Reaper

by Larissa_Ion

  Hawkyn tuned it out, too compromised by his own fears for his brothers and Lilliana to witness the fallout of someone else’s private pain.

  Once inside the Harrowgate, Ares punched in the sequence that would reveal the secret symbol and code box leading to his private island gate. It popped up, glowing a brilliant orange. As Ares reached for it, Cipher grabbed his arm.

  “Wait. Don’t touch it.”

  “What is it?”

  Cipher studied the wall, his eyes bright with the challenge of a tech mystery. He’d always been happiest when he was messing around with codes and programs Hawkyn didn’t understand, but now that Cipher had fallen angel powers, he was also able to see most magic in the form of code.

  Unfortunately, because his wings weren’t fully formed yet, his powers were limited.

  “Someone overrode the coding,” Cipher said. “I don’t think it’ll take us to Greece.”

  “Can you tell where it goes?” Hawkyn asked.

  “Definitely the human realm…” He rubbed his chin as he studied the wall. “Somewhere in the Pacific.” He shrugged. “It’s gonna be a crapshoot.”

  Hawkyn rolled his shoulders, taking comfort in the weightless energy contained in his wing anchors. It wasn’t time for the wings to come out, but he liked knowing they were there. He was still getting used to the things, and the power they brought with them.

  “Maybe you should stay,” he told Cipher. “This could be dangerous.”

  “Fuck that,” Ciph growled. “My fallen angel powers might not be at full strength, but I can still fight.” He gestured to Ares. “Plus, we have Mount Horseman with us.”

  Ares snorted and mashed his gauntleted thumb on the symbol. The gate opened, and blinding sunlight flooded the inside of the dark space.

  They stepped out into a bloodbath.

  Cipher inhaled sharply, baring his fangs at the sharp notes of blood in the salty air. “Where the fuck are we?”

  Hawkyn studied the foot and hoof prints that churned up the sand and the slurry created by all the blood. Greasy, ashen stains darkened the beach, the remains of dead demons that had disintegrated the way they did in the human realm.

  “I don’t know, man. But, shit, this is—” Hawkyn broke off at the sight of a dermoire-covered arm poking out from beneath some bushes. His gut dropped to his feet. “Wraith. Fuck, that’s Wraith.”

  They all stared for a moment, the sound of soothing waves seeming bizarre on an island so stained with blood. Finally, Ares stiffly walked over and solemnly, reverently, hauled the dead demon into his arms.

  A cell phone fell from Wraith’s hand and tumbled onto the sand.

  Hawkyn reached for it.

  “Don’t!” Cipher kicked it, knocking the device into a clump of seagrass a few feet away. “There’s a spell around it.” Crouching on his heels, he poked it with a stick as if it were a viper. “Looks like it’s a spell to make it invisible to everyone but someone with Azagoth’s blood. Damn. That’s some tricky shit.”

  “Then why can you see it?” Hawkyn asked.

  Ares scowled. “See what?”

  “It’s a cell phone.” Cipher poked it again. “I can’t technically see it, but I can see the spell that surrounds it.” He waved his hand over the phone, made a few gestures, and then picked it up. “Disabled it like a boss.”

  Hawk took the slender device from Cipher and turned it over in his palm. It was new. Cheap. Still had the plastic screen protector.

  “Obviously, we were meant to find it,” he said, staring at it like it was poisonous. Maybe he should borrow Cipher’s viper-poking stick. “That can’t be good.” His queasy stomach agreed.

  Ares barked out a curse. “You gonna turn it on? Or are you going to stare at it all damned day?”

  “Yeah. Shit.” He pushed a button on top, and almost instantly, a video started playing. The churning in his gut turned serious, and his hand began to shake. “No,” he whispered. “Ah, no…” The phone fell from his hand as he heaved up everything he’d eaten for the last two days.

  “Hawk?” Through his pain, he felt his friend’s hand on his back. “What is it?”

  “They’re dead,” he croaked. “Maddox and Journey.” Tears burned in his eyes, blurring his vision.

  “What about Lilliana?”

  The image of her trying to fight her way out of a horde of demons before being struck down by an axe was like a bruise on the brain.

