutal test even the most pious fail." Montevista's voice was tight. "A demon like Grimshaw didn't stand a chance."

"Perhaps that was the point." Raguel reached into his pocket for his beeping cell phone. He withdrew it and read the text message from Uriel.

Satellite conference @ 18:00 EST.

He checked the time and exhaled harshly. It was just past noon. He still needed to speak with Abel, who would explain what happened in Australia. Going blind into a meeting with the other archangels was not an option. There were very few things he disliked more than discovering that he knew less than his siblings. Once he learned all he could from Abel, Raguel would send him away. The mal'akh's appearance so swiftly on the heels of Molenaar's murder had created a volatile situation Evangeline was not prepared for. Later, she would serve G.o.d's purpose. For now, Raguel wanted nothing to interfere with his own work with her. He fully intended for her to align with him so completely that she related to him more than she did with Cain and Abel. He could manage them through her. Together, he and the two brothers could form a triumvirate that would ensure his position in the celestial hierarchy. And bringing the warring siblings together would prove unequivocally that he could accomplish any task. Ascension to the rank of hashmal wouldn't be far behind.

Raguel's fingers wrapped around the cool metal handle of the door. The entrance to the headquarters was set into the side of the building, shielded by an overhang that kept the doorway in shadow. Free of the sun's glare, the gla.s.s was as clear as still water. Even without his enhanced sight, he could see directly through to the twin doors on the opposite side of the long foyer.

The lights were out. Nothing moved. He listened closely and heard only silence. Montevista rushed in front of him, preventing him from opening the door. Sydney pressed her back to his, shielding him from a possible rear attack.

"Take him back to the truck," Montevista ordered.

"Not yet." Glancing over the Mark's shoulder, Raguel noted the flashing red light on the wall. "Someone set off the fire alarm."

"I don't smell smoke."

"Neither do I." If it were present, he could smell it from a mile away. Literally. "A drill, perhaps."

"I don't like it," Sydney said. "Something's off. I can feel it."

"Sir, if you'll wait in the car with Sydney," Montevista suggested, "I'll investigate and find the colonel."

"Not this time," Raguel demurred. "Under the circ.u.mstances, I prefer that we remain together."

Something weighty and cool was pressed into his palm. Raguel glanced at Sydney, who gave a nod. Then, his gaze dropped to the gun in his hand. His lip curled in distaste. Such a blunt and brutal weapon, lacking all elegance and refinery. That he was forced to carry, and possibly use, such an instrument was insulting. Against an Infernal, he could unleash the full force of his G.o.d-given power. But against a mortal-a Satanist or possessed soul-he had to restrain himself to inflicting wounds that wouldn't destroy the body or betray what he was.

The restrictions on his gifts chafed deeper every day. To his knowledge, the other archangels were happy with their lot. Uriel loved the ocean. Raphael loved the Serengeti. Sara had earthy appet.i.tes. He, however, would leave mortal life behind in an instant to return to the heavens. There was little here that appealed to him. He found it all so primitive. Despite centuries of technological advances, human nature had yet to mature beyond its infantile stages.

Raguel handed the gun back. "I changed my mind. Wait here."

"I don't-!"

He shifted before Montevista could finish the sentence. He winked in and out of every room in the building. Signs that the occupants had vacated in a hurry were prevalent-open e-mail in-boxes on monitors and cold drinks sitting amid puddles of condensation.

Yet it was calm outside. Whatever alarm had been triggered here hadn't alerted anyone beyond these walls. A drill would explain that, but it didn't explain the chill that moved through Raguel. Something was wrong; he simply had to discover what it was.

Pausing his search inside the colonel's office, Raguel glanced out the wall of widows that overlooked the field below. His brows lifted at the sight of the formation on the gra.s.s a few hundred yards beyond the building. A hundred or more soldiers stood at parade rest in neat, precise rows.

"What are you doing?" he wondered aloud.

Footsteps thundered up the stairs, the pounding beat echoing through the hallway and reception area. Sydney and Montevista.

