New York never slept. It only closed its eyes so the monsters could walk unnoticed.
Caelan ghosted through midnight fog in the outer boroughs, far from the neon vomit of Times Square. Salt, iron, and abandonment coated the air. He followed a scent that had no business existing: crushed pomegranate, sulfur, and the electric promise of a storm. It turned his stomach and lit something lower at the same time.
Liliru.
He reached the rusted gates of Wonderland Pier, an amusement park condemned twenty years ago after gravity forgot its job for one catastrophic night. Mortal reports blamed a gas leak. Caelan had read the real file: a Dominion and a Duke of Hell throwing tantrums. The laws of physics still limped here.
The sign above the gate hung by one chain, creaking like a dying lung.
W o n e r a n
He laid a gloved hand on the iron. Beneath the cold metal pulsed a heartbeat.
She was inside. Waiting.
The gate opened without sound. Silence followed the Saint the way plague followed rats.
The midway stretched ahead, a cemetery of joy. Roller-coaster tracks twisted into Möbius scars against a bruised sky. A Ferris wheel turned slowly, though no wind touched this plane. Black weeds writhed in the cracks of the concrete, recoiling from his boots.
Eden's Fang came free of its holster. The revolver felt eager tonight, five holy rounds thrumming like caged seraphim.
"Patience," he told the gun.
Then every dead bulb in the park ignited at once. Crimson light bled across the ruins. Distorted calliope music oozed from hidden speakers, a drowning waltz.
Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump.
The heartbeat became a war drum under his soles.
Caelan kept walking.
At the centre stood the Grand Carousel, paint flaking from grey horses frozen mid-gallop. Machinery groaned. The platform spun.
She rode a black stallion sidesaddle, legs crossed, combat boot resting on carved flanks. Her dress looked stitched from midnight and old blood. One hand held glowing green cotton candy that smelled like childhood and radiation.
Golden eyes found him across the distance.
"You're late, Saint," she called, voice rich and amused. "I started without you."
Caelan stopped ten meters away. "Liliru of the Seventh Circle. By authority of the High Host, your existence is forfeit."
She laughed, took a bite of poison candy. "You people need new lines. Tell me, do you whisper Leviticus when you jerk off, or is that overtime?"
"Step down. Kneel. Die cleanly."
"Kneel?" She hopped from the moving carousel, landing cat-soft. "I prefer men on their backs."
Five paces apart now. Her aura pressed like standing inside a blast furnace. Same golden eyes as his, but molten.
"They say you can kill anything," she murmured. Shadows peeled from the booths and pooled at her feet. "They say you have no heart. I think they're wrong. I can hear it, Saint. Slow. Bored. Waiting."
Irritation pricked him. Demons begged or bargained. They did not flirt.
"Your games are wasted on stone."
"Let's test that."
She snapped her fingers.
Shadows detonated into a dozen jagged spears, faster than rifle rounds.
Caelan blurred.
He slipped the first by a hair's breadth, parried the second with the barrel, caught the third in a gloved fist and crushed it to mist. The glove smoked.
Liliru was already dancing backwards, a whip of living darkness forming in her hand, barbs glowing arterial red.
She cracked it. Sound barrier shattered. A concrete planter behind him became two neat halves.
Caelan ducked, raised Eden's Fang, and spoke one word.
"Judgment."
The second bullet left the chamber as a lance of pure rapture.
Liliru twisted mid-air. The beam grazed her shoulder. Fabric and skin vaporised; holy fire tried to eat the concept of her. She hit the ground rolling, came up snarling. A circle of her shoulder glowed white, regeneration fighting sanctity.
"That actually hurt," she hissed, voice shedding every trace of play. Horns lengthened. The air stank of ozone and rage.
"I missed," Caelan said. "I will not again."
"You play rough." The wound sealed with a wet pop. "I like rough."
She slammed both palms to the pavement.
"Blood Garden."
Concrete exploded into crimson thorns and vines. They coiled his legs, waist, throat; diamond-hard, dripping neurotoxin.
Liliru stalked forward, whip dragging like a triumphant tail.
"Got you."
Caelan looked down at the vines, sighed, and triggered sanctified venting.
White fire roared from his body in a perfect sphere. Vines screamed, withered, turned to ash in heartbeats.
He stepped through the falling grey, coat still pristine.
Liliru shielded her face. "What the hell are you?"
"The answer to a question you should never have asked."
He lunged.
No shot this time. He closed the gap and swung Eden's Fang like a mace. She blocked with a reinforced forearm. The impact cratered the ground, flinging splintered booths into the sky.
They locked together, gun barrels grinding against bone, faces inches apart.
Up close he smelled vanilla beneath the sulfur. Innocent. Diabolical.
Her pupils were blown wide.
"You're beautiful when you try to kill me," she whispered.
"You bleed like a mortal."
"Then make me bleed."
She headbutted him. Horns raked his forehead; golden ichor traced a line down his temple.
The world tilted. Pain. Real pain.
Her kick sent him airborne. He crashed through the Tunnel of Love's ticket booth and landed in black water that boiled at his touch.
Liliru stood at the canal edge, chest heaving, cheeks flushed with delight.
"Round one to the Princess."
Caelan rose, water steaming off him. He wiped the blood from his brow, studied the gold on his glove.
The corners of his mouth twitched. Not a smile. Acknowledgment.
"Warm-up is over."
The lights bled from crimson to bruised purple. Frost crackled across the canal.
Six wings erupted from his back, black feathers edged in starlight, each one twenty feet across. Where pinions touched ground, concrete dissolved into nothing.
Liliru's grin faltered.
"Okay," she muttered. "That's new."
"You wanted the Saint," his voice layered with harmonics that rattled her bones. "You have him."
One flap. The carousel roof peeled away like paper.
Caelan shot into the air, a dark comet blotting out the carnival glow.
Below, Liliru shielded her eyes. Fear and hunger warred in her chest. The prophecy had promised a killer. It had not warned her he would be magnificent.
"Come down and bleed, pigeon!" she shouted, bravado cracking.
Her whip became a serpent of shadow, lunging for his ankles.
Caelan folded his wings and dove.
Straight for her heart.
The world slowed. He saw recognition in her eyes, two creatures forged for slaughter finally meeting their match.
Do not hesitate. Elian's voice.
She is alive, something older answered.
Ten meters. Five.
Liliru flared her power, horns glowing white-hot, ready to meet him.
"Catch me," she whispered.
And the world turned white.