Demon (23 page)

He shook his head. “I’m not ready to go up to the house or go through the ritual.”

“No need,” she said. And held out her slender wrist.

He glanced up at Raziel in surprise, but Raziel simply nodded. “You need it,” he said.

It was against the laws of Sheol to partake of the Source without the full ritual, but now Raziel made the laws. And things were already changing, with Rachel, with him. He wanted to fight the clawing need, to reject this woman, but he couldn’t. His need was too strong. He took her wrist in both hands, hesitating a moment. And then bit, delicately, as his fangs extended, and the blood was thick and sweet and healing.

He stopped before he was sated, careful not to push things, and released her arm with the traditional words of thanks.

“Are you certain you’ve had enough?” she asked, as both healer and Source. He nodded, feeling the strength course through him, filling him with steely power. “Then I’ll go check on my patient.”

As she moved back to the house, he realized that at some point she’d attained the perfect grace that went with being the Source. He could see it and admire it now.

Raziel took her abandoned seat. “I take it you don’t hate her anymore. That’s a good thing, brother.” He followed Azazel’s gaze out to the
sea. “And you’re at full strength now, I presume. I have a question for you. Allie has decreed that Rachel will stay here. Does that mean you will leave?”

He thought about it. She would hate him, and the sight of her would bring a deep, inexplicable pain. A pain he wasn’t going to run from. He’d run from pain for long enough. “No. I will stay.”

Raziel nodded. “Good. I suspect we’re going to need you. I take it the Truth Breakers were unable to unearth her memories of Lucifer?”

“According to Uriel, they succeeded, for all the good it does us. We were fools to think he would actually pass the information along. And that would have been the first part of her brain they scrubbed clean.”

“Naturally. It doesn’t matter. She stays.”

Azazel nodded, rising. “I’ll be in soon.”

The sky was inky dark, the moon barely a sliver. He soared upward, past the clouds and mist that always enshrouded Sheol, into the clear, cool night. The stars were pinpricks of light, and he banked and turned, feeling the wind rush past him like fingers through his hair, kissing his face, and he thought of Rachel far below. He had to let go of her, release her as he had released Sarah.

He pushed upward, higher and higher, and the air grew colder. He could see his favorite perch
down below, on the edge of the cliff, but he’d sat and brooded long enough. He was pulsing with the energy Allie’s blood had given him, and he wanted to glide and soar through the sweet-smelling night air, dancing on the wind.

He moved farther out over the ocean, where the waves rolled on top of the water in little ruffles of foam, and he turned, spun, and plunged downward, hitting the icy water in a smooth, clean dive that barely disturbed the surface.

He went deep into the bracing salt sea, and he felt its healing power rush through him, making him whole once more. He breathed in the water, letting it fill his body, his lungs, then moved upward to breathe in air again. He dove once more, and the dolphins were there, the ones he knew. They welcomed him as one of their own as they swam through the currents, turning over in the pleasure of the water, swimming with their friend with the odd fins.

He lost track of the time he spent in the water. The sun was coming up by the time he tired of it, and he pushed upward again, high enough into the air that the heat dried his clothes so that they were stiff and salt-encrusted, and when he landed lightly on the beach, Michael was waiting for him. Michael, the fighter, who never would have let the Truth Breakers take Rachel.

“Welcome back,” he said. “Raziel says you’re here to stay this time.”

“I am.”

Michael nodded. “We’ll need you. The few Nephilim that are left are gathering. Turns out the dumb bastards finally realized they could fly.”

“Wonderful,” Azazel said grimly. For a moment he remembered chaining Rachel in that deserted house in the Australian bush, and he felt sick. In the end, he’d saved her, he reminded himself. He’d saved her twice.

Because he’d tried to kill her twice. He’d been so terrified of a prophecy that he’d been ready to sacrifice her without finding out who and what she really was.

“You’ll be ready to fight?” Michael asked.

He thought of Rachel, lying in the hospital bed, so close to death. He thought of the guilt that smothered him. Exactly what Uriel would want. He needed a distraction, and he needed it now. “I am ready to fight,” he said.

