Demon (14 page)

“Do not attempt to play games with me. You will lose.” There was another silence. “Take her. And I use those words deliberately. If I were you, I wouldn’t let her out of your sight. If she were to run afoul of the Nightmen again, I expect everyone would be very distressed, in particular your friends back home.”

“She won’t escape again.” He turned, and I could see Beloch’s face now, looking as sulky as a child deprived of a toy. And then he caught my eye and smiled.

“Don’t worry, my child. Azazel won’t hurt you. He wouldn’t dare. He has something to prove to himself where you’re concerned, and I know you have a generous spirit, enough to allow him to find the answers to what’s troubling him.”

I wasn’t sure of any such thing, but I didn’t argue, rising gracefully. Azazel hadn’t moved away, and he was too close, intoxicatingly so. God, if anyone was a sex demon, it was Azazel. I only had to look at him and I felt my insides melt.

He took my arm in a hard grip, and I wondered
if I’d end up with bruises. If I had any sense I’d throw myself on Beloch’s mercy—the comfort and safety of the library versus Azazel’s dangerous presence. But I knew I wouldn’t. I knew I would follow Azazel wherever he led me, and I didn’t know why.

We were at the door when Beloch spoke again, and his words sent ice into my veins. “Don’t look so worried, my dear Rachel. Azazel won’t hurt you. In fact, you should consider yourself lucky. It’s not every women who gets to fuck a fallen angel.”

W
HAT WAS HE TALKING
about?” I demanded as he led me from the building.

“Be quiet. We will discuss this when we get home.”

“We don’t have a home,” I snapped. “And I’m not going anywhere with you until you explain this.”

“Yes, you are.” He was right. His grip on my arm was unbreakable, and I’d already had experience with his iron will. He would knock me out, cast some weird spell over me, do anything within his power to make me comply, and his power was impressive.

He led me past the uniformed men, who were clustered near the river as if waiting, and I could feel them watching us. We came to an abrupt halt when their massive leader moved in front of us.

It should have been ridiculous—compared to Azazel’s lean, wiry frame, he was huge, overpowering. He should have frightened me more than Azazel ever had. But there were different kinds of fear.

“Where are you taking her, my lord?” The honorific sounded sarcastic to my ears, and Azazel’s fingers tightened even more around the soft flesh above my elbow.

“To the house on Cedar Street. Beloch has put her in my custody. I regret having to disappoint you.” Sarcasm dripped from his words, and the man’s eyebrows snapped together.

“Why would he do that? She was promised to us.”

“You’d best ask him, hadn’t you?” Azazel said, but I could see the alarm in his blue eyes. “Besides, wasn’t she to go to the Truth Breakers first?”

“We would have her when they finished with her.”

“You know as well as I that there’s usually not much left after the Truth Breakers finish.” He seemed to have no idea what effect those words were having on me.

“An excellent point. Hence my concern that he’s letting her go with you. She should stay here.”

“Again, discuss it with Beloch.”

“You know I won’t do that.”

“Then stand aside.”

For a moment the large man seemed to vibrate with rage, looming before us. And then he nodded curtly and backed off. “I’ll set a guard outside the house,” he said. “So you don’t run the risk of losing her again.”

“Very kind,” Azazel murmured. “But unnecessary. She won’t be going anywhere without me.”

“Until you hand her to the Truth Breakers.”

I could feel his hesitation, though I doubted the captain noticed it. “Until I hand her to the Truth Breakers,” he agreed smoothly. And with a none-too-gentle tug he pulled me into the endless night of the Dark City as shadows closed down around us.

Until he handed me to the Truth Breakers, who didn’t leave much when they finished with you. Had he rescued me from the Nephilim simply to turn me over to the Dark City equivalent? As he ushered me through the deserted streets, I glanced around for any possible avenue of escape. If I got away from him, I was no longer sure where I’d go. I already knew the people who lived here would be no help, and I was beginning to have the strong, if belated, suspicion that Beloch wasn’t the cozy, absentminded professor he appeared to be.

