by Nadine Mutas
“No, I won’t!” came the shouted reply from upstairs.
“Yes, you will!” Olivia yelled back. “I’ll not have you wear jeans and T-shirt to your father’s funeral!”
The wave crested.
I trembled, trembled, a tiny speck in a furious sea of darkness as the ice-cold water crashed down with a roar, cutting off light and sound and warmth, and dragged me under.
Chapter 16
When I resurfaced, I was lying on the bed in my new suite. I had no recollection of Azazel taking me back to Hell. Of reconnecting my soul with my body. I wasn’t really there, mentally.
Staring at the gloomy ceiling, I drifted in and out of sleep. I was dimly aware of something big and furry snuggling up to me with a whine. Of someone talking to me. Azazel? Azmodea? I didn’t have the presence of mind to check.
Food came and went. I barely touched it. I should have felt hunger, but there was only this giant, numb hole where any feeling was supposed to be.
Time went by in a sluggish stream. It could have been hours. It could have been days.
I hardly moved, and when I did, it was in a trance. Mostly, I just lay on the bed.
Until a deep voice murmured in my ear, “Enough.”
Strong arms slid under me, lifted me up against a hard chest. Warmth and dark power enveloped me, the scent of leather, fire, and spice filling my nose. Azazel.
He carried me out of the room, into a space of humid heat and fragrant aroma. My feet touched marble tile when he set me down. I blinked, with little interest, at my surroundings.
Steam rose from the water filling the basin in my bathroom. Only a few candles burned in the holders on the walls, casting the space in intimate, low lighting.
Azazel grasped the seam of my tank top. “Arms up,” he said with calm command.
I obeyed, and he pulled the top off me. My bra followed. His fingers went to the button on my jeans, popped it open and pulled down the zipper. Going to one knee in front of me, he shoved my pants and underwear down and helped me step out of them.
The fragrant, steamy air curled around me as I watched him strip his own clothes off with practical efficiency. Scooping me up again, he took the stairs into the basin.
I gasped when the hot water closed around me. The first real sensation in what seemed like a surreal eternity.
He sat down and pulled me into the space between his legs on the bench in the tub, my back to his front. Water trickled over my head as he began washing my hair, ever so gently, the press of his fingers on my scalp and the soft tug on my strands a soothing melody of touch and care.
I didn’t realize I was crying until he tilted my face to the side, kissing tears off my cheeks.
“Tell me.” His voice was an intimate, coaxing murmur in the cocoon of humid heat around us. He laid his hand over my heart, pressed down a little. “There’s too much in here. It’s choking you.” He rubbed over that aching beat of my heart, then brought his hand up to stroke over my throat. “So tell me.”
I inhaled on a shudder. “I didn’t think it would hurt this much,” I said haltingly, as if I only realized what I wanted, needed to say in the very moment when the words left my mouth. Which was true. Speaking it out loud gave form to the chaos.
“I thought I was numb,” I said as he continued to wash my hair. “But there’s so much pain.” My breath hitched. What I had taken for lack of feeling was in reality an overload of it, so much so that I couldn’t handle it.
“After my mom confronted him,” I went on, a decade of hurt unraveling before my inner eye, “he just left us. He didn’t fight for us, he simply dropped us like an unwanted burden he was finally rid of. I waited—” My voice broke. “I waited for him to call me, to visit, to ask me to come over. He never did.” I swallowed hard. “Not until years later. And I—” Shaking my head, I caught my breath. “I couldn’t. I couldn’t let him back into my life. It was too late, you know? I adored him. Before he left, he was my hero, and I was his princess. And he turned his back on me when it truly counted and abandoned me for years. He chose his other family, his other daughters over me.”
Old hurt mingled with fresh anguish, turning my breathing choppy.
Azazel’s hand on my nape, massaging me with sure, unwavering support.
I found more words to untangle my pain. “When he tried to get in touch again years later, I was so bitter, so angry. I shut him out. And it felt good, at first. Like fair turnabout, you know? Show him what it feels like to be ignored. I imagined it hurt him, and it gave me this sense of retribution.” I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment. “And of control.”
