“You know,” Reaver said, “ten years ago I would never have predicted that your lives would turn out the way they have.”
“Trust me,” Eidolon muttered. “I’m as shocked as you are.”
Eidolon’s dog, Mange, trotted into the kitchen and nosed around the china cabinet for his friend. Sometimes, like now, he couldn’t believe he had a dog, a ferret, a son, and a mate, and he could only thank the Powers That Be that he’d been fortunate enough to have been given such a gift.
Reaver’s smile faded, and he braced his forearms on the countertop. “So why did you ask me here?”
Eidolon sighed. Time to get back to the real world. “What do you know about vyrm?”
Reaver blinked. “Do you have a vyrm patient?”
“No.” Eidolon left it at that. He trusted Reaver with his life, but he wasn’t sure he trusted Reaver with the life of someone whose species was hunted ruthlessly. “But as you know, this is a sensitive subject.”
Reaver nodded. “Vrym have been known to look into the eyes of an angel or fallen angel, and a moment later, everyone in his family falls dead. You can see why they’re hunted.” He shifted, hooking one booted foot on a stool rung. “But I’ve never hunted one, let alone killed one. Vyrm are the product of both good and evil, which means they have a higher than average shot at not becoming evil scumbags. Because of that, they shouldn’t be killed because of abilities they might use.”
“Glad we agree on that.” Eidolon took a bracing breath and got down to it. “Can you tell me how they might disguise themselves? Without a sacrifice.”
“Without a sacrifice?” Reaver blew out a soft whistle. “They’d need a damned potent spell, and no matter what, they’d need blood or a body part from someone incredibly powerful. Someone with either angel or fallen angel in his or her genetic makeup. I’ll see what I can find out.”
“Thank you.” Eidolon felt Mickey’s tiny feet skitter over his shoes. “So… what’s going on with your brother?”
Reaver cursed softly. “Hell if I know. He’s hurt and bitter and frankly, I don’t know how much I can trust him.” His voice dropped low with anger. “I think he might hand over Gethel to me, but then… I don’t know. It shouldn’t be a question. He should just do it. After everything Satan did to him and our mother, why the fuck would he even entertain the idea of playing for Team Evil?”
“Maybe because Team Good isn’t always… good. I hate to say it, buddy, but at least you always know never to trust evil. But you know better than anyone that Heaven has an agenda, and if yours doesn’t match up with theirs, you’re fucked.”
Reaver slammed his fist on the counter, his eyes flashing with blue lightning. “It doesn’t matter. The archangels gave him a way out. Heaven has its problems, but it’s still infinitely better than Sheoul.”
Eidolon loved Reaver like a brother, but the angel sometimes got lost inside his own tunnel vision.
“You’re aware that Wraith grew up in a situation similar to Revenant’s, and for a long time after he escaped, he didn’t know his place in the world. The people who should have cared for him hurt him.” Eidolon chucked an empty box of toddler crackers into the trash. “For almost a hundred years, he kept everyone at a distance and always took the road of least resistance. It sounds like Revenant is doing the same, looking for the least painful path to survival.”
Reaver snorted. “Why are you defending him?”
“Because I wish someone had done that for Wraith.”
Cursing, Reaver rubbed the Underworld General caduceus tattoo he’d recently had inked onto his biceps to settle a lost bet with Eidolon. “How did you deal with Wraith for as long as you did?”
Mange nudged Eidolon’s hand, demanding a good scratch behind the ears. “Wraith… was a challenge.”
“I know. I was there. I still can’t believe he’s even alive, let alone settled down with a mate and a kid.”
“No one is more surprised about that than I am.” Eidolon snagged a bottle of his favorite Belgian ale from out of the fridge and tossed it to Reaver. “The key was finding something he cared enough about to change his life.”
“Serena.”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “Look, I don’t have a lot of advice when it comes to insane brothers. I didn’t do so well with either Wraith or Roag. At least Wraith is still alive. But I can say that Revenant’s anger is probably coming from a place of fear. Fear of rejection, fear of being hurt, fear of the unknown. If you can identify the fear, you can get past it.”
