Leo slammed the Grigori’s head into the wall and watched him crumple unconscious to the ground as Niran held another up by his neck.

“Tell us where our sister is,” he said calmly, “or I’ll let him do that to you too.”

The young man was dressed as a monk, but Sura said it was only an insidious cover for the Grigori in this village. They dressed as monks to gain the trust of pilgrims, then took advantage of them. Many young women had disappeared in this secluded river valley. And though Niran, Sura, and Leo had searched the temple complex, they’d found no survivors.

“We haven’t seen your sister,” the Grigori said.

Niran tightened his hold on the man’s neck.

“But we’ve heard rumors!” he choked out.

Niran relaxed his hand.

“There was a woman. One of the untouchables. Two of our kind brought her to our brothers in the north. She was to be a gift for our father. They were only there for two days when they moved on. The brothers there said she killed one of them. He was bleeding from his ears. They said his mind exploded.”

“Where did they take her?” Leo asked.

“I don’t know.”

Niran’s hand clenched again.

“I don’t! She… she’s dangerous. We don’t want her here. We have a good relationship with the village.”

“Your ‘relationship’ is nothing more than a front,” Niran spat out. “You fool them into trusting you, then take their energy without their knowledge. You disgust me. You are a demon and an offense to heaven.”

“Most of them come willingly,” the Grigori said. “The girls like our attentions.”

A movement from the corner made Leo turn. It was Sura. He wore an expression that Leo had never seen before. It was utterly cold and looked alien on the gentle man’s face. They’d left Sura, Rith, and Alyah to explore the temple complex, searching for any women or children found there. As far as Leo knew, they’d found nothing.

“Sura?” Leo asked. “Did you find something?”

Silently, Sura walked to the Grigori Niran held, yanked his head forward, and pierced his spine with the silver knife he carried. Then he bent and plunged his knife into the back of the Grigori at Leo’s feet.

The Grigori began to dissolve, but Sura turned without a word, shaking the gold dust from the edges of his trousers as he left them.

Leo watched silently, his eyes wide. Sura was usually the last to resort to violence, but he’d executed Arindam’s sons without a flinch.

Niran dusted off his hands and stepped back. “We weren’t going to get anything more from him anyway.”

“What was that?” Leo said.

“Sura?” Niran sheathed his silver knives. “They were using the appearance of holiness to seduce the vulnerable. Women. Children. The elderly. Sura will not tolerate it.”

“I’ve never seen him…”

“What? Violent?” Niran shook his head. “He’s the most dangerous of all of us precisely because he is the last one who will ever lose control.”

Leaving the topic of Sura alone, Leo asked about the fractured information they’d gathered. “Brothers in the north, he said. Do you think he means Mandalay?”

“Possibly.”

They’d been slowly working their way west, following the voices Kyra heard to the hidden outposts and enclaves of Grigori in Arindam’s territory.

“Grigori are everywhere in Mandalay,” Niran said. “It’s a stronghold for Arindam’s people, but it’s too crowded for the angel.”

“Most don’t like that much company.”

“No. Arindam himself will likely be somewhere more secluded, if he’s at all the way Sura remembers him.”

“So do we go to Mandalay or not?”

Niran paused. “How far is Kyra’s range now?”

“With the infusion she received from Ginny and my help, nearly two hundred kilometers if she’s rested and focused.”

“We don’t have to push her. We’re two hundred fifty kilometers from Mandalay now?”

“Yes, but the Grigori here said she was only at this place ‘in the north’ for two days.”

“Then we keep going west,” Niran said. “West and north for now.”

“Fine.” Leo felt like they were on a wild-goose chase, but he didn’t know what other options they had. There was little to no Irin presence in Myanmar, and the Irin scribes in northern India had no interest in the place. They didn’t have intelligence on the region other than what they could glean from the Grigori they encountered.

When Leo and Niran walked out of the temple and into the courtyard, Leo saw Sura sitting in a lotus position, eyes closed, his back to the stone Buddha who greeted worshippers upon entry. The tall statue appeared to watch the silent man at his feet, observing with a raised palm and a serene expression.

“We found bones,” Sura said after several minutes of silence.

“What?”

