Chapter 29
Wrecker
Dawn cut through the kitchen window with the flat, expressionless light of a morgue.
The clubhouse stank of blood and cordite and burnt plastic, and the HVAC system did nothing to cut the cold.
I ran my hand down the side of my face, and it came back streaked with gray-black, which could have been soot or the dried remains of someone who used to have a name.
The comms hissed low, waiting for the next alert, but no one had the energy to even hope for trouble.
We’d taken the field and held it. Our plan had worked perfectly.
The bodies of Greenbriar’s last line—Dagger, Vex, Rook—were still cooling by the compound gate, tangled in a pile of their own limbs like trash after a tornado.
They’d tried to run, but Arsenal’s shooting had cut them down before they’d made the first tree line.
There was a weird symmetry in it, the three of them together, mouths open in the same shocked O, staring up at the gray morning like they couldn’t believe it was over.
Inside, the war room, the air felt like relief.
Every chair was taken, most by people who looked exhausted.
Pearl was doling out food and whiskey, hugging every wolf who’d fought so bravely.
Maddie sat in the far corner, arms wrapped around her knees, head buried, rocking in time to her own heartbeat.
Menace was up and moving, but every step looked like it was paid for in small, hard currency.
He couldn’t get to Savannah fast enough.
Bronc had his arm around Juliet, who was the only one not drinking.
She looked clear-eyed, bright, like the only person in the room still running on hope.
Parker took the comms table, headset clamped over her pink-highlighted hair, voice tight and clear as she ran the roll call. “Arsenal, status?”
A cough, then: “Still here. North ridge. It’s quiet.”
“Gunner?”
A pause. “South wall, present and accounted for. No movement since last sweep.”
“Papa, check in.”
Static. She waited.
“Papa, it’s Parker. You copy?”
More static.
Juliet looked up, a tremor in her hands.
“Papa, come on. Respond.”
I felt my gut twist. I set my coffee down and stood, pushing past a pair of patched-up prospects slumped in the hallway.
“Try again,” Bronc said, voice soft.
“Papa, this is Parker. Please check in.”
The silence went from annoying to terrifying.
I broke into a run, out the back door and into the yard.
The snow had gone to slush, tinged red in patches where the wounded or the dying had crawled.
I could see people gathering in the compound square, shoulders hunched and faces drawn.
No one was talking. The sky had lightened to the color of old newsprint, and the first crows were already picking over the meat.
Pearl was there first, arms wrapped around her midsection, eyes scanning the horizon. Arsenal limped up, gun cradled in one arm. He didn’t speak.
Menace emerged from the bunker, saw me, and shook his head. “He’s not in there. He was supposed to be with Juliet in the east wing.”
I keyed the mic on my jacket. “Parker, any location on Papa?”
A hesitation. “His GPS is down. The last ping was by the west perimeter two hours ago.”
I jogged to the fence line, heart a snare drum. The path was churned mud, littered with shells and scorched by the fires from the last wave of fighting. The air tasted metallic, like coins held on the tongue. I ran to the first bend, then the next, scanning the ground for any sign of him.
A pair of prospects trailed behind me, but I barely registered them. I checked the drone feeds on my phone, fingers numb with cold. There was movement by the northwest sector—something big, collapsed near the tree line. I zoomed in, and my heart sank.
“Got him,” I said. “Northwest edge, by the old cattle gate.”
Arsenal and Menace followed, limping and cursing as we navigated the mess of downed fencing and debris. We rounded the last corner and saw him.
Big Papa was down, sprawled on his back, arms outstretched like he’d been nailed to a cross made of dirt and snow.
The front of his shirt was black with blood, soaked through to the skin.
There were bites on his arms, deep enough to show bone, and his face was battered, one eye swollen shut.
He looked smaller than I remembered. For a man who’d once carried two full-grown wolves out of a burning house, he seemed impossibly diminished.
Like someone had taken all that gentle, stubborn weight and wrung it dry.
Menace dropped to his knees, hands going to Papa’s chest, pressing hard, desperate. “Hey, J.T. come on now, wake up.”
Papa’s eyes flickered. His mouth worked, trying to shape a word.
Arsenal stumbled forward, cradling Papa’s head in his hands. He was crying, nose running, voice gone to mush. “Fuck. Fuck, don’t do this, brother. Hold on, you big bastard. Just hold on.”
