by Larissa Ione
Harvester’s head spun in sickeningly slow circles. Eventually Gethel pulled the goblet away, letting Harvester bleed into a gutter on the floor. Not that bleeding on the floor was anything new.
Gethel squatted next to Harvester and put the cup to her lips. “Lucifer will feed from you himself when he’s born, but you can nourish him now, as well. With every swallow, tremors will rock Heaven. You are both so very connected.”
Crazy bitch. The only person Harvester was connected to was Yenrieth, and that hadn’t turned out so well.
“Give me your hand.”
Verrine didn’t hesitate, even though she had no idea what Yenrieth was doing with a ceremonial blade. She trusted him, and she especially liked it when he touched her.
Very gently, he turned her hand over, palm up, and put the tip of the silver knife to the skin under her thumb.
“I’m going to connect us forever,” he said, and she jerked.
“That’s forbidden,” she said in a gasp. “Only mated battle angels can do that.”
“I’m a battle angel.”
“But I’m not. And we aren’t mated.” Not that she wouldn’t mate him if he asked. But right now he was proposing something very much against the rules. Heart racing, she yanked her hand away. “We’ll be punished.”
“Not if we don’t tell anyone.” He put the blade to his palm and drew a slow, shallow cut from the base of his pinky to the heel of his thumb. “We have to do this. I can’t explain why. I just know that someday it’s going to make sense.”
Verrine’s gut churned. Yenrieth had always known things, and he’d always been right, so she didn’t question his intentions or his reasoning. But this was a substantial angelic offense. Not to mention that it would create a permanent link between them, and given that angels were immortal, it wasn’t an act to be taken lightly. Not even if you’d loved the person asking you to link since the first day of Demon Hunting Basics class.
And yet, she held out her hand. Allowed him to slice her palm the way he’d cut his. The pain was fleeting, gone the moment he twined his fingers with hers. Their blood ran together, and Verrine was lost in a moment of bliss so pure that all she could do was moan with the glory of it.
“We’re linked,” he whispered. “We’ll forever be able to find each other, no matter where in the universe we are.”
He’d been wrong. On the day he disappeared from Heaven and memories, she lost the ability to feel him. It was as if he’d never existed. She’d searched for him for years, had made a nuisance of herself by questioning everyone she thought might have answers, but she’d come up empty. Not even the archangels had offered up any explanations.
She supposed the fact that no one remembered Yenrieth could explain why, but someone had to know something. Only after she’d lost her wings and gone to Sheoul had she given up the search, but that didn’t mean she didn’t sometimes wonder what had happened to him.
Gethel drained the goblet, and Harvester swore that an aura of power pulsed around her now, as oily and dark as a puddle of tar poison in Sheoul’s Boneyard region. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and sighed contentedly.
“I’ll see you at supper,” Gethel said, all cheery. Harvester hoped Gethel was experiencing morning sickness. All day long.
Gethel slipped away as Venom tugged on the chain connected to Harvester’s ankles, and she slid off the bottom block, taking another layer of skin from her body. The pain kept her from feeling the landing on the floor, at least.
Harvester felt herself being dragged over uneven, rocky ground, and as her body thawed, her agony jacked higher.
For the ten millionth time, she replayed the moment, thousands of years ago, when she’d stood before three archangels and said, “I want you to kick me out of Heaven so I can infiltrate Sheoul as a spy and earn my way to being the Horsemen’s Watcher. I can work to subvert the Daemonica’s version of the Apocalypse.”
The archangels had laughed until they realized she was serious. Raphael had thrown a full-blown angel tantrum that humans felt as a dust storm that swept across the Holy Land. And then Metatron and Uriel had joined in to try to talk her out of it, even as they agreed that if her plan worked, it would be the greatest Heavenly coup in history. If she failed, she’d suffer like no angel ever had.
Turned out that she’d succeeded… but she was still suffering like no angel ever had.
“The Dark Lord will break you tonight.” Venom dropped the chain and crouched next to her to grip her face in his scaly hands. “You will tell him how much Heaven knew about your actionsss.”
