Chapter 12
The Thrones might have had a hard time getting Azagoth to respond to them, but Gabriel didn’t. He and the being known as the Grim Reaper had known each other for thousands of years, and while they definitely weren’t friends, Gabriel respected the cold bastard.
Gabriel used the portal designed specifically to access Azagoth’s realm and breathed a sigh of relief when it worked. A new addition to Azagoth’s island home, he had to turn it on for every guest, and if one tried to use it when it wasn’t activated, the result was…painful at best, and fatal at worst.
Gabriel strode along the beach path to the mansion at the end, where Azagoth stood, clothed exactly as one would expect the Grim Reaper to be dressed: black leather pants and a hooded, black cloak with a flaming scythe in one hand. He’d pushed the hood back, revealing his face, and as Gabriel approached, he ditched the scythe. Apparently, he couldn’t wear anything else, and if he tried, the Reaper clothes appeared instead. Punishment, apparently, for destroying Sheoul-gra.
“Jim Bob,” Azagoth said, using the code name Gabriel had used back before he’d revealed himself to Azagoth. “To what do I owe this unexpected visit?”
“Pour us a drink, and I’ll tell you.”
Azagoth inclined his dark head in a nod and pivoted on his booted feet. “This way.”
Gabriel followed Azagoth to the stone steps at the front of the house. “Nice place,” he said, taking in the two courtyard fountains and colorful birds flitting from tree branches to broad-leafed plants and tropical flowers. “You got lucky. Pretty much every angel wanted your head on a pike. Instead, you got this.”
“The beauty only lasts a few hours,” Azagoth said. “After that, this realm is a nightmare.” They mounted the steps, Azagoth’s cloak billowing around his feet. “But it’s more than I could have ever hoped for. Especially because it was my daughter who paid the highest price.”
“That…was bullshit,” Gabriel said.
Azagoth’s dark laugh rang out, and the birds exploded from the bushes. “Isn’t that what you guys are all about? Punishing people by hurting those they love?”
Gabriel couldn’t deny that, but it really all depended on who was in charge of Heaven. It also depended on who was being punished. Sometimes, the only way to hurt someone—like a demon or fallen angel—was through their families.
“It’s not a punishment I would have chosen,” he said. “Raika should have been allowed to choose her fate, not have it handed to her in the form of a curse.” He paused. “I hear she’s doing a great job, though.”
“She shouldn’t have to spend her life capturing dangerous demons that I set free.” He ushered Gabriel into the building. “But she takes her duties seriously. I’m thankful she doesn’t despise me for her fate.”
“Why would she? You saved her mother.”
“And I don’t regret what I did. But I regret that Raika paid for my choices.” Gabriel took in the palatial setting as Azagoth poured a couple of whiskeys from the pub-sized bar. Beyond that, the entire back of the house was open to the outdoors, where two females in bikinis were lying in the sun near the pool. One was Azagoth’s mate, Lilliana.
The other, a slender female with tan skin and hair as black as Azagoth’s, stretched her arms high and yawned, arching her slender back and thrusting her plump breasts toward the sun. Holy shit, she was hot. And he was envious of the sunbeams that got to caress her—
Wait…was she…?
“If you stare at my daughter for another second,” Azagoth growled, “I’ll remove your eyeballs and serve them in your drink like olives in a martini.”
Gabriel laughed, even though he had no doubt Azagoth was serious. He was pretty certain he could take the guy in a battle, but he wasn’t sure enough to risk testing that theory. Azagoth was a ruthless son of a bitch, and crossing him wasn’t wise, whether you were a demon or an angel.
He took the glass from the other male and turned away from the temptress by the pool. “What do you know about the Gehennaportal?”
Azagoth’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead. “I haven’t heard it mentioned in thousands of years. But I do know it was rendered inoperable when the Gaiaportal was shut down.”
“You heard about Harvester, I assume.”
Azagoth’s emerald eyes turned troubled. “She went through the Gaiaportal and was killed. But why?” Azagoth asked. “The gate was inoperable. It was inoperable when I was in Heaven. I don’t ever remember it being in functioning order. So why would she go through it? And why have several of my sons and daughters been missing since that day?”
“I can’t tell you that.” Zaphkiel had ordered Gabriel to keep his mouth shut about any and all Heavenly matters.
“Is that so?” Azagoth’s voice was low. Dark. Roiling with malevolent undercurrents. “Then I can’t tell you more about the Gehennaportal.”
The glass in Gabriel’s hand shattered. The shards pierced his palm in a dozen places. One thick piece penetrated all the way to the back of his hand. The whiskey must have been made from hellfire because it burned .
“You know better than to come to me for anything empty-handed, Jim Bob .”
Yeah, he did. Gabriel watched his hand heal, the bloody bits of glass falling to the floor. “I was hoping you might want to help me out of the goodness of your heart.”
