by Larissa Ione
A mere two weeks ago, Eidolon, Underworld General’s founder and chief of staff, had been just cryptic enough in his warning to stay away from Revenant that she’d been paranoid ever since.
Her mother groaned, and suddenly, it didn’t matter what Eidolon suspected. Her job… hell, her life… was at risk, but so was Deva’s, and she couldn’t let her mother die.
Quickly, she leaped out of the vehicle and ran through the sliding doors to the emergency department.
“I need help!” she barked, and in an instant, Luc, a werewolf paramedic, and Raze, a Seminus demon physician, rushed outside with a stretcher.
Moments later, Blaspheme was in an exam room, gloved up, while Luc checked vitals and Raze channeled his healing power into Deva. His scowl indicated that he was having trouble.
“Her stomach ruptured,” he said. “Dammit, there’s a tear in her transverse colon. I can heal the tears right now, but she needs surgery to clean out the contaminants.” He looked over at Blas. “It’s a huge risk, though. I know you’re aware that False Angels don’t respond well to anesthesia.”
Shit. Blaspheme did not want to reveal the truth about her mother – and potentially, herself – but she couldn’t compromise Deva’s health by sending her into surgery with doctors who thought she was something other than what she was. Maybe she could play fast and loose with the facts and hope no one dug too deep.
Blas glanced up as she prepared an IV site in the back of her mother’s hand. “She’s not a False Angel.”
Raze cocked an eyebrow. “But you said she’s your mother.”
“She’s my adoptive mother,” she lied. “She’s a fallen angel.” At least the second part was the truth.
Raze’s hand jerked, and he cursed under his breath. She understood his shock; fallen angels were rare, they were mostly evil assholes, and as far as Sheoulic denizens went, they were at the top of the food chain.
Raze’s ginger hair, longer in front than in the back, fell over his eyes as he leaned in for a closer look at Deva’s abdominal wound. “This is strange.”
Those weren’t words you wanted a doctor to say. She attempted to summon her most useful FA ability, what was commonly called X-ray vision, used by False Angels to determine the health or virility of their potential victims. As a medical professional, Blas had found a better use for it.
Sadly, it barely flickered before snuffing out. Great. Another False Angel ability was failing. How long before they were all gone and her true identity was revealed?
“What’s strange?” she asked.
“I can’t heal her. Nothing’s happening.”
“What?” Blas looked up from inserting an IV catheter into Deva’s vein to stare at the incubus. “Are you out of juice?”
He held up his right arm, which was covered in glowing glyphs from his throat to his fingers. “My power is at full charge. I’m telling you, it’s not me. It’s her.”
The vibe. What if the weird vibe coming off her mother was somehow interfering with Raze’s powers?
Raze glanced over at her. “Can you take a look inside her and tell me what’s going on?”
“I just tried,” she said. “I think I’m too emotional.”
Raze nodded, apparently buying her bullshit story for the X-ray failure.
Her mother groaned, and her eyes flickered open. Her hand fumbled for Blas’s. “Alone,” she rasped. “I need to talk to you alone.”
Blaspheme looked up at Raze. “Arrange for an OR. We’ll get her into surgery right away. And page Eidolon. I want him on this.” Despite Blas’s fears of discovery, she needed him. As the most skilled, most experienced doctor in the entire underworld, Eidolon just might be the only one who could save her mother.
Raze and Luc took off, leaving her alone with Deva.
“Mom,” she said quietly. “What’s going on? What happened?”
“Angels,” she said, and Blaspheme’s stomach churned. “I was attacked by angels.”
Which explained the vibe and Raze’s difficulty healing her. Some angelic weapons caused injury that couldn’t be repaired using supernatural means.
“Where were you?” Blaspheme squeezed her mother’s hand when Deva’s eyes closed. “Hey, stay with me. Where were you when they attacked you?”
“Home,” she rasped. “They found me, Blaspheme.”
A chill crawled up her spine. “They?” She had a sickening feeling she knew who they were, and she prayed she was wrong.
