by Larissa Ione
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “It must have been hard to see him change like that.”
Limos swallowed. “It felt like I’d lost a limb. And it caused a lot of problems between me and my brothers. Thanatos and Ares were always fighting, and I was keeping secrets, and all around us the world was breaking apart.” She looked up. “Do you want me to take away your memories? I can’t go all the way back to your time with Reseph at your cabin, but I can get rid of your time in Greece.”
The discussion between Limos and Thanatos on the day they’d taken Reseph away came back to Jillian. “I thought you told your husband you wouldn’t do that.”
“I think he’d understand.”
The days and nights Jillian had spent with Reseph replayed like a movie in her head, making this all so much worse. She’d been terrified to find out who he was, afraid he wouldn’t be the man she’d fallen in love with. Turned out she had been worried for a damned good reason, because what Reseph was couldn’t have been any worse.
She felt so hollow, as if her chest had been scooped out and her heart trampled. It was so tempting to take Limos up on her offer, to be rid of the pain of knowing who Reseph truly was and what he’d done. But she’d been miserable not knowing, too. The mystery of where his brothers and sister had taken him, the worry about him, had eaten her alive.
“Thank you, Limos, but no,” Jillian murmured, wondering if she’d regret this decision. “The whole thing just… sucks.”
“It does.” Limos stood. “Let me take you home.”
“No.” Jillian dashed the tears from her eyes and turned to the fallen angel. “Harvester, let’s do the ritual.”
Harvester blinked. “After what he’s done, you still want to help him? Why?”
Jillian flushed with sudden, white-hot anger. She’d been helpless in that parking lot, but this was something she could do to fight back.
“Because Pestilence is a fucking monster,” she said, “and if I can do something to keep him from coming back, I’ll do it.”
Limos took Jillian by the hand and pulled her to her feet. “You’re awesome.”
“Indeed.” Harvester murmured so quietly Jillian wasn’t sure she spoke at all.
They started toward the bedroom, but Jillian pulled to a sudden halt. “Wait.” She gazed out the window at the scores of demons roaming around. Demons Reseph had slept with. Demons who were waiting for him to come back. Screw that. Jillian wasn’t going to help him get his mind back just so he could walk outside and have an orgy. “Can I ask a favor?”
“Shoot.”
“Can you get rid of all those female demons outside?”
Limos grinned. “You got it. Smitey-smite-smite.”
Wondering if Limos was going to actually smite them, Jillian and Harvester went into the bedroom, where Reseph had regressed again and was bashing himself against the wall. And it was Reseph. Jillian feared she’d see Pestilence when she looked at him, but this was definitely not the evil being from the parking lot.
Harvester gestured to Reseph with a jerky wave of her hand. “Touch him.”
Jillian kneeled in front of him, taking his face in her palms. He calmed instantly, although his eyes were wild and his teeth clenched against panting breaths.
Palming both Jillian’s and Reseph’s foreheads, Harvester began to chant in a strange, guttural language. Heat spiraled through Jillian from where Harvester was touching her, and her skin tingled. An intense vibration followed, and Reseph fell to the floor, unconscious.
“What happened?” Jillian reared back, but Harvester caught her.
“It’s okay,” Harvester assured her. “We’re almost done.” She scored her palm with her fang and jammed her hand to the center of Jillian’s chest. A stinging, hot sensation dug into her skin, almost as if she were being branded.
“What,” she gasped, “what are you doing?”
Harvester pulled away. “Finishing.” For some reason, Harvester smiled, and it was an almost… sad… smile. As if she wasn’t happy about what she’d done, but knew it was for the best. “Be well,” she murmured. “Be well, and be… forgiving.”
With that, Harvester spun around and fled the room, her wings flaring out as if she couldn’t wait to take flight.
Jillian, for her part, couldn’t have fled if she’d wanted to. Her muscles turned to gel, and before she knew it she was on the floor next to Reseph, and consciousness was… nonexistent.
