A loud slamming noise in the distance woke me. I stared out at a rising sun over a sharp cliff. A bed of coals sat before me, still smoldering.

Had I been camping?

I groaned, feeling almost hungover. I shakily propped myself onto my knees, and flinched at the sound of metal clinking against metal. I glanced down to see chains on my wrists. Both of them. The metal was blackened, burned. And cracked. Like they were thousands of years old, unearthed from a dusty forgotten tomb of the damned. Kinky.

Feet raced closer, pounding the earth, breaking twigs and crackling leaves underfoot.

I waited for them, wondering who they belonged to. I felt rested, but still weak. And dazed.

How long had I slept? Not long if the sun rose before me. Hadn’t… the sun begun to rise before all else faded? Before I tried to attack the fleeing figure in the distance…

The world came crashing back to me. Someone had been watching the ritual, hiding in the shadows, and running as soon as I had killed Johnathan. A second Demon.

And now feet were almost upon me. I had only been unconscious for moments.

I was in danger.

The person running towards me cursed, but didn’t slow.

I whirled, unfolding from my crouch, swinging the blackened chains in a wide swooping arc as the figure came within striking distance, or what I hoped was striking distance.

The ground seemed to tremble and I heard someone screaming.

It was me.

No one knew I was here. No one living, anyway. Just that shadow in the distance, racing closer to steal my soul. The other Demon. Amira. Johnathan’s sister.

Not today.

The chains unfurled like living serpents, crackling with an otherworldly white light that tugged at my memory. I brought my arms above my head, tips of the chains sizzling the earth where they had rested, and then, as I faced my foe — that shadowy, sneaking creature — I brought my hands down, ready to slice through Amira as I had her Demon brother, Johnathan.

My chains screamed through the still air, hungry to taste another Demon.

And I saw a startled face.

That face…

Like a boulder at the top of a mountain, eyes like the depths of a green ocean.

Nate Temple.

His face shifted to resignation, and he brought up his own whips, crackling with similar white, destructive power, slicing up from his hips to meet mine falling down from above.

I readied myself for death, unable to stop the expected explosion. Magic didn’t mix well. This place was about to be blighted from existence as if it had never been.

Our whips and chains touched, latching together like magnets, white light building, growing, ready to destroy the world, break it, and rebuild anew in the space of time it would take to say Let there be light!

But the moment my chains and his whips crossed, latching together, he yanked me towards him, shattering the steel of my whips into an infinite explosion of steel chips, white-hot metal — or whatever the chains had been made of — buffeting the grass in a downpour of fire. His whips also extinguished.

But no shrapnel struck me as I flew towards him.

Our chests struck without pain, and we stood in a charred circle. My cuffs were gone.

I panted, but not from exhaustion, from… something else. My knees quivered, fighting against the strange sensation, and I could see in his eyes that he fought the same silent battle.

He pinned me in place with those raptor eyes, the sunrise the only light, now, our weapons broken, or extinguished, possibly cancelling each other out. His eyes flickered to my forehead, a quizzical squint flashing across his face as if he wanted to touch that skin, but then the look disappeared. He grasped my wrists, as if fighting to restrain me, to not let me go. I realized that he had not yanked me closer to him, but that I had yanked him towards me.

The tips of my exposed breasts pressed against the muscles hidden beneath his soft, thin t-shirt, and his coat whipped back at the wind from the cliff only a pace behind me.

My lips trembled, tingled, my heart racing both in fright at the cliff behind me, and the intensity of the man before me. I felt his heartbeat hammering against my chest, even from so light a contact. He dipped his head closer, and I smelled a faint aroma of black licorice and herbs, but I recognized it. Absinthe. He had been drinking not long ago, but his eyes were clear, not inebriated.

The scent was pleasant. Like that of my dad’s aftershave. Comforting. Secure. Safe.

I suddenly wanted to taste it. Desperately so.

As if sharing the desire, his lips touched mine, but as softly as the whisper of a butterfly’s wing. A light breeze. Not a kiss, but a microscopic caress, almost unnoticeable. Even at that faint a touch, my lips erupted with inner flame, and I began to shake, wanting to devour his mouth. My tongue tingled, numbing my mouth, thirsting…

A car horn honked, and my heart exploded in panic as I jumped away, releasing his hands as my breath left me, my eyes darting wildly.

My foot fell on empty air, and I began to fall.

I saw Nate snarl as he grabbed the waist of my bloody leggings with one strong hand while his other hand flashed out with a whip of white fire to one of the wooden crosses behind him. The whip latched around it like the tentacle of an octopus, and his arm muscles flexed beneath his jacket, stressing the fabric as he used the whip to yank me back to safety. Either he pulled too hard, or the whip held too much power, because we both flew into a tangled heap on the scorched earth.

The earth smelled like flowers for some bizarre reason, even though it was burned away.

I was on top of him, staring into those green eyes that flickered faintly with white fire like distant lightning in his brain. I had never seen that before in his eyes.

Then the car horn honked again, and I jumped off of him. He cursed under his breath, climbing to his feet. “I’m going to kill her,” he muttered. “If it’s the last thing I do.”

I stared in the distance to see the Yukon XL flashing lights at us, a familiar blonde face grinning frantically as she waved to get our attention. “Claire,” I whispered in relief. I smiled, waving back, and saw my wrists for the first time. They were scarred where the manacles had been. Not fresh wounds or crusted blood, but white scars as if they had happened, and healed, years ago.

“She was very persistent. Said she got jumped on her way home, in the alley behind her house, but managed to chase them away with her mace. Has a few scratches where they tried to yank her watch off, but she’s fine. Moody as all hell when we couldn’t find you, though,” he added, chuckling. He took off his coat and wrapped it around my shoulders delicately. He held up a long white hair. One of mine. “I’ve been trying to track you for hours, but the spell wouldn’t stick. We drove all over town, searching. Even threatened the bears and vampires.” He smiled. “Then it just reacted all of a sudden.” I nodded, remembering Johnathan saying he had blocked this place. He must have blocked Nate’s spell.

Nate studied me. “Which one was the Demon?” he asked softly.

“Johnathan,” I whispered.

He blinked, having expected a woman like I had. “I’m sorry, Callie.”

I shrugged under the coat, wrapping it tighter around me. “Someone else was here, too. At the end. I think it was a girl named Amira. Johnathan said she was his sister.”

Nate scanned the surroundings, but seeing no threat, sighed. “We’ll take care of her. Later. I’m sorry about Gabriel,” he continued, glancing up at the blonde man. “Father David prayed in the hospital. Gabriel answered, scaring the hell out of him. He sent Gabriel to watch over you…” His eyes took in Gabriel on the cross again, and I saw his shoulders sag. “That’s going to hurt Claire.”

I flinched, suddenly disgusted with myself for not considering the dead men yet.

“Callie, wait!” Nate shouted as I ran to my dad, wanting to see his face one last time.

I looked up, and stopped cold.

A dead stranger stared down at me. I backed up two steps, not understanding. My eyes flicked to Roland only to see another stranger.

I spun behind me to find the Nephilim, Gabriel. He was as I remembered… I shook my head. “No, no, no…” I whispered, panicking, not understanding.

The shock took the last bit of energy from me, and I fell, spiraling into darkness, listening to Nate shout my name. It felt nice.