Deva coughed, spraying blood. “I think… I think they were Eradicators. They found me.” She sat up, clawing at Blaspheme’s hand, desperation and terror punching through the haze of pain in her eyes. “Which means they’re also looking for you.”
Two
A high-intensity Satanic summons shrieked in Revenant’s head as he stood atop Mount Megiddo, his lungs filling with hot, dry air.
Ignoring Satan’s command, Revenant called out with his mind and voice to the highest-ranking archangel in Heaven.
“Metatron.”
Nothing. A breeze whipped up a dust devil a few yards away, but other than that, nothing moved.
“Metatron!”
More nothing. Even the dust devil died a slow, agonizing death.
“Metatron!”
Fuck. He should have expected that he’d be ignored. The archangels had abandoned him thousands of years ago, so why the hell would they pay any attention to him now?
Assholes. All he wanted were some answers. Why had they left him and his mother to rot in hell? Why didn’t anyone, in five thousand years, tell him the truth before now? Before he regained his memories and got a promotion… thanks to his brother’s “heroic” actions and Heaven’s rule that what was done to one twin must be done to the other. And why hadn’t they told him he was welcome in Heaven? After all, Reaver was allowed.
Because you aren’t welcome. You’re evil. Corrupt.
The Dark Lord’s summons came again, this time blasting him so violently that pain drove him to his knees. Blood sprayed from his nose and ears, and as he gripped his head, he swore his skull was cracking.
Dammit, he was not ready to face Satan. Not that he was ever ready. No one in their right mind would happily drop everything to take a meeting with the Dark Lord. And now that Rev knew the truth about his past – or at least, about most of it – he had even less motivation to have a face-to-face with the king of all demons.
Satan had lied to Revenant for thousands of years, had even hinted that Rev was his son.
It was all bullshit, and Revenant wondered how things were going to change now that the truth had come out. One thing was certain; he wanted to be armed with as much knowledge as he could gather before he faced Satan, and only one person could give him the answers he sought.
Unfortunately, Metatron didn’t seem inclined to provide any answers. Which left Revenant with only one other option.
Nursing his Satanic headache, he summoned a handful of books and flashed himself to the other side of the Earth, to the home of Thanatos, fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse.
As the Four Horsemen’s Sheoulic Watcher, Revenant was supposed to keep an eye on them. But since regaining his memories, he’d avoided them the way he’d avoided their father. Revenant’s brother.
Reaver.
Every time they’d faced off since regaining their memories, they’d battled it out, and Revenant’s words to Reaver during one particular encounter still echoed in his thoughts.
The very day I learned about you, I came to you as a brother. But all you saw was an enemy and a fiend. Now that is all you will ever see.
Revenant had cooled his jets a little since that moment a couple of weeks ago, but the fact remained that five thousand years ago, before their memories were wiped – the first time – Reaver had rejected Revenant, and to this day, nothing had changed.
So, no, Revenant wasn’t expecting Reaver’s four legendary hellspawns to welcome Uncle Rev with open arms.
And yet he was standing in front of Thana
tos’s Greenland castle, wondering if the Horseman known as Death would willingly open the door. More likely, Revenant would have to barge in and lay everyone out in order to get a peek at the rare books Thanatos hoarded in his library.
An electric tingle on the back of his neck alerted him to the presence of angels a split second before Harvester, the Horsemen’s Heavenly Watcher, and Reaver himself materialized in front of him.
Fuck.
“Revenant.” Harvester’s smoky voice had always made Rev think of cat-o-nines wrapped in silk. She looked the part as well, dressed in tight black leather pants and stiletto-heeled boots, a lace corset binding her waist and plumping her perfect breasts. She looked a little paler than usual, though. Maybe getting her halo back after thousands of years of being a fallen angel wasn’t sitting well with her. “Why are you here?”
“I’m the Horsemen’s evil Watcher,” he said, getting a kick at how his brother winced at the word evil. “I don’t need a reason, nor do I answer to you.”
“But you will answer to me,” Reaver said.
Revenant snorted. Reaver had been sending out mental invitations to meet for weeks, but Revenant hadn’t answered. He wasn’t going to answer to his brother now, either.