“Abandonment.”
“What?”
“I’m pretty sure Revenant has abandonment issues. And he’s obsessed with rules. No idea why.” He took a swig of his beer. “But fuck, E, I don’t know if I can ever trust him. Satan’s blood runs in his veins. He was raised in Sheoul and has five thousand years of bad history behind him.”
“Can’t you say almost the same about Harvester?”
“Yes, but she was always working for the greater good.”
“And yet she was a fallen angel, where Revenant is an angel.”
“So is Raphael,” Reaver growled. “And he’s a bastard. Angel isn’t code for good.”
“All I’m saying is that I nearly gave up on Wraith a time or two. It would have been a mistake. Until you know for sure that Revenant is beyond saving, you can’t give up.” Eidolon let Reaver chew on that for a few minutes before saying, “That said, I’m a little concerned about his relationship with Blaspheme.”
“Yeah, I already got a peek into that disturbing development.” Reaver jammed his hand through his hair, which fell back into place in perfect gold waves. “I didn’t have a chance to warn her not to fuck with him. The last thing he needs is to get run through the emotional False Angel wringer. He might kill her.”
“That’s not what’s going on,” Eidolon said softly.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” Eidolon bent down to pet Mange again, but Mickey chose that moment to streak around the cabinet and nip the dog’s tail. The two of them took off like a shot, and now it was only a matter of time before he heard the crash of furniture. “He’s obsessed with her, and she’s the only one he’ll allow to treat Gethel.”
Reaver’s hand froze with the beer bottle halfway to his mouth. “Tell me you didn’t just say that a doctor from Underworld General is giving medical assistance to the evil monster who tried to murder my grandson.” The bottle in Reaver’s hand shattered, spraying beer and angel blood all over the counter.
“Take it easy, man.” Eidolon grabbed for the roll of paper towels. “You know I wouldn’t authorize that without a good reason.”
“I’m waiting.”
Eidolon sopped up the mess as he spoke, hoping the angel didn’t break something worse, like Eidolon’s head.
“Blaspheme performed a brief exam and got a blood sample. She didn’t actually treat Gethel, and if anything, she made things medically worse for the bitch instead of better.” He met Reaver’s steady sapphire gaze. “This has given us an opportunity to get to her. We can’t pass it up, so if you have any brilliant ideas, now is the time to share.”
Silence stretched as Reaver rubbed his chin. “A few centuries ago,” he said slowly, “Heaven experimented with something called solarum. They hoped to use it to wipe out evil on a massive scale. Unfortunately, solarum is impossible to produce quickly or in large quantities, so they gave up. But for something like this…” He nodded, as if talking to himself. “You’re saying you can get close to Gethel?”
“If Revenant will take me.”
“And if he won’t? If he insists on Blaspheme being Gethel’s physician?”
“It would be her choice whether or not she wants to help destroy Lucifer.”
Reaver gave a reluctant nod. “Agreed. But you understand that anyone who helps Gethel and her unholy spawn will be considered my enemy.”
“Understood,” Eidolon said.
Reaver made the slightest gesture with his hand, and the blood, beer
, and broken glass disappeared. “I —” He broke off with a curse. “Speaking of enemies, I gotta go. Revenant’s in Heaven again.”
Nineteen
Heaven was huge. Vast beyond even Revenant’s comprehension. It was also beautiful. Rev felt almost sad as he strolled through a verdant meadow dotted with blossoming trees and framed by snowcapped mountains, his footprints leaving behind dying grass and rotting flowers. As he watched, the decay spread, and he wondered if it would continue unchecked after he left. Would the damage he was causing with his presence be repaired when he was gone, or would Heaven be permanently scarred by his evil?
As he gazed up at a soaring eagle, he felt a tingle on the back of his neck, knew Reaver had arrived to expel him. On the upside, Reaver’s tingle was far better than Satan’s drilling headache, which seemed to be cut off by the Heavenly barrier. Cool.
