Rage and Ruin by Jennifer L. Armentrout Page 0,163

an angel.” The man’s eyes opened then, wide and unseeing. “He sounded like an angel.”

I totally understood how he could mistake Sulien for an angel, but to think he and his twang sounded like one? Then again, Fisher was from Tennessee. Maybe he thought all of Heaven sounded like Matthew McConaughey in a car commercial.

“What did he say?” Zayne’s voice was so soft.

The man trembled. “That he... That I could earn the one thing I wanted most. Natashya.”

Oh God.

I had a sinking suspicion where this was heading.

“He told me a man would come to me and I was to help him with what he needed, and this man was a sheep in wolf’s clothing,” he whispered now. “I thought it was a dream, but then that man showed up. The sheep in wolf’s clothing.”

Did he mean a demon pretending to be bad?

“Bael?” Zayne prodded. “A man who wasn’t a man at all?” When Fisher nodded, Zayne folded his hands under his chin. “Did you know what he is?”

“Not at first, but eventually...yes.”

I wanted to ask if he’d thought that was, I don’t know, a bright freaking red flag, but I remained silent.

“What did he want of you?” Zayne asked.

“Access to the school. I don’t know why. He never told me, and I didn’t ask. I... I didn’t want to know.” The man still trembled. “I just wanted my Natashya.”

Anger crowded out whatever sympathy I’d felt. “And it didn’t occur to you that it could be bad that a demon wanted access to a school?”

Zayne shot me a look of warning before refocusing on the senator, who didn’t answer, only cried harder. “Did you ever go into the school?”

“No. Never. I just set up the company, made a few calls and was able to purchase it. A new school was already being built to replace it. That’s all.”

Plans for a school catering to children with disabilities, I wanted to shout, but clamped my mouth shut.

“And when he told me I needed to meet with them—the witches—he told me what to say, and I... I did it.”

I had to put my hand over my own mouth to keep from speaking.

“Bael promised me he would bring Natashya back. That as soon as they had what they wanted, I would have her,” he rambled, body heaving. “And I did it. I went against everything I believed, and I did it. I knew it was wrong, that the enchantment would kill, but you have to understand—she is my everything.”

“Wait,” Cayman spoke up. “Bael said he could bring your wife back to life?”

“The Harbinger and Bael promised me.”

“No one has that power,” I said, shaking my head. The senator’s wild gaze swung toward me. He stopped shaking. “Your wife is dead. She’s probably crossed over. She can’t be brought back.”

“That’s not true.” Fisher’s lips pulled back, baring his teeth. “It’s not true.”

“Bael cannot grant you that favor. I don’t care who the Harbinger is, but neither can he,” Cayman said, rising. “Other than the one in charge up there, there is only one other being in this world who can do such a thing and he’s only ever done it once. It ended badly, so I doubt he’ll do it again. Especially for a human. No offense.”

Understanding clicked into play. “You’re talking about Grim? But he can’t bring someone back from the dead, especially not...” I looked down at the senator. “When did your wife die?”

The man’s gaze shifted to his swelling fingers. “Three years, ten months and nineteen days ago.”

That was...exact.

“She’s super dead,” I pointed out. “Like super decayed and dead.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Cayman replied, stunning me. And apparently even Zayne, because he turned toward the demon. “Grim can do anything with a soul and that’s all you need to reanimate a body.”

My eyes widened. “Do you have...her body?”

The senator didn’t answer, and my stomach churned. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know where her not-so-fresh body was being kept if it wasn’t in her grave.

“You don’t need the body,” Cayman explained. “You just need the soul.”

I gaped at him. “That’s...that’s not possible.” I couldn’t believe it. After all the dead people I’d seen, it just couldn’t be possible.

Cayman smiled. “Anything is possible, especially when you’re Azreal, the Angel of Death.

“But like I said, he’s only done that once before, and if you ask him if it can be done, he’ll lie at first, but he can release a soul, he can destroy it and...” He paused for pure dramatics. “He can bring back