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  Lilith sighed and ran her hands through her hair.

  A fresh scar, five inches deep, marred a nearby tree. The trunk had cracked and was leaning precariously. The dragon had struck it, and its claws scored the wood while it righted itself.

  Lilith put her hand in the claw mark, which was wider than her palm and rough as if cut by a serrated blade. The torn bark gave her an idea of how the dragon’s scales were shaped. Keeled.

  She revealed her findings to Haniel. “It chased her through here. She fired at it from this direction. Doesn’t matter if she hit it because bullets obviously didn’t do the trick. The creature shifted and flew away with her.”

  He twisted his hands together. His fingers shook. His voice, too. “Tell me about dragons.”

  “What, they don’t have dragons in heaven?” she teased.

  “When God sensed the fall of man and the revolt of His angels, He dumped the worst of His creatures in the darkest pits. I imagine there are monsters all across the realms that I’m not aware of. But you are, apparently. I wonder why.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “Which pit did you crawl out of?”

  She hooked a thumb at her chest. “Merely a vampire. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  True but not true, and they both knew it. He scowled at her. The legion echoed him with hoots and chitters.

  “What kind of dragon?”

  Oh, now he believes me? She wanted to make him suffer, but that would waste even more time.

  “Stone dragons are the most common dragon breed,” she said. “But their numbers are dwindling. I’ve only seen traces of six in as many centuries. They’re hermetic.” Not unlike her, she supposed. “However, Lane liked collecting both mundane and rare treasures, so it could be any manner of specimen.”

  “What would a stone dragon do if it came across a defenseless young woman?”

  Lilith picked up a stone and rubbed it between her thumb and finger. “Was she pretty?”

  “She’s beautiful,” he insisted, eyes glazing over.

  She interpreted his statement to mean his male brain had been blinded by intense love chemicals. Maggie probably wasn’t pretty enough for a dragon to steal, unless she was a virgin or had a rare condition.

  “Regardless,” she said, “the assailant probably wasn’t a stone dragon. They can be as big as a bus. Even an infant dragon would have left deeper tracks. Besides, this is a shifter dragon. Most dragon species can’t change into a humanoid form, which narrows our options down to three subspecies.”

  He crossed his arms. “Get on with it.”

  “Naga, which are wyrm dragons. However, they’re legless and don’t leave footprints in their dragon form. Then there’s the Arthurian dragon shifters: big, bulky, powerhouses. But again, if something big flew away, I’d see evidence of its larger wingspan. Divots on the earth, ground cleared by the force of its wings flapping. Based on the sharpness of the scales that lashed into that tree, I’m assuming our assailant is a burrowing dragon. They’re longer with shorter legs, bigger claws for digging, and hard scales for scooping. Unfortunately, they’re less likely to keep their prey alive. If it took Maggie, it ate her quickly.”

  He froze, eyes wide as he considered her words. Then he shook his head. “No. No, she’s alive. You’re saying that to be cruel.”

  Lilith ignored the statement. “Dragons are messy eaters, though.”

  She scoured the ground again, looking for signs of death. She was disappointed, and he seemed to know it.

  “See? No corpse and no remains,” Haniel said, following the sound of her voice. “Maggie’s alive. She’s got to be.” He muttered, “Heaven wouldn’t do that to her.”

  “Wouldn’t it?” Lilith spat. She didn't know much of heaven itself, but she knew of the cruelty it permitted on earth—right under heaven’s vulture nose. She glanced up at the sky, looking for a winged creature.

  What she saw instead surprised her. She reached up, straining to touch a branch. It was too far up, and she couldn't reach. A serpent spiraled down her arm and stretched off her wrist, extending its long body to catch her prize in its mouth.

  A cherry blossom, pink as a blushing maiden, fresh and whole on an otherwise charred and unsalvageable tree. Its perfume marred the air. Cherry blossoms in the dead orchard while winter trapped the frozen-solid earth? It wasn’t entirely natural. And the blossom wasn’t coated in smoke or ash, meaning it had bloomed after the fire died.

  Which meant…

  She paused. Dread pricked her nerves. “I was wrong.”

