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  “To contain demon souls.” Tired of squinting in the sunlight, Gabriel poofed a cloud into existence overhead, blocking the direct light and saving himself from a headache later. “Right now, when a demon’s physical body dies, his soul is left wandering. You’ve been in isolation, so you might not have noticed that a growing number of demonic souls are wreaking havoc in human settlements, haunting people. Possessing them. They’re doing the same in Sheoul. We’ve come to an agreement with Satan that will ensure souls are gathered and stored in a secure location presided over by a fallen angel.”

  “Intriguing,” Asrael said in a cool, composed voice as if he didn’t want to give away just how interested he was in the concept. “So, why are you telling me this?”

  “We want you to run it.”

  Asrael might be more enamored with the idea than he was letting on, but he wasn’t a fool, and he eyed Gabriel with a healthy dose of skepticism. “How many have already turned you down?”

  “None. You were our first choice.”

  Asrael’s mouth quirked in amusement. “You mean no one applied for the task.”

  Gabriel shrugged. They’d put out a call for volunteers, but apparently, ruling one’s own hell realm wasn’t appealing to any angels. No sane or qualified angels, anyway.

  “No one of your caliber,” Gabriel said truthfully. “We need someone honorable. Someone we can trust. Your history with Satan makes you a valuable asset.”

  “My history,” Asrael mused. “I despised the bastard even before I uncovered his crimes, and he hates me for it. So you assume that I would side with Heaven in any future dispute.”

  There was no point in denying that the animosity between Satan and Asrael had played a large role in whom the archangels had chosen to rule this new realm, so Gabriel just nodded.

  “Is that assumption wrong?”

  “Probably not.” Asrael looked up at Gabriel’s personal cloud, and it swelled, growing darker as it filled with rain. “What would the job entail?

  “Mainly the reaping of all demon souls, as well as the souls of evil humans. You’ll be bound to the realm, but you’ll create a race of beings who will carry out your grim task on Earth and in Sheoul.”

  Rain began to pelt the ground. “You said ‘mainly.’ What else?”

  “You’ll mete out punishment, authorize reincarnations, and you’ll have the power to destroy souls. We can discuss the specifics later. And…” Gabriel trailed off, unsure of how to present the next duty.

  “And?”

  “The human population is growing,” he said, opting to ease the other male into this one. “More and more humans—and even a few demons—are critical to the future of this very planet.”

  Asrael nodded. “Primori.”

  “Yes. We’ve decided they need specialized guardians. Guardians raised among humans to enhance their understanding of the primitive beings our Creator seems to favor.” Gabriel stopped the rain. “We want you to father these guardians with angels we send to you.”

  For a moment, everything went quiet. The rain stopped, and not even the wind stirred. Asrael’s expression stilled, and Gabriel instinctively reached for his power. He wasn’t even sure why. He was far stronger than Asrael. And yet, he sensed something inside the other male, as if a massive untapped well of strength were about to be unleashed. For the first time, he wondered if choosing Asrael for this was a mistake.

  “Let me get this straight,” Asrael said quietly. “You want me to fuck an entire race of beings into existence, create another race to collect souls, and torture evil demons?”

  Gabriel sighed. Asrael was as blunt and unapologetic as his father had been. “That’s an accurate—if crude—summary.”

  Slowly, Asrael’s face turned up to the sky, and his sleek, black wings shot upward. He was the very picture of an angel who felt the call to duty.

  Even if it was a shit job. One of isolation and evil and corruption.

  But only one person in the universe could do it, and Gabriel suddenly understood that Asrael was that person. He hadn’t made a mistake in choosing him. Any mistakes made from here on out wouldn’t be Gabriel’s.

  They’d be Asrael’s.

  But that wouldn’t stop Gabriel from keeping an eye on things.

  “I accept.” Asrael gave Gabriel a meaningful look. “But I won’t create a bunch of new angels, and I’m sure I’ll want to make changes to the contract.”

  Gabriel paused. He’d been sent to get Asrael’s acceptance, but Asrael had only agreed to half of what they needed.

  He gave a mental shrug. Heaven would get him to accept the terms of the deal later. “Then it’s done.”

