Reaver

Thirty-Three

Revenant’s presence triggered another memory blast that knocked Reaver backward several steps. Images tore through his head, everything from his childhood with Metatron and Caila to his history with Verrine to his fits of temper that destroyed entire cities. Oh, there were good things, too, like the time he rescued a village from demons who had been bent on eating the town’s children.

In fact, there was more good than bad in the massive memory dump. But the bad, especially the things that involved Verrine, ripped his heart in half.

“Reaver.” Gripping his head with both hands, Revenant stepped out of the crater. “Fuck… Yenrieth… I remember you. I remember… everything.”

So did Reaver. The memories kept coming, and if Revenant’s grunts were any indication, it was happening to him, too.

In his head, he saw Revenant standing on a boulder in a plain brown robe that matched his uneven mop of plain brown hair.

“Yenrieth.” The brown-haired male held out his hand. “Finally we meet.”

“Finally?” Reaver ignored the offered hand. “Who are you?”

“I’m Revenant. I’m your twin brother.”

Yenrieth snorted. “I have no brother.”

Sadness swam in Revenant’s black eyes as he dropped his hand to his side. “Your life is a lie. Just like mine.”

“We met. Here. On this very spot.” Reaver took in the landscape, seeing it in a whole new light. “You told me you were my brother, and that everything I’d ever known was a lie.” Revenant’s words rang in his ears as if they were spoken only moments ago. “You told me our father was dead and that Metatron was really my uncle.” He sucked in a sharp breath as he remembered what else Revenant revealed that day.

“How do you know all of this?” Yenrieth asked. “Who told you?”

“Our mother.”

Yenrieth grappled with his surprise and all the new information as Revenant leaped off the boulder he’d been standing on, his sandals hitting the hard ground with twin slaps of leather on dirt.

“Our… mother? You know her?” Yenrieth’s heart pounded wildly. “Where is she?”

“Dead.”

Yenrieth hadn’t known her, but the fact that now he would never have the chance to meet her left him shattered. If Revenant was telling the truth, Yenrieth’s entire life had been a lie, and the people he’d loved, the people he’d believed were his parents, had deceived him since infancy. He had so many questions, but right now, the female who had given birth to him was his only focus.

“When?”

“Recently.”

“How?”

Revenant met Yenrieth’s gaze. “I killed her.”

“You killed our mother,” Reaver breathed, the anger coming back to him as sharp and clear as the memory.

Reaver had already been in a rage after learning what Verrine had done, and his brother’s revelations had tipped him all the way off the ledge. He’d gone insane, furious at Revenant for murdering the mother Reaver hadn’t even met, angry at everyone in Heaven for lying to him. Betraying him.

Metatron’s head whipped around to Revenant. “You? You killed her?”

Revenant snarled, his raven wings, now marbled with gold and silver streaks, snapped out to eclipse the rising sun.

“And you,” he shot back at Metatron. “You left me to rot in Sheoul, while you took him.” He jabbed his finger at Reaver.

“We had no choice,” Metatron yelled. “It was one or neither.”

Revenant’s hair changed color to match Reaver’s as he ignored Metatron and rounded on Reaver again. “You didn’t give me a chance to tell you about our mother. I was young and alone, and the very day I learned about you, I came to you as a brother. But all you saw was an enemy and a fiend.” Revenant’s eyes went crimson, and black veins marbled his skin as he rose off the ground in a whirlwind of lightning. His voice was a cannon boom that would have shattered lesser beings’ eardrums. “Now that is all you will ever see.”

Revenant shot into the sky, and when the high cloud layer engulfed him, the heavens churned and blood began to fall as rain.

Metatron ground his teeth, muscles leaping under skin dripping with red. “That could have gone better.”

Probably. But right now, worrying about rocky family reunions was the least of Reaver’s concerns. Heaven and hell were about to square off for a battle in which no one would win, and the deadline had passed for him to offer himself up to Satan in place of Raphael.

“You said I can go anywhere in Sheoul?”

