Damn him. With a curse, she cast her own gate over the top of his. They would both enter the now-single gate, but she could back out if she didn’t feel safe.
They went through, Pestilence first, and when she stepped out into a dusty cavern lit by hovering balls of mystical fire, it appeared he hadn’t been lying. At least, not about all of it. They were definitely in some sort of manmade tunnel, and her built-in GPS told her they were somewhere in Egypt.
She shivered. She’d never liked Egypt, and the claustrophobic closeness of the walls tightened around her chest like a python.
“Where are we?”
“A forgotten crypt. Some formerly important dude is entombed in a chamber behind us.” Pestilence knelt at the base of a chest-freezer-sized stone box, and although the lid probably weighed five hundred pounds, he lifted it as though it was made of paper. “Take a look.”
Easing up to the box, she peeked inside, where a dozen pieces of ancient jewelry, coins, and clay figurines lay on top of a pile of dust. Very carefully, she picked up one of the figures. The clay rendition of a plump woman was cracked, the piece of cloth tied around its legs was brittle.
“Nice job with this,” she murmured. “You missed your calling as a counterfeiter. What’s its purpose?”
“That’s none of your concern.”
“You’re such an asshole.”
One blond eyebrow shot up. “After the things you’ve done, you have the gall to call me an asshole?”
“Just get to the point,” she gritted out. “What do you want?”
“Bring an Aegi here. Tell them you discovered the vault in your search for your agimortus.” Pestilence tossed something at her feet. Dogtags, she realized, when she bent to pick them up. Arik’s dogtags, caked with blood. “You’ll do it, or next time I bring you his eyes.”
She clutched the metal chain and tags so hard her palm hurt. For some reason, this little piece of Arik made everything so real, so tangible. It was as if she could feel his pain in the blood smears. God, if she’d been stronger, if she’d resisted Arik and her attraction to him, she wouldn’t be in this mess, and he wouldn’t be in pain.
Shame sifted through her, but she couldn’t afford to give in to it. Whatever Pestilence was up to was bigger than Arik’s agony, and she couldn’t let on that she felt anything for him.
“Do what you have to do to Arik,” she said, her voice strong and sure, even if she didn’t mean what she said, even if inside she was aching. “I won’t help you.”
“Then I hope you’re prepared to face Ares and Thanatos after I tell them of all your deceptions.” He bared his fangs. “And yes, I know. Our mother told me everything.”
Limos’s heart shot into her throat, but she still managed to stay outwardly calm. “Telling them won’t benefit your cause.” She stroked the words engraved into the dogtags, taking comfort in the feel of Arik’s name under her thumb. “If anything, it’ll hurt it. Any remaining feelings they have for you will turn to hate.” She hoped. She was damned sure they’d hate her, anyway.
“I’m willing to take that risk. So, what will it be, sister? Tell the Guardians about this vault, or do I go to our brothers and tell them how you, and you alone, are responsible for the curse that turned us into Horsemen?”
Go, daughter. Go into the human realm and find your brothers. Let the rivers of blood flow. Their mother, Lilith, had spoken those words as Limos left Sheoul… freely. There’d been no battle, despite what Limos had claimed to her brothers. Limos had not escaped—she’d left with great pomp and circumstance, and with every intention of returning to take her place at her husband’s side after she’d accomplished her task.
If Thanatos and Ares knew, they’d plunge Deliverance into her heart right after they did the same to Pestilence. Maybe before.
“Damn you,” she growled. “I’ll do it. But in return, you’ll get Arik out of Sheoul.”
“You’re in no position to bargain.” Pestilence smiled. “And if The Aegis even suspects that this might be a setup, I’ll kill Arik and tell our brothers your secret.”
She wished she could strangle him. He was right; she had no leverage. “You know what this lie is going to do to me.”
Pestilence licked his lips, as if savoring the finest brandy. “That’s the best part of this, sis. With every lie you tell, your addiction to it will strengthen, and with every lie, evil will grow within you, until you want to go to your husband.”
