“Well, well,” he said as he strode down the center aisle toward them. “Looks like I’m late to the party.”
Several of the angels glared at him, clearly outraged that someone had the gall to interrupt. But four of them, Gabriel, Michael, Uriel, and Haniel, knew exactly who he was, and they came to their feet so fast that their chairs tumbled backward.
“Revenant,” Uriel gasped. Suddenly, the others leaped up, too, weapons in their fool hands.
A heartbeat later, Raphael popped onto the stage, his face a mask of fury. “You don’t belong here,” he growled, and yeah, that was exactly the problem.
He didn’t belong in the exact place he should belong.
“And you lied to me,” Revenant said. “Metatron isn’t here.”
“Wrong meeting, asshole,” Raphael said.
Revenant frowned. “Disappointing.” He threw himself down in one of the theater seats. “But since I’m here, let’s chat.”
A tingle spreading over his scalp indicated the arrival of his twin.
“Reaver,” Raphael snapped. “It’s about time. Get that piece of offal out of here.”
Revenant laughed. “In a room full of stinking shitheads, how will he know who you’re talking about?”
Eleven archangels looked ready to explode. Go ahead and paint the walls, boys. Your blood, guts, and brains could only make the gaudy decor less horrifying.
Raphael roared. “Get. Him. Out!”
“Yes, Reaver,” Rev said, “get me out before my taint defiles the place.”
Reaver, for all his high-and-mightiness, didn’t move other than to fold his arms over his chest and stare at Revenant. “Why are you here?”
“Because I’m an angel, same as you.” He looked over at the horde of archangels, each of whom was charged up with power, ready to blast him. He was far stronger than any of them, save Reaver, but he wondered how he’d stack up against all eleven of them. “Same as all of you.”
“You’re nothing like us,” one of the strangers spat.
He kicked his booted feet up on the back of the chair in front of him. “What’s your name?”
The blond angel looked down his nose at Revenant. “I’m Khamael.”
“Well, Khamael,” he drawled. “Suck my balls.” With a wave of his hand, he made the bastard disappear.
Instantly, Reaver was right there, hand on Revenant’s throat. “Where is he?”
“Chill, bro.” Rev grinned, flashing fangs. “He’ll be back in a minute. As soon as he figures out how to free himself from Sheoul-gra. Of course, if he landed in an acid pool or a lava pit, he won’t be looking so great when he gets back.”
Reaver’s fingers tightened. “What. Do. You. Want.”
I want what you have, you bastard.
Revenant exploded to his feet, the shock wave sending Reaver tumbling over a dozen auditorium chairs. Rev kept his power close to the surface, ready to decimate these assholes if they tried anything.
“What do I want?” he asked. “What I want is answers. I want to know why you sons of bitches left me, as a baby, to rot in Sheoul. I want to know why I was left behind when you took Reaver. And I really want to know why you didn’t rescue my mother.”
A couple of the angels looked confused. A few others glanced away, their expressions tight with shame. But it was clear which of them had been involved in the happenings of so long ago.
Michael stepped forward. “We didn’t know where she was —”
“Bullshit,” Revenant roared. “Reaver, on his own, without any help from you bumbling idiots, managed to sneak into Satan’s most secure prison and rescue Harvester. So don’t blow smoke up my ass.”
“Reaver’s special.” Gabriel spread his hands imploringly. “And he had prophecy and fate on his side. At the time of your birth we didn’t have the capability to mount a rescue operation like that.”
Oh, good, more with the Reaver’s special shit.
“Liar,” Revenant spat. “You didn’t have the balls, is what you didn’t have.”
Raphael snarled. “Reaver, if I have to tell you one more time to get him out of here —”
“You’ll what,” Reaver asked. “Speak harshly to me? Glare at me? No, wait, you’ll send one of my friends into a forced mating just to punish me?”
Revenant had no idea what Reaver was talking about, but he got a kick out of the way Raphael’s face went the color of a baboon’s ass. “Lilliana and Azagoth are a good match.”
