Seducing the Succubus (14 page)

Lilith rose and then slowly closed the lid of the marble chest before picking up a red silk robe off her bed and slipping it on. She picked the box up off the bed, caressing her fingers over the smooth dark wood as she spoke. “They were all I had of you after you shut me out. I couldn’t bear to give them up.”

A heavy silence fell between them, and as each second ticked past, bile inched its way up her throat to sting the back of her tongue.

Finally Uriel slowly walked forward and laid his hand on her shoulder.

Lilith gasped at the sudden unexpected touch and raised her gaze to his, offering him the opportunity to look inside her soul if he chose. But when his eyes remained constantly moving liquid silver, Lilith clenched her fists, waiting for Uriel to speak.

“I can’t break my vows again, Lilith. Not even for you.” He took her hand in his, laid a gentle kiss on the palm, and then laid her hand on the box containing the letters he’d written so long ago. “This is all of me I can offer.”

Glistening moisture filled his silver eyes as he dematerialized.

“Uriel, wait! What’s inside the journal?” When the Archangel didn’t rematerialize Lilith cursed and gently replaced the wooden box inside the marble chest.

Uriel
materialized inside the makeshift field hospital tent. A few of the injured and dying turned their faces in his direction, but none seemed to be able to see him.

He could appear to humans when he chose, but most often they wouldn’t be aware of him at all, or he would strike them as something similar to déjà vu. Only those humans most sensitive to shifts in energy would be able to sense his presence directly.

He easily found Raphael kneeling over a dying soldier whose forehead showed a gaping head wound. The man’s soul hovered half in and half out of his body, the gauzy sheet of energy already eager to return to the other side and begin again. The human’s chest rose and fell in a choppy rhythm as he struggled to breathe, even with the help of the oxygen mask covering his face.

Raphael knelt next to the man’s cot, his eyes closed, concentration etched across his handsome face as he laid his large hand gently over the wounded man’s forehead. A golden glow erupted under Raphael’s fingertips and sweat broke out on the Archangel’s brow as he worked.

Uriel stood silently watching, but not interrupting. He’d always been fascinated by Raphael’s healing abilities. All Archangels could heal humans to some extent, but Raphael could bring them back from the dead if God’s plan required such an event.

By contrast, Uriel was known as the Fire of God, which basically meant he was God’s enforcer. Not to be confused with His right-hand general, which was Michael. That’s why Uriel had been the one sent to evict Adam, Eve, and Lilith from the Garden of Eden.

He sighed as a thousand memories assailed him—especially those involving Lilith. He’d often thought how much easier life would be if one of the others had been sent in his stead to the Garden. But then Lilith would be dead, as God had originally ordered.

A cold spear of pain pierced his heart at the thought of such a possibility.

Raphael’s eyes opened, his hazel gaze locking with Uriel’s for a long moment before the large Archangel leaned down, moved aside the oxygen mask, and set his lips against the soldier’s to literally breathe life back inside him.

The man’s chest expanded with the force of Raphael’s life-giving breath. The soul snapped back inside the body and his labored breathing eased as he sank into a deep, healing sleep.

“Live. You have much left to do in this world.” Raphael replaced the oxygen mask and ran a gentle hand over the soldier’s short hair like he comforted a small child.

Raphael stood and stretched, his vertebrae making a series of pops after the long time spent in one position.

Tension rose between them thick and oppressive. Raphael was most likely waiting for Uriel’s reaction from the session with Lilith.

Uriel had hoped to avoid the subject, but he should’ve known Raphael’s sense of empathy and honor wouldn’t let him ignore it as Uriel had hoped.

Uriel mentally squared his shoulders and waded in to confront the pink elephant in the room as circumspectly as possible. “I’ve always enjoyed watching you work. I suppose I’m a bit envious of your ability to restore life rather than just mete out punishments.” He smiled, a silent peace offering for Raphael.

Raphael’s lips curved, but the action was still short of a full-fledged smile. “And here I’ve always been jealous that I never get to kick ass like you or Michael.”

Uriel stepped forward and hugged Raphael in a quick bear hug before releasing him and stepping back. He kept his hand on the angel’s shoulder and met his hazel gaze. “Lilith asked for what would hurt me most, and I had no choice but to honor it. I bear no ill will toward you or Gabriel.” He forced his lips into a small smile, even though the pain of watching the two beings closest to him with the woman he loved still ate at him like acid. “God meant for us to enjoy the pleasures of sex, even though our options are limited. I would’ve done the same in your situation. Sex with only humans and those below our station in the supernatural realm can be very limiting since we can never truly be ourselves with them.”

Raphael studied him closely, but Uriel knew not much made it past his very observant friend. “The situation sucks, and for that I’m sorry. I won’t return for—”

“No.” Uriel held up a hand to stop Raphael’s continued denial. “If she asks for you again, please return. Lilith needs sustenance, and in a warped way, this does allow me to be with her through you and Gabriel.”

Raphael sighed and then slowly nodded. “If either of you need me, I’ll be there.”

Behind them, a doctor checked on the soldier Raphael had set on the road to healing and quickly called another doctor over to consult. An excited murmur flowed around the medical staff and Raphael slapped Uriel on the shoulder and stepped back with a satisfied smile. “Why don’t we go elsewhere? My work here is done, and I don’t think you came to find me just to make sure things were still good between us. God only knows you would’ve ignored it until the apocalypse if I allowed it.”

Uriel snorted, unsurprised with Raphael’s bluntness. “Ouzo?”

“Meet you there.”