  “What do you mean? What?”

  “These leaves are fresh. This bud is new.”

  “And?”

  “Do these charred trees look like they’re capable of sprouting new leaves? Not likely. Something influenced them. Forced the blossoms to emerge.”

  She spun and returned to the tree with the hollow from a whipping tail. She touched the marks. “The scale pattern is almost the same, but sharper, keeled. Like thorns. This isn’t a burrowing dragon, which means…”

  Could it be? Were the legends true?

  She shivered with excitement. “It’s a humbaba.”

  Haniel waved his arms. “Speak clearly, vampire.”

  She sniffed the blossom. “Think of a dragon whose mommy fooled around with a woodland spirit.”

  “I can’t believe this.”

  “You’re an angel,” she sneered. “Or you were, before you messed up, but you admitted that you don’t know everything, right?”

  He scowled.

  “Humbaba are smaller than stone dragons. They can fly, and they’re damned hard to kill,” she said. “They have seven hearts, and all seven have to stop beating before it will die. He’d be furious with Maggie.”

  “Why? What could she possibly have done?”

  Lilith waved her hand at the scorched orchard. “She destroyed his forest. The woodland spirit part of him wouldn’t like that very much, would he? The good news is that I don’t see any spots where he might have buried her.”

  “Buried her? But you said there was no blood!”

  “Humbaba are efficient killers, and they like to bury their prey. Picture a gardener using blood and bone meal to fertilize his crops—”

  Haniel lunged forward. Her cheek stung. He’d struck her! And she’d been too involved in her puzzle to see it coming.

  Snakes lashed out at him, the white ones first, the horned cobra, fangs extended—

  “No!” she cried, imagining Haniel’s bloated, blackened, venom-filled corpse becoming utterly useless—

  The imps who protect Haniel snapped into sight, saturated with aggression, roaring for a fight. A fight ensued. Snip, snip. The legion screamed like a cauldron of crickets being boiled to death.

  “Maggie isn’t fertilizer,” Haniel said. “Where would the dragon take her?”

  “Assyrian dragons prefer caves near running water.” Lilith set her hands on her hips. “Maggie’s gone, Haniel. Forever. Now, let’s go back to the truck. I need you to drive me somewhere.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you until you keep your promise.”

  She waved her arms. “I brought you back here! I did my part. More than I needed to. Taking care of your human is not my job. Give her up. Get another one.”

  “Not on your life,” he snarled. His finger jabbed at her chest. “You’re the dragon expert, and you’re going to help me track down the bastard who stole my Maggie.”

  “The hell I am.” She sneered into his face. “See that smoldering wreck? Maggie did that. She came here and helped destroy my oldest friend. I don’t give a scorpion’s eyelash about the other Exalted she killed, but Lane can’t be replaced. If you ask me, Maggie got what she deserved.”

  The fallen angel’s eyes flared red, briefly, like a blink of hellfire, and she realized she’d pushed him too far.

  Chapter 9

  Haniel lunged, wrapping his beefy hands around Lilith’s throat.

  Unfortunately, she�
�d wasted so much energy in the argument that she actually wanted to breathe right then, and his gouging thumbs and strangling hands prevented her. His statuesque height pushed her down, and the pipes in her throat bore the full brunt of his wrath.

  She lifted her foot and kicked his injured patella.

  He roared and his leg collapsed to the side. His hands loosened, but instead of releasing her, his grip slid into her long white hair. He clutched a fistful and yanked her head to the side. The serpents roosting in her mane reared and struck at him. Fangs sank. Venom released, pungent and caustic. He growled through his pain and slammed his free hand into her temple.

  In the starlit haze of her mind, new information rattled around. Was it her imagination, or had he grown stronger? And what an inconvenient time to notice.

  She lashed out, not with her fist, but her palm. When striking supernatural creatures with unknown strength, she preferred not to break her fingers on them. The punch smashed into his solar plexus. Hard. Too hard. She could have stopped his heart. Judging from the stunned expression on his face, she’d come close.