“Lucky for you,” Reaver murmured. He propped his jeans-clad hip on the back of one of the chairs. “Now, since Revenant hasn’t done anything other than send Khamael for a visit with Azagoth and Hades, I think we should hear him out. He wants answers, and frankly, I’d like to hear what you have to say.” Before Rev could start growing a bunch of lovey-dovey warm fuzzies, Reaver pegged him with serious eyes. “But I’m warning you. One wrong move, and I’ll use your blood to paint these gaudy-ass walls.”
“Brother,” Revenant said, “how alike we are in our thinking. Mom would be proud.”
Something flashed in Reaver’s eyes, gone before Revenant could tell what it was. But it looked suspiciously like anger. Because, yeah, how horrible to think that the two of them, fucking twins, could be alike.
Khamael flashed in, his clothing charred and in tatters, blood streaking his face and arms. His blue eyes were wild, and Rev was pretty sure the archangel’s eyebrows and eyelashes had been singed off.
That was some funny shit.
“So,” Revenant said as he walked slowly toward the stage. “You said that at the time of our birth you didn’t have the ability to rescue us. But what about later?”
Gabriel scrubbed his hand over his face. “Look, Revenant. Our hands were tied from the beginning. Satan held all the cards. We were lucky we were able to work out a deal for one baby, and it was Reaver they brought to us. We had to accept that.”
“Luck of the draw,” Raphael said, but the way he said it conveyed his displeasure at the hand Heaven had been dealt. Clearly, he had a real burr up his ass when it came to Reaver.
Revenant knew the feeling, and he hated that he had that in common with Raphael.
“So you gave up.” He was halfway to the stage now, and the archangels were starting to sweat. “Left me to grow up in hell and my mother to suffer. You just forgot us.”
“We didn’t forget,” Michael said. “And we did try to convince your mother to leave.” Several heads swiveled around to stare at him, and wasn’t that interesting. They hadn’t known about whatever it was Michael was blabbing about.
“What do you mean?” Revenant asked. “How could she have left?”
Gabriel swiped a pewter chalice from the table and knocked back the contents before fixing his steady gaze on Reaver.
“Are you aware that your mother could have left Sheoul with you?” Gabriel asked. “But that she chose to remain behind, even knowing that an opportunity to leave would never be presented again?”
“Metatron told me that,” Reaver said, and for the first time ever, Revenant heard an emotional tremor in his brother’s voice. “Most of it.”
Rev could only swallow over and over as his salivary glands futilely worked to moisten his parched mouth. He didn’t know any of this.
Finally, he managed a raspy “Why? Why would she stay behind?”
“To protect you,” Gabriel said, his tone making clear that he thought her choice was the wrong one. “She knew that Reaver would be safe and would have a good life even if she couldn’t be the one to raise him. But you were doomed to a living hell. She wanted to protect you as much as she could. She made a deal with Satan that would allow you to remain with her until you were ten mortal years old. I’m assuming the bargain was kept?”
Revenant nodded numbly. He’d assumed she’d been held against her will after his birth. Guilt turned his marrow to pudding, and he suddenly couldn’t walk anymore. He halted on the crimson carpet, his knees trembling, his insides quivering. Dear… fuck. She’d
sacrificed everything for him. She’d known she would suffer for all eternity, but she’d chosen to stay with him anyway. He was the reason she’d suffered.
“She…” He cleared his throat of the humiliating hoarseness. “She stayed with me. What did Satan get out of the deal?”
Gabriel’s gaze cast downward. “We don’t know. I’m sorry.”
Revenant began to shake so hard he could barely stay upright. Distantly, he heard shouts and things crashing, and he realized he wasn’t the one shaking. The building was. He looked down, and beneath his boot soles, black veins began to sprout in the floor, spreading through the auditorium like millions of invasive, poisonous roots.
“Get him out of here!”
“Reaver, hurry!”
“He’s fouling the area!”
“We warned you! He’s poison.”
