"Dungeons. With Neuma."

Neuma and Jerica. Elise would be surprised if the assassin was in a chatting mood by the time they were done with him. "Move him to the cells underneath the court. Keep him alive until I can talk to him."

Isaiah nodded, abandoned his ritual space, and scurried from the room.

James peeled a glove off of one hand, exposing lightning-blue runes slithering between his fingers. A sigh of envy escaped Elise. She didn't miss how much the magic had hurt her, but she missed the power.

"What happened to him?" James asked.

"He was poisoned. Can you help him?"

James flexed his hand. "I'll do my best." He brushed his fingers over the other man's forehead.

He didn't speak a single word of power, but several. The runes lifted from the back of his wrist and crawled across Lincoln's skin.

Ethereal magic was always just a little bit off when it was cast in Hell-just a little bit dimmer, as if distorted through a tinted window. But James's magic still radiated. Every single spell hummed with a different tone. Taken together, it was a symphony that touched the invisible fibers woven throughout the room, the Palace, all of Hell, and beyond. The magic stretched to the fissure. Elise wouldn't have been surprised if James's spells reached all the way to Heaven.

Color faded into Lincoln's cheeks. His chest began rising and falling with heavier breaths. White-blue runes slipped down his cheekbones, raced onto his chest, grew to encompass his entire body.

For a moment, he glowed.

Then the symphony of magic was simply gone. James grabbed his glove and stepped back.

Elise watched Lincoln for signs of rousing. He was still unconscious. "What happened?"

"I can't cure it," James said. Her heart twisted. "The poison has already penetrated his marrow. What did you say he consumed?"

"We still don't know. I've never seen anything like it."

"I wasn't aware that there was anything that presented such a threat to demons."

Elise rubbed her stomach. She still ached from the poison herself. "Neither was I. How long does he have?"

"I'm not sure. The poison is reacting with his demon blood, and that is what will eventually catalyze and kill him." James hesitated. She could almost see him performing the mental math. "He might have days."

She pushed a lock of hair off his forehead. "After we exorcised him, I asked if he wanted to come to Hell with me. He didn't. Lincoln just wanted to have a normal life without demons and angels and witches in it." She glanced at James. "Sound familiar?"

Elise and James had tried to retire so many years ago that it was practically another lifetime. But neither of them had forgotten. She didn't think either of them had stopped wishing they could quit, either.

James massaged his forehead. "Nobody gets out of this anymore, Elise."

"He should have." If it hadn't been for James, Lincoln might not have been caught up in it in the first place. "Will he wake up?"

"He could, but his energy has been drained," James said. "I doubt he'll be fully rested before..."

He fell silent. Elise could still hear the unspoken words.

He won't wake up before the poison kills him.

Elise sank to the bed beside Lincoln, pulled his hand into her lap. "I can feed him."

"Feed him? How?"

She closed her eyes. It wasn't hard to find anger within herself-she didn't even need to dig very deep. Anger smoldered inside of her. She was constantly on edge, always two seconds away from shattering her veneer of calm.

Usually she fought it, but now, she fed into it.

Elise thought of the three thousand missing people and the brutality of a broken world that wouldn't allow innocents to live in peace. She thought of the obsidian falchion in the chest in her bedroom-and what she had done to Seth with that blade.

She thought of all the Houses that refused to comply with her. Davithon, the demon in her dungeons, threatening her rather than listening to reason, forcing her to keep him confined. Volac's steward driving a blade into Nikolaj's back.

James's betrayal, and the fact that Elise couldn't seem to push him away despite it.

Her shoulders trembled. Her cheeks burned. She pushed all of that anger, the hate and frustration and exhaustion, toward the place where her hands joined with Lincoln's.

Take it. Take it all.

It wasn't like being drained. It was more like ramming the point of a dagger into a light socket. Elise's energy scraped out of her in piercing lines and bled into Lincoln.

She faded, and he improved.

Her anger only intensified under his megaira influence, knotting in her stomach until it was too much, until she thought she might be sick.