  “She’s gone,” he whispered. “They took her. They fucking took her.”

  Chapter 10

  Lilliana wasn’t sure what woke her. The throbbing pain in her head, the nausea in her stomach, or the baby’s urgent kicks in her womb.

  Groaning, she shifted. Why was the bed so hard? And why did the bedroom smell like a sewer?

  Fighting the urge to vomit, she sat up and peeled open her eyes.

  Instant terror winged through her. She wasn’t in Sheoul-gra. She wasn’t in bed next to Azagoth.

  She was on the filthy floor of a dais overlooking a dank, dark great hall strewn with straw and…body parts. Bile filled her mouth, and she lurched toward the edge of the platform. A sharp jerk around her ankle yanked her to a hard stop. Pain shot up her leg, but at least she didn’t need to throw up anymore.

  Laughter echoed throughout the chamber. Chills slithered up her spine as she risked another look around, taking in the throne of skulls that she was chained to.

  This can’t be happening. She closed her eyes. This is a nightmare. It’s just a nightmare. Wake up.

  The sound of footsteps rang in her ears.

  Wake up!

  “I’m glad you’re awake, Lilliana.” The slithery, smooth voice made every hair on her head stand up. “I feared my minions went too far and permanently ruined you.”

  A terrifyingly handsome, dark-haired male stepped out of the shadows, his boots and leather armor splattered with gore, his scaly black wings folded against his back. Someone else remained in the shadow of a statue of demonic torture, but she kept her eyes on the one moving toward her. He made a sweeping gesture that encompassed the mangled bodies lying about like broken dolls.

  “I guess I tore them apart for nothing.” A garnet glow lit the black of his eyes, and claws punched from his fingertips. She instinctively reached for her angelic powers, but to her horror, she couldn’t so much as touch them. “The merge with Bael’s half-soul makes me too impulsive.”

  The sudden realization of who he was stole her breath. But her shock veered quickly to hatred and fury. “Moloc,” she snarled.

  Moloc and his insane twin brother Bael, Satan’s right and left hands, had shared a single soul until two weeks ago when Bael had died, and his soul had joined with Moloc’s. The fallen angel brothers had been engaged in a cold war with Azagoth for centuries, but the battle turned hot when they started killing Azagoth’s children.

  Moloc’s gaze sharpened and focused, pinning her in place with the force of his evil.

  “Moloc is who I was before. Now that my and Bael’s souls have joined, I am now called Moloch.”

  “That’s…the exact same thing.”

  “I took a cue from Paradise Lost and added an H.” He flicked a bit of gore off his breastplate. “So when our story is written in the great histories, the three of us are distinguishable.”

  That was the dumbest thing she’d ever heard, but Moloc or Moloch, it made no difference. The son of a bitch had abducted her and killed Maddox and Journey. “Azagoth is going to destroy you, no matter how you spell your name.”

  “He’s going to do what I want if he wants you and your brat to survive,” he snapped.

  She wanted to stand, to face the bastard, but getting up would be awkward and sad, and it certainly wouldn’t make for a show of strength. Instead, she casually leaned against the grotesque throne of skulls and looked up at Moloc with an H.

  “You’re demanding the one thing he can’t do,” she said. “He can’t release Satan from his prison.”

  Moloch smiled. �
�We’ll see.”

  He was a suicidal fool. “You don’t know what he’s capable of.”

  “What about what I’m capable of?” His words were clipped, defensive. He didn’t like being thought of as the weaker adversary. “Take a look at your shackles, bitch. Do you think just anyone could plan and successfully execute a plot to snatch the Grim Reaper’s mate?”

  He had a point. How had he done it? How had he known she’d be in the hospital? Unless…unless he was responsible for putting her there in the first place.

  “You were the one who poisoned me!” she blurted. “You gave it to someone inside Sheoul-gra to give to me.”

  “I can see why Azagoth mated you,” he said drolly. “So smart.”

  She ignored the barb as another thought came to her. “The fallen angels. The ones in the parking lot. They were yours, weren’t they?”

  He inclined his head in the shallowest of nods. “I had to force you to use the Harrowgate to Ares’ place. My technicians rerouted the destination shortly before you were discharged.”

