Finale

who pointed out my greatest strength?” I said, every word dripping abhorrence.
    I’d sworn I would never use devilcraft again, but this was one circumstance where I’d gladly bend the rules. If I killed Dante, devilcraft went too.
    The temptation to steal devilcraft for my own flickered across my mind, but I flushed the idea away. I was stronger than Hank, stronger than Dante. Stronger, even, than devilcraft. I would send
it back to hell for Scott, who’d given his life to save mine. I’d just picked up Dante’s sword when his leg bucked up, kicking it from my hands.
    Dante catapulted himself on top of me, his hands vising my neck. I raked my fingernails at his eyes. I clawed his face.
    I opened my mouth. No air.
    His cold stare gleamed with triumph.
    My jaw opened and closed uselessly. Dante’s ruthless face turned grainy, like an old TV picture. Over his shoulder, a stone angel watched me with interest.
    I wanted to laugh. I wanted to cry. So this was what it meant to die. To give in.
    I didn’t want to give in.
    Dante pinched my airway with his knee, stretching sideways to pick up his sword. The tip centered over my heart.
    Possess him,
the stone angel seemed to calmly command me.
Possess him and kill him.
    Patch?
I wondered almost dreamily.
    Clinging to the strength that came from believing Patch was near, watching over me, I stopped resisting Dante. I lowered my scratching fingers and relaxed my legs. I succumbed to him, even
though it felt like a cowardly, conceding thing. I focused my thoughts on gravitating toward him.
    A foreign coldness rippled over my body.
    I blinked, staring at the world through Dante’s eyes. I looked down. His sword was in my hands. Somewhere buried inside me, I knew Dante was grinding his teeth, uttering blood-chilling
noises, howling like a miserable animal.
    I turned the sword to face me. I pointed it at my heart. And then I did a surprising thing.
    I fell on the blade.

C HAPTER

41
    D ANTE’S BODY EXPELLED MINE SO FAST, I felt like I’d been flung from a moving car. My hands snatched at
grass, searching for something solid in a world that spun, tipping and turning over itself. As the dizziness faded, I looked around for Dante. I smelled him before I saw him.
    His skin had deepened to the color of a bruise, and his body began to bloat. His corpse purged its fluids, his devilcraft blood seeping into the earth like something living, something that
burrowed away from sunlight. Flesh fell away, deteriorating into dust. After only a handful of seconds, all that remained of Dante were sucked-dry bones.
    He was dead. Devilcraft was gone.
    Slowly I pushed to my feet. My jeans were tattered and stained, streaks of grass rubbed across the knees. I licked the crack of my mouth, tasting blood and the salty tang of sweat. I walked to
Scott, each step heavy, tears hot on my face, my hands hovering uselessly over his rapidly decaying body. I shut my eyes, forcing myself to recall his lopsided grin. Not his vacant eyes. In my
mind, I played back his teasing laugh. Not the gurgling, gasping sounds he’d made right before dying. I remembered his warmth in accidental touches and playful jabs, knowing his body was
rotting even as I clung to the memory.
    “Thank you,” I choked out, telling myself that somewhere nearby, he could still hear my voice. “You saved my life. Good-bye, Scott. I’ll never forget you, that’s my
oath to you.
Never
,” I vowed.
    The fog hanging over the cemetery burned gold and gray as the sun’s rays sliced through it. Ignoring the fire clawing my shoulder as I drew out Pepper’s dagger, I staggered out of
the cluster of headstones and into the open cemetery.
    Strange lumps littered the grass, and as I came closer, I saw them for what they really were: corpses. Fallen angels, from what I could tell of what remained of them. Just like Dante, their
flesh fell away in seconds. Blue fluid wept from their carcasses and was immediately sucked up by the earth.
    “You did it.”
    I spun around, instinctively hardening my grip on the dagger. Detective Basso tucked his hands in his pockets, a grim little smile playing at his mouth. The black dog who’d saved my life
just a few short days ago sat stalwartly at his ankles. The dog’s feral yellow eyes stared up at me contemplatively. Basso bent down, rubbing the mangy fur between his ears.
    “He’s a good dog,” Basso said. “Once I’m gone, he’ll need a good home.”
    I took a cautious step