“Merodach,” I repeated more firmly. I stepped back on my heel, bracing myself to dive for my swords if he attacked. “Forget about the humans. If you want me, then come for me.”

The demonic reaper’s eyes flashed with his power and his sleek, double-bladed sword rippled into existence.

“Drop the weapon!” the cop shrieked.

Merodach ignored her and started toward me, swinging his sword, and I dived to sweep my own off the ground.

“I will fire!”

“Don’t shoot him!” I cried at the officer, trying to warn her. “You’ll only anger him!”

Her gun moved back and forth between the reaper and me, and she cursed under her breath about her missing backup. Merodach raised his sword at me and the cop fired. The bullet slammed into his chest and he didn’t even miss a beat. The cop swore again, this time loud with fear, and she shot a second bullet right between Merodach’s eyes. His head snapped back and he stopped in place, but he didn’t fall. He straightened slowly, anger twisting his features, and he turned his gaze to the police officer as a line of blood rolled down his nose.

“What the hell are you?” she whimpered, eyes wide. There was no doubt she now realized that the wings and horns weren’t part of a costume.

Merodach moved so fast that I lost him for an instant. Suddenly he was right behind the cop, grabbing a fistful of her hair and yanking her head back. She shrieked and shot a wild bullet, but he was unfazed.

“No!” I stepped toward him, but stopped myself. If I made a move to save her, he’d kill her for certain. I was the one he wanted, not this frightened young woman. I began to walk backward very slowly. Sirens belonging to police, ambulances, and fire trucks wailed in the distance, growing closer every second.

“If you run,” Merodach crooned, “I’ll rip her head off.”

“Why are you even wasting your time with her?” I asked him. “Your fight’s with me.”

He gave me a thoughtful look and said, “You’re right.”

His jaws spread so wide they cracked and seemed to dislocate like a snake’s, and then he chomped down hard on the woman’s neck. Blood showered from her wound, soaking everything close to her with red, and she gargled and choked through her own screams. I nearly threw up when Merodach ripped his jaws away, taking with him the fleshy majority of the woman’s neck, and he gulped it down. Her head drooped over her shoulder, hanging on by a few strips of skin and ligaments, her mouth gaping as she died midscream. The reaper tossed the limp, still leaking body to the ground. The gun clattered across the pavement.

I couldn’t move—couldn’t breathe—from the horror of what I’d just seen. The remaining people watching the fight all shrieked and ran in every direction, finally finding the sense to get out of there. I wasn’t sure if the reaper had consumed enough to take the woman’s soul, but I prayed that she had been spared Hell at least.

“Why?” I asked Merodach.

He licked his lips and sighed as if the gore on his face was delicious. “Because you didn’t want me to.”

I let out an exhausted cry of fury and swore as loud as I could. “I’m going to rip you apart!”

I launched myself off the ground, swinging my swords. He knocked my arms away, gliding past my swords, and he backhanded me in the face. I hit the ground with a pained grunt and he grasped me by the neck before I could do anything. He lifted me until my feet were dangling in the air and he squeezed my throat, but I kept struggling. I wouldn’t let him strangle me. I couldn’t let him take me to Sammael.

I summoned my power, pulling everything I had from those dark depths that I was so afraid of, tapping into the infinite well of strength given to me in Heaven. I stared into Merodach’s ever-brightening eyes as the torrent of energy circled us both, lifting my hair and lighting the red streaks like wild flames. I slammed my power into him and he gritted his teeth against the force, but he didn’t release my throat. I threw energy into him a second time, but still he held on, even when I kept pushing and pushing at him until he was practically hanging on to me or else he’d be blown away. When I summoned my archangel glory, I became aware that I was screaming—a raspy, desperate wail—as everything was drowned in white, hot light. The glory boiled Merodach’s skin, his hands burning red where he gripped my neck, and soon he was roaring with pain and effort. My glory flared, setting his hands ablaze. His face, twisted with wrath and agony, started to sizzle and his skin split into strips of charred gashes that cut through the scar I had given him the night Sammael was released.

“I cannot let you go,” Merodach wheezed as his lips were cut and burned.

“I will make you,” I rasped and cried out as my power exploded.

Everything I had in me slammed into the demonic reaper, drowning his entire form in energy and glory until he released my throat and disappeared with a scream. He blew away from me and was sent tumbling into the road. His claws left jagged white streaks in the asphalt as he ground to a halt. Merodach picked himself up, his body covered with open wounds and raw burns.

“I won’t let you destroy anything else that I care about,” I swore, and pulled my energy back into myself and marched toward him. “Your life of killing and reaping is over.”

Appearing out of nowhere and drenched in blood, Will pounded his fist into Merodach’s jaw so hard he knocked the demonic reaper off his feet, cracking his back into the road. Will called his sword and slammed it into Merodach’s chest, staking him to the pavement. Merodach roared, spitting blood as red pooled on the ground beneath him. What skin of his that had been shredded and charred by my glory was unable to heal from the angelic power. He hissed at Will and gnashed his teeth, tugging uselessly at the giant blade, but he only cut deep slices into his hands. Wounds that should have healed in seconds struggled to knit the skin back together. By the calm look on Merodach’s face, he seemed to understand that he was about to die.