Reaper

by Larissa_Ion

  Thanatos smiled sadly. Wraith had been the one to get him into role-playing games, and before his death at the hands of the fucker in the dungeon, they’d been planning a game with Hawkyn, Journey, Maddox, Emerico, Cipher, and Declan.

  Oh, yeah, the fucker in the dungeon was going to pay.

  “What about the hellhounds?” he asked. “Ares should have been able to take Moloch’s castle with a legion of those things.”

  “They refused to fight.”

  He halted at the base of the stairs and glanced back at his sister in disbelief. “Hellhounds. Hellhounds refused to fight.”

  “I know, right?” Limos gave an incredulous shrug. “Ares thinks it’s because Moloch’s army is basically Satan’s army, and hellhounds won’t fight Satan.”

  Well, fuck.

  He ducked through the archway to the torture chamber, the stench of piss and fear drowning out the last lingering notes of baking bread. His phone was on the table next to all his fun medieval tools—he was something of a collector, really—and as he reached for it, he heard a wet thud followed by a grunt. He turned to see Limos, standing on a crate, nose-to-nose with Curson as he hung by his mangled wrists.

  “Why did you kill Wraith?” Limos cut a punch to his gut. “Tell me, you piece of shit.”

  The angel flashed blood-streaked fangs. Well, fang. Thanatos had knocked out the other one hours ago.

  “Because we could,” Curson snarled. “The demon hunted us for long enough.”

  Thanatos drew in an uneasy breath. He’d warned Wraith that taking out fallen angels for sport would earn him some powerful enemies. Wraith hadn’t listened. “Hunters gotta hunt,” he’d said, completely oblivious to the risks and consequences he could face.

  Arrogant fool! If Wraith were here now, Than would beat some sense into him. He’d make the idiot understand how his loss would affect his family, his friends. Thanatos.

  Grief squeezed his heart, crippling him for a moment as Limos grilled Curson. He didn’t care what she did to him. Limos had cared for Wraith, too.

  “How did you kill him?” Punch. Grunt.

  Grin. “A sword through the heart.”

  Enraged by the flippant answer and the sickening glee in Curson’s smile, Thanatos shoved past Limos and slammed his fist into the bastard’s sternum, delivering a solid, bone-cracking blow to his black heart.

  “How?” he demanded. “Wraith was immune to damage from fallen angels.”

  It took Curson thirty seconds to stop wheezing. “Moloch assured us”—he gasped again—“that was no longer the case.”

  “And how did Moloch know that?” Limos asked, and Curson clammed up, clenching his jaw and staring in defiance. “How?”

  She jammed one cheery yellow fingernail under his chin, and a couple of heartbeats later, his muscles started to dissolve beneath his skin as his body digested itself. Curson’s deep, resonant scream came from his very soul.

  “This is famine,” she growled. “Soon, you’ll be nothing but skin and bones and gnawing agony. Tell me how Moloch knew Wraith’s charm had been disabled, and I’ll stop.”

  “He arranged it,” Curson blurted. “Stop! Please…stop.”

  Pleased with herself, Limos stepped back and brushed off her hands as Curson went limp with exhaustion, his ribs showing where they hadn’t before.

  “That’s not something he could just…arrange,” Thanatos said. “Not when a Radiant angel is the one who bestowed that immunity on him. So, who did Moloch get to remove the enchantment?”

  Curson said nothing, trying to catch his breath, but when Limos took a step forward, he remarkably found his voice.

  “One of the only people besides Reaver who could.” The fallen angel lifted his wobbly head to give Thanatos a weary smile of contempt, and Thanatos’s heart lurched. Don’t say it. Don’t say it… “His twin, your uncle. Revenant.”

  Chapter 18

  The shackles around Lilliana’s wrists chafed with every sharp tug made by the scrawny, twisted demon dragging her down the torch-lit hallway. Her bare feet kept tripping over the uneven flooring, and it was a miracle she hadn’t taken a tumble yet.

  “Where are we going?” She yanked on the chains, earning another violent tug that sent her careening into the wet, slimy wall.

  She didn’t know why she even tried. The twisty bastard hadn’t said a single word since fetching her from her cell.

