Reaver (11 page)

Nine

Tavin was used to being chin-deep in trouble. Hell, he was in trouble more often than he wasn’t.

But as he and Calder stood behind a wall of stone and thorny bushes and scanned the massive army

that seemed to stretch for miles on the cliffs above them, he was aware that this was a special kind of

trouble.

“Stupid bitch,” Calder hissed. “Her scream brought them right to us.”

Reaver came from out of nowhere and clamped his hand around Calder’s throat. When he spoke, his

voice was low but dripping with menace. “Say that again, and I’ll feed you to that army.”

Calder nodded, his already pale skin going even paler.

“I don’t think they see us,” Harvester whispered from behind them. “If they did, they’d be here

already.”

Point made, Reaver released Calder and gazed up at the two-story-tall horned goat-man who

appeared to be the leader. “I think you’re right. But we can’t get out of here while they’re surrounding

the valley.”

Tavin nodded. The army was in their direct path to one of the few small zones where Reaver could

flash out of Sheoul. The demon’s goatlike eyes took in the immediate area, but he didn’t focus on any

one thing, including where Tavin, Calder, Reaver, and Harvester were concealed between bushes.

“They’re going to search the valley. We have to make a break for it.” He gestured behind them,

where massive fissures left deep clawlike marks in the sheer cliff faces. “They’ll never find us in

those.”

“And we might never find our way out,” Harvester said. “There are thousands of tunnels that extend

for hundreds of thousands of miles beneath the mountains.”

Tavin let his homing senses do a quick sweep of the area, and he got a faint hit to the northwest.

“There’s a Boregate inside one. Not too far.”

Reaver frowned. “What’s a Boregate?”

“They’re like Harrowgates,” Harvester said. “Except you can’t control where they go. And some of

them can only go back and forth between two places.”

“And they’re all different sizes,” Tavin said. “They’re unpredictable as hell, and a pain in the ass,

but I don’t think we have a choice.”

“Damn,” Reaver breathed. He looked over at Harvester, who gave a nearly imperceptible nod. For a

few, tense heartbeats, Reaver seemed to consider their predicament, and then he gave Tav the go-

ahead with a thumbs-up gesture.

Fucking awesome. Assuming they didn’t get slaughtered by Satan’s forces, Tavin would be out of

here in a few hours. Gesturing for everyone to follow, he ducked low and darted between a row of

stone pillars. The army rumbled above them, and Tavin’s heart nearly stopped when he looked over

his shoulder to see hundreds of demons starting down the hill into the valley.

“Hurry,” Harvester barked, as if Tavin wasn’t already moving as fast as he could without drawing

attention to their movement.

A sudden blast of heat came in a massive wave from ahead, scorching his skin and making the

snake on his neck wriggle. He scratched at it viciously. The thing bit him. Fucker.

“Which way?” Reaver asked.

Tavin gestured to the crevice glowing red in the distance. They ducked around a stony outcrop, and

the heat became a blistering, nonstop wind. As they rounded a bend, the path opened up into a broad

expanse of mountainside that dripped with lava.

“There.” Squinting against the hot blasts of air, he pointed to a passage between lava flows. “The

gate should be a few miles in.”

The passage turned out to be a maze of tunnels and bridges over muddy rivers and molten streams,

and twice they had to leap over collapsed sections of pathway. Finally, as the stench of brimstone and

sulphur swallowed them in a cloud of steam, Tavin sensed the Boregate within a few yards.

“We’re here—”

Reaver’s shout cut him off. “Watch out!”

Instinctively, Tavin ducked. Something whistled past his head. Shouts rose up over the sound of

Calder’s curses.

Tavin spun around and threw out some curses of his own as the hot mist cleared, revealing a dozen

eyeless Silas demons spilling out of a
Y
junction and onto the path in front of them.

Calder dropped one with his crossbow before Tavin’s blades cleared their sheathes. Several demons

broke away from the pack and charged them, their mouths gaping wide with tiny, sharp teeth.

Reaver, eyes on the leader, coolly tucked Harvester behind him and fired off some sort of icy

weapon shard at the lead Silas.

The demon went down, a hole in his chest from the ice shard. The demon behind him met the same

fate from the same shard and so did the third and fourth. By the time the shard reached the fifth Silas,

it had melted to the size of a pencil, and it shattered on the demon’s sternum.

The Silas cackled. It cackled until Tavin slit its pasty white throat. Blood splashed onto his hand,

and at the same moment, the snake bit deep into Tavin’s neck.

What the—

Suddenly, everything became a blur he saw only through a haze of red. It was as if Tavin was

dancing on air, striking out at whatever came within reach of his blades. He felt no pain, but neither

did he feel the need to protect himself.

There was only the insane, driving desire to kill. And not just kill, but cause pain. He heard himself

laughing maniacally as he toyed with one of the demons, cruelly carving out two holes in its face

where its eyes should have been.

Tavin
.

Tavin!

Someone was calling his name. He didn’t recognize the voice. He turned toward it. A male he

thought he should know was staring at him. All around the blond male—an angel?—were dozens of

Silas bodies, some of them boiling in pools of liquid fire. A black-haired female stood nearby, her

body swaying as if she could barely hold herself up.

The desire to kill revved up again, and he launched a blade at the female. The angelic male dove in

front of her, knocking aside the blade. He hit the ground and rolled, hissing when his shoulder hit a

stream of lava.

Tavin was going to make him drink the lava. And then he was going to fuck the female. The

Nightlash demon grinning with bloodlust as he hacked off a Silas’s head could watch until Tav

finished. Then the Nightlash would die.

