Others were up there, though, nestled in the heavens. Powerful beings were pulling all the strings and making the puppets dance.

Footsteps thudded behind him. Sam inhaled, catching the scents of the one who approached. Alcohol. Cigarettes. Demon. Elijah.

No vampire. Fuck. The bastard would bleed for failing again. How hard was it to bag one newbie vamp? The lady was so fresh she’d probably barely cut her fangs.

Sam turned around, ready to slam a burst of power right at the demon, but the fear in Elijah’s black gaze stopped him.

And made him smile. Finally.

“Y-you never said she’d have backup.”

Because Sam hadn’t thought the vamp would. He’d worked so hard to cut her off from the rest of the world. Her silly little comfort system she’d had in New Orleans—ripped away. Her job—gone. Her home—destroyed. No family, no friends—they were all terrified of her now. No one wanted to be close to a killer.

When you isolated your prey, it was always so much easier to take ’em down.

“He could have f**kin’ killed me!” Elijah snarled, spittle flying from his mouth.

Sam raised a brow. “He?” His voice came out mild, as always.

“Him—yeah that f**kin’ angel that was at her side. And she smelled like him. Shit, ain’t there some rule about angels f**kin’ around?”

“Probably.” Undoubtedly. Another way to get cast out. Angels didn’t enjoy nearly the preferential treatment that the humans did. Screw up once … get ready to burn.

“And f**kin’ with vampires?” Disgust etched deep lines on the demon’s face. “What the hell?” Elijah didn’t much care for vampires. Who did? And as for angels …

Demons were right to fear them.

Sam took a deep breath and asked, “You’re sure the man with her was an angel?”

Elijah’s head bobbed in a quick nod. “There’s no damn way to kill one of ’em, you know that!”

“Everything dies,” he snapped, sick of the lies that the Other chose to spread, particularly lies about themselves. Only one being was immortal. All the others … we can all die. Some of them just had the unfortunate pleasure of perishing over and over again.

Yeah, life could be one f**king blast.

Elijah yanked a hand through his thick blond hair. “Well, I don’t want to be that everything.”

Too bad. Elijah was already marked for death. Sam had seen the bastard’s end coming for days. Mostly because he’d planned it. Elijah had his uses. The guy was strong, evil, and usually ready to rip and tear. But even a killer had to die some time.

“Describe him to me.” There were hundreds of angels. Thousands. Could be any—

“Blond, black eyes, with black wings that hung over his shoulders …”

Black wings. An angel of death.

“I didn’t even see the wings at first. They moved behind him, like weird-ass shadows.” A pause. “Just like yours.”

Sam rolled his shoulders and slowly stretched his back as he felt the ghostly flutter of wings that weren’t there anymore, not really.

Elijah hissed out a breath. “Weird-ass …”

The shadow wings were just an illusion. A magic memory. Only seen by demons or angels … any who had the blood of the celestial beings in them.

Lucifer hadn’t been the only angel to fall. So many others had lost their grace. Or traded it for the chance to be like the humans.

No, the demons who walked the earth now weren’t puppets of the devil. They were descendants of the Fallen. Not as favored as humans, but not as cursed as most of the monsters, no matter what some of the zealots liked to think.

“Did he have any unusual marks?” Sam pressed. Who was he up against? You couldn’t fight a battle without knowing your enemy.

He’d been right. The vamp had been the link. The key. The Fallen had gone after her, just as Sam had suspected he would.

“No,” Elijah said with a shake of his shaggy head. “He was blond, and he had black eyes. He was one of them damn pretty-boy angels but …” The demon’s eyes narrowed. “When I first saw him, I swear I felt a cold wind blow right over me.”

Sam’s breath expelled. Perfect. There were so many angels out there, so many different kinds—some harmless and some very, very dangerous. He didn’t want to waste his time with the harmless variety.

“How did he act with the woman?” A freshly-fallen angel would be confused. Unprepared for the onslaught of emotion—and need. Lust.