“You rejected him before he could reject you,” Azazel said, running his fingers through my wet hair, untangling the strands. “Again.”
“Yes.” I sucked in a breath, the humid, aromatic air like a balm to my soul.
That was it, wasn’t it? I cut my father out of my life in a sort of preemptive strike, out of fear of him abandoning me again somewhere down the line. The human mind worked in complex, mysterious ways, and so often we didn’t realize the why behind what we did until much, much later.
When it was too late.
“All these years,” I said, my voice hoarse, “I held on to the memory of my hurt and anger—and fear—as if they were still the reason I kept him out of my life. I never really questioned if I still felt that way. But over time, I think, some of that pain and resentment...lost its edge. And it became more of a habit than real intention. As if…” I struggled for the right words. “Continuing to keep him cut off was easier, I guess, than facing the possibility of rebuilding something with him. The real possibility, that is.” I trembled as I took a deep breath. “Because somewhere, in the back of my mind, I just sort of counted on the vague, far-away, hypothetical possibility of reconciling with him. As in, I could, if I wanted to. Because he was still there.”
Azazel’s fingers glided through my hair, petting me, soothing me. “But now he’s not.”
“Now he’s not,” I repeated in a voice as broken as the naive, shattered hope inside me. I closed my eyes, shook my head a little. “Even with me down here and the uncertainty about how I’d be able to visit, I held on to that possibility. And now he’s gone, truly gone, and any chance for reconciliation or just closure is gone too.” My breath hitched, my chest aching. “I’ll never see him again. I can never say—” I clenched my hand to a fist and rubbed it over my breastbone. “I have so many words in here. So much to say. But now I’ll never get to tell him...any of it.”
A sob worked its way up my throat. “And it hurts—so much. I could have—” Another sob. “I could have had years—with him—” Every breath I took burned going in, burned going out. “All this time, lost between us—how much of that was on me?” I sniffed. “He tried. He really tried, you know? He wrote to me, for every birthday, every holiday. He called. He wanted to meet with me, talk to me. But I never gave him the chance. I threw his letters away without reading them. I refused to even hear him out.” Tears blurred the flames of the candles. “I’ll never know what he would have told me. What he wanted to say.”
More sobs wracked me, rising up from that shredded place in my chest, and I was beyond words. The chaos inside me had spilled out, leaving behind a hollow, damning ache.
Azazel’s arms wrapped around me, pulled me tight against his chest, where the steady beat of his heart was a beacon at my back, anchoring me. He held me while I cried, his cheek pressed against mine.
I couldn’t seem to stop. The tears just kept coming. I don’t know how much time went by, but by rights the water should have long cooled around us, yet it held the same temperature, likely Azazel’s doing.
Even with the heat of the bath, with his arms locked around me, I felt chilled to the bone, and so, so brittle. Scraped raw and cut open. Small and crushable. I shivered, my shoulders hunching forward.
Azazel’s voice at my ear, quiet yet hypnotic. “You asked me about my mother once.”
My breath caught. I
stopped trembling, my awareness turning to him.
“She was Lucifer’s favorite daughter,” he went on, his lips on my neck. “Few things make him truly happy. She was one of them. She could do no wrong in his eyes. Even when she fell in love with an angel and began an illicit affair.”
I had grown very still, all my focus on the soft words spoken against my skin.
“Neither Heaven nor Hell like to see their people fraternize, but my parents managed to keep it secret for a while. When Lucifer eventually found out, he turned a blind eye at first, so deep was his love for Naamah.”
“Naamah?”
“My mother.” Old pain echoed in his voice. “When she fell pregnant and bore two children, Lucifer could no longer ignore the relationship. He pressured Naamah to cut ties to Azrael, but she refused.”
“Your father’s name is Azrael?”
“Yes.”
“That sounds an awful lot like yours.”