“Don’t even bother,” Azazel said beneath his breath. “You wouldn’t get ten feet. There are Nightmen stationed all around, watching us, and I expect they will be there from now on.”

I jerked, startled both by the thought of them watching and by the knowledge that Azazel, again, had read my mind. Though I supposed it would be easy enough to guess what I was thinking as my head swiveled back and forth. I dug in my heels when we reached the old brownstone, but it did me no good. He simply hauled me up the steps, shoved me inside, and slammed the door after us, locking it.

“Not that it will do any good,” he muttered. “Enoch can get in anytime he wants to.”

“Enoch?”

“Your new admirer. The captain of the Nightmen. He’s not the best enemy to make.”

“He hates you.”

“Yes. And now he hates you as well.”

I sighed. “Well, aren’t things going just swimmingly. So tell me, what the hell did Beloch mean?”

“We’re better off talking upstairs.” His hand was no longer clamped on my arm, and I wondered if he’d continue to force me if I held back. I had no intention of it. I wanted answers, and this time he was going to give them to me, though I
thought he was about as much an angel as I was a prehistoric sex goddess.

He started up the stairs and I followed him. I could always kick him in the head and escape, no matter how many Nightmen were lurking around the house.

One of the doors was open, and the high bed, similar to mine, was rumpled. This had to be his room, and I tried very hard not to show any reluctance as I walked in. After all, we were both adults—we could hold a discussion in a bedroom as well as in a library.

There was an uncomfortable-looking Victorian sofa at one side of the huge room, and I went and took a seat, perfectly ready to cross-examine him.

He raised an eyebrow, and I almost thought I saw a quirk of amusement at his formerly stern mouth. I had the sudden feeling that he didn’t hate me as much as he had, though I had no idea what had changed his mind. He settled into a wingback chair that stood at a right angle to the sofa.

“Why did he call you an angel?” I launched right into it, not waiting for him to control the conversation. “You’re not my idea of a gentle cherub watching over people.”

“I’m not,” he said flatly. “I’m fallen.”

For a moment I didn’t move. This I could
almost believe, looking at the unearthly beauty of his pale face, the cold anger in his tightly wired body. “When?”

“Before time was calculated.”

I racked my brain for the snippets I’d read. “Are you Lucifer?”

I’d managed to startle him. “What do you know of Lucifer?”

“Not much. He was the first fallen angel, wasn’t he? God’s favorite angel, who became too arrogant and fell from heaven to become Satan.”

I could practically see the wheels turning behind his cold eyes as he decided just how much to tell me. “Yes and no,” he said finally. “He was God’s favorite, and his name means Bringer of Light. As for being arrogant, that arrogance was simply questioning God’s choice to destroy men, women, and children for one man’s sin, as God had done so often. Lucifer asked questions, and for that he was banished to eternal torment. As for Satan, he is simply an artificial construct used by men to explain the actions of God and the archangel Uriel.”

“You’re telling me God is Satan?”

He sighed, clearly annoyed. “I am telling you Satan doesn’t exist. He’s made-up.”

“So are fallen angels,” I shot back.

“I’m far too real,” he said. “Touch me.”

I tried not to jerk away at the thought. I’d touched him already, and the feel of his smooth, supple skin beneath my hands was disturbing. “Never mind. I believe you.”

“So aren’t you going to ask me about the other part of what Beloch said?”

“I don’t remember.” A complete lie. I remembered exactly what he’d said, and his words had sent a shiver through my body, though not, I had to admit, a shiver of revulsion.

“He said it’s not everyone who gets to fuck an angel.”

That same heated shiver sliced through me. I chose my words carefully. “I presumed he was being facetious.”

“And yet you didn’t think he was being facetious about the angel part.”

I leaned back, summoning every ounce of control to appear relaxed and faintly curious, when my entire body was tingling. This wasn’t an intellectual discussion. This was going somewhere, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go along. Then again, I might not have a choice. “Why don’t you explain it to me? Everything. Such as why you’re planning on handing me over to people who aren’t going to leave anything when they’re done with me.”

