Free Eternal Rider by Larissa Ione

Reaver rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “He fell a few hundred years ago. He succumbed to human temptations and neglected his duties one too many times. Last I heard, he was trying to earn his way back into Heaven.”
    “Who does he hang with?”
    Reaver made a golden ball of light appear in his palm, bouncing it lightly. Ares hated when he did that—one slip of the Heavenly Illum, and the entire island would be engulfed in bright daylight twenty-four-seven.
    “You are familiar with Tristelle?”
    Ares nodded. The female Unfallen had been around for as long as Ares could remember, seemingly content to walk the line between good and evil.
    “Sestiel has been trying to redeem her for decades.” Reaver winked. “And no, this information isn’t
helping
you, since it’s common knowledge.”
    Excellent. Tristelle might be able to provide some clue to Sestiel’s whereabouts.
    His scalp prickled, and Harvester took form next to Reaver, who let the light go out as he looked her up and down. “What happened to you?”
    “None of your business,” she snapped, and…
okaaay
. The evil Watcher had always been testy, but her bitchiness was usually couched in sarcasm. But then, in the two thousand years she’d been a Watcher, he’d never seen her so… beat up.
    Strike that. Not just beat up, but
beaten
. Her black wings, too wrecked to fold against their anchors, drooped so low that they dragged on the floor, her head hung as though her neck pained her, and Ares swore that for just a second, her eyes looked haunted. Thing was, angels healed quickly, so whatever she’d tangled with had to have been of equal or greater power—and there were very few beings in either category.
    Reaver shot a tight smile at her. “Humiliated that someone finally gave you what you deserve?”
    Oddly, Harvester didn’t fire back. Instead, she moved toward the computer screen, still showing CNN’s website. “Human governments are keeping the majority of Pestilence’s handiwork quiet. Have you noticed?”
    Ares had noticed. He also noticed how she was favoring her left leg. “Why are you here, anyway?” He glanced at Reaver. “That goes for you, too.”
    “Because I can tell you what Pestilence has been up to,” Reaver said. “He’s been sparking miniepidemics allover the world and killing every Unfallen he can find. I think he’s frustrated that he can’t locate Sestiel.”
    Maybe, but Reseph had never been a hothead. When Ares, Thanatos, and Limos had been rampage-furious about something, Reseph had always been the one to step in and calm them all down. Maybe turning into Pestilence had changed that, but Ares didn’t think so. No, he was smarter than that. If Ares were in Reseph’s place, he’d cut off Sestiel’s escape routes, not waste time on petty vengeance…
    “I know what he’s doing. He’s taking out anyone who could potentially become the
agimortus
.” Ares cursed. “And he’s using the pockets of epidemics to trap them.”
    Harvester’s wings twitched. “How so?”
    “The Unfallen are attracted to the suffering,” Reaver mused. “Angels always are, and Unfallen are no exception. They may hope that by comforting the dying, they can earn their way back into Heaven.”
    Ares studied the giant world map on the wall. Push-pins marked Pestilence’s known handiwork. The sucker was running out of room. “Pestilence is setting traps. It’s what I’d do.”
    The door to the office opened, and Vulgrim, one of Ares’s Ramreel demon servants, entered with a tray of iced tea, which he placed on the desk. After Vulgrim left, Reaver pinned another location on the map. “Let’s just hope that Sestiel doesn’t panic and do something stupid if he runs out of options to transfer.”
    “Stupid?”
    Harvester snatched a glass off the tray the way she always did; as if she was afraid someone would take it before she got it. “The only other species that can be an
agimortus
is human.”
    Son of a—
Ares shoved back from