help you can provide will be most… appreciated.”
“The very top, you say?” his elflike ears twitched. “Come with me. This will cost you, but we’ll figure something out.”
Great. The fucker didn’t come cheap for the simplest things. This? This was going to cost her more than she could afford.
But the payoff would be spectacular. Reaver wouldn’t know what hit him.
Reaver smiled down at the pile of dead demons in the dirt at his feet. Of all his duties, his favorite was killing demons. As a battle angel of the Power order of angels, it was what he’d been bred for, and he was good at it. Sure, back when he’d been stripped of his wings and cast out of Heaven, he’d worked as a doctor at Underworld General Hospital, where he’d healed demons. But he’d been selective about who he saved, because the truth was that not all demons were evil, just as not all humans were good.
There was balance everywhere, a yin-yang thing going on since the beginning of time, and for the most part, it had worked.
Until Pestilence’s Seal had broken, and now the balance between good and evil was rapidly shifting… and not in the favor of good. Evil was spilling out of Sheouland was infecting humans everywhere, including here, in this remote Polish village where people had turned on each other, not knowing that their actions had been influenced by the demons Reaver had just killed.
Gethel, the angel who had been the Horsemen’s good Watcher before Reaver had taken the assignment a little over a year ago, emerged from inside one of the houses where a family had been slaughtered.
“All souls have crossed over,” she said, as she glided toward him. “But far too many crossed to the wrong side.”
That was the problem with the kind of evil they were dealing with now. Too many humans who wouldn’t normally fall to darkness were allowing evil into their bodies and minds. In the battle for souls, Heaven had always had the advantage, but even that was starting to change.
Gethel eyed the dead demons, her lip curling in distaste. “Your power is impressive, Reaver. I can see why you were chosen as my replacement.” Smiling, she spread her wings—white, shot through with gold—and performed a pre-flight check as she folded and unfolded them again. “Give Limos my best. I do miss her. And Reseph.” Her smile turned sad. “He was the one I thought might retain some humanity even after his Seal broke.”
“I did too.” Reaver lifted his hand in the stick-in-the-ass formal manner his fellow angels were so fond of. “Fare well, Gethel.”
She lifted off so fast that even Reaver would have missed it if he’d blinked. Around him, the dead demons disintegrated, as they always did in the human realm—unless they were shapeshifters or weres, or a species such as Seminus demons, who appeared to be human.Basically, if they couldn’t pass as human, they decomposed in a matter of seconds.
His scalp prickled, a split-second of warning before Harvester materialized.
“Hello, you sexy beast,” she said, the sarcasm in her voice setting his teeth on edge. She stood before him, her shiny hair and wings as black as her soul.
“What do you want? I have things to do.” Namely, he had to respond to the summoning that had become a fizzy tug on his insides in the last few minutes.
Thanatos was calling him, and Reaver wondered what was up. The Horsemen didn’t screw around with a summons, though sometimes Reaver wished they would. Would it really hurt them to summon him for, say, a barbecue? Or for one of Limos’s beach parties? Angels had to eat too.
“I merely longed to gaze upon your angelic handsomeness.” Harvester batted her eyelashes, and Reaver snorted.
“I think it’s more likely you came to smash me under a mountain again.” He gestured to the countryside. “You have an entire mountain range to work with.”
“Tsk-tsk. You don’t trust me at all, do you?”
“I probably didn’t trust you even when we
“The very top, you say?” his elflike ears twitched. “Come with me. This will cost you, but we’ll figure something out.”
Great. The fucker didn’t come cheap for the simplest things. This? This was going to cost her more than she could afford.
But the payoff would be spectacular. Reaver wouldn’t know what hit him.
Reaver smiled down at the pile of dead demons in the dirt at his feet. Of all his duties, his favorite was killing demons. As a battle angel of the Power order of angels, it was what he’d been bred for, and he was good at it. Sure, back when he’d been stripped of his wings and cast out of Heaven, he’d worked as a doctor at Underworld General Hospital, where he’d healed demons. But he’d been selective about who he saved, because the truth was that not all demons were evil, just as not all humans were good.
There was balance everywhere, a yin-yang thing going on since the beginning of time, and for the most part, it had worked.
Until Pestilence’s Seal had broken, and now the balance between good and evil was rapidly shifting… and not in the favor of good. Evil was spilling out of Sheouland was infecting humans everywhere, including here, in this remote Polish village where people had turned on each other, not knowing that their actions had been influenced by the demons Reaver had just killed.
Gethel, the angel who had been the Horsemen’s good Watcher before Reaver had taken the assignment a little over a year ago, emerged from inside one of the houses where a family had been slaughtered.
“All souls have crossed over,” she said, as she glided toward him. “But far too many crossed to the wrong side.”
That was the problem with the kind of evil they were dealing with now. Too many humans who wouldn’t normally fall to darkness were allowing evil into their bodies and minds. In the battle for souls, Heaven had always had the advantage, but even that was starting to change.
Gethel eyed the dead demons, her lip curling in distaste. “Your power is impressive, Reaver. I can see why you were chosen as my replacement.” Smiling, she spread her wings—white, shot through with gold—and performed a pre-flight check as she folded and unfolded them again. “Give Limos my best. I do miss her. And Reseph.” Her smile turned sad. “He was the one I thought might retain some humanity even after his Seal broke.”
“I did too.” Reaver lifted his hand in the stick-in-the-ass formal manner his fellow angels were so fond of. “Fare well, Gethel.”
She lifted off so fast that even Reaver would have missed it if he’d blinked. Around him, the dead demons disintegrated, as they always did in the human realm—unless they were shapeshifters or weres, or a species such as Seminus demons, who appeared to be human.Basically, if they couldn’t pass as human, they decomposed in a matter of seconds.
His scalp prickled, a split-second of warning before Harvester materialized.
“Hello, you sexy beast,” she said, the sarcasm in her voice setting his teeth on edge. She stood before him, her shiny hair and wings as black as her soul.
“What do you want? I have things to do.” Namely, he had to respond to the summoning that had become a fizzy tug on his insides in the last few minutes.
Thanatos was calling him, and Reaver wondered what was up. The Horsemen didn’t screw around with a summons, though sometimes Reaver wished they would. Would it really hurt them to summon him for, say, a barbecue? Or for one of Limos’s beach parties? Angels had to eat too.
“I merely longed to gaze upon your angelic handsomeness.” Harvester batted her eyelashes, and Reaver snorted.
“I think it’s more likely you came to smash me under a mountain again.” He gestured to the countryside. “You have an entire mountain range to work with.”
“Tsk-tsk. You don’t trust me at all, do you?”
“I probably didn’t trust you even when we
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