All That Falls Read Online Free Page A

her.
    Don’t interfere.
    He stepped down from the ledge so he wouldn’t be able to see Cerise any longer, and in doing so noticed the graffiti. There was very little of it in the Etherlin, but the place where the girl had tread so unsteadily was covered with elaborate artwork. The white ledge had been painted with the tangled green of a woodland scene. He studied it and within the tendrils of vines, he spotted a blackbird. He froze for a moment, unable to believe…But yes it was there.
    He flapped his wings and rose, hovering above so he could see the entire thing at once, could stare at the swirling patterns, and he spotted what was buried. A message woven into the vines. The letters emerged in one long string.
    Sadly talks the blackbird here. Well I know the woe he found: No matter who cut down his nest, For its young it was destroyed. I myself not long ago Found the woe he now has found.
    The verses were from a ninth-century poem called “The Deserted Home.” Lysander knew who and what had inspired it. Reziel.
    Lysander’s muscles locked, and his gaze darted side to side as if expecting his former brother to appear. But of course Reziel wasn’t lurking nearby. Lysander would’ve known, would’ve felt him. Still, there was the message…
    Had the demon invaded the dreams of an artist? Or maybe one of Reziel’s followers lived in the Etherlin. It didn’t matter how Reziel had accomplished it. What mattered was that it was part of the prophecy:
Watch for a sign. The message left by your betrayer marks the beginning of the end.
    With stunned triumph ringing in his ears, Lysander thought,
This is it. After thousands of years of waiting, the prophecy has finally begun.
    The largest tombstone in Iron Heart Cemetery was also the newest. Twelve towering feet of carved marble announced that Cato Jacobi had been laid to rest in the fresh grave. No one mourned him more than his sister, Tamberi.
    A vicious kick launched the flowers that lay at the base of the headstone. Cato couldn’t have cared less about dead plants, and Tamberi didn’t want anything touching Cato’s grave that she didn’t put there herself.
    From her tote bag, she extracted a one-of-a-kind Venetian vase, created nearly a hundred years ago. She clenched her jaw and flung the vase against the headstone. Shattering, its shards rained down like multicolored tears and joined the pile of fragments from what had once been Tamberi’s quarter of a million-dollar Italian glass collection. Since she’d buried Cato, she’d smashed a piece each day against his headstone, marking time, creating a testament to the fact that nothing else mattered except that her brother was food for worms.
    Tamberi shoved her bangs back from her eyes. She liked to keep her black hair buzzed to an inch or two long, but she’d vowed not to cut it until her brother’s death was avenged.
    She snagged a half-empty bottle of bourbon from the wet sod. She swigged deep, then while she caught her breath between swallows, she poured a generous amount onto the grave.
    “Do you think the third time’s a charm?” she asked, splashingdrops of bourbon over the headstone. “A new demon contacted me,” she whispered.
    The sound of a throat being cleared startled her, and she went still and silent. She inhaled and recognized the cologne.
    “So you’re the one who’s been killing the grass,” his voice said.
    She didn’t bother to look over her shoulder at the interloper. “Hello, Dad.”
    “I’ve left you a lot of messages,” he said, his voice low with fury. “Given the mess you and your brother made, I’m under a lot of pressure. Invading the Etherlin? You must have been out of your minds. At least you were hopped up on morphine, but what the hell was Cato thinking?”
    She turned slowly, her eyes narrowed to slits. “He was thinking that Merrick was never going to bring us that muse that we needed for the syndicate’s plan—your plan—to work. Cato was thinking that we’d