Chapter 94
“You feed me, I try to feed you, we are friends, says the cat, although I am more equal than you.”
—THE CAT’S SONG, MARGE PIERCEY
“ A cat’s eyes are the windows to the soul.”
Those were the first words Lilith had said to me after she changed me. Staring at the flicker of the spirit that clung to her, I finally understood what she had meant.
I could see Ramel’s essence, clinging to her for dear fucking life, resisting whatever pull there was that was calling him to pass on.
Stubborn fucking bastard. I smirked, but I kept what I was sensing to myself for the time being. The hope that lit in her eyes when I told her I suspected we could use Yahweh’s magic to get Ramel back made my heart squeeze in my chest. I really hoped I wasn’t about to crush her, especially after I had finally seemed to have earned her trust back.
Ramel’s body was the first problem I needed to sort out. I had to get the arrows out of him before we tried anything. His soul wouldn’t stay in his body for long with those abhorrent things piercing his chest.
In two swift swipes, I gripped each arrowhead and yanked them clean out of my friend’s body, dragging the feathered end through him so as not to cause more damage than necessary. I scowled at the bloodied shafts, tossing them away from me in disgust.
So many immortal lives had been wasted today, all because Yahweh couldn’t fucking let things go. He was going to pay for it, maybe for eternity.
“How did you get the Soul Sorter to stop? I thought Art foiled our plans to get the stores to shut down for renovations?” Lilith asked, and I gave her a smirk and a shrug.
“I blew a bunch of them up.”
She gaped at me. “Shemhazai!” Her eyes widened with worry. “But… how? And how will we get the Soul Sorter back up and running? We need it to work, or we won’t be able to reincarnate humans.”
I shrugged, not really fucking caring all that much. “I planted a bunch of idea seeds in the human Voodoo staff. Sara blew up the store we used to work at.” I smiled at the thought, imagining little Sara blowing up a restaurant still amused the shit out of me.
“Shemhazai!” Lilith tried to scold me again, but even I could tell her heart wasn’t all that into it. If I hadn’t done what I did, we may have never been able to subdue Yahweh.
I shrugged. “Earth is overpopulated. If birth rates drop for a bit while we figure out how to manage things without Yahweh, so be it. The risk was worth the reward.” I looked out over the now thoroughly tainted heavenscape to where Gabriel was diligently nailing Yahweh to the cross.
“Is that Hypnos?” I asked, suddenly realizing there was still a god hanging from the second cross on the podium in the distance.
Lilith nodded. “Yes. I tried to get Ramel to free him, but he… he didn’t seem interested in anything other than getting me out.” I glanced back at her, frowning as she tenderly stroked the face of her dead husband. The massive holes in her hands were still bleeding, and the sight of them made me angry all over again. My little queen deserved so much fucking better. I was going to make sure she got what she deserved. She had been so brave and strong, but I could tell she was still beating herself up over the night’s events.
“I distracted him. I told him that I loved him, and that’s when he got shot,” she admitted, sounding so broken. I found myself scanning her body to make sure she didn’t have anything sharp on her. If she tried to harm herself after all this, I was going to lose it.
I frowned as Ramel’s soul shimmered behind her as if he were trying to soothe the tenseness from her shoulders. She didn’t seem to be able to feel him at all, but he was there. I let out an involuntary chuckle.
Even if I couldn’t get him back in his body, there was something amusing about the fact that his stubborn ass seemed determined to continue to stalk her, even in death .
“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 need Lilith’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 pursed lips.
“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.
Hypnos nodded, taking her hand gratefully. “Yes.” He eyed her in disbelief. “I thought you were going to leave me here. When your Reaper came and took you away…” His voice cracked, and he swallowed, clearly fighting back tears of relief and exhaustion. “Thank you. For coming back.”
Lilith’s eyes welled up with tears as well, and she squeezed the god’s hand reassuringly. “I would have never left you. Ramel was just… He wasn’t hi mself.”
I snorted. Ramel was most certainly himself when he had come for her. He probably wouldn’t have even stopped to free my ass if I had been up on the cross next to her, but I let her live in her little fantasy.
Leaving Lilith to tend to Hypnos, I moved on to Yahweh. He was looking worse for wear, but at least he had stopped screaming. Apparently, the threat of being forced to suck some cock had been enough to scare him into submission.