Twenty-six
Harvester couldn’t get out of Ares’s house fast enough. She all but ran down the hall, knocked over Ares’s servants in the great room, and slammed Reaver out of the way as she darted through the front door.
“Harvester!” Reaver’s booming voice followed her as she hit the steps off the porch. “Fallen!”
She paused as the spark required to flash out of there skimmed over her skin. “What?” she snarled. She didn’t even know why she’d answered. But, she thought, maybe it was because this would be the last time she saw him.
“What’s going on in there?” Reaver strode over and stood imperiously before her.
“I just made sure Reseph and Jillian will be taken care of.”
“Taken care of?”
“Fuck off, Reaver,” she sighed. “I’m tired of your constant needling. Just give me sixty seconds of peace. Can you do that?”
“My needling?”
A breeze spun up, bringing with it the fresh scent of the sea, the sand, the olive groves that dotted the island. It was the scent of freedom and life. She inhaled. Exhaled. Inhaled. Exhaled. She wanted to remember this forever.
“Harvester?” Reaver grabbed her shoulders and spun her around. “What is wrong with you?”
She wrenched free of his grasp. “Nothing. Leave me alone. Can’t you take a hint? Or, you know, a direct command?”
Reaver stiffened at her not-so-veiled reference to his inability to follow orders, a character flaw that had gotten him booted from Heaven several years ago. “Something’s going on. Does it have to do with the Horsemen?”
“No, it has nothing to do with them.” She sniffed. “Which means you have no right to question me.”
The sapphire glints in Reaver’s eyes hardened into crystal shards. “You’ve done a lot of things to me that you had no right doing, so you might not want to go there.”
She spread her wings, letting the breeze ruffle the sensitive tips. This would be the last time she felt the wind on her skin, in her hair. This would be the last time the sun touched her body. The dark vibration she’d felt in her soul over the last couple of days grew stronger, more urgent. She had to go. Punishment was always worse if someone had to be sent to drag you back.
She inhaled again, recording all the scents to memory. Including the spice that was uniquely Reaver. She eyed him, wondering if she had time to cash in on the day of pleasure he owed her. What a perfect way to go out—with a bang.
The vibration inside her grew more insistent, as if someone had stomped on the gas pedal and the engine responsible was revving at the edge of burnout.
So much for good-bye sex.
“Take care of them, Reaver. Keep their children safe.” She wished she could have held Logan just once. Yeah, it was stupid of her to allow sentimentality to soften her now, when she needed to be tougher than ever, but it was just so unfair that the baby boy was here because of her, and she couldn’t even rock the child in her arms for a moment.
Then again, she’d accomplished everything she’d set out to do. At this point, whatever happened was out of her hands.
She sparked the energy she needed to flash herself to Sheoul, but in the split second it took to open the connection, Reaver grabbed her again.
“Stop!” He got up in her face, his jaw set in stubborn determination. He had always been magnificent in his anger. “If you tell me what’s going on—”
“What? You’ll help?” She shoved him, maybe not with as much force as she could have, but with enough that he stumbled backward. “As if I
’d believe that. And even if I did, I don’t need it.”
Reaver threw up his hands. “I give up. Go be bitter somewhere else.” He spun on his heel and stalked toward the house.
The breeze kicked up again, and so did the dark vibration, this time to a paralyzing level. No, oh… no.
She wheeled around to face two massive angelgoths—fallen angels who had been mutated into skeletal monsters. At one time, they’d been like her… until they’d done something that got them punished with eternal ugliness, slavery, and misery.
Harvester would be lucky to merely share their fate. Hers was going to be so much worse.
“I was just going,” she said, but they didn’t allow her to flash. One sank his clawed hands into her skull, hooking her as if she were a fish. Pain and blood exploded, and all she could hear were her screams and the crunch of bone.
And then she was lifted by her head and flashed into the dark depths of hell.
Straight into Satan’s living room.