  Asrael nodded. “So, what now?”

  The cloud above turned black and roiled across the sky, swallowing the blue and the sun. Asrael wasn’t doing it, and neither was Gabriel. The wind gathered, screaming across the dunes and spinning up clouds of sand.

  “What’s happening?”

  “It’s an omen,” Gabriel shouted over the shrieking wind. It was a sign that, for good or for bad, this was supposed to happen.

  Lightning streaked overhead as he willed a scythe into his hand, its rustic handle carved from the trunk of a carnivorous death knell oak by a demon woodworker, its blade crafted by Heaven’s best weapons-master.

  He held out the scythe. “With this, you’ll have the power to destroy and create. And your name,” Gabriel called out, “is an angelic word that hearkens back to the negotiations with Satan over the great harvest of souls in the prophesized End of Days.”

  In his other hand, he willed a blade used to sever Heaven’s power link from an angel’s wings without completely removing them.

  “When we’re done, you shall, forevermore, be known as Azagoth, Reaper of Souls.”

  Chapter 1

  It was a room few knew about, and even fewer had seen. Not even his mate had known about it until a couple of days ago.

  In his quest to ensure that his mate never left him again, Azagoth had come clean about a lot of shit since Lilliana had returned to him two weeks ago, tanned, pregnant, and bonded to a hellhound. But the confession about the existence of this chamber had been a two-parter.

  He’d also had to tell her what he planned to do in here.

  Inhaling stale air layered with the stench of fear, pain, and sulfur, he trailed his finger over shelves laden with dusty potion bottles and clay pots filled with ingredients any sorcerer would kill their offspring to have in their possession.

  But they’d do far worse than that for just five minutes with the object that made this chamber so…special.

  It wasn’t the pulsing, transparent cage in the corner, constructed from the veins of a shadow wraith. It wasn’t the brimstone altar in the center of the room. It wasn’t the glowing Symbol of Azagoth forming a giant scythe above the door.

  It was the engine that fueled his realm, the furnace of eternal hellfire that formed the entire east wall.

  Power radiated from the violet flames, evil power that beckoned Azagoth closer. Already, he felt its malevolence penetrate him, filling a well that had nearly run dry.

  Loving Lilliana had opened his heart and allowed the evil inside to leak out.

  Now, he had to let it back in.

  But only for a little while.

  He’d promised.

  But the flames called to him, whispering like a lover whose orgasm would burn every ounce of good inside him to ash.

  And that was the thing about evil…it felt amazing. It was incredibly freeing when you didn’t give a shit about anyone except yourself. And in a world designed for pain, the more you liked doling it out, the happier you were.

  Azagoth had been very, very happy for a very, very long time.

  And then Lilliana had come along, exposing his emotions and making his heart beat, and for the first time in eons, he’d been the one to feel pain. He hadn’t liked it very much, and he’d turned into a “ginormous asshat,” as she’d called him more than once.

&nb
sp; It had taken her saying goodbye for him to realize that he needed to let her in more, not less.

  So, he’d told her about the room he’d flagrantly named the Genesis Chamber and the power it gave him. And he’d promised he wouldn’t touch the flames no matter how much they enticed him. The charge he’d get from being this close would be enough to fuel what he was about to do.

  As if it heard Azagoth’s thoughts, a griminion, a three-foot-tall male wrapped in a black cloak, spilled out of the spiral staircase behind him and skittered over to the altar in the center of the room. The place where he’d been born.

  Grateful for the distraction from the lure of the eternal hellfire, Azagoth patted the altar top. “Hop up here, Asrael. I don’t think this is going to hurt. At least, not as much as your creation did.”

  Asrael, given Azagoth’s angelic name, had been the first griminion and the mold from which all others were cast. Whatever was done to him was done to all griminions.

  Which was why Asrael never left the safety of Sheoul-gra.

  Heavy footfalls echoed into the room from the staircase, and a moment later, Hades ducked through the doorway, his blue Mohawk brushing the top of the frame and bringing down a cloud of dust.

