They didn't make it far.

The Nilepoch opened its mouth, and the rest of the room seemed to dim as a ball of violet light gathered between its bifurcated jaws. Lady dove to one side and took shelter in the shadow of one of the building's support pillars, while Nero all but dragged the girl behind a stack of wooden palettes that had been left against a wall. Seconds later, a beam of eye-searing light sliced through the place where they had been standing.

Metal grated and screeched again as the demon thrashed against a doorway too small to admit its full body to the room. Nero leaned out from his shelter just long enough to make sure Lady was all right. She flashed him a thumbs-up and pointed toward the exit, but Nero shook his head, patted the skids he was crouched behind, and shrugged as he gestured toward the open area. The three of them couldn't make a straight run for the door; there was nothing else in the room to shield them from another attack. From the looks of that beam, even the support pillars wouldn't give them much cover if the Nilepoch's aim were true.

The shriek of rending sheet metal warned that they had a limited time in which to make a decision. Lady risked a glance back at the door where the Nilepoch was trapped, then glanced thoughtfully over at Nero. She pointed at him, then mimed tying something around her neck and pulling upward.

"The hell?" Nero muttered. He returned a palms-up Huh? gesture.

Lady pointed again, more insistently, then traced a circle in the air with her finger and made the same upward tugging motion. Nero gave an exaggerated shrug and shook his head. Lady rolled her eyes. "Tell her to summon something!" she shouted.

Nero hoped the Nilepoch lacked the intelligence to comprehend human speech. "What, is one demon trying to kill us not enough for you?" he snapped back.

"I'm betting it prefers real demons to humans. If nothing else, it'll buy us some time!"

Nero turned back to the girl, who was crouching against the wall with the .45 clutched to her chest. "You heard the lady. Summon something."

She glared up at him. "It takes time."

"Then you'd better get started real quick, because I don't think this guy fires warning shots."

The girl glanced around the area and dusted a clear space on the concrete floor. "I need paint. Something to write the symbols."

Nero looked around, but they were in a long-abandoned warehouse; even if there had been a pen or marker left behind, it would have dried up in the years since the building had been used. "I can't believe this," he muttered, bringing Red Queen around in front of him. "Why am I the one who pulls all the shit gigs?" He pressed his forearm into the blade, opening a narrow slice in the skin, then tipped the wound to drip blood onto the floor. "You'd better not waste any of this," he growled.

The girl's eyes widened, but she dug a scrap of paper out of her pocket, smoothed out the creases, and began copying the printed symbols onto the floor with a finger dipped in Nero's blood. Nero squinted at the page. It appeared to be torn from a book, and the heavy cream-colored paper was similar to some of the volumes they'd found in the Order's library.

He didn't have time for more than a glance before the roar of tearing metal and crumbling masonry snapped his attention back to the immediate threat. "It's through!" Lady shouted. She bolted out of her hiding place and dove toward the far wall just as another beam of light scorched through the pillar she'd sheltered behind.

Nero hadn't seen whether she'd gotten clear, and he fought down the first wave of panic at her disappearance. "Lady, you okay? Talk to me!"

"Could really use that demon about now!" Lady's voice sounded artificially controlled, probably suppressing pain.

No time to worry about her injuries, though; he could already see the room's shadows lengthening as the Nilepoch charged up another blast. He swung back to the girl. "Come on, Red, gimme something!"

The girl's face was again drenched in sweat as she concentrated, mouthing words over the circle. She pressed her palms to the blood-ring painted on the floor, and Nero felt the tug as the veil between worlds was rent apart. A portal the color of clotted blood bubbled into being nearby, and a reptilian arm tipped with vicious claws protruded from the opening.

Nero didn't wait for the demon to manifest fully on its own. He seized the clawed limb with his spectral devil arm, hauled the demon bodily through the portal, and flung it full-force in the direction of the Nilepoch—no small feat, since the summoned demon proved to be a Riot, of all things. There was another blinding flash, a shriek from the Riot, and then… nothing.

