Godforsaken: Book 1 (Shade of Light) (16 page)

Lily got out obediently and looked around.
They were in front of an unfamiliar church. At first glance, it
looked abandoned. People passed by without even paying attention to
the old building. A thought popped in Lily’s head – nobody except
her and unearthly creatures could see the church. While she was
examining it, Samael took her arm grimly.

“Hey,” Lily cried out in surprise.
“Easy.”

“I’m sorry,” Samael muttered. “Let’s get
inside, please.”

Lily opened her mouth to protest, but then
shut it, finding no words to say to him. She just frowned at him,
then headed for the church entrance. Samael hurried forward and
caught up with her, avoiding the surprised gazes of passersby.
Nobody peered at Lily, she was dressed normally, but the guy
walking along her seemed to them truly mad. Barefoot, shirtless,
and sporting scruffy facial hair – of course Samael wouldn't seem
normal.

The gates of the church opened themselves,
inviting them in. Lily expected somebody to be opposite them, but
the inside was empty.
Nothing to get surprised about,
she
said to herself, as the magic and supernatural things were going to
be part of her life from now on. There was no reason to think about
who had opened the gates.

As they went in, a long hall loomed into her
view. Lily spotted a monk in a black cassock standing at the altar
on the other side of the hall. He seemed to be praying. His head
was tilted, and the only thing Lily could see was his frizzy blonde
hair, long and loose on his shoulders. The gates closed behind them
quietly and Lily felt as if she was thrown into a different space.
The walls encircling her made the world outside feel unreal. Lily
was sure that if she looked out the window, she would find herself
in the middle of a black sphere, as though this church was a door
to countless lost worlds caught up in that emptiness. Glancing up,
Lily didn’t feel as though there was a roof above her. But the
church did have a roof, although it still felt like an illusion, a
mere gateway to Heaven. She was walking alongside Samael to the
altar, but her eyes still stared up at the roof.

The last time Samael was here, the hall was
full of benches, but today it was clear and looked larger for their
lacking. The sound of Lily’s footsteps spread out and was sucked in
by the walls – there were no echoes, as though the walls pulled
every sound inside and locked them deep.

The monk spun around. He met the guests with
his brown gleaming eyes. Seeing his kind face, Lily exhaled in
relief, feeling a little consolation in her chest. The monk’s was
the only bright expression Lily had seen since Beelzebub’s
visit.

“Samael,” the monk greeted first. Then he
glanced at Lily. “This must be her, yes?”

One more person saw her as a key, not as
a human,
she thought and stopped next to Samael.

“Raphael,” Samael greeted him in return,
“yes, this is her.”

“I have heard a lot about you,” Raphael
smiled politely.

“What exactly?” Lily asked, narrowing her
eyes.

“That you embarrass Samael,” Raphael
replied, eying the gray-winged man. “What’s happened to you,
Samael? Where are your expensive clothes? Did they run away from
you with that Russian magnate?”

Samael sniffed, burying his gaze in the
altar. “Take her upstairs to have a rest, Raphael.” It sounded more
like an order than an appeal. “She’s exhausted.”

“You know that Michael might come for her
any moment.” Raphael’s smile faded from his face. He became
serious, and the gleaming in his eyes died away. “What you did an
hour ago can’t be ignored. You knew that–”

“But I did it anyway,” Samael finished his
sentence. He peered at the monk grumpily. “Michael won’t sacrifice
himself for the survival of humanity, you know that as well as I
do. He won’t touch her, he isn’t an idiot.”

“But Gabriel might,” Raphael put in
severely.

“Then don’t let him in,” Samael growled,
before he wheeled around and headed away.

Raphael and Lily watched him disappear
behind the door, then the monk exhaled with disappointment and
looked at her.

“Come on.” He forced a smile. “I’ll show you
your room.”

The room was small, but light. There was
only one bed, a cupboard in one corner, and a window that
overlooked the church backyard. There was hardly enough space for
two of them, and the ceiling was so low that the monk had to tilt
his head when they came in.

“It’s small, but lovely,” Raphael said.

Lily chortled.

“What?” Raphael seemed interested at
once.

“I just…,” she stammered, “I wonder why such
a powerful and famous angel like you lives in such small rooms on
Earth.”

