Cover Him with Darkness

by Janine Ashbless

  That stopped me in my tracks. I thought of the eagle tearing at Prometheus’s liver, day after day. I thought of the fallen angel rising after centuries from his place of torment. I thought of Azazel, somewhere, waiting to swoop and collect me for his prey. I thought of the Church—with all its ancient machinery of control and punishment—turning toward me like a creaking bronze titan woken from slumber.

  I reached into my pocket and found my phone and a card with a number scrawled upon it.

  “Egan,” I rasped as the connection clicked through. “It’s Milja. Please. I need you to help me. Right now. Please.”

  chapter six

  SANCTUARY

  Egan drove round to pick me up in a taxicab. He found me standing by the roadside, and I suppose I must have looked utterly forlorn because he jumped out as the cab parked up and he hurried over.

  “Milja—what’s happened?”

  “My father’s dead,” I said in a flat voice.

  He put his hands on my shoulders. “I’m so sorry.”

  “They say it’s my fault.”

  “What?” His hands tightened.

  I liked that grip of his—it felt like I was going to blow away among the litter without something to anchor me. “I need to get away from here,” I told him.

  “All right so. Okay. Get in.”

  He opened the curbside back door for me and then went round to the other side. The taxi driver looked at us both in the rearview mirror, and I hoped Egan wouldn’t ask me what had happened. Not in front of a stranger.

  “Where do you want to go?” Egan asked me. “Have you got a hotel?”

  I shook my head. I’d spent the last two nights sleeping on chairs in the hospital. No wonder I ached all over.

  “Friends?”

  “No.” I shook my empty, useless head, feeling my shoulders drop as I added, knowing it sounded childish but unable to stop myself, “I want to go home to Boston.”

  “Okay.” Egan sounded dubious. “I’ll take you to the airport if that’s what you want. Have you got your passport on you? An air ticket?”

  I shut my eyes, wanting to sink into the darkness. “My cousin Vera has my passport,” I said. She’d put it in her hotel safe with her own, because she thought it wasn’t secure with me walking around with it in my shoulder bag.

  “Ah now, that’s a problem.” Egan’s voice was gentle. “Milja, you don’t look at all well. Let’s get you somewhere quiet.”

  He gave an address to the driver. I didn’t object. I didn’t care anymore. I looked at the streets sliding past. Egan said nothing, though I could feel him watching me. I didn’t cry: I had cried over Azazel and cried over my father, all in vain, and I had no tears left. But I slept, unexpectedly, falling into a doze without even realizing it. I only knew when the car stopped and Egan opened the door for me.

  “Come on,” he said, offering me his hand as if I were a little kid.

  I looked around vacantly as he helped me to my feet, seeing tall white-painted walls with bright fuchsia bougainvillea sprawling over the tops, and no other traffic. It looked like a back road in an affluent suburb.

  “This is the house my employers are putting me up in,” he told me, leading me to an anonymous gate of black metal and pulling a key from his pocket.

  “The bank?”

  “Uh, yes.” He touched me lightly on the shoulder to usher me inside. “It won’t be problem.”

  There was a tiny courtyard beyond the gate, and inner doors, and walls of stone. An old building, I thought vaguely, behind the modern facade. Inside, the floors were tiled and the rooms austere, smelling of polish. I saw big, plain furniture that looked antique; a single rug in the center of the living room was the only concession to softness. There were no pictures on the walls and no ornaments, except for a small wooden crucifix as we entered and a wooden statue of Mary and the Holy Child on a far sideboard, cracked with age and still bearing traces of gilt and paint. There was no indication whether this was intended as a shrine or an art statement.

  “Have a seat, Milja, and I’ll get you a drink,” said Egan, as a door opened and out came a woman; an old woman wearing a headscarf. She looked at us with an expression of surprise.

  “Ah, Milja—this is the housekeeper, Dejana.”

  “Dobro jutro,” I said, automatically, though I had no idea if it was still morning or not.

  “Dejana, this is Milja who will be our guest. She needs looking after. Can you find her some…orange juice?” He looked at me for confirmation.