Nero leaned out from his shelter to scan the room. The Riot stood dazed in the center of the warehouse, swaying from side to side, its reptilian hide tinged purple and white. It reminded Nero of the damage V's demonic familiars had inflicted on their foes—not lethal in their own right, but utterly draining. Nero had no doubt he could finish the Riot off with a well-placed punch if he so chose.

But he had no intention of doing so. There was no sign of the Nilepoch, and that meant it had absorbed the Riot's power and would—in theory—be back to feed on it again at some point in the future. "Lady, you still alive over there? We gotta figure out how to box this guy up."

"I'm alive. Not happy, but alive." Lady staggered out of a dark corner, clutching one arm with the opposite hand. Blood soaked her sleeve below the elbow, and one leg bore several nasty-looking gouges. "Really wishing I'd had time to put my chaps on before we came."

Nero winced in sympathy. "Did the Nilepoch do that?"

"Not directly. When I dodged that blast, I discovered where somebody swept up all the glass that's been broken out of those windows." She hobbled over to the Riot. "So apparently the plan worked."

"Yeah, and if we can keep this demon on ice, we might even get another shot at the Nilepoch."

"Any idea how to do that? The icing, not the shooting."

Nero scratched his head. "Well, I guess there's always Agnus's underground lab. It's not easy to monitor, but it's probably the most secure place around here for keeping demons locked up."

Lady frowned. "We'll have to transport it somehow."

"Shit, you're right. I forgot we don't have the van. Maybe we can borrow a truck. I don't want to have to carry it through town."

"You could always wrap it up in a carpet like they do in the movies," Lady said dryly. "Though it'd have to be a hell of a rug to contain a demon of this caliber."

"Yeah, that was a surprise. I was expecting a Scarecrow or…" Nero froze, then dashed back to the palettes, but the girl was long gone. He swore volubly. "Next time, I'm gonna staple that little brat's feet to the floor."

Lady had followed him more slowly. She examined the summoning circle with interest. "Well, that explains it." Kneeling gingerly, she traced a finger through the congealing blood. "I take it this is yours?"

"Yeah. I left my paint can in my other pants, so we had to work with what we had. Why?"

"A Solomon's Noose is the lowest level of summoning spell. On its own, it can't summon anything more powerful than… well, than those Frosts we fought earlier. But if you use human blood, the level of the spell goes up a couple of notches. And you know what can summon even more powerful demons than human blood?"

"Let me guess: The kind that makes up the other twenty-five percent of my blood."

"Bingo." Lady straightened and wiped her hand on her shirt. "I thought she must be a really skilled summoner to draw something like a Riot across the planar divide, but it looks like your blood did most of the work."

"Well, that fits. This kid's been stealing our jobs, our pay, our guns, and now she even takes the credit." He sighed and turned back to the Riot. "Come on, help me get this hell-lizard under wraps before it wakes up."

It was nearly supper time when Nero and Lady staggered into the house, coated in blood and dust after bagging the Riot in an old tarpaulin and dragging it out to the castle ruins. At the sound of the front door, Kyrie appeared from the kitchen. "There you are! I was starting to…" Her eyes widened at the sight of Lady's blood-darkened sleeve, and she hurried forward to examine the wound. "Lady! Oh, dear, this needs to be cleaned right away." She glanced over at Nero. "Are you hurt, too?"

Nero shook his head, and Kyrie hustled Lady into the bathroom to treat her injuries, ignoring the older woman's protests. When she'd gone, the children clustered curiously around Nero. "What happened to you?" Carlo asked.

"Uh… Bike accident," Nero temporized. "Can happen to anybody. That's why you should always wear a helmet."

Julio frowned. "But Lady didn't have a—"

"Hey, it's almost time for dinner, right?" Nero cut him off. "Looks like the bathroom is occupied, so you'll have to wash up in the kitchen."

"But I can't reach the kitchen sink!" Kyle protested. Flavia nodded in agreement.

Zaffiro's eyes flicked from them to Nero. "We could reach if we stood on a chair."