An indescribable wave of terror shredded her insides as the king of all demons rose slowly from his throne of bones, his massive wings extending all the way to the thirty-foot ceiling. Punching up through his luxurious mane of black hair, two razor-sharp horns swiveled like tiny radar dishes. His clawlike fingernails scraped the arm of his chair, and another wave of terror slithered over her skin.
“Harvester.” His voice was cold, like a long-dead corpse.
Trembling so hard her teeth rattled, Harvester doubled over in a deep bow. “Hello, Father.”
* * *
Harvester’s screams were still ringing in Reaver’s ears as he blasted the remaining angelgoth’s chest with a stream of what amounted to supercharged napalm. The evil bastard burst into flames and screeched loud enough to make Reaver’s eardrums ache.
The creature somehow doused the flames and returned fire, snapping a long, whiplike rope of electricity. Reaver dove out of the way, hitting the ground in a roll and popping to his feet. He summoned an elemental sword and swung. The blade, capable of utilizing the natural elements around it, took on the power of the sea and bashed the evil being with the force of a tidal wave.
The angelgoth’s body hurled backward and crashed into an ornamental pillar, shattering the thing into a million pieces and a shower of dust.
The sound of running footsteps joined the sound of the angelgoth’s groans, and then Ares, Than, and Limos were there.
“What the fuck?” Ares said, but Reaver didn’t give the warrior a chance to ask more questions. He grabbed the evil angelgoth by the throat and slammed him hard against another pillar.
“What did you do with Harvester?”
The thing smiled, its rotting lips pulling away from blackened teeth. “She… will… suffer.”
“Explain.” When the former angel said nothing, Reaver slammed him into the pillar again. “Where is she?”
The angelgoth shuddered, and in Reaver’s fist, he turned to ash. A ripple of sensation skittered over the back of Reaver’s neck, and he wheeled around to the source of the malevolent vibe.
The huge male fallen angel Reaver had seen with Gethel materialized, dressed from head to toe in black leather, his bald head glinting in the sun. His wings, black and leathery, were spread wide, with sharp bone tips at the ends. Pointedly ignoring Reaver, he strode toward the manor, his spiked boots thumping on the stone pavers.
Thanatos moved to intercept the newcomer. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Hello, Horseman. I’m Revenant.” The male’s icy smile would flash-freeze a human. “I’m your new Watcher.”
Twenty-seven
Reseph came awake in a bed, and it took him a minute to realize he wasn’t at Jillian’s house, waking up to the sound of roosters crowing and goats bleating. Instead, the sea waves crashing on a beach were familiar noises.
Ares’s Greek paradise.
He frowned. He’d been here for a while, hadn’t he? But he’d been crazed, so why was he feeling so… good? So normal. What was going on? And where was Jillian? Had she been here, or had he hallucinated her?
He eased out of bed and touched the crescent-shaped scar on his neck to armor up, since he couldn’t find any clothes. Despite the fact that he’d been suiting up in his armor for thousands of years, this time the cold metal felt strange against his skin after so long without it.
He slipped out of the room and found his brothers and sister outside with Reaver and a strange fallen angel.
“Who is this?” Everyone except the stranger watched him warily, as if he were a live grenade.
“Apparently,” Ares said, “this is Harvester’s replacement. Revenant.”
Oh, fuck. “Did she quit?” After what Pestilence had done to her, he couldn’t blame her.
The male moved forward. “She was fired.”
“For what?” Reseph demanded. “Breaking Watcher rules?”
“Worse. Don’t expect to see her again.” Revenant looked Reseph up and down. “You look well for having lost your piddly little mind.”
Reseph smiled. “You look well for someone who is going to lose his head in about two seconds.”
Reaver stepped forward, placing himself between Reseph and the asshole. “Reseph, how are you feeling?”
All eyes focused on him, and yeah, this was uncomfortable. He had a lot of groveling to do now that he wasn’t going mad with memories. And why was that, anyway?
“I feel… almost whole. Why am I not a drooling mess on the floor?”
