Finale

tender in the way she said it. She meant every word. We were in this together.
    I was too choked up to speak. “All right,” I said at last. “Let’s go slam shut the gates of hell once and for all.”

C HAPTER

40
    T HE SUN CRESTED ABOVE THE HORIZON, BACKLIGHTING the seemingly endless silhouette of fallen angels charging across the
cemetery grounds. In the early, slanted light, their shadows emitted an incandescent blue, like a great ocean wave roaring toward shore. One man—a Nephil—ran at the front of the army,
wielding a blue-gleaming sword. A sword created to kill me. Even from this distance, Dante’s eyes seemed to cut through all distraction, hunting for me.
    I’d wondered how the gates of hell had been opened, and now I had my answer. The dark-blue halo hovering above the fallen angels told me Dante had employed devilcraft.
    But why he’d allowed Marcie to burn the feathers, only to free fallen angels—that I didn’t know.
    “I need to get Dante alone,” I told Scott and Vee. “He’s looking for me, too. If you can, lead him to the parking lot above the cemetery.”
    “You don’t have a weapon,” Scott said.
    I pointed ahead, at the surging army. Every fallen angel carried a sword that seemed to shoot from their hand like a shining blue flame. “No, but they do. I just have to convince one of
them to make a donation.”
    “They’re spreading out,” Scott said. “They’re going to kill every Nephil in this cemetery, and then invade Coldwater.”
    I grasped his hands, then Vee’s. For one moment, we formed an unbreakable circle, and it gave me strength. I’d be alone when I faced Dante, but Vee and Scott would not be far
away—I would remember that. “Whatever happens, I’ll never forget our friendship.”
    Scott dragged my head against his chest, holding me fervently, then kissed my forehead tenderly. Vee flung her arms around me, embracing me long enough that I feared I might shed more tears than
I already had.
    Pulling away, I ran.
    The terrain of the cemetery offered multiple hiding places, and I climbed swiftly into the branches of an evergreen tree growing out of the hill leading up to the parking lot. From here, I had
an unobstructed view, watching as unarmed Nephilim men and women, outnumbered twenty to one, charged at the wall of fallen angels. In a matter of seconds, fallen angels descended over them like a
cloud, chopping them down as if they were nothing more than weeds.
    At the bottom of the hill, Susanna Millar was locked in a wrestling match with a fallen angel whose pale blond hair whipped about her shoulders as the two women thrashed for control. Susanna
flung a knife from the hidden folds of her cloak and launched it into Dabria’s breastbone. With a high growl of rage, Dabria two-handed her sword, skidding over the wet grass as she swung it
in retaliation. Their fight carried them behind the maze of tombstones and out of sight.
    Farther away, Scott and Vee fought back to back, using tree branches to fend off four fallen angels who had them surrounded. Despite their numerical advantage, the fallen angels receded from
Scott, whose sheer strength and size gave him the upper hand. He knocked them over with the tree branch, then used it as a sledgehammer to pummel them senseless.
    I scanned the cemetery for Marcie. If she was out there, I couldn’t see her. It wasn’t a wild guess to believe she’d deliberately avoided the battle and chosen safety over
honor. Blood painted the cemetery grass. Nephilim and fallen angels alike skidded on it—some of the blood was pure red, much of it tainted blue with devilcraft.
    Lisa Martin and her robed friends ran along the perimeter of the cemetery, black smoke billowing from the torches they carried. At a hurried pace, they moved from one tree and shrub to the next,
lighting them on fire. Flames erupted, consuming the foliage and narrowing the battlefield, forming a barrier around the fallen angels. The smoke, hazy and thick, stretched across the cemetery like
the shadow of nightfall. Lisa couldn’t burn fallen angels to death, but she had bought the Nephilim extra coverage.
    One fallen angel emerged from the smoke, trudging up the hillside, eyes alert. I had to believe he sensed me. His sword radiated blue fire, but the way he held it concealed his face. Still, I
could plainly see he was gangly, an easier match for me.
    He crept toward the tree, eyeing the dark spaces nestled between branches cautiously. In