  But he really didn’t need to. She had a sick feeling that she was about to face the consequences of Azagoth’s failure to release Satan by Moloch’s deadline. Fear, so intense she could smell it coming out of her pores, made her even clumsier as Twisty hauled her into the great room she knew well by now.

  When she wasn’t in a filthy cell, she was chained to the skull throne, forced to watch the depraved activities of Moloch’s guests and servants. That was when she was lucky. When she wasn’t…

  She shuddered. She could take any amount of torture she was subjected to…she’d suffered at the hands of a monster before. What she couldn’t take was the thought of her baby suffering, and she wasn’t sure how much longer it could remain in the safety of her womb.

  Not that there was a choice, obviously. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t keep repeating, over and over, “Stay inside, little one. Stay inside where it’s safe.”

  Twisty wrenched the chain and swung her into the middle of the room…and into a crowd of demons and fallen angels, all of them sporting heinous, fresh injuries. Some snarled at her as if it were her fault that they were missing limbs, while others leered or wagged their forked tongues at her in obscene gestures.

  God, she wished she was asleep. In sleep, she was happy. Safe. And Azagoth might be there. Or Maleficent.

  At first, Lilliana had been startled to see Mal flickering on the periphery of her dreams. Then she remembered Cara mentioning that bonded hellhounds could communicate through dreams, and while Mal had never given Lilliana a hellhound’s kiss to create the bond, Lilliana still felt a connection with the beast.

  Mystical bonds aside, Lilliana had tried to get close to Mal in her dreams, and Mal had clearly wanted to get to Lilliana, but it was as if there was a hundred-yard-thick force field between them. Maybe the lack of a true bond had kept them from being able to communicate in the dreams, or maybe Maleficent’s abilities weren’t powerful enough to reach Lilliana. It would make sense, given that her small size and lack of physical and supernatural strength had made her an outcast among her kind.

  Cara had said that if not for her and the safety of Ares’ island, hellhounds would have ripped Mal to pieces long ago.

  Twisty clamped his three-clawed paw down on the back of Lilliana’s neck and forced her to the ground, where he clipped her chain to a drain grate that was already gurgling with the blood of the injured demons.

  Terror spiked as the crowd parted and scrambled backward, and she knew Moloch was coming.

  “Your mate has been a bad boy.” The grotesquely distorted architecture of the room, reminiscent of a charred skeleton that had been stretched and warped, amplified Moloch’s voice into a terrifying entity of its own.

  But that was nothing compared to the sight of the big male, his three-foot horns dripping gore onto his bald head. His armor, as grotesque and skeletal as the chamber’s architecture, glistened with blood splatter, and the cracks in his gauntlets were caked with bits of flesh and hair.

  Stark fear clawed at Lilliana on a level so primal, she forgot how to breathe. Inhale. Inhale. Inhale, dammit!

  Somehow, she didn’t pass out or piss herself. Somehow, she raised her head and met Moloch’s black gaze with defiance. “Not naughty enough. You’re still alive.”

  She paid for that with a backhand that knocked her back so hard that her shoulders nearly dislocated when the chain jerked her body. Welcoming the pain throbbing in her wrists, shoulders, and jaw because it chased away the terror, she braced herself for the next blow.

  “I fucking told him not to try anything stupid. So, what does he d
o? He tries something stupid.” Moloch bit out a handful of curses in Sheoulic. “He and his Horseman buddies slaughtered thousands of my men.”

  Lilliana had a hard time feeling bad about that. Still, she offered her most insincere condolences. “I’m so very sorry.”

  That earned her another backhand and a subsequent throbbing cheek to match the first one. “You will be sorry.” The crazy in his eyes dimmed a little, a sign, she’d learned, that meant the Moloc half of the soul had more influence than the Bael half. Both were dangerous in different ways, but she preferred to deal with the slightly more stable personality of Moloc. “Azagoth will be even sorrier. Heaven isn’t going to be happy about what he’s done.”

  She snorted. “I don’t think Heaven will care that he snuffed some evil scum.”

  Flail strutted up next to Moloch in thigh-high boots, her fine mesh catsuit revealing pretty much everything. “I think they’ll care that he re-souled tens of thousands of demons to do it.”