Azagoth laughed. “You sound like my wife.”
“I hope you don’t stab her with glass shards.”
“Never. I only like seeing other angels bleed.” He walked back to the bar and poured another whiskey bomb. “Tell me what’s happening in Heaven, Gabriel.”
If Gabriel hadn’t been desperate, he’d have told Azagoth to shove that glass up his evil ass. He’d been dealing with the guy for thousands of years, and they’d mostly been on equal footing. But right now, Azagoth had him by the short feathers, and when Azagoth spied any opening, any weakness, he pounced with the ruthlessness of a hellhound after its prey.
Gabriel accepted the lowball—gingerly—and considered Azagoth’s request.
Zaphkiel would be furious if he found out that Gabriel had spilled Heavenly secrets to Azagoth. He might even consider it treason.
But what would they do to him? Kick him out of Heaven? Not a chance.
“Heaven’s gates are closed,” he said. “Your children, and every angel who was in Heaven when the realm was locked down, are stuck there. I was only allowed out to talk to you.” Gabriel’s gaze drifted to the pool again, and he snapped his eyes back before Azagoth started looking for toothpicks. “The Thrones staged a coup. All Archangels and Reaver are imprisoned.”
Azagoth was rarely surprised, but he stilled with his tumbler at his lips. “The Archangels are imprisoned ?”
Gabriel nodded. “The battle to capture them is what led to Harvester escaping through the Gaiaportal, which activated the Gehennaportal.”
Azagoth frowned. “The Gehennaportal was built at the top of Agony Peak at the south end of the Mountains of Eternal Suffering. The peak collapsed into the Demented Sea a thousand years ago. Maybe more.”
“So, it was destroyed?” That was a relief.
“I don’t know. But if it wasn’t, any demons using it, at least at first, would be aquatic.”
Gabriel thought about that. The Heavenly portal was connected to Temple Mount, while the Sheoulic portal had transported demons to a once uninhabited area of southern Norway.
“As far as I know,” he said, “there haven’t been any reports of dying aquatic demons in Norway, so it must not be active. If it is, it’s either inaccessible or demons haven’t found it yet.” That was also good news.
“No,” Azagoth said, his dark brow furrowed, “but the Genhennaportal’s Sheoulic gateway moved when the mountain collapsed. What if the human realm’s gateway location moved too?”
Well, that was a dropkick to the gut. Gabriel did not like the direction of this conversation.
Azagoth moved to his media display and brought up a 3D rendering of a news story.
“The day Harvester disappeared,” he said, “an oil company reported a disturbance at one of its North Sea platforms. There haven’t been any follow-up stories about it, but within a week, StryTech struck a secret deal and bought the platform. Very few know about this. They’re trying to keep humans from freaking out.”
Gabriel didn’t have to ask how Azagoth knew. He had an extensive information network that had probably shrunk since he was no longer running Sheoul-gra, but he also ran in Stryke’s family circle.
“You think the oil company drilled into the Gehennaportal? At the bottom of the North Sea?”
“I know they drilled into something . StryTech thinks it might be a weak spot in the barrier between the human and demon realms. Last I heard, Stryke had sealed the breach. But if what they drilled into was the Gehennaportal, their seal might not hold.”
“Now you see why I’m here.”
Azagoth swirled the amber liquid in his glass, his expression troubled.
“Leave it to Harvester to cause mayhem.” Azagoth’s daughter stepped inside, a towel draped over one arm, a pair of sunglasses dangling from her tan, slender fingers. “What did she do?” She eyed Gabriel up and down, her shrewd green eyes sizing him up. If she was as good as he’d heard, she’d already assessed his weaknesses and determined what weapon would work best against him. “And who are you?”
Azagoth smoothly blocked Gabriel from her line of sight. “He’s no one.”
“Oh,” she said in a deep, sultry voice as she stepped back into his view, “I doubt that.”
Visibly annoyed, Azagoth turned to his daughter. “Raika, have you heard of any demon incidents in Norway or near the North Sea?”
“No, why? Does this have something to do with Harvester? Have you figured out a way to bring her back?”
Gabriel blinked. “Bring her…back?”
Azagoth swung around to him, casually blocking his view again. “Apparently, her Grace never returned to Heaven. Instead, it found a human vessel.”
Gabriel’s breath caught. “A vessel? No angel has taken a vessel in centuries. Not for more than a few days, and not without a good reason.” When an angel died in the human realm, their souls—their Grace—could either return to their Creator or enter a human. They couldn’t stay for long lest they burn out the body. They mostly just hung out, but sometimes, they could communicate through their host or even influence their behavior. “Has she spoken through this vessel?”
Raika shifted back into Gabriel’s view and gave her dad a questioning look—a definite is-this-stranger-cool look—and waited for his nod before answering.
