Finale

five seconds, he’d be directly below me.
    Four, three, two—
    I dropped from the tree. I slammed into him from behind, the weight of my impact shoving him forward. His sword flew from his hand before I could steal it. We rolled several feet, but I had the
advantage of surprise. Scrabbling upright quickly, I stood over his back, landing several crushing blows to his wing scars before he shoved his foot back, sweeping my legs out from under me. I
rolled away, missing the downward drill of a knife he’d extracted from his boot.
    “Rixon?” I said, shocked to recognize the pale face and hawkish features of Patch’s former best friend glaring at me. Patch had personally chained Rixon in hell after
he’d attempted to sacrifice me to get a human body.
    “You,” he said.
    We faced each other, knees bent, ready to spring. “Where’s Patch?” I dared ask.
    His beady eyes clung to mine, narrowed and cold. “That name means nothing to me. The man is dead to me.”
    Since he didn’t surge at me with the knife, I risked asking another question. “Why are fallen angels letting Dante lead you?”
    “He forced us to swear an oath of loyalty to him,” he said, his eyes narrowing into twin slits. “It was that, or stay in hell. Not many stayed.”
    Patch wouldn’t stay behind. Not if there was a way back to me. He’d swear the oath to Dante, as much as he’d rather rip out the Nephil’s neck, and then repeat the
procedure with every other square inch of his body.
    “I’m going after Dante,” I told Rixon.
    He laughed, a hiss between his teeth. “I claim a prize for every Nephil body I drag back to Dante. I failed to kill ye before, and now I’ll do it properly.”
    At the same time, we dived for his sword, several feet away. Rixon reached it first, rolling agilely onto his knees and slicing the sword crosswise at me. I ducked, hurtling myself at his
midsection before he could swing again. I slammed him back against the ground on his wing scars. Taking advantage of his brief immobility, I disarmed him; I plucked the sword from his left hand,
and the knife from his right.
    Then I kicked his body over and plunged the knife deep into his wing scars. “You killed my dad,” I told him. “I haven’t forgotten.”
    I hustled uphill toward the parking lot, glancing back to see that I wasn’t being followed. I had a sword, but I needed a better one. Recalling my training with Patch, I replayed every
sword-stripping maneuver we had practiced together. When Dante met me in the parking lot, I would steal his sword. And I would kill him with it.
    When I rounded the hill, Dante was waiting. He watched me, sliding his finger indolently back and forth over the tip of his sword.
    “Nice sword,” I said. “I heard you had it made especially for me.”
    His bottom lip curled marginally. “Only the best for you.”
    “You murdered Blakely. A pretty cold way of saying thank you for all the prototypes he developed for you.”
    “And you murdered Hank. Your own flesh and blood. A bit like calling the kettle black, isn’t it?” he quipped. “I spent months infiltrating Hank’s secret blood
society and gaining his trust. I have to tell you, I raised a toast to my good fortune the day he died. It would have been far harder to dethrone him than you.”
    I shrugged. “I’m used to being underestimated.”
    “I trained you. I know exactly what you’re capable of.”
    “Why’d you free fallen angels?” I asked bluntly, since he seemed amenable to sharing secrets. “You had them in hell. You could have defected and ruled the Nephilim. They
never would have known the truth about your shifting loyalties.”
    Dante smiled, his teeth sharp and white. He looked more animal than man, a swarthy, savage beast. “I’ve risen above both races,” he said in a voice so practical it was hard to
think he didn’t truly believe it. “I will give Nephilim who survive my army’s attack this morning a similar choice to the one I gave fallen angels: swear loyalty to me or die. One
ruler. Indivisible. With power and judgment over all. Wish you’d thought of it first?”
    I held Rixon’s sword close to my body, shifting on the balls of my feet. “Oh, there are several things I’m wishing right now, but that’s not one of them. Why
haven’t fallen angels possessed Nephilim this Cheshvan? I’m guessing you know, and don’t take that as a compliment.”
    “I ordered them not to. Until I killed Blakely, I didn’t