Once they were out of the compound, they hiked to a clearing on the mountainside where dozens of children of various ages sat on rocks and in the grass. Loyalist daemons mingled among them. Daemons were passionate creatures who often hid their deepest emotions beneath stoic facades, but the children seemed to be responding to cool kindness rather well, considering what their lives had recently been. Victoria’s anger rekindled when she saw the children’s injuries. Triage was taking place. Many of the children had been beaten or bound by the Order of Samuel. Her anger eased when she saw hardened daemon warriors become nurses to the weak and injured.
The daemon that had carried her out of the compound set her down near a young girl who was painfully thin. Her rib cage showed at the tattered neck of her rough robe. Her head had been shaved. There were cuts and bruises over older cuts and bruises on her arms and legs. But she flashed Victoria a white smile and held out part of a crust of bread she’d been gnawing.
“Thank you, but no. You have it all. Please,” Victoria said. The hungry child didn’t have to be told twice.
Another daemon arrived with Adam thrown over his shoulder. He took care to bend and lay his burden down beside her on the grass. She expected Adam to be unconscious, but he raised himself to a sitting position.
“We need to question all of them to find out where they’re from so we can return them to their families,” he said after he had taken in his surroundings. “Who got them out of the castle?”
Victoria would never forget the dark, barely materialized form of Grim leading the children to safety. They had followed the hideous hellhound as a savior compared to the devils that had held them prisoner.
“Grim saved them. I think he was probably searching for Michael among them, but whatever his motives they’ll have a monstrous hero to remember,” Victoria said.
“He came out of the shadows,” the little girl said. She had heard them and once she swallowed her last bite she revealed what had happened with Grim in the keep. “At first we were afraid, but then he came to each one of us and he didn’t bite or growl. He only whined. When the keep began to quake, he disappeared, but then he came back. He bit the chains and they snapped like they were made of plastic. Those that could helped to untie the ones who were bound with rope. Some of the little ones had to be carried. But I walked all by myself.”
The ground had continued to tremble the whole time they spoke. No more daemons or children came from the compound. She and Adam hadn’t been the only adults carried from the collapsing structure. There was another clearing separated from the children by a phalanx of Lucifer’s Army that hadn’t softened into nurses. They stood on guard between the two clearings as monks from the Order who had survived the battle were dumped on the ground. There weren’t many. And judging from the expressions on the daemons who guarded them, Victoria surmised that the monks who had died were the lucky ones.
Suddenly, a great rumble shook the mountaintop. She looked toward the keep to see the castle cave in on itself completely. She imagined the fissure had opened to the point that it could swallow the keep above it. Moments later, the wall surrounding the compound also collapsed inward and disappeared. Smoke and roiling dust exploded into the sky like a mushroom cloud and then was pulled back down into the earth, as if the imploding monastery had created a vacuum as it disappeared into the mountain.
As the dust and smoke cleared, the children raised a cheer much stronger than their collective condition should have allowed. The cry was joyful and triumphant in direct proportion to the suffering they’d endured. Adam reached for her hand as he stood. He was already moving as if he’d never been injured at all. Ezekiel’s miracle has caused Adam to heal. She was sore and exhausted and didn’t reject the help as he pulled her to her feet. After all, she hadn’t been healed by Ezekiel’s Brimstone. The cuts and bruises she’d suffered from falling debris still stung.
But she’d never felt better in her life.
She felt like singing a new song. Her years singing opera had sustained her during a dark time, but she no longer missed the role of Juliet. Tragic romance was overrated. There were happier songs to sing.
“My people can help get these kids back to where they belong,” Adam said. He squeezed her hand and leaned down to press a firm kiss against her lips before he moved away toward the daemons who were trying to help the children.
Victoria watched him walk—tall and strong and every bit the warrior, the vintner, the businessman and the Russian firebird all rolled into one extraordinary man. He’d saved himself by saving others. He’d resisted revenge and focused on justice and salvation. He would always have blood on his hands and scars on his back, but he was the one who had turned those scars into an angel’s wings.
And she had nearly betrayed him.
Now that he no longer had Brimstone in his blood, would their connection remain or would her affinity tear them apart? Wanting to sing a new song and actually being able to successfully do it were two different things. She would always be blessed and cursed by Samuel’s Kiss. If she wasn’t an opera singer or an unwilling bloodhound for the Order of Samuel, what would she be?