Revenant (25 page)

“He has nothing to do with the angels,” Blaspheme said, putting herself between Rev and Reaver. Which was adorable. “As for what happened with Thanatos, that’s my fault. Revenant got the blood for me.”

Reaver scowled. “For you? Why?”

“Don’t,” Revenant warned, but the muley glare Blaspheme gave him said she was determined to spill the beans.

Revenant primed his power, just in case Reaver reacted badly. And then his brother would see just how far Rev would go to protect those he cared about.

“Because I’m a
vyrm
,” Blaspheme blurted. “And I needed the blood to complete a spell that will conceal my true nature.”

Reaver’s brow climbed up his forehead as he glanced over at Eidolon. “It was Blaspheme you were talking about the other day?” At the doctor’s nod, Reaver exhaled a curse. “You could have told me why you needed Thanatos’s blood, Revenant.”

“Yeah, because it was so easy to talk while engulfed in fire. Oh, and the crushed lungs didn’t help with that, either.”

“
You
did that to him?” Blaspheme’s hands clenched as if she wanted to take a swing at Reaver. Revenant was tempted to nullify the hospital’s antiviolence spell so she could. “He’s your brother! How could you?”

Eidolon held up his hand. “We can deal with family matters later. Right now we have to do something about the angels. Injured patients can’t get in, and there are at least two mated Sems, including myself, who can’t get to their mates. The situation will go critical in a few hours unless we can hitch rides with Reaver and Revenant.”

Ah, right. As incubi, Seminus demons needed sex to survive, and while the unmated ones could get it from anywhere, mated Sems were limited to sex with their females.

“So all these angels are here for Blaspheme?” Reaver asked. “Seems a little drastic, even for extremists like Eradicators.”

Blaspheme swore softly. “I don’t think this is entirely about my being a
vyrm
. They wouldn’t send an entire legion of angels for that. This is bigger, and I’d be willing to bet that if you dig deep, you’ll find that an archangel named Raphael is responsible for this.”

Revenant thought Reaver’s head was going to blow off. “Tell me,” Reaver growled. “And don’t leave anything out.”

Blaspheme shared the information she’d apparently gotten from her mother earlier, and the longer Reaver listened, the more Rev could feel the fury building in him. His brother was a bomb with a lit fuse, just waiting for someone to throw it. Revenant had a feeling that Raphael was, very soon, going to experience an explosion.

Good. If Reaver could take care of the angels’ UG embargo, Revenant could concentrate on what to do about getting Satan off Blaspheme’s back. Unfortunately, there was no easy solution to that.

Blaspheme definitely had to perform the Pruosi spell, but as long as Raphael was alive and Satan was still looking for her or her mother, she was in danger. What if one of them caught Deva and tortured her into revealing her daughter’s location and new identity? Revenant didn’t trust the fallen angel’s ability to stand up to the kind of torture either of the assholes could dish out.

Frustrated, he thumbed through the Pruosi book, hoping a miracle would jump out at him. Something that would save Blaspheme without her having to lose everything. Maybe there was a spell that would trick Raphael out of Heaven. Or bind Satan’s ability to spy on Revenant. Hell, at this point, he’d be happy tossing the Dark Lord into a bottomless pit and —

He broke off as a thought occurred to him. Could it be so simple?

“Revenant?” Blaspheme rested her palm on his shoulder. “What is it?”

Turning his head, he kissed her hand before flipping to the page he’d merely glanced at before. And there it was. The crazy ramblings of a Pruosi demon whose words had been made immortal between the pages of the
Daemonica
itself.

They try, one after another, to send the beast into the abyss. Failure to them all, but the one who holds the key
.

It was a long shot, completely insane, but at this point, that was all he had.

As Revenant contemplated the logistics involved in his long shot of a plan, Blaspheme put her head together with Eidolon and Reaver over the angel situation outside UG. A few minutes later, Eidolon’s blond brother, Wraith, sauntered into the cafeteria.

“Yo, Blaspheme. Your mother is standing just inside the ER doors and taunting the angels in the parking lot. I like telling angels how douchey they are as much as anyone, and she’s got some righteous zingers, but they’re going to start throwing vehicles at the building if you don’t stop her.”

Blaspheme groaned. “I’m on it.”

With Blaspheme gone, Rev figured it was a good time to have a chat with his brother. Naturally, Reaver gave him the evil eye as he approached.

“I think I’ve found a way to eliminate a few of our problems,” Revenant said. “Namely, Satan, Gethel, and Lucifer.”

“I’m listening.”

Revenant glanced around the cafeteria, which had filled to capacity with patients and staff who were freaked out by the angel presence outside the hospital and clinic.

