Reaver (35 page)

He was in standing atop Mount Megiddo, surrounded by archangels. And a few yards away was

Harvester, her curvy body wrapped in a skin-tight ivory leather dress that revealed more flesh than he

wanted anyone but him to see.

Her eyes were downcast.

And her hand was twined with Raphael’s.

The leaden press of foreboding crushed Harvester under its weight. This was going to be bad. She dug

her nails into Raphael’s hand as hard as she could, hoping to inflict as much pain as possible, hoping

to make him feel a small measure of what she was feeling. The dickhead just smiled and watched four

archangels escort Reaver into the center of a ritual circle drawn with the blood of three camels bathed

in holy water.

Harvester’s heart bled as he was forced to his knees on the hard-packed earth where so much history

had been made. Tel Megiddo was not only a site important to humans but to angels as well. It was here

that fallen angels could summon those in Heaven. It was here that angels were elevated to higher ranks

within their orders. And it was here that punishments were carried out.

Clearly, Reaver wasn’t here to be elevated. But what kind of punishment would he be forced to

endure? Raphael’s smile grew wider, and a sudden, terrifying thought came to her.

Tel Megiddo was also where executions took place.

Oh, dear God, no.
“You promised you wouldn’t kill him,” she croaked. “You
bastard
.”

Trembling with a combination of fear and anger, she jerked away from Raphael and bolted toward

Reaver, but two Enforcers, angels assigned to ensure compliance of angelic law, seized her by the

arms and hauled her backward.

“Leave her alone!” Reaver exploded to his feet, but four more Enforcers brutally pinned him to the

ground.

“I promised you we wouldn’t destroy him,” Raphael assured her. “But what he’s done can’t be

forgiven, either.” He cupped her cheek with a gentleness that didn’t match the ominous tone in his

voice. “Calm down. You’re only making things worse for him.”

You son of a bitch.
She hated that he was right, hated that Reaver was going to suffer for saving her.

Swallowing dryly, she put on the cool, detatched facade she’d perfected as a fallen angel and forced

herself to remain still.

Raphael joined five other archangels who formed a semicircle around Reaver as he lay on the

ground, arms and legs held by the Enforcers. Another Enforcer reached under him and dragged his

wings out to spread wide in the dirt.

Michael rose above the others as if on an invisible pedestal.

“Reaver, known also as Yenrieth,” he began, his rich baritone carrying such power that Harvester

wondered if his words were being broadcast in the heavens. “You have defied us for the last time.

Because of you, Satan is demanding a hundred thousand souls in payment for our breach of contract.

His forces are gathering, and an assault on Heaven is now not a matter of if, but when. We have laws

for a reason, and in thousands of years, you haven’t learned to obey them.”

He produced a golden
treclan
stake, and Harvester slapped her hand over her mouth, cutting off the

cry of alarm that coiled in her throat.

Not long ago, Gethel had driven half a dozen of those things into Harvester’s body. Every place the

stakes had penetrated began to throb anew, as if her muscles remembered the agony of the stakes

developed solely to hold an angel for all eternity if one wished.

Michael slammed the stake through Reaver’s hand, pinning it to the ground. Reaver’s face

contorted in agony and sweat beaded on his brow, but he didn’t make a sound.

“No!” Harvester screamed. “Don’t do this!”

No one listened. She struggled against the Enforcers, sobbing as the archangels took turns driving

stakes into Reaver, one in each hand, foot, thigh, and wing. Reaver never screamed, never made a

single noise as his bones broke and his blood ran in rivers on the hard-baked ground.

Uriel punched a stake into Reaver’s abdomen, and Harvester’s screams hadn’t even died away

before Gabriel rammed a
treclan
into Reaver’s chest. This time, he grunted and coughed blood, and

for the first time since the horror began, he closed his eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Reaver,” she rasped, tears streaming down her face. She cried out as Raphael lifted

the last stake high over his head and plunged it into Reaver’s throat.

Reaver gasped, bloody spittle spraying from his pale lips.

“We don’t take any pleasure from this,” Raphael said to Reaver, and Harvester called bullshit on

that. The other archangels seemed either sad or indifferent, but Raphael’s glee wasn’t well concealed.

“Harvester. Come here.”

The Enforcers released her, and she half ran, half tumbled toward Reaver. Gabriel caught her before

she reached him.

“What are you doing?” She tried to break away, but the other archangels gathered around her,

blocking her.

Raphael kneeled next to Reaver and shocked the hell out of her when he gently palmed Reaver’s

cheek. “Not all is lost, Yenrieth. When one falls, another rises.” He dragged his hand through the pool

of Reaver’s blood and stood to face to Harvester.

All of the archangels began to chant in a deep, hauntingly beautiful song. She felt frozen in place as

Raphael came to her. He stopped a foot away.

“I wish it could be my blood that strengthened you,” he said gruffly. “But you’ve already got a

blood connection with Yenrieth.”

“I don’t understand.” Anxiety wrapped around her chest and turned her lungs to cement. What were

they going to do to her?

Reaching out with his bloody hand, Raphael gripped the back of her neck and joined the chanting.

The world around her spun, joined by a muscle-melting peacefulness that made her sag. Several hands

caught her and held her upright.

