Authors: L. A. Banks
“Thank you,” he muttered. “I’m just sayin’.”
Sarcastic applause came from the rear of the plane, which was probably the only reason Aziza didn’t die of mortification. But Bath Kol’s outburst broke the bottleneck and freedom was in sight.
Almost running out of the aircraft, customs forms in hand, they barely acknowledged the crew’s standard debark farewell. The second they crossed the threshold, they left the shelter of perfect temperature modulation to a hundred-degree blast of Egyptian reality in the Jetway. Immediately Celeste caught Azrael under his elbow as he staggered, walking zigzag almost as if he were drunk. Inside the cooled building, he improved slightly and endured the paperwork processing like a root canal without Novocain. Within the hour, their small troupe had made it to the front of the airport, freedom within their grasp.
Leaning against a building column, Isda greeted them with a wide smile.
“You feel the power hit here, mon?”
Bath Kol pounded his fist followed by the others.
Isda glanced around. “How you ladies doing?”
“I just need to get out of here and breathe real air,” Celeste said, feeling her stomach begin to get queasy again.
“No worries. Got a small minibus parked out front—got people who know some people watching it and giving me a few minutes parked illegally to break da law.” He
laughed at his own joke and slapped Azrael’s backpack. “Need me to carry that for you, mon? You know, I have to eat my words and give BK his due. As much as I hated coming back here, I still have a
lot
of good memories of this place, and I’m just glad the main protests are over so we can maneuver a little bit, feel me? The loves of my life were here. Whew. I got your bags, mon, seriously.”
“No, I’m good,” Azrael said, his breathing labored they neared the door.
“You don’t look good, mon. Look like the vortex is kicking your natural ass.”
“I said I was all right!” Azrael said way louder than was necessary.
“Hey, I’m in the Light, bro. Remember?” Isda said, chuckling, and seeming to delight in his brother’s distress. “I tol’ you this wasn’t no place for no punk, right? Told you the energy was old and hard and was a wicked old bitch that didn’t care.”
“Shut up, man. Where’s the van?” Azrael rumbled.
“Right over there,” Isda said with a wide grin, unfazed.
Bath Kol gave Isda a hard look. “Brother, you’re manic. This is the memory high before you crash and burn, and you’re getting on everybody’s last nerve. You’re gonna go up real fast and come down real hard, because your DNA is linked to this region—so
chill
.”
“Whatever,” Isda flipped back, rolling his eyes as he walked ahead of them. “Kiss my ass. I’m happy. Get over it if you’re not.”
A trickle of perspiration rolled down Celeste’s back and between her breasts as a blast of unseasonal Egyptian heat, sweltering for that time of year, suddenly accosted
her the moment the airport doors opened. Isda pointed at a white Toyota minivan that looked as if it could seat twenty passengers, but was dubious in the air-conditioning department. However, the reliability of the rickety vehicle was a much lower priority than the increased tension she noticed among the brothers.
As they walked across the pavement and their footfalls connected with actual concrete, each of them slowed his gait, their lids closing in what seemed like slow motion as a thick, blue-white spill of energy bubbled up to cover their feet and climb up their bodies. The sight stole her breath and stopped her in her tracks.
Isda glanced over his shoulder at her. “They’ll be all right. Gwan fuck ’em up for a few hours, tho.”
She hurried forward with the other mortals in the group at Isda’s insistence and climbed into the van as he chided his overwhelmed brethren.
“You comin’ or what, mon? Standing on a street corner in Cairo ain’t no place for a lady, or ain’t you get the memo?”
His admonishment seemed to break the trance as a muezzin call went out over the city. The long, mournful wail enveloped the group, producing a serenity that had previously eluded them. Like large hunting dogs, the brothers closed their eyes and tilted their heads, quelled by the sound, and then they moved as a unit toward the van.
“All respect to the Mu’aqqibat—our protector brothers in the Light, angel forces of the Quran, while we inhabit this land … hear our prayer and keep our mortal charges from death until its decreed time by Allah,” Isda said as the brothers piled into the van.
“Amen,” Azrael said with a nod of approval.
“Ashé,” Aziza murmured as each man got settled.
“Well said, bro, we can use all the help we can get,” Gavreel said with a hard sigh as he flopped down next to Magdalena.