“Anywhere but Satan’s region and any region he’s visiting.” Metatron reached skyward, and the blood-rain stopped. “You can go places even I can’t. But beware, Yenrieth. There are limits to your powers. You can’t heal demons anymore. Positive energy from you will harm them. Some species of demons will burn to ash in your very presence. You’ll need to spend a month every year in Heaven or you’ll lose your most powerful abilities. And Revenant can sense you in Sheoul, as you’ll be able to sense him in Heaven. His job will be to keep you away, and he’ll have a power advantage on his home turf.”

“Will I have an advantage on mine?”

“Yes, but remember, he isn’t a fallen angel, so no one else, including archangels, can sense him in Heaven. You’ll be our only line of defense should he get in to steal records or assassinate angels… or worse, to open the gates of Heaven to Sheoul from the inside.”

The not-so-subtle subtext there was that Reaver needed to not let them down. And he wouldn’t.

Overhead, a pitch-black cloud roiled, but instead of pitching thunder and lightning, Reaver heard growls and screams.

“Demons are in Heaven,” Metatron barked. “I have to go.”

In a flash, Metatron was gone. Reaver stretched his wings and took flight, amazed at the power and grace that flowed through the veins of his new body.

Now it was time to test that power.

He banked a hard right and dove toward Jerusalem and the Dome of the Rock, where demons were spilling from a Harrowgate nearby. Angels soared in from the opposite direction, dozens of them, their hands gripping ancient Heavenly weapons.

With no more than a thought, he burned the first wave of demons to ash on a flyby. Then he took out the second wave, then the third. The other angels didn’t even have a chance to fight, but he sensed demons rising from Harrowgates all over the world, and he couldn’t stop them all.

Their target wasn’t humankind; they were on a mission to destroy Earthly holy places and draw angels from Heaven. Then, after enough angelic blood was spilled, the demons could open a hole in the barrier that separated the Heavenly and Sheoulic realms.

The birth of Lucifer would be the death blow, collapsing sections of Heaven itself and, in turn, demolishing huge expanses of the barrier.

But Lucifer was also the solution to stopping this. Leaving the next wave of demons to the waiting angels, he searched his senses for… there. Harvester was picking up on Lucifer’s life force. Quickly, before he lost the signal, he locked onto Harvester’s vibe and flashed himself into Sheoul and directly into a region he was sure he’d never been to. Into a palace built of bones and gold, and where the corpses of demons hung in decorative cages from the ceiing.

And there in front of him was Gethel.

She was feeding from an infant werewolf, and if the pile of bodies in the corner was any indication, she wasn’t ready to stop sucking blood to feed the unholy spawn in her belly anytime soon.

“Bitch.”

With a yelp, she spun around. The baby fell from her hands, tumbling headfirst toward the stone floor. Reaver darted in and snatched the little boy a mere centimeter from the tiles.

“Reaver,” she gasped. “You’re a—”

“Yeah,” he snarled. “I am.”

He blasted her with a bolt of supercharged Heavenly light that enveloped her in blistering acid. She tried to scream, but the light entered her open mouth, scouring away her voice and leaving her nothing to spill but blood.

He dove for her, preparing to snatch her up and whisk her out of Sheoul. But as his fingers brushed the fabric of her gown, what felt like a wrecking ball smashed into him, knocking him into a pillar that broke in half and came down in massive chunks. He shielded the infant against his chest as Revenant nailed him with another invisible ball of pain.

“Oh, brother,” Revenant hissed. “We’re off to a great sibling rivalry, aren’t we?” He sent a fiery streak at Reaver, but Reaver leaped out of its path and returned fire with a blast of razor shards that drilled a dozen holes through Revenant’s body.

His brother didn’t even blink.

His job will be to keep you away, and he’ll have a power advantage on his home turf.

No shit, Metatron.

As Revenant came at him with a massive flame-sword, Reaver tucked the infant under his arm and did a midair roll that smashed him into Gethel. She was screaming in silence, her skin so blistered that she was barely recognizable. He grabbed her and flashed to Megiddo, where he dropped her in a pool of the blood-rain Revenant had left behind.

As expected, Brother Dearest arrived a split-second later. “Give her to me.”

