Reaver (43 page)

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