The ground shifted beneath Lore’s feet. Oh, holy hell. Though Lore had saved Kynan’s life, he hated him and really wouldn’t mind putting him in the ground. But Jesus… if he killed the human, Lore would spend the rest of his sorry life looking over his shoulder. He’d have every Aegis Guardian on the planet aiming to gut him with a stang, which would be pleasant compared to what Gem and his brothers would do to him.
Deth leaned in close, so close Lore could feel the ugly demon’s heat on his face. “You have your assignment. You will kill Morgan—using your death touch—and retrieve his amulet within ninety-six hours. And if you refuse or fail, Sin will die.”
Sin, whose favorite saying was now becoming ironic reality.
No good deed shall go unpunished.
No fucking shit.
By sparing his brothers, Lore might have condemned his sister to death.
Rariel couldn’t contain a smile as he watched Lore exit Detharu’s chamber. He’d waited so long to put his plan into motion, and now that the ball was rolling, nothing could stop it.
“Why did you specifically request Lore for this job?” Detharu stood at the hearth’s edge, his normally white skin taking on the orange of the flames like a chameleon’s. Unlike most, Rariel could see the Molegra demon’s true form, though he wished he couldn’t. The eyeless man-shaped creature was one of the most repulsive demons Rariel had ever come across.
“He has a reputation as being one of the best,” Rariel lied.
Lore did have a reputation for excellence at his job, but that wasn’t why Rariel had chosen him. Rariel had chosen him because by giving Kynan, a Marked Sentinel, life, Lore had become the only being other than an angel who could take it away.
Detharu nodded, still facing the fire. “I’ll be sorry to lose him. And Sin.”
Yes, Rariel had been curious about this Sin person Detharu had dangled over Lore’s head. “Is she his mate?”
“Sister.”
Rariel’s breath caught. Sister… “Is she an assassin?”
Detharu turned around, his sausage-body undulating grotesquely. “She is. Ruthless and cunning, like her brother.”
Oh, this was perfect. Poetic, even. “Then I want Sin for the other target.”
“Same time frame?” Deth asked.
“Yes.”
The assassin master shuffled to his throne. “The rush job will cost you quadruple, as it did with Lore.”
“I’m paying quadruple because my insistence on using Lore is depriving you of him as a slave.”
“Double then. Take it or leave it.”
Rariel could leave it and go with another assassin, but the brother-sister thing gave him shivers of pleasure. “Done.”
Detharu smiled, his pale, shapeless lips forming a deep fissure that revealed tiny, pointed teeth. “Tell me, why is this amulet of Morgan’s important to you?”
“It’s a bauble. Worthless except as a trophy.” The truth, that it was a priceless bargaining chip that would get Rariel everything he wanted, was not something he would share with anyone, let alone assassin scum.
The demon seemed to buy the lie. “Come then,” he said, gesturing toward the door. “We’ll feast on the sweet flesh of a newly hatched huldrefox while we draw up the contracts.”
Furry little huldrefox hatchlings weren’t cheap, and with what Rariel was paying, the bastard could afford to eat them—or the young of any species—every day if he wanted to. Still, Rariel couldn’t scrounge up much in the way of bitterness. Not when centuries of planning was about to yield results.
Oh, yes. He could almost hear Idess’s screams of misery already.
The icy whisper of a hand caressed his arm, reminding him of the debt Rariel had yet to pay. Because Rariel wasn’t the only being in the room who was after revenge.
And after what Roag’s brothers had done to him, Rariel couldn’t blame the demon at all.
Two
Idess was close to the end. She could feel it. Could practically taste it, and as she stood at the top of Mount Everest and gazed up at the heavens, she could picture it.
An icy gale whipped up the snow around her, but she didn’t notice despite the fact that she was wearing low-waisted, cropped cammy pants, a tummy-revealing tank top, and hiking boots. As a Memitim, the only class of angel that was born, not made by the direct hand of God, she was impervious to the elements. Was impervious to most things that could harm others. Soon, even those few things that could hurt or kill her would no longer be a threat. Soon, she would Ascend, would earn her wings and join her fully transitioned angel mother, brothers, and sisters in Heaven.
Not that she cared about seeing many of them. With the exception of her brother Rami, she knew few of her siblings very well, most not at all. But she couldn’t wait to see Rami, had spent the last five hundred years since he Ascended in solitude and loneliness.
The only contact she had with people was when she shopped, a favorite pastime, and when she fed, a necessary evil she despised. “Feeding is the curse of our father,” Rami had said. “It reminds us that no one is perfect, and that we must all resist temptations of the flesh, lest we allow corruption to blacken our souls.”