Shade went to her. “It’s not important. You need to take care of the boys, and I’ll handle this.”
“The hell you will!” She jabbed him in the shoulder. “My son is in danger, and I want to know everything.”
“Runa—”
“Everything.”
Shade sighed. “E says it’s Roag. He has something to do with all of this.”
Runa lost what little color she’d had, but her voice was steady and deadly as she ground out, “I want him dead. Painfully dead.”
Idess crossed the room, and when she stood before Runa, she took the female’s hand. “I will make this right for you,” she swore softly. “I swear to you all, I will somehow make this right.”
“Idess,” Lore said, “I told you. This isn’t your fault.”
“But it is. My brother wants revenge on me, and somehow he’s managed to draw all of you into it.”
“If this is all true,” Eidolon began, “I’d like to know how Roag and Rariel hooked up.”
“I don’t know how they managed to hook up after Roag was cursed,” Lore said, “but they knew each other before that. Rariel was there when Roag hired me to kill you.”
That earned him a glower from everyone but Idess. “Hey. I said I was sorry.” Actually, he didn’t think he had, but maybe they wouldn’t remember. It was probably time to go before they did. He checked his watch. They had an hour before they’d have to hunt down Rami.
“Idess, we gotta go. The devil’s hour is coming, and we need to prepare.”
She turned to Eidolon. “Can you send Kynan or Tayla to Lore’s place with some weapons treated in qeres?”
“You got it.”
“Qeres?” Lore asked. “Some sort of antiangel poison?”
She nodded. “It’s what affected me so badly when Tayla shot me. It’ll incapacitate Rami just as effectively.”
“I don’t want him incapacitated,” Shade barked. “I want him dead.”
Closing her eyes, Idess swallowed. Before she could say anything in defense of Rami that Shade and Runa might not appreciate, Lore grabbed her hand. “Come on, Cookie. Flash me to my house. We have a battle to prepare for.”
* * *
Idess was still numb when they reached Lore’s place. They stood in the middle of the living room, and when Lore attempted to pull her into his arms, she tore away, unable to stomach kindness after what she’d done.
“Hey. This is not your—”
“Stop saying that! You don’t know. You don’t understand what I did!”
“Then tell me,” he said mildly. “Tell me what you could have done that’s so horrible that he got booted out of Heaven and went batnuts insane.”
“This is serious, Lore. I betrayed him. And now he’s earthbound and out to hurt me and everyone I’m involved with.” She looked down, too ashamed to even look at Lore.
“Hey.” He caught her chin and forced her to meet his gaze. “Even if you’re right, the thing with Roag is definitely not your fault. The demon was off his rocker before any of this happened. He was just waiting for someone to help him get his revenge.”
A knock at the door announced Tayla and Kynan’s arrival. They entered, and for once, Kynan didn’t look as if he wanted to kill Lore. Tayla carried a crossbow, and Kynan had a broadsword. He handed it to Lore hilt-first.
“The sword and two crossbow bolts have been coated with qeres,” Kynan said. “I wish we had more, but The Aegis has a very limited supply.”
“Why is that?” Lore asked.
“The recipe has been lost. What little we have is all we have.”
“So use it wisely.” Tayla handed the crossbow to Idess. “You sure we can’t go?”
“Positive.” In a lot of ways, Idess was glad for that. Fewer people for her brother to hurt. Fewer witnesses to her shame. “I can only flash with one person.”
“Then take me,” Kynan said. “It’s me he wants. Trade me for Rade. I can handle myself once you get Rade out of there.”
Idess sighed. “I can’t risk you like that. And ultimately, he wants you dead, but not by his hand. His goal is to ruin me, which will only happen if you’re killed by someone other than him.”
“Damn,” he breathed.
She nodded at the appropriateness of the curse. “Does The Aegis know what’s going on?”
“The Sigil knows I’m in danger—” Kynan glowered at Lore “—but we’re considering this a fallen-angel threat. Because if this a**hole is dead, I don’t have to worry about you, right?”
“You should still worry,” Lore muttered, and Idess cleared her throat. He gave her a sheepish look. “Yeah, yeah. Once the contract is void, you have nothing to fear from me.”
Kynan snorted. “I was never afraid.”
“Bullshit. You’ve been on the verge of pissing yourself.”