Rev didn’t trust any of them, except, maybe, Eidolon. Revenant didn’t like the guy, but he had to admit that the doctor ran a tight ship and seemed to value his family, friends, and employees. No wonder Blaspheme liked working here.

“Meet me at Megiddo.” He flashed away, materializing at the same time as Reaver on the Israeli hilltop.

“Why here?” Reaver asked.

Revenant looked out over lands that had seen battle after battle over the course of thousands of years. Fitting, perhaps, that Revenant and Reaver, who had done nothing
but
battle each other, were here now for what Rev hoped would be the last time.

“Because it’s time I answered your question,” Rev said, “and this was where you first asked it.”

“And what question is that?”

“You asked what happened to our mother.”

“And you said you killed her.” Reaver rubbed his chest, and Revenant wondered if he felt the same ache Rev did when he discussed her. “But you never said why or how it went down.”

Revenant closed his eyes, mentally preparing himself to go back to that awful time and place. To his credit, Reaver didn’t rush him, merely waited in silence. Finally, Rev opened his eyes and looked his brother in the eye. He deserved that, at least.

“I told you I was separated from our mother and taken to slave in magma crystal mines, yes?” At Reaver’s curt nod, Rev continued. “Ten years later, I was taken to Satan. Filled with lies and half-truths. Promised power and influence. Once he felt I was loyal to his cause, he sent me to fetch our mother from the dungeon where she’d been kept for two decades. I didn’t know what he was going to do to her, but I knew it wouldn’t be good. She knew it, too.”

Gods, he could still feel her frail frame hanging on to his when they’d been reunited in that filthy cell where he’d spent the bulk of his childhood. The years had not been kind to her, and she was but a shell of the beautiful angel he’d remembered.

And yet, in the depths of her dull, sunken eyes, there had been a spark of life that burned bright when she’d seen him. The breath that shuddered from her lungs had reeked of despair, but her strength shone through even the wear and tear on her body.

“I escorted her out of the dungeon, but I couldn’t take her to Satan. I tried to run with her, to get her out of Sheoul, but we were surrounded and trapped by Satan’s forces. She had no power left in her, and I wasn’t powerful enough to flash with someone else, so we holed up in a cave and waited to die. That’s when she told me the truth about who I was.”

“Who did you think you were before that?”

“I grew up thinking I was
vyrm
. Our mother told me what Satan told her to say, that she was an angel imprisoned for mating with a fallen angel. But while we were holed up, she told me about our father. About you. She was desperate for me to find you and for us to be a family. It was her greatest hope that somehow you could help me rid my blood of Satan’s taint.” He took in a deep, shuddering breath. “And then she begged me to kill her.”

Reaver closed his eyes. “Aw, damn.”

The air around them went still and cold. Rev didn’t know who was responsible for that, himself or Reaver, but the damp chill settled deep in his bones, making them ache as much as his soul.

“I couldn’t do it,” Revenant said. “Not at first. I refused, argued, was prepared to fight Satan’s forces to the death. But as they closed in, they shouted out their orders… what they intended to do to us before they took us in chains to their master. I didn’t care about myself, but I knew her suffering would be beyond measure.” He held out his palm. “Give me your hand.”

Reaver hesitated, the distrust between them thickening like an invisible wall.

“I’m going to show you,” Revenant said. “You need to know.” And he didn’t think his voice would make it through the entire tale.

Finally, Reaver pressed his palm flat against Revenant’s, and Rev queued up the memory he’d tried so hard to forget.

“Please, Revenant.” Lying limp in his arms, Mariel gazed up at him with eyes that were once brilliant sapphire blue, but were now pale and cloudy. “I’m so far gone that you don’t need a special weapon.” She cupped his cheek in one trembling hand. “Feed from me. Drain me as far as you can. My blood will strengthen you and weaken me so your blade can finish it.”
 

“Mother, no. I can’t do what you’re asking. Your soul will be trapped down here
—
”
 

“You must. Hurry. They’re coming.” A tear slid from her eye and plopped to his arm, and all he could think was if she had her way, the next thing dripping from her would be blood.
 

“Please, no,” he whispered.
 

“Do it!” She lowered her voice to a gentle murmur, barely audible over the pounding footsteps and coarse laughter of the approaching demons. “I love you, Son. Tell Yenrieth that I love him, too. I hope he can forgive me for abandoning him.”
 

Revenant’s tears joined hers as he bent and pressed a tender kiss to her forehead. “I love you,” he rasped.
 

“Hurry.”
 

Against every instinct that screamed for him not to do this, he bared his fangs and bit into her throat as tenderly as he could. In his arms, she went taut, but gradually her body relaxed, until her strong pulse became stronger as her body tried to compensate for the blood lost.
 

He wept as he fed, and eventually, her heart couldn’t keep up. The tap of her heartbeat against his teeth grew weaker and slower, until he couldn’t feel it at all.
 

