Page 87

“Asmodeus,” I breathed, the name carrying weight even in this dream-space.

His smile was perfect, practiced, terrible. “You recognize me. Good. That will make this conversation easier.”

“What conversation?” I tried to back away, but space worked differently here. Distance seemed meaningless, fluid. “What do you want?”

“Such simple questions for such complicated answers.” He gestured at the cityscape, and reality rippled like disturbed water. “What I want, Cade Cross, is to offer you a choice. A real one, not like the false choice that marked you all those years ago.”

“What do you know about my mark?”

“More than your hunter friends. More than that federal director who plays at understanding ancient powers.” Asmodeus's eyes fixed on me with terrible focus. “I know whose mark you bear, though they have been absent for some time.”

“Who marked me?”

“Names have power,” he cut me off smoothly. “And that name? It would shatter the fragile walls of this dream-meeting. But know this: the power that chose you? It's older than Heaven's gates, darker than Hell's depths. A being that understood what both sides tried to hide.”

My head spun with implications. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you need to understand what's coming.” He moved closer, and reality bent around him like light around a black hole. “The gates we're opening? They're just the beginning. What comes after...” His smile widened, showing too many teeth. “Well, that depends on whose side you choose.”

“I'm not choosing any sides,” I snapped, but even in the dream, my voice shook. “Especially not yours.”

“No?” He laughed, the sound devoid of any real humor. “You already chose once, in that alley. When a voice asked if you wanted to live, and you said yes without asking the price.”

Ice crawled down my spine as memories surfaced, snow falling, blood on concrete, a presence vast and terrible offering salvation. “That wasn't...”

“A choice?” His expression turned almost pitying. “Everything is a choice, Cade. Even inaction. Even silence. And now you have another one to make.”

“What choice?”

“Join us.” The words carried weight, like chains trying to bind. “Help us reshape what reality means. Or watch as we tear down the walls between worlds, releasing every creature your kind has locked away. Every demon, every monster, every nightmare given flesh, all of them free to walk your precious city.”

I thought of Sean sleeping beside my physical form, vulnerable and trusting. Of Sterling and Alana and everyone else I'd sworn to protect. “You're trying to blackmail me into helping you destroy the world?”

“Destroy?” Asmodeus actually looked offended. “No, dear boy. We're trying to set it free. To return it to what it was before arbitrary rules about what can and cannot exist. Before Heaven and Hell drew their lines in the sand.” His eyes blazed brighter. “Before reality itself became a prison.”

“You're insane,” I managed, but something in his words resonated with the mark, made it pulse faster.

“Am I? Or am I simply offering what you've always wanted, answers. Understanding. The truth about what you are and what you could become.” He reached for me, his hand passing through my ethereal form like smoke. “The mark you bear? It's a key to something greater than either side imagined. And soon, very soon, you'll have to decide how to use it.”

The dream began to fray around the edges, reality reasserting itself. Asmodeus's form started to blur, but his voice remained clear.

“Choose wisely, Cade. The price of refusal will be higher than you can imagine.”

I jerked awake with a gasp that felt like drowning, sweat cold on my skin despite the warm body pressed against me. Sean stirred instantly, hunter's instincts bringing him alert.

“Cade?” His voice was rough with sleep but sharp with concern. “What's wrong?”

I couldn't answer immediately, too focused on trying to breathe. The mark burned beneath my skin, more active than I'd ever felt it.

“Nightmare?” Sean asked softly, his hand finding mine in the darkness.

“No,” I managed finally. “Something worse. A warning.”

Because that's what it had been. A choice I wasn't sure I was ready to make.

The city lights painted patterns across my ceiling, and I wondered how many of them were real anymore. How much ofwhat we thought we knew was just consensus reality, waiting to be unmade.

Sean pulled me closer, solid and warm and wonderfully human. But even his steady presence couldn't quite chase away the memory of Asmodeus's words, or the way they had made my mark sing with recognition.