  Which must have been why the Harrowgate was out of order. Eidolon’s techs had gotten it working again, but they hadn’t fixed the bug in Ares’ Harrowgate code. They probably hadn’t even known about it.

  The baby kicked, but she refused to acknowledge it, refused to draw attention to the fact that she was pregnant. Yes, it was blatantly obvious, but there was no sense in making an evil monster focus on it.

  Keep him talking. That she could do. She wanted answers anyway. “But how did you know I’d be going to Ares’ island?”

  Bending over, he picked up what looked like a bloody claw. “You would have been stupid to go back to Sheoul-gra before the traitor was found, and no place would be safer than an island owned by War and defended by hellhounds.” He dragged his tongue up the curved side of the claw, licking it clean of blood. “Besides, is Cara not your new bestie now? You two could bond over”—he gestured to her belly—“motherhood.”

  She hated that he knew all of that. The traitor inside Sheoul-gra had done his or her job well. “So, you had your traitor poison me in order to have me sent to the hospital. Well done. You almost killed the baby.”

  He snorted, and she swore smoke puffed out of his nose. “We gave you a calculated amount that the child could survive with Eidolon’s help. But I really didn’t care. The child isn’t important. I needed you to be able to survive in Sheoul. The effects of the drug on the baby were inconsequential.” He shrugged. “But since Azagoth’s spawn did survive, I can use you both to get what I want.”

  A chill went up her spine at the raw hatred she saw in his black eyes. “I told you, he’ll never cooperate.”

  “Oh, that’s where you’re wrong.” He grinned and tightened his grip on the eight-inch claw in his hand as he moved toward her. “He absolutely will.”

  Chapter 11

  Azagoth felt the moment Hawkyn and Cipher arrived back in Sheoul-gra.

  Please let them have good news.

  But no matter how much hope he held in his heart, he knew in his soul that nothing Hawkyn had to say would be good.

  He’d spent the last fifteen minutes wearing a hole in the floor of his library, stewing in his own fear. He’d gotten a short break from the doom and gloom when he called Zhubaal in to bring him up to speed and ask him to investigate Lilliana’s poisoning. The fallen angel was a total asshole, and very capable when it came to interrogations. Azagoth just hoped that he found the traitor quickly. His patience was running as thin as the barrier that separated Heaven from Hell.

  There was a tap at the door, and a heartbeat later, Hawkyn entered, his steps heavy, ringing out like death knells.

  The expression on his face said it all, and Azagoth felt his world crumble.

  “Tell me,” he said in a voice as broken as his heart.

  “They never made it to Ares’ island.” Hawkyn stopped in the middle of the room, his arms hanging limply by his sides. “Someone rewired the hospital’s Harrowgate. When they stepped out on some random Pacific island, a fallen angel and a horde of demons ambushed them.” Raw emotion bled into his voice, and Azagoth braced himself. “Journey and Maddox are dead. Lilliana…”

  No. Don’t say it. Don’t. Fucking. Say it.

  “All we found was Wraith’s body and…this.” Hawkyn dug a phone out of his pocket and handed it to Azagoth.

  Azagoth’s hand shook as the screen activated. A video popped up, and he watched on unsteady legs as his sons were slaughtered, and Lilliana battled an overwhelming surge of demons. She’d put up one hell of a fight, and for a moment, he silently cheered her on, rooting for her, hoping against all logic that she escaped.

  The video abruptly cut out, and a new frame filled the screen. He squinted at the dark picture. It was a live feed, but of what?

  Lilliana. Oh, holy hell, no!

  His blood froze at the sight of his mate huddled against a throne of skulls, her face buried against it, her arms wrapped protectively around her belly.

  She was naked, her skin streaked with blood.

  “Lilli,” he croaked.

  The feed cut out.

  Despair crushed him, then a slow, torturous sensation of being pressed between two red-hot boulders took over. It stole his breath. His thoughts. His sanity.

  “Someone hurt her…someone dared to hurt her!”

  “Father…”

  The room began to shift. The floor started to buckle.

  “I have to find her.” His voice was low, barely audible over the pounding of his pulse in his ears. “I have to find her.”

