Children.

He saw one holding two daggers, rushing at the legs of a singer who tried to kick him away. Blood bloomed above her knees, and Malachi ran toward them just as the child tried to plunge a blade into the Irina’s abdomen.

Sari’s staff lifted and struck, tossing the child away.

“Sari!”

Her tortured eyes met his. “We can’t hold them back. I have no spells that work on them.”

“Then defend yourself,” Damien said. “Míla, you know you have no choice.”

She nodded, even though tears filled her eyes.

There was no time to mourn. The Grigori children were unrelenting.

Damien glanced at the sky. “I do not see any sign of Volund.”

“I think Jaron might be taking care of that problem. Grimold is directing his sons. We just need to hold them off until Kostas and his men find him.”

Malachi was hoping it would be soon. And he really hoped they hadn’t overestimated the skills of their free Grigori allies.

He hazarded a glance at the building where Ava hid before he fell back to his grim task.

“DON’T look at me,” Ava whispered as she watched him as he retreated to defend the circle of Irina. “Pay attention.”

Ava was sick to her stomach as she watched the vicious children with beautiful faces assault the Irin below.

“Why doesn’t the magic hold them off?” Kyra asked, coming to stand next to Ava, her face pale and her eyes sunken.

“Maybe the magic is designed that way,” Ava said. “Irina wouldn’t want to hurt children.”

“I want to hurt those children,” she said. “Grigori children are more vicious than the adults.”

Ava gave her a look.

Kyra said, “Harbor no illusions, sister. The female children can be just as frightening. There is a reason I was glad your friend Mala stayed with the group in Prague.”

“He will hate himself. If only there was a way…” Ava blinked before she grabbed the Kyra’s arms.

Kyra looked at her like Ava had lost it. “What’s wrong?”

“Their sires can control them, can’t they?”

“The angels? Of course. But I don’t know how.”

“I know,” Ava said with a smile. “I just have to get close enough.”

“What are you talking about?”

Ava was trying to pry open a window. There was a balcony out there, and if she could get near enough…

“Vasu gave me spells. Words that knocked the Grigori on their ass when they came after me in the cemetery. I know the Irina probably created spells with safeguards to protect children, but I’m betting Vasu didn’t.”

Kyra nodded. “Try.”

Ava finally stopped trying to pry open the window and just grabbed a chair.

“Stand back.”

She threw the wooden chair at the window and it bounced off.

“Well… shit.”

She heard Leo approaching and turned to—

“Not Leo!” Kyra shouted.

Three Grigori smiled, hungry eyes on Ava and Kyra.

“What do we have here?” one said. “Humans?”

“Humans with angel blood,” said another. “Even better.”

BARAK was relieved to admit he had underestimated his sons. What he had seen as cowardice had clearly been something else. They had retreated, yes, but then they had regrouped. Grown stronger. More stable. A better-trained group of Grigori he had never seen. Kostas wielded authority like a true child of the Fallen. Violence was his currency. Praise rare. Discipline expected.

“It helps them,” Kostas said quietly as they walked the rail yards in Simmering.

Snow blanketed the grey tracks. The bustle of humans was eerily silent. Though trains smoked in the station, no one boarded them. Nothing moved but the drifts of dirty snow that fell from the clouds above.

“Oh?” Barak said, mind on the strange swirling movement of the sky overhead.

“The discipline,” Kostas said. “It helps the hunger.”

Yes, that made sense. It had never occurred to Barak to teach his sons discipline. They were… incidental. Though he had ruled much of Northern Europe for thousands of years, he didn’t have the patience for strategy. He’d held his enemies at bay with strength, and that had been reflected in his Grigori. Most were brutally handsome children with more power than brains in his opinion.

When Volund had outmaneuvered him, he hadn’t been surprised. He’d been… resigned.

“They control everything better if they’re disciplined,” his son said. “Bodies and minds. Your death gave them hope. Their sisters gave them purpose.”

“I do not wish to steal that.”

“Oh?” Kostas asked. “So if we walk away now, you’ll do nothing to call us back?”

“No. I’ll just kill Grimold myself.”

“Why are we here then?”

“Because he’ll have his sons with him. The strongest—though none of his children are particularly that strong—he’ll keep close by. I imagine with your newly grown goodwill, you don’t want to set them loose upon the humans.”

As if by signal, a clutch of Grimold’s children leapt down on some of his men. They were quickly surrounded and killed. Their dust rose to the sky within seconds, and Kostas’s men barely slowed down.

“No,” Kostas said. “We do not want them loose.”

Barak watched him from the corner of his eye. “I did not teach you conscience.”

“No, I acquired it when I saw what killing humans did to my sister.”

“Oh?”

His son was quiet for a long while. “She heard their terror. Even worse, their love.”

“Ah.” Barak shrugged, beginning to like the human gestures Vasu imitated. “And your brothers?”

“I have bent them to my way of thinking whether they like it or not.”

Barak smiled as his son walked forward, surveying his men as they searched the train yard, exterminating any of the stray Grigori that were starting to creep out to meet them.

“We’re getting closer.”

“Yes.”

“There are many,” Kostas said.

“He finds them useful,” Barak said. “Grimold has never been powerful. Only… prolific.”

“Most of the Fallen have adopted that strategy. You did not.”

“You and your sister are some of the last children I sired. I grew tired of human attention after that.”

“Why?”

“The earth has little appeal for me anymore.” The image of two small children drifted across his tired mind. He had thought they were brothers. Twins. They wouldn’t remember him any longer. It had been too long. But the image of their small, blood-covered bodies held in his arms would remain with him through eternity. “This realm is so very brutal.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“Humans,” Barak said. “It has always been so. Be careful. Free will is a dangerous thing.”

He was only looking a little. Sight had never been his strength. The Creator had given him the gift of hearing, so he used it now. Throughout the rail yard and the industrial neighborhoods of the district, he could hear the humans dreaming. Soft and soothing, their voices melded together in a murmur he’d become accustomed to over his thousands of years on the earth.

There were so many more now.

Perhaps that was another part of it. And another reason he wanted the daughters of the Fallen to find relief.

“Do you hear anything?” Kostas asked.

“Not yet, but I know Grimold is here.”

“How?”

“His children are growing bolder.” He nodded toward another small group of Kostas’s men who surrounded two men twitching on the ground. “And because of what I do not hear.”

“What is that?”

“Birds.” Barak lifted an eyebrow and returned his son’s incredulous expression. “They don’t like Grimold. I have no idea why.”

AVA didn’t hesitate when she saw the three Grigori soldiers.

“Zi yada,” she hissed the spell Vasu had whispered in her mind.