That fucker. Lucifer had been the biggest bastard, next to Satan, Revenant had ever known. Rev had partied for a week straight after Reseph tore Lucifer apart and sent his soul to Sheoul-gra. Now the dickhead was going to be reincarnated, and in a few short years, he’d replace Revenant as the second-most-prominent being in Sheoul.
Unless…
No. Rev couldn’t go there. If he destroyed Lucifer, his suffering would become legend. Generations of demons would share stories of his misery while they toasted marsh rats around the campfire.
So no, Revenant couldn’t kill Lucifer. Not if he wanted to live.
But someone else… he grinned.
Because Revenant might not be in a position to prevent Lucifer’s birth, but he knew someone who could.
Three
Deva’s surgery, performed by Eidolon and his sister-in-law, Gem, lasted ten hours. Blaspheme had begged to scrub in, but Eidolon had relegated her to “the box,” where she could do nothing but observe through a glass window. She hadn’t doubted that her mother was in the best hands in the world, but she’d still hated being so helpless.
Now, as her mother was being wheeled into post-op, Blaspheme waited anxiously for Eidolon’s surgery report.
He met her in the staff room outside the OR, and the moment she saw the bleak expression on his face, her heart plummeted to her feet.
“What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
The stethoscope around his neck bounced against his broad chest as he walked toward her. Like all sex demons, the black-haired doctor was impossibly gorgeous, something she’d have appreciated on any other day. Something she did appreciate on any other day. He was mated, but Blaspheme wasn’t blind.
“The surgery went well,” he said, a note of compassion softening his matter-of-fact voice.
“But?”
He jammed his hands into the pockets of his lab coat. “I was able to set her broken arm, repair her lacerated stomach, colon, and liver, and treat the burn on her leg, but I couldn’t use my healing ability. Something interfered with my power.”
“I know.” She looked down, remembering the cup of coffee in her hand, and took a drink. It was cold and stale, but it felt good going down her parched throat. “She tangled with an angel.”
One dark eyebrow shot up. “That explains it.”
“Will she be okay?”
Silence. It only lasted for a heartbeat, but it was enough to curdle the creamed coffee in her belly. “I don’t know. I repaired what I could, but whatever weapon the angel used scrambled her insides. It actually reversed my healing ability and caused more damage, which means it was a specialty weapon, like grimlight or haloshiv.”
Which meant a specialty angel had wielded the weapon. A specialty angel like an Enforcer. Or, as Deva claimed, an Eradicator, Heaven’s extermination specialists. With the ability to see through enchantments and sense things other angels couldn’t – like angel DNA inside someone who shouldn’t have it – they were Enemy Number One to beings like Blaspheme.
“So what are you saying?” She knew, but she needed to hear it. Needed it to be real, or she’d live in a world of make-believe where everything was happy-happy and her mother would recover all by herself, the way fallen angels always did.
“She’s still in danger,” he said. “I’ll look into some alternative treatments, but for now, it’s a waiting game. I’m sorry, Blaspheme. I wish I had better news.”
“Thank you,” she said numbly. Her brain had shut down after the word danger, leaving her disoriented and reeling. “I, ah… I want to see her.”
“Of course.” Eidolon rested a comforting hand on her shoulder. “If you need anything, let me know. Take off all the time you want.”
She gave a noncommittal nod, but she wouldn’t be taking any time off. She had nothing else to do but work, and as long as her mother was in the hospital, she’d be here, too. Besides, she loved her job, had never felt as needed as she did when she was elbow-deep in someone’s chest cavity. There was just something about giving life.
No number of saved lives can give back the one you took.
The nagging voice in her head was always there to keep her feet on the ground. Technically, she hadn’t taken a life. But one had been sacrificed for her, and she was going to honor that. She had no doubt, in fact, that her guilt had been the reason she’d chosen a career in medicine.
Leaving Eidolon, she hurried to the recovery room, where her mother was hooked up to machines Blaspheme could operate blindfolded, but right now she couldn’t even remember what they were called.
“Blas.” Deva’s voice was barely a whisper.