Paschar just slid into the seat next to his charge and took up Melissa’s hand and kissed it hard.
Barely after closing the door, Isda shifted the clutch and thrust the vehicle into the most insane traffic Celeste had ever seen. Aside from the demons, she could definitely understand why Isda had prayed for the safety of the mortals among them. In a city of 20 million people and unfathomable congestion that would make New York’s Manhattan traffic seem like the Autobahn, every driver in Cairo clearly believed that
he
had the right of way. Screw you if you were a pedestrian, too.
But as disorienting as everything was, the visual wonder lying before her could not be ignored. The collision of worlds in Cairo left her speechless. Here East met West, great opulence contrasted with staggering poverty. Gorgeous domes built in ancient times stood next to modern office buildings that gleamed with twentieth-century glass, while burned-out buildings and unfinished constructions provided sanctuary for stray dogs and pigeons. And beyond the most outrageous skyline of chaos loomed the pyramids—right downtown one could look up and see one of the Seven Wonders of the World.
Celeste fought not to press her nose to the window and finally lost the battle, wishing that she could just jump out of the van to stand on the curb and open her arms and spin around in the atmosphere of it all. Yet as they passed
the Eygptian Museum, something dark made her recoil from the window. She was distracted from the fleeting feeling by the way the brothers spread their palms against the glass, lighting it up with so much crackling energy that she feared it might shatter. That no one on the streets could see it still mystified her.
“Look,” Isda said over his shoulder. “Here’s the deal. We check in at Le Meridien Pyramids. The advance squad already has your room keys, money changed—you’ll find a stash in the safe. I’ll give each man the code to his box. I’ve duct-taped a nine under the inside drawer in your suite. In the back of this van is da heavy shit—RPGs, shells, semi-automatics. We got the holy-water bombs—the case in your room is for more than drinking, got it? All shells are hollow-point, hallowed-earth-packed. You’ve got forty-five minutes to knock the travel dirt off, change into something that can hide a weapon, and be back downstairs in the ground-floor restaurant. We’ll eat for the mortals’ sake, load up on water, then we head out to Giza. Some bull went down near there, I can feel it tweaking me nerves, mon, and I want our locator on it. Cool?”
The warriors in the van nodded as Celeste shared glances with Aziza, Melissa, and Maggie. It would be so not good to be caught in an Arab country, in Africa, with
what
, semiautomatics and terrorist-type ammo? She pushed it out of her mind as Isda pulled up to the luxury hotel and she stared at the pyramids that nearly cast a shadow over it.
“See you in forty-five,” Isda repeated.
“In forty-five,” Azrael said, pounding Isda’s fist on the way out.
They hadn’t walked six feet toward the door when one of the brothers from the house handed them their keys. Azrael looked back at the van that pulled off and repeated the number that Isda had zinged to him via telepathy.
“Forty forty-five.”
“I got it,” Celeste said, adjusting her purse on her shoulder and then pushing her way through the door.
Ice-cold air blasted her in the face, so frigid it almost gave her a headache. She glanced around at the opulent lobby, which was filled with European and Asian tourists who had obviously just emerged from the multiple tour buses parked outside. Even after the civil unrest, people clearly still wanted to see Egypt for themselves. The chaos was a blessing; it gave the troupe additional cover to just stroll through the pharaoh-themed lobby.
Black-lacquered throne chairs, glass tables that had gold pyramid bases, and lotus-flower-print rugs of crimson and gold gave the hotel almost a Vegas level of casino glitz. Gold-painted sphinx statues served as planters for giant palms, elephant grass, and ferns. Even the elevators were outfitted with green, marbled, carved hieroglyphics and scenes of queens and pharaohs gently touching fingertips.
By the time they arrived at their room down the long corridor, she was slack-jawed. Never in her life had she traveled beyond the Jersey shore, and to think she had to wait until the world was on the verge of Armageddon to see this made her shake her head.
