March 5, 1969, 06:00. 28 Kilometers NW of Da Nang, Vietnam.

The sun crawled above the South China Sea, spilling light over the beach. The jungle spit them out—ten sweaty, panic-stricken men, dragging exhaustion and death behind them. Some soldiers already lay buried in the sand, their graves shallow and hastily marked. The rest had been clinging to life here for days since the Tet Offensive left their Naval Support boat a smoldering wreck, forcing them ashore and into hell.

Sergeant Robert Edwards scanned the haggard crew, sweat dripping into his eyes. “McGill’s missing! Where’s John?”

“He was right behind us—” one of the men wheezed, slumping against Private Harris. Blood oozed from the mangled remnants of his leg, barely held together by tattered, blood-soaked trousers.

Harris lowered him gently to the ground, jaw tight.

Edwards didn’t hesitate. “I’m going back to find him.”

“Sarge, I’m coming with you,” another soldier said, snapping the clip into his M-60.

“No. You lead the rest to Da Nang. Get them to safety. Stay under the canopy, but keep the beach in view. John and I will catch up.”

“You can’t go back alone!” the man hissed, crossing his eyes and twirling a finger next to his head. “You’re boocoo dinky dow if you do! If Charlie hasn’t got him yet, they’ll sure as fuck get you. That camp’s a goddamn meat grinder.”

Edwards shot him a sharp glare. “It was John’s plan that got you lot out of there. I’m not leaving him.”

“Then let us help repay the favor,” Harris said quietly, voice taut with resolve.

Edwards hesitated, his gut twisting. “Fine. Lang, Fisher, take the others to Da Nang. Harris, Allison—you’re with me.”

The men exchanged ammo silently, each movement heavy with unspoken understanding. Harris passed his wounded buddy off to Lang, who murmured reassurances while wrapping fresh gauze over the bloody stump.

The jungle swallowed the three of them whole. The air pressed down thick and wet, buzzing with insects and the constant, low hum of danger. Every step felt too loud. Every breath too sharp.

After half an hour, Harris whistled low and made a clicking sound with his tongue.

“What is it?” Edwards barked, crouching beside him.

“Allison found him. McGill’s about fifty yards ahead—alive.” Harris wiped his brow beneath his helmet, his fingers trembling.

“Let’s go,” Edwards snarled.

They found Allison kneeling in front of McGill. The man stood frozen mid-step, sweat soaking his fatigues, his eyes darting wildly.

“Damn it, Eddie. Get the fuck out of here,” McGill croaked, voice hoarse.

“Good to see you too, Cuddy,” Edwards muttered, crouching beside Allison. “What’s the status?”

Allison gestured grimly. “MD-82 mine, sir. Same as the one that took Billy’s leg. But this one’s rigged with a ChiCom claymore underneath.”

“Jesus fuck,” Edwards muttered, the words almost a growl. He turned to McGill. “This is gonna hurt, brother.”

McGill’s voice shook, but his eyes didn’t waver. “Get out of here, Bob. The blast radius on this thing will shred anyone within thirty feet. If it’s modified, who knows how stable it is.”

“Not leaving you,” Edwards snapped. “Allison, Harris, you’ve done your part. Go join the others. I’ll handle this.”

“But, sir—”

“It’s an order, Harris!” Edwards barked, his voice slicing through the tension. “If we all stay, we all die. If it’s just me, then no big loss.  You and Allison aren’t even twenty yet. Now get the fuck out!”

Harris’s jaw clenched, but he nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Allison hesitated, his lip quivering. “Thanks for everything, QM,” he whispered.

“Get moving, Jimmy,” McGill said quietly. “And take care.”

When they were gone, Edwards crouched lower, eyes locked on the mine. “All right, John. Talk me through this.”

“I can’t without seeing it. Bob, I’m telling you, walk away.”

Edwards snorted. “Yeah, no. You can court-martial me later. What am I looking at here?”

McGill exhaled sharply, the sound almost a laugh. “If it didn’t blow when I stepped on it, something’s wrong. Safety clip slot’s already dropped.”

“So, pin the plunger down without moving your foot?”

“That’s a start.”

Edwards’ fingers worked quickly, sweat stinging his eyes. The jungle seemed to hold its breath around them.

“Can I cut the detonation wire?”

“Please don’t.”

“What if I—” Edwards stopped mid-sentence.

Pop-pop-pop.

AK-47 fire shattered the stillness. Bark splintered off a tree inches from their heads. Edwards whipped around, rifle raised.

“Fuck, John! You said it’s defective—let’s move!”

“You pin it?”

“Yeah—”

The gunfire roared again. Something slammed into Edwards’ arm, spinning him to the ground. Pain seared through him. He fumbled for a grenade, teeth clenched, pulled the pin, and lobbed it toward the advancing shadows.

“Are you fucking ready?”

“Goddamn it!” McGill snapped, his voice raw.

Edwards surged to his feet, grabbing McGill’s arm to pull him forward.

Pop-pop-crack.

McGill jerked, a strangled cry escaping his lips as he fell forward.

“Shit—get up!” Edwards shouted, trying to lift him.

