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Reaver(11)



“Oh,” Sin said brightly—and sarcastically. “You mean like the situation Harvester is in.”

Seminus demons were annoying no matter what gender. “Yes. Like that.”

She punched him lightly in the shoulder. “Good. Glad we’re clear. Try to come back soon or we’ll come after you.”

“Don’t do anything dumbass-ish, my fine feathered friend,” Wraith said.

Eidolon clasped Reaver’s hand. “Good luck. Something tells me you’ll need it.”

Luck? No, Reaver needed something more powerful than that.

He needed a miracle.





Four





Five days. Reaver and the three assassins Sin had hooked Reaver up with had been traveling through Sheoul for five days. Felt like five years. They’d been attacked by seventy-one different breeds of demons, over a hundred plant species, and more demonic animals than Reaver could keep track of.

They’d been scalded in torrential rains of boiling water. Nearly frozen by blasts of liquid nitrogen in a region of ice and snow. And they’d been singed by rivers of lava that leaked through stone retaining walls as tall as the eye could see.

Making matters worse, Tavin, the blond Seminus demon Reaver had been acquainted with for a couple of years, kept telling Reaver that they were still in the “upscale” parts of hell.

So far, the biggest dangers were environmental, since Reaver’s powers were more than enough to deal with most minor demons. The most pressing problem was that he recharged slower here even with Raphael and Gethel’s sheoulghuls, and as Eidolon predicted, his weapons sometimes went wonky.

Earlier, he’d summoned a ball of fire to throw at a croix viper, and the ball of flames had expanded to twenty times its size before growing teeth, claws, and a tail. The fire-animal had then devoured not just the croix viper, but every demon within a hundred-yard radius. Another assassin, a werewolf named Matt, was lucky to have escaped its fiery wrath. Reaver had been forced to destroy his own weapon before it ate the guy alive.

Fortunately, all three assassins turned out to be excellent fighters. Tavin’s ability to explode eyeballs with a touch was especially impressive. It had definitely come in handy against a ten-foot-tall demon with butcher-knife-sized teeth and two dozen eyes.

Pop! Pop! Pop! Eyes everywhere. Some powers were meant for fun.

“How many times have you been to Sheoul before this?” Matt asked warily as he pulled his brown-and black-singed hair into a low ponytail.

“Thousands,” Reaver said. “Hundreds of thousands.” He shrugged. “It was nothing like this, though. Angels are extremely limited in where we can go and how long we can stay. Coming here is usually a quick in and out.” He took a bite of some ugly little animal Tavin had caught and roasted over their fire. They’d camped on the banks of the Inferno river, in a region Reaver had never explored before. “Get out before the devil knows we’re here.”

“Just like that country song,” Tavin chimed in from where he was sitting next to Matt.

The third assassin, Calder, was on patrol, which was fine with Reaver. The Nightlash demon smelled of cigarettes and mildew, and he was a crude, violent bastard on the best of days. Once, Reaver had even been forced to stop him from assaulting a female enemy following a battle. Reaver might have actually killed the fucker if not for Tavin and Matt pointing out that what made Calder abhorrent to Reaver made him an asset in Sheoul. And of the three assassins, he was the only one familiar with the regions surrounding Satan’s stronghold.

Reaver cocked an eyebrow at Tavin. “You don’t strike me as country guy.”

Tavin snorted. “I’m not. Our assassin master took Sin’s idea to make an inspirational playlist of every song that mentions hell and run it on a constant loop in the assassin den.”

“I’m guessing you’re not as enamored with the music?”

“Only if enamored is code for wanting to slit your wrists just so you can hear the sound of your blood pumping out instead of the twang of some annoying human yammering about sin.”

“Ah. In that case, I’ve been enamored a few times myself.”

“By annoying music?”

Reaver shot Tavin a pointed look. “By annoying, yammering demons.”

Tavin took a swig of water from his canteen. “And people say angels aren’t funny.”

“Who says that?”

“Everyone,” Tavin said, and Matt nodded in agreement.

Well, Reaver couldn’t dispute that. Most angels he knew were all serious and dour. The ones who weren’t were sweet and happy and… floaty. Like Mary Poppins on an acid trip and a pot of coffee. Reaver didn’t know which was worse.