“Don’t count on it, buster,” I said in an undertone, and Gabriel’s mouth quirked into a half smile. “And don’t think I appreciate your fighting over me like a couple of dogs with a package of bacon.”
“Madeline, I think much, much more of you than bacon,” Gabriel said.
I laughed at his solemn face and then sobered. “What did you do to your hand?”
“Shattered a wineglass,” Gabriel said shortly.
I raised an eyebrow at him.
“Do you really think it enjoyable for me to watch that dog touch you?”
“About as enjoyable as it is for me to be touched by him, I imagine.”
The laughter sang out again, and I shuddered.
“There!” I said. “Who is that?”
Gabriel could see more of the crowd than I could with his advantage of height. “It is the Lady Ariell.”
“Ariell? Who is she?”
“She is not one of the Grigori. She is of a group of angels that came later, to join Lucifer’s kingdom. But why would you know the sound of her laughter, unless ...” Gabriel looked at me, and the word was unspoken between us.
Evangeline.
As if the very thought of her name was a summoning, I immediately felt dizzy. Black spots danced in front of my eyes. I felt myself slipping downward into darkness, and I fought it. I would not faint in front of all these angels. I could not show such weakness. I gripped Gabriel’s arm.
“Get me away from here,” I whispered. “I think . . . I think I’m going to have another vision.”
He immediately swept me toward a door that I hadn’t noticed before, only a few feet away in the corner of the room. The door led to another, smaller chamber. I hoped that our disappearance would go unnoticed.
This room appeared a great deal more comfortable than any of the others I had seen in Azazel’s palace. There were two large leather sofas and a thick woolen rug underfoot that muffled our footsteps, and the walls were painted a comforting pale blue. There was a stone fireplace with a fire crackling merrily away. In the corner was a cherry bookcase filled with paperbacks, and a rocking chair next to a reading lamp.
“This is Lord Azazel’s private receiving room,” Gabriel said as he led me to one of the sofas. His voice sounded very far away. “Only a very few are permitted to come here. You will be safe.”
Something about the room made me like Azazel a little better. It made him seem more human, more like me.
That was my last thought before Evangeline took me again.
Evangeline felt the first child slide from her belly. She heard it cry out for her but the next one was already coming, hurrying behind the first. She gave a tooth-scraping, belly-folding push, and the second child came forth.
They wailed in time together and Evangeline reached for them, drawing them to her, two perfect little boys with black wings. The Morningstar’s sons.
She cleaned them gently, even as the afterbirth pulsed from her body, and used the Morningstar’s power to sever the cords that bound them to her body. Then she gave them her milk, shading them from the burning sun in the shelter of the smoking ruin that had been her prison.
After a time, the children slept, and Evangeline felt her weariness overcome her. She did not know why Lucifer had not come for her already. She knew that if he was able, he would have been at her side. He should have felt the life force of the children as they were born. He should have been there to bless them with his grace, to mark them as his for all time.
So their enemies must have him, as they had imprisoned Evangeline. And she knew the Morningstar would not want his sons endangered, so she must stay far from him. But she also knew that the one who had escaped her wrath, the green-eyed one, would return for her and the little boys who slept so sweetly now in her arms. She was very weak from the escape, and the birthing, and she did not know if she could call forth the Morningstar’s power again.
Her grief and fear threatened to overwhelm her. She was just a lost and helpless girl, a girl who had wandered out in the night and seen a being so terrible and beautiful that she could not help but be ensnared by love for him.
Now her love was gone and she was alone with his sons, two boys who would need guidance and care from one who would understand their power. Evangeline could not give them this. Her powers were a borrowed gift; she did not understand their source nor how to teach her children.
She cried, and her tears fell on the faces of her sleeping boys, and they shifted and fussed in their sleep. She held them tight to her chest and sobbed out her grief and fear, and she whispered, “Help me.”
Her eyes were closed and her sons were warm against her chest but it seemed that suddenly the sun had grown brighter, and her eyelids burned in the light. She opened her eyes and then turned her face away, for before her was a being of such purity that it shone with a light far brighter than the sun.
He was as lovely as her Morningstar, but his wings were whiter than the snow on the capped peaks of the mountains. His eyes were as blue as the jewels that studded the walls of the Morningstar’s palace. And his hair was fairer than the yellow sand that sifted beneath her feet.
“Who are you?” she asked, and she trembled in her heart, for she was a little afraid of the answer.
He did not speak aloud, but into her mind. He told her that he was called Michael, and that long ago, he and Lucifer had been almost as one, as close as the two boys that she snuggled in her arms. Then Lucifer and his Grigori fell, and Michael grieved at their separation. So he kept watch, always. He was not permitted by law to aid Lucifer, but he could help Evangeline and her children.
“How?” she asked.
Lucifer’s enemies will always hunt you,
he said. He told her that he could disguise the children from those who desired the death of the Morningstar, that he could infuse them with his grace so that no one would recognize them as coming from Lucifer’s line. He could raise them as his own, and teach them the ways of their powers. They would be safe, and grow in goodness and light, but they would never be able to return to Lucifer again.
Evangeline bowed her head and held her children tightly, and felt a piece of her heart fall away.
You must choose,
Michael said, and his eyes were gentle and knowing.
Evangeline stood, and looked to the east, where the first star of the morning would rise.
“Good-bye, my love,” she said. She must protect his sons. That was her duty now.