T
HE DAYS PASSED.
E
ACH DAY HE
asked Allie if Rachel was ready to see him, and each day she said wait, until he thought he’d go mad with it. Once he faced Rachel, he could let go. The prophecy was clearly false, broken. He had been able to turn her over to the Truth Breakers with no hesitation, even if he hadn’t been able to keep from coming back for her. He hadn’t meant to do that. He’d had the vain hope that they would be merciful, but one look and something had cracked.

He’d feel that way toward anyone. Torture was an abomination, and it was little wonder he felt guilty for handing her over. And he had no excuse for shoving her up against a wall and having sex with her before they took her. He hadn’t been able to stop himself, and he’d told himself
that if he could come inside her and then give her to the Truth Breakers, then the prophecy must be a lie.

And so he had. He’d proven what he needed to prove, and whatever knowledge she had wedged in her brain about where Lucifer lay trapped had been extracted and stolen. Uriel had it now, though presumably he’d already known it in the first place. When the Supreme Being had passed the reins to the last archangel, he’d ordered him to watch over the universe he’d created. There was no telling what the details were.

Uriel had seized his new role with a vengeance, wielding ancient power to smite evil wherever he could, sending plagues and floods and fires and devastation wherever he saw fit. Some humans saw it as God’s curse; more enlightened ones declared such tragedies the law of nature, to be endured with God’s help. They had no idea that God’s minion had visited disaster upon them.

Just as he’d fed on Azazel’s own fear that he was doomed to spend eternity as the mate of a horrific demon. And Azazel had been fool enough to let him.

He was tired of waiting. He was doing his best to get along with Allie, but she was still a strongminded
female who was slowly turning the laws of Sheol upside down, while Raziel watched carefully, seldom restraining her. She ruled the infirmary; she ruled the house and the women. She was the Source for the unmated Fallen, she was omega to Raziel’s alpha. But he was getting tired of her shit.

He was perched on the outcropping, high over the ocean and the vast building that housed the Fallen. The moon was shining down, mirrored by the dark sea, and he suddenly surged upward into the dark sky, then settled lightly on the damp sand. The time had come.

He didn’t recognize the young girl sitting at the desk in the anteroom of the infirmary. Clearly she’d been left on duty, and he put the Grace of sleep on her lightly, so that she’d wake in a few hours. He didn’t want to put Rachel at risk by knocking her caretaker out so thoroughly, but if she needed help Allie would know and leave her bed. Rachel would be in no danger.

He pushed open the door silently and slipped inside. She was asleep, as she had been those first days after he’d brought her and he wouldn’t leave her bedside. He could recognize her now. Her battered face was no longer swollen, the bruising faded to an ugly yellow. She was healing, slowly but surely.

She no longer had tubes connected to her body, though she looked very small and frail in the big white bed. It wasn’t right. He thought of her as strong, powerful, not a vulnerable human.

She still had bandages around her arms and legs, and her torso looked swollen under the sheet, either from bandages or her injuries. He didn’t want to wake her.

He sank down in the chair Allie had banished him from and watched her, contemplating her injuries. Allie’s gifts as a healer were extraordinary; such was always the case with the Source, and Rachel would be well very quickly, much faster than with normal human medicine. Raziel and Allie had decreed that she would stay. They hadn’t taken her into account.

If he’d learned one thing, it was that Rachel had a mind of her own. The problem was, she wouldn’t be safe anywhere else. Uriel hadn’t finished with her, and only the walls of Sheol could keep him out. At least for now. Uriel had spent millennia trying to figure out how to breach them, and he’d only succeeded with the Nephilim a few years ago. Sooner or later he was going to come up with an answer, though, and there would be little they could do.

She stirred in her sleep, murmuring something, and he jerked his head up, holding his breath. She
slipped back into sleep again, and he relaxed, glancing toward the monitors that kept track of her pulse and her blood pressure—only to see that they were spiking.

His eyes swiveled back to her, and she was looking at him with such complete terror that it shocked him.

“Do not scream,” he said, his voice soft so as not to alert anyone.

