by L. A. Banks
“Leave the guard. He has served his purpose. Now that the Light’s booby trap has been properly dispelled, bring this to Giza where no one can see,” Asmodeus said, then he walked down the aisle and disappeared.
In the distance, the skyline of Cairo wavered in the desert heat, a mirage like a thin charm bracelet sparkling against the sun. Three enormous pyramids now seemed smaller than a man’s hand from where they stood. Demons dropped a crate and instantly began tearing away its wood frame. As soon as they’d cleared the debris, Asmodeus summoned a black serpent from the depths of the sand and used its body to draw a pentagram around a blood-drenched crystal case.
Without the sacred tablet, he faced a necromancer’s nightmare. To raise the fallen, he’d have to call up each of the slain by name—a tedious task that would require time and knowledge that he didn’t possess. Fury and frustration united within him as he stared at how the sun still glinted against unstained sections of the crystal coffin. The Light still had the advantage, but not for long.
For now, he would call up Appollyon, the destroyer, who’d ruthlessly been slain by Azrael with a battle-ax in his back, right between the wings. Then there was Bune, whose fighting form was the three-headed dragon. Pure treachery had lured Bune into an explosive trap. Just as Lahash, his dark angel brother of judgment day, had been tricked into an aerial battle over the Delaware River and subsequently broiled to death in holy water.
Asmodeus rubbed the side of his scarred face, remembering how Azrael had emerged from the river wet and covered with holy water, so that when they’d lunged at each other and connected, the vile substance had burned like battery acid. Then there was that bastard Isda, who’d beheaded the lovely Onoskelis, protectress of perversion, just as Azrael had beheaded Malpas, the raven. Then to add insult to injury, Azrael’s Remnant bitch had blown off Pharzup’s face.
“Calm yourself or you will not be able to perform the incantation even to raise the five dark warriors we lost,” Rahab murmured into Asmodeus’s ear as she appeared behind him from within a sand dervish.
“You have caught me in a very violent mood, Rahab. Do not toy with me.”
She leaned in and kissed the side of his neck and massaged his massive shoulders, her long, blue-black hair billowing around them both in the rough desert wind. “My name means ‘violence,’ remember, my love. And as you know, I rarely toy with anything—that is Onoskelis’s province, not mine.”
He turned around and kissed her savagely.
“Tell me, when you pull off this coup, what do you want beside power?”
Asmodeus smiled at her. “I want to be second-in-command to the Dark Lord with all the accoutrements of that office. It beats where I had been, in a Warrior angel regime, undistinguished. Never again.”
“Is that all you want?” she murmured, her eyes beginning to narrow.
“No. It is the first thing, so that I can have everything else.”
“And you’ve been promised such a title?”
His smile broadened. “I have been having private negotiations that have borne fruit. Failure is not an option.”
This time when he kissed her hard, he drew blood. She wiped her mouth sensually with the back of her hand.
“Then by all means,” Rahab said with a fanged smile, “I should get to work.”
Celeste woke up with a quiet gasp that made several adjacent passengers stir. But just as quickly, a protective arm tightened around her.
“What’s the matter?”
Slightly disoriented, she wiped her eyes and looked up at Azrael. “I felt like I couldn’t breathe for a moment. Felt trapped. I can’t explain it. Like I was closed in and I could still see light around me, but there were dark streaks and dust and grime, like on a really dirty windshield.”
Sitting forward a bit, she lifted her ponytail and drew down the airline blanket, then suddenly shrugged out of Azrael’s hold. “I’m sorry, it’s just that I feel so hot all of a sudden.”
He felt her head and then the side of her neck. “You’re burning up, Celeste.”
He was out of his seat in a shot, heading for the back of the plane. She was too weak to move and simply slumped against the window. When he returned, he sat half in the seat, facing her and offering her a bottle of water. After several sips she slumped back against her seat and sighed.
“Tell me I’m not coming down with the flu or something crazy before this trip,” she said.
“No,” he said in a concerned tone. “I don’t think it’s the flu.”
Chapter 4
Celeste closed her eyes and took in slow breaths through her nose to stave off a sudden bout of nausea as the plane began its rapid descent to Cairo International. The pilot’s announcement that the Great Pyramids at Giza could be seen from the left bank of windows on the plane only made her squeeze her eyes shut more tightly as her stomach roiled. A light squeeze of Azrael’s hand somewhat quelled the discomfort, but when she opened her eyes, every passenger appeared to her as a swirling mass of light energy.
“Breathe through it,” he murmured, and wiped her damp brow with a kiss. She nodded, knowing that there wasn’t the privacy to have a deeper conversation about her strange waking sensations, but he’d heard her distress nonetheless. This time when she opened her eyes, the passengers and crew had returned to normal, but she noticed Gavreel and Paschar attending to her sisters. Okay, so it wasn’t just her. Aziza was rubbing her temples as though staving off a migraine.
Azrael clasped her palm and brought the back of her hand against his lips. The second he did that, she felt adrenaline riddling his system, so much so that it put a slightly metallic taste in the back of her mouth.
“Kiss me,” she murmured as the flight dipped again.