“He’s not my husband.”
“Yet, Limos,” he said. “Yet.”
Five
Pestilence was in the most pissed-off, rip-heads-off-for-the-hell-of-it mood he’d ever been in by the time he arrived in the basement of the New Zealand mansion he’d commandeered after his locusts had eaten the inhabitants.
The meeting with Limos had not gone well. Yeah, he’d gotten her to do what he wanted. But he’d also fallen victim to weakness. The male he’d been before his Seal broke, Reseph, had somehow reared his idiot head, begging for help. Pestilence had played it well, had acted like he’d intentionally suckered Limos and played her for a fool.
But in truth… he’d f**king begged her to cure or kill him.s m
Roaring in fury, he shed his armor, palmed the dagger strapped to his chest, and plunged it into his own belly. Pain seared him, intense, fiery, and he crashed to his knees. His minions came running, but he waved them off. This was a reminder. A reminder that if he’d gone just twelve inches higher, sunk Deliverance into his heart, he’d be dead. Dead. He was holding the one weapon that could end him, and he had to keep it away from his siblings.
Reseph could not weaken him.
“What the f**k are you doing?”
Pestilence gnashed his teeth at the female’s voice. Harvester. One of the Horsemen’s two Watchers—one evil, one good, both angels. Harvester happened to be of the evil fallen angel variety.
“I’m playing with myself,” he snapped. “What do you think I’m doing?”
She blinked, all mock innocence. “If you needed to be reminded how Deliverance can hurt you, I’d have been happy to offer a hand.”
No doubt she would. She hated him as much as he hated her. “Why are you here?”
Harvester watched with amusement as he yanked the blade out of his gut. The injury sealed immediately, and the searing pain yielded to a dull ache.
“I received a curious assignment, and I wondered if it has anything to do with you.”
“Dunno.” He moved to a pot of water that was boiling over a fire and dipped Deliverance into it. Clean weapons made clean kills, Ares always said. Pestilence might think Ares was a blow-hard asshole, but only an idiot ignored his battle advice. “What’s the assignment?”
“Top secret.”
“I am the top,” he pointed out, as he walked back to her.
“This goes above even your head.”
Since Pestilence was at the top of the demonic food chain, that meant Harvester’s orders could come from only a couple other demons, or Zachariel, the angel of the Apocalypse who had brought the Horseman curse down upon their heads in the first place.
“Are these orders for a Watcher assignment?”
“No.” She eyed him as he shoved Deliverance into its sheath. “This task is all about Sheoulic interests.”
Ah, then her orders could come only from someone inside Satan’s tight inner circle, which included Lilith, Pestilence’s succubus mother. Interesting. Smiling seductively, he trailed a finger over the smooth skin of her exposed shoulder. “You can’t even give me a hint?”
She returned the smile, though hers was bitter. “It has to do with the forged scrolls, but that’s all I can tell you.”
She chewed her bottom lip, and as much as he hated her, he had to admit that the way her fang poked from between C fr si her lips was sexy. He loved that when angels fell, they lost their silly angel names and gained fangs and a taste for blood. He raked his gaze up and down Harvester’s curvy body, because really, when it came down to it, f**king someone you hated could be even better than f**king someone you liked.
Harvester tucked her fang away. What a disappointment. “But I suppose it won’t hurt to say that my assignment will help ensure that your plan is… unimpeded.”
Thank the Dark Lord that at least one thing was going right. Now, if The Aegis fell for his ruse, he could put the other part of his plan into play. It wouldn’t be easy to snatch one of Thanatos’s vampires and replace it with a doppelganger, but he’d manage. He always managed. As Reseph, charm had gotten him what he wanted. As Pestilence, threats worked even better.
“Your plan, you mean.” It stuck in his craw that Harvester had been the one to give him the idea for the “Aegis vault,” and now he just had to hope it worked.
“Let’s keep that between you and me,” she said. “I don’t want to be accused of ‘helping.’ ”
“No doubt you don’t.” The last Watcher who had broken rules had suffered for decades before finally being destroyed.
