Kristina Douglas - The Fallen 1 - Raziel (6 page)

“You know that some of them no longer fol ow the old ways.”

Typical of humankind. They were always so hypocritical when it came to their faith, choosing what they cared to fol ow, ignoring anything that was inconvenient. It was little wonder the Supreme Being had washed his hands of them, leaving a heartless bastard like Uriel in his place. “If they are going to be devout enough to bury her immediately, they should at least keep her body intact,” I said, trying not to growl. “We could have worked with that.”

“Where is she going to go?” Azazel persisted. “You have no use for a human female. Unless you’ve changed your mind?”

I knew that was coming. “I haven’t. I won’t bond again, and I have no current need for sex. And if I were stupid enough to change my mind, it wouldn’t be with someone like her.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

I closed my eyes for a moment. I could see her, smart, questioning, undeniably luscious. “She’s just wrong,” I said stubbornly.

Azazel was watching me too closely, and I shifted so he couldn’t see my face. “Then why did you save her?” he said in what for him was a reasonable voice. “Why did you tel us to bring her?”

“How should I know? A moment of insanity. It’s not as if I remember anything that was going on—I was almost dead. Are you sure I did? I could barely speak.”

“Yes. I heard you.”

Damn. Azazel never lied. Even if I couldn’t say the words out loud, Azazel would hear me and fol ow my wishes. If I’d told them to keep her, I must have had some reason, but damned if I could think of what it was. “Just one more thing to deal with, then. And I have no idea what the hel is going on, only that Uriel has been lying to us.”

“And that surprises you? His power is infinite. As long as free wil exists, Uriel is in charge, to heal or hurt anyone as he sees fit. Just because he told us the good ones are moving on is no guarantee that we aren’t taking them straight to hel . Children, babies, young lovers, grandmothers . . . It was foolish of us not to realize he would do this. Uriel is a cruel and mighty judge.”

“Uriel is a pain in my ass.”

“You’d best watch out,” Azazel warned. “You never know when he might be listening.”

I rose, stretching my iridescent blue wings against the twilight sky, glittering against the purple and pink hues that saturated our misty world. “You’re a pain in the ass, Uriel,” I said again, raising my voice so there could be no confusion as to who was tossing out the insults.

“You’re a spiteful, vindictive, lying pain in the ass, and if the Supreme Being knew what you were doing, how you were interpreting the laws, you would be in deep shit.” I loved cursing.

That was one thing I actual y liked about humans—their language.

The rich expressiveness of the words, sacred and profane, that everyone outside of Sheol seemed to use. The way the forbidden words danced on my tongue. Not to mention the fury I knew I was causing Uriel.

Azazel was unamused. “Why are you asking for trouble? We already have enough as it is. What are you going to do with her?”

He was right. Our lives were precarious enough, balanced between Uriel’s powerful hatred and the unspeakable dangers of the Nephilim, and now I had brought our entire family closer to devastation because of one stupid, quixotic gesture. I sank back down on the old leather sofa, momentarily distracted by the feel of it beneath me. Its coolness soothed my damaged body.

“Asking me over and over won’t get you an answer any sooner—it wil just annoy me,” I grumbled. “I expect I’l find someplace to send her. Somewhere far away, and Uriel wil have more important reasons to come after us.”

“And you’re sure you have no interest in mating with her?” Azazel said careful y.

“I don’t even want to fuck her.” I watched Azazel wince. Not that he had any problem with the word—he just knew I was courting trouble.

Uriel hated words as much as he hated so many other things of the human world, including sex and blood, and I did my level best to annoy him whenever I could. After al , our sentence was eternity, and the one remaining archangel couldn’t kil .

“She wil have to stay here for now,” Azazel said final y. “Sarah wil know what to do with her. She’s the wisest of us al .”

“Of course she is. She’s the Source.” I didn’t bother keeping the sarcasm out of my voice. There were times when Azazel treated us al like idiots.

“I wil remind you that I am your leader. I can take everything away from you, every gift, every power,” Azazel said, his voice like ice.

