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His father was so lucky he was dead, because at this moment, she’d hunt him down and kill him for planting that kind of memory in Arik’s head.

Then it occurred to her that she had to go just as far now, or Arik would never give up on them. She might hate herself for doing this, but at least he’d be alive.

She inhaled deeply, preparing to throw a punch that was going to knock him down. “If you don’t accept my decision, I can make you accept it. I’ll get in your head and do some creative work so you think our breakup is your choice, not mine. Is that what you want?” Her ability wasn’t that extensive, but hopefully Arik didn’t know that.

He paled, and Limos’s chest broke wide open. “You wouldn’t. You swore—”

“I lied.” Steeling herself against his anger and disappointment, she shrugged. “You should be used to that by now.”

“Limos…” His voice cracked, and it dawned on her that he’d avoided saying her name for so long, and now he used it over and over in this conversation, as if using it as a lifeline. “Don’t do this. I love you. You love me.”

And now for the knockout blow. “That,” she said, reaching deep into the Limos she used to be, the Limos who enjoyed being a demon, “was a lie too.”

Heart wrenching, she threw a gate and left Arik alone on the beach.

Thirty

Regan hadn’t left when everyone else had.

Arik had told her to go, but she wasn’t a quitter, and what happened tonight only strengthened her resolve. Some big, bad evil had gone through like a tornado, tearing up the ground outside and completely destroying two outbuildings. A number of the demon guards had been slaughtered, either by Pestilence or by the gargantuan thing, and Regan’s mission had been clearer than ever.

The demons had to be stopped, the Apocalypse turned back. And if it took a Horseman’s kid to do it, so be it.

While she waited for the last of the wedding guests to leave, she patrolled the grounds l. Bundled in her parka, a stang in her gloved hand, she studied footprints and the bloodstains in the snow where demons had died. She’d encountered a lot of demons in her life, but some of the tracks she found were new to her, and some of them, like the Godzilla-sized one thirty yards from the keep, left her shaken. Regular-sized demons were hard enough to fight. How would humans fare against monsters as tall as twenty-story buildings?

Tired and shivering, she finally went back inside, but as she entered the great room, the sensation of being watched froze her mid-stride. Her pulse pounded in her ears as she swiveled her head toward the big warrior standing in front of the fire.

His merciless gaze was trained on her, flickering with cold death. All around him shadows swirled, turning his white bone armor gray and moving faster and faster as she watched. Her dark gift reared up, tapping against her skull as if wanting out.

Stay calm… must… stay… calm.

In horrifying slow motion, the shadows formed mouths and eyes, and then suddenly, one shot toward her.

A scream escaped her as she whirled and sprinted toward her bedroom, but the thing hit her from behind, sending her sprawling on the stone floor. Pain, as if a million tiny needles were being jammed all the way to the bone, became the air she breathed. Something seemed to reach inside her, and she swore she felt an icy hand close around her heart. A tugging sensation joined the pain, and holy shit, now she knew how it felt to be skinned alive, to have an essential part of you peeled away from other essential parts.

The thing was ripping her soul right out of her body.

All her training, all her discipline, went out the window, and she unleashed her gift. Her body vibrated, and light spilled from her, seeping from her very pores, until she was blinded from the white flash. The pain dissolved as a coil of living light extracted the invading shadow from her body.

Thanatos burst around the corner and skidded to a halt, his eyes wide. More shadows tore away from him and attacked the light. The ball of dark and light writhed, tangled in the air, and then, gradually, the shadows swallowed