  He had no plan, no way to locate her, but he knew he had to get out of here. Had to get out of Sheoul-gra. Fuck his contract with Heaven and Hell.

  “Father, please, calm down—”

  His roar shook the building. Fissures split the floor tiles. Cracks zigzagged across the walls. Bits of stone from the ceiling crashed down. Hawkyn covered his ears and shouted in pain.

  Agony tore through Azagoth as his fury boiled the blood in his veins and scoured the skin from his body. Bones broke, and his jaw dislocated as his inner demon erupted, crashing through the ceiling and scoring the walls with his massive wings.

  Azagoth’s thoughts became muddled as pure instinct swallowed them. All he knew was the need to escape this hell of his own making.

  Throwing his great beast head back, he screamed. Fire and light, tainted by black soot, streaked from his mouth, blasting a hole in the building. He shot upward, flying through smoke, dust, and rubble.

  Escape. Escape. Escape.

  Lilliana!

  Azagoth shot skyward. The flap of his wings displaced the air with such force that branches broke from the trees below, and dust devils spun up along the carefully manicured trails that Lilliana loved to walk. The barrier between Sheoul-gra and the human realm lay ahead, invisible, its power of containment fueled by angelic grace, a blessed stone, and unicorn farts or some shit.

  He spewed a massive stream of power. He’d blast a hole right through the bastard. Molten fire splashed into the barrier, spreading, splashing…but the forcefield held.

  Enraged by his failure, he slammed into the barrier. There was a slight give.

  Yes.

  Circling back, he flew at it again. And again. And again. He hit it until he felt his bones snap. Until he was too exhausted to maintain flight. Until he wanted to die.

  One last attempt...he needed one more.

  He slammed into the barrier with everything he had left, shattering every remaining bone in his body.

  He crashed to the ground like a meteor, sending a tremor through the earth, flipping benches and trees into the air as the ground formed waves from the epicenter of the crater.

  Dazed, panting through the pain of regeneration, he clawed his way out of the smoking hole, coming up at the base of the altar both Heaven and Hell had insisted he install. Apparently, on the eve of Armageddon, he was supposed to choose a side and offer a sacrifice on its half-obsidian/half-pure
-white marble surface to prove his allegiance.

  Had he not sacrificed enough?

  He blinked up at the monstrosity, at the blanket draped over what appeared to be a body lying on the altar’s thick slab. Who was that?

  Exhaustion and mild curiosity wore down his fury and, in response, his form began to morph. His claws receded into his fingers, and his scales melted into his skin. Oh, he was still on the fucking edge of insane anger, but this was the part where the fury chilled, growing icier and icier…and far more deadly.

  He wasn’t going to get out, not this way, but he would get his mate back. And he was going to make damn sure no one ever fucked with him again.

  More level-headed now, he remembered Hawkyn saying something about bringing Wraith. Was that the Sem’s body on the altar?

  Azagoth climbed to his feet, his every move awkward thanks to bones still broken from the fall, and stumbled to the demon’s side. Wraith was clearly dead, but beneath the cold flesh, just under the skin, his soul burned bright. Trapped. Furious.

  This demon had spirit.

  Wraith’s fire drew him, sparked a need to draw from the unique bank of power only a soul—especially a strong one—possessed. He palmed the demon’s forehead, frowning when he couldn’t reach that fiery inner being.

  What the hell?

  “Father?” Hawkyn jogged over, dodging toppled statues and leaping jagged stones. “What is it?”

  “Wraith’s soul,” he said, his voice rough, charred by the malevolent energy he’d used to blast the barrier. “I can’t touch it.”

  “But you can release it, right?”

  “No.” And it pissed him off. He had the ultimate power over demon souls, especially inside his own realm.

  Hawkyn brushed Wraith’s hair out of his face. Azagoth had always admired his son’s ability to feel empathy without being overwhelmed. It was something Azagoth hadn’t been able to do…and something that had ultimately landed him here.

  It was also what had chased Lilliana away for months.

  “But you’re the Grim Reaper,” Hawkyn said. “Souls are your thing.”

  “Which means that someone more powerful than I am has claimed this one and tethered it to his physical body.”