But McGill didn’t rise.

The ground erupted beneath them. Heat, shrapnel, and blood tore through the air, swallowing the jungle in chaos.

Chapter 1

From this height, the world curved below Suzi, a breathtaking reminder of its enormity. The Earth, a speck in the endless expanse of the universe, seemed so distant and insignificant. Yet here she was, plummeting toward it with terrifying speed, the pull of gravity relentless.

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The air screamed past her, tearing at her lungs and stealing her breath. Panic clawed at her chest as she fought to inhale, each gasp a futile struggle against the rushing wind. Her heart pounded frantically, as if trying to beat its way free from her ribcage. Tears blurred her vision, stinging her eyes as they froze against her cheeks. Her pink and blonde hair whipped wildly, lashing her face, her screams drowned by the deafening roar of her descent.

Her limbs flailed instinctively, desperate to grasp something—anything—to slow her fall. She was a flailing marionette, her strings cut, tumbling toward the earth at terminal velocity.

Suzi knew she was about to die.

“How high do you think we’ll bounce?” Spike’s voice drawled within her head, dark and sardonic, slicing through her panic like a blade.

Guillermo stirred, her crowded superconscious mind, coming alive as the other facets of her fractured psyche chimed in.

“This would be a hell of a trip if we were high right now,” Annie giggled, her voice a mix of delight and detachment.

Judith, ever the academic, added with clipped precision, “For once, I agree with Annie. I'd prefer hallucinogenic oblivion over this impending mess.”

“Another top ruined!” James wailed, his flamboyance unshaken by their dire predicament.

“Focus,” Suzi snapped inwardly, her voice sharper than the cutting wind.

But even she couldn’t stop the hateful Judy from snarling, “Whose fault is this, anyway?”

“Judas,” J, the firewall, declared, a protective edge in her tone. “We were fine before she came along.”

Judas didn’t respond, but Suzi felt her warrior aspect bristle.

Ralph, ever the peacekeeper, murmured, “No one is to blame.”

Logic finally broke through the cacophony, dissecting the chaos with cold precision. How did I get here? The thought pierced through her terror. Why don’t I have a parachute? Will my loved ones know what they meant to me?

The ground loomed closer, its details sharpening—rolling hills, jagged trees, the cold, unyielding surface that would end her. To the east, the vastness of Lake Michigan shimmered, indifferent. To the south, Chicago sprawled, its skyline cutting into the horizon, and Minnesota's snow-covered fields and frozen lakes to the north.

Her chest tightened as her breath caught, her body trembling against the cold slicing through her thin clothes. Tears froze in her hair, a cruel testament to her helplessness. She stopped floundering and let herself glide towards the inevitable impact of her body and the place in the ground where there was about to be a Suzi-shaped indention.  She shut her eyes, surrendering to the inevitable, and thought of Aiden.

Aiden. Her husband. The man she loved. The man she had hurt. The father of her children. His face filled her mind—a bittersweet anchor as she hurtled toward oblivion. She had left him behind, chasing a new life in a city that embraced her eccentricities. And because of her choices, he had suffered—beaten nearly to death, left in a coma because of her.

“We never told him,” Suzanne whispered, her voice tinged with guilt.

Suzi bit back a sob. She wanted to open her eyes, to face her fate, but terror kept them shut. She would wait—for the impact, for the pain.  She would wait for the sudden deceleration energy to vaporize her internal organs and shatter every bone in her body like glass against the unforgiving ground.

Then it hit her—pressure on her chest, gentle at first, then heavier. Wetness on her face. A smell, familiar and jarring. She opened her eyes to find Ygritte, her white Staffordshire Terrier Pitbull, licking her face, her tail wagging with urgency.

The nightmare dissolved as Suzi bolted upright in bed, drenched in sweat. The early morning sun seeped through the edges of her curtains, a cold reminder of reality. Ygritte pranced in circles, whining to be let outside.

Suzi groaned, dragging herself into the freezing winter air as her dog bounded through the snow. The chill bit at her sweat-drenched skin, but it wasn’t enough to shake the lingering fear. She was a celestial now—a reluctant warrior in the eternal battle between Heaven and Hell. But standing barefoot in the snow, nipples frozen and breath fogging, waiting for her dog to take a piss, she felt anything but divine.

Three days had passed since her encounter with the demons Rotic’al and Bortis. Three days since she had bartered her angel Kariel’s humanity for Tom’s life. Three days since Kariel was sent to serve a hundred-year sentence as a human for her portion of the favor.  Three days and Suzi was still unsure what her portion of the payment would be, although her new guiding angel, Lahabiel—whom Suzi was sure hated her—said that payment had already been taken.

And three days since her nightmares began, haunting her with the memory of falling.

Suzi stood in the bathroom, her reflection catching her off guard yet again. Two weeks as a celestial, and she still wasn’t used to it. The face staring back at her wasn’t hers—or at least, not the version of her she remembered. She tilted her head, tracing her gaze over her smooth skin, flawless like some fucking airbrushed magazine model. No crow’s feet, no sunspots, no scars. Even the gaping hole in her wrist from a few days ago? Like it never fucking happened.