“Not a coincidence.” His breath tickled my nape. “Naamah loved him so much that she gave both her children names reminiscent of his.”
That seemed a bit obsessive. “What happened next?”
“Since Lucifer couldn’t—or rather, wouldn’t—force his favorite daughter to do anything, much less reject her lover and the father of her children, he went the other way.” A heavy pause. “He informed Heaven of Azrael’s illicit relationship and the fact he had sired progeny with a demon, which caused Azrael to fall.”
“Wait—they kicked him out?”
“Yes. He fell to Earth, and Lucifer claimed him.”
“Claimed?”
“When an angel falls, they don’t automatically become a demon and enter Hell. They plummet to Earth, their wings burned off, and unless a demon claims them for a territory in Hell, the fallen angel remains on Earth as a being neither angel nor demon. They retain some of their powers and can act for either good or evil. They have been called many names in different cultures, but the one that seems to have stuck is jinn.”
Oh, wow. “So, the claiming for Hell...how does that work? Does the jinn have a say?”
“Not really. Some would prefer to live out their now mortal lives as jinn on Earth rather than serve in Hell, and if they’re lucky, they can evade capture. But if the jinn is found, and caught, by a demon with the authority to claim them for their archdemon, the jinn has no choice but to follow the demon to Hell.”
“And become one themselves.”
“That’s how it works. Their wings will regrow once they are in Hell, their essence now bound to this realm.”
“So, Azrael…”
“Became a demon, and lived here with Naamah and the children she had borne him.”
“You and Azmodea.”
“One happy family,” he said, the darkness in his tone belying the literal meaning of the words.
“I take it that didn’t work out.”
The candles flickered in the silence that followed. I waited for him to pick up the story again, knowing he would.
“Naamah was overjoyed to have Azrael down here with her,” he finally continued, his voice quieter than before. His fingers played along my neck. “And for a time, it was well. The few good memories I have of them are from those years.”
I leaned back into his touch, my stomach knotting in anticipation of the momentous But that surely would follow.
“As time passed, Azrael became restless. He struggled with his new life in Hell, was never really able to cope with his changed identity. Naamah realized he was unhappy and tried to fill the growing chasm between them. She poured the riches of Hell onto him, twisted herself into knots to please him. But he longed too much for his old life in Heaven, for the grace of God, and in the end, her love wasn’t enough to hold him.” A kiss to my temple. “And he didn’t love her enough to stay.”
Or loved him enough… I sucked in a breath, noting the part Azazel left out—that his father cared so little for his own children that he could simply walk away.
My chest ached for him, the sting all the keener because I knew exactly how it felt to be abandoned this way.
I clasped his arm that was wrapped around my middle, my fingers interlacing with his. “What happened then?” I whispered.
“Behind Naamah’s back, Azrael petitioned Gabriel for a return to Heaven.”
“The archangel?”
“The very one. He has the power to grant pardons. From what I heard—” his voice dripped acid “—Azrael crawled before him, begging him to let him come home. It is a rare thing that a demon should be pardoned and welcomed back into Heaven. But for whatever reason, Gabriel relented, though not without conditions attached. For Azrael to be accepted back into the fold, he had to repudiate Naamah, disavow the children he had begotten with her, and reject any claim to his care. And as a reminder of his transgression, he would serve as angel of death for all eternity, ferrying souls to Heaven and marking the ones slated for Hell. Azrael accepted, and he ascended that same day.” A pause charged with so much tension, the flames of the candles crackled. “He left without a word to Naamah, or us.”
I squeezed his fingers, my heart twisting in sympathy. The callousness of that abandonment…
When he spoke again, his tone had dulled. “It wasn’t until days later that Naamah found out where he’d gone. She tried to reach Azrael, to no avail. He would not see her, or even acknowledge her existence. Once she realized he had truly repudiated her...she broke.”
I swallowed hard. The way he said that word, it indicated far more than a crying fit. “What, exactly, happened to her?”