  “He…re-souled them?” Lilliana couldn’t hide her shock. Or her disbelief. Azagoth possessed the ultimate authority to send demon souls to be reincarnated, but he couldn’t give souls corporeal form, nor could he gift souls with the ability to take over physical bodies that already housed a soul. “He couldn’t. He doesn’t have that power.”

  “Apparently, with the help of a Charnel Apostle, he does,” Moloch said.

  Lilliana wanted to deny that he’d use a Charnel Apostle for anything, let alone a forbidden ritual, but she also knew the lengths Azagoth would go to in order to get what he wanted. At this point, her only play was to get as much intel as possible in case she could connect with her mate again in dreams.

  “How do you know this?” she demanded. “Your spy inside Sheoul-gra?”

  Moloch suddenly and violently went down to his haunches and grabbed her by the throat, his metal-covered fingers digging painfully into her skin. “I captured some of them.” He bared his teeth, strings of saliva stretching from his upper jaw to the lower, his fetid breath burning her eyes. “Your mate released thousands of souls from Sheoul-gra with orders to kill and possess bodies before breaching my fortress, capturing me, and rescuing you. I told him not to fuck with me. I warned him.”

  “I tried to tell you, Lilliana,” Flail said, her voice strangely soft. “You should have called Azagoth.”

  Still in Moloch’s grasp, Lilliana struggled for air. “It wouldn’t have mattered,” she gasped, wrapping her arms protectively around her belly. “He’s not going to release Satan. He’s not going to give you what you want.”

  “Oh, but he will,” Moloch began, his voice as silky as warm blood. “Especially if I start sending you back.” Releasing her, he drew a wicked, jagged blade from the sheath at his hip. The primal fear roared back.

  “Piece by piece.”

  Chapter 19

  Hawkyn didn’t want to do this.

  Of all the news he’d delivered in his life, this was the worst. His father had already been dealt a blow when they learned that his army of re-souled demons had failed to take either of Moloch’s strongholds.

  Azagoth also had to know that Hawkyn had not only ratted him out to Reaver, but that he’d also let Reaver inside Sheoul-gra. Strangely, his father hadn’t even addressed it yet. One would think that was good news; Azagoth hadn’t gone nuclear. Cool.

  One would be wrong.

  When Azagoth didn’t freak out, it was scary as fuck.

  Raised voices drifted down the hall from the war room as Hawkyn approached. What a shitty day. And it was about to get worse.

  Two blows, back-to-back. And now for the knockout punch.

  Taking a bracing breath, Hawkyn adjusted the duffel over his shoulder and walked into Azagoth’s command center.

  The place was a zoo, packed wall-to-wall with proven allies, spies, assassins, and a couple of Moloch’s minions, who were oblivious to the fact that Azagoth knew they were enemies. They’d be provided information Azagoth and Ares wanted leaked.

  At the center of the room, hovering over the map of Sheoul-gra, was Azagoth.

  In a room full of giant people and legends, he stood out in a modified form of his beast, his horns curling behind his head, his eyes aflame with hellfire, his skin a deep blood-red.

  Hawkyn felt the moment Azagoth’s gaze lit on him, the scorching heat burning like lasers where it landed.

  Hawk knew better than to look directly into his eyes.

  “I need to speak to my father,” Hawkyn barked. “Everyone out.”

  For a couple of heartbeats, no one moved. Several looked to Azagoth for guidance, but when all he did was stare at Hawkyn, they hastily scurried out through the multiple doorways.

  The fire in Azagoth’s eyes burned brighter now. Brighter and bigger, the flames all but licking his eyebrows. He’d turned the heat down at least, allowing Hawkyn to look at him.

  Not that he wanted to.

  “We’re going to strike again,” Azagoth said, his voice smoky and full of demonic resonance. “Reseph is going to unload a pestilence on Moloch’s forces here”—he gestured to a grouping of plastic orcs—“and here.” He wiped out the second group with his hand. “Dracxis will lead a team of assassins through the broken line here—”

  “Father.”

