Bliss Llewellyn waited at the airport for Aunt Jane to pick her up from the bonding she’d just attended. Aunt Jane wasn’t really her aunt; she was the latest incarnation of the Pistis Sophia, the Immortal Intelligence, what the Blue Bloods called the Watcher. She had been Lucifer’s sister in an earlier cycle and since then had been destined to foresee the return of the Dark Prince from the underworld.

Bliss scanned the cars, looking for her aunt’s Honda Civic. Sturdy and reliable, just like the form the Watcher had taken in this life, she thought. Jane Murray was a short, sensible-looking woman of late middle age who favored brightly colored wool cardigans, plaid skirts, and brown moccasins and was known to quote from Austen or Shakespeare when the mood struck.

She wondered why Jane’s powers didn’t extend to making them look more like relatives. Though the Watcher hadn’t managed it the last time, either; when she’d taken the form of Bliss’s sister Jordan, everyone always remarked they didn’t look like sisters. Bliss herself was tall and rangy, with long, thick hair that fell in russet waves down her back. She’d even been a model once, back in New York, in another life. A life that had probably ended with the bonding she’d just left. When would she see her friends again? she lamented, thinking of Schuyler, Jack, and Oliver. She missed them so much already.

As Bliss wandered up and down the sidewalk outside the airport, her hand slipped under her shirt, and her fingers traced the long, ugly scar in the middle of her chest, a rumpled ridge of skin, bumpy and coarse. She tried not to pick at it, since it just made it worse when she did, but it was hard to stop.

The scar was a reminder of the girl she had been, dark history marked on her pale flesh. Lucifer’s daughter. Devilspawn. Silver Blood: a corrupted vampire who fed on the souls of its own kind. A Dark Angel cursed to live the rest of her immortal life on earth, reincarnated through the cycles to perform her father’s bidding. The Dark Prince had been using her as a way to seek revenge on his enemies, to wreak havoc and terror.

In the end she had managed to fight him and regain control of herself, her body, her memories. There was some cold comfort in knowing that it was all behind her, that there was nothing left of her father’s malice except for a faded purple gash where she had plunged a knife into her own body rather than murder another innocent victim. Bliss had been ready to face death, ready to make the ultimate sacrifice. But she’d been blessed with another chance, a new life, a new way forward to redeem the past and forge a new identity.

But now that she was no longer Senator Llewellyn’s eldest daughter, no longer a student at Duchesne, no longer a cheerleader from Texas, she didn’t know who she was supposed to be. Was she still immortal? Her mother, Allegra Van Alen, had told her that she was human now, and that her true name was Lupus Theliel. Wolfsbane. But Allegra hadn’t told her what it meant. She’d only told her to find the wolves. They are demon fighters and we will need them in the final battle with the Silver Bloods, she’d said. Tame them. Bring them back to the fold. She hadn’t said anything else—not where to start, not where to go, nothing at all about how this task was to be accomplished. Bliss had managed to put it out of her mind so she could enjoy her friends’ bonding, but now that she was home, she needed to get to work.

Finally, Aunt Jane pulled up to the curb. “Hop in,” she said. “We’ve got a long drive ahead of us.” Bliss thought about how much her friends would make fun of her if they could see her with this woman in this car.

“Where are we headed?” Bliss asked. Before she’d left for Italy, they had been investigating a case in Chicago, but Jane had told her to take a return flight directly to Ohio instead.

“Cleveland area.”

“Hellhounds in Cleveland?” Bliss said, smirking a little.

“Maybe,” Jane sighed. “Allegra must know something I do not if she thinks you can bring them back to our side. Hellhounds are uncontrollable, violent, and vicious, creatures of shadow. This is a dangerous proposition she has laid on your shoulders. We will have to exercise utmost care.”

“But Allegra said they stood with the Blue Bloods once…that they’ve just been estranged,” Bliss said.

Jane explained. “The Hellhounds are Lucifer’s Dogs. When the Dark Prince was known on earth as Emperor Caligula, they were his guards, the best soldiers in the vast Roman army. But the hounds turned tail, betraying their master to stand with the Blue Bloods during the Crisis in Rome, helping Michael to send the demon king back to the underworld. They disappeared soon after. Some say they were punished for their actions, and once again do Lucifer’s bidding. The Repository isn’t clear on this, though.”

“Aunt Jane,” Bliss said in a small voice. “If the hounds are with Lucifer, that means we’ll have to go down to the underworld, doesn’t it…to find them? Down to the Ninth?” She shuddered at the thought of it. She had no desire to see her father again, much less to fight him for command of his dogs. Why had Allegra put this on her shoulders? More importantly, why had she accepted? She’d done it to repent for her actions, Bliss reminded herself, because whether she had been aware of it or not, she had been the vessel for her father’s malevolent spirit in mid-world. She had accepted this task to clear her conscience, to do a bit of good in the face of impossible evil. She only hoped she was strong enough. She wasn’t a vampire anymore—just a mortal girl now, with a middle-aged mortal to help her.

Her aunt’s forehead crinkled. “I truly hope not. I hope that’s not what Allegra had planned for us. Let’s see what we can accomplish on this side of the fence for now.”

Bliss exhaled.

“What’s in Cleveland?” she asked.

“Not Cleveland exactly, but a place called Hunting Valley,” Jane said. “There’s a burnt house with a strange story. I think something happened there that might lead us to find what we seek.”