Pearl and Parker arrived next, skidding to a stop. Pearl gasped, and I thought she might faint. Parker looked at me, then at Papa, then at her phone, like she could logic her way out of it.
Lucia, the vampire, materialized from the woods behind us.
She wore a black coat with red piping and walked with the casual indifference of someone who’d seen this scene a thousand times.
She knelt by Papa’s side, and with a gentleness that belied her seeming indifference, placed two fingers to his throat.
“He is not dead,” she said, glancing at the group. “But he is close.”
Bronc and Juliet joined the circle, Bronc’s breath coming ragged. He knelt beside him and took Papa’s hand, the way you’d take the hand of a dying father. There was a moment where no one spoke, the only sound the distant caw of the birds and the low, painful sound that came from Bronc’s chest.
Parker knelt, hands shaking. “Can you help him?” she asked Lucia.
Lucia shook her head. “The wound is not natural. Demon. It eats the soul before it kills the body.”
Juliet knelt and took the other hand, murmuring a prayer in a fervent way I’d never heard before. Pearl just stared, tears streaming, unable to move or speak.
I looked at Menace and saw the ruin on his face. Even though Papa was the youngest of us, Menace had always looked up to him, saw him as a sort of moral center. Now the man was dying, and there was nothing any of us could do.
Menace pressed his forehead to Papa’s, sobbing quietly. “Don’t go,” he whispered. “We still need you. I need you.”
For a second, Papa’s eyes fluttered open. He looked at each of us in turn, then tried to smile. The effect was more grimace than grin.
He tried to say something, but all that came out was a wet gurgle.
Arsenal bent low, whispered in his ear, “It’s okay, brother. You can rest. We’ll take it from here.”
Papa’s hand twitched, squeezed Bronc’s once, then went slack.
The silence was total. For a moment, the world stopped.
Then, as if on cue, the wind picked up, and the crows started in, a hundred black shapes swirling over the tree line, hungry and merciless.
I closed Papa’s eyes and stood, head spinning. I wanted to hit something, to destroy the world that had done this. Instead, I stared at my feet, felt the blood soaking into my boots, and waited for someone to say anything that would make this less pointless.
No one did.
We all knew the price of war. But it never got easier.
We were still standing around the body when the air changed. The wind stopped, and the world dropped a degree colder, like the sun had blinked out for just a second. Then, from nowhere, a voice—soft, maybe even amused—cut through the silence.
“You know, I’m spending an awful lot of time with Iron Valor lately.”
Everyone turned. At the edge of us stood a man in faded jeans, white t-shirt, and a brown Carhartt jacket, hands jammed in his pockets like he’d just wandered over from the next ranch.
His hair was wild and snow white; his face both too young and too old to read.
If you weren’t looking right at him, you’d swear he wasn’t there at all.
Archon Seraphael. The fucking angel.
Nobody moved. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
He sauntered over; we stepped back automatically. He knelt at Papa’s side and pressed a palm to his bloody chest, head cocked as if listening for a tune only he could hear.
“Demon work,” he said, glancing up at Bronc. “Nasty stuff. Eats at the heart, the faith, the soul, all at once.”
Lucia, all business, said, “Can you fix it?”
The angel smiled at her, then at the rest of us. “I can. But it’s best if you step back. I’ve learned the hard way it’s best not to be too close when I get rid of filth.”
We scattered, circling up like kids on the edge of a fistfight.
Seraphael bent close, mouth right above Papa’s ear. “Hey, friend,” he said, voice gentle. “You’re not done yet. Let’s put you back together.”
He placed both hands flat on Papa's chest, eyes closed. There was a sensation of pressure, like the air had thickened, then a faint blue glow—barely there, more sensation than light. Papa’s whole body arched off the ground, every muscle straining.
Then he jerked once, and something horrible poured from his mouth.
It was smoke, but not. Black and greasy, it spilled out, puddled on the snow, and began to sink into the earth. As it did, it made a sound—a voice, maybe, or the echo of a howl—low and furious. “No,” it said, deep enough to rattle your teeth. “NO.”
The last of it vanished into the earth. The glow faded. Papa flopped back, limp and still, but a blush of color returned to his cheeks. He took a deep, shuddering breath, eyes fluttered, then fell shut again.
Seraphael sat back on his heels, blowing out a sigh. “He’ll need rest,” he said. “A lot of it. But the demon’s gone. He’ll come out the other side quite a warrior, I think. Which is a good thing. He’ll be needed.”