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 f**k 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 f**k 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 na**d underneath the metal plates. While he normally didn’t give a f**k 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.”
“Yeah,” he croaked. Man, he’d tried. He’d begged his sister to kill him, had even told her where to find Deliverance. And when Thanatos had driven the blade through his heart, he’d thanked his brother.
Ares came forward. “We know it wasn’t you, bro. But Pestilence f**ked with us hard. I don’t need to tell you that. And Reaver and Harvester both told us he could come back.”
Reseph’s head snapped up. He remembered Harvester saying something about that, but he’d been so out of his mind that it hadn’t truly registered. “How? My Seal—”
“It’s whole. It won’t break again. Not until the biblical Apocalypse. Which, by the way, is supposed to be ushered in by our father. We discovered evidence that suggests he’ll be the one to break our Seals next time.”
Whoa. Okay, he hadn’t seen that one coming. He’d have to ask more about that later. Right now he was more concerned about his demon half.
“So how could Pestilence come back? You drove Deliverance through his heart.”
Thanatos shook his head. “Deliverance wasn’t the right blade to kill Pestilence. We needed Wormwood.”
Wormwood… Reseph cursed. How could he have forgotten? Pestilence had been desperate to get his hands on that blade, had gone through Aegis headquarters like a blender, killing, torturing, but he’d left empty-handed.
“I—Pestilence—eventually got it from Gethel. She tricked The Aegis into giving it to her. Pestilence knew it was the only blade that could kill him.”
Than nodded. “Deliverance imprisoned Pestilence, but he’s still part of you. He might have been banished, but the barrier is weaker than before. Reaver said it’s like gluing a ceramic vase back together. The vase may still hold water, but it’ll never be as strong as it was, and it could leak. Your container is cracked, and Pestilence can seep through.” Thanatos scrubbed his hand over his face. “It gets worse. While you were pulping yourself on the bedroom walls, the rest of us did some recon in Sheoul. Lucifer, Gethel, Lilith, and about a dozen other bigshots are planning to do whatever it takes to bring Pestilence back, including hurting our families. And according to Arik and Kynan, Gethel has been working with The Aegis on some super anti-Horseman weapon or some shit. We think the sudden disappearance of hundreds of hellhounds might have something to do with it.”
Fuck, this was bad. “Reaver should have left me in Sheoul. He should have left me to suffer.”
Closing his eyes, he sought out the memories that tortured him. It wasn’t right that he wasn’t suffering. Oh, he was miserable, knowing his relationship with his brothers and sister and their families was likely damaged beyond repair, and he was sick at the knowledge of what he’d done to the world and its inhabitants.
But for some reason, the memories felt distant, fuzzy, like he was watching a film instead of being an active participant in them.
Peeling his lids open, he turned to Limos. “Where’s Jillian?”
“She was unconscious after the mind-meld thingie. I took her home and put her in bed. I left a book of our history and our phone numbers on the bedside table in case she ever needs anything.”
“She was unconscious? Is she okay? I have to go to her.”
“Reseph, wait—”
He didn’t listen. All he could think about was Jillian.
Jillian woke up with a scream, heart racing, skin damp with sweat. Demons. She’d been surrounded by demons. Reseph, his eyes glowing, was laughing as claws dug into her flesh.
“Jillian!”
She screamed again as Reseph, fully armored and impossibly huge, burst into her bedroom, a sword in his gauntleted fist. He skidded to a stop short of the bed, but she scrambled backward on the mattress until her spine hit the headboard.