Michael reached for her, and she placed her frozen hand in his burning one. A tear slipped from her cheek and melted in the sand.
As Michael bore them away from her life and her love, Evangeline saw something golden moving on the mountaintop, and she knew that a pair of blazing green eyes followed her with hate.
16
I OPENED MY EYES, AND FOUND THAT GABRIEL HAD covered me with one of the blankets, a very warm, red fleece one. Azazel stood with his back to me, looking into the fireplace. So much for my sneaking away from the court unnoticed.
Gabriel sat on a hassock beside me, as I expected he would be, his brows knit together in a frown. He relaxed visibly when I looked at him.
“You are well?” he asked. He made no move to touch me, and I felt bereft. But I understood why he didn’t.
“I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I am getting really sick of passing out. I’m starting to feel like Giles on
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
,” I said, and sat up. “And I’m getting a very bad suspicion about why I’m having these visions of Evangeline.”
Azazel turned at that, and his eyes were unreadable. Was he relieved that I was safe and healthy? Was he plotting the next move with his very valuable pawn—me? And why hadn’t he told Lucifer about my visions of Evangeline yet?
“I am glad that you are well, Daughter,” he said.
The question was on my lips, so I asked him. “Why haven’t you told Lucifer of my visions of Evangeline?”
Azazel paused, and I could see him weighing and discarding information in an instant. Apparently I was on a need-to-know basis. There seemed to be a lot of that going around.
“The Lost Mother is a very sensitive issue for Lord Lucifer. It is imperative that we not bring him this information until we are certain what it means.”
“I’ve got an idea what it means,” I said grimly. “I think Lucifer is my great-great-great-how-ever-many-freakingreats-it-is-granddad.”
I could see that I had shocked both of them. Azazel shook his head decisively, and I could read his face easily—
No, it is impossible.
Gabriel said it. “That is impossible.”
“Why? Nobody knows what happened to Evangeline, right? And I’ve had a vision of her giving birth to Lucifer’s children, and those children were hidden by another angel.”
“Another angel?” Azazel asked. “Who?”
“Michael.”
“Michael. Of course. They were as brothers, once upon a time,” Azazel said, and there was wonder in his voice. “But Lord Lucifer would know if you were of his bloodline. You would be marked by his power, and he would be able to trace you and every other member of his line by this mark.”
“That’s the thing. I think I am marked by his power,” I said, and threw off the blanket so that I could pace restlessly around the room. I was less than thrilled by the idea that I might be related to Lucifer. I had more than my share of problems already. “In my vision, Evangeline destroyed her captors and the place where they held her with a starburst.”
Gabriel’s mouth fell open at that. It was comical to see him lose his ever-steady composure. “The same power that you used on Ramuell?”
I nodded.
Azazel moved toward me, and I could see he was thinking fast. Meteors streamed in rapid succession across the blackness of space in his eyes. He gripped my shoulders and held my gaze with his own burning one.
“Daughter, it is imperative,
imperative
, that you share this information with no one. If there is even a hint, a whisper, that you might be the descendant of Lucifer, then his enemies would fall upon you like the plagues of Egypt.”
“You mean the way
your
enemies have already descended on me?” I said, and knew that my eyes reflected his own. I was already sick to death of Azazel’s world.
Azazel’s eyes hardened. “Antares will be punished for harming you. He has broken the law of my court and he is an outcast.”
“But, my lord,” Gabriel said. “How could it be that she carries Lucifer’s power and yet is still unknown to him? This would mean that Katherine Black also came of his bloodline, and all her ancestry.”
This thought had clearly not occurred to Azazel yet, and it visibly disturbed him. I don’t know if it was the idea that my mother might have deliberately kept information from him, or simply that he had been the lover of Lucifer’s descendant. Either way, he didn’t look happy about it. I was going to tell about the infused-with-Michael’s-grace thing, but I suddenly recalled that I had other tasks to do that day.
“Wait a second,” I said. “What time is it?”
Gabriel glanced at the face of his cell phone. “Nine forty-two.”
“Holy crap! We have to go. I have an appointment with J.B. in an hour. And I’m supposed to get some souls today, but I can’t remember what time I was supposed to do it,” I said, rushing to Gabriel’s side. “Make that portal thing happen.”
“Wait a moment, Daughter.” Azazel’s eyes were narrowed. “I have not given you leave to depart.”
The hierarchy and formality of this court already made me insane, and I had been there for only a few hours. I didn’t have time to massage Azazel’s ego. I had things to do.
“I apologize, Father,” I said stiffly, resisting the nearly overwhelming urge to roll my eyes. “I have my responsibilities to attend.”
His face softened. “How like your mother you are. She, too, was always leaving me to tend to human souls. I wonder how Nathaniel will take it.”
He chuckled at this thought and I was very careful not to look at Gabriel.
“Do I have your permission to leave?” I asked, impatient to be off.
“Of course, my daughter. And I will see you fourteen days hence in this court. Although I am sure that you will be seeing Nathaniel much sooner.”
Azazel came to stand in front of me and he kissed both of my cheeks. “Go with the grace of the Morningstar.”
“See you in a couple of weeks,” I said awkwardly. “Can we make the portal here?”
“I think it is better, yes, that you do not return through the court. But first, I need to have a word with Gabriel.”
He drew Gabriel toward the corner of the room near the rocking chair and he whispered some instructions in such a low tone that I could barely tell he was speaking. Gabriel nodded and then came back to stand at my side.