Someone picked me up and forcibly hauled me away from Sarah—Azazel, who handed me off to Raziel and sank down beside his wife. When I resisted, just for a moment, Raziel simply used force, putting an arm around my waist and carrying me out of the building, which was knee-deep in bodies and blood.

He dumped me on the beach, not even bothering to tell me to stay put. “I’m going to seal the wall,” he said. “Azazel and Sarah need to be alone to say good-bye.”

I sank down in the grass just above the sand and put my face in my arms. The tall, oddly shaped bodies of the Nephilim littered the beach, and the smell in the night air was thick and poisonous. I tried to muffle the stench, but all I could smell was Sarah’s blood that had soaked into my dress. Her life’s blood, draining away.

My own blood as well. I hadn’t even realized that I’d been hurt. There was a rip down my arm, a shallow slice from shoulder to wrist, made by a talon of that hideous creature. It had begun to throb, and I ought to find something to stanch the flow. I could use my skirt, already soaked with Sarah’s blood, but I didn’t touch it. There was already too much blood everywhere.

I looked around me, dazed, when I saw Tamlel lying at the edge of the water. He must have staggered down there and then collapsed.

I managed to pull myself to my feet, picking my way carefully through the carnage toward him. He was lying facedown in the surf, and his body had been scored by the claws of the Nephilim. I remembered how they’d taken Raziel into the ocean to heal him. Perhaps Tamlel had sought the same healing power.

“Help . . . me . . .” he gasped. I knelt beside him. “Do you need to go into the water?” He was already soaking wet, and still he was dying.

He managed to shake his head. “I need . . . my wife is dead. She was one of the first. I need Sarah.”

I froze. “Let me get some bandages. Is there a doctor here? Your wounds will heal.”

He shook his head again. “Lost too much blood. Need the Source. Find . . .”

I couldn’t tell him. There must be some other answer, some other way to help him, but he wasn’t listening. “I’ll go find her,” I said simply, rising. The water couldn’t hurt, and there must be someone back on the littered battlefield that had once been the grand hallway, someone who could help.

By then the moans of the dying had faded into background noise. I moved like an automaton, past tears, past grief, past horror. I’d made it to the open door when someone grabbed my skirt, pulling at me, and I stared down at another of the Fallen, one whose name I didn’t even know.

“Help me,” he choked.

“I’ll try to find someone,” I said patiently, looking back toward Tamlel where he lay in the surf.

“No.” His grip was strong on my dress. “Save me.”

My heart was breaking for him, for them all. “There’s nothing I can do,” I cried. “I can’t help you.”

Still he clung to me, and without thinking I sank to my knees beside him, feeling the tears start in my eyes, and I dashed them away angrily. Tears wouldn’t help. Tamlel was so close to death nothing would help him. This one was almost as bad, and all I could do was hold him, as I’d held the woman on the stairs, until he was gone.

He closed his eyes, all color draining from his face as he began to shudder, and I brushed his hair away from his bruised, bloody face. The blood from my arm, my own blood, smeared his lips, and I quickly tried to wipe it away; his eyes flew open, and he somehow managed to catch my wrist with sudden, unexpected strength, twisting it painfully as he tried to bring it to his mouth.

“It won’t help,” I started to say. It had to be the blood of his bonded mate or the Source, and Sarah was dead or dying. And then I stopped fighting. If he thought it would help, if it eased his passing, then I wouldn’t deny him. I let him bring my torn flesh to his mouth, felt his mouth clamp onto me; and I pulled him into my lap, holding him as he drank from me.

Slowly the shudders stopped, and he lay very still. The fierce sucking on my flesh stopped, his hold loosened, and my arm fell away, free. He was dead, I thought, brushing the hair away from his face again. He looked so young, so innocent, even though he had to be thousands of years old, and I wanted to lean forward and kiss his forehead as a last benediction.

So much for touching gestures. His eyes flew open, and they were no longer dull and listless. His breathing had become regular, and his color was back. Whether it was supposed to work or not, my blood had given him enough strength to hang on.

I eased him down carefully on the grass. “I’ll be right back. I need to see to someone.” Tamlel was no longer moving. The tide was receding, leaving him beached on the wet sand, and I knew it was too late. And I knew I had to try.

I ran back down to the shore, tripping over the carnage, falling to the sand beside him. He still breathed, but his eyes were closed, and I knew that he was very close to death.

I put my bloody arm against his lips, but he didn’t react, and I cursed my foolishness. It had been a fluke—there was no way my blood could save anyone. I didn’t belong here—the poor creature at the front entrance was simply in better shape than I’d thought, and my weak, wrong blood had been enough to stabilize him.

Tamlel’s skin was icy cold now as death began to move over him, and I knelt beside him, hopeless, crying, the useless blood dripping down my arm.

And then, at the last minute, I pried his mouth open and held my arm over it, letting the blood drip onto his tongue, twisting the cut to make it bleed more, oblivious to the pain.

His mouth fastened on my wrist, and I felt the sharp pierce of his teeth in my skin, opening my vein so that I bled more freely. The other man hadn’t bitten me, but Tamlel was holding me, sucking at me, his hands clutching my arm so tightly that it was numb.

I was growing dizzy, and I wondered if it was blood loss or the horror of the night. It didn’t matter—dizziness was preferable to the reality that surrounded me, to the death and horror that had turned an idyllic escape into a charnel house. I closed my eyes, growing weaker, when I heard a roar of such blind fury that I knew that all the Nephilim hadn’t been defeated, that I would be torn limb from limb. Something grabbed me, jerking me away from Tamlel, and I went flying through the night air, landing breathless on the bloody sand, prepared for the death I had managed to avoid.

I looked up, expecting to see the huge, unwieldy shape of a Nephilim. But it was no monster silhouetted against the moonlight. He was covered in blood, it matted his hair and covered his skin, but I knew those eyes, Raziel’s eyes, blazing in fury as he turned on Tamlel, his fangs bared in attack.

“No!” I screamed, certain he was about to tear his friend limb from limb. A moment later the rage drained from his body, and he turned to me, sinking to his knees beside me in the sand, pulling me into his arms. The smell of death and sweat and blood covered him, and I sank against him in weak relief.