  “Yes,” I said, gratefully.

  “Orange juice,” he repeated for Dejana’s benefit, miming lifting a glass and drinking from it. She nodded, turned back and disappeared into the room she’d come from.

  “Dejana doesn’t talk, but she understands what you say.” Egan had that nervous look tourists get when they’re worried they sound like patronizing foreigners. “Anything you need, just ask her.” He sat down in an armchair opposite me and looked into my eyes. “Are you in trouble, Milja?”

  I nodded.

  “Do you need the police, or a doctor?”

  “No.”

  “Can you tell me about it?”

  I looked down at my hands. I wanted to. I meant to. But I opened my mouth and no words came out. Egan waited.

  “It’s all right,” he said at last. “Just rest. You’re safe here. In fact, there are several guest bedrooms here and no one else but me staying right now. So how about you lie down for a couple of hours? You look like you need it.”

  “Okay.” I’d been asleep in a drugged stupor all night and then some, but I still felt exhausted.

  “Sure, well, I have to go out just for a little while. You took me out of work early, that’s all. We’ll talk when I get back, shall we? In the meantime, the bathroom’s over there if you need it.” He pointed across the main room. “It’s shared I’m afraid, but there’s a bolt on the door. Come on—let’s find you a bedroom.”

  He led me down a short corridor and opened a door into a bedchamber that matched the living room for style: plain, heavyweight furniture and a crucifix as the only adornment on the whitewashed walls. It made me horribly aware that I possessed nothing but the clothes I stood up in, my phone, my credit cards and a crushed cigarette packet of euros. Everything meaningful and comforting and familiar had been taken away.

  “That’ll do, won’t it? My room’s at the end of the corridor there. The others are all empty.”

  “Great. Thank you.” I made myself meet his eyes and smile. I don’t think it was convincing.

  “Try and get some sleep.”

  Alone, I inspected my room. A single window looked out onto an enclosed garden. The bed was only sized for a single occupant, but was made up with clean sheets. In fact there was a guest welcome pack in sealed plastic on the bedside table: toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, shampoo, a three-pack of disposable razors. Nothing feminine. There was a large bottle of water too, which I opened eagerly. Only when I’d knocked back about a liter did I spot the pajamas: brand-new, still in their sealed packet, old-fashioned, striped-cotton male pajamas.

  Weird, I thought, in that vague emotionless way that I seemed to have acquired. They seemed to be anticipating only single men as guests here. I wondered if Egan wore matching attire at night, and though the thought didn’t exactly make me smile it was a moment of lightness.

  There was no bolt or lock on the bedroom door. Weird, I thought, again.

  I went back out into the public room, and found Dejana setting a large glass of juice on the table in the dining niche, along with a plate of sweet potika pastries and some smoked ham. She nodded at me when I thanked her, but pursed her lips and dropped her eyes when I asked, “Have you been here long?” Conversation, even in mime, was clearly not encouraged.

  I ate slowly, more because I felt my body needed it than from appetite. I thought about Father—not the shrunken, frail man of this last week but the big hale Papa of my childhood, always ready to fix things mechanical, always
humming to himself as he worked, always prepared to stop whatever he was doing and talk to me and patiently explain this or that. But still the tears would not come.

  I shut my eyes. In this warm, silent room it was easy to picture my father, easy to imagine him sitting opposite me. I could almost hear his breathing. I could picture his broad face with his spectacles slipping down his nose, and his dark eyes watching me with gentle concern.

  “Papa,” I said, sliding my hand across the table toward him.

  A warm touch brushed the back of my hand. A feathery brush of fingers. I shivered and opened my eyes—but there was no one there. Just the warm afternoon light and an empty chair and a fugitive scent that might have been church incense.

  I wanted to weep. It would have been such a relief. But I couldn’t.

  Afterward, I went to my room, shrugged out of my clothes, put on the top half of the pajamas—the shirt hung down to mid-thigh on me—and climbed into the bed. I thought I’d just curl up and nurse the hollow in my chest, but I passed into sleep almost at once.