“You asked if I’d found something when I walked into the temple,” Sura said, his eyes still closed. “We found bones. Bodies buried behind the vegetable garden on the edge of the forest. Adult bones. Children too.”

No wonder the quiet man had executed the Grigori without a word.

“What did you do with the others?” Leo knew Kyra had sensed at least a dozen Grigori in the temple posing as priests.

Sura unfolded himself and rose. “They don’t exist anymore.” He walked down the steps and toward the van where the others waited.

Turning to the newly empty temple, Leo walked back inside, closing the shutters and latching them. He blew out the candles and smothered the incense. Then he walked out the front doors and propped a stone planter in front of them to keep the weather out.

It was a holy place that had been perverted by predators. Leo hoped true monks or nuns might find it someday.

Perhaps they might pray for the lost.

* * *

Leo knocked quietly on the door to the cottage he and Kyra were sharing in the villa high in the mountains. They’d spent the previous two nights in small country inns that were little more than campsites. But that night Niran had demanded plumbing. Rith and Alyah had searched online and found the luxury villa with cottages high on a ridge overlooking a river valley. It was an unexpected treat that also played into their cover as traveling exhibition fighters.

“Come in,” Kyra called.

Leo poked his head in, and Kyra smiled.

“Why are you knocking?”

“I wasn’t sure if you wanted privacy.”

She put the book she’d been reading to the side. “Not from you.”

Leo slid off his shoes and climbed next to her on the bed. He put his arms around her waist and his head on her breast, lowering them to the pillows as he let out a deep sigh.

“Long day?” Kyra asked.

“We didn’t find anything. Nothing detailed, anyway. Niran thinks she was in Mandalay, but she’d be gone by now.”

“We’ll keep looking. I can do a reading in the morning and see what I hear. I’ll focus to the north.”

“Only if you’re rested enough.”

“The one this morning took hardly anything out of me. I’m fine.”

Leo closed his eyes and inhaled her scent. She was soft touch and tenderness. She was rest.

“Sura found bones.” It slipped out without his thinking. He hadn’t meant to tell her.

Kyra tensed. “Children?”

“Yes. They didn’t have any women there. I think they were human bones, not kareshta.”

“We don’t leave bones,” Kyra said. “We’re like the Irina. We turn to dust.”

He clutched her tighter. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“Even the babies turn to dust,” she said under her breath. “Not very much. Just a dance in the air and they’re gone.”

Leo’s heart broke every time she talked about her past. “I thought Barak didn’t kill his children.”

“He didn’t, but others did. He had a rival who once raided the compound where Kostas and I were kept. His men killed most of the women and children there. Kostas and I stayed under the floorboards where one of our older brothers hid us. We were valuable.”

“But the others weren’t?”

“Not like us. There were children killed that day. Then I’m sure my older brothers retaliated. I’m sure some of them killed that Fallen’s children.” She stroked a hand through Leo’s hair. “It’s a very violent world. There is no softness in it.”

“You were in it.” He knit his fingers with hers.

“I had a brother who protected me,” Kyra said. “Kostas… he took the brunt of everything for me.”

Leo spoke past the tightness in his throat. “Then I owe him a debt I can never repay.”

“He won’t let you pay him back. He’ll tell you it was his duty to protect me.”

Leo paused. “Should we call him? Just to let him know you’re well?”

“I called Sirius on Sura’s phone. I don’t want Kostas to know where I am yet. He’d worry too much.” She laughed a little. “He treats me with kid gloves, but he’ll be happy for me. For us.”

“I hope so.”

“He will be,” Kyra said. “He always talked about my having a normal life. Especially after I met Ava and learned how to make the voices stop. He wanted that for me. To have a family. A home. A real home.”

“Is that what he wants for himself?”

“He doesn’t think he’ll live that long,” Kyra said. “And he doesn’t think he deserves it.”

“Love doesn’t work that way,” Leo said. “It’s a gift I hope he finds someday.”

Kyra leaned over and kissed his head a moment before Leo’s eyes shut. “I hope so too.”

* * *

“No.” She shook her head, her eyes closed. “I’m not getting any sign of Prija, but I can’t be certain. There are so many people. So many Grigori. Kareshta. It’s a huge compound, but I don’t feel anyone familiar.” A tear slipped from her eye.

