"I know it hurts. But I need you to help me if you can. Push with your legs. Think lightweight thoughts. Anything."
Whether he hears me or whether it's pure survival instinct, one of his legs moves. A feeble push against the grass that barely generates force but shifts his weight just enough to help. I drag him backward toward the porch, leaving a dark smear of blood across the lawn like a slug's trail.
Ten feet feels like a mile.
My back screams. My arms burn. James's dead weight threatens to pull me down with every step. The grass is slick with rain and blood, and twice I lose my footing, dropping to one knee before hauling myself upright again.
The porch steps are the worst part. There are only three of them, three wooden steps that might as well be Mount Everest. I get my back against the railing, hook my arms under James's, and lift with my legs. He slides up the first step with a thud thatmakes him groan. Second step. His boots catch on the uneven sidewalk, and I have to kick them free. Third step.
We make it to the porch.
The cold hits me like a wall. My skin prickles, every hair standing at attention. The shadows inside the doorway churn faster, reaching toward us, tendrils of darkness extending to the very edge of the threshold but not beyond.
Waiting.
Finally, fucking finally, I drag James inside.
The reaction is immediate.
Azhrael's shadows swarm James's body like a living thing, like a thousand dark hands reaching out simultaneously to probe his wounds.
The temperature around James drops even further. Frost forms on his bloodied skin, on his tattered clothes, on the blood pooling beneath him.
James's breathing evens out slightly, still shallow, still wrong, but steadier.
I sit back on my heels, panting, my shirt soaked with James's blood. My hands are shaking. I clench them into fists and force the tremors to stop.
Azhrael materializes into a vague human shape by James’s head, more mist than shadow, his form flickering at the edges. His eyes still burn, but dimmer.
Those ember eyes fix on me with an intensity that makes my skin crawl.
"Can you find her?" My voice comes out steadier than I feel. "If you could leave this house. If the Seal was broken. Could you find Sera?"
The sound that comes from him is a howl, raw and primal and so full of anguish that the walls shudder and plaster dust rains from the ceiling. The misty shadows convulse, slamming againstthe walls, the floor, the threshold, a caged thing throwing itself against bars with everything it has left.
Yes, I translate for him.
Maybe he did say that in whatever language exists between a demon and the man stupid enough to stand in its living room asking questions.
But yes, if he could leave, he would tear this city apart brick by brick until he found her.
"Okay." I stand, wipe the blood from my hands on my jeans, and pull out my phone to call Dr. Camila Reyes, the symbology expert at Wichita State.
The woman who translated the Seal's inscriptions, who explained the seven points of the star pattern and the binding words and the true name carved at the center.
If anyone knows how to unmake the Seal of Dissolution, it's her.
I find her number in my contacts and dial. It rings four times, then five. I'm preparing to leave a voicemail that will sound completely unhinged when the line clicks.
"Ugh.Why?" Her voice is thick with sleep. "It's nearly three in the morning."
"Dr. Reyes, I need to know how to break a Seal of Dissolution. Right now." I look around at Sera’s house, and my heart clenches because she’s not in it. "Someone's life depends on it."
Chapter 3
James
PainisaparishI was christened in.