  “Why the fuck did you summon me during my weekly prison inspection?” He frowned at Asrael as he brushed dust off his bare shoulders. The guy had never liked shirts, which his mate, Cataclysm, bemoaned because she couldn’t buy him some sort of traditional human garment called an ugly Christmas sweater. At least Hades was cool with pants, even if they were form-fitting, nausea-inducing, color-shifting things. “And what are you doing to him?”

  Azagoth drew a glass vial and a plastic container from the bag he’d brought. “I’m upgrading my griminions.”

  Hades’ gaze drifted to the eternal hellfire, longing flickering in the ice-blue depths of his eyes. Unlike Azagoth, he’d never touched the flames, but he still felt the infusion of evil and power it delivered. Sweat beaded on his brow and chest as he fought the pull, and in a jerky, uncoordinated motion, he swung back around to Azagoth.

  “Upgrading?” he asked, his voice gruff with the effort it took to resist the hellfire. “To do what? How much more efficient can they be at collecting evil souls? They sense death within seconds.”

  Griminions didn’t collect only evil souls. Sometimes, they brought iffy human souls as well, and it was up to Azagoth to sort them out. Keep ‘em or send them for Heavenly processing, most likely into what some called Limbo, and others Purgatory, where they’d linger until Judgment Day.

  But Hades’ question was valid. In thousands of years, Azagoth hadn’t made any changes to the little demon helpers he’d created. He hadn’t needed to. With the notable exception of Satan, no one had ever threatened him or his family.

  Things had changed.

  “Imagine how much more efficient they’d be at gathering souls if they didn’t have to wait for death?” Azagoth measured one precious drop of the liquid from the vial into a bowl made from a human skull. “If they had the capability to kill.”

  “They already have that.”

  “Only if I gift it to them individually.” Even then, the ability to cause a heart attack or an aneurysm was only temporary. “I’m going to gift all of them. Permanently.”

  “Interesting.” Hades watched as Azagoth used a pole to push the bowl just to the edge of the eternal fire. “But won’t Heaven flip the fuckity-fuck out?”

  “Yes.” What Azagoth was about to do wasn’t just forbidden; it was epically forbidden as his son Journey would say. He’d been on an epic kick lately, edging out mucho as his favorite—and much overused—word. “Which is why I’m not telling them.”

  “So…why are you doing it?” Hades wiped his brow as sweat began to drip. “I mean, I’ve always thought griminions should have had the power to kill from the beginning. But why now?”

  Normally, Azagoth would be annoyed at being questioned, but Hades had been with Azagoth for thousands of years, and whatever plans fate had for him, Hades was tied to them, as well.

  Flames licked at the bowl, and the liquid inside, venom from Satan’s fangs, began to steam. Azagoth drew the bowl back and carefully placed it on the altar next to Asrael.

  “You said it yourself yesterday. Shit’s getting weird. Bael’s death will have consequences, and I don’t trust Heaven.”

  He’d stopped trusting angels long ago, and now that he was no longer responsible for making Memitim, his usefulness might be waning in their view. He needed to be proactive to protect himself, his realm, and his family.

  “You didn’t kill Bael,” Hades pointed out. “Cipher did. Moloc will want revenge on him, not you.”

  And wasn’t that a sore subject? Azagoth had wanted that kill. He’d wanted to claim the death—and the soul—of the fallen angel who had murdered several of Azagoth’s sons and daughters. Instead, Cipher had killed him, and Bael’s soul had merged with that of his twin brother, Moloc.

  “Moloc doesn’t want revenge,” Azagoth said. “He wants me to release Satan from the prison Revenant and Reaver put him in.” And Moloc would do anything to make it happen.

  Hades laughed, his fangs glinting in the light from the flames. “Obviously, you’re not going to do that. So, why am I here?”

  “I need your DNA.” Azagoth took a pinch of freshly ground Soulshredder claw powder from the container he’d brought and sprinkled it into the steaming bowl. It hissed and sparked, and a few seconds later, black, foul-smelling smoke rose in a thin tendril that snapped at Azagoth with sharp little teeth when he tried to wave it away.

  “Mine? Why?”

