Sariel's strike team reached the northern staging area first.

The abandoned factory complex should have been crawling with angelic scouts. Gabriel's intelligence had shown three hundred angels gathering here—weapons caches, supply chains, command structures preparing for the assault three days out.

Instead, they found empty buildings and silence.

"This is wrong," Sariel said, wings spread as she hovered above the courtyard. Her oath-mark burned beneath her skin, responding to danger she ...