Demon Blood

nosferatu’s, and she posed a terrible danger to humankind. When he ordered his sister’s execution, his pain was as great as if he’d ripped out his own heart.
    Zakril saved Anaria and hid her away, though he told Michael that the deed had been done. For centuries, Zakril, his sister Khavi, Anaria, and the Guardians loyal to her hid from Michael, until a demon who had called himself their friend betrayed them. Zakril was slain. Khavi was trapped in Hell, where Belial killed her husband, Aaron. And Anaria, who had been hidden away in a temple that only Zakril could enter, found the temple had become her prison.
    She remained there for two and a half millennia. Imprisoned, just as her children were still imprisoned Below.
    In Hell, Khavi, who bore the Gift of foresight, delivered to Belial a prophecy: Anaria would be freed. A dragon would rise from Chaos. Vampire blood would destroy the nephilim. And after the nephilim had been defeated, after Michael’s heart was destroyed, Belial would ascend to the throne.
    For two and a half thousand years, none of it came to pass. The names Anaria, Zakril, and Khavi were no longer spoken on Earth or Caelum. Guardians knew nothing of the grigori, the nephilim, or the prophecy. Michael continued leading them, never faltering. Civilizations crumbled, and men advanced in fits and spurts. Ancient cities fell to ruins and skyscrapers rose in their place. The Guardian corps carried on, though their numbers fell dangerously low.
    With one wager, everything changed. Michael risked Caelum and bet the heart of a Guardian against the heart of a demon, and won. Lucifer was forced to close the Gates to Hell for five hundred years. Many demons remained on Earth, however, and the Rules still had to be enforced—and so Lucifer released the nephilim, who possessed the bodies of humans recently dead and bound for Hell.
    Aware that vampire blood weakened them, the nephilim began massacring vampire communities. They freed their mother from her prison, and assisted her attack against the Guardians, where she collected a vampire’s blood that allowed her access to the Chaos realm. From there, she hoped to gain entry into Hell, where she would resume her battle for Lucifer’s throne. Her portal to Chaos unleashed a dragon that the Guardians fought and destroyed.
    Now the Guardians wait for her next move.
    Rosalia didn’t want to wait. She wanted to strike before Anaria did, though she didn’t know what form that strike would take, and she suspected that no one but Michael would be powerful enough to bring it about. She couldn’t compose Anaria’s ending yet.
    The nephilim’s end, however—Rosalia imagined that often. And although those scenarios took many forms, the result was always bloody.
    How to do it, though? She had nothing but time to contemplate a solution as she flew west, her wings beating a steady course above the Atlantic. Methodically, she reviewed everything she knew about Anaria and her children, went over the grigori’s story again and again, but she came up with few ideas.
    The nephilim were too powerful. Anaria was too powerful. If the Guardians faced off against them, singly or together, Rosalia saw only disaster.
    Halfway across the ocean, Rosalia caught up to the sun, slipped past another dawn and into the night. The moon had already set, deepening the darkness and making the shadows easier to gather. With her Gift, Rosalia congealed the darkness like glue. She wrapped it around her body and stretched the shadows, forcing them to carry her along. The wind roared in her ears; she thickened the shadows into a cocoon of silence. In the quiet, she raced through the dark, across a continent, faster than she could fly. Within ten minutes, she reached the bay east of San Francisco. Though in the early hours of the morning, the city shone brightly, busy with life.
    She pulled out of the shadows and spread her wings. Cool air sifted through her white feathers. Not far from the shoreline, a dilapidated warehouse sat inside a large fenced lot—Special Investigations’ headquarters.
    The exterior of the building had surprised Rosalia the first time she’d seen it. After Deacon had led Irena to the catacombs and Irena had destroyed the nosferatu feeding from Rosalia, they’d brought her here. She’d woken up inside the warehouse, where everything was modern and new. She hadn’t expected the disrepair on the outside, but she should have. It was the first lesson Michael taught