Idess half-expected their heraldi to start burning, so when Kynan laughed, she thought she was hearing things. “If I didn’t hate you so much, I think I could actually like you.”
“I’d probably like it better if you kept hating me.”
Kynan’s lopsided grin was a traffic-stopper. “You’re just mad because I got the girl.”
“No,” Lore said, shifting his gaze to Idess with such hot possession that her breath clogged in her throat, “I got the one I want.”
Heart pounding and face heating, she cleared her throat. “If you two are finished, we should get ready for what we have to do.” She wasn’t going to say, “Kill Rami,” because she prayed it wouldn’t come to that. Maybe she could bargain with him. Or save him somehow. Because destroying him could very well destroy her. “How is Gem, by the way?”
“Like I always said, she’s got a hard head,” Kynan said, the affection in his gravelly voice unmistakable. “Apparently, when she bent over to pick up something on the floor, the coffee maker fell off the counter and beaned her.”
It hadn’t “fallen,” Idess was sure. One of the ghosts had pushed it, probably at Roag’s direction.
“We’d better go,” Tayla said. “I want to check in with Shade and Runa. Oh, and E said to tell you that Sin is fine. She’s at UG getting checked out.”
“No doubt she’s loving that,” Lore said wryly.
“Well, I heard a lot of cussing in the background…” Tayla shrugged. “You guys be careful. And please, get Rade back.”
“We will,” Lore swore. “If it’s the last thing I do, I will deliver that child to Shade.”
Tayla nodded, and then she and Kynan were out of there.
“This is going to be dangerous,” Idess said. “Even with the qeres weapons, Rami has an advantage, Lore. As a fallen angel, he’s drawing on the power of Sheoul. I’m not a true angel, and I’m much weaker than he is.”
“Is that why you were affected so badly by the cross-bow bolt?”
“Exactly.” She absently rubbed her sternum. “But really, you get a hole the size of a fist blasted through you, and see how you fare.”
“I’ll pass.” He pulled off his gloves and tossed them to the kitchen table. “You poofed right after that. What if he does the same?”
“He won’t. I have a trick up my sleeve.”
His jacket went next, leaving his arms mouth-wateringly bare in his short-sleeved T-shirt. “Which is?”
“Powdered Benedictine monk wine.”
“Monk… wine?” He paused in the middle of unbuckling the leather weapons harness strapped across his chest. “As in, wine made by monks?”
She nodded. “Wine made in a secret chamber at Buck-fast Abbey in England is blessed by monks and dried. Once powdered, it can be used as a temporary antidematerialization weapon against fallen angels.” And angels, which was why it was kept under lock and key. If it were to fall into the wrong hands, it could be used to immobilize God’s army of angels during the Final Battle.
“How temporary?”
“It’ll give us only a few minutes.”
“That sucks, but it’s better than nothing.” Lore laid out his harness and systematically checked each weapon. If they weren’t going after her brother, she’d actually think his efficiency and confidence when handling the weapons was incredibly sexy. “So where do you think he’ll be?”
“Sheoul. The Forbidden Abyssal.” Her voice was stronger than she felt on the inside.
Lore’s foul curse scorched the very air. “That’s the nice name for it. Do you know where it is? What it is?”
“I’ve heard of it.” Who hadn’t heard of it?
“It’s known as the Butchers’ Playground.” His voice was grim. “It’s said that nothing is off-limits there. There are no rules except that nothing can die quickly.”
It was also one of the few places in Sheoul that angels couldn’t enter at all. Some claimed that Satan himself liked to hang out there. No doubt it was a great vacation spot for someone like him.
“That’s why I know he’ll be there. He was never one for half-measures, and if he’s gone evil, he’s gone evil.”
“Dammit,” Lore muttered. “Since it’s in Sheoul, you can’t flash us there, and if the rumors are true, the nearest Harrowgate is days away. This could throw a King Kong– sized wrench into things. Twenty-four hours, and game over for me, angel.”
Idess glanced at the clock on the wall. They had forty-five minutes. And even if Rami wasn’t in the Playground, if they didn’t find him within an hour, they’d be screwed for another twenty-three.
Which put them dangerously close to Lore’s deadline.
She looked at the demon standing in front of her, a demon who had more honor and love in his heart than many of the humans she’d kept safe over the centuries. Fate had dealt him a bad hand, and he’d been paying for it for over a hundred and thirty years.