“Kyra?” Leo put a hand on her shoulder. “Pull back.”

“There’s so much pain,” she whispered.

“Pull back!”

“They need to take them away from there. The children…”

She started to sob quietly, and Leo put both arms around her from behind. He embraced her hard and felt blood on his cheek. It was leaking from her right ear.

“Kyra, pull back.”

Her cries turned to moans and she began to shake. Leo raised his eyes to Sura in panic. He’d been able to pull Kyra out of her visions in the past, but she’d stretched so far, fallen so deeply, he could barely feel her. Her livah was stretched thin, nearly snapped away from her body.

Alyah strode over and put a hand on Kyra’s temple.

“Ya kazas!”

Kyra’s head fell to the side and she went limp.

“What did you do?” Leo yelled.

“She’ll be fine,” Alyah said. “I diverted her mind. The mental version of a hard, fast punch. She might feel sick when she wakes up, but she’ll be fine.”

Kyra began to retch, and Sura rushed over with a bucket. Her eyes were still closed and her body limp, but Leo held her hair back while she emptied her stomach of everything she’d eaten that morning. She didn’t wake through the episode, but when Leo laid her on their bed, her eyes flickered open.

“Leo?”

“Alyah pulled you back from the vision.”

“I felt trapped. There’s someone there… Grigori maybe. He sensed me. He knows I’m looking for someone. He tried to… hold me.”

“Was it the Fallen?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. It didn’t feel like…” She slipped away again.

Leo brought a chair over and sat by the bed, bucket and washcloth ready if she felt sick again. When he looked up, Vasu was sitting at the foot of the bed.

“Why are you here?” Leo asked.

Vasu was watching Kyra. “She was very… Dear isn’t the right word. Her father held her in high esteem, which was rare for him. He was very cynical.”

“Barak cared for her?”

“In his way.” Vasu shrugged. “As much as he cared for anything.”

“She’s not a thing.”

“She was to him.” Vasu looked at Leo. “He was not human, scribe. Don’t try to explain his reasoning as if he was.”

“You’re not human either.”

Vasu cocked his head. “They accused me of it sometimes.”

“Of being human? Who?” Leo had a hard time imagining anything less human than Vasu.

“Barak and Jaron. They didn’t understand why I wanted to stay.”

“Why did you?”

Vasu rolled his eyes. “Heaven is boring. We are created to serve Him. I don’t want to serve.”

“I don’t think you’re a very good angel, are you?”

“No, I’m a terrible angel.” He leaned over Kyra. “I wouldn’t find them so interesting if I were a good angel.”

“Angels love women.”

“Angels don’t love anything,” Vasu said. “Or hate anything. At least good angels don’t. We have no commitments. No attachments.” He turned his eyes toward Leo. “We hold nothing dear because nothing is worth more than serving the one who made us.”

“The Fallen don’t think so. They’re greedy for power.”

“Yes.” Vasu grinned. “But then we were all Fallen. Your precious Forgiven fathers too. They were only rewarded because they abandoned their children. That is your inheritance, scribe. You have your power, your knowledge, because your fathers valued you so little.”

“If they valued me that little, I prefer to have the knowledge.”

“Ha!” Vasu grinned. “You are wiser than you appear.”

His eyes turned back to Kyra. “Do not mistake my optimism for naïveté.”

“She does.”

“I know.” Leo knew Kyra thought he was ignorant of the realities of their world. He wasn’t. He knew they had a hard road ahead of them. He simply chose to view it with optimism instead of resignation. “It takes far more courage to hope than it does to despair.”

“And that is why I could not return,” Vasu murmured. “Humans. Irin. Kareshta. Grigori. You are all so very…”

“Curious?”

“Odd,” Vasu said. “You’re odd. But the best of you are unexpected. And that is what keeps me from returning.”

“I’m glad we can entertain you.”

“Good.” Vasu stretched out next to Kyra and played with a piece of her hair.

Leo had the urge to shove the Fallen off the bed, but he wasn’t hurting Kyra. The affection he was showing her almost seemed… brotherly. Fond.

“I like her,” Vasu said.

“I love her.”

“That’s very nice, but do you like her too?” Vasu’s tone was curious, not confrontational.

