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watched from the doorway, he reached for Malini. Blood sprayed across the hand he brought to his mouth to cover a cough. His breath came in wet rattles.
    Folding to his side, Malini pressed her healing hand to Jacob's stomach wound. The heat of her power poured into him. "It will be all right. I’m here. You’re going to be okay," she said.
    Her skin bubbled and blackened to the elbow and the smell of burning flesh filled the room. She grit her teeth and wept but held her hand to him until he was able to push it away.
    "You should have stopped sooner," Jacob said, pulling Malini into his arms.
    Jacob called the water. From within the walls the pipes groaned and dust and drywall snowed down around them. He focused in on a fountain in the hall. The spout blew off, skipping across the dojo and a wave crashed into the office, washing Malini’s burns away.
    "I had to make sure." Malini slid her flesh-colored glove over her skeletal hand.
    "Well, that’s convenient," Jesse said, gawking at Malini's healed arm.
    Master Lee stepped over the man with the Mohawk and the Watcher that Jesse had extracted from his body. "Antonio has worked for me for years." His wrinkled face sagged, as if he’d aged a decade in the last five minutes. He spread his hands toward the empty dojo, covered in splatters of black blood.
    Jesse pulled the blinds on the windows and locked the door.
    "He must have been possessed recently. You would have seen it." Malini wiped a drop of Jacob’s blood from under her eye and crawled over to the man. "He's alive, but knocked out. He'll need hospitalization. I think it's better if I don't heal him. Too hard to explain the gaps in his memory."
    Lee groaned. "We'll have to drop him at the emergency room. No one can know this happened here."
    "How did Lucifer know? How did he know we'd be here?" Jacob asked. "I didn’t even know before today and he can’t translate the list."
    Malini’s eyes darted over the body and then toward the slits of light that filtered through the windows. "I don’t know. But one thing's for sure. The war has begun."
     

Chapter 4
    Mara and Henry
     
    Who would have thought Death slept? Henry’s body lay like a corpse on the bed next to her. With his arms crossed over his chest, she couldn’t tell if he was breathing and his flawless white skin didn’t twitch. He hadn’t moved at all in, well, she wasn’t sure how long. She couldn’t find a clock in the room and was afraid to leave, mostly because she had no idea where she was.
    "Henry?" she said.
    His eyelids flipped open and his head turned toward her on the shiny red pillow. "Mara. You’re here. I wasn’t dreaming."
    She couldn’t stop a huge cheeser from blooming across her face. "Yeah, you were kind of dreamy though. I haven’t made out like that in, um, I’ve never made out like that."
    Henry hinged at the hips, sitting up in a way that defied gravity, slowly and with an abnormally straight back. He turned his torso to face her. "Mara, I died in 1349 when I was seventeen. Believe me, what little experience I had over six hundred years ago was dwarfed by what happened last night. You are absolutely enchanting."
    "Thanks." She pushed herself to a seated position. "I ate the pastries. Sorry. I should have saved one for you."
    A half smile lifted the corner of Henry’s lips. "Not necessary. I don’t have to eat."
    "Right, because you’re Death."
    He nodded.
    Mara played with the corner of the sheet. Hand stitching decorated the edges and the silky fabric draped heavily in her hand. The material felt expensive but she wouldn’t know for sure. She’d never owned anything like it.
    "So, Henry, can you take me home? I mean, back to Dr. Silva’s. That’s where I’m staying."
    Henry’s features hardened and he tipped his face away from her. Whether by levitation or propulsion, he rose from the bed and paced toward the window on the far stone wall. She noticed no glass in the frame but also no breeze, no birds, no