Nero could practically see the lawyer gears whirling in Zaffiro's head. He shot the boy a warning look. "But you won't, because that's against the rules, right?"

Kyle nodded enthusiastically. "Because I fell down last time."

"I bet we could jump up on the counter," Rosso put in. "Then we wouldn't have to stand on a chair."

"You will not jump on the counter!" Nero shook his head. "I have something that will solve this whole problem. Wait right here." He went through the connecting door into the garage and began rummaging through the assortment of pipe and scrap lumber in the corner for the short stepladder he was sure was still around somewhere.

"It wasn't a bike crash," a voice said. Nero whirled to find Julio standing a few paces behind him. "Was it?"

"No." Nero's eyes flicked to the door, but Julio had closed it behind him so the others wouldn't hear their conversation. At least he was keeping his promise to keep the others in the dark about everything Nero told him. "You think the rest of the kids believe me?"

"For now." Julio shoved his hands in his pockets. "So what really happened?"

Nero went back to searching. "You know how I said there were different kinds of demons? Some weak, and some strong?"

"Yeah. You said the ones on Fortuna were the weak kind."

"They usually are. But now there's a strong one."

Julio's eyes widened. "Did you kill it?"

"Not yet." Nero leaned back against a shelf. "Lady came here to help me hunt it down. Once she's patched up, we're gonna try to set a trap for it."

Concern washed over Julio's face. "Won't that be dangerous?"

"Probably." Nero shrugged. "But you don't need to worry about us. We're pros."

Julio glanced back toward the house, and though he said nothing, his meaning was clear: Despite Nero's assurances, Lady had still returned from the fight limping and covered in blood. Nero didn't need the reminder that professional did not equal invincible. Even Dante, who was the most invincible person he'd ever known, had been defeated at least once. Twice, if you counted both Urizen and the Nilepoch.

But there was no benefit to dwelling on that. "Can you help me find the stepladder?" he said instead.

"It's right there." Julio pointed to the far corner of the garage, where the object sat in plain view.

"Oh. Right." Nero retrieved the ladder and started to head back into the house.

Julio stopped him. "Nero…" Nero paused, and the boy's eyes dropped to his toes. "Isn't there someone else who could do it?"

Had it been anyone but Julio, Nero would have brushed the comment off with a joke about his own unparalleled skill. But Nero knew how Julio's mother had been killed, knew the boy had watched his father die, and above all, knew how terrified Julio was of losing another parent. Which, no matter how hard Nero tried to deny the title, meant himself and Kyrie.

Nero unfolded the stepladder and sat on the top step, then beckoned Julio closer. "I told you I wasn't going to lie to you," he said when they were eye-to-eye, "so here's the truth: Dante is one of the best hunters in the business. Maybe even the best. And my old man is right up there with him. But somehow, this demon—the one Lady and I are hunting—it got the best of them."

Julio chewed his lip. "So it's stronger than you."

"I didn't say that. I don't think it's stronger than any of us; I think it just caught them off-guard. Lady and I are going in forewarned." Not that it had given them any great advantage in the fight at the warehouse, though at least they'd emerged from the encounter alive and relatively intact. "But the thing is, even if it were stronger, it wouldn't matter. I have to be the one to hunt it down, because it… it took something from my father and uncle when it attacked them, and going after that demon is the only chance I have of helping them recover."

Julio nodded slowly. "I know you want your dad to get better," he murmured. "But…"

There was a long pause. "But?" Nero prompted.

The rest was scarcely above a whisper. "If something happened to you, I couldn't do anything to fix it."

Nero had no idea where that had come from. "I wouldn't expect you to. I'm not your responsibility, kiddo."

Julio toed the ground. "Because we're not really family," he mumbled.

"Because I'd never want you to be in any kind of danger. Because I don't mind risking my own life, but I sure as hell don't want you risking yours. Especially not for me."

"But your dad would want you to?"

Nero sighed. "That's different."

"How?"

