CHAPTER ONE
COVINGTON, LOUISIANA
Red and blue lights flashed over the lawn.
Police vehicles filled the street in both directions.
There were also two ambulances, but the sirens had gone silent, and they’d been parked for the past hour.
Collith and I stood across the street, tucked into the shadows.
We weren’t the only ones observing the crime scene—most of the neighbors had come outside, drawn by all the movement and noise.
They stood in robes and pajamas, looking confused and worried.
But I didn’t sense real fear from them, not yet.
That would change once the cops started bringing the bodies out.
“Did you catch a name?” I asked Collith quietly. I didn’t look away from the house.
His voice was grim. “One of the officers knew them. This place belonged to Mark and Kiersten Henderson. Married couple, moved here a few years ago. No kids. Apparently they kept to themselves.”
Mark and Kiersten Henderson. I repeated their names silently, memorizing them like a dark song lyric.
The ice in my chest began to crack. I willed myself to go cold again, and my expression settled back into its hard mask.
No kids, just like the rest. That was good.
The only good thing about any of this, really.
I wondered, not for the first time, if it was a coincidence … or if there was still something left of Oliver inside that thing I’d seen. That black-eyed, blank-faced creature with skin covered in dark lines, hulking wings rising over its golden head.
It doesn’t matter, I reminded myself. Even if part of Oliver had survived, even if there was some lingering sense of humanity that made the Beast draw the line at hurting kids, our story only had one ending. Oliver was going to die, and I would be the one who killed him.
My resolve hardened. I refocused on the humans’ progress.
Silhouettes moved past the blood-spattered windows.
There were at least over a dozen people inside, at least, which meant we still had a wait ahead of us.
Collith used his own energy store when he worked an illusion, so the fewer minds he had to influence, the better.
This was the fourth house we’d been to in the months since Finn’s funeral, and we had learned a thing or two about how to make the process smoother.
We were getting better at this, sickening as it was.
Finn. The thought of him sent another crack through me.
“Were they like the others?” I asked abruptly. I kept my eyes on that big, bright window.
In my peripheral vision, I saw Collith nod. “Fallen,” he said. “I can smell the blood from here.”
The ice in me cracked a third time, and now small bits and pieces slipped through. Guilt. Fury. Pain. Strangely, as I watched one of the police officers bolt out of the house and vomit on the front lawn, I started thinking about Oliver’s freckles.
It seemed like such an insignificant, random thing to think about.
But I was trying to connect that sweet, freckled boy to the abomination who had killed these people tonight.
As another officer rushed outside, a memory came through.
I stopped seeing the pale-faced, shaking policewoman, and a young boy loomed before me instead, replacing the nightmare playing out across the street.
We sat on the beach. Our small knees were buried in the sand, and the shore in both directions was empty, completely untouched except by us.
The sky was clear and blue overhead, not a single cloud in sight.
Seagulls flew through the wide expanse, their wild cries snatched away by a salt-laden breeze.
To our right, the sea glittered. Waves reached for us again and again.
I was teaching the strange dream boy how to build a sandcastle.
He sat beside me, his eyebrows knitted together with concentration.
He didn’t move like other children I knew.
He didn’t move like anyone I knew, really.
He did everything slowly, as if it were all new to him, or he was afraid of making a mistake.
He’d finally started talking, but he didn’t like it.
His words came halting and uncertain. I had stopped asking the boy questions a while ago, since I never got an answer.
It was like he’d just been born, or something.
Now I eyed him anew, wondering if it was too soon to try again.
After another minute, I gave in to my relentless curiosity.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
The boy stared at our castle with a crinkled brow, a frown hovering at the corners of his mouth. I could tell he was thinking about it, harder than he’d thought about anything. For a few seconds, I watched him, certain he would remember it. But then the boy said, his voice faint, “I don’t know.”
I frowned, too. “You don’t know your name?”
