“My dad complained to the town council. He said it was only a matter of time before somebody got hurt bad, but oh no, they said they didn’t have the budget to deal with animal control . . . I guess that really pissed my dad off, because he drove to a city a few counties over, went to the pound, and picked out the biggest, most vicious dog he could find. I’m talking nasty mean. They’d pulled it out of a fighting ring where they’d been beating it with bloody ropes, that sort of thing. That dog was a real piece of work. I don’t know who he bribed to keep them from putting that monster down.”

Stricken surveyed his kingdom. It was very silent. The few smiles had died. He kept his voice cold and hard. “So my dad snuck this god-awful beast over to the elementary school and let it loose right before recess . . . One little boy got mauled and had to get reconstructive surgery for his face. Sure . . . Dad was kind of an asshole like that, but you know what? After that very public incident the town council found their balls and their budget. The rest of those wild dogs got taken care of right quick and the town was safe.”

The command center was very quiet.

Franks was dangerous on the loose, but that danger would make for a great selling point for his next pitch to the POTUS. After all, it was Stricken who had warned everyone about Franks’ volatile nature, while his rival Myers had gone to bat for the freak. So a murderous Franks rampaging across the capital was actually a good thing . . . briefly.

“Call up the Flierls. Mad dogs can be useful sometimes, but you’ve still got to put them down.”

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 6

This new empty body was so miraculous that it attracted my kind like flies. We’d never seen anything like it before. Necromancers and wizards had been creating bodies for a long time, but none of them had been very good, worthy only for lesser demons. The weaklings like the succubi and the imps had found ways, but there was rarely a body fit for a warrior or a prince to be found.

In their attempt to figure out the mysteries, humans had created a new trade, a blend of scientist and wizard they called alchemists. The greatest among them was Johann Konrad Dippel. He had invented a potent formula called the Elixir of Life, except every attempt to utilize its healing powers upon the living ended in death. So he decided to work backwards, using the dead to test his potions. Dippel believed only a perfect body could utilize his perfect Elixir. He became a sculptor of flesh and bone. He was an artist, and his masterpiece was a body like nothing any of the Fallen had seen before.