Revenant

Moonbeams and sunshine, the clouds and the seas, all part of the many worlds I want you to see. Fear not the unknown, nor the depths of the night, for nothing can harm you when I hold you tight.

Revenant’s breath burst from him in an agonizing rush. Just as his mother had sung those words to him, he’d sung them to her as she lay dying in his arms.

He looked out at the beautiful meadow, now pockmarked by the decay left by his footsteps. He’d come here to find something of his mother… and he had.

But his presence had poisoned her beloved meadow. He couldn’t stop hurting her, could he? She’d been imprisoned because of him. Tortured because of him. Killed because of him.

And now, her favorite place in the universe had been ruined. Because of him.

It was time to face the facts. He didn’t belong in Heaven, and he never would.

Blinking to clear his watery vision, he collected himself, digging deep into his bottomless well of hatred.

“Tell the archangels I’ve made my decision.”

“Rev, don’t —”

“I’m not handing over Gethel.” Nope, he’d make sure Lucifer died in the womb, and then he’d rule Sheoul at Satan’s side. “They can go fuck themselves.”

With that, he flashed out of Heaven.

Forever.

Twenty

Blaspheme had just spent the most miserable night in a cot next to her mother in the on-call room. Then the shower water had been only lukewarm. Now the blow-dryer didn’t work. She was going to scream.

The one positive was that her mother was getting stronger. Eidolon had personally given her a checkup last night, and while he was concerned that the internal damage caused by the grimlight weapon could still cause problems, he figured that if she continued to improve, she’d be ready for discharge in a week or so.

“Blaspheme,” her mother called through the bathroom door. “Your pager thingie is beeping.”

“Thanks, Mom,” she muttered.

“What did you say?”

Blas raised her voice. “I said, thanks, Mom!”

“You don’t have to yell.”

Blaspheme conked her head on the mirror. How were they going to occupy not only the same space, but the same tiny space for who-knew-how-long?

Screw the hair; she had to get to work. So what if she was an hour early? She should see if she could work an extra shift tonight, too.

She grabbed a green scrunchie that matched her scrubs and tied her wet hair up in a high ponytail. After brushing her teeth, she scooted out into the bread-box-sized on-call residence room, where her mother was kicking back on the bed and watching The Today Show.

“Take it easy today, Mom,” she said. “You’re still healing. No more harassing the staff.”

“Then you shouldn’t have ruined my plans to trap the False Angel.”

Blas clamped her jaws shut so tight her teeth throbbed. “I have to work with these people, Mother,” she ground out. “So behave. I’ll come get you for lunch.”

Deva muted Al Roker with an impatient click of the remote. “I can’t stay here forever.”

“And you can’t go home,” Blaspheme pointed out.

Her mother rolled her eyes. “I have plenty of friends I can stay with.”

“And you’re really willing to risk your friends’ lives like that?”

Her mother snorted. “Yes. They’d risk my life, too. It’s what evil people do, Blaspheme.” She reached over to the bedside table for a cup of lime Jell-O. “I’m damned impressed that you’re doing the same thing.”

“This is different.”

“Really? How? You’re putting your friends and this hospital at risk, don’t you think?”

“Yes, but…” Blaspheme trailed off. But what? But nothing. Oh, gods, she was as bad as her mother, wasn’t she? Eidolon had assured her that staying here would be fine, and she’d been so eager to save her own skin that she hadn’t even argued beyond a token protest. “You’re right,” she said. “We can’t stay here. But we aren’t putting anyone else at risk, either.”

Deva shook her head. “How did I manage to raise you to be so scrupulous? You’re half fallen angel, love. Act like it.”

“You used to be an angel once,” Blas pointed out. “Don’t you remember that at all?”

“I remember it being very boring. There’s a reason I tried to shake things up amongst the archangel ranks.”

“Tried to shake things up? You got yourself kicked out of Heaven!”

Deva hurled the remote across the room, shattering the thing in a fit of temper. “You don’t know what it’s like there,” she said, lisping a little as her fangs elongated with her growing anger. “The angelic hierarchy is all-important, and heaven forbid someone try to rise above their station. Some of us wanted more power, and Raphael was going to give us that. If not for his buddy, Stamtiel, giving me a suicide mission that got me caught, we’d have brought about a revolution.”

This was the first Blaspheme had heard of an archangel’s involvement in the plot her mother and father had been mixed up in. Leave it to Deva to crash spectacularly.

“Boy, when you do something, you do it big, don’t you?”

Deva shrugged and settled back against the pillows now that her fit was over. “What is it humans say? Go big or go home?” She gestured to the destroyed remote. “Be a good little imp and get me a new one.”