Limos fiddled with the flower in her hair. “Harvester did some Sheoul voodoo thing and patched your mind with a piece of Jillian’s. So now—”
“She what?” Reseph’s chest tightened. It was all coming back now. He’d hurt Jillian badly, both as Pestilence, and then here, when he’d told her what he’d done. He’d been determined to keep her from sacrificing anything for him. “Is it permanent? Will it hurt her?”
“Yes to both, if you don’t hold up your end of the bargain,” Ares said, his no-nonsense, no-bullshit words cutting right through Reseph.
“My end of the bargain? I didn’t agree to any bargain. Reverse it.” Reseph’s head snapped back and forth between the two Watchers. “Make it go away, dammit. I don’t care if I’m back to being a head case. Fix this!”
“No can do, Horseman,” Revenant said. “Only Harvester can reverse it, and she’s… gone.”
Fear for Jillian sent Reseph’s pulse—and temper—into orbit. “Get her back,” Reseph snarled.
Revenant’s pupils expanded, turning his eyes oily black. “I see that your Watchers have allowed you too many liberties.” He lashed out with his fist, but instead of a taking a physical blow, Reseph was knocked backward by a searing snap of power.
Rage shattered Reseph’s control, and he lunged at the same time that his siblings did, all of them going after the new Watcher, but Revenant flashed out of the way and materialized behind them.
“How dare you strike out for so minor an offense.” Reaver’s wings flared, a sign of his fury. “And what weapon did you use against him?”
Revenant’s smirk reeked of self-satisfaction. “Watcher upgrade, you heavenly puke. Maybe if you checked in with your bosses, you’d know about it.” His smirk grew wider as he took in Reseph and his siblings, one by one. “It’s been decided that we needed a stronger form of punishment to keep you in line. That was just a taste. If I’d wanted, I could have blown you up inside that armor and poured you out like a liquid. You will not harm one of us again.”
So this was about Harvester. Reseph felt ill. “Get out of here,” he growled. “Get the fuck out of my sight.”
“You don’t give the orders, Horseman. Seems you haven’t learned your lesson.” He raised his hand, but before he could lash out again, Reaver hit him like a train, and the two angels turned into a whirlwind of fists, wings, and blood.
Then the two were gone, and Reseph was left looking at an empty space.
“Fuck,” he breathed.
“I hate
the new guy,” Limos said. “Wasn’t fond of Harvester, but compared to Revenant, she was awesomesauce.”
“It’s my fault.” Reseph turned to his siblings, ready to get this over with. “Whatever she’s being punished for, it has to be because of Pestilence.” He reached for his armor scar to remove his shielding before remembering he was naked underneath the metal plates. While he normally didn’t give a fuck who saw him nude, he didn’t want the extreme vulnerability right now. Not when he was facing the people he’d done so much damage to. “Look, I don’t even know where to start.”
“Then maybe it’s best that you don’t start at all,” Thanatos said. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“Than!” Limos dropped her own armor and jammed her hands on her sundress-draped hips. “You were the one who held on the longest, insisting that Reseph wasn’t responsible for Pestilence’s actions.”
“That was before Pestilence tried to kill my wife and son.” Nothing Than said was unfair, nor was it unexpected. In many ways, being Death fit him, because while Than tended to hang onto loyalty for a long time, when he was finally done with someone, he was done. Reseph was dead to Than. The brotherly bond between them had been severed, and Reseph didn’t know how long it would take to repair it, or if it even could be repaired.
“I’m sorry.” Reseph looked out over the olive groves, remembering how much he’d hated how quiet they were. Now he’d give anything to walk among the gnarled trees with Jillian, the only person who had ever given him a moment’s peace. “I know it doesn’t help. I was there, inside this body, but I wasn’t strong enough to defeat Pestilence. I’ll never forgive myself.”
“I know you tried.” Limos dragged her big toe through the sand. “You came through sometimes. Pestilence played it off like he’d been tricking me, but he wasn’t, was he? It was you.”