She had vanished into the deathspace of the catacombs. So had Didier. They’d evaded him.

That was almost as shocking as the fact he was lost. Ash had tried to force his way past the arch, only to bring it and part of the ceiling down on top of him. Using his superior strength had only made the cave-in worse.

Ash forced himself to breathe shallowly and slow his heart rate with a calming chant. It was only when he was utterly still, his movement molasses slow, that he was able to wiggle one hand, and then the other, free. Sliding on his belly, he crawled out from under the rubble. By the time he was free, Didier and the mystery girl were long gone.

He’d tried to follow their trail, but the catacombs were a warren. The interconnecting tunnels used to stretch hundreds of miles in length in the Pre-Collision era. He wasn’t sure how much of the network was still intact, but clearly it was more than he’d thought. It had only taken a few dozen turns before he’d lost any trace of them.

Unbelievable. How had this happened?

Ash was made to hunt. Angels possessed superior strength and hearing. He could detect minute disturbances in the air, an ability that allowed him to track demons fleeing from God’s wrath. But the air around him was confused. Whatever ripples he could sense were faint and came from too many different directions. He tracked one after another only to find small human nests, abandoned nooks, and small chambers with old clothes, broken dishes, and trash. He even found the remains of an old rave—a pre-Collision event that used the grinning skulls and bone-lined ossuary as a backdrop for parties.

The demon horde hadn’t bothered much with this space. What novelty was there in skull-lined passages and monuments when Hell was literally paved with them? Entire buildings in the internal regions were built of bone and blood-soaked cobb. To a demon, this French curiosity was a pale imitation of home, so the abandoned network—deadspace—was left intact by them. The same could not be said for humans.

In the immediate aftermath of the Collision, the demons laid waste to the population. The tangled web of ossuary tunnels had expanded exponentially as legions of the dead joined their ancestors in eternal rest, at least until the curse made the area unsafe. Then it had faded from memory.

This subterranean world had always made Ash uncomfortable. He was a creature of wind and sky. Even the perpetually tainted air above was preferable to the closed stillness down here.

His route took him past one of the elaborate crosses made of human skulls. Stepping past it, he tried to ignore the macabre display, but his overheated angelic brain kept processing the bone, fitting teeth and ocular orbits into the proper configuration until they were recognizable human faces.

He was doing a better job of ignoring them until he turned a corner and came face to face with the bleached pate of Robespierre, a ringleader of the revolution and an instigator of the Reign of Terror.

Ash narrowed his eyes at the skull, impulsively using the one-fingered salute humans still favored for total dicks.

Time dragged as his search continued. He had no idea how long he’d been down in the catacombs. I need to start carrying a watch. Digital ones still didn’t work, but the classic wind-up ones did, although their best still lost minutes a day.

If he’d been human, this would be around the time he would start panicking. Thousands had lost their lives after becoming lost down here. In fact, he’d already passed a few of those poor souls. They were easy to distinguish from the other remains. The bones lay as they had fallen, not in the orderly piles and arrangements made by humans past.

Starvation or death by dehydration wasn’t a concern for him, but he could spend ages lost down here. In the meantime, his city would suffer. He had to find Didier and the girl before the council leaders inflicted lasting damage.

Ash needed to get his bearings. He shouldn’t have lost them so easily. I’m rusty, he thought with a scowl. He’d lived in secret so long his powers had atrophied.

Remember your training. Angels were created by the Maker with their abilities intact the way a robot was programmed. But Ash’s kind were supposed to practice and hone those skills.

Quiet inside, quiet outside. Raphael’s voice echoed in his head without his trademark smirk. The archangel was an ass, but he’d been an excellent commander. He’d been the one to teach Ash the deep meditation techniques that were the foundation of his hunting and warrior ability.

He let go, relaxing again. His mind scanned the air for those little ripples that would indicate human movement.

Nothing…except. He opened his mouth, the coppery tang so faint he might have been imagining it.

Magic. It was only a trace, but it was there.

Magic had a half-life close to the lifespan of a snowball in hell. If he was detecting traces of it, that meant a spell had been cast recently.

But all the witches were dead. They had been hunted down after the Collision by both demons and humankind.

His stomach tightened in apprehension. A witch had been, albeit indirectly, responsible for the end of the world. But Ash had seen too much to believe that all were the unholy evil creatures rabid priests and prophets painted them as. They were the scapegoats of the apocalypse.

We hunted them, too. He couldn’t name an angel who would hesitate to kill a witch on sight.

He had to get moving. The hint of copper in the air was fading even now. Time was running out. Spurred by the reminder, he began to run.