“Tell your boss that you can have her back if he stops this war and forfeits the souls he wants to claim for breach of contract.”

Revenant snorted. “He’ll never agree.”

“Oh, I think he will.” Reaver fed waves of agony into Gethel, waves that also sucked life away. “You know our power. You know I can destroy both Lucifer and Gethel right now.”

Revenant’s wings flared. “A minor setback. Lucifer will be reborn again.”

“But it’ll take time,” Reaver pointed out. “Finding the right vessel to carry him could take centuries. Psychotic traitor angels willing to give up their lives so they can give birth to Satan’s spawn are pretty rare. Even you must know that.”

Reaver’s scalp prickled and half a dozen archangels, followed by two dozen fallen angels Reaver had never before seen, appeared in a circle around him, Revenant, and Gethel.

Metatron came forward, meeting one of the fallens inside the circle. “Caim.” Metatron halted a yard away from the white-haired male. “It’s been a long time.”

“Not long enough.” Caim flashed fangs as long as Reaver’s index finger. “Give us our Dark Mother.”

Metatron eyed Gethel as she writhed at Reaver’s feet. “I don’t think so.”

Caim’s snarl was echoed by the other fallen angels. An ominous tingling sensation whispered across Reaver’s skin as the evil angels loaded themselves to the brim with power, readying for a fight.

Reaver snapped his fingers and a bolt of azure lightning scorched the earth mere inches from Caim’s feet. Caim leaped backward with a hiss.

“What the fuck.” He hurled a ball of fire in response, but Reaver knocked it away with a thought, and the thing fizzled out.

“Call off the demon army,” Reaver said. “Then we’ll talk.”

Caim balled his clawed hands at his sides so fiercely that blood dripped from his palms. “I’ll put in a request,” he gritted out. “But make your choice, angels. Kill Gethel, and you’ll witness a war that will spill into your precious human realm. Give her to us, and we’ll stand down.”

They’d stand down, but it would be a temporary measure at best. Lucifer’s birth would result in Heavenly destruction, and Satan would once again launch an attack.

Either way, Heaven and Earth were going to lose.

I feel you, Reaver.

Harvester swallowed at the intense sensation of having Reaver’s life force buzzing through her, more powerful and more vibrant than ever before. He was an angel again, of that she was sure. But how?

She pondered the question as she paced outside of Watcher headquarters, waiting to hear the decision regarding Lorelia’s punishment. In many ways, she actually felt bad for the female, who had been operating under orders while knowing her actions would get her into trouble.

Harvester had done the same thing when she’d kidnapped Reaver and held him captive at Raphael’s command. And Harvester had, indeed, paid the price.

The door opened and Modran, a senior Watcher Councilmember, appeared, his short dark hair partially covered by a brown hooded mantle. It was quite the medieval monk fashion statement.

“Verrine. I wasn’t expecting you.”

“It’s Harvester.” She’d been Harvester far longer than she’d been Verrine, and besides, Verrine had been pure and innocent. Harvester could never be Verrine again, and she didn’t want to be. She didn’t want to be the Harvester she’d been as a fallen angel either, but in time, she hoped to find a nice balance of good and… experience. “I want to know what’s happening to Lorelia.”

“All you need to know is that we’ve met with the Sheoulic Watcher Council, and we’ve agreed on a punishment.”

“Does that include punishing Raphael for his role in ripping Limos’s baby from her womb?”

Modran’s brown eyes went chilly. “Archangel business is none of ours, and I’d suggest you make it none of yours, as well.”

Hard to do, considering she was supposed to get naked with an archangel in about ten minutes. “I’ll be returning the infant today—”

She broke off with a gasp, her inner Satanic alarm screeching in her head so forcefully she felt the ground shake.

Lucifer was in the human realm. Which meant Gethel was, too. But how could she feel him so far away?

Unless… Reaver. He was with Gethel.

“Ver—ah, Harvester?” Modran glanced nervously around. “What’s going on? Did you feel that?”

She blinked. “You felt it, too?”

Before the other angel could answer, the ground shook again, this time hard enough to put a crack in the great support pillar carved with images of famous angels of the past.

