38

Sal peered minutely at the screen, so close, the blood-drenched image reflected perfectly in the narrowed pupils of her eyes. Spitting like an angry hunting cat, she ripped the phone from my grip, brought it closer, stared some more. She knew as well as I did the startled, inhuman blue of that central feature—probably better.

“Who?” she demanded. “Who dares to threaten what is mine?”

“Zuriel.” The Name shivered on the air, cold as his power.

“One of yours,” she spat. “Typical.”

“Spare me the history lesson,” I said. My palms were slick. Restless, I wiped them on my pants legs. “We don’t have time for it. This guy’s not fucking around.”

“Clearly,” Sal observed acidly. She looked as if she was going to hurl the slim rectangle of smartphone, but then handed it back with exaggerated care. No further texts came through on the glinting screen—Zuriel had made his point, and thoroughly. I started to type a response, but what good would it possibly do?

Sal caught the motion and shook her head.

“Don’t,” she cautioned. Without another word, she turned and strode to an alcove behind her throne. A slim door was set into the wall against one side. She did something to the handle—nothing related to a punchcode or traditional lock—and it swung soundlessly inward. Heels clacking sharply, she disappeared into the shadowed interior. No lights flicked on, but then, Sal didn’t really need them.

I didn’t even bother to ask what she was doing. Instead, I studied the brutal image on the screen, blowing it up so I could examine every gruesome detail.

Zuriel had been smart. It was a close-up, intentionally angled, just enough for recognition. The bloodied section of Remy’s face filled the entire picture so no hints of his surroundings were visible. Without a background, I had no clues on his location. Tilting it this way and that, I tried to glean any useful data from the taunting picture. The lighting suggested another basement, but even that was pure conjecture, based solely on where Zuriel had kept Tabitha.

Killed, I reminded myself. Where Zuriel had killed Tabitha. A shiver of guilt swept over me, laced with the bitter bite of sorrow and, with effort, I shoved it away. Guilt was useless, for as much of it as I carried, and the dead I could mourn later—once we’d kept my soft-spoken brother from joining them, piece by piece.

Which raised a very salient question.

“What I want to know,” I called to my sister, “is how can Remy look so rough?” Only vague rustlings came forth in answer, followed by the sharp sound of a zipper. She was getting dressed. Finally. “I’ve shot you guys. Bullets are like bee stings,” I continued. “Not even. That’s a fuck-ton of blood. He’s immortal—next best thing to a vampire. Shouldn’t he be healing?”

Sal emerged from the little side room and I almost lost track of my question. From neck to ankle she was clad in heavy, skin-tight leather. The clinging catsuit had a futuristic look, with jointed sections of body armor attached above and beneath her ample chest, down the arms, along the hips. The sectioned armor had a rib-like pattern that made it look like she had killed an Alien queen just to skin her for her chitin. Similar sections of xenomorphic armor ran all down the back of the suit, following both the shape and placement of Saliriel’s long spine. I had no idea where the suit hid its zipper—it wasn’t visible.

Producing a smooth, black hair tie from who knew where, Saliriel swept her bleached blonde mass into a severe ponytail, completing her transformation into Battle Barbie. The effect was only intensified by a sturdy pair of over-the-knee boots, as armored as the body suit. Like the strappy heels they’d replaced, the boots sported wicked stilettos, steel-bright and gleaming.

“Heels?” I said, momentarily at a loss for anything more coherent. “Don’t you have sensible footwear?”

Sal’s response was to sweep one leg in a vicious, blurring roundhouse. The heel sliced the air at roughly throat level and could have gone higher with little effort. Air rustled my hair with the nearness of its passage. I barely had time to stumble away before her foot was back on the ground. Her balance never wavered.

“Don’t be fooled by the vicissitudes of fashion,” she declared. Bending nimbly at the waist, she adjusted a strap at her ankle. “And to answer your previous question, your tribe has hunted mine since the fall of the Great City. What you lack in physical strength, you make up for in magic and cunning.” Fluidly, she straightened, striding past me for the door. Aside from the strike of her deadly heels on the tiled floor, her passage was whisperingly silent. Supple and oiled, the leather of her catsuit didn’t even creak. “He’ll have some item, prepared ahead of time. The zealot Judges always do.”

“Shit,” I breathed. I knew exactly what she was talking about—I’d worn the damned things myself. As confirmation, I brandished the fading damage at my wrist. “The Thorns of Lugallu.”

“What?” At the sound of that name, Sal stopped and rounded on me a foot from the door.

“He had these handcuffs,” I said. “Used them on me—called them Thorns of Lugallu.”

Thickly, she swallowed. It was rare for Sal’s practiced features to betray anything that she didn’t want them to, but the momentary slither of fear seemed genuine—and then some. Lips parting, she drew a breath. Resolutely, she composed herself. When she spoke again, her voice was tight and hushed.

“That would do it.”

The total absence of canned bravado frightened me. I resisted the urge to check my phone again to study that awful image. Just the taunt and the picture—no demands. No questions. That didn’t look good for Remy.

“He can’t kill him, can he?” I asked. “Not permanently, I mean.”

“Nothing is permanent,” she whispered, as if reassuring herself of the fact.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

Lightly, she rapped her knuckles against the hard chestguard of protective plates, directly over her heart. “A well-placed strike can discorporate us, if enough power is run through the weapon. I know you’ve seen this. I’ve not forgotten how you murdered our sibling Kessiel.”

Murder was a funny way of saying “self-defense,” but this wasn’t the time to quibble. I bit the insides of my lips to keep from saying anything, and let her talk.

“Physical death is unpleasant,” she said. “Even though we are immortal, none of us actively seek it. There are costs to our reclaiming. Inconveniences. It takes effort and we can face certain… hurdles.”

“Like the handcuffs?”

Her sharp chin dipped once in assent. “If Remy is killed while he’s wearing them, they’ll interrupt his reclaiming.” Grimly, she added, “Depending on how well the bonds are crafted, they may prevent it entirely. That kind of delay is… damaging. He could be lost for centuries.”

Mutely, I digested this revelation. I wasn’t stupid, though—I knew she was leaving out as much as she revealed. This was Sal, after all.

But something that interfered with the reclaiming—that was no joke.

Each of the tribes had a different way of incarnating. Reclaiming was the Nephilim variation on rebirth. To me, it was the creepiest of all of them. The Voluptuous Ones literally inhabited their blood—vampires of the purest sort—and when they sloughed off their mortal shells, that blood quested forward like a great, crimson parasite. The Nephilim blood-soul would escape to the Shadowside and seek another host—always one of their anchors.

I had no idea if the blood-soul could take over anyone who wasn’t an anchor, or what happened to the person rightly born into that anchor’s body once the blood-soul came home to roost, and I didn’t really want to ask. I’d seen the process play out once with Kessiel, and I still had nightmares about it.

“Why are you telling me all this?” I asked. Nothing was free in her world, especially not information.

“Because tonight, you and I have a common enemy, Zaquiel,” she responded. “And, above all else, I want us to win.”