Revenant

by Larissa Ione

  “A foreign blockage? What kind?”

  He opened his palm. In it was a tiny, shiny object that looked like a crystal sesame seed. “I have no idea what this is. I’ve never seen one before.” It must have killed him to admit he didn’t know something.

  Revenant held out his hand. “May I?”

  Soduchi looked to Blaspheme, and when she nodded, he dropped the thing into Revenant’s palm. “I doubt you’ll be able to determine its source —”

  “It’s a tracking device,” Revenant said, and Blas would have been amused to see Soduchi’s arrogance swatted down if she hadn’t been so busy wrapping her mind around what Rev had said. “Angelic in origin.”

  Soduchi’s expression tightened. “How do you know?”

  “Does it matter?”

  Blaspheme could practically smell the testosterone clashing in the air between the two males as Soduchi growled. “Who are you?”

  “He’s a friend.” Blas jumped into the fray before things deteriorated beyond something she could control. “Well, his, ah, friend, is a patient of mine.”

  “Your friend could use a lesson in respect.”

  Revenant laughed, flashing fangs. Which, for some reason, made her think of the vampire porn at her mother’s house. Not what she needed to be thinking of right now. Still, she wondered what Revenant’s fangs would feel like buried in her throat.

  Stop it.

  “What’s your name again?” Revenant asked. “So Douchey? Well, So Douchey, the day I respect a weremutt is the day my dick turns into a hot dog. So why don’t you run off and find yourself a nice Milk-Bone.”

  Soduchi’s eyes bugged out of his head. “You unimportant fuck —”

  One minute, Revenant and Soduchi were there in front of her, and the next, they were several yards down the hall, with Revenant pinning the doctor against the wall with his forearm across Soduchi’s throat. The writing on the gray walls, Haven spell inscriptions, began to glow and pulse as the threat of violence rose up from Revenant.

  She couldn’t hear what he was saying to the other male, but whatever it was, the doctor went as white as a banshee on the night of the new moon.

  A moment later, Revenant was next to her, and Soduchi was scampering away in the opposite direction. If he’d had a tail, it would have been tucked between his legs.

  She stared after the surgeon in disbelief. “What did you say to him?”

  Revenant snorted. “Boo.”

  “I don’t believe you. But I don’t have time to play referee.” She rubbed her eyes, wondering when she’d see her bed again. “You said the object Soduchi found inside my mo – ah, my patient, is an angelic tracking device?”

  He nodded. “They’re implanted into the skin.”

  Gods, this wasn’t good. “Do they burrow until they hit an organ or barrier?”

  “No.” He rolled the tiny device between his fingers. “They’re designed to remain just under the top layer of skin, and they’re only active while inside a body, whether it’s alive or dead.”

  She frowned. “How would one get into the inferior vena cava?” At his blank look, she elaborated. “A vein that brings blood to the heart.”

  “Ah.” He shrugged. “It might have been implanted inside an open wound. It could bore its way inside from there.” He looked over at the OR door, and even though Blas was pretty sure he couldn’t see through it, she started to sweat. “Who is this patient, anyway? Angels don’t just go around tagging people, and only certain angels possess the ability.”

  “Certain angels?” She swallowed sickly. “Like?”

  “Interrogators, Eradicators, Enforcers… a few more, probably.” His voice went thick with contempt, while she was pretty sure hers was going to go shrill with anxiety. Why would someone track her mother… unless they were trying to get to Blaspheme? If that had been the goal, it had worked beautifully. “I’m not exactly up on angelic operations. Seems they neglected to invite me to the meetings.”

  Had he expected to be invited to meetings? He seemed to take the subject a little too personally.

  “Well,” she said, thankful that the shrill thing didn’t happen, “I’ll have to ask my patient when she wakes up.” She held out her hand. “Can I have the tracker, please?”

  A sly grin spread over his face, and she groaned. “Go to dinner with me.”

  “I’m not going to be blackmailed into a date, especially not over this. I won’t compromise patient care. Ever.” She made a come-on-and-give-it-to-me gesture with her fingers. “So hand it over. Eidolon will want to study it.”