Was Gethel in labor? Or was she in another kind of pain? If so, Lucifer would be in agony as well, and the quakes they were experiencing now would be nothing compared to what was coming when he was born.

Harvester swore, which earned her a sharp glare from Modran. She wished she could flash to wherever Gethel was and end her now, but damned Raphael had restricted her movements to Heaven only. It was his way of ensuring she wouldn’t see Reaver again until Raphael had bedded her, the bastard.

She had a feeling he knew about her trysts in the Hawaiian pool and on the battlements of Thanatos’s castle. Good. She hoped he got an eyeful.

The complex rocked, sending angels streaming out of chambers and running for outside. But one angel was running in.

Michael jogged over to her, looking as frazzled as she’d ever seen him. “Reaver captured Gethel,” he said. “We have an opportunity to destroy her, and Lucifer with her. But Reaver is refusing. We need you to talk to him.”

“Why would he refuse? And why does he have any say in it? You took his wings.”

“Long story,” Michael said with an impatient wave of his hand. “As for why he’s refusing, we have a choice. War or Heavenly destruction. Apparently, Reaver would rather see Heaven leveled than lose a few humans.”

“Of course Reaver would choose the humans. Have you learned nothing about him at all? After everything Heaven has done to him and his family, why would he choose you?”

Michael flared his wings in annoyance. “It doesn’t matter. We need to do something. Now. Lucifer will be born fully grown, which is going to magnify the destruction beyond even what we’d initially believed—”

“Wait,” Harvester broke in. Gethel had talked about Lucifer being born fully grown, and now something was flitting at the far edges of her mind.

“Harvester?”

“I said wait!” she snapped. Grabbing her head, she paced in a circle, trying to coax the elusive thought into something tangible. “How many fallen angels have been reborn?”

“I don’t know,” Michael said in a voice overflowing with exasperation. “A hundred, maybe. Why?”

The why didn’t matter yet, because Harvester wasn’t sure of it herself. “How many have been born fully grown?” And ew. What a mess that would make.

“One.” Michael glanced up at a micro-fissure in the gold-flecked ceiling. “Nine hundred years ago. His birth collapsed an entire Heavenly mountain range, and he wasn’t a quarter as powerful as Lucifer.”

“The mother,” Harvester said, excitement building as the thought she’d been chasing started to solidify. “Who was she?”

“A nun,” he barked. “Why?”

Her breath caught and held. That was it! She knew how to stop the destruction and stop the war.

“Michael, you have to cut off Gethel’s wings.”

He frowned. “Her wings? Why—” His eyes shot wide, and then a broad grin spread across his face. “Of course!” And then Michael, who was known for his aloof nature, hugged her. “If I didn’t have a mate, I’d take you right now.”

And that was the problem with archangels. They took what they wanted, even if what they wanted didn’t want them back.

Michael flashed away, leaving her to answer the new buzz in her head.

Raphael’s summons. It was time.

Tel Megiddo had seen more angelic history happen on its earthen mound than any other place on Earth, but Reaver would bet the tension on its hilltop had never been greater than it was at this very moment.

Long, strained minutes passed as the two sides engaged in an epic stare-off. Even the clouds overhead had frozen in place. The only noises were Gethel’s agonized bleats and the werewolf cub’s whimpers.

Finally, Caim inclined his head in the shallowest of nods as if taking orders from some invisible supervisor. “The demons have retreated. Give us Gethel, and the Dark Lord will let Harvester’s rescue slide.” He flapped his leathery wings. “But this isn’t over. The slightest interference with Sheoul will shatter this fragile truce, and you will know Satan’s wrath.”

“Blah, blah.” Reaver rolled his eyes.

Revenant popped Reaver on the back of the head with a flare of power. “Asshole.”

“I can feel the brotherly love radiating from you.” Reaver returned the not-so-gentle gesture, except from the front, and Revenant’s head snapped back as if he’d been punched.

“Stop it!” Metatron barked. “Reaver, release the traitorous whore.”

