But none of her Yezer had found the angel. It wasn’t traveling on the psychic plane, and it wasn’t anywhere visible to them. Probably in hiding. Lurking. Waiting.

“So if you know who it is,” Tera said, frowning at her half-painted nails, “why don’t I just call Vergadering? They’ll come get him. Once he’s in jail, the angel probably won’t come after the rest of you.”

“You’re assuming it would know. Or that it would care.” Time wasn’t helping Megan calm down. With every minute that ticked by, both of her hearts sped faster, and more horrifying images and thoughts buzzed in her head. If the angel had him . . . if he was gone . . . 

She should have been strong enough, focused enough, not to think about him. She wasn’t. Embarrassing but true. “And it might not just be Gunnar.”

That possibility had occurred to her not long after they’d found Tera. She was focusing on Gunnar, so sure it was him—and she was sure, she knew it had to be. But that didn’t mean Winston wasn’t in on it, or Baylor. This was business, if of a particularly twisted kind, and business made bedfellows just as unlikely—or unholy—as politics or anything else.

“I don’t like the look of that Baylor,” Roc said. “He looks shifty.”

Coming from a tiny, wrinkly, bald green demon, that was saying something, but Megan didn’t argue. “It could be any one of them.”

“So what do we do?” Tera picked up the room-service menu and opened it. “How do we find out which one it is? Are you still meeting them all at eight?”

“Yeah, we’ve only got an hour,” Nick said. Tera’s room was larger than Megan’s; Nick was at her side on the little settee.

It was a prettier room too, with crown molding and its own small balcony. Ordinarily Megan might have wanted to go sit outside, to try to think with the breeze on her face, but not then. Not when she felt as if sniper rifles could be trained on the room waiting for one of them to move.

Shit, an hour. Only an hour. She was due to walk into battle at eight with at least one traitor, and her death was apparently pretty high on that traitor’s priority list.

But who could she trust? Aside from the people in that room, who could she call? Who could she warn?

Yes, Winston wanted to head for the Windbreaker and do battle. But he could have been looking forward to leading them all into a trap. He could have prearranged things with Gunnar, to throw the rest of them off. Or Baylor could have done the same. Or any one of them. The only way to know for sure who was behind it would be to track them somehow, or the angel, and see who—holy shit.

Nick and Tera were sniping at each other about some privacy law or something. They stopped when she snatched up the room phone and dialed Greyson’s room—her old room.

“Megan, what—”

She waved them off, listening to the ring in her ear until Malleus answered.

“Malleus, he’s at the Windbreaker, isn’t he? Keeping an eye on the angel?”

Long pause. Long enough to let her know she was right. “I can’t say where he’s gone to, m’lady.”

“Because he ordered you not to, right? But he is there, isn’t he? Malleus, just say yes or no. That’s not telling me, right?”

More silence.

Tears threatened—again, she was getting really fucking tired of all this damned leaking—and she let them come through in her voice, hating herself a little bit because she knew she was manipulating him. “Malleus, please . . . please just say yes or no.”

He sighed. “Yeh.”

“Is he alone? He’s not alone, is he?”

“Aw, no, m’lady, Lord Dante can take care of ’imself, ’e can. Don’t you fret.”

“He’s alone? You guys—”

“Spud’s with ’im.”

The air left her lungs in a huge, relieved rush, only to freeze again as it came back in. He was there, and he had Spud. But were the two of them together really any match for an angel? Neither of them had the abilities psyche demons had. Spud was strong and tough and relentless when it came to fighting and wouldn’t give up until he won or died, but she didn’t want to think about that either.

Besides, how the hell was he managing to hide? If Gunnar or anyone else walked into that hotel, they’d see him. How was that a good idea?

“Thanks, Malleus. Thank you.”

“You din’t ’ear it from me, m’lady. Don’t want ’im gettin’ mad at me. An’ ’e will, if you tell ’im.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

She said good-bye and hung up, turned to see them all looking expectantly at her. “He’s at the Windbreaker. Keeping an eye on the angel. I guess he’s looking for confirmation or whatever. So we need to go over there now.”

“I thought everyone else was going at eight.”

Megan, already scooping up her bag and slipping her shoes back on, nodded at Tera. “They are. But we need to go now. Because we might be the only ones who go at all, and if the angel finds him there first, or if Gunnar or someone in on this with Gunnar spots him, I—we need to be there. We need to go, now.”

She looked at them all. Tera, in her casual fitted 

button-down and loose black pants, looking uncon-cerned as always. Nick, whose hand clenched and unclenched as if it was looking for his sword. Roc, picking at the cinnamon roll he’d brought into the room with him; the smell made her hungry and sick in equal measure.

And herself, five-foot-two, a hundred and seven pounds. No muscles to speak of. No real fighting experience.

But she had power. She had her abilities. Tera was a witch, and witches had managed to defeat demons and angels both. Nick was a warrior. And Roc . . . who knew what Roc could really do if he had to? More than that. She had the frantic adrenaline of the hunted, the panic of a woman who had to protect her loved ones.

It wasn’t the greatest fighting team ever assembled, but it would have to do.

Chapter 29

The semi-good fighting team ended up in separate cars too, which wasn’t really auspicious. Megan didn’t have a car, having ridden with Greyson to the hotel. Tera drove one of those little red sporty things that barely fit one person, let alone two. Nick had cabbed it from the airport, and of course, Roc, being unable to see over a steering wheel and relying on psychic travel, had no car at all.

Which made Brian’s return, a few minutes after Megan hung up with Malleus, much more of a relief than she’d expected. Not only was he there, but he at least had four seats in his little foreign jobbie.

Which would have fit all of them, had Megan not opened the door as they were about to leave to find Maleficarum standing outside. “Mal sez you plan on heading for the hotel. I’m goin’ too.”

“Okay, fine,” she replied, and ignored the faint surprise in his black eyes. “You can ride with Nick and Brian. I’ll ride with Tera.”

He looked as if he was about to protest—she wondered how much of his appearance at her door was the desire to help and how much was the desire to badger her about why she was hurting Lord Dante so and what he could do to fix things—but subsided when she gave him the steeliest glare in her repertoire. “Right.”

The drive to the Windbreaker didn’t take long. It felt like forever. Not only was she worried, but she was starting to wonder if this was the best idea. Greyson may have been able somehow to hide in the crowd. He might even have found a way to conceal Spud, although one thing Spud did well was stand out, between his size and the general air of menace around him.

But to hide the rest of them?

A bridge to be crossed when she came to it. The simple fact was, there was a chance Greyson was in danger. And she could not let that happen. Especially not when things between them stood the way they did. If something happened to him and he thought she didn’t—she’d never forgive herself. Never.

“Okay,” Nick said, when they’d all gotten out of the cars. He did have his sword after all; she didn’t want to ask how he’d gotten it through airport security, but she didn’t really need to. “Megan, I think you’re probably going to be the primary target if anything does go down here. Or, rather, when it all goes down here. So Maleficarum, you should stay with her.”