I waited. Let them absorb the information.

When they didn’t say anything, I added, “After he created Reyes, Lucifer gave it to one of his worshippers here on Earth who, as you might imagine, used it for pure evil. A group of monks finally captured him, sent him into the hell dimension then, because god glass cannot be destroyed, traveled across the ocean, found a spot, and spent months digging a hole deep enough to bury it for what they’d hoped would be forever.”

“And Kuur dug it up?” Osh asked.

I nodded. “He found it and tried to use it to trap me. To get me off this plane so Lucifer could get to Beep. So he could kill the being destined to destroy him.”

“This is like a supernatural soap opera,” Garrett said, growing frustrated. “How the fuck does that shit happen? I thought gods were nice and benevolent and answered prayers and shit. But no. In this episode, the gods have all been possessed and are evil and plotting to destroy the world.”

“Gods don’t get possessed,” Osh said.

“Right. Sorry. So there are actually rules?”

Osh frowned. “The gods of Uzan, at least the ones I’ve met, are so far beyond anything Lucifer could have thought up, it’s unreal. And Lucifer used one of them to create the son.”

Then he did something I’d never seen him do before. He paled. The blood drained from his face as he sat there, stunned.

I studied the carpet. “This is bad, right? I mean, I don’t know. How much of Reyes is an evil god and how much is … Reyes?”

Osh’s hands curled into fists as he thought. “Wait,” he said. “Did you see it? The god glass?”

I pressed my lips together, then reached into my pocket and pulled it out. “I took it after I trapped Kuur inside.”

Osh’s jaw dropped. He didn’t move. “You … you trapped him?”

“Don’t act so surprised.”

“Sorry. So Kuur told you about Reyes? About how he was created?”

“No.” I went back to studying the carpet, resisting the urge to gaze lovingly at the god glass. It was like a drug. Mesmerizing. Pure. Beautiful. And yet inside lay a hell dimension. “No, Kuur didn’t tell me. My dad did.”

Garrett’s expression changed from frustration to concern.

“That’s how I got my memories back. My dad—he crossed through me to force me to remember who I was. What I was. And to pass on the information he’d gathered while he was doing recon in hell. He learned a great deal.” I looked at Osh. “You honestly didn’t know any of this? You didn’t know how Reyes was created?”

He shook his head. “But it explains a lot.”

“Like what?”

“Rey’aziel. He was so different. So much more powerful than anything else Lucifer had concocted. Even more powerful than himself, which didn’t make sense. No one could figure out why. The Dendour put him through hell, literally and figuratively.”

“The Dendour?”

“Like … teachers. Trainers. Only worse.”

“And they put him through hell? Why?”

“Who knows? Jealousy, maybe? But he overcame every obstacle they threw at him. They tried every way they could think of to kill him. They beat him. Starved him. Tore apart his—”

“Stop,” I said, covering my ears. After a moment, I asked, “And Lucifer just let them?”

“He wanted his son to be strong, so yes. But now I know, they couldn’t have killed him. No matter what they did, he wouldn’t have died, so they got progressively harder and harder on him until—”

“Until?” I asked, almost desperate to know.

“Until he stopped them,” he said matter-of-factly. “He’d had enough one day and killed every Dendour there. Snapped their necks like they were twigs. Then he went in search of others. Anyone who’d wronged him in any way. They call it Auya s’Di.”

“Day of the Blood,” I said. I sat back and tried to imagine it, but how does one imagine a child growing up in a hell dimension? It was beyond my comprehension.

“To get a better concept of what he did that day, imagine a ten-year-old attacking and killing an army of trained soldiers with his bare hands, then going to search for more.”

“Are you saying Reyes was ten?” I asked, alarmed.

“Not at all. He was much younger at that time. If you’re comparing him to human years.”

Had he just been destined to be abused? First in hell from legions of demons and then on Earth with Earl Walker? My heart ached for him, but I felt something else from Osh that I couldn’t quite identify.