The redcap raced through the empty streets, following the lure of the siren’s voice, though it was not what pulled him. Terror like he’d never felt pulsed through his veins with every desperate beat of his heart.
Faster.
Faster.
You’ll be too late.
He’d known what had happened the moment he’d arrived at the cabin to see Mirela holding his daughter. Feeding her with a bottle.
Do. Not. Fail. Her.
He ran so fast that witnesses saw only a shadowy blur. He ran so hard that asphalt cracked beneath his shoes. The sound of air rushing in and out of his enormous lungs was so loud in his own ears that he didn’t hear the more visceral sounds of slaughter until he rounded the corner into the park, and the whole thing hit him at once.
Despite the fear and rage pulsing through him, for one long moment—several endless beats of his heart—Gallagher could only stare at the spectacle.
It was magnificent.
Shewas magnificent.
Delilah stood in the middle of a huge crowd, drenched in the fragrant crimson life force that fed his soul, as if she were the eye of a blood hurricane, wreaking destruction in an ever-widening ring.
All around her, surrogates fell upon each other, ripping one another apart. It was a splendid slaughter, reminiscent of the war that formed his earliest memories. The formative battles that still thrilled him in his dreams.
Around the fringes, people watched. Humans, staring, disgusted and rapt, with their phones out. Recording Delilah’s moment of savage victory for the entire world to see. From every possible angle.
They were clearly mesmerized—almost hypnotized by the siren’s voice—but they could not possibly appreciate the sight like he did. They did not find grace in every arc of blood or beauty in each fallen form. They could not understand the twitches and convulsions—the bewitching dance of the dying.
But they had only to see. To remember. To spread the word of this slaughter undertaken on their behalf by a terrible and benevolent force sent to save those who did not deserve saving.
And as he watched, he could no longer deny the truth. Delilah had been born for thisone moment—to fell a forest made of monsters—and every moment he’d had with her leading up to this had been nothing more than time stolen from fate. Precious moments borrowed against a collateral of bloodshed.
But when this was over, when she’d fulfilled her purpose, her life would be her own. Future moments would belong to both of them, and to their brand-new—
In the middle of the slaughter, Delilah threw her arms out. She tossed her head back. And she fell to her knees.
“Delilah!” Gallagher’s voice rolled over the park like thunder. Humans watching the bloodbath shuddered from the force of his rage. “Delilah!”
He stormed the battlefield, stomping over corpses and tossing still-writhing bodies aside like an angry child throwing his playthings, clearing a path through the chaos. Through the carnage.
“Delilah!”
At the center of the crowd, he found her, half-collapsed, as the slaughter went on all around them. He lifted her in both arms, his hold sure in spite of the blood, and she clung to him with a frighteningly weak grip.
Hands reached for her as he forced his way through the mayhem, elbowing aside heads and torsos indiscriminately. Delilah’s hold around his neck weakened with every step and by the time he emerged from the crowd, she lay limp in his arms, her sight unfocused. Her eyelids fluttering.
“Gallagher!” Huffing, Lenore raced toward him, keys dangling from her grip as she pointed at the parking lot at one end of the park. “Put her in the van!”
They arrived at the vehicle at the same time, from two different directions, and Lenore pulled open the sliding side door. Gallagher laid Delilah on the bench seat, then sat with her head in his lap.“Drive.”
As the siren backed the van out of the lot, Gallagher stared through the windshield and was stunned to see that thefuraie’s work continued, even without Delilah. Caught up in the grip of her vengeance, the surrogates were still tearing each other limb from limb.
Delilah had given them her gift. And that gift kept giving.
“Is she okay?” the siren asked, glancing in the rearview mirror for the thousandth time as the van bumped over ruts in the poorly maintained back road.
“No.” Gallagher stroked hair back from Delilah’s forehead, but her eyes would not open. “She’s unconscious. What the hell were you thinking?”
“It was her decision. It was her destiny. You know that as well as I do. You saw what I saw.”