Images flashed through her faster and faster. Adam in the garden, after He had gone insane. Eve's eggs pulverized by Nashriel. Adam wrenching Metaraon's head off of his shoulders.

Elise's heart pounded. Her fingernails dug into Lincoln's wrist.

His hand twitched on hers.

She wrenched free of him and stood, putting distance between them.

Her heart was hurting again. She peeled the neck of her shirt away from her chest to investigate the wound. Unsurprisingly, she was dribbling blood again. Lincoln must have fed deeper than she realized. She was getting better at moderating her own hungers, but he was still new to this, and too sickly to be the one to break away.

"What's wrong?" James asked.

"Nothing," she said, tugging her shirt back into place.

"You're wounded."

She ignored him and sat beside Lincoln again. The deputy was stirring.

Lincoln's eyes opened. "God?" he whispered, trying to focus on her.

Elise smiled. "You almost had me worried, Deputy."

When he recognized her voice, he relaxed back against the pillow. "Elise. What happened to me?"

The door whispered shut behind them. Elise glanced over her shoulder. James had left the room, and the space he had been standing looked so very empty.

She put him out of her mind.

"You tell me." Elise offered him the vial. "This was found on the body of the man that tried to assassinate us. I don't recognize the substance. I hoped that you would."

He extended a hand. Elise dropped it into his palm. Instantly, his blood pressure spiked. "It's Aquiel's. He's trying to fucking kill us."

"Aquiel's dead. He's not giving anything to anyone."

"But this looks like anathema powder," Lincoln said. "This is mined from the mountain underneath the House of Abraxas."

She remembered seeing all the stone discarded from the House of Abraxas mines, but she had assumed that it was waste, without any purpose. She frowned. "Why would stone from under Mount Anathema be poisonous to us?"

"It's poisonous to all demons." Lincoln gave a short, mirthless laugh. "Guess I'm demon enough for it to work on me now, aren't I?"

"But why?"

"I don't know. It's not that black rock that the House is built on-this comes from deeper, down in the depths of the mountain. When I was possessed, I helped Aquiel coordinate its purchase from Abraxas." He shook the vial gently. "See the way it shimmers? You can't mistake it. It's been activated by someone who can do magic. Belphegor used to do it, but human witches could, too."

"How have I never heard of this before?" Elise asked.

"Because it's a huge secret." Lincoln rubbed his forehead, as if trying to push the memories into the forefront of his mind. "Even the librarians didn't have a clue. Only Aquiel, Abraxas, and Belphegor knew how to make it." He grimaced. "And me."

"Then how the fuck did a werewolf get it? It was given to the assassin by a guy named Levi Riese."

Lincoln sat up. "The Apple. Shit."

"You know them?"

"The nightmare that possessed me did. We need to get to Northgate," he said. "We need to get there now."

The werewolves had been in their beast forms for hours now, even though the full moon was several nights away. It wasn't easy to be trapped within the wolf shape for so long-the smaller of them, Trevin, had passed out. Crystal stood guard over him. She snapped at Levi's hands every time he tried to step closer. Wolf or not, she recognized the man that had just kicked their Alpha out of the sanctuary.

Levi circled them. Abram could tell that he was acutely aware of his audience by the way that he swaggered, how he held his shoulders, tipped his chin. Almost all of the pack was gathered in Northgate to watch him, and he was trying to look impressive.

Abram sat at Bain Marshall's feet, elbows resting on his knees. He didn't want to look impressive. Most folks probably hadn't even noticed him there yet, and that was just fine with him.

"Change them back," Felton said. He stood alongside Levi, the staunchest supporter of the change in leadership. It wasn't much of a show of support. He was a little shrimp of a man, and it never failed to surprise Abram that the guy turned into a wolf instead of a weasel.

"They're loyal to Rylie," Levi said. "I think they should stay as wolves until they learn to be obedient to me." He made it sound convincing. The pack probably didn't detect the falter in his tone. But Abram did.

Levi couldn't change them back.