He stared at the castle, his eyes darker than they’d been a moment ago. “I don’t think I have one.”
Impatience sparked inside me. I put my hands beside his. “Well, that’s silly. Everyone has a name,” I said.
“Oh.”
The boy sounded so confused, so worried, that I felt a jab of remorse. It wasn’t his fault—none of this was. I gave him a kind smile. “It’s okay. We’ll just pick one out for you.”
His eyes widened. “Can you do that?”
“Why not?” I shrugged, patting the side of the turret I’d just built. Parents usually picked names, but what if you didn’t have parents?
The thought sent a pang through my entire body.
I’d forgotten, for a minute, that I didn’t have parents, either. Not anymore.
I blinked rapidly, desperately fixing my gaze on the castle again.
But the boy didn’t move to help me, as he’d been helping every night since it happened.
I glanced over at him, wondering why he was just sitting there.
Then I got a look at his face, and a startled jolt went through my small frame.
For the first time since the boy had first appeared in my dreams, I saw excitement in his expression.
That was when it clicked—he expected me to name him right now.
My mouth twisted with uncertainty. I’d never named something before, not even a pet.
Dad had been allergic to everything, dogs, cats, turtles …
No. I didn’t want to think about Dad, not here.
My mind skittered to the first memory it could find, and I remembered the movie I’d been watching before bed, surrounded by other foster kids in a living room that smelled like ramen noodles.
The movie was a cartoon called Oliver & Company.
It had made me laugh, and I hadn’t laughed since that night I was desperately fighting to forget.
“Do you like the name Oliver?” I asked abruptly, meeting the boy’s gaze.
“Oliver,” he repeated with a tentative expression. Then, again, more firmly this time, “Oliver. Yes.”
The seagulls called out again. Their cries echoed in my ears as I bent my head.
We worked in silence for a minute or two.
When a breeze tugged strands of hair into my eyes, I tucked them back and snuck another glance at the boy.
His mouth was puckered in soft concentration.
Oliver, I thought again, studying the freckles that dotted his skin like sprinkles. The corners of my lips tilted.
It fit.
“Fortuna. It’s time.”
Collith’s voice penetrated the haze of images around my mind. I blinked that freckled boy away and reminded myself of the cold truth—that boy had died a long time ago. If he’d even existed at all.
Refocusing, I nodded at Collith to indicate that I was ready.
We both knew it was a lie, and he had already offered to go in alone.
Like all the other nights, I’d just shaken my head.
Knowing what my answer would be never stopped Collith from saying the words, though.
I still felt them hovering between us as we crossed the street and ducked beneath the crime-scene tape.
No one looked at us, which meant Collith had shielded us from view.
We went up the sidewalk, passing several police officers and other uniformed people who must’ve been part of the investigation.
If this was like the other three cases, which were all still ongoing, I knew what the humans would find—nothing.
No fingerprints or footprints, no hairs or fluids.
There would only be feathers. Long, black feathers.
The humans were puzzled by them, but they were the one thing connecting all the victims together. Well, that and the way they’d all died.
Terribly. Violently. Darkly.
I would see their faces in my dreams for the rest of my life.
The smell hit me in the doorway. I couldn’t detect the difference between human and Fallen like Collith, but I knew blood. It was as recognizable as my favorite perfume, or the aroma of coffee, or the cloying scent of Emma’s joints. Most days, it felt like I’d been baptized in it.
But even as that familiar, terrible smell stuffed itself up my nostrils, I didn’t let myself pause or hesitate.
If I did, I might not be able to go through with this.
I shifted my body to the side, allowing a man in a black coverall to pass, then went inside.
I took a few steps into the room before I stopped and looked around, ignoring the spiderweb cracks that kept spreading through my chest. Don’t run, Fortuna.
Don’t you dare run. I sensed Collith drawing to a halt beside me.
He didn’t say anything. I kept my face turned away, as if I were concentrating.