Because it's my job. Because I'm not fully human. Because I'm strong enough to protect myself. Nero tried and rejected half a dozen responses. They were too trite, or too risky, or too complicated.

Because the father who barely speaks to me suddenly risked his own life to save mine. Because I can't let that go. Because I need to know why he did it, if he's ever cared about me, if we can have a relationship that doesn't revolve entirely around killing—

Or too close to the truth.

"I can't really explain it." Nero cringed inwardly even as he made the flimsy deflection. "But there's a lot more at stake here than my own safety. People are dying. This thing was killing on the mainland, it's killed here, and it's just gonna keep right on killing until we stop it." He put a hand on Julio's shoulder. "It's not just my father and my uncle I'm doing this for. It's for Kyrie, and you, and Carlo and Kyle and everyone else. I've lost too much to the demons already, and I'm not letting them take any more of my family." Nero tightened his grip at the last word, and Julio looked up with tentative hope in his eyes.

At that moment the door to the house opened and Kyrie leaned out. "What are you doing out here? The kids say you told them to wait for you, and then vanished." She hesitated as she took in the scene. "Is everything all right?"

"Yeah." Nero released Julio's shoulder. "Everything's fine. Julio was just helping me find the stepladder."

Kyrie's eyes flicked between them, but she didn't press. "Well, hurry and come inside. Everyone else is washed up and waiting to eat."

Once the children were settled in the kitchen, Nero carried his plate and Lady's into the living room. "Thanks," Lady said, struggling upright from where she'd been slumped at one end of the couch. "I could have gotten it myself, but Kyrie wouldn't let me."

"No point in using that arm any more than necessary. Or the leg, for that matter. How are you feeling?"

"Better, after a couple of painkillers. It looks worse than it is. Probably won't even scar." She gave a wry chuckle and traced a finger over a stark white mark on her right thigh. "Not that anyone would notice if it did. I have more than a few war wounds already."

Nero had always wondered more about the faint scar bisecting her face than any of the ones on the rest of her body, but it seemed rude to ask how she'd acquired it. "Let me set these down, and I'll get us something to drink. Can you clear a spot on the coffee table?"

"Oh, sure." Lady reached forward and began collecting several thick binders into a stack. "These aren't Order books. What are all these?"

"Oh, let me get those!" Kyrie hurried into the room and practically dove for the table, whisking the binders out of Lady's grasp. "I'm sorry, I've left a mess in here."

"Why do you have all the photo albums out?" Nero slid the plates of food onto the table once there was space for them. "I haven't seen those in years." Not since before Credo had died, at least; Kyrie had packed all the pictures away after Credo's funeral. Nero had always expected them to reappear some day, like the framed photo of her parents that sat on their dresser, but once they'd had a house full of foster children, they'd spent relatively little time looking toward the past.

Kyrie stacked the albums on the floor beside the table. "Someone from the alumni committee called while you were out. Apparently they're holding a memorial service for Tonio on Saturday, and they wanted to know if anyone had any photographs of him or clippings from the school newspaper they could display. The school lost most of its archives six years ago."

That wasn't surprising; what hadn't been crushed by the Savior's destruction had still been at risk from the fires and flooding that ran rampant in the days following the Order's collapse. "You find anything?"

"A couple of snapshots. Nothing worth displaying, really." Kyrie flipped open one of the books to where she'd left a page marker and turned it to face Nero. In a grainy photograph, a grinning crowd of boys in football uniforms clustered around a small trophy. At one end of the group, wearing a denim jacket and trying very hard to look disinterested, was a sixteen-year-old Nero.

Nero's stomach clenched a little at the image of the young, happy Tonio reveling in his team's victory. To cover the melancholy, he groaned. "Man, that hair. I don't know why you ever let me out of the house like that."

Kyrie giggled. "You insisted. You thought it was cool."

Lady swiveled the book toward herself. Her eyebrows arched at the shaggy mop on Nero's head. "Oh, my. That's certainly… a look."

"Yeah, well, nobody said I had taste when I was a kid."

