Kristina Douglas - The Fallen 1 - Raziel (12 page)

Sammael bowed in acquiescence, and we started back toward the house.

“I’m worried about him,” she said in a low voice.

“Raziel? Or Sammael?”

She laughed. “Raziel. Sammael has always been like that. The Fal en are eternal—they tend not to change.”

“Great,” I said. Last night Raziel had treated me like an unwelcome interloper, when it was hardly my fault I was here. I didn’t fancy spending eternity feeling out of place. But apparently it wasn’t the women who were eternal, only the damned men.

I glanced at Sarah as we climbed. She looked human, normal, friendly. There were no marks whatsoever on her wrist, the wrist that had been dripping blood into Raziel’s mouth.

Funny. Popular culture always seemed to suggest that vampires

—excuse me, blood-eaters—were sexual, that the drinking of blood was an erotic act. In retrospect, last night’s scene had seemed more like a mama bird feeding her baby. Though I doubted Raziel would enjoy being seen as a fuzzy hatchling.

“Are you certain going up to the caves is a good idea?” I said uneasily. “I don’t think Raziel wil be particularly happy to see me.”

“Raziel gets his way far too much of the time,” she said in her tranquil voice. “Jarameel is usual y the one who has visions, but he’s been gone for a long time, and my own are far too muddy and unclear. But I know you’re here for a reason, and that reason has to do with Raziel.”

There wasn’t much I could say in response to that. “Okay.” I let the word sit for a moment. “So what’s he doing up in the caves?”

“He’s doing what everyone is doing. He’s looking for the First,”

she said.

“The first what?”

“The First of the Fal en.” We rounded another landing, and I was surprised to realize we were almost at the top. It was far less torturous with Sarah by my side.

“You’re looking for Lucifer? Why? What happened to him?”

She looked startled. “I forgot you were a biblical scholar.”

Al right, I could be embarrassed. “Hardly. I write—I wrote Old Testament mysteries. I have a certain amount of basic knowledge, but for the rest I just Googled what I needed to know.”

“ ‘Googled’?”

I realized with sudden horror that I hadn’t seen a computer anywhere in this place. Maybe this
was
hel . “Looked it up,” I clarified.

“Ah, no wonder Uriel hated you,” she said. “He takes history very seriously. He takes everything very seriously.”

“I don’t understand about Uriel. What’s he got to say about things?”

“Everything. When God gave mankind free wil , he left Uriel in charge. And Uriel is . . .” For a moment words failed her, and the look in her eyes was bleak. “. . . quite unforgiving. His answer to everything that even hints of evil is to destroy it. And he sees evil in everything.”

We had stopped for the moment, and I considered the consequences of such an attitude. “That doesn’t sound too good for the future of mankind.”

“It’s not good for the future of life in any form.” She pushed open the door in front of us. “That’s why we search for Lucifer.”

The stark white apartment was just as clean and soul ess as it had been when I left it. I sank down on one of the pure white sofas. “So where is Lucifer?”

She sighed. “He’s in some kind of stasis, and has been for mil ennia, since God first passed judgment on him. He’s conscious, awake, but no one can get to him. Only my husband and Raziel have been able to hear him, and the mountain caves are the only place quiet enough for Raziel to listen. As for what we want with him—the Fal en want him to lead them as they overthrow Uriel.”

I blinked. Just my luck—I died, and instead of a peaceful afterlife, I got stuck in the middle of an angelic coup d’état. I pul ed my legs up under me, hugging my knees, and cast a glance at a plate of blueberry muffins that was sitting on the coffee table. Before I could reach for them, Sarah went on, “Ask Raziel about it. He’l probably think I told you too much already. You know how men can be.”

I was ready to make a smart-ass comment—so far Raziel had shown little inclination to tel me anything—but I stopped myself. “You cal ed him a man. Is he?”

“A man? Oh, most definitely. When the angels fal , they take human shape along with their curses.”

“Humans aren’t immortal. Humans aren’t cursed. They can’t fly and they don’t . . .” I hesitated. Once spoken, it would be too real.

“They don’t drink blood.”