* * *

The trace led him to another nest. Blankets and tin cans were folded neatly next to a lantern with a little oil left in the reservoir. He studied the water-tight space. The entrance to the small cavern was a few feet above the ground, protecting it from the periodic flooding that plagued many of the other passages around him.

Ash squeezed out of the entrance, his boots covered to the ankle in water. The trace of magic was still there, prodding him forward.

Signs of human habitation weren’t rare down here. But most of them were old—pre-Collision. The vast majority of people were too close to death as it was. They avoided this place. But over the centuries, there were always exceptions.

This nest had something the others didn’t. Not only were the blankets clean and the tins in a neat row, but it was spotless. No dust. This space was used, even organized in a minimalistic way.

The only thing out of place was a medical reflex hammer.

It was lying on the floor next to one of the blankets. His immediate thought was of Dr. Brès. Had the doctor taken refuge down here after she realized she was a Firehorse? How else could the hammer have ended up here?

It could be nothing. It wasn’t as if the hammer had been carved with the doctor’s initials. Until he found the people who frequented these catacombs, he could only guess. Tucking the hammer into his belt, he resumed his hunt.

He finally found what he was looking for outside the catacombs, in the wasteland near what used to be Vanves.

There were people. Not just one or two, but many. At least two score. Ash knelt behind a pile of boulders, trying to hold in the exclamation trying to burst out of him.

Dr. Brès was down there. A small child clung to Madeleine’s leg, looking uncertain. Her daughter. The rest of Madeleine’s little family was here, too. They were in a basin at the bottom of the cliff. There was a fire going, and someone was cooking what looked to be a wild hare. An aromatic stew was boiling in a large pot.

They had food in the middle of the wasteland.

Ash nearly jumped out from behind the stone when he saw Theo Faure and Demetria Long, Firehorses from the last few years who disappeared before he could track them down.

I thought they were dead. In fact, he’d been certain Theo had been done in by his fundamentalist family. But he was alive. And so was Didier. He was down there, too…talking to her.

Ash watched his mystery girl move among the crowd at the fire’s edge. She appeared to be introducing Didier to her little band. And it was hers. He studied the group from behind his rock for some time. No one else had the same easy air of authority. All the others looked at or spoke to her deferentially.

The beautiful brunette was the leader of this band of survivors.

The girl turned abruptly, scanning the hillside as if sensing his intent gaze. Ash ducked behind the rock, sliding to crouch on the ground. He waited. There was no sound of footsteps, either running toward or away from him. He hadn’t been seen.

Ash’s mind reeled. How was this possible? This was the wasteland. Nothing survived here. Except for these people…and whatever they were cooking on that fire.

Merde. This was impossible. How had so many Firehorses escaped not just him, but also the mobs? And why hadn’t the earth swallowed them up?

Something was going on. Unchecked, the curse had the power to level Bastille. By rights, this basin and the surrounding hillsides should be a smoking crater. Seriously. He wouldn’t put it past Amducious’ blasted hex to call down a meteor to strike them all down. It was what God had done with the dinosaurs when he’d tired of them.

But there they were—Firehorses who lived, walked, and talked. True, they didn’t seem all that healthy. They were far too thin. Unless Ash was mistaken, several were showing signs of scurvy, too.

So does half the city. What mattered was the fact they were alive. Somehow, the power of the curse had been checked.

Sweet Jesus, was this the miracle he had been waiting for? If the curse had been broken, he would have known. There were survivors down there who had been struck down years ago. And Didier had just been cursed…

Was it possible for the afflicted to be cured? Could he bring Didier home to his mother?

But what if it wasn’t permanent? What if he took Didier and the others home only to have the destruction resume? What am I supposed to do?

He needed to learn more. And Ash couldn’t do that as he was. To the people of Bastille, he was a guardian, the savior who had delivered them from demon rule and now from the threat of the Firehorse. But to those who were afflicted, he was the angel of death.

Those people wouldn’t tell him anything. If only there was a way to win their trust before revealing his identity…

There is. Ash could go as one of them. Without his armor and helmet there was a chance they wouldn’t recognize him. He could tell them he was looking for his blood, a relative he suspected was afflicted.

There was only one problem with that. If they even so much as thought he was lying, then they’d try to kill him. They wouldn’t have a choice. If they let him go, he might tell someone in the city, and if that happened, it wouldn’t be long before the mob came after them.

If he was forced to fight them, chances were he’d kill one or more while trying to protect himself. And then he’d be right back where he’d started—watching a miracle from the outside. Either way, the chance to break the curse would slip through his fingers.

And that’s the best-case scenario if I’m discovered. The others he’d considered were far worse. But what other choice did he have?