Hellsbane 02 - Heaven and Hellsbane

by Paige Cuccaro

  Without straightening or getting to his feet, his pale blue eyes swung up to mine peering from beneath the dark curtain of his hair. “Hello, Emma Jane.”

  My chest tightened and something deep inside me warmed at the sound of his voice. I hurried to close the door, an irrational fear that someone might see him racing my pulse. “What’re you doing here? Is something wrong? Did something happen?”

  His gaze dropped to the carpet again. “No. Nothing happened. Everything is fine.”

  Every fiber of my being screamed for me to go to him—to fall into his arms, to breathe the sweet summer scent of him into my lungs. Like a sip of wine to a recovering alcoholic, or the sweet, smoky scent of a cigar to an ex-smoker—the need for him thrummed through my muscles and tingled over my skin. I’d given him up, but one sip and I’d be undone.

  I stayed where I was, my back against the front door, anchoring myself to the spot. I asked again, “What are you doing here, Eli?”

  His gaze came up to me and a weak smile flashed across his lips. “I was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d stop in.”

  I laughed at that, more nerves than amusement, and tossed my keys to the little table next to the door. My purse followed, hitting the floor and sliding the few inches to land next to the nearest front leg. “Should’ve called. I would’ve baked cookies or something.”

  He threw me a quick glance, just a flash of bright blue eyes. “You don’t bake.”

  Feeling a little more in control as the shock of finding him here wore off, I pushed from the door and stepped closer. “Yeah, well I’d have bought cookies then. Where have you been? Did they assign you a new illorum?”

  He snorted, but didn’t look at me. “No. They wouldn’t do that. Where’s Jazar?”

  “I don’t know. Probably off thinking up new ways to stalk me.” I folded my arms across my belly and shuffled another step closer. “So where did they take you? I’m going to assume they don’t have phones there or I’d have heard from you sooner.”

  “Heaven. And no.”

  “Huh?”

  His gaze met mine, his body still hunched forward. “I’ve been home. Surrounded by my brothers. There are no phones there.”

  “Oh. Right.” Instinct tugged across my shoulders, giving me an uneasy twinge in my stomach. There was something wrong. “You okay?”

  “Do you have plans tonight?” he asked, ignoring my question.

  “Tonight? Uh, no. No, I’m free for the rest of the weekend. Well, y’know, mostly.” I didn’t see a reason to worry him over the meeting early the next morning. There was nothing he could do to help. “Eli…does anyone know you’re here?”

  I’d figured, or hoped, our separation was a temporary thing until they realized Eli and I had our feelings for each other under control. Following the rules seemed the pivotal point and yet here he was…not following the rules.

  He rolled a shoulder. “It’s not a problem.”

  Not a problem? The big angel powwow in my backyard a week ago would indicate otherwise. We were supposed to stay away from each other. What had changed?

  But before I could ask him, Eli said, “So how are things working with you and Jazar? Anything new happen with the gibborim?”

  “You don’t know?” I asked, revealing more in the question than I had intended. “I mean, I’d think you guys can see everything from up there, y’know?”

  He smiled and shook his head. “I’m completely in the dark—so to speak. My brothers’ way of shielding me from anything that might distract me from finding my inner peace.” He sniffed with a quiet smirk. “They mean well, but it’s making me stir crazy, you might say. Why? Has something happened with Bariel?”

  Bariel? The sherwani-wearing demon had been involved in the whole unmarked illorum thing last year with Rifion. His age and intelligence made him the most likely of the fifty or more of Rifion’s minions to have picked up the pieces he’d left behind and make the most of it. But except for the few sketchy descriptions we’d gotten of the demon helping the gibborim, I didn’t have any proof he was the one we were looking for.

  Being so clever, I’d thought Bariel would’ve found the nearest rock to hide under until the dust settled. After all, avoiding banishment was what had made him an old, not to mention scary strong, demon to begin with. “He’s the one, isn’t he? He’s the demon you saw with the gibborim who attacked you in Central Park.”