None of the voices made sense, even though he heard the exact words. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and as if a spell had broken, he snapped, shooting lightning from his body in a three hundred and sixty degree spread. He heard screams, more shouts, calls for Reaver to —
Arms wrapped around him in a tackle, and suddenly he was in some kind of crazy free fall through space and clouds and fire. An eternity later, the plummeting sensation came to an abrupt end as he hit something hard as shit, with Reaver on top of him. Rage and pain and shame spun up in a massive vortex of misery.
“Revenant!” Reaver’s voice barely penetrated the black haze that swallowed him. “Chill out!”
A million pounds of pressure built inside him, demanding release, but all he knew how to do was scream. Scream like he had as a child, when he watched his mother suffer for his deeds.
He screamed. And screamed. And screamed. And when he was done, his voice was raw and his eyes were dry, and all around him, for miles and miles, there was nothing but blackened, scorched earth.
Even Reaver was singed, his face streaked with ash, his clothes steaming. A moment later, his brother returned to normal, and it was as if nothing had happened.
What had happened?
He must have asked that out loud, because Reaver kneeled next to him as he lay bleeding on the ground. “You went off like a bomb.” He gestured to the surrounding landscape. “I had a feeling that’s what was going to happen. We’re at an old nuclear test site in New Mexico. Figured you couldn’t do much damage here.”
Reaver’s hand came down on his shoulder, and Rev felt power channel into him, but nothing seemed to be happening. If anything, his pain grew worse. He looked down at himself, and yeah, he was pretty torn up, but it was the gash running the length of his rib cage that was hurting like a son of a bitch.
“Why am I injured?” he rasped. And shit, he was dizzy.
“Metatron told me that we heal almost instantly from any wound,” Reaver replied. “Except those we cause ourselves.”
“That knowledge might have come in handy before I went Hiroshima on my own ass.” Except that he hadn’t done it intentionally. Clearly, there were still some kinks to work out with his new Shadow Angel powers.
Reaver pumped another round of energy into Revenant, and Rev groaned, sure his organs were exploding. “Dammit,” Reaver breathed. “I can’t heal you. We should get you to UG.”
Rev rolled out of Reaver’s grip. “I’m fine.” Black dots appeared in his vision. Yep, fine.
“You’re not fine. I can see your ribs. Your actual ribs.”
A wash of nausea made Revenant sway as he sat there, holding his hand over the wound. “I said no.”
“Stubborn jackass,” Reaver muttered. He jammed his hands through his hair and stared at the ruined ground. “What set you off?” When Revenant said nothing, mainly because pain had locked his jaw in place, Reaver expelled a raw curse. “Tell me what happened, Revenant. Tell me what happened to our mother.”
Fuck that. No way was he telling anyone that he was the reason their mother had suffered so horribly. Yes, Reaver now knew that she’d remained behind intentionally, but he didn’t need to know that every stitch of pain she’d experienced could be laid at Rev’s doorstep.
“I can’t.”
Reaver’s voice hardened. “Can’t, or won’t.”
“Does it matter?” Agony throbbed through his torso, and he sucked in a rattling breath. He needed to get to his place. Hole up. Lick his wounds.
“Dammit,” Reaver growled. “You need a doctor.”
Doctor. Why yes, yes he did need a doctor. One in particular. “You’re right,” he said. “Guess that’s what big brothers are for.”
With that, he gathered his last remaining bit of strength and flashed himself out of there.
Eleven
Someone was following her.
Blaspheme wasn’t sure how she knew that, but she was certain that someone was tracking her movements. Almost since the moment she left the clinic, a hinky feeling had latched on like a leech, keeping her looking over her shoulder and jumping at every loud noise.
And London had a lot of loud noises.
As she boarded a bus, she cursed her stupidity at renting a flat so far away from a Harrowgate. The walk will be nice, she’d told herself. On rainy days, I can take the bus, she’d said to her mom.
Great plan, except when there was an emergency, such as some homicidal maniac – or an angel – possibly following her.
