Reaver(10)

Someone else took one of his hands. Sin. Her small palms cradled his hand, squeezing gently. Gradually, as the pain waned, his vision cleared. The outline of Wraith’s big body appeared through fuzzy waves of gray mist.

There had been a time, years ago, when Reaver’s opinion of these demons had been less than favorable. As an Unfallen angel employed at the hospital, Reaver had been steeped in bitterness and self-pity. He’d been bred to battle demons, and instead he worked with them. Healed them.

Now these Sems had become his family, which was even more bizarre considering he’d been restored to a full-blown angel.

“Done.” Eidolon’s fingers smoothed over the bilateral incisions he’d made beneath Reaver’s shoulder blades. “The lasher glands are going to slowly release hormones that’ll mask your angelic signature, but you’re on a ticking clock. You’ve got, at most, thirty days before they run out. Less than that if you hit parts of Sheoul where time runs faster than here.” Eidolon stepped around in front of Reaver and trashed his gloves. “There might be a slight side effect.”

Reaver didn’t like the sound of that. “Side effect?”

“Lasher glands are a hot item on the underworld black market because they can boost some species’ power. It’s possible that because you’re an angel, the effect could do the opposite in you. It could cause your powers to either warp or drain rapidly.”

Perfect. Because the cards hadn’t been stacked against him enough.

“You sure we can’t go with you?” Sin asked.

“I’m sure. But E? I might be needing a job after I lose my wings.”

He was only half-joking, and Eidolon knew it. “You always have a place here,” Eidolon said solemnly. “You know that.”

“Good luck, man.” Wraith clapped him on the shoulder. “For an angel, you don’t suck.”

“Ditto. For a demon… well, you do suck.”

“Because I’m half vampire?”

“Sure,” Reaver said. “Let’s go with that.”

Wraith beamed. “So,” he said, “you really think having archangels string you up by your halo is worth saving this Harvester chick?”

Yes. “Even if stopping Lucifer’s reincarnation isn’t a good enough reason to rescue her, she still deserves it,” he said. “She saved the world.”

Wraith shrugged. “So did I, but I don’t see you offering up your holy ass to save me.”

“Are you suffering unspeakable horrors at the hands of Satan?”

“No,” Wraith said, “but sometimes I have to eat hospital cafeteria food.”

Reaver sighed. Wraith was a hundred-year-old child. “She also saved Reseph’s life when he was a kid, and she kept watch over all four of my children while they were growing up. And she might be able to help me put together some pieces of my past.”

“She remembers you? Does she know who you used to be?”

He shook his head. “She might remember Yenrieth, but she was taken to Sheoul before even I learned the truth of who I was, so she wouldn’t have connected me with Yenrieth.”

Sin looked up from her cell phone. “I met her a couple of times. She was a heinous bitch.”

Reaver had thought the same thing for so long. The fallen angel had taunted him at every turn, defied him whenever possible, fought him until they were both bloody, and tortured him on one occasion. Now he was going to risk his tail feathers to save her.

“It was all an act,” he said, but the burning skepticism in Sin’s eyes said she wasn’t buying it. He wasn’t sure if he bought it, either.

Eidolon shouted through the tent opening at a passing vampire paramedic, something about checking the duty schedule, and then he turned back to Reaver. “How do you know where she’s being held?”

“Gethel mentioned Satan’s pressing machines,” Reaver said, and Sin shuddered.

“He has his own blood wine label,” she said. “His pressing machines are supposed to both chill the blood and squash it out of you.”

Reaver couldn’t even begin to imagine the horror of being “juiced,” and the idea that it was happening to Harvester only made him more eager to get her the hell out of there. Literally.

“His pressing machines are located in his main dungeon complex,” Reaver said. “That’s where she’ll be.”

Wraith shoved his hands in his jeans’ pockets. “How long before we consider you overdue and mount a rescue party?”

“Never.” Reaver shrugged into his shirt. “If I don’t come back, it’s because I’m either dead or in a situation that’s too dangerous to get me out of.”