  “Yes. Jazar didn’t tell you?” Eli stood and walked down the steps to me.

  “No. He didn’t recognize him from the visions you showed him, and he wasn’t up for a mind meld with an icky nephilim.” I dropped my hands on my hips, frustration making my jaw tight. “Dammit, we could’ve saved a lot of time.”

  “I’m sorry. I just assumed you would’ve located him by now.”

  “Well, I did…sort of.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing. Forget it. I can handle everything.”

  Seraphim could be egotistical jerks, but they loved Eli. If they thought he needed a break, telling him about the meeting wouldn’t help. But I couldn’t stand there looking into his eyes and expect to keep anything from him. I needed to put space between us. So I stepped around him, heading down the hall toward the kitchen. After the visit from the gibborim at the summer solstice celebration, I’d been too worried to eat. Now I was beyond starving.

  “Emma Jane…” Eli grabbed my elbow, turning me around. “You’re keeping something from me. It’s bad enough coming from my brothers, but you should know better. I don’t need to be shielded from this. I need to know what is going on even if there’s not a lot I can do about it. Tell me.”

  I didn’t know if he realized he was moving his thumb in small circles against my arm, but the sensation was decimating my willpower. I sighed and tossed my head toward the kitchen. “C’mon. I’ll fill you in.”

  Eli took a seat at my gram’s old 1950s metal-frame kitchen table while I searched the pantry and then the fridge for something to eat.

  “Has anyone else been attacked?” he asked, fingering my rooster saltshaker, then pushed it back to sit next to the metal napkin holder.

  “Yeah. And I got a visit from one of the gibborim. He had a message for me from Bariel. I mean, I assume it was Bariel.” I gave up on the hope that the random half-filled bottles of condiments and soft drinks in my fridge would manifest into something appetizing and grabbed the pizza box on the bottom shelf. I didn’t remember ordering pizza so whatever was left inside was probably as hard as a brick. But I was seriously hungry.

  “What was the message?” Eli asked.

  “Same as always. Join them and never worry about demon attacks again, blah, blah, blah. You know they always neglect to mention that by joining them I’d be allowing the angel who seduced my mother to go free and clear. And forget about all the demons he would continue to call up. They already outnumber Fallen, like, fifty to one. I’d just be turning my back on all of it. Who does that?”

  There was only one slice of pizza in the box and it was so old it looked plastic. I wrapped it in a paper towel and shoved it in the microwave.

  “Was there a response to your refusal?” he asked.

  “Yeah.” I turned and rested my backside against the counter while I waited. “He, uh, set up a meeting with me and Bariel.”

  “Jazar will be with you?”

  “No. He said just me.”

  Eli’s dark brow creased but he didn’t say a word. Instead he looked at the rooster saltshaker again, positioning it so it sat precisely opposite the rooster pepper shaker on the other side of the napkin holder.

  I couldn’t take it. “Okay—okay, I know what you’re thinking. It’s dumb for me to go alone. Bariel is a powerful demon, a killer. But that’s exactly why I have to go. I have to stop him. And I can’t take Jazar. He’d be more of a distraction than a help. I have to get close to Bariel if I’m going to find out who he’s working for and why they’re collecting angelic swords.”

 
; “And you are still certain he is not working alone? Bariel is very clever. His master was banished. He’s free.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure.” The microwave dinged and I pulled out the soggy pizza slice. Cheese and grease had glued the paper towel to the top. I tried separating it, but the paper that didn’t pull off the cheese just ripped, forming a chunky paper-cheese coating. I blew on it anyway, turning back to face Eli. I was that hungry.

  “I mean, I’m as sure as I can be,” I said, picking off a tiny piece of paper and tossing it behind me onto the counter. “They’re up to something, Eli, something more than just arming themselves. Something big. I can feel it.”

  “Okay,” he said, but it didn’t really sink into my brain.

  “And you know what? It’s kind of irritating that I have to keep explaining all of this.”

  “Emma Jane—”

  “I mean, I’m the expert here. I was born to hunt these guys. I swear if one more person tells me he’s going with me for my protection, I’ll scream.”