"In here." Raguel's voice came at conversational volume, knowing their enhanced hearing would pick it up. With the cas.e.m.e.nt windows ajar to invite in the breeze, he was hesitant to disturb the ranks below. The two guards rushed in behind him. Sydney dipped into the adjacent garrison Command Sergeant Major's office, searching for hazards. Montevista took up a position at Raguel's right shoulder.

"Everything okay, sir?"

"So it would appear."

He scanned the visible area, spotting the baseball game taking place on the opposite side of a thick barrier of Monterey pines. Off-duty soldiers at play. What had started out as a gloomy morning had turned into a sunny day.

"Uh . . . Sir," Sydney said from the CSM's office. "There's a disturbance at the tree line. I can't make out what it is from here."

Montevista leaned forward as if doing so would improve his vision. Old habits died hard. "Where? What are you looking at?"

Raguel's gaze honed in on the swaying of a twenty-foot pine. He pointed. "There."

Enhancing his vision, he looked through the trunks and watched some . . . thing struggling. A huge creature, pale enough to glimmer like a pearl even in the shade of the towering trees around it. A creature capable of shaking a mature pine down to its roots.

"What in h.e.l.l can move a tree that size?" Montevista asked.

Mariel's voice echoed through Raguel's mind, It was a monstrous beast; easily several feet in height. Flesh, not fur. Ma.s.sive shoulders and thighs.

"I believe we have found our mysterious Infernal."

"Or it found us first," Montevista said grimly. "If that's the thing Mariel and Abel are after, what is it doing here and how do we kill it?"

This creature was much bigger than what she had described, but size was moot. The thing in the trees was evil, a being so afflicted in the soul that it tainted the air around it. Its thrashing and writhing sent waves of horror outward in shockwaves. The branches recoiled, their creaking a cry for help that reverberated inside him. Below, the formation shivered in unison. They felt the wrongness but were incapable of discerning the source.

Raguel breathed deeply, inhaling the fresh air entering through the window. The faintest hint of sweetness teased his nostrils.

Mark blood.

With a roar only enhanced ears could hear, he shifted through the gla.s.s and plummeted along the outside of the building, leaving his cell phone spinning like a top on the office floor behind him. As the ground rushed up to meet him, his wings snapped outward like a flag in a Santa Ana wind. He caught the current and soared over the formation, his upward surge sending a torrent of air across the soldiers. Their hats scattered, twisting and tumbling.

A unified cry of dismay followed him. Blinded by their mortality, they couldn't see his celestial form, but they felt him. Not just in the wind, but in the inner sense that connected them to the heavens. A sense dulled by time and misuse, but still inherent nevertheless.

The beast returned Raguel's war cry with one of its own, a fulsome growl that caused every animal within a goodly distance to sound out in fear, giving voice to the hidden reality of the battle about to ensue. Accelerating to a speed faster than mortal time, Raguel noted how the world around him slowed. The wayward hats hovered in midair, arrested. Birds hung in midflight. The only thing moving at his pace was the Infernal. The creature broke free of its confinement and leaped out onto the field, felling two trees and leaving a depression in the ground.

It was a flesh-colored ma.s.s the size of a bus. The beast barreled toward the unsuspecting formation with a speed that was stunning considering its bulk. It ran on all fours, fists punching into the Earth with unrestrained ferocity. The shoulders and thighs were disproportionately gigantic, a grotesque contrast to the smaller head and tiny waist. But the crowning atrocity was its mouth, a yawning cavern lined with rows of yellowed teeth.

It crawled inside my Mark, Mariel had reported. She screamed and it lunged into her mouth. It disappeared inside her. It should have been impossible. The creature was many times her size . . . The falling trees were at the midway point in their rush to the ground. Tucking his arms close to his sides, Raguel beat his wings, increasing his velocity.

He was one of the holy angels. He who inflicts punishment on the world and the luminaries. But he had no problem kicking the a.s.s of anything vile. Sammael had been gunning for him since he was cast from Heaven. Raguel supposed it was time to give his fallen brother what he'd long wanted.

"Out of the belly of h.e.l.l I cried," Raguel said grimly, zeroing in, praying for strength and the blessing of G.o.d. "And You heard my voice."