Uriel held a picture inside his mind of where he wanted to go and dematerialized. A quick second later he rematerialized on a balcony in Santorini, Greece, that looked out over a hillside dotted with colorful buildings and beyond to the turquoise waters of the Aegean.

A cool breeze ruffled his long hair and he tucked it behind his ear as he breathed deep the scent of the salty air. So much history here, and so much that must remain buried. But the beauty of the place made up for all that, he supposed.

Raphael materialized next to him and they sat on either side of the small table reserved only for high-level supernaturals. The tiny establishment was staffed both by low-level angels and demons alike, as well as everything in between. But then only in the Bible and in history was good versus evil as clear-cut as the humans thought.

A snow-white Wendigo demon bustled to the table, its long yellow claws and fangs glistening in the afternoon sunlight as it set a bottle of ouzo on the table next to a platter filled with feta cheese, Greek olives, hummus, and fresh-baked pita bread.

The spicy scents teased Uriel’s senses, and he sighed as his stomach churned from the stress of recent events. Archangels technically didn’t need to eat, but Greek food was one of his favorite pleasures.

“Thanks.” Raphael accepted the two tall, thin shot glasses the Wendigo produced from thin air.

The demon nodded and disappeared back inside the house.

“Here.” Raphael filled Uriel’s glass to the top with the clear-colored liquor. “You look like you could use it. Then you can tell me what’s going on.” He filled his own glass and set the bottle aside. “I sense something much worse than just the situation with Lilith.”

Uriel raised the glass to his lips, inhaling the pungent scent of black licorice before toasting Raphael and downing the ouzo in one swallow. The slow burn down his throat seeped out into his limbs, and he sighed and relaxed back in his seat as Raphael downed his own drink. When Raphael refilled both glasses and popped a green olive into his mouth, Uriel pulled the small journal out of the pocket of his slacks and laid it on the table between them.

Raphael cocked his head to one side, his brows furrowed in question. “What is it?”

Uriel took a deep breath, glad to finally share this burden with someone else who would understand its significance. “It’s a journal of poetry and supernatural myths—most of which are absolutely true, and known only by a select few.”

Raphael froze with his glass partway to his lips. “What kind of myths are we talking about here?”

Uriel didn’t want to mention his love letters to Lilith. Raphael and Gabriel knew about his broken vows, but after Lilith’s most recent visit to his house, his emotions were still raw and aching where she was concerned. Besides, the very explicit letters were only one small part of what was inside the journal. It was the embodiment of something he’d hoped would stay trapped forever.

Uriel refilled his own glass and downed it, letting the burn spread for a long moment before he spoke. “There’s information about my house, references to places where all of us spend our time, what we do, who we interact with and when. Not to mention the true histories of several events such as the flood, Atlantis, Pompeii—”

“Atlantis?” Raphael demanded as he set his glass down on the table with more force than necessary. He glanced quickly out toward the blue Aegean and then back toward Uriel. “No one except God Himself, the Archangels, and Lucifer knows about Atlantis. That’s the one story that can’t ever get out.”

“It’s a little late for that apparently.” Uriel flipped the journal open to a page he’d marked and held the book out to Raphael.

Raphael took the small book, his gaze scanning the page as Uriel downed another shot of ouzo.

“Fuck me. These are Armageddon prophesies. The herald to the end of the human realm.”

A bitter laugh escaped Uriel. Raphael rarely used human curses, but that was his favorite when the situation called for it. “We’re pretty much all fucked if all these secrets get out into the mainstream. The faster the human consciousness accepts it as fact, the faster the end of the world will speed toward us.”

“Lucifer?”

Uriel shook his head. “Lucifer stands to lose the biggest if the fast-forward button is pushed for Armageddon. But it would be easy to convince all the so-called human scholars that he has the most to gain. They’re all convinced that whoever has the most souls in the end wins the big battle between good and evil. They have no idea that it’s a much more complicated system than that.”

“Which means . . .”

“Which means there’s a traitor among us.” Unfortunately, they had no idea which side the traitor was on, or even how to begin to find him.

Raphael tossed the journal back on the table between them before he leaned back in his chair, staring off over the balcony at the sea for a long moment. “Any other joyous news to share today?”

“Actually, yes. Look at the inside front cover of the journal.”

Raphael scowled and leaned forward to open the front cover of the journal where it lay on the table in front of him.

Uriel leaned across the table to place his finger just over a notation on the bottom of the page. “This is journal one of four. There are three more out there, and I have no idea where to find them.”

Semiazas straightened and
experimentally moved the arms and legs of the borrowed elderly librarian woman he’d just possessed. The old bat was still in here somewhere with him, but her consciousness had been pushed aside when he’d taken over. Thanks to her little habit of smoking joints on her lunch hour in the back alley, he’d been able to slip past her normal defenses and borrow her for a little stroll.

Lucky for him, she’d just think she’d dozed off and had a very odd dream. That’s why he loved borrowing substance abusers, they were so gullible and ready to explain away anything out of the ordinary.

He adjusted the old lady boobs more comfortably inside the bra that rivaled Fort Knox and then tucked the tiny blue journal inside the generous cleavage. He’d be surprised if anyone strip-searched this form, and if they did, he could play the sweet, innocent old lady card.

Humans were so easy to manipulate!

After making sure everything was as it should be, he draped her gaudy polka-dot purse over his forearm and strolled around the front of the building to the entrance to the British Library.

Semiazas passed the thirtysomething male security guard, who nodded politely. Semiazas fluffed his salt-and-pepper hair playfully and tossed a saucy wink in the younger man’s direction before he lifted his cleavage with both hands as if making sure the man hadn’t missed the display.