“They don’t know,” he said. “I thought if I told them they’d want to help me rescue you.” He side-stepped to avoid getting shouldered by a hell mare someone was leading through the market. “Your replacement is a douche named Revenant.”
Harvester skidded to a halt and wheeled around. “Revenant? That puffed-up, ill-tempered hellswine?”
“I see you’ve met him.”
She snarled. “That by-the-book hardass has been after my job for decades. He even tried seducing me, as if I’d give up my job after enough orgasms. Fool.”
She jerked her hair back from her face so hard it had to hurt, but what Reaver really wanted was for Revenant to hurt. Just because.
“Does he know he can’t insult Limos without getting the boys all riled up?” she asked. “He needs to know that. And he really needs to know not to mess with Battle. Ares’s stallion hates fallen angels. Although I guess it’ll be funny to watch him learn that on his own.” She laughed as if picturing the scene in her head. “Ooh, and I can’t wait for him to mess with Than’s vampires. Thanatos will hang Revenant from the southwest tower of his castle for that.”
“Not likely,” Reaver said. “Watchers got a defensive upgrade to protect against angry Horsemen.”
“Really?” Harvester scowled. “I could have used that once or twice.”
“I know,” he said quietly.
“You don’t know anything,” she snapped.
It had been nice to chip through the layer of ice that encased her, but now they were back to the way it had always been. Him trying to get through to her, and her putting up walls as fast as she could.
She spun back around and moved even faster toward wherever she was going.
“I know what Pestilence did to you.” He could guess, anyway.
“Yeah? Good for you. But compared to what my own father and his minions have done, Pestilence was a little boy playing at war spoils. I’m over that trauma, so shut up about it.”
Yup, she sounded over it. But not being completely dense, he didn’t voice that thought.
She stopped in front of a black tent, where a humanoid female was arranging beads on a string, chanting as she worked.
Harvester spoke to her in a language Reaver didn’t know, and a moment later, she turned to him. “She can remove the tracking enchantment. But it’s going to cost both sheoulghuls.”
He lowered his voice and spoke into her ear. “Without the non-enchanted sheoulghul, I can’t recharge down here.”
“If you’re dead you can’t recharge either,” she pointed out. “Unless you have anything else in that backpack to bargain with, it’s both sheoulghuls or nothing.”
Damn. This was bad. He hadn’t been able to hold onto much power or he’d glow, but every little bit helped. If he couldn’t recharge, he was going to not only be fully dependent on Harvester, but he would be a liability to her as well.
Some rescuer he was.
Cursing to himself, he handed over the sheoulghuls. The shopkeeper smiled like she’d won the lottery as she carefully took the crystals and secured them in a leather pouch that looked suspiciously like human skin.
Man, he hated demons.
The shopkeeper disappeared inside her tent, and when she returned a minute later, she was carrying a bowl of green paste.
“Give me your hand,” she said, and Reaver did as she’d demanded.
Harvester propped a hip against a tent support, her stance relaxed and casual, but he didn’t miss the way she was watching the crowd like a hawk, her sharp eyes assessing every individual who walked by. She was so different from the young, innocent Verrine, who, no matter how many times he’d told to be alert to her surrounding, would get distracted by the smallest things, like a butterfly landing on a flower.
The sudden memory and wash of tender feelings made him jerk as the demon poured the green stuff into his palm. She glared, wiped spilled drops off her hand, and continued, starting up an incantation that made his ears ache. He glanced over at Harvester, but if she noticed the painful buzz, she wasn’t letting on.
The demon ended on a high note that made Reaver wince, and then he damned near shouted when, out of thin air, she produced a golden nail and punched it through his hand.
“What the—” He cut off with a strangled yelp as she yanked the nail back out.
Blood poured onto the ground, and her voice became a clipped, harsh bark. “Done.”
His bleeding stopped, and in an instant, the hole sealed.
Harvester pushed away from the tent support. “You’re clean. Let’s go.” She took his hand and started to jog. “Daddy’s here.”