A whisper of leather behind him, but he didn’t turn. Tanith Low was quiet when she did her patrol of this little house in this little ghost estate. Were he to glance out of that window, he’d see a dozen identical houses to this one, but all hollow and empty. Years back, they were set to be sold to the affluent Irish and the lucky immigrants who came here for a better life. Then the money went away and immigrants sought better lives elsewhere, took a good chunk of the Irish with them.

Sanguine was tired of Ireland. It was coming to the tail end of winter, but the winds were still bitter and the rain was still mean. He wanted to go home, back to the heat of East Texas. He was sick of living the life of an outlaw. He wanted to sit on the porch in the evenings and not have to worry about the world ending, or how to play his part in it.

He watched Tanith slip out of the window and walk up the outside wall towards the roof. She had binoculars up there she could use to sweep the full 360. She hadn’t said much since they’d arrived here, and she barely slept. The Remnant inside her kept her going, kept her strong and alert. Sometimes he’d catch her looking at him and wonder if today was the day she’d kill him.

Because she had to kill him. He knew that much.

Darquesse, that god-in-a-girl’s-body that had once been known as Valkyrie Cain, was the Remnant’s messiah, destined to decimate the earth and reduce civilisation to cinders for some reason yet to be discovered. When Darquesse had asked Tanith to look after her while she “hibernated” – her words – Tanith had been overjoyed. Sanguine had tagged along, of course he had. Tanith was his fiancée, after all. He loved her. But no matter how much he loved Tanith, Darquesse had never been his messiah, and he had no wish to see the world burn.

Tanith knew that, given enough time, he’d go on to do something drastic to avert that apocalypse, and the only reason she hadn’t killed him yet was because she obviously didn’t think he’d be up to it. But even now there was a dagger tucked into his belt, one of four God-Killer weapons he’d hidden away from her that were more than capable of ending this god-girl’s life. He’d heard what Darquesse could do. He’d heard her head had once been pulled off, and she’d put herself back together in those last few moments before brain death.