Present Day

Bane kicked the trash out of his way. Another night of hunting. He wasn’t an all-powerful fallen archangel. He was on the lowest rung of the UnHallowed ladder, an ordinary fallen angel of the warrior class. Ten thousand years as a fucking grunt.

He pushed aside his ire, there would be plenty of time during the daylight hours to bitch and plan, and continued his patrol through the silent streets. The absence of humans wasn’t an anomaly; large sections of the city were abandoned. Gothic structures, small homes, factories, houses of worship, many had succumbed to the ravages of time and misuse. The decay of a once great city. The absence of Darklings, that gave him pause. The recent closure of the Cruor–the portal to Hell—hadn’t eliminated the Darkling threat, it just made them more desperate, piggybacked with aggression. Not that Darklings were timid. They were effective weapons of destruction. Practically brainless, they were simpleminded killers, preying on humans with the weakest moral compass, otherwise they would’ve consumed humanity millennia ago. They struck quickly and devoured their prey with equal speed. Others, they fed off for decades, marking the individual’s soul for Hell. Whether consumed in a frenzy or at their leisure, the result was the same—damnation.

Luckily, they were easy to kill. Something Bane excelled at.

So, where were the wispy creatures? The night waned. Nothing stopped time. Morning approached, and with it, his immolation. UnHallowed and sunlight didn’t mix. Their punishment for questioning the Maker. Their disgrace. Where once they were Hallowed, they were now UnHallowed—or worse, Demoni Lords.

In unending darkness is where you shall find refuge and no other place.

He’d spent hours crisscrossing downtown to no avail. Did Darklings go on vacation? He could certainly use one. “To hell with this.” He wasn’t far from Scarla’s training center, Maximum Effort, or Lusted, the bar she ran next door. Chances were Scarla was awake. They could annoy each other over a beer. He pivoted and headed that way. Maybe he could find out who she was dating. Chayyliél would pay in gold for that info. He took the overprotective father stereotype to the next level. Bane didn’t blame him. Scarla was the little sister Bane never had and he’d break any man stupid enough to touch her.

Sulfur permeated the air.

Bane halted. Sulfur meant Darklings. Darklings meant death to the unlucky human who stumbled into their path. So much for calling it an early night. His nostrils clogged from the concentration of sulfur in the air. Damn, he’d hit the mother lode. Another opportunity to impress Michael.

Redemption had been promised for his nightly routine. His grace restored and a return to the Celestial Army. He called bullshit on Michael’s promise and turned his back on the human world. Michael couldn’t lie, but that didn’t mean he could be trusted. Then Michael promised the one thing Bane truly desired if he led the UnHallowed back into the fold, not as celestial beings with their full grace restored—which was what most of the UnHallowed wanted—but as a secondary unit fighting the Darklings. A hard sell that didn’t come close to describing the task.

Most of the UnHallowed chose the shadows rather than venture to this side of reality. They blamed the humans for their fallen state. Bane chose the truth rather than bitter illusions. He liked humans, found their pettiness amusing. He even respected the handful he’d studied during his long existence. Because of that, he wanted what was promised—and more. He wanted his wings restored, elevation of his station to archangel, and leadership of the UnHallowed. He’d settle for nothing less.

Bane followed the scent two blocks over and through a vacant lot to a street of boarded up row houses. He leaned on a broken lamppost, surveying the urban landscape at its bleakest. Sixty years ago, this had been a thriving neighborhood with stay-at-home mothers, and kids playing stickball well after the sun had set. The memory triggered a wave of nostalgia he viciously squelched. Too many centuries to stroll down memory lane. That path led to a dead end named insanity.

A crash came from inside the faded red brick structure three houses to his right. Instead of phasing through the brick house and into the middle of the melee, Bane pulled the fabric of the night to him and let the shadows cloak him. He crossed through the conduits and exited in a corner of the living room, his twin blades in his hands, ready to engage.

Except, a female had things well in hand. The head to toe black outfit hid her identity in the same as one of his UnHallowed brethren—and accentuated the swell of her breasts, the sweet flare of her hips, the sensual curve of her ass, and a pair of long, long legs. She had two twelve-inch serrated black blades—similar to his— strapped to her forearms as she faced four Darklings.

Four? A rare occurrence when he usually only found one, two at the most. The creatures appeared as nothing more than black smoke, until they were ready to kill—then they were solid and deadly.

A gentle-hu-man would’ve stepped in and taken over. He was by no means gentle nor could he be mistaken for human. So, he leaned casually against the wall and enjoyed the show.

By the ash residue sprinkled over the scarred parquet floors, she’d already killed several. Plus, he was entranced by the erotic fluidity of her attack. Sensual, like silk caught in a breeze, except, just when he thought he could predict the pattern of her attack, the breeze became a tornado. He studied every parry and slice of her blades, the way she deflected and delivered her blows. They were slightly erratic, lacking precise control. The subtle tremor in her limbs, the satisfying breath he noted at the completion of each stab or blow. Not enjoyment, per se, but he sensed satisfaction. Pride.

He gave a mental snort. She lacked the cool detachment needed to keep one’s parts and life intact, yet the rhythm of her attack struck a familiar note within him. He’d seen the technique before. The memory flirted with his mind.

While he searched his brain for the answer, she killed one of the four. Next, she delivered a roundhouse kick and followed up with a stab to the second Darkling’s center mass.

Then she saw him and froze. That momentary lapse in her concentration allowed a Darkling to get too close to her unprotected back. One swipe of its claw and it would rip her spine from her body. He’d seen it happen. Wasn’t pretty. Then the demon would suck her soul from her body before it could ascend, if that was its destination. For the Darkling, the soul was a gourmet meal, the hollowed-out body, the dessert. In the end, nothing would be left to bury. Another missing person filed away in a police report.

With a flick of his wrist, Bane threw a blade directly at her, certain she would duck. The female didn’t disappoint. With a second to spare, she shifted to the left. His blade cleared a hair’s breadth to the right of her throat. He expected no less. One with her skills wouldn’t die from a blade she saw coming.

And then there was one Darkling.

Bane stepped from his corner. Together, they circled the creature, and each other.

“Who are you?” he demanded with a smile to put her at ease. Her eyes were hooded, yet their weight touched him. One of her blades remained on the writhing vaporous mass between them. The other, him. She didn’t trust him. He approved.

“Who are you…” she said in a husky, sultry voice that made his acidic blood simmer and his dormant cock take notice. From her attack stance and the tension in her body, he doubted seduction was her intention which made her even more alluring. “—UnHallowed?”