Reaver

Her eyes snapped up to his. “Holy fucknuts,” she whispered. “I told you not to trust him.”

“And you were right.” Reaver’s voice was wooden to his own ears. “He knew I’d come after you, and I fell right into his trap. I led the darkmen straight to you.”

* * *

Once again Revenant stood before Satan, and once again he wished he was anywhere but here. Anywhere.

Most demons and fallen angels, and even a few humans, would sell their own children at meat markets for the privilege of serving the Dark Lord. It was, after all, an honor to be considered one of Satan’s inner-circle minions. People dreamed of one day being at his side and in his service.

Those people were fucking stupid.

Only a stone-dumb idiot would want that. Satan’s lackeys rarely lived long. One screw-up and it was the ax. The literal ax. The Dark Lord didn’t believe in second chances.

He was also a big fan of shoot-the-fucking-messenger.

“You said your news is important.” The demon king turned away from the warg he’d been torturing for days. “It had better be. I’m about to break this werewolf assassin’s oath and find out who stole Harvester.”

It was important, all right. Revenant just hoped Satan didn’t freak out and do the shoot-the-messenger thing.

“Were you aware that Limos was pregnant?”

Satan’s growl indicated that he knew, and Revenant wondered what happened to the unlucky bastard who’d delivered the baby news. Limos was supposed to have been Satan’s bride, and he held a grudge.

Revenant continued quickly, before his boss had time to get angry. “I believe the archangels are attempting —or already have attempted—to switch Gethel’s and Limos’s babies in the womb.”

The legendary Big Bad pivoted around. “They did what? How do you know?”

“Because the Horsemen’s Heavenly Watcher mangled the Horsemen. It was… bizarre. When she was finished, Limos’s baby was gone. Not dead. Gone.”

Satan went quiet. Too quiet, and Rev could practically hear the tension crackling in the air. Finally, he wandered over to a tray loaded with implements of torture and selected a rusty butter knife.

“If they have Limos’s child,” he said in a terrifyingly calm voice, “they can perform the ritual remotely within a brief window. When did this happen?”

“Recently.” Rev kept his eye on the knife, not wanting to find himself with a knife in the eye. “I found her at Underworld General. I bound her womb so it won’t hold any child but her own.”

“Excellent. I’m starting to think you should be working for me instead of babysitting Horsemen.”

Oh, fuck no. Revenant’s sense of self-preservation was way too strong to want such an honor.

Whirling in a blur, Satan launched the knife. The thud of the dull blade punching into the werewolf’s gut echoed through the chamber, followed by the male’s low moan.

Satan, now empty-handed, clapped and a female fallen angel named Knell entered.

“My lord?”

“Increase the guard around Gethel and fetch the Orphmage Gormesh. Have him conjure a protection enchantment for Lucifer. He’s in my guest quarters.” He glanced over at Revenant. “He brought the ingredients and incantation I needed to break the warg’s assassin oath. Now the fun begins.”

Knell bowed and left the chamber. Satan strode over to the werewolf, who was hanging from a huge wooden cross. He wrapped his hand around the warg’s throat.

“Mephormus etalia exodushem.”

The warg sucked in a sharp, asthmatic breath. Satan leaned in, lowered his voice. “Who are you working for?”

“Reaver,” the warg moaned, and this time it was Revenant who inhaled sharply.

Rev braced himself for an explosion of Satan’s fury, but to Rev’s shock, the king of demons merely tossed the werewolf to the ground and watched him until he died, a victim of the broken oath’s death sentence.

“I knew Heaven was involved,” Satan said, his voice still eerily calm. “But Reaver… he’s an interesting development.”

What the fuckity fuck? Why wasn’t the demon having a nuclear meltdown? And why would he think that Reaver’s involvement was “interesting”?

“My lord,” Revenant said, as unobtrusively as he could. “What do you want me to do?”

Satan’s lips turned up in a bloodthirsty grin. “Tell Knell to belay my last order. I have another job for the Orphmage.”

Revenant cocked an eyebrow. “Sir?”

Satan laughed, a maniacal sound that congealed Revenant’s blood. “My armies are on the move, waiting to get into Heaven, but right now, all battles with angels will have to be fought in the human realm until Lucifer’s birth shatters Heaven’s walls.”

Revenant wasn’t about to say “Duh,” but… duh.

“I’m tired of waiting. The Orphmage is going to change the game. He’s going to accelerate the timetable.” Satan ran his tongue over sharp teeth. “Lucifer is going to come early.”

Twenty

Son of a bitch!

Reaver was going to destroy that archangel. Somehow, if he survived the darkmen, he was going to make Raphael pay for this.

He tossed the sheoulghuls onto the cabin’s dirt floor, but Harvester snatched them up. “It’s too late to get rid of them. The enchantment has already marked you as a target.” She shoved the crystals back into his pocket. “I think I know a way to fix it, but we have to go.”

She said it as if he wasn’t aware of the urgent need to get the hell out of here.

A shrill, wet scream came from outside. The darkman was closer. They were out of time.

“We can slip past while the demons are distracting him.” He shot her a glance. “You ready?”

“No,” she said so nastily that he knew her nap hadn’t smoothed the way for reasonable dialog about their past. “I was thinking I’d take up knitting while I wait for him to kill me.”

He ignored that and held out his hand to her. “Come on.”

With a blatant sneer at his offer, she brushed past him and slipped out into the throng of carrion wisps.

Swearing quietly, he followed her as she crept around the skinny demons and used the trees and brush as cover.

“We need to head north.” Harvester shoved a fat, leafless branch out of the way and darted into the shadows. “Toward the mesa in the distance.” A crossbow bolt, no doubt made of aurial material, impaled a tree trunk mere centimeters from his head. “Shit—Reaver, you’re glowing!”

Reaver wheeled around in time to see another bolt fire from the darkman’s crossbow. He dove at Harvester, taking her down as the bolt screamed over their heads. Reaver rolled behind a fallen log and blasted the asshole with a stream of hellfire that drained every last bit of Reaver’s power.

The flames caught the darkman in the torso, knocking him backward and sending his crossbow flying.

“The glow’s gone,” Harvester breathed.

“Good.” He already had a bull’s-eye on his chest. There was no need to add neon lights and a flashing arrow pointing at it.

Reaver shoved Harvester down the path they’d started on, but she stopped so suddenly he crashed into her.

“Lucifer,” she gasped. “I can feel him.” She gasped again. “Oh, shit. I can feel my father, too. He’s ahead of us.”

An icy fist closed around Reaver’s heart. “How close?”

Terror flashed in Harvester’s eyes as they shifted to the darkman, who was up and charging in their direction.