Revenant looked at the Orphmage over the rim of his beer mug. “What if it’s blood?”
“She has blood in her blood?”
The dense idiot. “What if she drank Satan’s blood?”
Gormesh’s gaze narrowed, and Revenant started to sweat. “Of course she ingested his blood. It was part of the ritual required to prepare her body to host Lucifer.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I was there,” Gormesh said, the faintest hint of a smile turning up his blue-tinged lips.
“When Lucifer was conceived?”
Gormesh reached for his crotch again, but wisely jerked his hand away. “Yes.”
Okay, now they were getting somewhere. “Can she be cleansed of Satan’s blood?”
Say yes. Please say yes.
“No.”
Disappointment soured Rev’s porter. Shit might as well be vinegar. “Are you sure?”
Gormesh growled. “I am the most powerful mage to ever exist. And when I say that, I don’t mean in Sheoul. I mean in all three realms.” He leaned forward, slapping his hands on the table. Dude was worked up. “Not even Heaven has an angel who can wield magic as well as I can. So question me again at your own peril.”
Revenant laughed softly, his body languid from the alcohol, but his mind was razor sharp. “You do remember who I am.”
The Orphmage, drunk on a power trip fueled by the sex magic in the air, sneered. “Even you can’t match my ability to control the environment. Your power is limited in scope, while mine is —” He cut off in a strangled wheeze as Revenant’s limited power garroted the moron.
Revenant hadn’t even moved a muscle. Didn’t think he could, given the Pestilence porter’s relaxing effect.
“Just yesterday, I stood in Archangel Hall and sent an archangel to Sheoul-gra. An archangel. Do you know what an archangel is, fuckhead? Sending him to the demon graveyard guarded by Hades and the Grim Reaper took less effort than getting an erection.” He squeezed Gormesh’s throat harder. “Now, do you really want to see whose dick is bigger?”
Gormesh’s gray eyes were bulging and wild. “No,” he wheezed.
“Good. You’re smarter than you look.” Revenant released the Orphmage, who grabbed his neck and sucked in huge lungfuls of air. “Let’s try this again. Are you sure Gethel’s blood can’t be purified of Satan’s blood?”
Gormesh coughed, still holding his neck tenderly. “Yes.”
“How do you know?”
The Orphmage hesitated for a heartbeat. “Because I tried it on your father.”
“You… what?” Rev shook his head, unable to process that. Finally, he croaked, “Sandalphon died in the battle that got my mother captured.”
“Technically… no, he didn’t.” Gormesh signaled the barmaid for a War Lager. “Your father was badly injured. Dying. He was taken to Satan, who decided to try an experiment. He force-fed your father his blood. Sandalphon healed, was subjected to gruesome torture and experiments, and then I was brought in to try to remove the taint of Satan’s blood from his own.” Before Rev could ask why, Gormesh held up his hand to stop him. “The Prince of Lies’s blood turned your father dark. Satan wanted to send him to Heaven as a spy, but he needed to be sure the taint couldn’t be removed. The angel who betrayed your parents to Satan joined me in my efforts to remove the taint, but we couldn’t do it. The attempt killed him. We tried again with a captured Seraphim, this time letting the angel return to Heaven, but later we learned that whatever purification process the archangels used killed her, too. I assure you, removing Satan’s blood is impossible.”
Revenant couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His father had been forcibly turned evil, and then he’d died in Sheoul, just like Rev’s mother… which meant that his soul was suffering eternal torment in hell, unable to get out and join all the other angelic souls in Heaven’s Hall of Heroes. And all because he had been betrayed by someone he should have been able to trust.
“Who is this angel who betrayed my mother to Satan?” he ground out. The skin covering his wing anchors itched as the desire to spread his wings and rain down hell on the bastard filled him.
He’d just chosen his angelic sacrifice to Satan.
Gormesh scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Ba’addon. Raphael’s father.”
Raphael’s father was about to die a horrible death. Raphael would be next. All of the archangels would be next. They’d lied to him about cleansing his blood so he could reside in Heaven. They’d fucking lied.
His blood started to boil – literally, causing his skin to steam and crack. He had to force himself to calm down. Raging out would only raise suspicions about why he was so angry, and it certainly wouldn’t help him get any answers from Gormesh if he blew up the pub and everyone in it.