The thing from the vision he’d experienced back at the apartment. The thing that had killed Dougie.

Balam was attempting to get a bead on the blurred shape with his gun when his hand was abruptly no longer attached to his wrist. Remy watched the hand, still holding the weapon, sail through the air, bouncing off the side of the SUV and clattering to the ground.

It had all happened so fast that the fallen angel didn’t seem to know that he was now weaponless, pointing the bloody stump at the shape that circled him, preparing for its next strike. Balam’s stomach was torn open next, the burned flesh sounding like the crackling of autumn leaves as the former angel was savagely disemboweled.

Whatever it was that attacked them was nearly invisible to the human eye, it moved so quickly. Fueled by the Seraphim’s lust for battle, Remy advanced toward the bloody scene. Another of the Denizens had gone down, while the other looked on, stunned, his face spattered with the blood of his companions.

Remy squinted, altering the composition of his eyes to look upon the world not as a human, but as an angel, and at last he was able to see what exactly they—he—was up against.

It had the shape of a large dog, but its body resembled that of something that had had its skin pulled away to reveal raw sinew and musculature. Its pointed head seemed to be made entirely of exposed bone, its yellow eyes like two LEDs illuminated from within the deep black caverns of the eye sockets.

It was perched on the back of the third Denizen, who thrashed beneath the thing’s weight. The dog thing eyed Remy before lowering its head to bite into the back of its prey’s neck, and with a savage shake, it broke it. The beast was drooling, and Remy noticed that everywhere the saliva touched, it sizzled and burned. The unpleasant image of Dougie’s burned open belly filled his head, and he suddenly understood.

The monster looked back to Remy, distracted from the remaining blood-spattered Denizen, who stood frozen in place, his eyes riveted to the terror that had laid waste to them.

The thing’s body was rigid except for the slight movement of its yellow eyes. Remy stared back at the beast, attempting to draw it closer to him, away from the other man.

The surviving Denizen began to back away, but his movement caught the attention of the animal. It turned with a shrieking hiss, as its red-veined muscles tensed to pounce on the escaping prey.

The nature of the Seraphim exerted control, and Remy found himself bounding at the animal as it prepared to strike. Remy snatched up the Pitiless dagger that Arioc had dropped from a cooling puddle of blood, and then found the other still nestled snugly within the confines of the sweatshirt lying in the street.

In his hands, the daggers began to sing an aria to the glory of the violence to come.

This is what they had been created for.

The beast sprang, catching the remaining Denizen with little effort, and was about to maul him savagely when Remy launched himself through the air, twin daggers poised to strike.

The animal looked away from its prey, mouth open in a roar of savagery, a roar drowned out by the cry of a warrior.

A warrior of Heaven.

The beast was in motion, turning from its fallen prey to attack Remy. With a powerful thrust, he plunged one of the Pitiless daggers into the bloodred flesh of its muscular hide as it descended. It tossed its skull-like head back in a bellow of pain and he slid the second blade into the soft tissue below its jaw.

The animal panicked, its powerful form recoiling from the attack. The beast was not accustomed to its prey biting back, and Remy managed to jump backward, taking the bloodstained blades with him as he avoided the monster’s slashing black claws.

The Seraphim rejoiced in its freedom, Remy barely maintaining enough control to prevent its power from fully manifesting. He battled not only the wild monstrosity crouched and growling before him, but the fury of the angel within.

It begged to be released, demanded to be fully free, but Remy ignored the commands, desperate to hold on to his humanity. Yes, it had become wounded over the last few months with the death of his one true love, but it was not yet dead, and he had no intention of allowing it to be eclipsed by the ancient power fighting to emerge.

Distracted momentarily by his inner struggle, Remy reacted too slowly as the monster pounced again. He managed to get only one of the daggers up as the full weight of his bestial attacker fell upon him. He pushed up on the dagger as he was driven back to the ground by the behemoth’s full weight, the animal’s tough, leathery hide resisting the piercing point of the Pitiless blade.

He hit the ground with tremendous force, his head striking the ground with equal intensity, and his world exploded into a reality of flashing colors and overwhelming nausea.

Fighting to remain conscious, he looked up into the eyes of the behemoth, laser points of yellow like the final moments of a dying star as it burned its last in the thick velvet tapestry of the night sky.

Its breath stank of blood and something else.

Brimstone.

And he then knew where the creature had originated, but he did not have the slightest clue as to how it had come to hunt upon the streets of Boston.

It was a question that nagged at him as the weight of the beast crushed him against the unyielding street, the darkness exploding inside his head, making it difficult to focus, making it difficult for him to remain conscious.

He watched through a spreading black haze as the beast drew back its bony face, its jaws opening wide before its jagged bite descended toward his throat.

Explosions of thunder crashed in the heavens as a curtain of darkness fell, sparing him the moment of his unpleasant demise.

The Pitiless blades chattered.

Even deep beneath the crushing waves of unconsciousness he could still see the moments of their existence. Death after death; he thought he would drown in the blood spilled by their being.

Eventually the visions of death ran thin, and he was shown the sight of their conception and birth, materials mined from the earth, nothing but raw matter to be melted down to liquid and poured into molds to be crafted into the objects of death they would become.

But the special knives wanted him to see more, wanted him to know all their secrets. They took him deeper into their memories, showing him what they were before they had fallen from the sky to the world of man.

What they were before they were dropped from Heaven.

Heaven?

The darkness was suddenly ablaze with a vision of one of the Lord’s chosen—the angel Azazel, weapons master of the angel hosts, working his artistry within the hallowed confines of his workshop within Heaven’s armory. Rows upon rows of beautiful armament lay waiting for the day that they would be called upon in battle.

Remy knew—sensed—that this was a time before the war, before the fall.

Azazel’s wings fanned the flames of a fire that burned hotter than the center of a sun. The armorer worked the stuff of Heaven, manipulating the divine material, shaping it into a thing of the utmost beauty, as well as a tool of devastation.

Remy could now see what it was that angel armorer worked upon, what he toiled so diligently to produce.

One had already been birthed, lying there patiently, waiting for its sister to be completed.

The Pitiless daggers.

The sight of them in such a holy place filled Remy with a dire sense of foreboding. He was tempted to call out, to ask the angel why it was that he had produced the twin daggers, when the angel turned to speak—but not to him.