Raphael didn’t reply at once. He approached
the window, glanced out, then turned to face Lily.

“The angels don’t tend to favor richness. We
don't gravitate towards such expensive lodgings,” he spoke mildly.
“You saw how Samael lives, but he's the exception rather than the
rule.”

“But Samael isn't an angel. Is he?” Lily
spluttered.

“Everyone was an angel once,” Raphael smiled
composedly. “All of them are the creatures of out Father, but
everyone’s path is different. Some of us chose to stay with our
Father, to protect and improve the world he created, but some of us
decided to–”

“Destroy it?” Lily cut him off, waiting for
the answer impatiently.

“No! Nobody wants to destroy this world. You
see, it’s incomparable, it’s beautiful, but everybody sees it in
his own way. When Lucifer was wandering in the first place God
created he was flabbergasted. But he was the one who then noticed
the world needed...updates. He was the one who tried to find errors
in Father’s creation.” Raphael glanced back out the window over his
shoulder and trailed off. Lily stood rooted in place, waiting for
the intriguing story of the angel while his thoughts drifted back.
“He was the reason that humanity was banished out of the Garden of
Eden,” Raphael went on. “Earth became man’s new home. It was large
and endless for him, but even that boundless world wasn’t
enough.”

Raphael turned to Lily. His brown eyes were
dark now, his blonde hair darkened, losing its brightness even
while it was illuminated by the sun. He came up to Lily, took her
hand into his and examined her palm. His hand was warmer than
Samael’s, and his touch passed that warmth into her soul. For a
glitter of second Lily wasn’t on Earth, she was soaring through the
clouds as though she was weightless. No gravity, no problems, just
her. But then she was standing in front of Raphael again, and real
life returned before her eyes.

She blinked.
What did those angels and
devils do to her?
She hastily pulled her hand out of his
grasp.

“I need to go downstairs. Samael is waiting
for me,” Raphael said, and reached for the door. Just before he
left, he peered back over his shoulder. “Make yourself
comfortable.”

The door shut and Lily was left alone. She
heard Raphael’s footsteps climbing down the stairs, then they died
away. Here in the room the city’s usual voices, car horns and the
noise of people, were gone. The sunlight rippled through the single
narrow window, bringing warm air in. Lily padded toward the window.
She looked up; the sky was cloudy and wicked, the lucid blueness
was hidden behind a dark fog soaring over the city, but the
sunlight caved one hole in it, illuminating only the church.

Samael stood barefoot at the altar, wearing
a black shirt that he had found in Raphael’s belongings. Again he
was seeking something, gazing up at the picture of Christ, who
looked down on him with regretful eyes. Still staring, Samael took
a thin candle lying before him on the altar, and stretched it out
to illuminate the painting. The candle lit itself of its own
accord.

The sound of Raphael’s footsteps reached his
ears from behind. He lowered the candle back down, the fire
extinguished the same way it had grown. Samael spun around to face
the brown-eyed monk.

“Why did you come to me, Samael?” Raphael
spoke the first. “What do you need?”

“You said you were always happy to see me
here, didn’t you?” Samael reminded.

“You never come here just to see me,
brother,” Raphael remarked. He slowly came up to the altar,
glancing over at the same picture Samael had been regarding. “You
lied to us. Why did you keep the survival of Eve’s line a secret
for so many years, Samael?”

“Why do you think I knew about the survival
of the line?” Samael tried to sound surprised, but Raphael knew him
too well.

“Everything you do is part of your own
especial plan.” Raphael turned to look directly into Samael’s eyes.
“Every step of yours has a reason. Tell me, why did you choose the
life of an outcast when you assassinated Efran and his whole
family?”

“It seems that I missed someone, which
brings us to her,” Samael pointed up, “Lily. She’s Eve’s heir and,
as you noticed, a female one. Now I’d like to see how Father’s sons
are going to save her – and the world – from their eldest
brother.”

“You’re his son too, Samael,” Raphael put in
frantically. “Why do you always try to step apart from us? What
have you got that we haven’t? You think you’re cleverer, but you
acted the fool this morning. It’ll bring us to war. What were you
thinking when you rushed down to Earth, holding your heavenly power
in your palm?” Raphael closed in, their faces were an inch away
from each other. “You’ve fully destroyed yourself. I’ll gladly send
you to Dudael to accompany Azazel as soon as I get an order from
Heaven.”