He didn’t even blink. “I wish I weren’t forced
to give you to the Truth Breakers. I’d much rather find out what I need to know without bringing them into it.”

“What do you need to know?”

“It’s really quite simple. I need to know what you know about Lucifer.”

“I already told you—”

He shook his head, and his silky black hair danced against his pale face. “I’m not talking about the tired mythology you’ve parroted to me. The Lilith knows where Lucifer has been interred. You were imprisoned nearby, as a punishment for questioning the word of God.”

“I guess there was a lot of that going around. Is that why you fell?”

He didn’t even blink. “No. I was the second to fall, along with twenty of my friends. We had been sent to earth to teach humans about metals and farming, and we made the dire mistake of falling in love with human females. The God of that time was an angry, vengeful entity, and we ended with eternal damnation.”

I stared at him, dumbfounded. “That was the last thing I expected,” I said finally. “I would have guessed you didn’t even know the meaning of love.”

He looked at me, and for a moment I couldn’t move, caught in the deep, fiery longing in his rich
blue gaze. Yearning, sorrow, and the pure dark heat of sex flamed in his long, slow look, and I felt shaken inside, my assumptions shot to hell. His expression seared me, and for a moment I could feel my body quicken in response.

And then sanity returned as his lids lowered and his expression grew cool and distant. I quickly tried to change the subject. “What do you mean, ‘the God of that time’? Are you going to try to convince me there’s more than one?”

“There are as many gods as people can envision, but in the end they’re all the same, the Supreme Being who finally granted humankind free will and then stepped back to let them flounder on their own.”

“That’s not so bad, is it?”

“No, not compared to the harsh taskmaster who created the world. But he left the archangel Uriel in charge to enforce his word, and the results have been … less than optimal. There is no chance of forgiveness or redemption, merely eternal damnation.”

“So you’re damned?”

“As are you. Raziel leads the Fallen now, and he bade me bring you here to the Dark City to find out what you know. I have no power in this place. Sooner or later I will be forced to hand you over to the Truth Breakers, and there’s nothing
I can do about it. They’re ruthless and unstoppable.”

I stared at him in surprise. “Why would you want to do anything about it? I thought you wanted me dead.”

He looked uncomfortable. “I have my reasons. But in truth, as long as you lived far away and your life didn’t come in contact with mine, I was willing to wait a few hundred years.”

“I’m not going to live a few hundred years. I’m human.”

He made a sound of disgust. “There’s no hope for you as long as you keep up this game. You’re not human, and haven’t been for millennia, not since you defied God and were cursed. By the end of the week, the Truth Breakers will take you and you will be destroyed, and I can’t change it.”

“So why are we even having this discussion?”

He leaned back against the chair and closed his eyes, and I watched the still, elegant planes of his face, the high cheekbones, the narrow nose, the angry, tempting mouth. “There may be a way out.” He spoke so softly I almost didn’t hear him.

“Which is?”

“If you tell me what you know, I might be able to find a way to sneak you out of here. You could go back to Australia, or anywhere you want to go, as long as you keep out of my life.”

“Being part of your life has never been a priority of mine,” I said, my voice icy. “
You’re
the one who was stalking
me
, remember?” I sat up, running a hand through my tangled hair. “And I don’t know anything. You keep insisting I’m an ancient sex demon, and you won’t believe me when I tell you you’re wrong. I have no idea where they buried Satan—”

“Lucifer,” he corrected sharply.

“I have no idea where they buried him. I can’t help you.”

“Then
I
cannot help
you
.”

We sat in silence, neither of us willing to break it. Finally I couldn’t stand it any longer. “Why did Beloch think we were going to have sex?”

“Beloch is not the kindly old gentleman you seem to think he is.”

“I’ve begun to figure that out. Why did he say … what he said?”

“It’s all part of his little game. He wants me to fall prey to your powers. In that way he can defeat me as well as you.”

“Why would he want to defeat either of us?”

“You’re the Lilith, the embodiment of female power and rebellion. Of course he wants you destroyed. And he hates me because I was once beloved of God and he never was.”

“Beloch isn’t a fallen angel?”