Revenant

Revenant flashed back to Gethel’s place, where the Ramreels were securing the vampire to the rack. “That, boys, is a no-no.”

He flicked his wrist, and the horned demons flew across the room to land in unconscious heaps on the tile floor.

Gethel shoved to her feet, sickly black, scaled wings spread, blue veins snaking across her skin. Her eyes had gone oily, and an aura of power pulsed around her.

“You will not ruin my playtime,” she growled.

He ignored her as he strode over to the barely conscious bloodsucker. He willed the metal cuffs to open and caught the vamp as he slumped over. A blast of power slammed into Revenant’s skull, knocking him into the rack and sending it crashing to the floor.

“You bitch.” He swung around, readying his own power, but Gethel nailed him again, this time hard enough to break his jaw. It healed almost instantly, but now he was pissed.

He dropped the vampire and caught Gethel by the arm. She cursed at him, lashed out with nonstop blasts of power that snapped his bones and crushed his organs. Every step he took was pure agony, but he didn’t slow down, didn’t stop until he had her slammed against the fallen rack and strapped to it.

“What are you doing?” she screamed.

Guards rushed in from every door, armed and ready to take down the threat to their Dark Mother, but when they saw that Revenant was the threat, they skidded to a halt as one unit and stood there, unsure what to do.

“Leave her like that,” Revenant commanded them. “Leave her until morning. If I come back and she’s free, whoever let her go will answer to me.”

Ignoring her curses and shouts, he gathered the vampire and then, with a dozen raunchy curses in a dozen languages, he went to the pantry and grabbed the basket of fucking kittens and flashed to Thanatos’s Greenland castle. Thanatos and his wife, Regan, were seated at their dining room table with their son, Logan, who had mashed peas all over his face. The boy’s pet hellhound, Cujo, made an immediate run at Revenant, fangs bared, drool dripping from gaping jaws that could swallow a lamb whole.

“Cujo, halt!” Than barked, and the steer-sized beast, not yet fully grown, skidded to a stop. But that didn’t mean he suddenly got friendly. No, the mutt crouched, still snarling, still thinking it could kick Revenant’s ass.

Damn, Rev hated those things.

With a glare that promised the hellhound a swat with a rolled newspaper the size of an oil tanker, Rev dumped the vampire onto the floor and set the basket of mewling cats next to him.

Thanatos, the blond braids at his temple swinging, jogged over. “Ewan, shit.” He crouched next to the bloody vamp on the floor. “He missed roll call this morning. We figured he’d stayed out too late and had to hole up at daybreak. Did you do this to him?” He scowled at the jiggling basket. “And what’s up with that?”

“Present for Logan. And no, I didn’t fuck up your vampire, but thanks for thinking the worst of me,” Revenant drawled. “I saved him from Gethel. You’re welcome.”

Figuring he wasn’t going to get a round of applause or anything, Revenant prepared to flash out of there, but before he made it, Thanatos introduced Revenant’s spine to the wall and was in his face, teeth bared as fully as the hellhound’s.

“Where is she?” he snarled. “You had better tell me she’s dead.”

“She’s alive and kicking and due to give birth any moment,” Revenant said, enjoying the fury that built in Thanatos’s expression with every word. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Thanatos… he just didn’t like being attacked for no fucking reason.

“You piece of shit.” Thanatos gripped Revenant’s jacket lapels and slammed him against the wall again. “She tried to murder my son. And you can casually talk about her like she’s a happy housewife with a pregnancy glow?”

It was really tempting to lay the Horseman out, but the sight of Regan, standing in the dining room with Logan held protectively close to her chest, made something tumble inside his own chest. How many times had his mother held him like that when demons opened the door to the cell? How many times had she endured watching her son ripped away from her so either he or she could be beaten?

So as much as he’d like to shred Thanatos for being a dick, he wasn’t going to do it in front of a mother and her child. Instead, he used a tiny thread of his power to throw the Horseman backward, right into the stupid hellhound. The mutt yelped, and Thanatos hit the ground, only to pop back to his feet, fully armed and armored.

“Don’t do it, Horseman,” Revenant warned. “I have a raging Satanic headache and little patience. And keep in mind that I didn’t have to bring back your vampire.”

“What, you want an award for doing the right thing?” Thanatos signaled for Cujo to stop inching toward Revenant. “You want kudos? Bring me Gethel.”

“No can do.”

Thanatos sheathed his sword but remained armored. “You know, when we found out you were our uncle, that you’re an angel like our father, we hoped you’d at least try to become part of the family. But you don’t know what family is, do you?” Thanatos’s diatribe shouldn’t have bothered Revenant, but like earlier, when Blaspheme laid into him, the words cut deep, because no, he didn’t know what a family was. And he didn’t realize until this moment that he wanted to know. “Family doesn’t protect the monster under the bed. Only monsters protect other monsters.” He threw his hand out at the door. “Get out, Uncle. Go to hell where you belong.”