Reaver(2)

“How the fuck did you do that?” Thanatos advanced on her, sword leveled at her throat, but Reaver suspected the Horseman’s weapon would be as useless as his own. The souls Than stored in his armor—the souls of those he killed—swirled at his feet, anxious to kill. “How did you get in here? My keep is warded against anyone but my Watchers and Reaver flashing in.”

“The child I carry lent me his power.” Gethel touched her stomach, and Reaver’s mouth went dry at the sight of the bump under her palm.

What kind of child could she possibly be carrying? Power of that magnitude in any species was almost unheard of.

The answer came to him like a poleax between the eyes. A Radiant, or Shadow Angel, as some called them, would be powerful enough to blow through Than’s wards. But there hadn’t been any angels of that class around for centuries. If Gethel was pregnant with an angel who could travel freely through both Heaven and Hell, the archangels needed to know.

The hairs on the back of Reaver’s neck stood up, and half a second later, the Horsemen’s Sheoulic and Heavenly Watchers, Revenant and Lorelia, flashed in.

Ares’s leather armor creaked as he stepped closer to Gethel, his two-handed sword poised to strike a lethal blow. “Explain.”

Gethel dragged out a dramatic pause. “I’m going to give birth to Lucifer.”

Bullshit. Lucifer, Satan’s right-hand man, was dead. Reaver had seen the fallen angel torn to pieces with his own eyes. So what was Gethel’s game?

“You mean Lucifer’s child?” Reaver hoped not. Any spawn of Lucifer’s would be as powerful as most archangels.

“Lucifer himself,” she said sweetly, and Reaver’s stomach wrenched with disbelief. “I was chosen to be the vessel that will give him physical form again.” She eyed Thanatos’s sword. “Go ahead and run me through. I’m not really here. My precious Lucifer has the power to project my image to the moon if I want.”

A thunderous rumble tore through the castle, and then two archangels dressed in business casual slacks and shirts slammed to the ground in twin rays of golden light. Before anyone could react, Raphael and Metatron swept the Horsemen and Revenant, their evil Watcher, aside like flies, leaving them lying unconscious on the ground. Lorelia stood there looking stunned and grateful to be left conscious.

Reaver snared Raphael’s arm. “What did you do to them?”

Irritation flickered in the angel’s expression, and Reaver knew he was close to being laid out by some über-powerful archangel weapon.

“They’ll recover.” Raphael gestured to Gethel. “When we get hold of you, you won’t recover.”

“You are an angel, Gethel.” Metatron’s silver-blue eyes flashed lightning, but his words were measured. Controlled. The calm before the tempest. “You can stop this madness before it’s too late.”

“Why would I do that? I’m carrying the second most powerful being in Sheoul.” She drummed her fingers on her belly. “His power will rival even yours.”

“How is this possible?” Lorelia asked, obsessively twisting the ruby ring on her pinky. “Reseph destroyed Lucifer months ago.”

In truth, Reseph’s demon half, Pestilence, had also played a key role in Lucifer’s messy demise, but Reaver wasn’t going to split hairs right now.

“Lucifer was destroyed,” Metatron agreed, never taking his eyes off Gethel. “But his soul was sent to Sheoulgra. Given the right, albeit unlikely, conditions—”

“He could be reborn,” Raphael finished sourly. “But under what circumstances?”

Metatron closed his eyes as Gethel smirked, waiting for him to solve the puzzle. “Only Satan is powerful enough to sire a reincarnated fallen angel of Lucifer’s status. The mother would need to be someone pure and holy who fell from grace.”

“Or an angel who betrayed Heaven and Earth,” Reaver said grimly. “Gethel.”

Gethel clapped. “Bravo.”

Raphael glared at Reaver. “If you’d killed her when you had the chance, this wouldn’t have happened.”

Way to stab me where it hurts, dickhead. Reaver’s failure to kill the golden-haired wench during their last battle ate at him like acid. But that didn’t mean he liked being taken to task about it by a puffed-up archangel who had parked his butt safely behind his monstrosity of a desk while the human realm suffered under a demon invasion and near-apocalypse.

“If any of you had gotten off your pampered asses to, I don’t know, help, maybe she’d be dead by now,” Reaver said, wondering if he should throw in a few expletives for emphasis. Ultimately, he decided not to push his luck. Either archangel could turn him into a juicy stain.