Reaver

they stared at each other.

“Well, this is awkward,” she said, and he laughed. God, he was gorgeous when he did that. Everything about him just… glowed.

Glowed… shit. He was throwing light like a nuclear power plant, and she hadn’t even noticed. The overwhelming hatred that usually came with his angelic aura didn’t bother her either.

“Reaver, you’re glow—”

The black box fell away, and in a flash of light, they were dropped into another realm. A realm where everything was dreary and gray, even the massive pyramids that sat atop an ocean of sand.

“Oh, fuck,” she breathed, as a crushing wave of evil swallowed her whole.

“What is it?”

She glanced over at him and drew in a sharp breath. His aura was gone, confirming her suspicion about their location; in this realm, there was no light except for the ever-present hazy luminescence that kept the realm in a constant state of blah.

She wondered if she should sugarcoat what she was going to say. But screw it; she’d never sugarcoated anything in her fallen angel life.

“Remember how I said the Boregate knows where you need to go?”

“Yeah… and we need to get to the human realm. This isn’t it.”

“No,” she said. “This realm belonged to Lucifer. I guess it still does, because I can feel him.”

Reaver’s sandy eyebrows shot up. “So Gethel must be here.” She nodded, and Reaver swore. “This could be bad. He gazed into the distance. “Or it could be good. If we can get close to Gethel, we can take her out.”

“How? You can’t even kill a hellrat, and I’m operating at less than half power. Not to mention the fact that Gethel will be heavily guarded.”

“I can take out a hellrat,” he muttered. “I just can’t replace any power I spend, now that the sheoulghuls are gone.”

“No, I mean you that you can’t use your powers here because you’re an angel. Even if you were at full strength it wouldn’t matter.”

He swore. “I love how things just get worse and worse.”

A feeling of doom settled over her like a shroud as she looked ahead at the city that had been the basis for the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes. Even the Egyptian gods had been based on the denizens of this realm, animal- headed demons who had gotten off on convincing primitive peoples of their godliness.

“Well, we can’t just stand here. Is there a way out? Now that we know where Gethel is, we’ll go to the archangels,” Reaver said, all logical and crap. Except she knew something he didn’t.

“Yep, there’s a way out. The exit is through a single Harrowgate.”

The smug expression on Reaver’s face fell. He knew what she was about to say, but she gave him credit for at least trying to remain optimistic as he asked, “Where’s the Harrowgate?”

She pointed at the city. “In the very center. Right on Lucifer’s doorstep.”

“Fuck,” Reaver breathed.

“We already did that. But if you’re saying that we’re fucked, I’d say you’re right.”

* * *

The journey to the city didn’t take long, and aside from one hawk-headed Horus demon trying to rob them, it was uneventful.

But as they approached the gates to the massive city, Reaver had a feeling things were going to get a lot less dull.

Khepri demons—scarab-headed humanoids—guarded the gate, their skinny antennae swiveling like radar dishes. Flanking them were Sobeks, their humanoid bodies too small for their giant crocodile heads.

Reaver had never encountered any of these demons, which Harvester said no longer traveled away from this realm, but the stories of their cruelty went well beyond the realm’s borders.

He leaned close to Harvester, and her scent made his body stir again.

“Are they going to let us in?”

“Of course,” she said, as if he’d asked an insanely stupid question. “It’s letting us out that’ll be the problem if they find out who we are. And they probably will.”

Harvester was definitely a glass-half-empty person, wasn’t she? But she was right, and the guards opened the gates that were tall enough to allow entrance to Godzilla. Inside, the gray that defined the outskirts of the city was replaced by rich reds and greens, golds and silvers. Great pillars and statues dotted the city, which could have stood in Egypt and no one would have known the difference.

“Charming place,” he muttered as they moved past Neethul slave markets and arenas where demons fought to the death.

Harvester nodded enthusiastically, as if he’d been serious. “I know, right? There’s a pub a few blocks over that serves the best pomegranate wine in all of Sheoul. Costs a fortune, but it’s so smooth. You’d never know they use Soulshredder blood to make it.”

“Sounds lovely.”

“I hear sarcasm.” She tsked. “What is it humans say? That sarcasm is the lowest form of humor?”

He shrugged. “Only for people who don’t get it.”

She laughed, and he missed a step. He’d heard Harvester laugh before, but there had always been an evil undercurrent to it, a morbid amusement that came from things normal people wouldn’t find funny. But this was a pure, bubbly laugh of genuine delight, and it filled him with the strangest giddiness, like a feather was tickling his heart.

As if she felt it too, she slid him an almost shy glance, a lopsided smile curving her luscious mouth. He didn’t say anything, because by now he knew that calling attention to anything pleasant would turn her back into an acid- tongued fishwife. Idly, he wondered if Eidolon had anything for her particular brand of demonic bipolar disorder.

“We’re almost there,” she said, pulling him to the side of the road to avoid being trampled by an elephant-like creature being ridden by an Anubis.

Almost there. If everything went smoothly, then in a few more minutes the nightmare would be over. This part of the nightmare, anyway. They still had to face the archangels, and the things they could do to him made all the miseries of Sheoul seem like a day at an amusement park.

The Harrowgate hung between two gold columns at the top of hundreds of steps that led to a building Harvester said was Lucifer’s palace.

“Will we be able to walk right into it?”

“I doubt it,” she said. “Gethel will probably be heavily guarded.

At the top of the steps, demons milled about, but it was the armed Silas demons standing nearby that hot- loaded a massive dump of adrenaline into Reaver’s veins.

“Shit,” Harvester said, her voice so low he barely heard her. “Silas demons are coming up behind us.”

Reaver cast a covert glance back, and yep, they were being flanked. When he looked ahead, Silases were moving toward them, too.

They were blocked.

Instinctively, Reaver reached for his power, but there wasn’t so much as a spark. Harvester had been right. He couldn’t even kill a hellrat.

“I don’t suppose you have any tricks up your sleeve,” he asked.

“I have a lot. Unfortunately, they won’t work in this situation.” She shot a covert glance at the Harrowgate. “I say we forget Gethel for now and make a break for it.”

As much as he’d love to end Gethel and Lucifer right now, he had to admit that without their full range of powers, any attempt would be suicide. But that didn’t mean he was admitting defeat. No, right now the smart thing to do was to escape and live to fight another day.

“On three,” he said. “One.” The demons behind them began to jog. “Two.” The demons in front of them raised their swords. “Three.”

He and Harvester bolted toward the gate, scattering civilian demons like bowling pins. Harvester flung several