  Eli stood and closed the distance between us in two steps. He took the sad pizza slice from my hands and lobbed it into the sink. “I said, okay. I understand why you need to face Bariel alone. He is powerful, but so are you. More so than any illorum I’ve ever known.”

  I exhaled, letting some of the daylong tension knotting through my muscles seep away. “I’m sorry. It’s been one of those days. And I wasn’t expecting to see you again and… I just need to focus.”

  “You need a decent meal.” He slipped an arm around my waist and pulled me snug against his body.

  My breath caught and my heart skipped a beat. The sweet summertime smell of sunshine and fresh-cut grass warmed around me and I breathed in a quick, guilty breath. “What’re you doing?”

  He smiled down at me. “Getting you dinner.”

  The world blurred and my kitchen whizzed by—replaced for an instant by night sky, starlight, and cool evening air. But as quickly as my kitchen walls had disappeared, four more walls came into focus as my new surroundings formed around us.

  My brain identified the close walls in front of us, the panel of numbered buttons, the chime of an electronic bell a half second before the elevator doors opened. Eli put me at his side and led me by the hand to the hostess desk in front of us. I had a second to look back through the window wall of the elevator and see the evening sky, the low sun setting colors ablaze against a falling curtain of starry night. And then the doors closed.

  Eli smiled at the ponytailed girl in a black vest, bow tie, and matching slacks behind the desk. “Good evening. We’d like a table for two.”

  She nodded and checked her seating chart, then scribbled something with a stubby wax pencil and grabbed two menus. Her gaze swung back to Eli’s with a practiced smile. “This way.”

  I leaned forward, shuffling to keep up, ignoring the warmth of Eli’s hand holding mine, and whispered, “Where are we?”

  He glanced back at me. “You’ll see.”

  We turned the corner and before us was nothing but a wall of glass, just like the elevator. The young hostess led the way past a half wall and we stepped down into the dining area. Outside, the view slowly rotated and far, far below I recognized the famous horseshoe falls, the American falls, and the nearby rainbow bridge. I pointed, feeling a little light-headed and disjointed. “Niagara Falls.”

  Eli squeezed my hand and smiled back at me as we walked. “Skylon Tower. Ever been here?”

  I shook my head, only sparing him the quickest glance before staring out at the view again. The restaurant was a huge revolving room, with windows all around the outside showing off the magnificent sight. With the center allocated to the elevator and kitchen, there was only room enough on the outside edge for two rows of tables—one set next to the windows, the other next to the mirrored wall at the center.

  The restaurant was more than half-empty. The dinner rush had passed a few hours ago. The ponytailed hostess stopped at one of the open tables next to the window and Eli pulled out my chair. She left the menus and mumbled the name of our waitress before flashing another well-practiced smile and shuffling away.

  “Eli,” I said, feeling my brows go high on my forehead, unable to shut down the stunned expression. “This is…this is—”

  “Normal?” he asked.

  I looked at him, trying to puzzle out what he meant. “No. I mean, it would be if we hadn’t been standing in my kitchen three minutes ago and you weren’t an angel and I wasn’t a—”

  “So pretend we’re not,” he said before I could finish. “Just for a while, let’s see what it would be like.”

  I breathed out a laugh, blinking. “Seriously?”

  “Yes.” He beamed, pleased with the idea, and opened the tall menu. “Tonight we’ll just be Mr. and Mrs. Smith from Columbus, Ohio. Newlyweds.”

  Despite the wistful charge of excitement the idea sent zinging through my veins, I kept my smile in check and scanned the menu. “Newlyweds? You sure you wanna go there?”

  Eli shrugged. “Niagara Falls and honeymooners, can you think of anything more normal?”

  “I don’t remember what normal is.”

  Eli touched my fingers and I looked up as he gathered my left hand into his. His thumb brushed over the top of my ring finger and I felt the metal band form snug and solid.

  “Best to immerse ourselves in the parts,” he said.

