Immortal Rider_ Lords of Deliverance Series_ - Larissa Ione [33]
The guards didn’t mess with her, and she passed through the front doors with no problem. The moment the doors closed, the palace walls turned smoky, and in moments, the sorcerer appeared at the top of the grand staircase.
“Harvester.” His voice was as smoky as the walls. “It’s been centuries.”
Which hadn’t been long enough. She cut to the chase. “I need something that will paralyze an angel.”
Gormesh whistled, long and low. “Angels aren’t easily immobilized. You know that.”
“Of course I know that,” she gritted out. She might have left Heaven thousands of years ago, but every memory of her time as a pure angel was as sharp as one of the Orphmage’s scalpels.
“Why not simply trap your angel with a containment spell and cut off his wings?”
“Because this particular angel won’t be easily led into a trap, and I don’t have the time to set up something elaborate.” She started up the stairs, holding the sorcerer with her gaze. “My orders are coming from the very top, so any 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 Sheoul and 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 whe [he s re 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