Revenant

“Hello, brother.” Rev didn’t bother standing. Instead, he stretched out his legs in front of him, crossed his booted feet at the ankles, and leaned back against a support rail. “I was wondering if you’d show up.”

“It was hard to ignore your invitation.” Reaver folded his arms over his chest. “It’s impossible to concentrate on anything else when you’re projecting.”

“Hmm.” Revenant smiled. “I guess we’re even, because I can feel it when you’re happy. It’s nauseating. Literally.”

“I’ll buy you barf bags for Christmas,” Reaver drawled.

“So thoughtful.” He stared at his brother, wondering what would have happened if they’d been raised together. In Heaven or Sheoul. With a thought, he turned his black hair blond to match Reaver’s. Although they weren’t identical, they were twins; they might as well look the part.

“You’ve been ignoring my summons for weeks. So why are you contacting me now?” Reaver asked.

“Ah, Reaver. Or should I say Yenrieth? That is your given name. Your Heavenly name. Funny how I don’t have one.”

Reaver’s blond brows climbed. “Our mother called you Revenant?”

“From the beginning.” He looked up at the gray sky overhead. Rain was coming. “It didn’t seem strange until now.” A twinge of hurt… a feeling he’d long thought he couldn’t feel but that seemed to be making the rounds lately… plucked at him. He quickly brushed it aside and filled the void with a much more user-friendly emotion. He and anger had always been intimate. “As to why I want to talk now… let’s just say that my memory is back, but I still have questions.”

“As do I.”

“Really. And what, exactly, are your questions?”

Reaver studied Revenant for a few moments, peering at him like he was an ape. Not wanting to disappoint his big brother, Rev scratched his crotch. Sniffed his armpits. Let out an impressive belch. He was about to pass gas, when Reaver cursed.

“How about you go first,” Reaver said. “Ask your questions.”

Very magnanimous of him. Must be what our mother saw in him, Revenant thought bitterly.

“Let’s start at the beginning.” Rev materialized himself a lit cigar made of the finest Sheoul bloodleaf. “Who raised you? Did you know about our parents?”

Reaver wrinkled his nose at Rev’s smoke. “I believed Metatron and his mate, Caila, were my parents. I didn’t know the truth until you came to me on Mount Megiddo.”

That had been around five thousand years ago, right after their mother’s death. Right after she’d told him the truth about his origins. He’d been confused, afraid, and angry as hell about being lied to.

“I learned the truth about our birth only hours before I went to you,” Revenant said. “I thought I’d been born an emim, that our mother was a fallen angel.”

“Why did she lie to you?”

Anger bubbled up inside him, as fresh as it had been that day. “She had no choice. Satan threatened to kill us both if she ever revealed the truth.” But Satan hadn’t had the chance to kill his mother. No, Rev had taken that particular honor himself. Hand shaking, he took a drag on his cigar, letting the calming effects of the bloodleaf seep into his body. “So what was growing up with Metatron like?”

“I couldn’t have asked for a better life.”

“How sweet. I was beaten on most days.” He continued before he had to see pity in his twin’s eyes. “If not me, then Mother.”

Reaver went taut, his teeth clenched hard. “Tell me about her.”

Revenant blew out a long stream of smoke. “When you can ask nicely —”

“Please,” Reaver blurted. “I don’t even know what she looked like.” He gazed out over the Parisian skyline, and in his profile, Revenant saw the strong line of their mother’s jaw. The graceful arch of her brow. The chiseled cut of her cheekbones. In Rev’s hand, the cigar shook so badly he couldn’t take a drag. “I looked her up in the Akashic Library last week, but all I found was a rundown of her accomplishments.”

Must be nice to have access to Heaven’s largest library. Hell, the Akashic Library supposedly held the truth behind every great mystery, every forgotten scrap of history. Minus, of course, any information the archangels deemed too sensitive for commoners to gain access to.

Now should be the time when Revenant disappeared, leaving his brother in the dust to forever wonder if his questions about their mother would be answered. But their mother had always wanted Reaver to know the truth about their births and her life.

“Find Yenrieth,” she rasped as she lay dying. “Find him and be the brothers you should have been.”

“She was beautiful,” he said, hating himself for the emotional warble in his voice. “Even with dirt on her face and hair that hadn’t seen a comb since she was captured, she was beautiful.” He finally managed to get the cigar to his lips. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Finish the story without breaking down like a pussy. “We shared a cell until I was ten. Then I was taken away to work in Satan’s mines, and I didn’t see her again for a decade.”

Not for a lack of trying, though. He’d made a million attempts to escape the mines and the demons who wielded the whips, but he always got caught.

Only later did he learn that for every infraction he committed, every rule he broke, his mother paid the price.