“Alright, enough.” I grabbed Lilith’s arm and yanked her to her feet. “I told you I’m going to fix this. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and help me get his body to the kiln.”
I didn’t really needLilith’s help, but I knew she was less likely to fall apart if she had something to focus on. Together, we carried Ramel’s lifeless corpse to Yahweh’s kiln. I gently placed him inside and closed the door, sealing him in.
“Let’s go see how Gabriel’s doing with Yahweh. We’re going to need some of his magic to power the kiln, and I need to see how he did it to Hypnos. I’m sure we can mimic the setup.”
My plan was to pretty much do to Yahweh what he had planned on doing to Lilith. I was also sure that after we freed the God of Sleep, Hypnos would be more than happy to knock Yahweh out indefinitely so we could milk him of his magic without worrying about him somehow escaping.
This way, we could keep the natural way of things going without Yahweh running around trying to control everyone all the fucking time.
We approached the crosses to find Gabriel standing before the screaming God of Creation with his hands in his pockets and a smirk on his face.
“Keep it up, Yahweh, and you might find yourself with a cock in your mouth.” My dark angel threatened him, and I let out a low laugh, running my hand up his back and into his thick, auburn hair.
“Does my new pet want to fuck the naughty god’s mouth?” I grinned at the thought of watching Gabriel give back to Yahweh what he had forced on all his angels for millennia.
“It would certainly shut his ass up,” Gabriel sneered, and Yahweh abruptly snapped his mouth shut, his ever-changing face stricken with rage and fear.
“As much as it would turn me on to watch you shove your dick down God’s unwilling throat, we have some rather important and time-sensitive things that need our attention first,” I said, nipping my dark angel’s neck gently. He shuddered beneath my touch, and I smiled against him.
“But I will make it up to you later, I promise.”
He slid his citrine gaze to meet mine and gave me a sly smile.
“Thank you, Sir.”
Fuck. This damn angel knew how to get me hard.
“Such a good fucking boy,” I growled, tightening my grip in his hair before releasing him. I didn’t know what took me so long to realize that Gabriel was one of us, but holy fuck was I going to have fun with him.
I reluctantly turned my attention away from my new toy and approached Hypnos. He was awake now and watching us with pursedlips.
“You poor bastard,” I muttered. “How long has he had you strung up here?” I asked the God of Sleep, moving closer to examine the tubes that had been fed into his body, steadily siphoning out his magic. I followed the tubes and peeked into the mow-dark clouds beneath our feet. I found that they were wired to the underside of Hell’s bridge, which explained how Yahweh had been keeping the gods in Hell’s graveyard asleep. Popping my head back out of the clouds, I shook my head.
What a twisted fucker.
“For millennia,” Hypnos croaked. “In the beginning, he would simply swallow my magic and take my power into himself so he could put the other gods to sleep. Then, once he had them buried in Hell, he permanently attached me here.”
“Gabriel.” I only needed to say the angel’s name before he was on it. Gabe beat his powerful black wings and got to work releasing the God of Sleep from the cross.
I moved forward to remove the tubes that were siphoning his magic. I hoped that by removing them, I could better learn how they were installed in the first place, so I could copy the procedure on Yahweh.
“If you remove them, the other gods will awaken. There will be a reckoning,” Hypnos warned. “I assume the world is much different than it was when Yahweh first took me from my realm.”
I nodded, my lip curling at the thought. The other gods would not be willing to slip seamlessly into the system Yahweh had built in their absence. They would likely fight amongst themselves, and I anticipated a great deal of jockeying for power, especially among some of the more violent gods.
That was fine with me. I had never been afraid of a little chaos.
Besides, Hypnos’ magic was what was keeping Hecate asleep. There was no fucking way I was leaving her like that. So I supposed it was everyone else’s lucky fucking day too.
I yanked out the tubes, and Hypnos hissed in pain as Gabe removed the first stake.
Once we had successfully unbound the god and lowered him carefully to the ground, he looked up at us with shining eyes.
“Thank you,” he whispered, and Lilith rushed to his side, attempting to help him find his footing.
“Can you stand?” she asked, her little cheeks flushed with concern.
For fuck’s sake, the world didn’t deserve her.