She’d tried a repeat of the invisibility thing, but this time she couldn’t fully vanish even for a minute. Some of her body parts were as visible as usual, while others were completely indiscernible, and others transparent, like a ghost.
Her False Angel aura was wearing down, and it might only be a matter of days before angels and fallen angels could detect the truth about her origins.
It was time to ask Eidolon for help.
She dug through her purse for her phone and made a quick call to check on her mother, and after Gem reassured her that everything was fine, she left a message with Eidolon’s answering service. She needed to meet with him as soon as possible. She used the excuse that she had Gethel’s test results, which she hadn’t been able to share with him earlier. He’d been stuck in surgery all day with multiple victims of a Nightlash massacre, and she had a feeling he’d be pulling an all-nighter with that one.
The bus curbed it at her stop, and she made a speedy dash to her flat a couple of blocks away. The sensation of being spied on had gone, but the icky, oily sensation of having been watched left her feeling like she needed a shower.
Which meant that her mystery spy wasn’t Revenant. If he were observing her, the shower she’d need would be an icy-cold one.
As she entered her place, she didn’t think she’d ever been so exhausted. She dumped her bag on the floor of her flat and negotiated the maze of moving boxes on her way to the kitchen, wondering if she had the energy to make a sandwich. Turned out, she had the energy but not the ingredients.
She hadn’t been shopping in days, and pretty much everything in her fridge had gone bad.
Cursing her stupidity at not picking up something from the market down the street, she grabbed a cold beer and scrounged through her cabinets for microwave popcorn to munch on while she relaxed in front of the TV with her favorite show. It was Doctor Who night, and tonight’s new episode was supposed to be a game-changer.
Her phone rang, and she was tempted to let the machine get it, until Eidolon’s number popped up on the caller ID.
“Doc E,” she said. “Hello.”
“I’m sorry I missed your call.” His deep voice rumbled over the phone line. “I got the copy of Gethel’s lab results you left on my desk. But I had a question about the other item you left.”
“The tracking device.” Her hand shook as she took a long pull on the beer bottle. “Dr. Soduchi found it inside my mother.”
“How did you know what it was?”
“Revenant told me.”
“He was here?” he barked. “Again? You were supposed to call me.”
She winced. “I didn’t want to bother
you unless he requested my participation in another house call in hell. Besides, you were busy.”
“I’m still busy. I fucking hate Nightlash demons.” She heard him take a sip of something she assumed was coffee. “I’m going to research this device. I’ll have Wraith do some snooping as well.”
Eidolon’s brother Wraith had an uncanny knack for locating things no one else could. When his vampire mate, Serena, was with him, there was practically nothing they couldn’t find.
“Blas,” E said slowly, “is there any reason you can think of why your mother would be tagged with a tracking device?”
Even though she’d decided she needed Eidolon’s help, she stood there for a long time, weighing her options and considering how much, if anything, she should tell him. Ultimately, the undeniable truth of her situation became clear. She was in trouble, and if there was anyone in the world she could trust, it was the demon on the other end of the line.
“Whoever put it there might be looking for me.”
There was a moment of silence, and then, “I think we need to talk. Get a good night’s sleep, and meet me in my office tomorrow. I’ll text you with a time.”
“You got it, boss.”
“And Blaspheme?”
“Yeah?”
“Be very careful. I don’t want to lose you.” The line went dead, and her stomach went sour.
What had she done? For nearly a hundred years her mother had stressed that she couldn’t trust anyone with her secret no matter how upstanding that person might be. Feared by angels and fallen angels alike, vyrm were born with a price on their heads, a price large enough that few could resist the temptation of either reporting them to authorities or killing them outright.
She doubted Eidolon would kill her for riches or fame or favors, but on the off chance that she was wrong, she was gambling with not only her life, but that of her mother as well.
She glanced at her watch and swore. Now, on top of everything else that was a shit sandwich today, she’d missed the first five minutes of Doctor Who.