Her body looked like it belonged to someone else. Someone in their twenties. Someone untouched by kids, late-night stress, and too many margaritas. Suzi wasn’t sure if she should feel flattered or violated by the transformation. She touched her face, her fingers trailing down to her neck. It wasn’t just her appearance that had changed—everything about her felt different. Lighter, stronger. Like a tightly coiled spring waiting to snap.

But it was the power that fucked with her head the most. The raw energy coursing through her veins, begging to be unleashed. She hadn’t asked for this celestial shit—didn’t want it. Yet here she was, standing naked in the mirror, an unrecognizable goddess staring back at her. She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.

Her stomach churned as her mind drifted back to Bortis. That bastard. She could still feel the oppressive weight of him, the stink of his rage and hate clinging to her even now. Binding demons was supposed to be empowering, but it felt like playing with fire. Rotic’al was safely trapped in Father Gil’s St. Joseph pendant, and Malphas remained locked in Rogziel’s Blade—thank God for that—but Bortis? Fucking Bortis had slipped through her fingers like a bad dream.

The aquamation bath was supposed to purify him, dissolve him into nothingness. Instead, the girl’s body, his vessel, had melted away, leaving Bortis to slither back to Hell like the slimy, rage-filled cockroach he was. She could almost hear his guttural laugh, mocking her from the shadows of her mind. And that fucking nightmare—the falling one—kept coming back, night after night, leaving her gasping and drenched in sweat. She’d bound him, but the bastard wasn’t done with her.

She clenched her fists against the porcelain sink, the cold biting into her palms. “Focus, Suzi. You’ve got shit to do,” she muttered, forcing herself upright.

The past couple of days had been a blur of hospital visits and work. Aiden still clung to life in the ICU, quarantined and unreachable except through the layers of glass that separated him from the world. Every day, she stood there, her breath fogging up the window, willing him to wake up. Then it was off to teach Gracie Jo the intricacies of the Bachman-McCord Reconstruction Process—work that she hoped the patent office would hurry the fuck up and approve already.

The memory of Monday’s chaos flashed through her mind—her visit to the patent lawyer, followed by hammering out the partnership with Nick for the Jatha Washington Foundation. That man had given her a look that could strip paint, still pissed about her little tussle with a grieving family member earlier in the week.  An action that should have cost her career, but at least Nick had begrudgingly admitted that her work was indispensable.

The mirror’s surface blurred as her thoughts wandered to Devin Bowers. His reconstructed face had been a turning point—not just for her work but for her soul. The man’s father, Don, had been so moved that he’d taken to representing her pro bono with the patent offices. And the donation he’d made to the foundation? It was a fucking game-changer.

She sighed, stepping back from the mirror. There was no time to dwell. Routine was the only thing keeping her grounded right now—wake up, visit Aiden, work, teach Gracie, maybe sneak in a visit to the nursing homes, then back to the hospital before visiting hours ended. Repeat. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was hers.

“Flaunt it, darling,” James purred in her mind, ever the cheerleader.

She shook her head and focused. Today was not routine. Meetings with the McGillicuddy family loomed, along with apologies for the black eye she’d delivered to Mr. McGillicuddy’s daughter. “I’m sorry you’re such a bitch,” Suzi muttered dryly to herself, playing her options in her head.

Before leaving, she summoned Miraleth’s Pellet, the golden orb appearing in her hand. “Any luck finding Dr. Adamson?” she asked.

Miraleth’s voice echoed softly. “Not yet, Demon Reaper. If he’s celestial, he can change his appearance. There is also the chance he has blocked himself from being tracked.  Your best bet would be to ask Lahabiel.”

“Yeah, I don’t think that is going to happen.  He hates me,” Suzi replied.

“Hate is a strong word…” Miraleth began.

Suzi interrupted, “He strongly dislikes me then.  He doesn’t trust me.  I get that.  I need to find Dr. Adamson to help understand my role and what I’ve gotten into.”

“I understand, Demon Reaper.  I’ll keep looking and see if I can expand my search parameters. However, I can search better when the pellet is not absorbed.  Would you mind?”

“No problem.  I’ll leave you—er, it here.   Thank you.  And, Miraleth?”

“Yes, child?”

“You don’t have to call me Demon Reaper.  Suzi is fine.”

Suzi sighed, placing the orb on her kitchen counter. It morphed into its cannonball form, the bolt-pattern make rising, adding intricacy to its surface, as she grabbed Aiden’s truck keys.

Driving his truck felt like holding onto a piece of him—a fragile tether to the life they’d shared.

At the hospital, Suzi pressed her forehead against the window of Aiden’s room, willing her vision through the plastic barriers enshrouding his bed and obscuring her vision.  This, unfortunately, was not an ability she had, but a girl can dream.

“Good news,” the nurse said with a smile. “No signs of infection. We’re moving him out of quarantine today.”

Tears blurred Suzi’s vision again, but this time, they carried hope. She knew that even sedated, she would be able to touch him and be able to communicate with him as she had before by bringing him into her mind—into Guillermo.

She nodded, her voice trembling. “Thank you. That’s the best news I’ve had in days.”