“So, the great and mighty Yahweh crucified to his own cross. How the tables have turned.” I smirked up at him.
“You will pay for this,” Yahweh hissed, and I laughed.
“I highly doubt that. I have more than paid my dues; it’s your turn.” The god snarled as I bent down to pick up the tubing that was coiled at the base of the cross.
“Gabe, strip him down,” I ordered. I retrieved Ramel’s scythe while Gabriel enthusiastically tore off Yahweh’s all-white vestments.
Once Yahweh was naked and exposed on the cross, I stood back, holding my fingers up in an ‘L’ shape and squinting with one eye, doing my best to eyeball the rough placement of the tubing.
When I thought I had a pretty good idea of where to stuff the siphons, I impaled him accordingly with the tip of the scythe, relishing in his screams.
“Aww. Does that hurt?” I asked idly, slapping his scrotum sharply with one hand as I examined the opening to one of the tubes with the other. Yahweh barked in pain at my touch, and Gabriel snickered behind me.
“Here, you stick this one in his chest, I can’t reach from down here. I’ll get the abdomen.”
It took less time than I expected. Between the two of us, we had his magic bleeding through the tubes in minutes, and I watched as the golden fluid dripped into the clouds at our feet.
“Fascinating. Who knew?” I muttered, more to myself than anything.
I dabbed a drop of his magic on my finger and sucked it clean. Immediately, my entire body revolted against it. I heaved and gagged, unable to digest it at all.
“Fuck, that tastes like shit.” I shook my head, spitting the essence of Yahweh out in the clouds before turning to Gabriel.
“Here, you try it.”
He made a face. “You’re not exactly selling it, Shemhazai.”
My good mood vanished. Good pets didn’t talk back.
“It wasn’t a fucking request. Put it in your mouth before I put you on your knees,” I snarled, and his eyes darkened at the order. The fact that the threat of a punishment turned him on made my stomach flip, not that I was going to let him see how much his kinky little ass was affecting me. Especially not after he just talked back to me .
He maintained eye contact with me as he took the tube of Yahweh’s magic and put it in his mouth. I watched him wrap his lips around it and suck, his cheeks hollowing with the action.
A deep growl built in my chest as I watched him suck back Yahweh’s essence.
Little fucking imp. He knew what he was doing.
Before I could stop myself, I had him by the throat. I ripped the tubing out of his mouth and pressed my face so close to his that our lips nearly touched.
“Careful, Gabriel,” I growled at him. “Keep fucking taunting me like that, and you’re going to end up with something else in your mouth.”
Gabriel smirked at me and licked the gold off his lips. “Yes, Sir.”
Fucking Satan, it did crazy shit to my insides when he called me that. My gaze dropped to his lips, and I frowned. He didn’t seem to have the same problem I had with ingesting Yahweh’s magic.
“How did it taste?” I purred, and Gabriel smacked his lips, giving me a smile that was going to get him in more trouble than he was ready for.
“Honestly, not bad.”
“It’s because he is an angel. You are made of Lilith’s magic; it’s too different from Yahweh’s magic to be compatible,” Hypnos explained. “Yahweh had a hard time ingesting my magic as well. Sleep is more akin to death than creation. You would likely have had an easier time drinking my essence.”
I glanced over at the God of Sleep, shamelessly assessing his insanely cut physique, despite centuries of being nailed to a fucking cross.
“Are you offering?” I asked, and Hypnos’ eyes widened at the implication.
“I personally prefer the affections of the fairer sex,” he replied, politely refusing me. I shrugged.
“Your loss,” I said, before turning to face Gabriel.
“How do you feel? Do you feel like you could spin a soul into a body?”
Gabriel shrugged. “I’ll try anything once.” He winked at me, and my mouth nearly fell open as he turned and began to make his way toward the kiln.
This fucking angel had no idea who he was fucking with. When we got back to Hell, I was going to put him on his knees and make him beg for fucking mercy. I looked back at Lilith, who was wringing her hands anxiously.
“Do you think this is really going to work?” she asked. I glanced over her shoulder, where I could still see the faint outline of what I intuitively knew was Ramel.
“Only one way to find out, sweetheart,” I said, wrapping my fingers around her wrist, being careful to avoid the wound in her hand.
“Let’s see if we can bring your husband back.”