“Bite me.” He flashed himself closer to Thanatos’s keep, but a heartbeat later, Harvester and Reaver were forming a wall in front of him again. How tiresome. “I was going to give Thanatos the courtesy of knocking on his door, but you’re giving me no choice but to flash inside his residence with no warning. The last time I did that to a Horseman, I caught Ares and Cara in a… compromising position.” He shrugged. “But whatever. Let’s see what Thanatos and Regan are up to, shall we?”
He started to dematerialize, but Reaver snarled and gripped his arm, tethering him to his current position. “Just tell us why you’re here.”
Well, hell, maybe Reaver could give Rev the information he needed. He held up the copies of the Bible, the Quran, and the Daemonica in his hand. “I want to use Thanatos’s library. I need to find references to Shadow Angels and Radiants, and these cryptic, contradictory tomes aren’t exactly helpful.”
Reaver released him and stepped back. “You want to know more about what you are. About what we both are.”
“Um, yeah. Duh.” Wasn’t his brother a genius. “It isn’t every day you get promoted to the highest-known rank of angel, and it isn’t like there’s a fucking manual anywhere that outlines the job description.”
No, there had only ever been a handful of Shadow Angels like Revenant, and Radiants like Reaver, and since there could only be one of each in existence at any given time, there was no one to ask about it.
Reaver shrugged. “It’s learn as you go.”
“That’s very helpful, brother.”
Reaver made a sound of impatience and jammed his hand through his perfect mane of shiny blond hair. Revenant changed his hair color to match. Just to be a tool.
“We were given those ranks together,” Reaver said. “And we can figure it out together.”
Revenant laughed. “Now you want to play big brother? Now that I don’t need you?”
“You do need me,” Reaver said. “We need each other.”
“Really,” Revenant said flatly. “And why is that?”
Reaver’s voice went low and ominous. “Because Lucifer is about to be reborn, and his birth is going to cause seismic shifts both on Earth and in Heaven.”
This again? The Heavenly types got so worked up about reincarnated fallen angels. Okay, sure, Lucifer, as Satan’s former right-hand man, wasn’t your run-of-the-mill fallen angel, and the fallen angel carrying him, Gethel, had conceived him while she was still rocking wings and a halo. Oh, and in Lucifer’s newest incarnation, he was also Satan’s son. Which meant Lucifer was extra, extra special.
The asshole. In a few short years, he’d reclaim his place at Satan’s side, and he’d spend his life trying to ruin Revenant’s. It wouldn’t matter that Rev would always outmatch him in sheer strength and ability – Lucifer would have Satan’s ear and clout. When Lucifer gave a command, it would be followed as if given by Satan himself. Just the way it had been before Lucifer went and got himself killed a few months ago.
Revenant cleared his throat. “A, I don’t care. B, when you cut off Gethel’s wings to prevent Lucifer from being born fully grown, you reduced his powers, so stop with the ‘it’s the end of the world as we know it’ bullshit.”
Harvester shook her head, her black-as-pitch hair swinging around her slender shoulders. “It’s not bullshit. We reduced Lucifer’s powers, but he’s still the most powerful fallen angel to ever be reincarnated. His birth will still send shock waves through the heavens.”
“And,” Reaver said grimly, “he’s growing stronger every day. Harvester can feel him.”
Ah, so maybe Lucifer’s growth was the reason Harvester was looking particularly pale, and maybe a little gaunt. As Satan’s daughter, she was connected to all of her siblings, born and unborn. Not that Revenant gave a shit. But it explained why Reaver did.
“It gets worse,” Harvester said. “After Lucifer is born, he’ll keep growing stronger, until he’s reached the pinnacle of power. Once that happens, he and Satan can join forces – with you. The Trifecta of Evil, the archangels call it, because you’ll be the three most powerful beings in Sheoul. Together, there would be very little that could stop you from wreaking hell on Earth. Reaver will be forced by the biblical prophecy to break all four of the Horsemen’s Seals and kick off the End of Days.”
The Heavenly types were as obsessed with Armageddon as they were with fallen angels. It was all getting old. “And what do you want me to do about it?”