Sarah’s quick laugh took the onus off it. “Don’t be picky. Cal them what you wil —they are many things, as you already know.” She moved over to the window. “They’re cursed, and the curse goes deep. If you understand that, it wil make things easier on you.”

I stared longingly at the blueberry muffins. If I had one, I’d be hard-pressed not to eat three, and that would use up half my calorie count for the day.

“Why don’t you have a muffin?” she asked, mystified. “You’ve been staring at them since we arrived.”

“I don’t dare. The food’s too damned good here—I’l end up looking like a blimp.”

Sarah laughed. “That’s one advantage to living here. You won’t need to worry about diet. The women may not be immortal, but we stil manage to live a lot longer than most humans do. It’s almost impossible to kil us. In a little while your cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar, and anything else wil be textbook perfect.”

“Except that I’m not mortal, I’m dead. Aren’t I?”

Sarah’s forehead wrinkled. “I don’t know if anyone’s quite sure what you are. You’re something of an original, and we have yet to discover your purpose. Even so, I think we al suffer a sea change when we come here. Those who come as wives and bonded mates become almost invulnerable. I don’t think there’s been a flu or a cold here in generations. We live very long lives—I was born at the beginning of the last century, I have the body of an extremely healthy sixty-something, and I expect to live at least another fifty years. It’s similar for the rest of us. The good news is we can give up glasses, contact lenses, al ergy meds, and diets.”

“How come you know about some things and not others, like contact lenses and Ben & Jerry’s, but you don’t know what Google is?” I asked, confused.

“It depends on what the newest wife brings to us. I don’t believe Carrie has mentioned Google but she was very fond of ice cream.”

“So am I.”

“Wel , you’l be pleased to know that you won’t have to worry about gaining weight. You’l stay exactly the same as you are now.”

“What?” I was horrified. “I’m stil fifteen pounds overweight. Are you tel ing me I’m going to be like this throughout eternity?”

Sarah laughed and patted my hand. “Don’t worry—it’s a healthy fifteen pounds. And Raziel might like it.”

I stared at her. “What does that have to do with anything? He didn’t even stay around long enough to say good morning. Besides, I don’t like him very much either.”

Sarah tilted her head, surveying me with eyes that saw far too much. Or read too much into an entirely innocent situation. “He didn’t say good morning?” she echoed. “Did he sleep with you last night?”

The idea seemed to astonish her, which wasn’t particularly flattering.

“Of course not!” I said, trying to sound horrified rather than . . .

God, I was feeling almost wistful. What was wrong with me?

“But he spent the night in the same apartment?”

I hesitated, then decided to dump. If anyone was going to help me figure things out, it would be Sarah. “In the same bed, I think. But he didn’t touch me. I fel asleep in here, woke up this morning in bed, alone”—I saw her mouth open to ask a question, and said firmly

—“and untouched. It looked as if someone else had slept there too, and he’s the logical choice since these are his rooms, but if he did he kept to his side of the bed. He didn’t even bite me.”

Sarah blinked for a moment, then laughed, her voice light and curiously beguiling. “He’d shag you before he’d bite you, Al ie. That’s the highest form of intimacy there is. It’s the last thing he’d want with you.”

Of course it was. Thank God, I told myself virtuously. “I’m thril ed to hear it. So he’s only intimate with you?”

There was the faintest trace of color on her creamy skin. “You mean because he took my blood? Didn’t the two of you talk at al ? I can’t believe you simply let him brood around and not answer any questions.”

“We talked. We just didn’t get around to the whole . . . blood thing.”

“Oh,” Sarah said after a moment. “Wel , I don’t suppose it matters

—it may not affect you one way or another. Unless it makes a great difference to you, there’s real y no reason for us to talk about it.”

It did. Everything about Raziel made a great deal of difference to me, but admitting that only made things worse. “No reason at al ,” I said brightly.

I looked past her toward the bank of windows overlooking the fog-shrouded Pacific Ocean. At least, I assumed it was the Pacific—for al I knew, we could be on Mars. The windows been left open, and a strong breeze tossed the sheer white curtains into the air, sending a little shiver of some unnamed emotion down my backbone. “Is everything white in this place?” I demanded, feeling cranky. Being dead would do that to a girl.