So much time had pa.s.sed since his last battle. Time wasted. Time misused. He'd grown arrogant. Sloppy. And an innocent, untrained Mark had paid the price. Jan Molenaar's soul would now wait in Sheol- purgatory-its owner denied the chance to redeem it. Raguel prayed his next act would redeem them both. The Infernal reared up on its hind legs, attaining a breathtaking twenty-plus feet in height. It screamed with open-throated hatred at the heavens, beating at its chest in an awesome display of power. Retracting his wings at the last second, Raguel dived into the gaping maw. Eve was striding down the hallway before her brain fully registered Alec's intent. Get there. Quick.

Her aching body was galvanized by the purring rumble of his voice, a seductive timbre that even cellular reception couldn't diminish. She hurried through the kitchen and opened the rear door. Richens sat on a folded-up jacket on the lowest step, his head turning to see who joined him.

"Hollis." His eyes and expression were eerily blank. "I need to talk to you."

"Lose Mastermind," Alec ordered.

For some silly reason, it meant a lot to her that he remembered her nicknames. "Getting there," she muttered.

Eve shook her head at Richens in silent negation. Later, she mouthed. She jumped off the step and onto the dead gra.s.s.

"You just showed up and now you're leaving again?" he groused. "We have to pack."

She didn't bother pointing out that he wasn't doing anything to help. "I forgot something next door."

"That's what Garza and Hogan said . . . before they headed in the opposite direction."

Eve waved him off, unsurprised. Garza was going to get calluses on his d.i.c.k if he didn't slow down soon.

"You still moving?" Alec asked.

"Yes. By the way, this Novium business is d.a.m.ned inconvenient. I really needed to talk to Izzie. She should have reached Molenaar around the same time as me. But she didn't show up until ten or fifteen minutes later. Where the h.e.l.l was she?"

"The Novium is never convenient, angel. And you can't do anything about your cla.s.smate now anyway. Raguel has you packing and you can't work alone."

"So I'm just stuck being miserable?"

"Your brain is seeking the sensation of a kill, so we'll trick it-temporarily-into thinking you've done that."

"How?"

"Phone s.e.x, angel."

She stumbled over a protruding patch of dead weeds. "Killing demons is o.r.g.a.s.mic?"

"How did you feel after you killed the Nix?"

Euphoric. Slightly drunk. "O-kay . . . That's really kinda sick, Alec."

"Hey, they're the bad guys, remember? The scourge of the Earth. Evil incarnate. It's okay to feel good about vanquishing them."

Rounding the backside of the duplex, Eve bypa.s.sed the kitchen door and went to the main entrance of the girls' side. It was unlocked and she hurried in. A pile of duffel bags and backpacks rested on the threshold to the dining room, including hers. "Can you go upstairs and ask G.o.d for a little help here?"

"You know better than that."

"Can't you try?"

She should be a basket case right now. Traumatized for life and frightened into paralysis. Instead, the memory of Molenaar's death filled her with an aggressive, wild energy. The need to move, to act, to rip something apart was difficult to fight. But a good hard screw would do just as well. That bothered her more than she could say.

"Angel-"

"Why is s.e.x so much a part of being a Mark?" She swiped at a drop of sweat that trickled down her temple.

"s.e.x brought us together in the first place. Then, it was involved when Abel put the mark on me, and again when I went through the physical changes with you. Seems to me that being marked and being a nymphomaniac go hand in hand."

"It's balance, Eve. You're a killer now. You'll wake up in the morning for the sole purpose of murdering something and you will usually go to bed having accomplished that task. s.e.x connects you to someone. It forces you to give and take intimacy. It keeps you human."

"Balance would be s.e.x one day and hunting the next." She leaned against the living room wall. "Mixing the two is just . . . kinky."

"s.e.x isn't the reason we hooked up."

She quivered at his rumbling tone. "Liar," she breathed. "It's all we had time for."

"Liar," he rejoined gruffly. "It took us half a second to see where we were headed. Time had nothing to do with it and the s.e.x was a bonus."

Eve would never forget the sight of him on his Harley outside the ice cream store where she worked after school. He'd had her at the first glance. "You made my mouth water," she confessed. "Still do."