“It was called a kiva,” Mary said. “Or at least it was the first time I was in these lands. Before that, a long-forgotten tribe used it to try to summon something. Anyway, a few shamans tried to cleanse it. Within a few years they had all become skinwalkers.” She practically spat the last word.

  Thomas had driven for three hours to catch up to the wolves. When he did, they began the treacherous climb.

  “And this is where Annie will be?” he asked.

  “This is the most powerful place of its kind on this continent,” Mary said. “Maybe the world. If she’s going to return Inanna, she will do it here.”

  “I don’t fully understand. Is Annie a witch, some kind of priestess, or an avatar?”

  Mary had a way of revealing the secrets of the universe one minute and refusing to talk about it the next. “It’s complicated. She probably started out as a child priestess in a temple somewhere.”

  “She served well. Which could mean any number of things. Rose through the ranks. And one day she actually gained the notice of Inanna. Once that happened, she got a taste of real power and wanted more. Inanna kept asking for more in return. Until here we are. Whoever she was has been all but erased by Inanna. Inanna will kill her and step into this world. And whatever remains of the original priestess will be indistinguishable from Inanna.”

  “And a demon is loose in the world? What makes these ones so much more dangerous than the others you hunt?”

  “Destruction,” she said flatly.

  Thomas waited.

  “Humans think of Satan as the ruler of hell below, plotting to overthrow heaven. But Satan is a defeated enemy looking to burn as much as he can down around him while he goes. Higher level Demons know what they are. They just live to destroy. There’s no order or rules. It’s just bringing as much down with them as they can.”

  “Some have aspirations of building empires or rallying troops. It's all an illusion. A storey they sell to the rubes that worship them. It why they lie. What most imagine as some grand war wasn't a war at all. It was a joke. What ants fighting for supremacy matter to a foot.”

  “Inanna is almost as powerful as the devil. Like him she wants nothing but destruction. There is no end. No goals. Just humiliation and destruction only their will be two of them now!”

  “You people live in heaven compared to the world before. Back then the gods thought their was hope! The things they created were still vile. But the goal was to stop the incarnation. When they realized how weak they were they wared against each other like never before. Not for reasons. Not for power. Just destruction! It wasn't that long ago thay the world was rope with Child sacrifice, false gods, Wizards and monsters created from perversion of creation. There were Dark times, Thomas, when this was the norm. When it wasn't done in secret.”

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  “If we don’t put an end to Inanna today, then we essentially have another Satan. This world can barely manage under one. Someone with enough power to rain down hell! With different constraints and rules than the devil.”

  “You’ve never faced anything like this creature. She perverted your entire Order! And that was when she was half dead!”

  “Even vampires know not to overhunt. Most Nephilim have some notion of self-control. Inanna is ten times their power! With none of their restraint.”

  Thomas was shaken to see his ancient friend looking almost afraid. “Didn’t Fenrir kill like ten of these things? And he was just a normal werewolf.”

  “Fenrir was many things. Normal wasn’t one of them.” She was distant for a moment. “Enough talk.” She raised her hand to silence him. He wanted to ask more. But her face had become stone. They didn’t speak at all for the rest of the trek.

  After hours of walking, something like a trail appeared in the forest. Mary pulled Daniel from it roughly. “We aren’t hiking or hunting deer. This trail isn’t natural. We can follow it. But stay off of it!”

  Thomas nodded. Daniel came up beside him, already in the form of a massive brown wolf. They watched the trail as it opened up.

  There, at its end, stood his wife.

  The sight of her stole the air from his lungs. Thomas staggered half a step, boots scraping stone. His chest felt hollowed out, as if someone had reached in and yanked the last thread holding his heart together. Annie—his Annie—stood there smiling the same small, crooked smile she’d used when she teased him about his sermons. Except it wasn’t her. The tilt of her head, the curve of her lips, the way her hair caught the firelight—it was all perfect, all exact, and all wrong. Rage boiled up his throat, hot and bitter, but beneath it was something worse: a tired, bone-deep ache that wanted to believe the lie one more time. His vision blurred. He blinked hard, refusing to let the tears fall in front of her. Not in front of what she’d become. The dagger felt leaden in his hand, the fight frozen in that endless moment—grief and love chaining him where fury should have set him free.

  “Thomas, sweetheart, have you come to kill me?” she said with a smile. “Again?”

  Thomas drew his silver dagger. Mary shifted into her hybrid form.

  “Would you rather I look like a vampire?” She changed again—hair going sickly black, skin pale white.

  “I honestly thought this would be the death of you, love. But here we are.”

  “You were so useful after that. All that rage! And turned against your own Order!” Her form shifted once more—this time to a sick, frail version of herself, hunched in hospital gowns. “How righteous was your anger! When your dog killed almost everything you ever knew.” She laughed.

  “I probably should’ve killed you then, but who knew what new uses I could find for you. And wow did you deliver.”

  Daniel leaped at the witch. Only to be stopped in mid-air.

  “Oh, great Dog, we’re going to have fun with you,” she said. Daniel twisted and growled against the invisible restraint. But he didn’t fall.