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 na**d 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.”