“At least I won’t be alone there,” Samael
teased curtly. “Azazel needs a companion.”

“Don’t laugh–” Raphael shouted.

“I had to save her,” Samael shouted louder.
His eyebrows arched and his eyes began flaming again. His irises
grew wide, making his whole eyeballs green. “I couldn’t let Lucifer
capture her. She’s not Eve, she doesn’t need Lucifer’s love
anymore.”

Raphael stepped back, stunned. Then a blank
grin curled his lips. “You’re in love,” he whispered, more for
himself than for Samael.

“What do you know about love, Raphael?”
Samael gave a dismissive wave.

“Don’t you understand that you gave Lucifer
a piece of freedom today?” Raphael seemed to not be listening to
Samael. He was grumbling to himself instead. “The gates of hell are
open now. He knows she’s alive and he’ll come after her. He’ll do
everything to get her back. Countless sons of Perdition will fly
into this world.”

“Listen, Raphael,” Samael jabbed his
shoulder to get his attention, “look at me.” He raised his voice.
Raphael’s brown eyes scowled up at him. “Only Azazel saw Lucifer in
the Garden of Eden, only
he
knows Lucifer’s secret. I
believed him once, without knowing what he was capable of, but
Azazel knows. Heaven won’t win this war if we don’t sort this
out.”

“Michael knows too,” Raphael turned back to
Samael and approached the altar. He peered at another picture, one
that contained a garden, a man, and several animals around him. “He
was in the Garden with Lucifer that time.”

“Michael would rather go to the Island of
the Dead than tell you anything,” Samael snarled. “He thinks we
aren’t fit for him and Lucifer. They are the first creatures, they
are the best. But you see, only one can be the best, and he will
always look for an opportunity to prove himself.”

“What are you implying, Samael?” Raphael
looked back with fearful eyes.. His eyes twitched nervously.

“Raphael,” Samael said, as he put both his
hands on the monk’s shoulders, “Michael has always craved a fight.
He wants that with Lucifer, with swords like in the time of the war
in heaven. You made a mistake when you told him about Lily.”

“What? I didn’t–”

“I know that you told Michael about her,”
Samael insisted. “He knew about Lily, he followed her but he didn’t
dare to act as I acted. By killing her he would be banished, but he
loves heaven and Father so much that he will definitely choose to
be destroyed rather than banished.”

Raphael took Samael’s hands off his
shoulders and paced aside. His head bent as he walked to and fro,
thinking about Samael’s words. His cassock covered his feet, and,
looking at him, one might say Raphael wasn’t walking, he was
gliding over the floor.

“You want me to take you to Dudael, don’t
you?” Raphael asked.

“I have to get there. We need to talk to
Azazel. Father gave the prison’s key to you, I know, and nobody
else can set foot in there without you.”

“Yes, and he had a good reason to give it to
me. He didn’t want anybody else to go there, and I believe he
hasn’t changed his mind. By going there, you could aggravate the
situation further.”

“Times change, Raphael. We haven’t much time
to consider this,” Samael pressed deftly, “either you take me there
and we find answers, or we’re going to lose Heaven to Lucifer,” he
assured.

“Why are you so sure? The last time
something this happened, Michael defeated him easily,” Raphael
reminded him.

“Lucifer was defeated because he believed
Eve was sent to the Island of the Dead. He was wounded, but now
he’s healed from his wounds.” Samael faced the altar and indicated
the picture of heaven. “This is the place that my seven brothers
will protect from Lucifer,” he snarled sarcastically. “The great
seven. You think Uriel will stand side by side with Michael? Or
Saraqael? He seeks for an opportunity to rush down on Earth and I
daresay he will soon stay here forevermore. Because of the Torah,
humanity doesn’t believe in God anymore, people believe in power,
money and sex. They will surely believe in Lucifer and take his
side sooner than you ever expected. Life has changed – hell is now
more stylish than heaven. What is heaven for these poor creatures?
Tell me, Raphael, don’t stay silent.” Samael waved his right hand
and a bench with two ghostly people sitting on it appeared in the
hall. “They’re tired of the God who gives them nothing but life,”
he explained. Samael twirled his forefinger and the illusion he had
created vanished into thin air.