  He pulled back his hand and I splayed my fingers, staring at the shimmering, square-cut diamond ring, at least two carats, and the simple silver wedding band. My gaze went to the matching band on him, thicker to fit his larger finger, making his hand seem more human somehow—more masculine.

  I met his eyes, nervous energy fluttering through my belly. My heart raced like an ecstatic jackrabbit and I took a deep breath, trying to stop the tremble quaking up from my core. Pretend or not, guilt dimmed the fantasy. “Eli, Dan and I are finally talking again and I can’t—”

  “Just for tonight,” he said, stopping me. “Please, Emma Jane. It will be good for you to put all of the danger and fear in your life from your mind. Just for tonight.”

  “Not completely, right?” My thumb rubbed the bottom of the rings like an old habit. “I mean, you’re the one who always said I’ve got to be ready all the time. I never know when a demon will attack or a Fallen will find me.”

  “You’re safe. They won’t find you this time,” he said. “Not tonight. No one can find us.”

  My gaze dropped to the menu again. “What’s so special about tonight?”

  “I’m shielding you.”

  That grabbed my full attention. “Eli, you can’t do that. You can’t hide me from them.” I leaned closer, lowering my voice. “And if the seraphim find out, they’ll never let you be my mag—”

  “They won’t. I’ve closed my mind to my brothers.” He took a sip from his water glass and set it back in the same condensation circle.

  “Won’t they be worried or angry or…I don’t know, something?”

  “They’ll only realize if they reach for my thoughts and don’t find me. And even then, they’ll assume I’m taking some time to myself.” His eyes met mine and he smiled, but there was something missing, something he was holding back.

  “But why would you?”

  “I want to spend an evening with you like a normal man. I want to know what it’s like to be human. And you could use the break to clear your mind before facing Bariel.”

  “Eli, we can’t ever be—”

  Our waitress arrived, stopping my protest, and set a basket of warm rolls between us. The scent of fresh-baked bread swirled around our table. “Hi, my name’s Lisa and I’ll be your server. Can I start you off with something to drink?”

  I sighed, scanning the menu I had yet to actually read. Eli wasn’t wrong. I could use a break from the kind of high-intensity day I’d been having. I could use a break from the high intensity past few weeks. Did it matter that we could never be a normal couple? What was the harm?

  I
t was only for a few hours—only pretend. We could forget about the rest of the world, about the rules and consequences keeping us in our places and make believe we were a young couple in love. I had a feeling it wouldn’t be much of a stretch for either of us. So why not?

  A few hours later we’d forgotten what we were pretending to be and just were. It was easier than I’d imagined. After a year as magister and illorum—mentor and protégé—we’d found a kind of comfort in each other’s company that we couldn’t have pretended if we’d tried.

  We were at home together. And the make-believe only gave us permission to stop fighting the feelings that always hummed between us like a crackle of electricity, feelings we’d been denying were even there. We didn’t act on those feelings, we just stopped fighting them, and that in itself was an odd kind of relief.

  It had been years since Eli last visited the falls—before they’d built the Skylon Tower, before they’d built the shops and casinos, before they’d laid the tracks for the funicular or thought to ride a barrel to the bottom or walk a tight rope across. According to Eli, the last time he’d been to the falls, they were several miles further up river.

  He wanted to see everything that had changed over the years and with a kind of childlike enthusiasm we made the evening a thrilling adventure. We kept up the charade of a normal human couple—walking everywhere, taking cabs, and refusing to use angelic persuasion to bend the rules. We toured all the attractions—from Ripley’s Believe It or Not, to Adventure City and the wax museums. We explored the shops of Maple Leaf Village and traversed the fun house, hand in hand. For those few hours we were just Eli and Emma, friends and confidants, and yet so much more.

  Eli wrapped his arms around me from behind, holding me in the warmth of his embrace at the edge of the Canadian falls. Pale, colorful lights illuminated the massive curtain of water and a cool, misty breeze washed over us. I knew it was late, but I wouldn’t let myself worry over the exact time. Not yet. I didn’t want the evening to end. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against his chest, breathing in the soothing scent of him.