Reaver(36)

“Screw Reaver,” Tav muttered. “He did this to me.”

Eidolon blinked. He didn’t get struck dumb often, but he couldn’t see Reaver turning on someone like this. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

Tavin sat up, fighting Forge when the other Sem tried to hold him down. “This,” he said, yanking down the collar of his shirt.

Eidolon peered closely at the glyph. “I thought you had a worm—”

“I did.” Tavin cursed. “Reaver healed me. It did something… I don’t know what. But when it was done, I had this viper that fucking bites.”

Eidolon brushed his finger over the snake and yanked his hand back when it struck. “That’s interesting.”

“Interesting?” Tavin flopped back down on the exam table. “Maybe you’ll find it interesting how, when I sliced into a demon and got blood on my hand, the damned viper latched onto my throat and injected me with shit that made me go crazy. I went into some sort of berserker mode. Nearly killed myself without even knowing it. I tried to… hurt… Harvester, too. Would have, if Reaver hadn’t stopped me.”

It sounded almost as if Tavin had entered s’genesis, the final stage of a Seminus demon’s maturation, when they turned into monsters who cared only about sex. And they would take it in any way they had to, which often meant trickery and violence.

Eidolon frowned. “You said this happened when you killed a demon?”

At Tavin’s nod, Eidolon strode to the door and shouted at a nurse to fetch Idess, another in-law. As an ex-angel of sorts, she was the closest thing to an expert on an angel-powered… whatever-it-was plaguing Tavin.

While he waited, he helped Forge heal Tavin, who spent the entire time bitching about angels. Eidolon said a silent thanks when Idess showed up, her chestnut hair secured in a long, tight ponytail by a series of gold metal bands.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

Eidolon pointed to Tavin’s symbol. “Do you recognize that?”

Narrowing her honey-colored eyes, Idess leaned in close. But not close enough to get bitten, he noticed. “That looks like a patron cobra.”

“A what?” Eidolon and Tavin asked in unison.

She inhaled a deep breath. “It’s a symbol angels used to brand people requesting protection from demons. But this makes no sense. Not only is it slightly altered—this snake has fangs—the symbol hasn’t been used in thousands of years.” She frowned down at Tavin. “How did it get there? Only an angel could do this.”

“Reaver did it.”

She blinked. “Reaver?” She looked as baffled as Eidolon felt. “Why would he do that? The patron cobra can’t be used on demons.”

“It wasn’t intentional,” Tavin said. “His powers are all fucked up.”

“Oh.” Idess’s expression went slack. “Oh.”

“Oh, what?” Tavin croaked. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

Neither did Eidolon.

“I think,” she said slowly, “that instead of protecting you, it’s fighting you. See, if the symbol is cast on a human, it gives the bearer strength and focus and the ability to fight demons with extra skill. The snake also comes alive and fights the enemy. But because you’re a demon, it’s battling you, too.”

Tavin closed his eyes. “That’s great. That’s just fan-fucking-tastic.” When he opened his eyes again, they’d gone gold with anger. “So you’re saying that every time I fight a demon, this is going to happen?”

“I can’t say for sure,” she said, “but I’d guess that’s the case. It might attack you randomly, as well.”

“Found that out already.” Tavin uttered a juicy Sheoulic curse. “I have decades left on my assassin contract. This… this is not good.”

Red lights flashing on the wall indicated that an ambulance was arriving with a critical patient, and Eidolon’s adrenaline spiked. He loved a good emergency.

“I gotta go,” he said to Tavin. “I’ll work on this, see if we can come up with a way to reverse it.” He glanced at Idess. “Can you look into it as well?”

“You bet.” She smiled reassuringly at Tavin, but the look she gave Eidolon was the exact opposite. Basically, poor Tav was screwed.

Reaver, what have you done?



Reaver, what have you done?

Plugging into Reaver’s vein was like plugging into an electric socket. Harvester had fed from an angel before, but to her relief, this was different. Better. Way better.

No longer worried about turning into a heinous beast, she drew deeply, greedily.