“What are you doing here, Revenant?” Reaver’s voice came from behind him.
Revenant didn’t turn around. “Walking.”
Reaver appeared several yards in front of him, looking obnoxiously angelic in dark gray slacks, a blue shirt, and his twenty-four-karat wings arched imperiously behind his shoulders. “And you couldn’t have done that on Earth or in Sheoul?”
Rev flared his own wings, figuring they might as well get the cockfight started. “Why should I? All of this belongs to me, too, does it not? I am an angel, after all, same as you.” He stopped a few feet away from Reaver and waited for the inevitable, You aren’t the same as I am.
So he was surprised when his twin turned away to gaze at the mountains. “Have you made a decision regarding Gethel?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
Revenant waited until Reaver turned back to him. He wanted to make sure his brother knew this wasn’t some bullshit ploy to wring more promises out of the archangels. That this wasn’t a game. Rev had always been a straight shooter, and he wasn’t going to change now that he knew he was an angel.
“I’m not going to hand her over to the archangels.”
Reaver closed his eyes. “Then we aren’t the same,” he murmured.
“No shit. One of us isn’t tainted by Satan’s blood.”
Reaver’s eyes shot open, their jeweled depths sparking. “It doesn’t have to be like that! The archangels —”
“Lied!” Revenant shouted. “They lied to me about purging his blood from my system in exchange for Gethel.”
Surprise flashed in Reaver’s expression, but it was gone a moment later. Guess he wasn’t all that shocked that archangels would lie.
“They gave me their word. I won’t let them go back on it,” he said. “Neither will Metatron.”
“Metatron,” Rev hissed. “Does our loving uncle know about this bargain?”
Reaver frowned. “I don’t know. Why do you think they’re lying?”
“Because the archangels’ deal was bullshit,” he snapped. “They brought the offer to the table knowing all along that they couldn’t honor their side of the bargain. Purifying my blood can’t be done.”
Reaver scowled. “Are you sure?”
“Do you think I’d be this pissed if I wasn’t?” He crushed the delicate petals of a yellow-winged rose under his boot, hoping to get some satisfaction out of destroying something, but all it did was make him feel like crap. “They set me up. If I’d brought Gethel to you – or to them – there is no place in the universe where I could hide from Satan. And you know damned well the archangels won’t give me sanctuary in Heaven if my presence kills everything around me.”
Reaver glanced sadly at the destroyed flower as if Rev had slaughtered a lamb. “There’s got to be something we can do.”
Revenant let out a bitter laugh. “I’m open to suggestions.”
“We’ll work together on this.”
“Work together? Why?”
“Because we’re brothers.”
“Really? That’s it? We’re separated by birth and five thousand years. We’re no more brothers than Genghis Khan and Elvis are brothers.”
“That’s crap, and you know it.” Reaver’s voice was a near shout now. “We are brothers, and we can overcome anything. I watched the Sem brothers’ relationship nearly destroyed by their own infighting once, but they managed to pull their shit together and now they’re tighter than ever. The sibling bond isn’t something to be taken lightly. You saw what happened with Reseph.”
That had been some crazy shit. At the time when Reseph’s Seal had broken, Revenant wasn’t yet the Horsemen’s Watcher, and he’d still believed he was a fallen angel, so he’d been rooting for Team Evil when Reseph became Pestilence. Team Evil had lost, but the price of victory for the Horsemen had been high. They were still mending fences, but Rev wasn’t sure he and Reaver could do the same.
“You say we can overcome anything,” he said. “But how am I supposed to get over the fact that we wouldn’t be in this situation if not for you. It was your actions, both times, that caused our memory loss. And then, for five thousand fucking years, I did things that would melt your halo. So tell me, dear brother, how we overcome that.”
“We can’t overcome anything until we talk,” Reaver said, sounding like a damned relationship counselor. “We’ve both done things we regret. We were both given the shaft by archangels. We both lost our parents. We have more things in common than not.”