  His gaze swept over her, fleeting and almost cursory, and yet she felt as though she’d been examined for hours and stripped naked. “A False Angel with principles. How… rare.”

  She was starting to hate the way he could find the chinks in her armor. And she really hated how she seemed to always be playing defense around him. If this were one of her mother’s favorite sports, the Sheoul Fallen Angels would always have the ball, would always be ahead in points, and the Underworld General Vyrm would be struggling to merely get on the scoreboard.

  “So you fit the fallen angel mold perfectly?” she shot back. Field goal for the Underworld General Vyrm.

  “Hardly. But every species is defined by certain traits. All tigers are carnivores. Seminus demons have to screw or they’ll die.” His gaze took a slow, measuring ride down her body, and said body heated up. “False Angels need to deceive, lie, and seduce others or they’ll waste away. So I’m wondering, Blaspheme, how you feed your needs if you’re such a model of integrity.”

  Sheoul Fallen Angels score a touchdown.

  She shrugged as if it were no big deal, but inside she was trembling. She couldn’t afford anyone questioning what she was, especially not a fallen angel.

  “I go to human clubs to fulfill my needs,” she said. “At work, I’m a doctor, pure and simple.”

  “Good.” He dropped the tiny crystal seed into her hand. “Because I despise liars and deceivers.” He waggled his brows. “Seducers, on the other hand…”

  Blaspheme rolled her eyes, but was spared from having to scrounge up a witty comeback when the door to the OR opened, and nurses and support staff prepared to move Deva to a recovery room.

  “Why don’t you come to my office,” she said hastily, before someone said something about the patient being her mother. “We can discuss Gethel’s lab results.”

  “Lead the way.” The team transferring Deva pushed out of the room as they were leaving, and Revenant craned his head around. “It’s that fallen angel you were treating yesterday.”

  Shit. “You have a good memory.”

  For some reason, that made him laugh. “If you only knew.” He eyed her as they traversed the busy hospital halls on the way to the Harrowgate. “Blaspheme?”

  “Yes?”

  He hesitated. And then, “Do you feel like you belong here?”

  What a strange question. “You mean here? At the hospital?”

  “I mean helping people. Your species isn’t known for its altruism.”

  She did not like that he kept questioning her False Angelness. “I suppose you could say that I’ve never really fit in with my kind. I’m a bit of a square peg.”

  On that, she didn’t have to lie. Being born a vyrm made her a product of two worlds, and she didn’t fit in either, which was probably why she preferred the human realm.

  “Have you tried?”

  “What, to fit in somewhere?” At his nod, she shrugged. “For a while, yes.”

  Encouraged by her mother to blend in with other Sheoulic denizens, she’d attempted to connect with her evil side, but her angel half didn’t handle it well. Guilt ate at her like acid, and worse, she felt physically ill when forced into situations that required a measure of malevolence. But she’d always thought it was strange that the opposite didn’t happen. Good deeds didn’t disturb her sinister half.

  Gods, she was messed up.

  “Do you have a family?” he asked.
>
  “My mother.” They entered the Harrowgate, and she touched the symbol that corresponded to her clinic. “You?”

  “A brother.”

  “Is he…” Okay, so how did one ask a fallen angel if his sibling was still in Heaven? Fortunately, Revenant spared her the awkwardness.

  “He’s a fully halofied Heavenly angel. Total dick.”

  Having no idea how to follow that up, she stepped out of the Harrowgate into the much more comfy reception area. “My office is just ahead.” She waved to Judie, the Sora demon receptionist on duty. “Any messages?”

  Judie’s crimson tail swished behind her as she thrust a piece of paper at Blaspheme. “Just one. Eidolon wants to hear from you when you get the lab results.” She hit a Hold button on the phone. “He didn’t say what lab results.”

  “It’s okay.” Blas held up the folder in her hand. “I have them right here.”

  Once they were in her office, Revenant plopped down on the sofa across from her desk, kicking his feet up on the armrest and lying back with his hands tucked behind his head as if he belonged there.