“Idess thinks Harvester may not be conscious enough to speak,” she said, referring to her half-sister, one of Azagoth’s many children with many angelic mothers, and one of Stryke’s aunts. “The more traumatic a person’s death, the longer it takes for them to adjust.”
That certainly held true for humans. It could take those in Heaven years to come to terms with their deaths.
He had no idea about angels since little was known about what happened to their Grace—their soul and their power—after they returned to Heaven. Some believed the Creator reabsorbed them. Others thought their souls were recycled the way humans and demons were, reborn into another body.
A significant number of Celestials refused to consider that as a possibility because it would mean they had something in common with lowly humans and vile demons.
“So?” she asked. “Do you know how to reach her? Bring her out so she can speak through her vessel? We need to know what happened to her. Also, who are you?” She glared at her father. “And don’t tell me he’s no one. If he’s not a high-ranking angel, I’ll eat a bag of dicks for dinner.”
“You most certainly will not,” Azagoth said, and Gabriel had to bite back a laugh at the graphic image that must be going through his fatherly head right now.
“I’m Gabriel,” He inclined his head in greeting. “Your father and I are old friends.”
“ Friends is a bit of an exaggeration,” Azagoth said.
“True.” Gabriel gestured with his glass. “A friend wouldn’t explode a drink in their hand.”
“Be thankful it was your drink and not your head,” Raika said with a laugh. “This creepy guy a couple weeks ago? Messsssy.” She looked him up and down. “Gabriel, huh? Archangel. Not what I expected. I have a lot of questions.”
Not what she expected ?
“Don’t you have a bunch of demons to capture?” Azagoth asked.
She rolled her eyes. “That’s why I’m not still in the pool.”
“Going to be hard fighting demons in a bikini.”
She snorted. “I can probably fight better in a bikini. Less restrictive.” She crossed her arms over her chest, and Gabriel had to force himself to look away from the smooth swells of flesh barely covered by tiny triangles of black fabric. “Tell me why you’re talking about Harvester and what she has to do with potential demons I might need to stop in Norway.”
Azagoth’s jaw tightened in frustration. “Put on some clothes.”
She rolled her eyes again, but a second later, she was dressed in black tactical pants, combat boots, a black tank top, and a weapons harness.
If Azagoth thought getting his daughter out of a bikini would make her less hot…he was so fucking wrong.
Raika was a freaking goddess in warrior gear.
Azagoth seemed satisfied, though. “Harvester caused an ancient portal in Hell to open. It needs to be closed before demons discover it’s active. Gabriel is here looking for information.” Azagoth wandered over to a bookcase, where a miniature model of Sheoul-gra spanned an entire shelf. “The sorcerers responsible for creating the Gehennaportal also designed and built Sheoul-gra. Unfortunately, no one knows where they are or if they’re even still alive. That’s why it’s taking Hades so long to rebuild Sheoul-gra. But,” he said, “I do know that both Sheoul-gra and the Gehennaportal were fueled by eternal fire. If you destroy the fuel source, you destroy the portal.”
Gabriel thought about that. “There’s just the small matter of getting to the source. Most angels don’t do well underwater.”
“You might not need to get all the way to the eternal fire,” Azagoth said. “Unleashing angelic energy just inside the portal should work.”
“Maybe we could use Stryke’s drilling platform to reach it.”
Raika nodded. “You could drop an angelic power bomb down the shaft and extinguish the eternal fire.” Her eyes glittered with dark amusement. She was so like her father. “Brilliant!”
He tore his gaze away from her with great effort. “So, I need to get in touch with Stryke, and I need to get onto that platform. “Is he still Primori, do you know?”
“I’ve never known. I’m no longer in that business. But,” Azagoth said, “as powerful and influential as he is, I can almost guarantee he’s Primori.”
Which meant he was protected by a Memitim, a class of angel bred from Azagoth himself, and wouldn’t die until he’d fulfilled his fate or Heaven had no more reason to keep him alive.
“Knowing won’t help you,” Azagoth said, “unless you’re planning to kill him.”
“Actually, it might. Primori are crucial to the timeline of existence in some way. He may play an important role in this. He probably does, and from what I’ve seen, his alignment tilts toward good, so he might be willing to cooperate with me.” He might be fated to cooperate. “But he’s notorious for not responding to Heavenly summons. I had to wait an entire year for him to answer me once.”
Azagoth snorted. “You think a demon will be summoned by angels? That’s your problem right there. After dealing with me for so long, you should know better than that, Gabriel.” He glanced down at his drink as he spoke. “But Stryke isn’t your problem. Revenant, if he gets out of Hell… that’s your problem.” Azagoth raised his eyes and grinned, flashing fangs. “Heaven’s going to burn,” he growled, “and it’ll deserve it.”