Reaver’s pretty words didn’t move Revenant at all. “And yet, only one of us can stand in this lovely meadow and not kill everything he touches.”
Reaver jammed his hand through his perfect, flaxen mane. Just to be an ass, Rev changed his hair color to match.
“Why here?” Reaver asked softly. “Why did you choose this place, specifically?”
“Because our mother used to talk about it.” He closed his eyes as if it would shut out the memory, but it seemed that the question had unlocked a door Rev would rather not be opened. “Sometimes, after I was beaten for whatever grave infraction a small boy could commit, she’d try to distract me from my pain with stories of Heaven’s beauty. This, the Meadow of Azna, was one of her favorite places to walk when she was pregnant with us.”
Reaver swallowed. Looked out over the landscape with renewed brightness in his eyes. “Did she talk about our father?”
“Right before she died, she said Sandalphon was a great warrior, and that he would have been an even greater father. She said they used to sit in this meadow and plan for our futures. He made cribs for both of us, and he swore to protect us from all harm.” Revenant snarled. “He was a liar. Same as the archangels.”
“Sometimes it’s impossible to protect those you love.” The regret in Reaver’s voice diluted Rev’s anger a little. Reaver’s own children had been raised without him, and with the exception of Thanatos, their lives had been less than ideal, and in Reseph’s and Limos’s cases, horrific.
In the distance, Singing Lilies started up a lullaby, their song a buzzing tinkle in the fresh air. Revenant’s memories crashed into him so hard he stumbled. His mother had put words to the lilies’ tune as she’d rocked him to sleep.
“Revenant?”
Reaver’s voice droned in the background as Revenant drowned in memories so powerful he couldn’t breathe. Their mother’s voice had been magical, so pure that when she sang, even the demons in the cells next to them would weep and the guards would halt in their tracks to listen.
Moonbeams and sunshine, the clouds and the seas, all part of the many worlds I want you to see. Fear not the unknown, nor the depths of the night, for nothing can harm you when I hold you tight.
Revenant’s breath burst from him in an agonizing rush. Just as his mother had sung those words to him, he’d sung them to her as she lay dying in his arms.
He looked out at the beautiful meadow, now pockmarked by the decay left by his footsteps. He’d come here to find something of his mother… and he had.
But his presence had poisoned her beloved meadow. He couldn’t stop hurting her, could he? She’d been imprison
ed because of him. Tortured because of him. Killed because of him.
And now, her favorite place in the universe had been ruined. Because of him.
It was time to face the facts. He didn’t belong in Heaven, and he never would.
Blinking to clear his watery vision, he collected himself, digging deep into his bottomless well of hatred.
“Tell the archangels I’ve made my decision.”
“Rev, don’t —”
“I’m not handing over Gethel.” Nope, he’d make sure Lucifer died in the womb, and then he’d rule Sheoul at Satan’s side. “They can go fuck themselves.”
With that, he flashed out of Heaven.
Forever.
Twenty
Blaspheme had just spent the most miserable night in a cot next to her mother in the on-call room. Then the shower water had been only lukewarm. Now the blow-dryer didn’t work. She was going to scream.
The one positive was that her mother was getting stronger. Eidolon had personally given her a checkup last night, and while he was concerned that the internal damage caused by the grimlight weapon could still cause problems, he figured that if she continued to improve, she’d be ready for discharge in a week or so.
“Blaspheme,” her mother called through the bathroom door. “Your pager thingie is beeping.”
“Thanks, Mom,” she muttered.
“What did you say?”
Blas raised her voice. “I said, thanks, Mom!”
“You don’t have to yell.”
Blaspheme conked her head on the mirror. How were they going to occupy not only the same space, but the same tiny space for who-knew-how-long?
Screw the hair; she had to get to work. So what if she was an hour early? She should see if she could work an extra shift tonight, too.
She grabbed a green scrunchie that matched her scrubs and tied her wet hair up in a high ponytail. After brushing her teeth, she scooted out into the bread-box-sized on-call residence room, where her mother was kicking back on the bed and watching The Today Show.