She wasn’t dead, but she was close. The rumble of Satan’s advancing army made the ground shake outside the cavern they’d hidden inside. He had a minute. Maybe two.
 

“Forgive me, Mother,” he whispered as he palmed the dagger at his hip. With the greatest of care, he brushed her hair back from her pale face and sang the lullaby she’d sung to him when he was little.
 

“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.”
 

He could barely see through his tears as he shoved the blade between her ribs and pierced her heart. In his arms, her body went limp, and in an instant, she was gone.
 

At some point during the instant replay, Revenant and Reaver had gone to their knees in the dirt, were both panting and shaking.

“I killed her,” Revenant choked out, feeling as if he’d slammed that blade into his own chest. “I killed her and tried to flash out with her body, but she was right. I couldn’t take her with me. And since the flashing ability only allowed for me to flash to somewhere I’d already been, I was screwed. I materialized at one of the places on our escape route, and from there I ran like hell. I was on the run for… fuck, I don’t know how long. I eventually found a Harrowgate and used it to get to the human realm, where I contacted you.”

“And I fucked that up.” Reaver’s gaze was tormented. Just days ago, hell, hours ago, Rev would have savored his brother’s pain like the most decadent dessert. Now it turned his stomach. “I’m sorry, Revenant. Damn, I am so sorry. I didn’t know what you’d gone through —”

“Would it have mattered?” He exploded to his feet, the agony of losing his mother and then being rejected by his brother washing over him as fresh and vivid as if it had happened yesterday. “You hated me on sight.”

“No, Revenant.” Reaver came to his feet slowly, as if he was concerned about a sudden move setting Rev off. He looked down at his boots, his perfect hair falling forward to conceal his face, and Rev realized that, for the first time, he hadn’t changed his own hair color to match his brother’s. “I hated
myself
. We might not be identical twins, but in you I saw myself. I saw someone who had been lied to, and I made it about me, when it should have been about us.” Suddenly, he tugged Revenant against him, and it was a relief to find that Reaver was trembling as forcefully as Rev was. “I can’t pretend to understand what you went through with our mother, but you need to know that nothing that happened to her was your fault. It was her choice to stay with you, and it was her choice to die.”

They remained like that for a long time, until Reaver pulled back and said the words Revenant had wanted to hear for so long, but couldn’t admit even to himself.

“I won’t abandon you again,” Reaver swore. “We’re brothers, and it’s past time we acted like it.”

Revenant had no idea how to do that. For that matter, he didn’t know if they’d even have the chance.

“I wish we had time,” Rev said, his voice still beat to hell from the trip down memory lane. “But I have to protect Blaspheme, and the longer I wait, the worse it could be for her.”

“You mentioned something about Satan, Gethel, and Lucifer?”

Rev nodded. “I have a plan, but I’m going to need an angel.”

Reaver cocked an eyebrow. “An angel?”

“Satan wants me to prove my loyalty. Which means he wants both Blaspheme and an angel. I’m not giving him Blaspheme. Don’t suppose you know of an angel who deserves a fate worse than death.”

Reaver smiled grimly. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

“If you’re thinking of the same asshole I’m thinking of, this plan might work.”

“What plan?”

“One that could get us both killed.”

Reaver snorted. “Should have led with that. I’m in.”

Clearly, recklessness ran in the family. “You haven’t heard the plan.”

“Then lay it on me,” Reaver said. “We’re going to do this thing, and we’re going to do it together, the way we were born.”

And the way they were probably going to die.

 

 

“Hello, Raphael.”

The archangel nearly jumped out of his skin, which Reaver thought was pretty damned funny. Raphael liked to pretend he was cool and collected, often emulating Metatron – poorly. Now Reaver knew why he did that.

He wanted Metatron’s job.

“What the fuck are you doing in my house?” Raphael eyed Reaver’s gold wings, which Reaver had taken out to remind the archangel that he was about a thousand times more powerful than Raphael.

“I came to ask how long you’d been plotting to take down Metatron.”

Raphael laughed, sounding genuinely amused. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t have time to toy with you, so I’m just going to put it all out there. I know you’ve been working with Stamtiel for at least two hundred years. So I’m going to give you a choice. Either I take you to Metatron for your execution, or I give you a fighting chance at survival.”

“Go ahead.” Raphael crossed his arms over his chest. “Take me to Metatron. You have no evidence —”

“I have Stamtiel.”

Every drop of blood drained from Raphael’s face. “You’re lying.”

Reaver used his mind to display a live feed on the far wall. A live feed showing Harvester standing next to a gagged and bound male angel. She grinned and waved. Reaver waved back, and she blew him a kiss, followed by a naughty wink.