For a moment he just stared at her, then he complied. But it wasn’t the light peck that she was expecting to test for ambrosia lacquer on his tongue. He held the sides of her face, gently at first, brought his face close to hers, then suddenly took her mouth with so much force that it frightened her.
When she pulled back, he looked away, hands trembling. They sat back in their seats mute, and eventually she glanced around as other passengers looked away, embarrassed at the sudden display. But his brothers were sitting back, eyes closed, breathing slowly, gripping their armrests, practically sparking. What the …
“This region is a vortex,” Azrael murmured in a gravelly rumble. “I had not anticipated this. We will discuss it later.”
“All right,” she replied, taking him at his word.
None of the brothers looked good. Gavreel had clearly lost his sense of peace, Paschar was just as undone, and Bath Kol seemed to be on the verge of an asthma attack. Beads of perspiration had formed on Azrael’s brow, and his once-dry T-shirt and sweater were damp. He looked to be about ten seconds away from stripping the offending articles over his head to release his magnificent wings.
She watched a muscle in his jaw pulse as static electricity began to climb through his long dreadlocks. Thinking fast, she grabbed his hand and held it hard. “Ground through me.”
He nodded, almost gasping, but instead swallowed the sound so hard that it made his Adam’s apple bob in his throat. “I need to release them so badly, Celeste, it hurts,” he whispered, then allowed his head to drop back with his eyes closed.
He was referring to his wings. Other passengers hadn’t heard his comment and just assumed he had flying anxiety when the opposite was true. The desire was so thick within him to be out on the thermals, flying beside his brothers into a battle, that it was making his shoulders thicken.
Speaking to him in a hissed warning, she clenched his hand against her heart. “Listen to me, Az—you cannot have a wardrobe malfunction on this flight. We clear? It cannot happen, no matter what.”
Past the point of speech, he just fervently nodded and glanced out the window, then turned away from it as though someone had slapped him.
“We just dropped in altitude from thirty thousand feet to ten, the entry point of
aerial assault, the sweet ten, just above the clouds with a sight line to the ground forces.”
Flat-palming Azrael’s heaving chest as a stewardess neared, Celeste shook her head. “Az, I’m serious, man.”
“Is everything all right?” the stewardess asked, looking concerned. “Sir, do you need some water?”
“He’s fine,” Celeste said, glaring at Azrael. “Just has trouble with landings after a long flight.”
“Oh, yes, understood. Plenty of people hate takeoffs and landings, but we’ll be on the ground soon.”
Celeste waited until the woman had passed them to go strap herself into the jump seat in the back.
“Azrael, I don’t know what’s—”
His kiss was feral and punishing as his hands threaded through her hair. He pulled her against him and spoke in a hot rush against her ear. “This vortex is one of three in the motherland of humanity. The Nile Valley waters flow from south to north like no other river in the world, up from the Garden of Eden to give birth to where mankind settled east of Eden.” His voice was a harsh, sensual rush that sent a shudder of want through her. “The power here, where the original Tree of Knowledge grew … the air is electric, it is where we all came in … where the vibrations enter our cells and magnify everything—then with the sun and the sacred geometry created here … the Giza plateau is a landing strip … it’s … it’s …”
“Okay, okay, sit back and breathe through it,” she said quietly as the landing gear of the plane disengaged from the body of the aircraft.
Pushing him against the seat, she watched him wince as the plane bounced into a touchdown and then raised its flaps. It almost seemed as if Azrael and his brothers had identified with the aircraft, their bodies straining with the jumbo jet as it came to a slow, rolling stop.
Winded from the emotional drama of it all, she sat back and took in several breaths herself. What the hell had just happened?
Nausea had been the precursor to her last highly eventful ten minutes of the flight, not any kind of cosmic power surge. She had initially felt something ominous and dark when she’d awakened, not the euphoria of battle that Azrael and the others had just experienced. But now was not the time to debrief all that. She just wondered how the unseen angels flanking the plane’s wing positions had taken all of this, or were they part of the reason the interior group was having a collective meltdown? Whatever the cause, she was definitely worried about how the testosterone rush was going to effect them once they stepped foot on actual Egyptian soil.
Impatience grated her as the double-row, passenger-packed flight taxied to the Jetway. Then there was the nerve-fraying wait as people jangled with luggage and small, wailing children. Celeste counted to ten, just wanting to get off the freakin’ plane, trying her best not to lose it. Screaming at people to just move out of the way would solve nothing, and knowing that there really were angels and a Higher Power, did she truly want to yell at disabled, elderly people who clogged the aisle or a mom with four little kids and no help?
Summoning calm, she waited in the most civil mode possible, hoping that four battle-ready angels didn’t just clear the aisle like first responders might in a blaze. They were more stressed out than she was, and when she saw Gavreel—the frickin’ Angel of Peace—wipe his palms down his face as a lady with a bunch of packages took her sweet old time keeping it moving, she knew something was in the air. Maggie looked to be three seconds from slapping the annoying diva in the aisle, and Aziza was body-blocking Bath Kol. Finally he snapped.
