Reaver(88)
He looked tired, the dark crescents under his eyes swollen with exhaustion. He also looked ready to butcher something.
Just the way Revenant would look if he learned she wasn’t really a False Angel.
Stop it. You’re worried about nothing. He hasn’t been around in days. He may never come around again.
She squared her shoulders and put on her cheery doctor face. “Hi, Tavin. Eidolon said you have something to show me.”
“You could say that.” He tugged down his collar to reveal his personal Seminus symbol, the one his offspring would inherit just beneath their own symbols.
The markings would continue all the way to their fingertips, revealing the history of their paternity for dozens of generations. It was kind of cool, really. One glance at another Sem, and a Sem like Tavin or Eidolon could determine their relationship to each other. Tav and E, in fact, were related by a star symbol far back in their family dermoire.
She peered closely at the vaguely familiar snake symbol. The horned head rose up from a body coiled around a skull, and as she looked at it, she swore the tail moved. Squinting, she leaned closer.
“It looks like a—” She reared back. What had Eidolon said? An angelic symbol?
“What?” Tav let go of his shirt collar and twisted around to her. “What is it? Idess said it was an angelic protection symbol gone wrong.”
Blas shook her head. “It’s not angelic. It’s fallen angelic.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Angels and fallen angels draw their power from different sources,” she explained. “So they have different abilities and talents. For example, only an angel can create the patron cobra, and only a fallen angel can create what you have. The death cobra.”
Tavin snorted. “Well, I hate to tell you this, but it was an angel who did it. Not a fallen angel.”
She shook her head. “Impossible.”
“I’m telling ya,” he said with a shrug.
She wasn’t going to argue. Not when she knew she was right. “Just for shits and giggles, let’s say it’s the death cobra.”
“But I don’t want it to be the death cobra,” Tavin blurted. “That sounds really fucking bad.”
“It is. It’s a curse.”
“A curse? You mean, like a curse curse. Like, a bad curse?”
There really wasn’t any other kind, but seeing how the patient was getting worked up, she didn’t point that out.
“Yeah. A bad curse.”
Tavin swallowed, and the snake shifted. Damn, that freaked her out. And she was used to weird shit.
“Okay, so what am I cursed with, and how can I get rid of it?”
“I don’t know how to get rid of it. As for the curse…” She blew out a long breath. “Poison. I’m sorry, Tav, but it’s an ancient assassination curse, not even used anymore. Every time you agitate the snake, it’ll bite. You’ll eventually die. “
“Assassination?”
She nodded. “Ironic, yes?” His flat stare said he didn’t appreciate the irony. “I’ll see what I can find out about it. We’ll all work on this, Tav.”
Her name badge should read: DR. BULLSHIT. Curses were not easily broken.
“Fuck.” Tavin scrubbed his hands over his face. “Live by the poison, die by the poison. Awesome. I have a new mantra.”
Well, she thought, it was better than hers: Live a lie, die a liar.
Don’t borrow trouble. You’ve survived almost two hundred years without a problem. Keep your head down and your nose clean.
The curtain swished open, and Gem entered, all perky despite the fact that she’d been on shift for twenty-four hours. She must be getting ready to go home to her hot-as-hell husband and their daughter.
“Hey.” Gem thrust a note and a single black rose into Blaspheme’s hand. “Someone left this for you. Very romantic.” She acknowledged Tavin with a wave. “I’m outta here. See you later.”
Blas barely heard a word. Her gaze was glued to the note, to the block script that turned her blood to ice. No, not ice, because thorns on the rose stem dug into her hand, and blood trickled down her wrist and dripped onto the paper.
I’ll see you soon. Very soon.
It was signed.
Revenant.
Twenty-Seven
“What is it you want, Verrine?” Raphael poured her a glass of ice wine made from the azure grapes that grew in the Demura plains outside Archangel Hall. They were in the expansive kitchen of his palatial home, and she wondered how long she was going to be stuck here.
And what his game was.
They’d just come from the entrance of a hellmouth, where Harvester had been trying to sense Lucifer, but after watching Reaver lose his wings and fall from grace, her heart hadn’t been in it. Besides, it appeared that Lucifer had been moved. Now she had to find a place on Earth where she could get a signal, but it was going to take time.