I didn’t know how to help her. I didn’t know what to say that could make this better, or make up for the pain that I couldn’t save her from. The human drugged her with black lotus, and then molested her. He would have raped her, had she not called out. It was the hurt she projected in a cry for help that led us there. That let us save her. I don’t think she even realized she had done it. But if Ruby was as strong as I think she was…we weren’t the only ones that felt it.

If my instincts proved right, demons would be coming for her from all corners of the earth. Some would want favor. Some would seek to control her. Others would simply wish to kill her in a bid to open the gates of Hell.

I thought we had more time. I’d hoped we could get to know her better. I’d wanted her to come to it on her own, but time was running out. Even if her psychic assault didn’t reach another soul past the four of us, we had a bigger problem.

The beast had awoken, and with it would come the transition. Maybe not tonight, or tomorrow, or even next week, but it would come. And we needed to be ready when it did.

Lucifer had created us to be able to handle the beast. To ground her when she could not ground herself. If we were to have any hope of being able to do that, we needed her to trust us.

Trust isn’t earned lightly, and it takes time. More time than we had. If she really was on the verge of the transition, we didn’t have more than a month. And that was a generous estimate.

The front door flew open, and a tiny green-haired banshee stormed around the corner. The girl didn’t even look to me, her eyes frantic as they sought a single person. I moved aside for her, hoping she could do what I and the others could not.

She ripped off her heels fiercely and climbed into bed next to Ruby. Her slender green arms wrapped around Ruby’s slightly wider shoulders. She began murmuring things under her breath, but I closed the door. The things said between two people that close were not meant for others to hear. Certainly not after a night like tonight.

I walked back down the hall and into the living room where the other three waited. Rysten was seated on the couch, staring with a vacantness that was telling. Allistair faced the window, his back to us and his posture stiff. Unyielding. Laran paced before the door and the wind blew harder outside. The moon had been eclipsed by dark clouds as heavy rain came down. The forecast hadn’t called for rain this night, which meant it was War.

“Is it taken care of?” I asked.

Laran nodded. “The bodies have been burned; the ashes scattered. No one will know what happened. They never existed as far as this world is concerned.” He was the most solemn I’d seen him since the Ring Wars.

“And the human?” I asked. If I didn’t have Ruby’s needs to be concerned with, I’d be calling him back from the veil right this moment to make him pay ten times over. Twenty. I could make him relive his death a hundred times.

But it would never be enough for what he did to her, and she didn’t need to know that particular aspect of my power just yet.

“I’ve erased every trace of him online. Social media. Bank accounts. Vendor accounts. Birth certificate. Social security. It’s gone. All of it. But unless any of us suddenly learned how to take people’s memories…it will be impossible to erase his memory from her life completely.” Rysten blew out a harsh breath. “Humans will remember him, but there is no evidence that his disappearance could be linked to her.”

I nodded once, but it was Famine that spoke. “That’s the best we can hope for, unless we plan to kill everyone he ever knew.” I considered the validity of that statement. Weighing the good and the bad, the domino effect that would have.

“The imp with one eye escaped. We need to prioritize hunting him down before he becomes a problem,” I replied. Laran nodded, but he wasn’t as enthusiastic as he usually was about the prospect of hunting. I couldn’t blame him; not when failure sat like a stone upon our backs.

“There’s more…say it” Rysten prompted. I turned to my brother. The darkness I knew well still hadn’t left his eyes. Killing the human wasn’t enough. Many were going to die tonight when this conversation was over.

“The beast has awoken. One of the demons got to her, and she burned him alive from the inside out,” I replied. Rysten nodded. He must have sensed it the same as I had.

“She’s stronger than she realizes. I don’t know how she’s repressed her powers this long, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence she hasn’t gone through the transition yet. Something happened to her, and I’m not talking about tonight,” Rysten said.

Silence spread between the four of us, the air thick with things unsaid.

We saved our apologies, our hurt, our sorrows, because they were not meant for each other. It was not each other we failed, but Ruby. If Rysten was right, it was possible we failed long before we even came for her.

If something happened in her past to cause her to suppress the transition, it was enough to make me question if we were right sending her to this world in the first place.

To a world where monsters and men were the same thing.