  He flung her by the hair. Her scalp tore. She flew, and snakes sprinkled from her hair and dress. The mallet of his fist rang her with dull pain, but the tear in her scalp was sharp and hot. The fucker.

  One hand on his knee, he braced himself up, pressed a hand over his chest, and gasped for air. His thorny eyes targeted her. It didn't look like he had any intention of stopping.

  She hissed. Snakes rushed toward him. The blow to her head had shaken her, and her vision swam. Everything went soft and hazy, halos danced around the details, and she couldn't see past the edge of the orchard.

  Panic whirled inside her, agitating the spark inside her chest. The pressure burned and grew, thick and rough. She’d burst and die if she didn't do something.

  Demon runts rushed her.

  She cast the spark at the trees. Wood cracked and splintered. Plumes of ash rose in the air as the logs teetered and squirmed to life. Five giant constrictors with heads the size of grapefruit careened through the orchard debris. One bumped against her leg, nearly knocking her off her feet.

  Haniel, still wheezing, pointed at her. Minions materialized in droves. Lilith expected a dozen or so, but saw three times that number: short and tall, fat and starved, some slow and others so quick their motion blurred in her dreary gaze.

  Might have overdone it, she thought.

  Her heart yawned empty and the snip-pangs of death echoed in her vacuous chest.

  Teeth, claws, fangs, and scales crashed together. Biting, slashing, crushing, and choking. Almost-wing, Five-horn, and Triceratops led the charge. A minion with two smiling mouths stacked one above the other gnawed on serpent innards. Her constrictors flip-flopped, soared, thrashed, heaved their enormous bellies, tightening their coils around minions that sometimes disappeared into nothingness and other times were crushed to leathery bags of blood and pus.

  Don’t kill them, don’t kill them, she urged her serpents, but their perfect, simple brains didn’t hold the compulsion very long. Besides, the demons tore into them, tooth, fang, and horn. At that rate, soon she wouldn’t have any serpents left.

  Haniel limped closer, ready to attack her again. The man was utterly senseless. His demons were dying, and he didn't seem to care. Lilith remembered that sort of rage, the kind of fury that fells empires and destroys generations.

  If Mr. Angel-britches isn’t careful, he’ll damn himself all over again.

  She hissed to keep him at bay, but he looked crazed. How could she stop him without killing him? She was long out of practice on the non-fatal end of the violence spectrum. She couldn’t remember ever assaulting a human without the intention of killing it.

  What if she didn’t stop in time? What if she broke him? Hell, another concussion might kill him.

  Haniel waded through a tumultuous sea of warring familiars. His eyes stabbed her with evil intent.

  Should have guessed that a fallen angel would hold a grudge.

  Then her spark flickered to life. The bead of power hardened in her chest, growing incrementally. It never really stopped, not for long. The ceaseless pressure, compulsion, and need increased until she released it, and it punished her with pain from within when she neglected it. The power ruled her, always, even in hibernation.

  Maybe the amulet will fix that, too.

  The ever-present compulsion usually trickled in steadily—until now. The spark didn’t simply grow in magnitude and density. It vibrated. Warbled. Practically hummed.

  It flooded her.

  The new sensation frightened her so intimately that she dumped the power as quickly as possible. She was like a startled animal releasing its bladder.

  The Becoming swept through the orchard. Snakes emerged from everywhere. Demon innards whipped free of the mesentery and grew into red banded water snakes. The laces on Haniel’s shoes morphed into crowned snakes. Branches converted into cottonmouths. Deep-down roots rose as African burrowing snakes.

  She’d spent everything she could, doubling down on her brood, and had no magic—nothing—left.

  The nothingness vibrated. Danced. Sang.

  As if her magic recognized something else. Something new. The yearning grew so fast it hurt. Lilith clutched her chest, feeling a sharp pain bounce around, and panicked.

  The spark sprung out of control.

  “Oh, god,” she whispered.

  Haniel must have thought he was the cause of her distress because he laughed and continued to bludgeon her. Snakes interceded on her behalf, tangling on his limbs, weighing him down. She looked wildly around.