  “You have no problem making yourself at home, do you?”

  His grin was a showstopper. “It’s your welcoming personality and your warm bedside manner.”

  “My ass,” she said as she sank down in her office chair. “You like challenging authority.”

  He winked, probably thinking he was being charming. Unfortunately for her, he was right. “You offering up your ass? Because I’ll take it.” Framing his hands together over his pelvis as if gripping an invisible lover’s waist, he thrust those magnificent hips upward. “Right here. Right now. You can straddle me. Just. Like. This.”

  Oh, damn, now she was picturing exactly that, and her body reacted in a hot flush. Her False Angel libido, which she’d thought had gone dormant, spun up, making her breasts tingle and her sex ache. She hadn’t experienced a reaction this strong in months, and thank gods she wasn’t out in public, where she’d be driven to flirt and rub up against males like a cat in heat. No, better to be safely in her office with a desk between her and the nearest male.

  She cursed her trembling hands as she threw down the folder and flipped it open. “If you’re through with your imaginary porn star, we can get down to business.”

  “You know,” he said as he sat up and swung his feet to the floor, “I’m going to start suspecting that you’re anything but a False Angel if you don’t start flirting even a little.” Just as a panicked knot started to form in her gut, he inhaled. “But you’re aroused, so maybe my little tiger really is a carnivore.”

  “You are such a pain in the ass.”

  He beamed as if she’d just given him the greatest compliment ever. Huffing with annoyance, she looked down at the lab report.

  As usual, the lab had provided data and comparisons from past fallen angel patient lab results, but in all of Underworld General’s years of operation, only one pregnant fallen angel had come through the hospital, and her blood work numbers had been substantially different. It was impossible to tell which set of numbers for each panel was more normal. She’d have to research the other pregnant fallen angel to see why she’d been admitted to the hospital.

  “So,” Revenant prompted, “what does the report say?”

  Jack shit, that’s what. “The results are basically meaningless, since we don’t have much to compare them with. Pregnant fallen angels don’t generally seek medical attention here, and we definitely don’t have records on any prior fallen angels pregnant with the spawn of Satan.”

  She cursed in frustration. She’d gone with Revenant to see Gethel in hopes of learning something useful and to get stem cells, and she’d failed at both.

  “All these results tell me is that if she were human, she’d be dead by tonight. Her cholesterol is off the charts, her red blood cell count is low, and she has so many tumor markers in her blood that her arteries should be clogged, but all of those things might be normal for Gethel. I’m sorry, but that’s all I can tell you.” She flipped the page, and handwritten notes in red caught her attention. “Hmm. Test results do indicate the presence of an unidentifiable substance in her blood, but again, that could be normal for her.” Still, it was something worth looking into. She definitely needed to hand over the information to Eidolon.

  “How helpful,” he said flatly.

  “Perhaps you can get better results with your own medical expertise,” she said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have patients to tend to.” And a cold shower to take.

  Shockingly, he stood without an argument. His good behavior was only temporary, however, because in an instant, he came over the top of the desk in a fluid, graceful leap and was standing in front of her, his big body blocking everything except him.

  “Thank you, Blaspheme.” Lifting his hand to her face, he stroked his knuckles over the skin of her jaw. “I’ll be back later.”

  Dipping his head with the self-confidence of a predator that had its prey in its sights, he captured her mouth in a dominating, punishing kiss. Her senses reeled as his tongue thrust past the barrier of her lips and teeth to clash with hers. Raw sex oozed from him, and despite her resolve to stay away from him, she gripped his biceps and dragged him closer.

  It was what he’d expect from a False Angel.

  At least, that was what she told herself as he framed her face in his big hands and held her steady for the deep penetration of his tongue. His pelvis slammed into hers, and either that was a gun in his pocket, or he was sporting one hell of a hard-on.

  Then he was across the room, standing in the doorway. She hadn’t even seen him open the door. She stood there, dazed and weaving on unsteady legs.