“Nothing,” she croaked. “I swear.” The lie came easily, which was, no doubt, why Satan didn’t believe her. Thousands of years of living in Sheoul had chipped away at the angel she once was and had made many things simple. Lying. Destroying. Killing.
All she’d ever wanted was to be good, so it was ironic that in order to do good, she’d had to become bad. She’d had to make everyone she cared about hate her. She’d had to lose everything, from her self-respect to her wings to her dreams of having friends and a family with Yenrieth, the only person she’d ever loved.
The only thing she had left was knowledge, and that was something she would hang onto until her last breath.
Life as she’d known it was over, but she could still do good. All she had to do was keep her mouth shut while enduring an eternity of torture.
Three
Reaver was about to rush in where angels feared to tread. “I guess that really does make me a—”
“Fucking idiot.”
Reaver stared at Eidolon, Underworld General Hospital’s head doctor. “I prefer ‘fool.’ Also, only a fucking idiot would call an angel a fucking idiot.”
The demon doctor stared back, his dark eyes glittering with gold flecks. “A fool would merely consider entering hell without a plan. Only a fucking idiot would seriously intend to saunter into the Prince of Evil’s living room in the very center of hell to kidnap his little girl. Against orders. And without a plan.”
Harvester wasn’t a little girl, but the doctor had a point. Reaver had done a lot of insane, stupid things in his thousands of years of life, had broken more rules than he could count. But disobeying the archangels to rescue a fallen angel who happened to be Satan’s daughter was worse than all the other broken rules combined.
Well, impregnating Lilith, queen of the succubi, and fathering the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse five thousand years ago was right up there. He was still being punished for that.
If Reaver pulled off this newest stunt, he’d be lucky if he lost only his wings. And that was assuming he survived to lose his wings in the first place.
“I have a plan,” he muttered.
Eidolon parked a tray of surgical tools next to the exam table Reaver was sitting on inside the makeshift tent room in Underworld General’s parking lot. As an angel, Reaver couldn’t enter the hospital, so it was fortunate for him that the tent had been set up to handle the recent increase in patient volume.
“And your plan is?” Eidolon prompted.
“Ah… it mostly involves sneaking in and sneaking out.”
Wraith, Eidolon’s blond, blue-eyed brother, snorted. “Because you’re so subtle.” Reaver couldn’t believe those words had come out of Wraith’s mouth. Wraith, who was as subtle as a plane crash. Mr. Subtle pushed off the tent support he’d been leaning against. “So what’s in it for you?”
“I’ll have the personal satisfaction of knowing that if everything goes well, I’ll be preventing a Heavenly catastrophe.”
Wraith nailed him with his shrewd gaze, and Reaver knew instantly that the demon didn’t buy his reason for what he was planning.
But Mr. Subtle was also Mr. Contrary, and instead of calling Reaver out, he shrugged. “I’ll go with you.”
“As much as I’d appreciate your help, everyone in the underworld knows who you are.” Reaver cocked an eyebrow at the Seminus demon, a rare species of incubus that were human in appearanc
e. “You’re a beacon for trouble.”
“Hey.” Wraith had a particular talent for playing wounded. “I saved the world. And I helped save it, like, a million times.”
“I love how he makes it sound like the rest of us sat around and drank beer while he was saving the planet.” Eidolon crossed his thick arms over his chest. On his right arm, his dermoire, a tattoo-like tapestry of paternal history every Seminus demon bore, blended in with his black scrubs.
“Do the Horsemen know about your dumbass nonplan?” Wraith asked, and Reaver stiffened.
“No.” He shot each of them a meaningful stare. Sin, the demon brothers’ only sister, rolled her dark eyes. “And I’m trusting you to not tell them.”
As expected, Eidolon gave a respectful, if reluctant, nod, and so did Sin, but Wraith could never make things easy.
“Why not?” he asked. “They’re the most powerful beings on Earth. And you’re their daddy. They’re going to want to help.”