It wasn't a surprise. Abram had never thought that Levi was any kind of match in power for either of his parents. Rylie sucked at being Alpha, but she was still an impressive werewolf. Levi wasn't.

"You said that you're an Alpha," Felton said. "Why can't you change them back?"

"You told me that Abel couldn't change you at first, Felton," Deepali said. She had a soft, musical voice that carried well; her whisper was audible throughout the entire town square. "He had to learn to do it, too."

"Rylie always had the power." That was Paetrick. He hadn't taken well to the news that Levi was in charge now. Three Scions had guns trained on him to keep him from trying to attack again.

"Rylie's not your Alpha anymore," Levi snapped. "She ran away to Hell at the first chance, and she's gone now. All right? I can change Trevin and Crystal back; I just don't want to." He clenched his fist around the silver pentacle hanging over his chest.

"You snuck up on her in the middle of the night," Paetrick said, bolder now. "That's a real fucking brave way to take someone down."

Levi's upper lip curled in a snarl. "She didn't even try to defend herself. If she can't protect her home from invasion, then how can you expect her to protect the pack?"

He walked too close to Crystal. She lunged, snapping her jaw shut on his wrist. Levi slammed his knee into the side of her head. She fell with a yelp and didn't get up again.

Shaking his arm, he sent blood splattering to the grass. She had stripped the skin off of half of his forearm. Levi didn't even flinch at it.

He looked brutal and strong within the ring of spotlights. It made his blood cherry red and his skin golden.

Levi definitely inspired a lot more confidence than Rylie did. He just needed to get their trust.

Abram pushed to his feet, and the pack fell silent. They'd definitely been too distracted by Levi's show to realize he was there. Once he was standing, though, he was impossible to miss.

"The pack needs to be stronger to survive," Abram said. "It will be stronger with Levi in charge." He so seldom spoke up in front of the others that it felt strange to do it now, but the private look of gratitude Levi shot him was worth the effort.

It took several long seconds for someone to find the will to speak.

Surprisingly, it was Felton. "But you're Rylie's kid."

"Yes," Abram said. "I'm Rylie and Abel's son."

"That should tell you something," Levi said.

"What, that the Alphas bred a faggot?" Paetrick scoffed.

"Who fucking cares if they did?" Levi spread his arms wide. "I think you just want any excuse to fight. That's fine. I'll take any of you. Whatever it takes to convince you all that I'm strong enough."

Nobody moved forward-not even Paetrick.

When nobody challenged him, he strolled over to the statue of Bain Marshall, climbing onto the steps underneath his feet so that he would be tall enough for everyone to see.

"I'm meaner than Rylie. I'll also be fairer, smarter, and more decisive. The fact is that we're weak right now in a very cruel world, and if we want to survive, then hiding out in the mountains isn't going to cut it. We'll just waste away. Do you want to roll over and die? Or do you want to take the fight to our enemies?"

He pointed at the fissure.

"They imprisoned you. Enslaved you. Killed your friends and loved ones, turned you into food, leather, or labor, and shattered America. It's not enough to trust that Elise Kavanagh will do the right thing. She's a demon. The Godslayer. When she's done taking charge of Hell, she'll turn to Earth and Heaven next. We need to prepare ourselves for war." Levi gave a long, dramatic pause. "We need to make more werewolves."

"Monsters," Tyrone protested.

"Soldiers," Levi said. "I didn't become a werewolf by choice. This was forced on me, as it was for many of you, and I was angry about it for a long time. It wasn't until recently that I realized this is a gift. That we're meant to use these abilities for good. We need to spread this gift around and take back our world." His eyes swept over the pack. "And I know where we can find allies to help us."

That wasn't something that he had mentioned before. Abram frowned. "Allies?"

Levi didn't listen to him. "We're not going to be in this war alone. The demons are much too numerous for us to take, even if we triple the size of the pack. But I've brokered a deal that will give us the upper hand."

"How are you going to triple the size of the pack if you can't even control our changes?" Felton asked. "The moon's coming, man. We don't have much time."