Every living person we passed paused to stare at Nero. He was a celebrity around these parts, the only angel in all of New York. Most people were enamored with angels, but the police knew better. They were obviously more scared than in awe of him. They’d probably dealt with the Legion often enough to realize the truth: angels were cold, vicious, and even more deadly than they were beautiful. I should really remind myself of that the next time I daydreamed about Nero.

“Detective,” Nero said as he stopped in front of a man in a dark suit.

The rest of us stood behind Nero, his silent backup. Truth be told, we were really kind of superfluous next to an angel, but I had a feeling we were here to learn more than to actually do anything. As we stood there, I tried to keep my eyes hard, my body still, and my mouth shut. It was a battle against everything that I was.

“We weren’t expecting you, Colonel,” the detective said. He didn’t look very happy about our arrival—ok, Nero’s arrival. His wary eyes never flickered away from our fearless leader.

“Tell me what happened here,” Nero said.

The Legion didn’t make requests. They gave orders. And if you didn’t obey those orders, there was no power on Earth that could save you. So while the detective bristled at the power behind Nero’s command, he complied.

“The victims are all vampires, and they were poisoned,” he said.

I hadn’t even known you could poison a vampire.

“From what we can tell, someone tampered with the magic steam system used for heating and cooling the building,” the detective continued. “They distributed the poison in the air. All eighty-two people died instantly. We’re bringing the evidence back to the station for analysis.”

“No, you’re not,” Nero said. “This is a Legion matter now. You will hand over all evidence to us, and your people will leave immediately. This whole building is being put under magic quarantine.”

The detective opened his mouth to protest, then he snapped it shut. Obviously he’d thought better of arguing with an angel. “Tell everyone to pull out of the building,” he told a police officer. “And to give all samples they’ve collected to the Colonel’s team.”

Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing. One of the forensics people, a woman with a high ponytail, handed me a small sealed plastic bag with white residue inside.

As I tucked the bag into the pocket of my pants, Nero turned to us and said, “Load the bodies into the truck.”

But before we could move, an explosion rocked the building. The walls burst apart, pommeling us with rocky shards. Flames raged behind the broken walls, and they were spreading fast. Nero dashed toward the fire, using his magic to hold back the flames. But it wasn’t enough. As more walls collapsed around us, the whole building groaned in pitiful protest.

Everyone ran for the exit, but we were four floors up. The stairwell had collapsed, and the fire escape was behind a curtain of flames. A second explosion shook the building. Wooden beams fell into our path, the wood engorged with crackling flames. The floor beneath our feet split. Holes opened up, one of them as large as a sofa.

“Over there!” I shouted to the panicking crowd. “Line up in front of the hole.” I looked at Jace and Mina. “Jump down and catch the people I throw to you.”

Mina rolled her eyes at being ordered around, but both she and Jace jumped down. I began picking up people, tossing them down. Jace and Mina caught them and pushed them toward the fire escape. When the last human was safely off this crumbling floor, I jumped down. Nero was still battling the flames up above, but I couldn’t stop to worry about him. He was an angel and could take care of himself. The rest of us didn’t have elemental magic to protect us from the fire. We had to get out of here.

But another explosion quaked the building. We zigzagged between the burning posts that fell all around us. It seemed Captain Somerset had been right after all. Practicing those obstacle courses again and again had come in handy.

The police had already made it through the fire exit, and the three of us headed there now. We ran, our feet so fast they barely touched the ground. Even so, the floor was crackling under the weight. With an ominous crunch, it split apart beneath our feet, swallowing us whole. We fell two floors. I rolled out of my landing and so did Mina, but Jace fell onto a burning wood post and hit his head. Fire raged all around his still body. Mina gaped in shock, pulling back from the flames. I pushed past her, slipping off my jacket. I leapt at Jace and hit him with my jacket to put out the flames on his body. Then I swung him over my shoulder and jumped over the fire again. Thank goodness for vampire strength. Back when I’d been a regular human, I never would have been able to lift him, let alone jump so high while carrying him.

I punched Mina in the arm to snap her out of her shocked state. We hurried outside onto the fire escape, running down the shaking metal steps to the ground. As soon as we were at a safe distance from the burning building, I set Jace down on the sidewalk. He’d recovered consciousness and was coughing up a storm, but besides that and some blistered skin, he appeared to be fine. I tossed him a healing potion, then stood up to stare at the building.

Nero had been inside for a long time. He might have been powerful, but even angels could be blown apart by explosives. I was just about to run back inside to look for him when he burst through a window. His wings were extended, the shimmering feathers a devastatingly beautiful mix of blue, green, and black feathers. He flew over the building, his wings beating in a steady rhythm as he blasted magic at the raging fire, trying to contain it before it spread further. It was mesmerizing to watch—his power against that of the raging wildfire. That was no mundane fire. Someone must have enchanted the flames. They were spreading too quickly, too mercilessly.