Steve whimpered. "Tell me that's just leftover energy."
"It's not," Cain said.
The silhouette slammed again, harder, and the rift stretched like wet cloth about to tear open afresh.
Cain felt the marks on his arm burn. Not hot. Cold. Like frost sinking under his skin.
Susan noticed then. Her eyes narrowed. "What did that thing do to you?"
"Not a priority right now."
"The hell it isn't."
The rift cracked again.
Cain didn't think. He moved.
He reached for the dying fault-line of light. His fingers stung instantly, but he forced them through, hooking into whatever edges of reality he could feel. The tear pulsed toward his grip, reacting like something alive.
The mark on his arm flared.
Cain's vision split for a heartbeat—one half the broken hall, the other an endless plane of dark sky, streaked with the silhouettes of Fallen Angels watching from above, unmoving, judging, waiting. Not real. Or maybe too real. He bit down on the urge to recoil.
He pulled.
Reality screamed.