  “I would love to take you,” he said roughly. “Right there on your desk. But I’ve got something to do, and when we finally fuck, I don’t want any distractions.”

  “It won’t happen.” She cleared her throat of the embarrassing lust that made her sound a lot more wanton than she’d like. “You aren’t my type.”

  “All males are a False Angel’s type.”

  “As you’ve made clear more than once, I’m not your typical False Angel.”

  “And that,” he said, “is why I want you.”

  With that, he spun around and disappeared around the corner, leaving her aching, confused, and in a whole lot of trouble.

  Ten

  Revenant stood atop Mount Megiddo once again, a sense of déjà vu zinging through his brain, and not because he’d tried to contact Metatron a day earlier. This was where he’d called out for his brother that first time, but the meeting hadn’t gone well. Reaver hadn’t known about Revenant, hadn’t known the truth about anything, and he’d gone ghastbat crazy. Hurt, rejected, and drowning in the lies he’d been fed all his life, Revenant had hopped right on that crazy train, and they’d both done enough damage to all the realms that their memories had been wiped.

  Good times, man. Good. Fucking. Times.

  “Yo. Archangels,” he shouted. “Metatron, get your holy ass down here.”

  Like yesterday, nothing happened. Fucking assholes. He was frustrated as shit, his mind buzzing with another of Satan’s summons and his balls aching with unquenched desire for Blaspheme. Something was about to blow, and he doubted it would be his cock.

  “Metatron!” He roared into the heavens, and all around, the earth shook as dark clouds roiled from out of nowhere, blocking out the sun and turning the land dark as night. “Last chance. Get your holy ass down here now, or a lot of angels are going to be gracing Satan’s halo wall.”

  He wasn’t even sure why he was giving the archangels one last shot at giving him answers about who he was and what he was supposed to be doing with his life, not after what Reaver had said about Revenant defiling Heaven with his mere presence. Maybe Blaspheme’s nobility had rubbed off a little, or maybe he owed his mother the respect of trying one more time.

  Whatever it was that had him standing on this ugly hilltop, being completely ignored, it was in
the past. He was done. Satan had won. Time to deliver an angel on a platter.

  Flaring his wings, he started to lift into the artificial darkness. No doubt the nearby humans were freaking out, praying to their deities, sure another apocalypse was about to break loose.

  Suddenly, a soft whoosh preceded a sparkling shower of lights, and a split second later, the archangel Raphael was standing there, his body emitting a soft, golden glow like something straight out of a cheesy Christmas movie. Even his blond hair shone like polished gold. Angels could contain their glow in the human realm, which meant he was intentionally being an asshat.

  Well, well. Right when Revenant decides he’s done with Heaven, Heaven gets a clue. Whether or not it was too little, too late, had yet to be seen.

  “What is it?” Raphael asked in a glaringly bored voice.

  “You aren’t Metatron.”

  “Aren’t you observant.”

  “Fuck off,” Rev said. “I want Metatron.”

  “He’s in a meeting. You’re stuck with me.”

  All archangels were dickbags, but Raphael seemed to be especially dick-tastic.

  “In a meeting?” Revenant grinned. Nothing got someone’s attention like interrupting a meeting.

  Raphael’s eyes shot wide. “No —”

  Too late. Revenant flashed smack into the middle of the Archangel complex. A few angels were scurrying through the halls, but none of them gave him more than a passing glance. Why would they? They had no idea who he was, and the idea that an angel from hell could simply pop into one of the most important structures in the universe was ludicrous.

  He looked around, wasting no time in determining where the meeting might be. Reaver would right now be sensing his presence in Heaven, and it would probably only be a matter of seconds before his twin showed up to play bouncer.

  Swiftly, he moved toward the mass of offices down a hall to the right, where the signs on the doors indicated that the rooms had been set aside for groups. He bypassed the lamely named Chamber of Eternity, the Genesis Room, and Babel Hall, and went straight for Babylon Auditorium.

  Bingo.

  A group of ten archangels were sitting around a giant marble table on the stage, the empty theater-style seats watching over them in silence.