“You should still worry,” Lore muttered, and Idess cleared her throat. He gave her a sheepish look. “Yeah, yeah. Once the contract is void, you have nothing to fear from me.”
Kynan snorted. “I was never afraid.”
“Bullshit. You’ve been on the verge of pissing yourself.”
Idess half-expected their heraldi to start burning, so when Kynan laughed, she thought she was hearing things. “If I didn’t hate you so much, I think I could actually like you.”
“I’d probably like it better if you kept hating me.”
Kynan’s lopsided grin was a traffic-stopper. “You’re just mad because I got the girl.”
“No,” Lore said, shifting his gaze to Idess with such hot possession that her breath clogged in her throat, “I got the one I want.”
Heart pounding and face heating, she cleared her throat. “If you two are finished, we should get ready for what we have to do.” She wasn’t going to say, “Kill Rami,” because she prayed it wouldn’t come to that. Maybe she could bargain with him. Or save him somehow. Because destroying him could very well destroy her. “How is Gem, by the way?”
“Like I always said, she’s got a hard head,” Kynan said, the affection in his gravelly voice unmistakable. “Apparently, when she bent over to pick up something on the floor, the coffee maker fell off the counter and beaned her.”
It hadn’t “fallen,” Idess was sure. One of the ghosts had pushed it, probably at Roag’s direction.
“We’d better go,” Tayla said. “I want to check in with Shade and Runa. Oh, and E said to tell you that Sin is fine. She’s at UG getting checked out.”
“No doubt she’s loving that,” Lore said wryly.
“Well, I heard a lot of cussing in the background…” Tayla shrugged. “You guys be careful. And please, get Rade back.”
“We will,” Lore swore. “If it’s the last thing I do, I will deliver that child to Shade.”
Tayla nodded, and then she and Kynan were out of there.
“This is going to be dangerous,” Idess said. “Even with the qeres weapons, Rami has an advantage, Lore. As a fallen angel, he’s drawing on the power of Sheoul. I’m not a true angel, and I’m much weaker than he is.”
“Is that why you were affected so badly by the cross-bow bolt?”
“Exactly.” She absently rubbed her sternum. “But really, you get a hole the size of a fist blasted through you, and see how you fare.”
“I’ll pass.” He pulled off his gloves and tossed them to the kitchen table. “You poofed right after that. What if he does the same?”
“He won’t. I have a trick up my sleeve.”
His jacket went next, leaving his arms mouth-wateringly bare in his short-sleeved T-shirt. “Which is?”
“Powdered Benedictine monk wine.”
“Monk… wine?” He paused in the middle of unbuckling the leather weapons harness strapped across his chest. “As in, wine made by monks?”
She nodded. “Wine made in a secret chamber at Buck-fast Abbey in England is blessed by monks and dried. Once powdered, it can be used as a temporary antidematerialization weapon against fallen angels.” And angels, which was why it was kept under lock and key. If it were to fall into the wrong hands, it could be used to immobilize God’s army of angels during the Final Battle.
“How temporary?”
“It’ll give us only a few minutes.”
“That sucks, but it’s better than nothing.” Lore laid out his harness and systematically checked each weapon. If they weren’t going after her brother, she’d actually think his efficiency and confidence when handling the weapons was incredibly sexy. “So where do you think he’ll be?”
“Sheoul. The Forbidden Abyssal.” Her voice was stronger than she felt on the inside.
Lore’s foul curse scorched the very air. “That’s the nice name for it. Do you know where it is? What it is?”
“I’ve heard of it.” Who hadn’t heard of it?
“It’s known as the Butchers’ Playground.” His voice was grim. “It’s said that nothing is off-limits there. There are no rules except that nothing can die quickly.”
It was also one of the few places in Sheoul that angels couldn’t enter at all. Some claimed that Satan himself liked to hang out there. No doubt it was a great vacation spot for someone like him.
“That’s why I know he’ll be there. He was never one for half-measures, and if he’s gone evil, he’s gone evil.”