  I closed the door of my apartment, dropped the keys in their bowl and walked through to the kitchen, where Suzana sat cuddling Senka the cat.

  “Hey,” I said. “How was your day? Bet it wasn’t as bad as mine. A three-hour meeting called at five o’clock—can you believe it? I’m dead on my feet.”

  “Your boyfriend’s in the living room,” she said to my back, as I rooted around in the refrigerator for pepperoni and celery sticks.

  “What?” Her words didn’t make sense to me at all.

  “Your Turkish boyfriend.” Her cold disapproval was audible even with my back to her. “He’s waiting for you.”

  “He’s not Turkish,” I said as I turned, but now I knew exactly who she meant.

  “He looks Turkish, and he says his name’s Aziz.”

  Senka chose this moment to dig her claws in and Suzana’s attention abruptly transferred from me to the cat, who escaped at high speed through the door into the living room. “Ow!”

  “Oh crap,” said I, following.

  Azazel was sitting on the back of the sofa, his bare feet on the cushions, petting the cat—who was practically climbing on him in order to butt her head underneath his chin. He inclined his neck so that they could rub cheek to cheek and ran his hand down her spine. Senka dipped and arched and let out an ecstatic yowl.

  “Senka likes you,” I observed. Just the sight of his inky lashes against his cheek made me clench inside.

  He opened one eye. “I like cats,” he said. “Free spirits.”

  Senka proved this by jumping down from the sofa-back and bouncing away across the floorboards to another chair where she could wash herself. Azazel straightened and consoled himself by looking me up and down with a smirk of undisguised appetite.

  “Aziz, huh?” I said.

  “Aziz el-Diren. Warrior of the Resistance. Like it?”

  “Witty. You’ve picked up some modern languages then?”

  “Some? All of them.”

  I blinked, discomforted by such excessive ability.

  “Languages fascinate me. There are so many of them, these days, and they carry such complex histories wrapped in tiny words.” He spread one hand. “I’ve been traveling about a lot.”

  “Nice.”

  “And surfing your Internet. A truly astonishing thing.”

  “Eeeeek.” I pulled a face, my alarm genuine. “You know, you mustn’t take everything you see on the web seriously. Really. Especially the porn.”

  “The porn was very interesting,” he said, deadpan.

  “Or anything in a comments section. People say stuff, but they don’t act like that in real life.”

  “A good thing too. Any species possessed of that much hatred would surely wipe itself out.” He glanced at Senka, amused. “Though you all seem to like cats.”

  I bit my lip, gathering myself.

  “How have you been, Milja?”

  I took a deep breath. “My father’s dead.”

  His smile did not waver. “Should I offer condolences?”

  “You killed him.”

  “I did not. But he was an old man, and very ill. When I held him here”—he mimed a clutching hand—“I could feel his heart stumbling.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Old men die, Milja. Even more easily than young ones.”

  I wanted to hit him. “Say you’re sorry,” I whispered.

  “Why?”

  “He was my father,” you bastard. “And he always felt sorry for you!”

  But the second that was out of my mouth I knew what a stupid stupid thing it was to say, and I flushed.

  Azazel, eyes narrowed behind silky lashes, waited until he saw my shame before he answered, very quietly: “And oh, that helped me so much.”

  I put my hand over my face, hiding my eyes. Of course, nothing looked the same from his perspective. He had every right to hate his prison guards as much as he hated the Architect of his torment.

  “Don’t cry,” he said. For a moment I was surprised, until he ruined it by adding, “You are much less attractive when you cry.”

  Rage spiked in my breast, petty though it was. “I can’t cry,” I snarled, and then was surprised when he laughed.

  “Oh, it has begun already!”

  “What has?”

  “You’ll find out.” Stepping down from the sofa, he held his hand out to me. “Come outside.”

  I briefly considered refusing the invitation, but then what would that achieve? Taking the very tips of his fingers in mine, I let him lead me out onto our apartment balcony.