“She became a shadow of herself. Much like a wraith, she only knew two states of being—complete apathy, or mindless rage. When she turned the latter toward Azmodea and me, Daevi took us from her.”
“Wait—she attacked you?”
“I don’t think she was conscious of it. Her wrath was all-encompassing, uncontrollable, random. And in the end, it destroyed her too.”
“What do you mean?” I asked despite dreading the answer.
“She tore herself apart.”
“Figuratively.”
“No.”
I shuddered, the image forming in my mind too vivid, too horrible to dwell on. The memory of the wings pinned in the entrance hall flashed before my inner eye, a brutal reminder of the fact that, yes, demons were entirely capable of ripping off limbs with their bare hands.
“How old were you?” I asked into the weighted silence.
He seemed to ponder that for a moment. “Barely adolescent. Not old enough to have a say in my allegiance.”
“What do you mean?”
Picking up the soap and a washcloth, he started washing me, lathering my shoulders first. “Full-blood demons can choose which side of their bloodline they want to pledge themselves to when they reach maturity. Before then, the parents negotiate the care if they don’t live together. The child has no say in that until they are fully grown.”
Pieces clicked together in my mind. “Lucifer demanded your allegiance after Daevi took you away from Naamah.”
“Just so.”
“And then he...tortured you?” Disbelief dripped from my voice. “Because he was angry at your father? That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Fury rarely does.” He continued washing me limb by limb, his movements efficient yet gentle. “Lucifer had just lost my mother to violence and madness, my father—who caused this—was beyond his sphere of influence, and here I was, the spitting image of the male who broke his favorite daughter, the living reminder of Lucifer’s own failure to protect Naamah. He needed an outlet for his wrath, and I was conveniently handy.”
His tone was so casual, nonchalant even, in such stark contrast to the horrid reality his words painted. My stomach turned.
“But...you’re not just Azrael’s son, you’re Naamah’s as well. If Lucifer loved her so much, shouldn’t that fact have counted for something?”
A dry, humorless laugh. “It’s the only reason he let me live
.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to process this kind of dysfunctional family dynamic. “What about Azmodea?” I asked after a minute. “Where was she in all of this?”
“Azmodea is fortunate to look like our mother, enough so that Lucifer could never bring himself to harm her. He let her stay with Daevi, though, because he also couldn’t bear to see her often. The resemblance to Naamah was too much.” The water sloshed as he washed my back. “Once I reached maturity, I petitioned Daevi to join her court. She agreed and claimed me as her kin. I’ve been earning my place ever since and proving my worth to her.”
“Your worth?” I asked, a bite to my voice.
“Power is currency here. Progeny is valued because of the potential strength they bring to a demon’s bloodline and territory. The more high-ranking demons an archdemon’s domain has, the stronger that archdemon’s standing among their peers. The territories often quarrel over land and resources and other petty disputes, and Lucifer mostly lets them, as long as the bloodshed doesn’t get out of hand. The more power an individual demon has, the higher they can climb in rank.” He brought the washcloth to my front, stroking it over my breasts and belly in moves more intended to clean than to arouse. “I made sure to climb high and fast.”
I considered that for a moment. “What’s your rank, exactly?” He’d never mentioned it, and it hadn’t occurred to me to ask.
“Cherub.”
If I had taken a sip from a drink right that second, I’d have spit it out in a burst of laughter. As it was, I choked on the amusement bubbling up from a place of unexpected hilarity, untouched by the earlier anguish.
“A cherub?” I asked in between barely suppressed giggles. Images of the chubby baby angels with tiny wings so often depicted in European art over the centuries filled my mind. I giggled some more.
“Glad to see you’re still capable of merriment,” he muttered, his tone warm.
I squeezed his hand, all too aware of how he’d managed to pull my attention away from the maelstrom of sadness that threatened to drown me before. I wasn’t done processing it, not by a long shot, and what he’d just told me about his own family was sure to hijack my thoughts again later. All the more reason, however, to grasp onto what little humor I could find, wherever I could find it. Laughter had always been my lifeline in times of pain.