After Azrael put the key in the door and went in first to do a security sweep, she timidly followed him in and just gaped. Their room faced the actual pyramids. Above
a king-size bed with white-on-white, Egyptian-cotton, high-thread-count sheets and a goose-down duvet was a gold papyrus of Nefertiti and King Akhenaton. Black vases filled with ferns stood on either side of the bed night-stands. The bathroom was outfitted with green marble and gold fixtures; a glass shower that had hieroglyphics carved into the wall and a bidet sat beside the weirdest toilet she ever saw. Its strange plunger system was hard to figure out—the purpose of a long metal apparatus by the side of it she couldn’t immediately fathom, and then instead of a handle to flush, a metal lever was in the middle of where the water bowl would normally be.
Now she understood Azrael’s confusion when he first came to earth. She just stared at the contraption as he flipped on the light, checked behind the shower curtain, then made the rounds deeper into the room.
A huge flat-screen TV was positioned on the dresser, and gold-and-black satin armchairs that looked like the thrones of Ramses bookended a glass breakfast table. But her attention remained on the window and the pyramids and the small balcony just beyond the table.
“Is this to your agreement?” Azrael asked, finally dropping her bag and his backpack on the floor by the massive armoire.
“I’ve never seen anything like this, in all honesty,” she said in a quiet rush. They were supposed to be battling demons … really? Why couldn’t this have been five years ago when all she’d need to bring was a bathing suit, sunscreen, and a good camera?
“Then you approve?”
“Very much so.”
He looked out at the pyramids and then back at her. “How are you feeling?”
“Better,” she said with a sigh of relief. “You?”
“Conflicted.” He looked out at the pyramids and then at her again.
She frowned. “I hope you feel better. Isda said it would pass … whatever this energy adjustment is.”
“I suspect he is correct.” Azrael picked up his backpack, dropped it twice, and set it on the dresser to begin searching for clean clothes and toiletries. After a moment, still seeming rattled, he headed toward the dresser. “The weapon. I almost—”
“Yo.” She quickly crossed the room, stepping between him and the drawer and blocking the dresser with her butt. “Why don’t you get a shower, drink some water, and chill out before you mess around and shoot yourself—or me.”
“Is it that bad … and obvious?”
She looked up at him with a smile. “Uh, yeah.”
“Then I guess there’s no need for pretense,” he said in a low rumble, and he bent and kissed her.
“We only have forty-five minutes,” she whispered into his mouth, lightly biting his bottom lip.
“Then we shouldn’t tarry,” he murmured, deepening the kiss.
Pure ambrosia, stronger than it had ever before tasted, covered her palate, making her gasp. Suddenly it felt as if the substance had entered her bloodstream to release every endorphin within her. Moaning into her mouth, he stripped his shirt over his head and then gasped as his wings tore though his back with such force that blood splattered the rug behind him.
Searing skin met hers as he yanked her light sweater over her head and stripped her pants down her legs, never allowing his mouth to break contact with some part of her body while she kicked out of her shoes. His jeans and sneakers literally disintegrated off him, but the fire he’d lit against her skin was what drew her gasp.
Hands beneath each lobe of her ass, he lifted her up, taking her mouth, his tongue dueling with hers as he carried her to the bed to deposit her on it like a silent offering. Feathers covered the floor as he knelt at the edge of the duvet, plumes lost from his wings’ violent ejection tumbling across the carpet from the forced air. As he bowed his head between her thighs, she saw just how badly he’d suffered during the flight.
A rivulet of blood ran down the center of his back, staining his gorgeous plumage crimson where it had emerged from his shoulders. To ease his agony, she found the sweet spot between his wings, her hand stroking it until he threw his head back and cried out, so overwhelmed that tears had risen to consecrate his thick, black lashes.
But this time as his mouth found her skin, it suckled the Light within her to the surface to leak from her pores in a blue-white wash of energy that covered them both until she feared she’d drown in pleasure.
He tended to her bud as if he were attending mass, slowly, reverently, and with purpose. Allowing her no escape, his tongue traced each petal and found favor in it, dipping into her until she confessed her pleasure upon escalating cries, his name embedded in the refrain.
Fisting his locks in both hands, she made him stop
and take her breasts and then her mouth, murmuring, “Please,” until he finally heard her prayer. She couldn’t take it, this new intensity of joining with him. Her heart was on the verge of seizure when she took his mouth, tears streaming, and demanded with a deft slide against his pelvis that he enter her.