The snake kept chewing on his neck, filling him with hot, stinging juice. It made him strong.

Fearless. This was fucking awesome.

“I’m going to make you scream, female.” His voice rumbled with savagery. “You’re mine.”

Drooling in anticipation, Tavin leaped at her, but the blond male hit him with a full-body slam. They

both grunted and crashed down on the burning stone.

Tavin. Stop it!

He felt a buzz of energy enter his body, and then a sting in his throat, and for a moment, everything

went dark.

“Tavin?”

Tavin lifted his lids. Reaver was sitting on him, a knife in his hand and a concerned look on his

face.

“W-what… happened?”

“Shit.” Reaver disappeared the dagger. “I don’t know. But you need to get to Underworld General.

Fast.”

Tavin struggled into a sitting position, aided by Harvester, and looked down at himself. Blood

poured out of dozens of gashes. Bone was visible in places where flesh had been stripped by the

Silas’s blades, and his right knee was crushed so badly his lower leg bent at an awkward angle.

“Oh… fuck.”

“Yeah.” Reaver yanked him into his arms as Harvester led them to the shimmering curtain of light

ahead. The Boregate. “You went berserk when the serpent glyph bit you. You tried to attack Harvester.

I had to stab it to make it let go.” He cursed. “Hold still.”

Nausea bubbled up in Tavin’s throat as Reaver’s power sifted through him. The snake writhed, and

Tav joined it, pain screaming along all his nerve pathways.

Calder’s voice cracked over the sound of Tavin’s pulse pounding in his ears. “Let him die. He’s a

danger to all of us if he goes ape-shit again.”

The asshole was right, and Tavin was mercenary enough to know he’d have said the same thing. But

fuck… Tav wanted to live. Hand trembling, dripping with blood, he extended his middle finger at the

Nightlash male.

Reaver’s breath became labored, and Tav felt the angel’s power become a trickle. “Dammit,”

Reaver rasped. “I can’t.”

“You’re out of power?” Or maybe it was corrupted. At this point, Tav figured corrupted healing

would be better than none at all.

“No,” Reaver said, his voice thick with regret. “But I will be if I heal you any more than I just did.

Calder’s got a point. You’re a danger to us all, and I can’t afford to drain my power.”

Loss of blood made Tavin lightheaded as he grabbed his belly, which was slit open and threatening

to spill his organs.

“Damn you, Reaver,” he rasped. “You cursed me with this fucking snake with an attitude problem,

and now you’re going to let me die?”

“No,” Reaver swore. “We’ll take the Boregate and get you help.”

“Ah, Reaver?” Harvester stared at the Boregate. “
We
won’t be taking the gate anywhere. It goes to

the Deathsands region. I’m pretty sure it’s a one-way trip to a wargrun gambling casino.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?” Reaver asked. “They should have a nearby Harrowgate.”

“Yes,” she said. “But this Boregate fits only one passenger. And it won’t come back until someone

uses it from the other side.”

Since they’d come to rescue Harvester, Tavin figured she’d be the one to take the Boregate. But

shockingly, Reaver heaved Tavin into his arms and shoved him inside the coffin-sized gate, propping

him against the pitch-black walls.

“Go,” Reaver said. “Someone at the casino should help you to Underworld General. Hurry.”

“But—”

“Go, you fool,” Harvester snapped. “We’ll find another way.”

Weakly, and with a shaking hand, Tavin tapped the squiggly Sheoulic
GO
symbol carved into the

smooth ebony wall. As the gate closed and the two angels disappeared from view, the snake hissed.

Gods, Tavin hated snakes.

As the gate carrying Tavin away closed, Reaver said a silent prayer that the demon made it to safety.

Then he said another for himself, Harvester, and Calder. They were going to need every prayer Reaver

could come up with. They’d just lost a damned good fighter, and now they’d have to rely on Calder to

locate a Harrowgate. If they lost Calder, they were fucked.

“He’ll be okay, Reaver,” Harvester murmured, and he slid her a surprised glance. Was she

actually… comforting him? “Now quit moping and get us out of here.”

That was more like it. “You’re all heart, Harvester.” But hey, the fact that she’d been nice, even for

only a moment, was progress.

Scowling, she crossed her arms over her chest. Under the surface of her skin, bruises lingered, and

he realized that without Tavin, they were down to Calder for her to feed from. Reaver was going to

make sure he was breathing down the bastard’s neck as Harvester bit into it.

“I have no heart,” Harvester said, but it was a lie. He’d seen glimpses of it over the last few years,

though at the time he hadn’t recognized it for what it was.

Although the tenderness in her eyes when she’d asked to hold Thanatos’s son, Logan, for the first

time had been crystal clear and, perhaps, the first true hint that she wasn’t what she’d seemed.

Reaver cursed under his breath as Calder slipped away to scope out the route ahead, leaving Reaver

and Harvester to catch up.

They found Calder standing motionless on the trail a few hundred yards ahead, and Reaver’s heart

leaped into his throat. The path continued across a rickety wooden bridge, but the dilapidated state of

the bridge was the least of Reaver’s worries.

Above them, far up on the sheer rock faces that surround them, demons perched on ledges and

narrow trails. One, a horned demon with a goatlike snout, looked down, and Reaver swore the beast

smiled as he caught Reaver’s eye.

Reaver’s gut clenched. They’d been spotted.

The demon raised his hand in a sharp command. Three demons holding the leashes of creatures that

resembled scaly skinned bears snapped into action, vaulting from ledge to ledge in a rush toward