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Z was now in goat-fuck territory.

He sheathed a dagger and palmed one of his SIGs, even though the gun would make noise when it went off. And the thing took a bite out of his pride. He was just flipping the safety off when he saw a pair of pale green lights at the back of the alley.

As the lessers went all standstill, clearly they noticed, too.

Z cursed. Dollars to dickheads that was some new kind of xenon headlight, and they were about to get a visit by a carload of kibitzers.

Except then the air temperature dropped twenty degrees. Just like that. As if someone had unloaded two tons of dry ice over there and hit the shit with an industrial blower.

Zsadist threw his head back and laughed loud and long, the power coming back into his body even with his slit throat and his dripping shoulder. As rain started to fall, he positively sizzled with aggression.

The lessers clearly thought he was nuts. But then lightning snapped out and turned the alley daylight bright.

Wrath was revealed at the far end, his massive legs set like oak trunks in the ground, his arms stretched out like I beams, the storm’s wind whipping his waist-length hair around. His glowing eyes were a roaring call of death in the night, his fangs white and sharp and visible from yards and yards away. In his hands were his trademark throwing stars, on his hips were his Berettas . . . and across his chest, crisscrossed with handles down, were the daggers, the black daggers of the Brotherhood, the weapons that he had not used since his ascension.

The king had come out to kill.

Zsadist glanced at the lessers, one of whom was dialing for more backup.

Man, Z thought, he was so ready to get back in the game.

He and Wrath had never fought together before, but they would tonight. And they were going to win.

Much later, back at the mansion, Beth paced around the billiards room. Over the course of the night she’d turned the pool table into the center of her universe: The green felt square with its pockets and its rainbow balls was the sun to her solar system, and around and around she went. . . .

God. She didn’t know how Mary and Bella handled this . . . knowing that their hellrens were out there in that evil night fighting an endless enemy, an enemy with weapons that didn’t just maim, but killed.

When Wrath had told her what he wanted to do, what he needed to do, she’d had to force herself not to scream at him. But, Christ, she’d already seen him lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to wires and machines and tubes, injured, dying, lurching back and forth between life and nothingness.

She had zero interest in reliving that nightmare.

Sure, he’d done his best to reassure her. And told her he’d be careful. And reminded her that he’d fought for some three hundred years and been trained and honed and bred for this. And said it was only for tonight.

Except like that all mattered? She wasn’t thinking about the three centuries he’d come home at the crack of dawn safely. She was worried about this specific night, when he might not make it back. After all, he was flesh and blood, and there was a timer on his life, a timer that could zero out in the work of a moment. All it would take was a bullet in the chest or the head or—

She looked down and realized she wasn’t moving anymore. Which kind of made sense. Evidently, her feet had just superglued themselves to the floor.

Forcing them to start walking again, she told herself that he was what he was: a warrior. She hadn’t married a goddamned nancy. That fighting blood was in him, and he’d been chained to the house for the past year, so it was inevitable he’d crack.

But, oh, God, did he have to go out there and—

The grandfather clock started chiming. Five o‘clock.

Why weren’t they back—

The door to the vestibule opened, and she heard Zsadist and Phury and Vishous and Rhage come in. Their deep voices were hopping, their words fast with power and life. They were juiced about something, invigorated.

Surely if Wrath were injured they wouldn’t behave like that. Right? Right?

Beth went to the doorway . . .