Eternal Rider - Larissa Ione [19]
So when he’d shot the first arrow through the first heart, shock had frozen the entire population.
Until he’d grabbed a teenage girl, sunk his fangs into her throat, and injected a demon strain of hemorrhagic fever that spread through the village in a matter of minutes. The guy at his feet was the last one to die, his final, gurgling breath coming as his eyes dissolved in his head.
Harvester knelt next to the body and dragged her fingertip through the mud formed in the dirt by the man’s leaking bodily fluids. “This is what, your fourth plague in Mexico alone?” The fallen angel’s expression was hidden by her long black hair, but Pestilence could read displeasure in the stiff set of Harvester’s shoulders. “All tiny, isolated villages. Just like in Africa, China, Alaska.”
“I’ll hit larger populations soon,” Pestilence said, unable to keep a note of defensiveness out of his voice. “I do have a plan.”
Harvester unfurled to her full six and a half feet, coming eye to eye with Pestilence. “Lies. You’re wiping out everything that reminds you of your old life. Punishing humans for your kindness.” The angel sneered. “Now that your Seal is broken, you need to get your ass in gear while the underworld is swelling with momentum.”
“Aren’t you and Reaver supposed to be impartial?”
She snorted. “Hardly. Each of us is here only to make sure the other plays fair. Reaver wants to stop this Apocalypse, and I want to see it begin. I might not be able to help you directly, but I can work behind the scenes, and I can certainly root you on.” She studied her black-lacquered nails. “I can also get pissed at your dicking around. There’s talk of adding more Watchers to keep an eye on you and your siblings now, and I don’t plan to share my job with anyone, so get moving.”
“I’m working on it. I slaughtered Batarel—”
“Not before she transferred Ares’s agimortus!”
Pestilence fisted Harvester’s tunic and yanked her so close that their breath mingled. “I have my minions hunting Unfallen to the ends of the earth. I’ve slaughtered six in the last two days. Scores have entered Sheoul to escape me. Even if I don’t find Sestiel soon, he won’t have anyone left to transfer the agimortus to.”
It sucked that the agimortus couldn’t be transferred to fallen angels who entered Sheoul and went from a toe-the-line Unfallen to an evil True Fallen. A True Fallen would likely sacrifice his life to break Ares’s Seal.
Harvester’s skin grew mottled, shot through with inky veins, and her green eyes swirled with ruby streaks. Leathery, black wings rose from her back. “Fool,” she spat. “The agimortus can be transferred to a human. If Sestiel grows desperate, he has billions of potential hosts at his disposal.”
“And you didn’t mention this before… why?” he ground out.
“That,” she said, “is not for you to question.” Her wings lifted even higher and spread wide, the effect no doubt calculated to make Pestilence quake in his boots before her awesome evilness. As if.
He wondered how much force it would take to rip a wing off a fallen angel. “I hope he does transfer the agimortus to a human. I can kill a man as easily as a fly.” He tightened his fist, gathering the fabric of Harvester’s tunic and turning it into a noose. “Won’t be as enjoyable as killing a fallen angel, though.”
She hissed. “Of the four of you, you were always my least favorite. I was sure that once your Seal broke and you became Pestilence, you’d stop being a wastrel and would put some effort into making a name for yourself. Clearly, I was wrong.”
Pestilence gnashed his teeth. “I intend to prove myself to the Dark Lord as the worthiest of my siblings. When the Earth and Sheoul become one, I will have first choice of the realms.” Yep, it was written that following the Apocalypse, the demon realm would spill over into the human one, and the whole kit and kaboodle would then be divided