“That’s why they can’t know,” Reaver said. “If they know what I’m planning, they’re going to either try to stop me or try to help me. Either way, there’s no force on Earth that can stop them once they get something into their collective heads. But there are forces in Heaven that can. And those forces will do whatever it takes to stop them from springing Harvester, including hurting their mates and children.”
Besides, they’d been through enough in the last few years. It was time for them to enjoy their lives with their new families.
“Then let us help,” Sin said. “Wraith has a neon arrow pointing to his little pin head, but your Heavenly bullies won’t recognize the rest of us.”
“You’d be surprised. But no, I won’t put any of you at risk.” He held up a hand to stop Wraith from saying what Reaver knew he was going to say. “I know your charm will keep you safe from most dangers in Sheoul, but if word gets out that any of you helped me, Underworld General itself will be a target for Satan’s minions.”
“I hate to tell you this,” Eidolon said as he gloved up, “but what I’m doing now is helping you. Strip.”
Reaver unbuttoned his shirt. “You know what I mean.”
Eidolon gestured to Wraith, who tossed him a glass vial. The tiny objects inside clinked as the container met Eidolon’s palm.
“I had to kill three lashers for those, so treat them well.”
“Three?” Reaver asked. “I only needed two lasher thyroid glands. One for each wing.”
Wraith shrugged in his beaten-to-hell leather duster. “The third lasher tried to decapitate my mate.”
Yeah, that would do it. Wraith, like all five of the Sem siblings, was extremely protective of his mate and offspring.
Eidolon took Reaver’s shirt and tossed it to Sin. “This is going to hurt a little. Or… a lot.”
Local anesthesia didn’t work well on angels. Figured.
“You’d think angels wouldn’t be big babies,” Wraith said.
“I can deal,” Reaver said. “It can’t be that bad.”
Eidolon swabbed the base of Reaver’s wings with alcohol. “I’m inserting two gland sacs full of concentrated evil into your wings. Imagine someone drilling into your body and then leaving the drill bits inside.”
Yeah, this was going to suck. But without a way to mask his “angelness,” as Sin liked to put it, Reaver would attract every demon in Sheoul. He’d be dead within a day, once his Heavenly powers ran out.
“So if we can’t help, why did you ask me to meet you here?” Sin asked.
“Because I could use a favor,” he said. “You used to run an assassin den. Do you still have any pull with the current assassin master of your old den?”
“Maybe.” Sin played with the long black braid falling over her shoulder. “Why?”
“I can’t use most of the Harrowgates in Sheoul, and I have limited flashing abilities. I need a guide to get me in and out.”
Reaver hated needing a guide for anything, but he needed all the help he could get for this particular mission. As a bonus, all assassins were skilled fighters, so if Sin could arrange it, Reaver would have command of his own Sheoul special ops team. Raphael and Metatron could shove the flight of angels he’d asked for up their asses.
“I can probably get Tavin on board for you. He’s been everywhere,” Sin said. “And as long as you pay, he can’t be accused of helping an angel infiltrate hell.”
Excellent. Tavin had been instrumental in saving Limos’s husband’s life a while back. Of course, a few days later Tavin had tried to kill Arik, but still, as far as demon assassins went, Reaver could do worse than having Tavin on his team.
“I’ll also need someone who can feed Harvester. She’ll need to drink blood to regrow her wings.” Because wings were an angel’s source of power, Satan would have had them removed immediately. Without them, no angel—fallen or not—could flash to another location, and their fighting abilities were severely limited. “And do you have someone familiar with the B’lal region of Sheoul?”
She shook her head. “No one is familiar with Satan’s personal playground except his inner circle. And dead people. But I know a Nightlash demon who has made it as far as the Mountains of Eternal Suffering. And I’m pretty sure I can get you a werewolf assassin who likes to be fed on.”
Reaver looked up at the chains looping across the tent ceiling supports before turning back to her. “How much is this going to cost me?”
She appeared to consider that. “One penny for each assassin,” she chirped. “And a favor.”
“What favor?”