Harvester sniffed. “Did Limos suspect anything?”
“I doubt it. She focused on the artifacts.” Now he had to hope that the Guardian she took to the chamber would be astute enough to locate the hidden box where Pestilence had planted the true treasure he wanted The Aegis to find—the scrolls Harvester had referred to. The artifacts were decoys, placed so Limos would believe that the scrolls didn’t have anything to do with Pestilence.
Harvester glanced around the basement, which had been remodeled into a demon playground, her gaze pausing on the Aegis Guardian in chains. “Where did you get him?”
“Snatched off the streets in Hungary. He was hunting a Croucher demon.” The Guardian’s moans were musical. Sensual. “You did know that I’m rewarding anyone who brings me an Aegi, dead or alive, yes?”
“Of course. The entire underworld knows you’ve put a bounty on Guardians. What kind of information are you trying to get out of the live ones?”
“The locations of their cell headquarters, as well as the location of The Aegis’s main HQ. This one gave up the site of his cell near Budapest, and it’s right now under siege by my minions.” Pestilence sighed, practically able to hear the sounds of battle. “But he doesn’t know where the regional hubs or global headquarters are.”
“Their mission control is in Berlin,” Harvester said.
“No shit.” Pestilence gnashed his teeth. “But I don’t know where, exactly. And none of these f**ks will give it up.”
“The exact location is likely kept from most of them.”
Of course it was. The Aegis’s head honchos wouldn’t want to risk a low-ranking Guardian spilling his gutsspillinÀs guts—literally, in this case—to an enemy who would use the information to stage an attack on their very nerve center. An attack would not only cripple the organization, but rumor had it that the bulk of their weapons, secrets, and artifacts were stored at headquarters, and that, to any demon, would be priceless beyond comprehension.
Pestilence gestured to the broken Aegi. “Want to see what you can get out of him?”
She brushed invisible lint off her black leggings. “I’ve got things to do.”
“No, really.” He dug his fingers into her shoulder so hard it had to hurt, but she didn’t let on. “I’d love to see you operate.”
“What part of, ‘I’ve got things to do,’ don’t you understand?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “You know, I’ve never seen you do anything but hang around and watch others get their hands wet. Maybe you’re… squeamish?”
She snorted. “Hardly. I’ve done things you can’t even imagine.”
He doubted that. His imagination was truly awesome. “Then show me.”
She stared at him, long and hard. Finally, she shrugged, chose a serrated blade from the selection of torture instruments hanging on the wall, and tested its edge. Blood welled along the cut on her thumb. She licked it, sealing the wound, and the sight, the scent, gave him instant wood.
“Have it your way,” she said nonchalantly, and sauntered over to the Guardian, where she started her gruesome work.
He watched, his excitement growing with each of the human’s screams. His plans were coming together. Soon, The Aegis itself would set the Apocalypse into motion, Limos would return to the evil bitch she was born to be, and Arik… he was going to die.
But not before Pestilence claimed his soul.
Fucking demons.
They were Arik’s favorite two words, and he kept repeating them over and over. Well, they had always been favorites, but he kind of suspected that the time spent in this shithole had erased his vocabulary and left him only with f**king and demons.
Arik sat still as Tav finished healing him—again. It was the second time in twelve hours, which wasn’t unusual, but Arik had hoped he’d have a reprieve from the torture since they’d decided to execute him.
Not so much.
He cast a glance at the door, where he’d looped his uber-thin braided string around a blackened bar between the wall and the lock. So far, so good. No one had noticed. Demons weren’t the most observant creatures on the planet.
“So, Tav, whatcha got planned for later?”
Tavin peeled off his surgical gloves. “Sex Clov
Right. Seminus demon. Needed to have sex or die. “Groovy.”
“And you?”
Escape. Arik shrugged. “I’ll probably eat the bucket of fish skin and guts your friends bring me. After that, I’m pretty sure I have an appointment with the executioner. Why? You want to make a date?”