  “What? Whatever it is, say it quickly. We have to attack again before Moloch regroups and hurts Lilliana. We lost the gamble, but we hurt him. Ares says he won’t expect another attack so soon—”

  “Father!” Hawkyn laid the giant duffel on the map, knocking over vast swaths of armies. “It’s too late.”

  “What’s too late?”

  Hawkyn swallowed. “Moloch sent this.”

  Azagoth went utterly still. A chill spread through the room, growing so cold that streaks of frost formed on the floor. Then, in a blur of motion, Azagoth crossed to the duffel and unzipped it.

  The floor tiles cracked under the polar temperatures that plunged the room into a deep freeze.

  Azagoth’s shock and pain turned the very air brittle as the color drained from his skin, and his horns and claws receded. His wings…they didn’t retract. They shriveled.

  “No,” he whispered. “Ah…no.”

  Azagoth swayed, and if not for Hawkyn bracing him against his chest, his father would have sunk to the floor.

  “That bastard.” Azagoth peeled away from Hawkyn and stumbled to the bottle of whiskey at the end of the table. “That…bastard!”

  “Father.” Hawkyn cursed the tremor in his voice. “Moloch said…he said that if you attack again, it won’t be a piece of Lilliana he sends in a bag. If you want to know what you’ll get next time, he suggested you refer to Paradise Lost.”

  In Paradise Lost, Moloch had a thing for child sacrifice.

  With a bellow of fury, Azagoth wheeled around. “Ares!” he roared, and the Horseman, who must have been right outside the door, stepped inside. “Call off the attack. No one is to go near Moloch. No one.”

  Ares hesitated for a moment, but after a glance at the duffel and Hawkyn, he wisely nodded and slipped out of the room.

  “Father? What can I do?”

  Azagoth held up his hand in a leave-me-alone gesture as he walked toward the south exit, his gait unsteady. “Sleep,” he rasped. “I need to sleep.”

  Sleep? They were in the middle of a crisis, and the Grim Reaper wanted to take a damned nap?

  Hawkyn felt Jasmine’s approach, appreciated her comforting presence next to him. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But I think things just got a whole lot worse.”

  Chapter 20

  Lilliana ran along the seashore in a hot pink bikini, her bare feet splashing in the waves as the water lapped at her toes. She inhaled, taking in the salty air and the fresh scent of the citrus groves that dotted Ares’ Greek island.

  She’d jogged daily when she lived here, until her eighth month of pregnancy when she’d had to walk instead. She came to a stop, kicking droplets of sand and wate
r onto her calves. This was a dream, but it was real.

  Her hand went to her belly. Flat.

  Right. This was the baby-power again. The dreams always started like this, and she had to remember what was happening. Maybe Azagoth would be here this time.

  Please, please let him show up.

  She rolled her shoulders, thankful that the pain of having her wings sawed off was gone. At least here in the dream world. Back on the cold floor of her cell, the agony was unbearable.

  And yet, some of the pain wasn’t physical. A lot of it, actually.

  She was going to die. She knew that, and she’d made peace with it. Well, maybe not peace exactly, but on some level, she’d accepted her fate.

  What occupied her thoughts and terrified her beyond belief during every waking moment was concern for the baby. It couldn’t be born in Sheoul. There were monsters and misery around every corner, and the biggest fiend of all was Moloch.

  Imagining what he would do to the innocent child of his enemy—easy to do since Moloch had described it to her in graphic detail—had left her shaking and vomiting for hours afterward.

  And if, somehow, she was able to get it out of her head, her thoughts turned to Azagoth, and what he would go through if he lost them both.

  When she first met the Grim Reaper, he’d been cold, all but dead inside. Ironically, he’d been emotionally numb because he’d once felt too much. As an empath of extreme sensitivity, he’d been pummeled by the emotions of others, and losing the ability had given him peace and freedom.

  At least it had until Lilliana had awakened his emotions again. It had taken time for him to get them under control, and it was still a daily struggle. What would happen if he lost himself to grief and anger?

  She was afraid she knew the answer to that.

  It would consume him. It would destroy everything he’d built, everything he loved.

  “Lilliana?”

  Grinning, almost giddy at the sound of Azagoth’s voice, Lilliana spun around in the wet sand, only to be greeted by his expression of sheer devastation.