For a moment I thought I saw something just beyond the windows

—the breathless shimmer of iridescent blue wings, the sun sparkling off them. I narrowed my gaze, but there was nothing out there, just a few seagul s in the distance, wheeling and cawing. No
seagulls on
Mars,
I thought.

Sarah looked around as if noticing for the first time. “I suppose so.

Raziel tends to see things as either black or white—never shades of gray. He’d probably real y hate it if you painted anything.” She grinned, suddenly looking mischievous. “Just let me know if you want some help.”

The idea was irresistible, and I laughed. “Do you want to make his life a living hel ?”

“No, dear. That’s going to be your job.”

Another odd fluttering. I rose and crossed the living room to peer out into the bright sky, the rol ing mist on the ocean. There was nothing in the sky but the seagul s—I must be imagining things.

Or was I? I was stuck in the sterile aerie of a creature who could fly—why would I assume that mysterious dark wings were a figment of my imagination?

I turned my back on the windows. If Raziel was out there buzzing the building in an effort to spook me, I wasn’t going to let him.

Though the sight of him dive-bombing the place would have been pretty damned funny.

“Actual y, I wanted to talk to you before Sammael gets here. Apart from welcoming you to Sheol,” Sarah said, “I wanted to warn you about Raziel.”

Oh, great. As if things weren’t bad enough, now I needed to be warned about the only man I slightly, somewhat, minimal y trusted.

“He’s an ax murderer?” I suggested cheerful y.

Sarah’s responding smile was a token. “Don’t be fooled by his kindness. Raziel has shut himself off from al human feeling, from caring about anyone besides the Fal en and their wives. I wil speak for you at the meeting today, but if you’re relying on Raziel to protect you, you’re wasting your time.”

I was stil trying to reconcile the term
kindness
with the bad-tempered Raziel I’d been saddled with. Though more likely Raziel would consider
he’d
been saddled with
me
.

“Oh—there’s a meeting?” I said, feeling doomed. “I suppose they’re going to decide whether I live or die, and I’m not going to have any voice in the matter. Of course, I’m dead already, so I guess it doesn’t real y matter. I just don’t feel like I’m dead. And I real y don’t want to go back to that place.” I shivered. I couldn’t remember much, just heat and noise and the pain of thousands of souls reaching out. . . .

“I’l speak for you. I’l do anything I can to stop them. Right now they’re more worried about the Nephilim and whether Uriel wil use your presence as an excuse to move against us. I just don’t want you to count on Raziel. He’s sworn off caring about anyone, and I’m afraid he’s not going to make an exception for you.” She tilted her head sideways, assessing me. “At least, I don’t think so. But I’l fight for you. And sometimes they listen.”

And if that didn’t sound like a rock-solid guarantee, I figured it was the best I could expect. If I was going to get out of this mess, I’d have to figure it out on my own.

Sammael appeared at the door just as Sarah was leaving, and he didn’t look any happier to see me than he had before.

“Are you ready?” he asked politely.

I suddenly remembered al those flights of stairs, and groaned.

Once a day was enough. “I don’t suppose you have an elevator hidden anywhere around here?”

“No.” Sammael moved past me to push open a section of the windows that I had blithely assumed was solid wal . The wind was rising, swirling into the apartment, but in Raziel’s sterile environment there was nothing loose that could be blown away. “Come with me—

we’l take the shortcut.”

I looked from Sammael’s calm face to the wind and ocean just beyond those doors to nowhere. He was an angel, wasn’t he? Albeit Sarah had said he was one of the angels of death. He wasn’t going to toss me out the window, was he?

You can only die once,
I thought, not knowing whether it was true or not. Taking Sammael’s hand, I stepped out into a nothingness that was blindingly bright.

I
T SEEMED AS IF A MOMENT HAD passed, or an hour. I found myself standing on a cliff, much higher up than the house had been, and I’d never been crazy about heights. I could see out over the vast ocean, and the sun beginning to sink lower on the horizon. Pacific Ocean, then. The ground was wet beneath my feet, and there was no sign of my missing mentor. I glanced at Sammael. I couldn’t remember holding on to him, soaring through those misty skies. But clearly I hadn’t walked.