"You and Dante," Lady mused. Nero turned a questioning look on her, and she tapped another photo that showed Nero's unkempt locks more clearly. "That's more or less the hairstyle he had when I met him."

Nero blinked. "Really?"

Lady nodded. "I'm pretty sure he cut it himself. Probably using his sword. Possibly while blindfolded."

Nero huffed a laugh. "Yeah, that kinda sounds like him. Probably too broke to afford a real haircut."

"Oh, I'm sure he also thought it looked cool. He had such an attitude back then." Lady shook her head at a memory. "He had this awful habit of running out half-dressed. He always claimed he was interrupted before he could put a shirt on, but I think he was really just hoping someone would compliment his abs. Especially if there were girls around. He would pose to show off, and everything. It was… embarrassing, frankly."

"Dante?" Nero gaped. "You're talking about the same can't-be-bothered-to-comb-his-hair, only-does-laundry-on-alternate-full-moons Dante? Went around striking muscle poses to impress women?"

"Like an honest-to-God gym rat." Lady laughed. "He grew out of it eventually. Trish was the one who really whipped him into shape. She'd call him on his nonsense, and he'd actually listen to her."

Nero's laugh was a little self-conscious. "Well, you hang around with smart women long enough, and that's bound to happen." He winked at Kyrie, who returned a good-natured eyeroll.

Lady turned a page to display a picture of Nero from a year later, capped by a much more flattering haircut. "Now that's more the look I remember. Though I don't recall you wearing a uniform when we met."

"Nah, I ditched the uniform as soon as I found a loophole in the regulations that said Holy Knights only had to wear the Order's crest in the execution of their regular duties. So I painted one on my jacket and called it good. Credo wasn't thrilled, but he couldn't argue with the manual."

"That picture was taken at Nero's induction ceremony," Kyrie supplied. "You did look very dashing in white, Nero."

Nero scowled. "I looked like a ghost. White hair, white clothes… It was a bit much."

"That's Credo, isn't it?" Lady tapped one of the figures standing beside Nero, resplendent in white and gold uniform.

Kyrie nodded, smiling wistfully. "He'd just been appointed Supreme General. He was so nervous about officiating."

"It's too bad I never got to meet him. I only ever saw him from a distance."

"Under the circumstances, I'm not sure you would have seen his best side," Nero said. "He was a little worked up, what with Dante assassinating his boss, and all."

"Can't say I blame him." Lady's finger slid to a man standing just behind Credo's shoulder, also in uniform. He was staring sternly at the camera. "And this one?"

Nero leaned over for a better look at the photo. "That's Lauda. Credo's lieutenant. You're definitely glad you didn't meet him."

"Hmm, I'm not sure I didn't. He looks familiar for some reason." Lady frowned. "Though I can't think when I would have. Trish dealt with all the Order personnel. I was mostly just cleaning up stray demons."

"You'd remember if you had." Under his breath, Nero added, "Total asshole."

Kyrie sighed. "He wasn't that bad, Nero. Just stricter than you liked."

"He hated my guts and always went out of his way to show it."

"Lauda was devoted to Credo," Kyrie explained to Lady. "And the Order. He… seemed to feel that Nero wasn't showing proper respect to either of them, and sometimes tried to rein him in a little."

"Which mostly took the form of getting me in trouble whenever he could." Nero frowned at the picture. "Wonder whatever became of him."

"He didn't attend the memorial we had for Credo, so he must have been injured or killed in the collapse. Credo meant so much to him, he wouldn't have missed it otherwise." Kyrie shook her head. "I probably should have tried to find out what happened to him, but with everything that we went through, and Credo… And we lost so many friends, then…"

"Don't feel guilty. You had more than enough on your plate," Nero assured her. He blinked at his own words and looked down at the table. "Oh. Hey, speaking of plates, we should probably get to ours before the food gets cold."

"Yes, you should. Enough of this depressing talk about the past." Kyrie took the album and set it atop the others. "Eat up! There's plenty more in the kitchen."