I ignored his empty threat. We’d been raised up together, lived together, fal en together, been cursed together. There was no way he was going to cow me. “Leaving you short one soldier if the Nephilim decide to engage, or if Uriel sends the Host down on us as he always threatens. But feel free to try it. You could banish me as wel . . . .”

Azazel made a noise very much like a growl. “You know I would never do that.”

“I’m touched.”

“The Nephilim are too dangerous. They outnumber us, and they’re al mad.”

I laughed. No sentiment for Azazel. I was just another soldier.

“Why the hel can’t they be like the others? Unable to harm us. Uriel’s heavenly forces cannot attack us. The Nephilim were once like them

—”

“They were before they fel ,” Azazel interrupted me. “When wil you learn to stop fighting against the forces that cannot be beaten?

There are times when you are your own worst enemy. You have no one to blame but yourself for this current mess. Get rid of the girl, and we’l concentrate on what matters.”

I laughed bitterly. “I blame Uriel. He led me to believe I was taking her to heaven. How many people have I tossed into the mouth of hel for him, thinking they were returning to paradise? Paradise!” I was fil ed with disgust, both for Uriel and for my own unwitting complicity.

“So this is about the woman?” Azazel said.

I shrugged off the ridiculous idea. “Of course not. I don’t like being manipulated.”

“Then don’t think about it. There is nothing we can do except not let him trick us again. And you stil haven’t answered my question.

What are you going to do with her? We have no place to put her—

Sheol is not made for visitors.”

“She can go in my rooms until we decide. I sleep outside half the time anyway.”

Azazel looked at me for a long moment. “Are you certain she isn’t your mate?”

“How many times do I have to tel you? I wil not take a mate ever again.” I kept my voice neutral, but Azazel knew me too wel .

“You can stop as soon as I believe you. In the meantime, how are you feeling?”

That question was too stupid to answer, so I just looked at him.

“It has been months since you’ve fed,” he continued. “I’l tel Sarah.”

That was the last thing I wanted. “No! I’m in no mood for al that fuss. Do not say a word—

“I don’t need to,” Azazel said. “You know Sarah can feel your need even before you do.” He came closer. “You’re weak, and you know it. You’d be worthless if we were attacked. I’m wil ing to respect your ridiculous wishes as long as they don’t hurt the community. Having you this weak puts us al in jeopardy.”

I knew I wasn’t going to be able to talk him out of it. And he was right—after the last twenty-four hours, I was barely able to lift my head, much less fly. “Not the ful ceremony,” I grumbled.

“I wil tel her to make it very short. Then you need to sleep. Though if the woman is in your rooms—”

“I can find a place,” I said sharply.

Azazel looked at me with the wise eyes of an old friend. “Are you certain Uriel wasn’t right? What do you know of her and the crimes she may have committed? Perhaps you risked everything and saved her for no reason. It would make things much simpler if I finished the job you started.”

“Keep your hands off her!” I said, suddenly furious. I took a deep breath. “She saved me. We keep her here until we decide what to do with her.”

Azazel stared at me for a long, annoying moment, then nodded.

“As you have spoken,” he said formal y. “Come with me to Sarah before you col apse.”

I didn’t want to move, any more than I wanted to admit that Azazel was right. I wanted to close my eyes and disappear. If I’d had the energy, I would have risen and soared away from everything. But right then I could barely summon up enough energy to walk. I needed to feed, and until I did I was useless.

Once I fed and recovered, I would know what to do with the unwanted woman, would find a place to leave her. Until then I had no choice but to obey Azazel, no matter how much it gal ed me.

WHEN I AWOKE THE ROOM was dark, and I lay perfectly stil , clinging to the vain, eternal hope that this had al been a nightmare. I already knew I was shit out of luck, and I opened my eyes reluctantly, knowing this bizarro world was going to continue.

The women had been very kind. The man, Raziel, had carried me into this huge old house and then unceremoniously dumped me, disappearing before I realized what was going on. The women had gathered around me, making the kinds of soothing noises that always made me nervous, and they herded me up to some rooms where they fed me, bathed me, and cosseted me, deftly deflecting any of my questions, al under the capable direction of the woman named Sarah.