“I don’t know yet. Could be anything.” She blinked at his flat stare. “What? I’m a mercenary. And a demon. I can’t fight instinct.”
Wraith grinned. “It’s like we’re twins.”
Eidolon muttered something under his breath as his gloved fingers pressed firmly at the base of a wing anchor. “Reaver, I need you to take a deep breath. And don’t flinch or summon your wings.”
Angels didn’t “summon” thier wings, but reminding Eidolon that wings morphed into a liquid form to melt under the skin of an angel’s back when not in use was stupid, given that the demon was holding a scalpel.
“I’m tougher than Wraith seems to think—holy shit!” Pain drilled into Reaver’s back, exploding up his spine and knocking his ability to see, hear, or think right out of his skull.
He felt hands on his shoulders as someone braced him from the front. Another stab of agony nailed him. E, inserting the second pod of concentrated evil. Reaver would have taken a header if not for whoever was holding him upright.
Someone else took one of his hands. Sin. Her small palms cradled his hand, squeezing gently. Gradually, as the pain waned, his vision cleared. The outline of Wraith’s big body appeared through fuzzy waves of gray mist.
There had been a time, years ago, when Reaver’s opinion of these demons had been less than favorable. As an Unfallen angel employed at the hospital, Reaver had been steeped in bitterness and self-pity. He’d been bred to battle demons, and instead he worked with them. Healed them.
Now these Sems had become his family, which was even more bizarre considering he’d been restored to a full-blown angel.
“Done.” Eidolon’s fingers smoothed over the bilateral incisions he’d made beneath Reaver’s shoulder blades. “The lasher glands are going to slowly release hormones that’ll mask your angelic signature, but you’re on a ticking clock. You’ve got, at most, thirty days before they run out. Less than that if you hit parts of Sheoul where time runs faster than here.” Eidolon stepped around in front of Reaver and trashed his gloves. “There might be a slight side effect.”
Reaver didn’t like the sound of that. “Side effect?”
“Lasher glands are a hot item on the underworld black market because they can boost some species’ power. It’s possible that because you’re an angel, the effect could do the opposite in you. It could cause your powers to either warp or drain rapidly.”
Perfect. Because the cards hadn’
t been stacked against him enough.
“You sure we can’t go with you?” Sin asked.
“I’m sure. But E? I might be needing a job after I lose my wings.”
He was only half-joking, and Eidolon knew it. “You always have a place here,” Eidolon said solemnly. “You know that.”
“Good luck, man.” Wraith clapped him on the shoulder. “For an angel, you don’t suck.”
“Ditto. For a demon… well, you do suck.”
“Because I’m half vampire?”
“Sure,” Reaver said. “Let’s go with that.”
Wraith beamed. “So,” he said, “you really think having archangels string you up by your halo is worth saving this Harvester chick?”
Yes. “Even if stopping Lucifer’s reincarnation isn’t a good enough reason to rescue her, she still deserves it,” he said. “She saved the world.”
Wraith shrugged. “So did I, but I don’t see you offering up your holy ass to save me.”
“Are you suffering unspeakable horrors at the hands of Satan?”
“No,” Wraith said, “but sometimes I have to eat hospital cafeteria food.”
Reaver sighed. Wraith was a hundred-year-old child. “She also saved Reseph’s life when he was a kid, and she kept watch over all four of my children while they were growing up. And she might be able to help me put together some pieces of my past.”
“She remembers you? Does she know who you used to be?”
He shook his head. “She might remember Yenrieth, but she was taken to Sheoul before even I learned the truth of who I was, so she wouldn’t have connected me with Yenrieth.”
Sin looked up from her cell phone. “I met her a couple of times. She was a heinous bitch.”
Reaver had thought the same thing for so long. The fallen angel had taunted him at every turn, defied him whenever possible, fought him until they were both bloody, and tortured him on one occasion. Now he was going to risk his tail feathers to save her.
“It was all an act,” he said, but the burning skepticism in Sin’s eyes said she wasn’t buying it. He wasn’t sure if he bought it, either.