Revenant(5)

Unfortunately, Metatron didn’t seem inclined to provide any answers. Which left Revenant with only one other option.

Nursing his Satanic headache, he summoned a handful of books and flashed himself to the other side of the Earth, to the home of Thanatos, fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse.

As the Four Horsemen’s Sheoulic Watcher, Revenant was supposed to keep an eye on them. But since regaining his memories, he’d avoided them the way he’d avoided their father. Revenant’s brother.

Reaver.

Every time they’d faced off since regaining their memories, they’d battled it out, and Revenant’s words to Reaver during one particular encounter still echoed in his thoughts.

The very day I learned about you, I came to you as a brother. But all you saw was an enemy and a fiend. Now that is all you will ever see.

Revenant had cooled his jets a little since that moment a couple of weeks ago, but the fact remained that five thousand years ago, before their memories were wiped – the first time – Reaver had rejected Revenant, and to this day, nothing had changed.

So, no, Revenant wasn’t expecting Reaver’s four legendary hellspawns to welcome Uncle Rev with open arms.

And yet he was standing in front of Thanatos’s Greenland castle, wondering if the Horseman known as Death would willingly open the door. More likely, Revenant would have to barge in and lay everyone out in order to get a peek at the rare books Thanatos hoarded in his library.

An electric tingle on the back of his neck alerted him to the presence of angels a split second before Harvester, the Horsemen’s Heavenly Watcher, and Reaver himself materialized in front of him.

Fuck.

“Revenant.” Harvester’s smoky voice had always made Rev think of cat-o-nines wrapped in silk. She looked the part as well, dressed in tight black leather pants and stiletto-heeled boots, a lace corset binding her waist and plumping her perfect breasts. She looked a little paler than usual, though. Maybe getting her halo back after thousands of years of being a fallen angel wasn’t sitting well with her. “Why are you here?”

“I’m the Horsemen’s evil Watcher,” he said, getting a kick at how his brother winced at the word evil. “I don’t need a reason, nor do I answer to you.”

“But you will answer to me,” Reaver said.

Revenant snorted. Reaver had been sending out mental invitations to meet for weeks, but Revenant hadn’t answered. He wasn’t going to answer to his brother now, either.

“Bite me.” He flashed himself closer to Thanatos’s keep, but a heartbeat later, Harvester and Reaver were forming a wall in front of him again. How tiresome. “I was going to give Thanatos the courtesy of knocking on his door, but you’re giving me no choice but to flash inside his residence with no warning. The last time I did that to a Horseman, I caught Ares and Cara in a… compromising position.” He shrugged. “But whatever. Let’s see what Thanatos and Regan are up to, shall we?”

He started to dematerialize, but Reaver snarled and gripped his arm, tethering him to his current position. “Just tell us why you’re here.”

Well, hell, maybe Reaver could give Rev the information he needed. He held up the copies of the Bible, the Quran, and the Daemonica in his hand. “I want to use Thanatos’s library. I need to find references to Shadow Angels and Radiants, and these cryptic, contradictory tomes aren’t exactly helpful.”

Reaver released him and stepped back. “You want to know more about what you are. About what we both are.”

“Um, yeah. Duh.” Wasn’t his brother a genius. “It isn’t every day you get promoted to the highest-known rank of angel, and it isn’t like there’s a fucking manual anywhere that outlines the job description.”

No, there had only ever been a handful of Shadow Angels like Revenant, and Radiants like Reaver, and since there could only be one of each in existence at any given time, there was no one to ask about it.

Reaver shrugged. “It’s learn as you go.”

“That’s very helpful, brother.”

Reaver made a sound of impatience and jammed his hand through his perfect mane of shiny blond hair. Revenant changed his hair color to match. Just to be a tool.

“We were given those ranks together,” Reaver said. “And we can figure it out together.”

Revenant laughed. “Now you want to play big brother? Now that I don’t need you?”

“You do need me,” Reaver said. “We need each other.”

“Really,” Revenant said flatly. “And why is that?”

Reaver’s voice went low and ominous. “Because Lucifer is about to be reborn, and his birth is going to cause seismic shifts both on Earth and in Heaven.”