“I’m with Will. Just calm down and stay where you are, all right?”

“They won’t tell us what happened! People were dead, Ellie!”

Landon’s mangled face flashed in my head. I just couldn’t bring myself to tell her, to say out loud what I didn’t want to be real. “I know. It was horrible. People just panicked and stampeded. It was a horrible accident—”

“Oh please,” she snarled on the other end. “You saw those things. We all did. Don’t even lie to me.”

I couldn’t deal with this right now. “I’ve got to go,” I said. “I’ll call you in the morning, okay?”

“Don’t you dare—”

I hung up and turned my phone off. I had to. There was no way for me to explain to her what happened without thinking long and hard about a realistic story. The police would be all over the scene and questioning everyone who’d been there, including myself, I was certain.

But I couldn’t think about that. Not yet. I had to stay focused on the danger I was about to walk right into. This reaper, Xastur, would be the last to get his blood on my blades tonight.

“I am so sorry about Landon,” Will said in the smallest voice.

A tremor rippled through my chest. “I’m the one who should be sorry. It’s all my fault.”

“Please don’t say that.”

“Yeah, it is,” I snapped back a little more sharply than I’d intended. “I brought the reapers to that house. It’s my fault they were there and killed all those kids. If you guys hadn’t been there…I don’t know how many more would have died.”

“The demonic are the ones who did this,” Will said, his voice firm. “We took them all out except for two. We’ll find Xastur and then we’ll find Merodach.”

The muscles in my jaw clenched, my teeth squeaking against each other. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, we will.”

Xastur’s hideout was a dilapidated old textile factory, and as my car rolled nearer and the building loomed overhead, an ache of dread shuddered through me. I let the car idle to a standstill and I stared up at the factory. Demonic energy oozed from its crumbling walls and broken windows, coiling around frightening memories I’d shoved deep into the pits of my mind.

“Ellie.”

Will’s voice shook me from my reverie and I realized that I’d been squeezing the steering wheel so hard my hands had turned white and I was shaking. Even so, I couldn’t let go.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “We can turn around, take you home. I’ll return with the others to get what we need.”

Lights flickered in a couple of windows in the top floor. I jumped when a shadow passed over the glow. “I remember this place.”

“You’ve been here before?”

“I died here.” I unbuckled my seat belt and climbed from the car.

Will followed. “What? When?”

“Ragnuk,” I replied distantly. “I followed him here and this is where he killed me.”

He fell silent, and I realized he had never known where I had died last. I understood that the memory was painful for both of us and I didn’t want us to let it become a distraction. I wanted revenge for Landon’s death and Xastur was the last culprit remaining alive besides Merodach. I would return to this factory, but Xastur would be the one to die tonight. He and whatever other demonic things crawled through the hallways.

“Come on,” Will said at last. “The others are waiting.”

It didn’t take long for us to rendezvous with the rest of our team. The angelic reapers, Marcus, Ava, and Sabina, stood with our own demonic reaper, Cadan. He and Will exchanged looks, but in their attempt to be civil, nothing was said between them.

Sabina stepped forward, clad in black, her blond hair pulled into a high, tight ponytail. She pulled out two guns and checked the clips in both. Two long daggers were strapped to the sides of her boots. “Xastur keeps his office on the top floor. There are vir protecting the upper levels and mostly ursids patrolling the lobby. I’ve seen two different vir outside of the building since we’ve been here. I don’t have a definitive number, but so far I’ve counted seventeen ursid reapers. I don’t know how many are deeper within the factory or how many vir reapers we will meet.”

Marcus swore under his breath. “That’s a bigger party than I thought.”

“Let’s go for it,” Ava said eagerly and called her sword into her hand.

“There are six of us,” I said, agreeing with Ava. “If we’re careful, then we have nothing to worry about. I’m not sure if we’ll have much of an element of surprise, but we should approach as if they don’t know we’re here. Xastur will need someplace to regroup, but if he’s returned to his main hideout, then he’s either completely stupid or completely oblivious. This place shouldn’t be so heavily guarded if there isn’t something important inside to guard.”

Marcus shot a grin at Will and flicked his brow. “Well then, boss lady. Let’s move in.”

I was flanked by reapers as we marched toward the factory entrance. The overgrown lawn revealed nothing, so one by one, we slipped into the Grim and let the world of reapers fill our senses. There was no way to make it all the way to the top floor without alerting Xastur and his goons. We would have to fight, and that was hard to do without making a ruckus. I could only hope that we’d have enough of a jump on our enemies to keep them from all descending on us at once. A handful of reapers at a time was something we could handle, and not a couple dozen. That was too big of a risk. I wouldn’t let anyone else I cared about die tonight.