  The tendril grew longer, its blunt head slithering toward Asrael. “Because the spell calls for it.”

  “It calls for my DNA.” Hades gave him a flat look dripping with skepticism. “Specifically.”

  “Yes.”

  Now Hades’ skepticism was practically puddling on the floor. “Where did you get this spell?”

  The tendril disappeared under Asrael’s hood. “From an Orphmage I blackmailed.”

  “Viscerog?”

  “Yup.”

  Cursing, Hades scrubbed his hand across the top of his Mohawk. “That bastard hates me.”

  Azagoth snorted. “Probably why he said I needed to cut off a piece of your wing with a dull knife.” He glanced up at Hades as he moved the bowl closer to Asrael. “He was very specific about the fact that the blade had to be dull.”

  “He’s full of shit, you know.”

  “Maybe.” Azagoth didn’t bother to hide the amusement in his voice. “Probably. But he warned me to follow the recipe exactly. Otherwise, he said my griminions would turn into rot-toads. I definitely don’t want that.”

  Asrael’s alarmed, high-pitched chatter made it pretty clear that he didn’t want that, either.

  Hades cursed again, but his wings erupted from his back, knocking jars off the shelves and scraping the ceiling. “Here, you fucker. Maim away.”

  Azagoth took his sample with a quick flick of the wrist.

  Hades walked off the pain as he wandered around the chamber, picking up jars and checking out the items so powerful or secret that Azagoth stored them here instead of displaying them in the room where he kept most of his valuable artifacts.

  “You sure you’re not going to use your enhanced griminions to go after your enemies?” he asked, pausing in front of a tray covered with a velvet cloth.

  Azagoth dropped the bit of wing into the bowl. “You think I’d use them as my own private army?”

  “The thought occurred to me, yes.”

  Hades was right. It was definitely something he’d do. The authors of his Sheoul-gra contract had been wise to forbid it. But Azagoth no longer cared about an agreement he’d signed thousands of years ago. He had too much to protect, and arming the griminions was more about safeguarding what he had than anything else. They were going to be his firewall, not his attack dogs.

  “They are a defensive weapon,” he said. “Not
an offensive one.”

  For now.

  “I see.” Hades lifted the velvet cloth and inhaled sharply at the sight of the two feathers lying beneath it, one white and gold, the other black and silver. “Damn,” he whispered. “With these…”

  “With those, I could bring down Sheoul-gra’s very foundations.”

  Hades pivoted around, his eyes glowing with intensity. “Are we still talking defensive weapons here? Because from where I stand, it looks like you’re prepping for war.”

  “We do have less than a thousand years before Satan is released from prison and the End of Days begins,” Azagoth pointed out, but it was a dodge, and Hades knew it.

  “I’m not buying your bullshit,” he growled. “But at least tell me you aren’t going after Moloc. And that you won’t do something stupid, like destroy Sheoul-gra or try to assassinate Reaver.”

  “Sheoul-gra is safe,” Azagoth assured him. “As is Moloc. For now. And Reaver’s an asshole, but he’s one of the most powerful assholes in all the realms.”

  Reaver was also the only high-ranking angel to command a measure of Azagoth’s respect. The guy’s path from angel to Unfallen, then back to angel, and finally to Radiant, had given him a unique insight into the way all the realms worked. He’d proven to be immune to corruption, uninterested in politics, and willing to break the rules when needed.

  Hades studied Azagoth for a heartbeat, his expression uncharacteristically serious. “You have a mate and a good life now, Azagoth. I do, too.” His words were measured, carefully spoken, and yet…there was a note of warning threaded through them. He was a male protecting what was his. But so was Azagoth. “I…hope it stays that way.”

  “So do I,” Azagoth said gravely. “And that’s why I’m doing this. What’s that human bit of wisdom? Hope for the best but prepare for the worst? Well, I’m prepping.”

  Suddenly, the eternal hellfire blasted hot, and Asrael screamed a gut-wrenching, pained sound that, just a few minutes ago, would have made Azagoth feel bad.

  But the eternal hellfire had already done its job, smiting his empathy and filling him with the kind of evil that got off on pain.