  Outside, it was a sunny day downtown. Skyscrapers of glittering tinted glass soared overhead. We were standing on a roof terrace, in a restaurant I didn’t recognize, although—yeah, probably because—it looked very upmarket. Waiters in white dinner jackets flitted between tables where the well dressed drank wine and nibbled fiddly looking hors d’oeuvres.

  Of course there wasn’t really a restaurant on my balcony. Not in real life.

  “Oh,” I said with relief, “it’s just a dream.”

  “Of course it is.”

  “Luckily for you,” I pointed out snippily as he led me between the tables. “They usually insist on guests wearing shoes at places like this.”

  I also took the opportunity to look down at myself. I was wearing a light figure-skimming sleeveless dress, very short—it barely covered the essentials—which I’d never seen before and was definitely not what I’d thought I’d worn to the office. And I was sure I was wearing no bra or panties beneath it.

  That made me look to see if others had taken any notice of our arrival. There were a few people staring, certainly. The men looked curious. The faces of the women watching my companion expressed a less guarded interest—simultaneously disparaging and avid.

  Azazel glanced at me over his shoulder and bestowed a dark smile. “Am I embarrassing you, Milja?” he asked, drawing me closer so that he could nip at my ear.

  “That’s not the word I’d pick.” Since it was only a dream, I figured, I didn’t have to be so careful about provoking him. But he only laughed again and pushed me gently to the wall of the terrace, so that I could look over the parapet at the giddy perspective of the avenue many stories below, and the traffic crawling by.

  “See this,” he said, slipping his arms around me. “I love this view. Look at it. All around. Only a few thousand years ago you learned to smelt copper. And now—all this. Incredible. You are wonderful!”

  “Wonderful?” I was taken aback at his enthusiasm, and terribly distracted by the way he pressed up against my ass.

  “Don’t you see that? Great cities of glass and steel, and vehicles that cross continents and the space between worlds. Electrical power that makes day out of night and does the work of uncountable hands. Your science—your art and architecture, literature and music. Computers and the Internet. Wonderful, what you have made. Beyond words!”

  This wasn’t entirely what I’d e
xpected. He’d been, well, so grim and cynical until now—though with good reason. At this moment, beholding all the kingdoms of the world like, I thought, Satan bestriding the High Places, he was positively ebullient.

  “And pollution and war and climate change, and Big Brother and cyber-bullying,” I said, testing him.

  He shrugged, looking out over my head. “You will overcome those things in time, I suppose, with enough thought and imagination.”

  “Maybe. We’ve got technology at our fingertips but Stone Age emotions.”

  “You take such a short-term view. I’m more optimistic, Milja.”

  I turned, staring up into his face. “I thought you hated us all?”

  “Hate? Me?”

  “You’re…” I looked around at the diners and dropped my voice, which was ridiculous. I know. It was, after all, a dream. “You’re a demon. The enemy of mankind.”

  He shook his head, eyes narrowing. “An enemy? Is that what you think?”

  “Well. Aren’t you?”

  He shook his head, as if in disbelief at my ignorance. “For tens of thousands of years we cared for you, right from the Ash Winter when your species was brought to the edge. That was our remit—our holy duty. We were the Watchers—shepherds of those last helpless, naked, toothless hominids with their lumpen rock tools and their wildfires. Your kind was this close to extinction…but we stood about you and guarded you from the beasts and the darkness and the cold; we led you to clean water and new sources of food. We made sure you survived. And as we watched over you, slowly we taught you and nurtured your potential. Art. Music. Tool-making. Fishing. Sewing. Pottery. Look it up, Milja: it was all our doing. No, our crime was never caring too little.”

  “Then what was it?”

  His eyes were like pools of moonlight. I could become trapped in there, I thought, and drown.

  “We got too involved. We interfered.”

  “With women?”

  He chuckled. “In the Divine Plan.”

  “And what is that?”

  Azazel lifted an eyebrow, making no pretense of being inclined to answer. It was hard not to bristle under the insult. I remembered the quote about weapons from the Book of Enoch. “Metalworking…was that you then? Is that what you taught us?”