Finale

want him superseding my orders and distributing the devilcraft super-drink to Nephilim. He would have, if fallen angels had
come against Nephilim.” Again, spoken so practically. So superior. He feared nothing.
    “Where’s Patch?”
    “In hell. I made certain his face never passed through the gates. He’ll stay in hell. And only when I feel like brutally abusing and tormenting something will he get a
visitor.”
    I lunged for him, swinging my sword lethally at his head. He sprang from its swath, countering with several explosive blows of his own. With each defensive block, my sword vibrated up to my
shoulders. I gritted my teeth to battle the pain. He was too strong; I couldn’t fend off his powerful strokes forever. I had to find a way to strip his sword and puncture his heart.
    “When was the last time you took devilcraft?” Dante asked, using his sword like a machete to hack at me.
    “I’m done with devilcraft.” I blocked his strikes, but if I didn’t stop playing defense soon, he’d back me into the fence. Aggressively, I lunged to stab his thigh.
He sidestepped, my sword driving into air and nearly unbalancing me.
    The more you lean or stretch, the easier it will be for Dante to knock you over.
Patch’s caution sounded in my head as clearly as he’d spoken it yesterday. I nodded to
myself.
That’s it, Patch. Keep talking to me.
    “It shows,” Dante said. “I’d hoped you’d take enough of the poisonous prototype I gave you to rot your brain.”
    So that had been his initial plan: get me addicted to devilcraft and let it quietly kill me. “Where are you storing the rest of the prototypes?”
    “Where I can harness their power whenever I want,” he returned smugly.
    “Hope you hid them well, because if there’s one thing I’m doing before I die, it’s destroying your lab.”
    “The new lab is inside me. The prototypes are there, Nora, replicating over and over.
I
am devilcraft. Do you have any idea what it feels like to be the most powerful man on the
planet?”
    I ducked just in time to miss a chop at my neck. Quickening my steps and plunging my sword forward, I aimed for his stomach, but he danced sideways again, and the blade nipped the flesh above
his hip instead. Blue liquid oozed from the wound, blooming across his white shirt.
    With a guttural growl, Dante flew at me. I ran, jumping the stone wall encasing the parking lot.
    Dew beaded the grass, and my balance faltered; I slipped and slid downhill. Just in time I scrabbled behind a gravestone; Dante’s sword speared the grass where I’d landed. He chased
me through the headstones, swinging his sword at every chance, the steel ringing out as it clanged against marble and stone.
    I ran behind the first tree I saw, putting it between us. It was on fire, popping and crackling as the flames devoured it. Ignoring the heat blasting my face, I faked left, but Dante
wasn’t in the mood for games. He chased around the tree, holding his sword over his head as though he intended to slice me in half, skull to toes. I fled again, hearing Patch in my head.
    Use his height to your advantage. Expose his legs. A hard strike to either knee, then steal his sword.
    I ducked behind the mausoleum, flattening myself against the wall. The moment Dante moved into my line of vision, I stepped out from my hiding place, driving my sword into the flesh of his
thigh. Watery blue blood spurted from the wound. He’d consumed so much devilcraft, his veins literally flowed with it.
    Before I could retract my sword, Dante swung at me. I cleared his sword, but in doing so, had to leave my own buried in his leg. The emptiness in my hands suddenly felt very real, and I
swallowed down panic.
    “Forgot something,” Dante jeered, clenching his teeth as he pulled the blade out of his leg. He hurled my sword onto the mausoleum’s roof.
    I dashed away, knowing his leg wound would slow him—until it healed. I hadn’t made it far before agonizing heat ripped into my left shoulder blade and spread down my arm. I stumbled
to my knees with a cry. I glanced back, just able to see Pepper’s pearly-white dagger deeply lodged in my shoulder. Marcie must have given it to Dante last night. He limped up behind me.
    The whites of his eyes sizzled blue with devilcraft. Blue sweat popped from his brow. Devilcraft trickled from his wound. The prototypes he’d stolen from Blakely were inside him.
He’d consumed them all, and somehow had transformed his body into a