  Stormy black clouds whirled through the sky. Wind buffeted her ears. Lighting burned and blinked on the horizon. She listened for the sound of wings, terrified that she’d hear a whooshing sound.

  Oh, let it be a dragon.

  She’d take a dragon over an angel any day.

  She’d been careless. Stupid. She'd gone and spent all her spark. Instead of nursing a bit of pressure here and there, spawning snakes of a responsible size in a continuous stream, she’d unleashed everything, three times in quick succession. She’d practically begged heaven to come find her.

  And it did.

  She knew she’d die if she didn't run, but Haniel…

  The idiot raged on, knotted with snakes, utterly oblivious.

  There’s no accounting for such stupidity.

  Her throng of serpents could kill him. Maybe. She didn’t know what he was anymore. He smelled mortal, but he’d hit her impossibly hard. Now was not the time for another mystery, so she bargained.

  “I’ll help you find Maggie,” she said, “but we have to leave. Now.”

  He paused.

  Air hardened around them as if it was being squashed, molecule by molecule, into the ground. Gravitational force doubled, quadrupled. The earth rumbled under her feet. Snakes fell. Lilith’s shoulders bowed and she could scarcely lift her feet.

  As if heaven had fallen to earth.

  Angels.

  Lilith yelled. “Run!”

  Haniel hesitated.

  She grabbed Almost-wing by the lumps on her back and tossed her at Haniel. “Fetch him!”

  Could the imp understand? Would it listen? Hopefully. If not, Lilith would have to come back for his corpse. She spun on her heel and ran—tried to run. Her body felt like a metric ton of sand. Her heart labored over each beat.

  Clouds rolled back like curtains parting.

  She bolted as fast as she could. The farther she ran, the easier it became. Wind burned her cheeks. The perfume of cherry blossoms lessened, but the sulfuric scent persisted. She risked a glance over her shoulder and spotted a mass of red eyes in the distance.

  If it were any other occasion, she’d laugh at the spectacle they made: a half-nude vampire leading a jungle’s worth of snakes, pursued by a throng of demons hoisting a man-sized creature above their heads. It would have made her delirious if her heart wasn’t thundering as powerfully as missiles f
rom Zeus’s hand. She didn’t even know where she was running to, but now wasn’t the time to consult a map.

  Thankfully, the angel wasn’t following her. Actually, heaven only seemed to catch up with her when she made a big show of using her spark.

  Gotta tone it down.

  As she sprinted, Lilith purged every tiny flicker of spark that tried to creep back into her chest. She plucked a hair from her head and turned it into the smallest snake she’d ever seen. She did it over and over, burning through every ounce of magic until the spark laid as dead and unresponsive as a squashed slug.

  Lilith raced long after her legs burned and her chest heaved and her breath bludgeoned her nearly to death as it pounded in and out of her lungs.

  The brewing storm passed, heading north, away from her. Silence fell.

  She collapsed on the crusty-sharp snow. Her body blazed with scratchy heat. Her lungs nearly ripped themselves to ribbons trying to breathe for her. Huffing and puffing, she wanted a warm bath and a roll in hot sands and then, finally, a hibernation in solitude.

  And she wanted blood. Gallons of it.

  None of which were available at the moment.

  She nestled deeper in the snow, delighting in how the cold soothed her trembling flesh.

  The minions caught up to her before her snakes did, and threw Haniel on the ground like a sack of grain. Several gasped and faded—maybe even died.

  Haniel panted, then he had the nerve to say, “You’re not getting away that easily.”

  Lilith wanted to laugh but was too busy wheezing. If he had been a proper demon, Haniel might have tried to kill her before her army had arrived. Thankfully, he believed he needed her, even though the mission to recover Maggie was fated for disaster.

  The first serpent to reach her was three meters long, and he posted between her and Haniel like a jealous toddler. Her pall hand settled on the snake’s back.

  Haniel examined her. “Why did you run?”

  She didn't want to tell him. Couldn’t be sure about his loyalties where heaven was concerned. Unfortunately, they were bound to cross an angel again. If she wanted Haniel’s cooperation, she should warn him.

  “Heaven doesn’t like me very much,” she said.