Suddenly, agony hijacked every muscle, every organ, every cell. It was as if every bone was being

pulverized while still inside her body. The pain blinded her, took her breath and her voice so she

couldn’t even scream. She felt her wings crumpling like wadded-up paper, and she thought she must

have passed out, because the next thing she knew, the archangels were backing away, heads bowed,

and the pain was gone, replaced by the purest, sweetest euphoria she’d ever known.

Blinking, trying to gain her bearings, she tensed the muscles in her back… and felt the weight of

wings. New wings.

Was it possible? Had she been returned to full angel status? Afraid to look, she flared her wings and

peeked with one eye.

She gasped, her heart soaring at the sight of massive, glossy blue-black wings that rose high into the

sky, the tips of each feather dusted with iridescent glitter.

“Only a handful of Unfallen have been raised to Heavenly angel status,” Gabriel said. “But never

before have we raised a True Fallen. We weren’t even sure it could be done.” Framing her face in his

hands, he kissed her lightly on the mouth. “Welcome home, Verrine. Your service to the human and

Heavenly realms has never been equaled, and you can never be thanked enough.”

Tears of unfettered elation filled her eyes, and deep in her soul an awareness she hadn’t felt in five

thousand years filled her heart. The blood bond with Reaver. She could feel him in places that had

been so empty for so long.

She turned to him, and although his pain must have been off the charts, he smiled weakly at her, his

sapphire-blue eyes glinting with satisfaction. But her own satisfaction was fleeting. She couldn’t

celebrate, not when Reaver was suffering. Not when he’d just lost everything.

“But,” Raphael continued, his tone turned grim, “there is a price for your return.” In a coordinated

move, both he and Uriel produced golden scythes Harvester knew too well.

“No!” she cried out in horror, her joy forgotten. “Don’t—”

The two angels brought the scythes down in silent swoops, and in an instant, Reaver’s wings were

severed, and with them, the blood-bond sensation she’d gained only seconds before.

Reaver’s scream of ultimate agony, of soul-wrenching misery, rocked the entire plateau in an

earthquake that would register on the Richter scale. Above them, clouds roiled from out of nowhere,

bringing thunder and lightning, and a torrential downpour. The rain came down in buckets, but an

angel-made dome over the mount left everyone but Reaver dry.

“
Reaver
.” Harvester ran toward him, her feet slipping in mud created by the rain and his blood. She

threw herself at him, tearing at the
treclan
spikes. No one stopped her, and Reaver didn’t move. His

eyes were open, but he wasn’t there.

When she’d pulled free all of the spikes, she gathered him in her arms and held him against her,

rocking him, stroking his hair, not caring that her pristine white clothes were now ruined.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.” She glared at the archangels through the rain that pelted

her and Reaver. “You bastards. You fucking bastards.”

Temper flashed in Raphael’s eyes, little bolts of crimson lightning. “You may be my consort, but

you will never speak to an archangel like that again.”

“Don’t bet on that,” she shot back. “You’re right; you should have gotten me thousands of years

ago, when I was meek and biddable. Big mistake, Raphael. Huge.”

His expression darkened. “Come. We’re done here. You’re not to see him again.”

When she didn’t move, he threw his head back and roared. The storm Reaver had created with his

agony grew ten times worse, spawning tornadoes that circled the hilltop.

“Now,” he growled, his voice amplified to a near-deafening pitch. “Now, or I will pluck Reaver

from your arms and dump him in Sheoul.”

To do so would complete Reaver’s fall from grace, allowing him no chance of redemption, because

somehow, she doubted that he’d ever be raised the way she had. She was the first, and likely, the last.

With a sob, she laid Reaver carefully on the ground. Bending, she brushed her lips across his, taking

a perverse pleasure at Raphael’s growl of jealousy.

“
Now!
”

Harvester came to her feet slowly, defiantly, and without sparing Raphael even a glance, she spread

her new wings and took flight.

“Forbidden to see Reaver again? WWRD, asshole,” she muttered as she shot upward into a black

cloud. What would Reaver do, indeed. He’d break the rules.

So would she.

Twenty-Six

Blaspheme hated days off work. Days off meant she had to find something to do with herself, and

she’d rather not be that creative. But when Eidolon promoted her from paramedic to doctor a few

months ago, she’d been given more duties, and she’d been put on call on her days off.

Awesome. She loved getting called into work, and with all the turmoil going on in Sheoul right

now, there was plenty of work to go around.

She’d barely stepped out of the Harrowgate and into the packed emergency department when

Eidolon pulled her aside. “Glad you’re here. I need you to take a look at Tavin.”

“Tavin? Wasn’t he released days ago?”

“Yeah.” Eidolon frowned. “But he’s got something weird going on with his
dermoire
.”

She automatically glanced at the sleeve of dermal glyphs on his right arm. “Shouldn’t that be your

area of expertise?”

“His personal symbol changed. Idess says it’s angelic in nature, but there’s something wrong with

it.” He lowered his voice as a Ramreel patient limped past, his hoof wrapped in bandages. “I was

hoping you might have some insight.”

She stiffened. What would make him think she could give insight into something angelic in nature?

False Angels were like false morels. Poisonous copies of the real things and related only in

appearance.

“Do you mean
False
Angelic?”

“No.” He looked beyond her for a moment before meeting her gaze. “And on the subject of angels,

stay away from Revenant.”

She frowned. “Who’s Revenant?”