Reaver(20)

He bounced off a rocky outcrop before hitting the ground in a messy sprawl. Momentarily stunned, he lay there as the thing clamped its paw on top of him, caging him inside a prison of bony fingers and razor-sharp claws.

Man, he hated these giant things. They couldn’t kill him—very few demons could—but they were capable of serving up a world of hurt that could leave him defenseless for days. Worse, the commotion might attract Satan’s minions.

With renewed enthusiasm, he energized his hands with iced fire and jammed them between the demon’s fingers. Frost streaked through the creature’s hand and up its arm, leaving trails of chilled vapor billowing in its wake.

Excellent. The demon would retreat… ah, shit. Ice froze the demon’s hand to the ground, trapping Reaver as the beast fought Tavin and Calder with its other arm and its clawed feet.

“Reaver!” Tavin’s voice sounded above the demon’s pained screams.

“I’m here,” Reaver called out. He summoned a giant mallet and prepared to smash his way out of the prison of the demon’s palm. “You guys keep the bastard busy.”

“I’m open to suggestions, asshole,” Calder yelled. “Wait… standby!”

A massive crash buckled the ground, shattering the demon’s frozen hand and releasing Reaver. The demon lay dead a few yards away, bled out from a gut-spilling gash in his belly, courtesy of Calder, who was bent over, trying to catch his breath. But where was Tavin?

Reaver scrambled over a pile of boulders. “Tav? Man, where are you?”

Calder joined in Reaver’s frantic search, until finally, the Nightlash demon shouted. “There!”

The Seminus’s arm was poking out from under the dead beast’s hindquarters.

Fear made Reaver clumsy as he rushed to Tavin, and he nearly passed out with relief when he found the Sem caught in a small space between the demon’s leg and a rock.

“You okay?” Tavin didn’t respond. Anxiety spiked again as Reaver sank to his knees. “Tav?”

Blood soaked the ground around Tavin, pooling and mixing with the other demon’s darker blood. A faint scritching noise rose up, and the dirt began to vibrate, sending chills up Reaver’s spine.

Carnage maggots.

“Get to safety,” Reaver told Calder. “Now.”

The demon eyed the larva-nettle bush. “What about the fallen angel?”

“The bush will protect her,” Reaver yelled, his patience shot. “Go!”

Hastily, he dragged Tavin out from under the demon’s leg and heaved him over his shoulder. The ground rumbled hard enough to make him stagger. In seconds this patch of battle-chewed earth would become a feeding ground for great white shark–sized grubs that fed on blood and dead flesh, but they wouldn’t turn down a live meal either.

The ground between Reaver and Harvester erupted with maggots, cutting off his path. Shit. He spun sharply and hauled ass up a mound of boulders, narrowly avoiding the snapping jaws of a maggot that burst out of the ground like a damned porpoise out of water.

“I hate Sheoul,” he breathed, as he laid Tavin out on his side on a flat rock and kneeled beside the still unconscious Sem. The stench of blood, bowels, and death filled his nostrils, and his heart plummeted to his feet. It was worse than he’d thought.

Tavin had been gutted from the back. Broken bones pierced organs that were spilling out of the two-foot gash, and Reaver had a sick feeling he’d left a few vital innards on the ground below.

“Damn you,” Reaver muttered.

Even if Reaver possessed the ability to get the demon to Underworld General, he wouldn’t survive the time it would take to get there. Reaver was Tavin’s only hope, and healing him was going to take every drop of Reaver’s power. He couldn’t afford the loss, but neither could he afford to lose Tavin.

But there was also the very real possibility that his healing power could go awry, twisted and corrupted by the lasher implants. He could kill Tavin just as easily as heal him.

Reaver wasn’t even going to think about the fact that healing demons with angelic power was sort of… frowned upon by his angel brethren. He’d broken a lot bigger rules than that in just the last day.

Tavin sucked in a weak, shuddering breath. As he exhaled, his body went slack with the familiar death sag.

Reaver was done with the overthinking crap.

Power tingled up from his core, spreading across his skin. He placed his hands on Tavin’s head and funneled everything he had into the demon. Sweat formed on his brow as Tavin’s organs and bones began to mend and his heart began to beat.

Clenching his teeth, he dragged power from the deepest depths of his very bones, channeling it into Tavin until he sputtered and choked.