“That’s not very important. But it’s been fun. Good times, kid. Sorry for calling you a slut.” He looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully. “Actually, no. I meant that.”

I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. I could only stare at the reaper, at the terror and disorientation on my mother’s face. I couldn’t move.

“What? How? Why?” he gasped in a mocking tone. “Speechless, are we, Ellie?”

The way he said my name felt so invasive. The demonic only called me the Preliator. But this one knew me. Lived with me. With my mother.

He took his hand off my mother’s throat and pulled the collar of his shirt down to reveal a strange tattoo over his heart, a circle with an Enochian symbol within it. “This is what you’re wondering. The magic is old, so ancient, that only Bastian could have learned of it. It lets me walk in the sun without harm. You know, all those little complications that would have given me away. The spell was difficult, but he pulled it off. You never knew a thing, did you? I was good, so good.”

He jerked my mother’s head back and met her wild, frightened eyes. “By the way, I didn’t get that tattoo at your cousin’s bachelor party. I didn’t even go to that. You’re a moron, Diane.”

She whimpered and turned her face away from his. He looked back at me and grinned a mouthful of fangs.

“Anyway, Bastian sends his affection,” the reaper crooned in a malicious voice, his face no longer anything like my father’s, but belonging to an entirely different creature. “And he told me to leave a little something for you. Let’s say it’s a belated seventeenth birthday gift.”

He snapped my mother’s neck. She hit the floor with a dry, cold thud. Dead.

My pulse flooded my ears, drowning out the reaper’s next words. I stared at my mother—her body—at his feet. Fire crackled from my fingers and toes, devouring my body to my core, burning away like the wick of a stick of dynamite. The edges of my eyes spun and filled with white, and my power throbbed. Visions came to me, the missing pieces belonging to thousands of years of memories, as Gabriel’s presence and power overwhelmed me. The darkness churned and exploded, taking me with it. I was gone, and all that was left of me was rage.

I launched myself at the reaper, pushing off the floor with my toes, my power detonating behind me, demolishing the wall and shattering the tile floor. The reaper was too slow for me. I swung my elbow across my chest and pounded the bone into his skull. He crumpled to his knees. I kicked the back of his head and his palms hit the floor. He tried to rise, but my power erupted into his face, sending him flying across the foyer and crashing into the staircase. Wood splintered and exploded, the cloud of dust almost blinding. The reaper staggered to his feet, stumbling down the steps. I stepped up to him, the torrent of rage swallowing me and releasing everything I’d been afraid of inside of me. I didn’t care what sort of damage I caused. I wanted to damage. My hair whipped around my face in the tempest that the white light of my power and the darkness within me had created. He took a swing at me, but my senses were spinning so fast that I sidestepped his blow and smashed my fist into his face. His jaw made a sickening tearing sound and whirled loose, flinging free and out of sight. I threw my power into his body, knocking the wind from his chest and the feet out from under him. His back hit the floor and I leaped on top of him. I beat his face and shredded his skin with my nails. When his body turned to stone, I still tore at him, dragging my nails across rock until they were bloodied and broken. Dust soaked thickly into the blood splattered across my face and clothes, filling my lungs until I was choking on it.

Hands grabbed me and looped around my waist and tried to pull me back. I shrieked and thrashed, fighting off the hands and clawing the air wildly to get back to the reaper’s remains. A horrible, snarling animal noise tore from my throat—a sound that couldn’t possibly have been my own voice.

“Ellie!” the owner of the hands shouted uselessly. “Ellie, stop!” The voice was warped and distant, as if I were underwater and he was shouting at me from somewhere above the surface.

The fury cloaked my vision like a whiteout. I swung a wild fist and connected with soft tissue. My attacker grunted and his grip loosened, allowing me to break free and get back to pounding at the pile of stone near my mother’s corpse.

His hands found me again. He grabbed my shoulders roughly and jerked me around with an angry, exhausted groan. I clawed at his face and arms, drawing blood. Another intruder knelt beside my mother and touched her neck. I screeched and launched myself at him to protect her body, but the first set of hands grabbed me again, yanking me back. I hit the cold, broken-up floor, flailing my limbs and power into my attacker’s body. He swore and pushed through the blows, battered and bloody.

“Ellie, please stop fighting me!” His hands gripped my wrists and pinned me to the floor. “It’s me! It’s me, Ellie. Stop!”

I thrashed against him and let out a bloodcurdling scream until my ears rang.

“Her eyes!” he roared, turning back to the other intruder. “They’re solid white. It’s happened again. Nathaniel! I need you now! Put her out before she kills us both!”

I shrieked, and my power erupted again. An explosion of white light filled the house, blinding me and rocketing into my attacker’s body. He flew off me and crashed through the far wall as the light swallowed us all and slammed into the walls around us. The house shook and groaned. He crumpled to the ground and I was on my feet in a blur. A form appeared beside me. I only saw a flash of copper eyes.