“No!” Gabriel flashed from the sidelines to the center of the circle. “If we let her go now, we’ll never have a shot at her again.”

Gabby was right. Satan would ensconce her in his realm where she’d be safe from anyone, including Reaver.

But Reaver was siding with Metatron on this. The fallout, and the damage to Heaven, would rest on his shoulders.

And he was okay with that. If he’d learned anything at all in his long and weird life, it was that if you made a decision, you owned it. Even if it was the wrong decision.

“Wait!” Michael materialized next to Reaver, a set of golden scythes in his hands. Instinctively, Reaver growled. He’d been on the sharp edge of those things twice, and they were a little too close for comfort, even if they wouldn’t work on him. He’d turn Michael into sausage if he tried.

Gabriel spun to Michael and gestured to the scythes. “What are you doing with those?”

“Something we should have done a long time ago.” Michael turned to Reaver. “It was Harvester’s idea.”

That was all Michael needed to say. Reaver stepped back from Gethel, and when the fallen angels tried to rush to her, he knocked them back with an invisible barrier formed by his thoughts.

Revenant tackled him like a linebacker, slamming them both into the ground. Pain streaked through Reaver’s shoulder, but he healed in a heartbeat and used his freshly healed arm to punch his brother in the face.

Blood spurted from Rev’s nose, but as with Reaver, the injury healed instantaneously, disappearing even the blood.

They rolled around on the packed earth, trading punches in a fight that was far more personal than using special powers would have allowed. For all the amazing upgrades they’d been given, there was nothing more satisfying than a good old-fashioned brawl between brothers.

Through the sound of flesh striking flesh, growls, and curses, Reaver heard Gethel scream. Heard the sickening crunch of wings being separated from her body.

And then, as if a veil had been lifted. Revenant was gone. All the fallen angels were gone. Team Evil had collected its prize and left, leaving Reaver with Metatron and his colleagues.

Shaking his head, Reaver cleaned himself of the blood, dirt, and injuries, and came to his feet.

“I’ll be damned,” Metatron murmured, his gaze fixed on the set of bloody wings lying on the ground, the dull, frayed feathers ruffling in the hot breeze.

“What happened?”

“Harvester figured it out.” Michael made the scythes disappear. “Lucifer’s birth was all about the vessel. In order to be reborn with even greater powers than he had before, the vessel carrying him needed to be someone pure and holy, but who fell from grace.” Everyone gave him blank stares. “Fell from grace,” he prompted. “But not fell from Heaven.”

Of course! Reaver damned near conked himself on the head. “Gethel wasn’t fallen, so she still counted as pure and holy despite all her vile actions.”

Michael nodded. “Harvester realized that if we gave Gethel an official boot out of Heaven, she would no longer be fit to give birth to a fully formed, adult Lucifer.”

“Clever,” Metatron mused. “She’s still pregnant with Lucifer, but he’s been downgraded. We still have time to kill him, but even if we don’t, his birth isn’t going to cause cataclysmic destruction.”

Reaver grinned. “So Harvester stopped the war and saved Heaven. Not bad for an angel you all wanted to let rot in Satan’s prison.”

That earned him a lot of scowls and a few insults, all of which he ignored. The fact that he was more powerful by far than any of them except Metatron made him feel extraordinarily magnanimous.

Michael, who Reaver had always thought was a bit of a dick, strode over. And held out his hand. Wary, Reaver took it, but the archangel merely clasped their hands together as he leaned in.

“I’ve judged you harshly. Deservedly so,” he added. Of course. “But you’ve proven yourself. You and Harvester are meant for each other.” His voice dipped low. “You should hurry.”

Reaver’s breath clogged in his throat. Harvester was with Raphael. Right now. Was it too late?

Heart pounding, Reaver spread his wings. “I’m out of here. Send me your thanks for grabbing Gethel and helping to end the war later.”

“You started it, you arrogant ass!” Uriel shouted.

“Right. Forgot.” Reaver shrugged. “You never thanked me for the last time. I’ll take your apologies later.”

He left them open-mouthed and fury-faced. All except Metatron, whose laughter followed Reaver all the way to Heaven.