Reaver folded his arms over his chest. “Give us Gethel before she gives birth to Lucifer.”
Another rerun. Yawn. They should syndicate this shit. “Why should I?”
“Because you’re an angel, Revenant. Metatron told me that we need to work together —”
“Did he now? Funny, because he won’t even respond to my request to meet him. Has he sent me an invitation to Heaven? No? Then go rot.” He flashed out of there, no longer caring about getting answers about what being a Shadow Angel meant. Besides, Satan’s summons was buzzing around in his skull like an angry hornet.
Interesting how Satan had his knickers in a twist about talking to Rev, while Metatron couldn’t be bothered to send even a Cherub with a message.
Fuck it. Heaven’s concerns about Lucifer’s birth had just made things interesting. If they were right and the Trifecta of Evil was the key to the newest round of apocalyptic threats, then Revenant was in a position of power.
And power was something he knew how to use well.
Revenant materialized inside Satan’s mountainous underworld domain. He crossed the iron bridge – decorated with the hanging corpses of Satan’s enemies – across a fiery moat to the gate of the king of demons’ massive castle. He was given entrance immediately, an ancient fallen angel named Caim escorting him to the throne room.
The moment Revenant stepped inside the cavernous chamber, his blood chilled. Yes, the air temperature was frigid as fuck, but what turned the red stuff in his veins to gel was Satan himself, standing in the middle of what appeared to be dozens of human remains. His naked body was covered in gore, but otherwise, he could have been a male model, and the old saying that evil came in beautiful packages popped into Rev’s head.
“It’s good to see you, my son.” Satan stepped outside the ring of carnage, and instantly, he was clean and wearing a black business suit with a clichéd silk crimson shirt and a fuck-ton of gaudy jewels.
“Don’t call me that,” Rev ground out. “My father was an angel.”
“Sandalphon was a self-righteous jackass,” Satan scoffed. “I’ve been a father to you in all the ways that matter.”
So apparently, what mattered in a father was that they kept their sons in cages and forced them to witness their mother’s abuse. Oh, and then, to be a truly good father, one
should send said son to the Mines of Agony to slave for decades.
Revenant would have to remember that if he ever had a kid.
“Let’s agree to disagree.”
Satan smiled. The nasty smile that always came a split second before pain and death.
Oh, fuck —
Revenant didn’t have time to brace himself before the Dark Lord, who had mutated into a wet, blackened, skeleton-like beast, had him pinned to the wall. Satan’s claws dug deep into Revenant’s rib cage, and pain rocked him hard as his blood pumped in thick spurts onto Satan’s bony chest. Drool dripped out of the king of demons’ mouth, which had taken on a snout-like form, his jagged sharklike teeth glistening as he gnashed them.
“Your promotion to Shadow Angel has made you the most powerful being in Sheoul,” he growled. “Except for me. It would take a thousand of you to harm me. A hundred thousand to destroy me.” Indescribable pain carved out Rev’s insides as Satan yanked his X-Man claws out of Revenant, ripping out his beating heart through his chest. “Keep that in mind.”
Alpha demon display of power noted.
Revenant couldn’t speak a word as he slid down the wall, his wobbly legs unable to support him. All he could do was watch as Satan bit into Rev’s throbbing heart. Agony like he’d never known ripped him apart. He heard screaming, and through the black curtain of misery he wondered if someone else was being tortured, too. Maybe even killed; one of the surefire ways to kill an angel – of either fallen or fully haloed variety – was to eat their heart.
Then Revenant realized the screaming was coming from him.
The world spun around him in endless, miserable loops. Was he dead? Were the Grim Reaper’s griminions even now on their way to reap his pathetic soul?
He didn’t know how long he lay like a piece of meat on the cold floor before he heard the Dark Lord’s voice calling his name.
Opening his eyes, he found himself lying in a pool of blood. Satan was back in his usual humanlike form, dressed in a nice suit and licking blood from his lips. Biting back a groan, Revenant shoved himself up to his knees. It took a lot more effort than he’d have liked.