Revenant(90)

Finally, realizing Rev was going to stand there silently, Satan shoved to his feet, his grin defining the word malevolent.

“A little Pruosi bird visited me today. Told me the False Angel is a vyrm. The very vyrm you were hunting when your memory was taken from you by the archangels the second time,” he said slowly, and Revenant’s heart froze into a solid block of ice.

No. Satan was lying. He had to be.

And yet, as Revenant’s mind spun with reasons the demon would lie, things started to make sense. Like why Blaspheme had seemed so different from other False Angels. And why he’d believed she was keeping a secret from the beginning.

She’d lied to him. She’d made him swear to keep his hands off of her while she fucked him because she didn’t trust him. And the whole time, it was she who was steeping in deception. She’d fucked him, all right. In more ways than one.

Anger and hurt twisted inside him, knotting into a huge tangle of fury. He’d opened himself up to her. He’d helped her. Protected her. He’d trusted her when he hadn’t trusted anyone in thousands of years.

He’d trusted her. Son of a bitch! He should hand her over to Satan like he’d commanded.

“So bring her to me. I don’t care what condition she’s in when you do, as long as she’s breathing.” Satan glanced around the cell as if it were an old friend. “She’ll look good in here, don’t you think? Just like your mother.”





Twenty-Six





Six hours after returning to the safety of Underworld General, Blaspheme had made some progress on the cryptic information Eidolon had given her regarding a solution to her False Angel problem. The Pruosi book of necromancy was definitely the source of Eidolon’s information. Bane, after recovering, with no memory, from the trance-like state he’d entered in the Harrowgate, had been able to translate some of it, but Blaspheme had done most of the translation work herself, and she thought she had a pretty good handle on it.

She needed the DNA of whatever species she was going to disguise herself as, plus… the blood of some powerful immortal being she couldn’t yet pin down. The DNA would be the easy part. Getting blood from some immortal stranger was going to be the challenge.

The sensation of being watched came over her, and she looked up from her table in the clinic cafeteria to see Gem walking toward her. The bright blue streaks in Gem’s black hair matched her scrubs, but she wore ghastly orange rubber clogs that matched precisely nothing. In the universe.

“Interesting place to work,” Gem said, eyeing Blaspheme’s layout of papers and books all over the round table.

“I didn’t feel like being alone in my office or the library,” she said, sweeping aside a pile of crap to make room for Gem. Even with the sideways glances she got from staff members who must have heard the gossip about her fuckup with the blanchier demon, she preferred being here over being by herself. The activity in the cafeteria made her feel safe. And kept her from losing her mind. Or thinking about Revenant.

Gem didn’t sit, instead remained standing across the table from Blas. “There’s something… different about you today.”

“I don’t know what,” Blas said lightly. “Nothing’s changed.”

Everything had changed. She just wished she didn’t have to lie about it.

“No, something’s definitely different.” Gem cocked her head, studying Blaspheme so intently that she squirmed. “I couldn’t see any scars on you until today.”

Blaspheme broke out in a cold sweat. Gem was half Soulshredder, a demon that could see physical and emotional scars that were invisible to everyone else. The breed, one of the most evil on the Ufelskala scale, exploited those scars, fed on the pain and misery of the victim. As far as Blaspheme knew, Gem kept that side of herself under control, but that didn’t mean she didn’t still possess the desire to use the abilities and instincts unique to the species.

“Don’t worry,” Gem said quietly. “I won’t tell anyone what I see.”

Blaspheme was afraid to ask, but she might as well know. “What do you see?”

“I see a strange overlay, like a second skin that’s peeling off of you.” Gem’s hands flexed at her sides. “It makes me want to rip into it and expose whatever is beneath.” Gem’s green eyes sparked with an eerie glow, and the tattoo around her neck, the one that she’d had inked to contain her inner demon, began to pulse. “Blaspheme, whatever is going on with you, you need to fix it, because it’s not looking… right.” She took off like her feet were on fire.