“Yeah,” came the curt response. Keeping his wings back, Dez knelt and checked the man’s pulse. “He’s dead.”

I really didn’t think that needed to be confirmed.

“This doesn’t mean it was Zayne,” Dez said before I could even voice my fear. He lifted his head toward me. “Some demons can change their appearance. You know this.”

I did. “But why would a demon change their appearance and give themselves angel wings?”

“Because they’re messed up like that? Fool someone into believing they’re seeing an angel when in reality they’re seeing a nightmare come to life,” he answered. “Let me see if I can figure out who this poor soul is.”

Looking around while Dez gently turned the guy on the side and went for a wallet, I took a deep breath and held it. My eyes burned. So did my nose and my throat. I wasn’t going to cry. Nope. Crying solved nothing. Dez could be right. A demon could’ve done this. It didn’t have to mean it was Zayne.

Because if it was, and Zayne had already taken a life, then was he already—

The air behind Dez rippled.

I cocked my head to the side. It could be my eyes. They were exhausted.

A moment later I knew it wasn’t my eyes.

The sudden awareness of a demon—a very powerful demon—hit me as static charged the atmosphere.

“Dez! Incoming!” I shouted, already moving. I leaped over the body, putting myself between the portal and Dez. The air stirred around me as Dez rose, spinning around.

A hot, fetid wind blew my hair back from my face as a huge, hulking form took shape in the space in front of me. For a moment, I thought it was a Hellion or Nightcrawler, and while those two things wouldn’t be something anyone should be glad to see, I was. I felt an answering pulse of grace. It tangled with all the anger and the desperation, and erupted into a need for violence.

But the second the demon took complete form, I knew it wasn’t a Hellion or Nightcrawler. The demon was something I’d never seen before.

Its skin was milky white and the body hairless. The bullet-shaped head was...well, it consisted of one crimson red eye, two quarter-size holes I guessed were a nose and one giant, round mouth full of rows of tiny shark teeth.

It looked like a giant worm—a giant, muscular worm with two arms and two legs.

“What in the world is this?” I asked.

“A Ghoul,” Dez snarled. “Flesh eaters. They also like to eat souls. Definitely forbidden to be topside. First one I’ve seen in real life.”

My gaze dropped, and I wanted to bleach my eyeballs. “And why are demons always naked?”

The Ghoul opened its mouth and garbled grunts and high-pitched squeals came out.