Kendra Leigh Castle - Renegade Angel

Raum paused, torn between the truth and keeping up appearances, though the latter would mean the end of this bizarre conversation with the Reaper. He’d never looked at the agents of Death as much more than a necessary nuisance, sometimes entertaining to bother, completely useless when it came to information. But Jarrod, with whom he’d engaged in the occasional war of words with over this soul or that, seemed to want to tell him something. And the days when he could afford to blow such an impression off were gone.

“It … she was guarded. Stupid nefari was meant to protect her and turned on her as soon as it got excited.” He shrugged. “I should have been more careful. She’s important to this Nexus business, and … Uriel doesn’t want her hurt.” It was as close as he would come to the truth, to his own interest in protecting her.

“But why you? ” Jarrod asked, and he seemed genuinely perplexed.

“Because I said I would. Because this is the sorry state my existence has been reduced to.” A muscle in his jaw twitched. “Because it’s my fault she got hurt. Why does it matter to you anyway, Jarrod?” The words sounded foreign to his own ears, rolling strangely off his tongue. When was the last time he had admitted to anything resembling guilt? And yet it was true, all true.

He suddenly felt ill.

Jarrod seemed to sense this, and his gaze softened, though Raum didn’t appreciate it. He had no use for pity, and wanted none. Still, the truth got him what he’d wanted.

Or thought he wanted.

“You really don’t know, do you?” Jarrod asked, still looking puzzled. Then he shook his head, seeming to accept the situation. “It’s ironic, that you’ve unwittingly given a part of yourself to the daughter of your enemy. A noble gift I wouldn’t have expected you to give in a million years, don’t get me wrong. But this is going to infuriate him. You may want to get out of here until you can muster some backup. Otherwise … “ he trailed off for a moment, his gaze dropping to Ember’s face with a look of sympathy, “there’s no way you’ll stand between him and what he wants. Not alone.”

Raum’s eyes narrowed as he grappled with Jarrod’s words, trying to discern any meaning but the one he feared. But his longstanding feud was well known even to midworlders like the Reapers, and he knew, in his gut, exactly what Jarrod had meant.

“Mammon?”

Jarrod gave a single nod. “He watches his daughter, and waits for the right time to unleash her power. The darkness is growing thicker here. Don’t you sense it? The Nexus is ripe for breaking.” He lifted his head to scan the sky, breathing in deeply, as though he could scent the gathering evil in this place. Raum could only stare.

“Mammon’s daughter,” he said, struggling to reconcile the warm creature in his arms with the foul, grinning, glad-handing demon who had engineered his downfall. But it was so obvious, now that he looked: her unusual strength of mind, her power … she even had her father’s red hair, and the rare beauty that could only mark her as high demon. There was no nefari in her. Ember carried the blood of the Fallen … and it made her far more dangerous than Raum had ever thought.

“Why are you telling me this?” Raum asked hoarsely, his thoughts hopelessly tangled in the wake of this news. His kind rarely impregnated human women, who were almost always too fragile for such a thing to be possible. And yet of all the Fallen to have produced a creature with beauty, power and a coveted, indestructible soul …

Mammon. His mortal enemy. Her father …

“I told you because you treated a human life as though it had value. It seems only right that I help you retain yours.” Jarrod took two steps back, then offered a lopsided smile. “You surprise me, Raum. Do yourself a favor and get the seraphim here, then take Ember Riddick where Mammon can’t find her until Nexus has been sealed. Leave the fighting to the angels and demons.”

“But I am a demon,” Raum protested.

Jarrod cocked his head at him, still wearing his half smile. “Are you?”

“Wait,” Raum began, holding out one stillsmoking hand to stop him. But it was no use.

In the irritating manner of all ethereal beings, the Reaper had already gone.

And Raum was left in the darkness with nothing but the steady sound of Ember’s beating heart.

When it hit, the goblet shattered the looking glass into a thousand pieces.

“Hellfire!”

Mammon’s roar filled the Chamber of Glass, echoing off the infinite mirrors of all shapes and sizes that covered walls soaring upward into infinity and beyond sight. He hovered in the air for a moment longer, the enormous black wings that sprang from his back holding him steady, and stared at the shattered glass where only a moment before his daughter’s face had been.

He had come here to gloat over his progress with her, to toast himself with the finest wine Hell could offer. A handful of the Fallen nobility had sired children with humans over the centuries, but half-breeds truly of the blood were rare. And none, Mammon knew, compared to his Ember. She was a beauty, of course, with his fiery hair, his perfect features. But more importantly, she had such potential, such power, and with the strength to keep it from driving her mad.

An unexpected gift, a key to tear open the Nexus and wreak Hell on the unsuspecting human world. It had been far too long. But he and the Council had had years to plan their next, greatest assault. And with him, the perfect guide to stoke the darkness within her, Ember would soon be commanding legions of her own.

Mammon had never seen her equal in an eternity littered with insane half-breed offspring whose violent natures had little intellect to hone them. Ember was the fruit of a one-night dalliance born of boredom, with a pregnancy as the surprising result. Even more surprising was that Dina Riddick, judgmental whore that she’d been, had managed to carry the tempestuous little brat to term. From a distance he’d watched, interested despite himself in the only child he had ever sired. Still, Mammon had expected little Ember—a name he himself had selected and pushed into Dina’s mind, though the woman still hated it—to be nothing more than a tool, a toy to be quickly used up and thrown away. Good for a single burst of horrific violence, perhaps. But Ember had surprised him as he’d visited her dreams, watched her grow.

So in her sleep, he began to train her. Even now, un sure as she was, his daughter had a great deal more ability than she was consciously aware of. And one day, he decided, when Hell on Earth became a reality, she would sit at his side. His demon child, made immortal. And she with a soul, that precious gift that could never be destroyed, not even in the fiery river Phlegethon that would turn angel and demon alike into nothing but dust. She was perfection. The perfect embodiment, as he was, of beauty and death. No she-demon had ever risen so high. And she was his.

Until that wretched traitor had swept in and run off with her, that was. He had seen it, watched with impotent fury as the nefari set to guard Ember had turned on her as soon as Raum had burst in. Raum, with his precious Ember in his arms, vanishing into the night, cloaked in the protection of his kind that made it impossible for Mammon to see where he had taken her … his daughter, with the bastard’s unworthy hands on her!

Filthy traitor, fit only to burn.

The Prince of Avarice gave one more furious snarl before he descended to the ground, his boots touching down gently on the marble floor. He folded his wings behind him, then whirled and stalked from the room.

“No,” he growled, heading for the Throne Room. “I will not have it. I will not allow it. She is mine. ”