And an extraordinary woman she was. Over six feet tal , she was one of those ageless women who might be anywhere between forty and sixty, with the serene grace and lean, agile body that probably came from decades of yoga. The kind of woman who made me feel lumpy and inadequate. The practice of yoga always seemed to suggest a moral superiority rather than a physical conditioning, and I mental y promised myself that I’d drag out the yoga DVDs that were stil shrink-wrapped, sitting on my bookshelves.

No, I wouldn’t. I wasn’t going home. That was one thing I knew, amidst al the vast holes in my memory. There was no returning to my comfortable life in the Vil age. Just as wel —I couldn’t real y afford that apartment, but it had been so gorgeous that I’d gladly beggared myself for the chance to live there.

Wel , maybe if I was going to stay, I’d have Sarah teach me yoga.

If it made me look as good as she did at her age, it was clearly worth the effort.

Sarah had silver hair in one long, thick braid, wise blue eyes, and a rich, comforting voice, and when she’d eventual y dismissed the other women, some half dozen between the ages of twenty and forty, she’d sat by my bed until I slept. My questions would be answered soon enough, Sarah had said. For now I should rest.

Which I was quite happy to do. The night before had been endless, lying huddled against Raziel’s blazing body, trying to get comfortable with sticks and rocks and hard earth digging into my soft flesh. Maybe if I slept long enough, this nightmare would be over.

No such luck. When I awoke I was alone, and hungry again. I sat up, waiting for my eyes to grow accustomed to the darkness. I was wearing soft clothes, a loose-fitting white dress of some sort, and I remembered the embarrassing battle I’d had with the Step-ford wives when they wanted to bathe me. A battle I’d lost.

I touched my hair, finding it freshly washed but stil that disconcerting length. I hadn’t worn my hair that long since I’d attended that lousy high school outside of Hartford, after I’d been kicked out of my expensive boarding school. Not that that was my fault. It had been the one fundamentalist Christian boarding school in the entire liberal, anarchistic, blaspheming state of Connecticut.

Clearly I was going to break out as soon as I could.

Always in trouble, my mother had said in disgust, praying over me loudly. I always got the feeling that she never prayed for me in private—that her loud exhortations were for my benefit and mine alone. I was a miserable daughter, she told me, always spitting in the face of society, always talking too much and pushing against the status quo. Was that what had got me here? And where the hel was
here?

I swung my legs over the side of the bed, feeling dizzy for a moment. There were shoes on the floor, and I slipped my feet into them, then winced, kicking them off again as I rubbed my heel. I had a blister there, left from those miserable shoes—

That was flat-out impossible. A blister healed in a few days, but it took months to grow my hair this long. Months that I couldn’t remember. Maybe I hadn’t lost huge blocks of time after al . The idea was reassuring, but it held its own kind of freakiness. None of this was making any sense, and I needed it to, quite desperately.

Sarah would tel me the truth if I asked. Unlike the man, she wouldn’t just brush off my questions, ignore my doubts. The warmth and truth of Sarah was palpable, soothing. I needed to find her.

I didn’t bother searching for a light beside the high bed; I didn’t bother with the shoes. The door was ajar, a sliver of light beckoning, and I started toward it, feeling only slightly uneasy. I’d seen those movies, read those books. Hel , written those books, where the stupid heroine in her virginal white goes wandering where she shouldn’t, and the homicidal maniac appears out of nowhere, complete with a butcher knife or an ax or a fish spike.

I shivered. People got murdered in their beds, too. Staying put wasn’t going to get me anywhere.

The outer room was empty. Hours ago this had been fil ed with women. Now it was abandoned, thank God, leaving me to my own devices, to find my own answers.

I looked down at my flowing white dress. Yup, virgin sacrifice stuff, al right. At least I was a far cry from a virgin—if they wanted to cut out my heart as an offering to the gods, the gods were going to be mighty pissed. Though in truth, that part
was
virginal. I’d had sex, but my heart had never been touched.