UNKNOWN

"As it began, so must it end."

These words, scrawled in a lost journal from five centuries past, were the final echoes of the great fae war.

A war waged in vengeance for the death of the fae's next heir.

Archangel Raziel was once the right hand of God: Lord Keeper of Secrets, Bringer of Hope. Now, he wastes away in purgatory, drowning in liquor and self-loathing, a broken shadow of the warrior he once was. God has vanished. Heaven's throne sits empty. Something far darker is stirring.

When angels begin to disappear, their mutilated remains left behind, the signs point to betrayal from within. Sahari, the original Avenging Angel, Goddess of Death, and Commander of War-leads the investigation. Until she, too, vanishes. Mia McCoy has spent her life simply trying to survive.

Orphaned at eight after witnessing the brutal murders of her mother and brother, she bounced through the system haunted by relentless night terrors of red skies, storms tearing the world apart, battlefields drenched in fire and blood.

She thought they were just dreams. Until a man arrived, collecting the gifted children of the McCoy bloodline, training them for a war prophesied to begin when the world ends. Now, the storm has come. And Mia is no longer a child running from the monsters who created her.

***

Two angels, a priest, and a rabbi walk into a bar. I know there's a joke in there somewhere, but as they walk toward me with barely suppressed rage glinting in their eyes, I'll be damned if I know what it is.

"They can't still be mad?" I wonder aloud, then down the last of my bourbon, embracing the harsh sting.

"The rabbi caught you deflowering his daughter behind a dumpster," Cherry, Purgatory's finest bartender, reminds me with a salacious smile. "Not that I blame her."

"You know, sweetheart, when you look at me like that, it makes me feel cheap." I slide my glass toward her. "Another refill?"

I turn from the bar and open my mouth to greet the rabbi when a fist hits me square in the face. My ears ring, and I find myself lying on the dirty bar floor, peanut shells digging into my cheek. Talk about a punchline.