“Has Gabriel said what happened in Heaven?” Scotty asked. “What does he know about Gramps?”
Her father’s expression was troubled. “As we’ve already heard from Azagoth and Stryke, power changed hands. The Thrones are in charge, and Reaver is being held prisoner, along with all the Archangels.”
“I don’t understand,” Aleka said. “How can they hold Grandpa prisoner? He’s a Radiant. He’s the most powerful angel in existence.”
Anger made a vein throb in Ares’s temple. “They’re using the Archangels’ power to hold him. But Gabriel thinks he might have given Reaver a little push to free himself.”
“Someone needs to get word to Revenant,” Scotty said. “He could bust Gramps out.”
Ares stabbed a juicy slab of roast lamb on the serving tray and hauled it to his plate. “Heaven sealed Revenant inside Sheoul. My sources say he’s under constant attack by Satan’s sympathizers, and he’s isolated himself in the B’lal region, where no one can reach him.”
“Grandpa managed to get inside Satan’s fortress and rescue Harvester once,” Aleka pointed out. “Maybe we can figure out a way to get in.”
“Reaver had to cloak himself in evil to do it. We can’t do what he did. Only Reseph has ever set foot in the heart of the B’lal region, and it was when he was Pestilence.”
Scotty suppressed a shudder. She’d heard the stories about her uncle’s time as Pestilence, when he’d gone so evil that even all these years later, her family still hadn’t fully recovered. To this day, he avoided most family gatherings, and he’d never attended them when Harvester was there. Scotty wasn’t sure what had gone down between the two back when Harvester was a fallen angel, but the hatred in her eyes when she looked at Reseph had been hard to miss.
“Surely, we can get a message to him,” Cara said. “Your spy network is extensive.”
“Stryke tried.” Ares carved into his meat, making the horse glyph on his forearm dance. Or maybe Battle was restless, needing to run. Her father had to release the warhorse from his arm daily, or Battle got twitchy. “Twice. The first try ended with an entire thread in his intelligence web being snipped. He suspects one of Satan’s loyalists.”
It seemed insane that, despite Satan not being around—and wouldn’t be until he was freed in another nine centuries—he still had powerful demons doing his bidding. Revenant wasn’t as much ruling Sheoul as he was just barely clinging to power.
“And the second attempt?” Scotty asked.
“Stryke got a lot of heads in boxes.”
“Unbelievable.” Aleka stabbed her fork into her roasted eggplant. “What’s the Thrones’ endgame? Has Gabriel said?”
“He hasn’t.” Ares shoved his plate aside. “I don’t know if he evenknows. Sounds like they kept him in the dark about most things.” He took a swig of iced tea. “We won’t get any more out of him for a bit. He’s in some sort of recuperative sleep. Could last a while, I guess. I have Z keeping an eye on him. He’ll alert me when Gabriel wakes.”
Zhubaal had once been Azagoth’s right-hand man, but after Sheoul-gra’s destruction, the fallen angel and his mate had come to the island with the Memitim. He’d proven to be a valuable asset.
Scotty’s comms beeped. No doubt her sister again. But when she accessed the message, her heart almost stopped.
It was Mace.
Wanna come over? Blade’s hanging with Stryke and Crux in the game room, so you can sneak in and he won’t see you.
They’d agreed that Blade shouldn’t know anything until after it was over, but she hadn’t brought up the hotel idea to Mace yet.
She sent a return message.I’d rather get a hotel.
Mace’s missive came a moment later.I’ll book a room at the Ritz Paris. Meet me tonight.
The moussaka in her belly soured as her nerves kicked in.
“What’s wrong?” Rath’s rumbling voice carried from the end of the table where he sat opposite her father. “You look troubled.”
Now, everyone was looking at her. Great. “Nothing’s wrong. I just have a lot of work stuff on my mind.”
“Are you still in trouble with Kynan?” Aleka asked, and Scotty shot her a glare. She’d managed to avoid the topic of work all night, mainly to keep their dad from asking more invasive questions, and Aleka had just blown it.
Sure enough, Ares turned his intense gaze on Scotty. “You never said why Kynan sent your team to me for training.”
“Sorry, sis,” Aleka mouthed.
Scotty took a big swig of iced tea, buying time to compose herself. “It wasn’t a big deal. We screwed up a mission. There were hostages, and a crystal artifact that got away, and it got kind of messy.”
