I snorted. “Why should I tell you? You don’t seem to want to share your secrets with me.”
Shem raised an amused eyebrow and exchanged a look with Ramel. “Hmm. Give her an inch, and she wants to take a mile.”
Ramel gave him a sly smile before turning his wolfish grin on me. “Are you looking for me to force the information out of you, Lilith?” he asked, his tone dangerous. Suddenly, he was in front of me, his hand wrapped around my throat. My breath caught in my chest as his scent flooded my nose. I felt my thighs reflexively clench together at his proximity.
“I could fuck this tight little throat until you’re begging to spill your secrets all over my cock,” he purred into my ear, and my skin erupted into gooseflesh. I closed my eyes and licked my lips, the other Lilith turning to butter in my mind at the threat. I was beginning to learn that she loved to be punished even more than she loved to be rewarded. As our two consciousnesses grew closer and closer to melding into one, I found myself becoming more open to pain for the sake of pleasure, and no one knew how to turn the sharp sting of pain into the sweet pull of pleasure better than Ramel.
I looked up into his crystalline hazel eyes and considered pushing him until he followed through on his threat, but I forced myself to stay focused. We didn’t have time for this. Samhain was only a few days away, and if I was right, we would need all the time we could get to execute the plan.
“I’m looking for Hypnos, the God of Sleep,” I said, and the lust in Ramel’s eyes immediately gave way to surprised interest.
“Why?”
“Because if Hypnos is not there, I think I know how Yahweh rose to power, and I think I know how we can stop Him.”
The graveyard wasas quiet and still as I remembered. This time, I was prepared for the powerful wave of energy that rolled through my body as I stepped over the threshold. The power called to something deep in my chest, as if the gods that slept beneath my feet were strumming some sort of chord that played the song of death deep within me.
“Let’s split up; it’ll be faster,” I suggested, already scanning the nearest tombstones and looking for Hypnos’ grave. Both Ramel and Shem laughed as if what I had suggested was hilarious.
“Absolutely not, deathtrap,” Ramel chuckled, threading his fingers through mine.
I scowled at him. “It will take way longer if we stick together, and we don’t have that much time,” I complained. Shem slid his hand over the small of my back, coming up to flank my other side.
“So be it. We’re not allowing you to wander a cemetery full of half-dead gods alone.”
“So overprotective,” I grumbled but powered forward, not wanting to waste any more time arguing about it.
It took several hours to check every grave and mausoleum, but once I was satisfied we had combed the entire cemetery to the best of our ability, I felt like I might explode with a potent mix of excitement and anxiety.
“He’s not here,” I breathed.
“Nope,” Shem agreed, sitting back against a tombstone and crossing his legs out in front of him. Ramel leaned against one of the mausoleums, arching an elegant brow at me.
“So, what does that mean?” he asked, pulling out a cigarette and putting it to his lips. I wrinkled my nose at him. I hadn’t seen him smoke since he was pretending to be Reaver.
“Why are you smoking again? Those things will kill you, you know.” The words rolled off my tongue before I could really think about them. Ramel choked on a laugh, and smoke spilled out of his nose.
“Helps with my nerves,” he explained wryly. He looked me up and down, his mouth curling into a grin. “As flattered as I am that you seem to be concerned for my health, maybe you should explain why we just spent the last three hours combing this cemetery for some sleeping asshole before I fuck the information out of you.”
I rolled my eyes but conceded. “Fine. I was digging into Yahweh’s past today, trying to figure out how exactly He was able to rise to power and put all these other gods to sleep like this.”
Shem frowned. “Hewas always more powerful than the other gods. He’s the creator.”
I shook my head, feeling myself getting excited about my discovery. “That’s not true. That’s a lie Yahweh would happily have you believe. The truth is, when time began, He was not any more powerful than any of the other gods trapped here in an eternal sleep.”
Ramel took a drag from his smoke and glanced at Shem, who gave him a ‘who knew?’ look.
“He started his campaign against the other gods before He flooded the planet. He claims to have created mankind, but the truth is that they evolved organically. He has the power of creation, yes, but He did not create mankind. He convinced them He created them so that they would entrust Him with their confessions.
“It wasn’t until He managed to capture the three of us in purgatory that He had free reign to really amp up His hold on mankind. After the fall of Rome, He was able to establish the chokehold necessary to essentially ‘kill off’ all the other gods with the rise of Christianity in the Middle Ages.”
“That makes sense,” Ramel mused, taking another drag of his smoke.
“Yeah, the dark ages were shit,” Shem agreed, looking pensive. It still felt odd to me that he would have been around to see everything I had just read about in old dusty textbooks. “The church had a fucking iron grip on mankind; it was nearly impossible to plant any seeds from the Infernal Woods. Nothing would hold. They were too afraid of not going to Heaven or whatever else bullshit reward Yahweh promised them after death,” Shem said, confirming my thoughts.
I nodded. “Exactly. Not only was there an influx of confessions during those times, but the world was strife with war, poverty, and disease. Death rates were through the roof.”
Shem nodded, a frown creasing his brow. “Yes, I remember that. It was brutal trying to keep up with the influx of souls without you and Ramel here to help.”
