Shit. Even if he could settle Harvester down or knock her out, he couldn’t walk around Sheoul like some sort of divine beacon. He’d be dead, or worse, taken prisoner within hours.
“Stand back.” He gestured to the far side of the cave, near Calder’s body. “Over there.”
With a displeased growl, she moved with him to the exit, and he didn’t like the way she kept staring at him like he was a juicy steak. And not one to be savored.
Reluctantly, he prepared himself, knowing this could be the dumbest move he’d ever made. And that was saying something, because he’d made some whoppers.
Gathering every drop of his power, he threw out his hands and sent a blast of energy at the far side of the cave.
Please, Yenrieth, you have to understand.
Verrine’s words blindsided him again, knocking him so mentally off balance that he lost control of the divine lightning. The lasher implants might be drained of the ability to mask his aura, but they still managed to morph his power into a superstrong wrecking ball of white-hot fire that plowed into the cavern wall. An explosion shattered the air and hurled them a dozen yards down the tunnel. Through a thick plume of dust, he could make out tumbling boulders and falling slabs of earth.
“The cave’s collapsing,” he breathed, and then he stopped breathing as the tunnel they were in began to fold like a house of cards. “Run!”
He grabbed Harvester’s hand—no longer clawed—and sprinted over the uneven ground as the ceiling behind them buckled.
“You’re still glowing,” Harvester shouted above the roar of the destruction. “But it’s faint. I might only be able to see it because your blood is in my veins.”
He wasn’t that relieved. Now he was an angel in hell with no powers, no disguise, and no idea how they were going to get out.
Fourteen
Two days later, they were still stuck in Sheoul, but at least Harvester had gotten them out of the mountain caverns. They’d been forced to run blindly from the collapse, and then from a constant stream of enemies. The sheoulghuls gave Reaver a partial recharge, but he had to constantly discharge his powers to keep his Heavenly aura muted—and to keep Harvester from going evil again. But the close confines of the tunnels meant he wouldn’t broadcast the glow very far, which had allowed him to hold a small amount of energy in reserve to handle minor threats. Like an orc he blasted while they’d been on the run. He hadn’t even slowed down to do it.
Harvester, at least, was stronger now, and she’d been able to take out several enemies with some low-level fallen angel weapons.
But she drained her powers quickly and while she was able to recoup them faster than before, she was still operating at far below her normal threshold. Worse, she was unable to either flash them anywhere or sense Harrowgates. With their powers depleted, they’d taken a dive into a swift underground river in order to lose the enemies on their heels.
Endless miles of trying to keep their heads above water later, they’d been thrown out of the mountain darkness and onto the shore of an eerie, orange-glowing realm where everything was grotesquely gaunt and exaggerated, all Tim Burton and a touch of crack.
Now, dripping wet, exhaustion making them shuffle almost drunkenly, they entered a ramshackle village teeming with tall, inky-black creatures that resembled upright Borzoi dogs, with their narrow heads and skinny bodies.
“No sudden movements,” Harvester whispered. “Walk very slowly at first, or the carrion wisps will give chase.”
“Carrion wisps?”
She nodded. “The name is misleading, because they don’t eat carrion. They like their meat still moving.”
Reaver eyed the things, which were coming out of their soot-colored smokestack-like dwellings to follow behind them as they made their way through the center of the village. “How do we keep from being moving meat?”
Her still-damp hair clung to her shoulders as she shrugged wearily. “Don’t look tasty.”
Don’t look tasty? Brilliant.
He looked beyond the village, to a forest of black, leafless trees that sprouted from the ground like skeletal zombie hands punching up from graves. Looked like they were going to be walking into a Halloween portrait.
Talk about your postcards from hell.
“I don’t suppose you know where we are,” he said.
“Sure I do.” The teasing spin on her words amused him despite the fact that they weren’t in the best shape or situation. “We’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“How helpful.”
Another shrug. “I try.”
She was her usual flippant self, but days spent on the run with no rest was taking its toll on her. On Reaver, too, if he could be honest with himself.
“You’re loving this, aren’t you?” he muttered.
“Loving what? The fact that now I’m the one with all the power and knowledge?” Reaching back, she tied her damp hair into a messy knot. “Yes.” She gazed up at the sky, which was a little less bright than it had been a few minutes ago. “We need to find shelter. It’s getting dark, and in this realm, everything has to take shelter at night. Here, the darkness kills.”
“You couldn’t have mentioned that when we first washed up on the riverbank?”
She glared. “Right. Because that’s the first thing I thought of while recovering from two days of swimming and fighting off demon fish things. Also, we need to move faster.”
Reaver was on board with that. The carrion wisps were inching closer, and now there were maybe a hundred of them, all sizing Reaver and Harvester up for a meal.
They picked up the pace, their boots clacking painfully loudly on the uneven cobblestone road. The eerie quiet of the place was so unsettling he decided he’d rather listen to Harvester.
“Obviously, you know where we are,” he said. “Do you know how to get us out of here?”
“Yes.” She frowned. “No. I still can’t sense Harrowgates. But if we keep moving to the north, we should arrive at the Pavilion of Serpents in a few days. It’s one of the few places you can flash us out of Sheoul from.”
As they walked she tugged at her wet tank top, airing it out and peeling it away from places where it had molded to her body. Really, she could leave it wet and plastered to her curves. Reaver might hate her, but he’d never denied that she had a spectacular body.
Except he didn’t really hate her anymore. The thought came out of nowhere, was a surprise to him, but he wasn’t going to deny it. The slivers of memories that had come to him when she’d taken his vein had brought back emotions as well. He’d cared for her when he was Yenrieth. He might have even loved her. And before any of those memories had returned, he’d already accepted that she’d done evil for the sake of good, and he understood how she’d become what she was.
So no, he no longer hated her. But that didn’t mean he trusted her.
“So what’s your plan for us when we get out of Sheoul?” Harvester asked. “You can’t take me to Heaven unless I’m bound with angel twine, and even if you have that, don’t you think the archangels are going to just toss me back to Satan?”
He actually did have angel twine tucked away in his pack, but he hoped he wouldn’t have to use it. The dental-floss-thin thread, if used to bind a fallen angels’ wings, allowed passage into Heaven. It also bound their powers while in Heaven. Handy stuff.
“They aren’t going to send you back,” he said.
She rubbed her bare arms as if chilled, but it was a million degrees in this freakshow realm. “How can you be sure?”
He bared his teeth at a carrion wisp who came a little too close, and the thing backed off. They were getting bolder. “You’ll be the most important asset the archangels have ever seen. After five thousand years in Sheoul, not to mention the fact that you’re Satan’s daughter, you have powerful intel. They won’t be able to afford to let you go again.”