She was shaking, and he wanted to put his arms around her and pull her against him, soothing her. Except he was the one who was frightening her. “I can’t.” It was barely more than a breath of sound in a raw, damaged voice, and he remembered that Uriel had said her voice had broken.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, starting to rise, but she shrank back, and he quickly sat down again so as not to spook her. “I wanted to see how you are.”

There was no missing the flash of contemptuous disbelief in her face. “Why should you care?” she whispered.

That was one question he couldn’t answer. “Allie is a very gifted healer.” By now he’d gotten used to praising Allie, though it still stuck in his craw just a tiny bit. “She brought you back from the brink of death.”

“No thanks to you,” she whispered. He’d forgotten she didn’t remember he’d saved her. It was hardly enough penance for allowing them to put her through such hell in the first place.

“No thanks to me,” he agreed. “But I promise you, you have nothing to fear from me. Not ever again.”

“And you lie so well.” Her voice was getting weaker, and he knew he was putting a strain on it.

“I never lied to you. I am incapable of lying.” It was the truth. He’d explained nothing, but he hadn’t lied.

“Get out of here.” The words were barely audible, but there was no missing the hatred in them.

It was no more than he’d expected. Not the fear—that had been a surprise. But the hatred and anger were normal. He’d betrayed her in every way a man can betray a woman, sent her off with torturers with his seed inside her. In truth, he was the monster.

No, he wasn’t going to tell her he’d changed his mind and gone after her. Too little, too late.

He rose, and stretched out one hand to touch her, wanting the feel of her to be absolutely certain, but she shrank away in such terror and revulsion that he pulled back, knocking against the chair as he went.

“Don’t come back,” she whispered.

He closed the door silently behind him.

I
STILL COULDN
’
T CRY.
G
OD,
if ever there was a time when I needed to weep, this was it. He was the monster, not me. How could anyone make love with someone and then hand her to her executioner? Not that it was making love. In fact, it was sex, hot and rough and primal, and I’d wanted it just as much as he had. I couldn’t remember much—maybe I’d even instigated it. I knew I’d been waiting, longing for him to touch me again, kiss me again.

But I couldn’t remember where we’d been. There was water, and a door behind my back. It was night, but it seemed as if it was always night in the Dark City. Wasn’t that what they’d called it?

Beloch had been nowhere to be seen. My memory was full of holes—he’d been kind, hadn’t he? Almost fatherly, in his book-lined study with the comfortable smell of pipe tobacco. He couldn’t have known that they were—

I couldn’t think about that. About the things they’d done to me. I’d discovered I could refuse to allow certain things into my memory. There were too many lifetimes, too many horrors to withstand, but I could choose to banish those I couldn’t bear.
I needed to banish the Truth Breakers, and the knives, and the cooing sound they made.

Gone. It was that easy. Just as I’d banished the hundreds upon hundreds of years of lying down with monsters. It wasn’t this body, and it was over. Gone as well.

I could get rid of Azazel just as easily. Wipe out the memory of his strong hands touching me, his mouth against mine, the way he lifted me on top of him and pushed inside me.

I could get rid of that memory in the pouring rain, when I’d wrapped my legs around him and fought to get more of him. The memory of the climax that had shattered me, thrummed through my body in waves as he’d slowly released me.

And the Nightmen had come.

It would be the wise thing to do. I could remember other sex, unsatisfactory sex with humans, and maybe that was part of my curse. Though wasn’t Lilith supposed to arouse men? And I had, but not for myself. I’d aroused them for their wives, for the babies that hadn’t yet come. While I had been raped by monsters.

Gone. That was gone. And yet, in the Dark City I had only followed my natural course. I had had sex with a monster, although this one was beautiful, and he had been smooth and strong and hard.
I’d learned pleasure at his hands—maybe that was worth remembering.

Allie and Raziel would protect me from him. I hadn’t asked who’d saved me—someone must have known there was trouble. I had no illusions about it: Azazel was important here. They had more than likely been watching him, and had come to save Azazel as much as to save the Lilith.