My breath hitched as my vision swam into focus.
Priya.
Her face was inches from mine, those sharp, analytical eyes studying me like I was a problem that needed solving. The same eyes that had looked at me in that servant's quarters and decided I should be the one to die.
"You're still alive?" Her eyebrows went up, and I swear there was disappointment in her voice. Like she'd been hoping I'd solve everyone's problems by just staying unconscious forever.
Fuck her.
"Get out of my face before I vomit on you," I said, and she pulled back quickly, hands raised.
I tried to push myself up, and the room tilted sideways. My arm screamed—that deep, wrong pain that went beyond torn muscle and shredded skin. And my chest. God, my chest felt like something was growing roots through my lungs, spreading with each breath.
"How long was I out?" I managed between coughs. Had to get oriented. Had to figure out what I'd missed. "An hour? A day?"
"Probably just twenty seconds, give or take." Priya's smile was smug, and I wanted to punch it off her face.
'Twenty seconds,' I thought as I struggled to stand. 'I had an entire existential crisis, talked to my dead sister's ghost, and confronted the fact that I voted to kill someone, all in twenty seconds. Very efficient use of unconscious time, Ethan. Gold star for you.'
The room came into focus as I leaned against the wall.
A billiards room. Of course. Because nightmare mansions apparently came with recreational facilities.
The table dominated the center—green felt, perfectly arranged balls, cue sticks resting in a rack like they were waiting for players who would never come. Leather armchairs sat in the corners, the kind that probably cost more than my dad's car. A small bar lined one wall, crystal decanters filled with liquids that were either centuries-old whiskey or extremely expired poison.
And above us, mounted on every available wall space, were the heads.
Deer. Bear. Elk. Birds I couldn't identify. Even a pure white polar bear head, its dead eyes tracking our movement. How the hell did hunters even get a polar bear in the middle of Calgary? Or wherever the hell this place was originally built?
I could picture it—middle-aged men in suits, smoking cigars, laughing about their kills while servants poured drinks. The room was built for celebration, for masculine triumph over nature.
Now it was just a tomb where traumatized college kids waited to die.
Diego and Zara sat in two of the armchairs, looking small and scared. Zara kept glancing at the door like something might burst through any second. Diego still had that brass candlestick clutched in one hand, knuckles white.
And in the corner, blindfolded and twitching, was Amara.
She sat with her knees pulled to her chest, her head jerking left and right in movements that were too mechanical, too precise. Her fingers drummed against her legs in patterns that made my skin crawl. Every few seconds her mouth would move, shaping words that never came out.
"Welcome back to the land of the living," a voice said, theatrical and pointed. "For now, at least."
Zadkiel.
He stood in front of the billiards table, hands in his pockets, bow tie perfectly straight. But something was different. The theatrical mask had cracks in it. Behind those round glasses, I could feel his gaze like weight, like pressure. He was angry. Barely contained, simmering fury that made the air feel heavier.
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I muttered, pressing my good hand against my forehead. The room spun. I tasted copper and swallowed hard, forcing the blood back down.
'Don't think about it. Don't think about how you've never been this sick in your life. Don't think about how your body is falling apart from the inside. Just focus. Just—'
"Now that we're all here," Zadkiel said, forcing false cheer into his voice. "Let's address the first elephant in the room."
The mask dropped completely. When he looked at me, I felt cold.
"You're dying, boy."
"Yeah, I noticed." I spat blood-tinged saliva onto the expensive floor. "The question is why. Is the house doing something to me?"
Zadkiel laughed—sharp and humorless. "If that were the case, all your friends would be dying with you. No, I think you know why this is happening."
I tried to lift my right arm. Even an inch sent white-hot agony shooting up to my shoulder. Zara's makeshift bandage was crusted with dried blood, stuck to the wounds.
"The claw marks," I said. "They're infected."
It was the only thing that made sense, even though something about it felt wrong.
"You're on the right path," Zadkiel said, his smile growing wider. Sharper. "But it's not your body that's infected."
He paused, and I swear the temperature dropped.
"It's your soul."
The words made something pulse in my chest—that wrongness responding to being named. I could feel it now that I knew what it was. Not pain exactly. More like awareness of something foreign taking root where it shouldn't be, spreading through places I didn't have names for.
"Wait, his soul?" Zara stood up, her voice tight with worry. "Isn't there medicine for that? Something we can—"
"Medicine fixes the body, not souls," Zadkiel interrupted. "Even if I had any, which I don't. His soul was corrupted when that fallen angel clawed him. Though I've never seen a fallen angel capable of corruption before, and I couldn't even identify which sin it embodied..."
He trailed off, looking genuinely puzzled for a moment. Then his theatrical mask snapped back into place.
"What does any of this even mean?" Priya stood up, frustration cracking through her usual composure. "Fallen angels, giant snakes with eyes grafted on them, you calling yourself some kind of—what was it? Fallen King of Jupiter?"
She gestured wildly at the room, at everything. "Why can't we escape this place? Why does a random mansion in the middle of nowhere trap people forever? And who the hell is Enoch?!"
Zadkiel's jaw tightened at "Fallen King of Jupiter," and something dangerous flashed behind his glasses. But his voice stayed level.
"So many questions, darling." He turned his back on her—a deliberate dismissal. "Let's start simple. Are you a Christian?"
The question seemed to come from nowhere. Priya blinked. "Uh, not really? My dad was, but I'm not particularly devout..."
"But you know the stories." Zadkiel glanced back over his shoulder. "The angels who fell from heaven. The ones who came down to sleep with the daughters of men."
"Yeah." Priya crossed her arms. "That's from Noah's ark, right? Before the flood?"
"Exactly." Zadkiel snapped his fingers. "Those were the first fallen angels. Fallen angels of lust, specifically. Ever since then, thousands of angels have descended from heaven to indulge in various sins with humanity. As angelic beings, they can take any human form." His smile was cold. "So beware. Anyone could be one."
'Maybe you should have mentioned that before Kai got his head ripped off,' I thought bitterly. But there was no point saying it. Kai was gone. We couldn't have known that kind, innocent-looking woman would turn into a nightmare with too many teeth.
We couldn't have known.
'But you froze anyway. You just stood there while she opened her mouth and—'
"Stop," I whispered to myself, then louder: "What about Amara?"
"Ah, yes." Zadkiel gestured to her twitching form. "The second elephant in the room.