Talking with Vasu was like conversing with an alien. “Is liking more important than love?”

“I don’t know. Is it?”

Leo watched Vasu playing with Kyra’s hair. There was something intensely childlike about the angel.

“I like to talk with her and spend time with her,” Leo said. “She’s funny and tells good stories. She’s loyal to those she cares about and guards those who are weak. She understands sacrifice and strength. Maybe better than anyone I’ve ever met. So yes, I like her and I love her.”

“She’s not going to die, you know.”

“I know. Ginny gave her power and as soon as we’re able, I will perform the mating—”

“I kissed her,” Vasu said.

Leo pushed back the flare of anger. “What?”

“In her dream. She probably doesn’t remember it. I kissed her though. She’ll be fine. I gave her some of my power.”

“Why?”

“Why not?” Vasu said. “She’s Barak’s blood.”

And that, Leo began to understand, was a little like Barak himself. Vasu, the mighty Fallen, was lonely for his old friends. Their children were as close as he could get to having them in his realm of existence.

“Vasu,” Leo asked carefully, “what do you want?”

“I told you I like her.”

Leo didn’t know how to respond. On one hand, he was relieved. Kyra would be strong and healthy for years with an infusion of angelic power. It was how she’d survived so long without magic. On the other hand, he didn’t believe that Vasu wanted nothing from her. The Fallen weren’t altruistic. Of course, it was possible to manipulate them too.

“If you really care for Kyra, then you should give her brother some power.”

“Which one?” Vasu twisted Kyra’s hair around his finger. “She has many brothers.”

“Her twin. Kostas. If he was hurt, she would feel it.”

Vasu’s eyes narrowed on Leo. “Would you give him power?”

“If I could. But my magic doesn’t work that way.”

“Rules, rules, rules,” Vasu muttered. “That is another reason. Too many rules.”

“What about rules?”

“Nothing.” Vasu sat up. “So you want me to give her twin brother some more life?”

“Jaron was giving it to him, but Jaron is gone.”

Vasu pursed his full lips. “Interesting.”

“Will you do it?”

“I will… think about it.” Vasu grinned.

It was likely the best answer he’d get out of the troublemaker.

“I’ll let Kyra know you’re thinking about helping her brother,” Leo said. “I’m sure she’ll be grateful.”

Vasu disappeared and reappeared as a cat that jumped in Leo’s lap.

“You try to create obligation in me. It’s an interesting theory. I told them you were smarter than you appeared,” the cat said, curling up on Leo’s lap. “Now pet me.”

“Are you serious?”

Narrow claws dug into Leo’s leg.

“Ow! Fine.” He put his hand on the back of the cat’s neck and stroked down over and over again. Eventually the cat started to purr. Then it seemed to fall asleep. Leo sat that way for hours, watching Kyra sleep and petting a black cat who wasn’t a cat as it slept and purred. A server came in and set up a small table for tea, but Leo didn’t move. The sun hung heavy in the afternoon sky, creeping across the floor and warming the cat, who only purred louder.

Someone tapped on the door.

“Come in,” Leo said quietly.

Sura walked in with Alyah at his side. “We were curious how…” His eyes drifted down to the black, furry lump on Leo’s lap. “That is not a cat.”

Alyah said, “What do you mean it’s not a… Oh.” She frowned. “Why are you petting it?”

Leo rested his chin in his hand and leaned on the side of the chair. “Because he asked me to.”

Sura sat at the low table. “I suppose that’s as good a reason as any.”

Alyah glared at the cat as if willing it to wake. Leo kept petting it. Any time he slowed, the claws dug in. He didn’t know what would happen if you angered a Fallen angel who was sleeping in the form of a cat, but he decided he really didn’t want to find out.

Minutes later, the cat must have felt Alyah’s glare, because it rose, arched its back and yawned, then deftly jumped out the window and into the waning afternoon.

Kyra sat up in bed, her hair tangled around her face and her cheeks flushed. “Leo?”

“Are you feeling better?”

“There was a black cat in my dream,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “He told me Prija was in a place called Bagan. Does that make sense to anyone, or am I finally going crazy?”

Leo grinned and turned to Alyah and Sura. “And that is why when the cat asks you to pet him, you do.”