“People have been on this flight for almost thirteen damned hours, hon—step into the aisle and let people out who do not have all the shit you have! All right! Can you do that?”
Aziza closed her eyes as the stricken woman scooted into the seating area and glared at Bath Kol.
“Thank you,” he muttered. “I’m just sayin’.”
Sarcastic applause came from the rear of the plane, which was probably the only reason Aziza didn’t die of mortification. But Bath Kol’s outburst broke the bottleneck and freedom was in sight.
Almost running out of the aircraft, customs forms in hand, they barely acknowledged the crew’s standard debark farewell. The second they crossed the threshold, they left the shelter of perfect temperature modulation to a hundred-degree blast of Egyptian reality in the Jetway. Immediately Celeste caught Azrael under his elbow as he staggered, walking zigzag almost as if he were drunk. Inside the cooled building, he improved slightly and endured the paperwork processing like a root canal without Novocain. Within the hour, their small troupe had made it to the front of the airport, freedom within their grasp.
Leaning against a building column, Isda greeted them with a wide smile.
“You feel the power hit here, mon?”
Bath Kol pounded his fist followed by the others.
Isda glanced around. “How you ladies doing?”
“I just need to get out of here and breathe real air,” Celeste said, feeling her stomach begin to get queasy again.
“No worries. Got a small minibus parked out front—got people who know some people watching it and giving me a few minutes parked illegally to break da law.” He laughed at his own joke and slapped Azrael’s backpack. “Need me to carry that for you, mon? You know, I have to eat my words and give BK his due. As much as I hated coming back here, I still have a lot of good memories of this place, and I’m just glad the main protests are over so we can maneuver a little bit, feel me? The loves of my life were here. Whew. I got your bags, mon, seriously.”
“No, I’m good,” Azrael said, his breathing labored they neared the door.
“You don’t look good, mon. Look like the vortex is kicking your natural ass.”
“I said I was all right!” Azrael said way louder than was necessary.
“Hey, I’m in the Light, bro. Remember?” Isda said, chuckling, and seeming to delight in his brother’s distress. “I tol’ you this wasn’t no place for no punk, right? Told you the energy was old and hard and was a wicked old bitch that didn’t care.”
“Shut up, man. Where’s the van?” Azrael rumbled.
“Right over there,” Isda said with a wide grin, unfazed.
Bath Kol gave Isda a hard look. “Brother, you’re manic. This is the memory high before you crash and burn, and you’re getting on everybody’s last nerve. You’re gonna go up real fast and come down real hard, because your DNA is linked to this region—so chill.”
“Whatever,” Isda flipped back, rolling his eyes as he walked ahead of them. “Kiss my ass. I’m happy. Get over it if you’re not.”
A trickle of perspiration rolled down Celeste’s back and between her breasts as a blast of unseasonal Egyptian heat, sweltering for that time of year, suddenly accosted her the moment the airport doors opened. Isda pointed at a white Toyota minivan that looked as if it could seat twenty passengers, but was dubious in the air-conditioning department. However, the reliability of the rickety vehicle was a much lower priority than the increased tension she noticed among the brothers.
As they walked across the pavement and their footfalls connected with actual concrete, each of them slowed his gait, their lids closing in what seemed like slow motion as a thick, blue-white spill of energy bubbled up to cover their feet and climb up their bodies. The sight stole her breath and stopped her in her tracks.
Isda glanced over his shoulder at her. “They’ll be all right. Gwan fuck ’em up for a few hours, tho.”
She hurried forward with the other mortals in the group at Isda’s insistence and climbed into the van as he chided his overwhelmed brethren.
“You comin’ or what, mon? Standing on a street corner in Cairo ain’t no place for a lady, or ain’t you get the memo?”
His admonishment seemed to break the trance as a muezzin call went out over the city. The long, mournful wail enveloped the group, producing a serenity that had previously eluded them. Like large hunting dogs, the brothers closed their eyes and tilted their heads, quelled by the sound, and the
n they moved as a unit toward the van.
“All respect to the Mu’aqqibat—our protector brothers in the Light, angel forces of the Quran, while we inhabit this land … hear our prayer and keep our mortal charges from death until its decreed time by Allah,” Isda said as the brothers piled into the van.
“Amen,” Azrael said with a nod of approval.
“Ashé,” Aziza murmured as each man got settled.
“Well said, bro, we can use all the help we can get,” Gavreel said with a hard sigh as he flopped down next to Magdalena.
Paschar just slid into the seat next to his charge and took up Melissa’s hand and kissed it hard.
Barely after closing the door, Isda shifted the clutch and thrust the vehicle into the most insane traffic Celeste had ever seen. Aside from the demons, she could definitely understand why Isda had prayed for the safety of the mortals among them. In a city of 20 million people and unfathomable congestion that would make New York’s Manhattan traffic seem like the Autobahn, every driver in Cairo clearly believed that he had the right of way. Screw you if you were a pedestrian, too.
But as disorienting as everything was, the visual wonder lying before her could not be ignored. The collision of worlds in Cairo left her speechless. Here East met West, great opulence contrasted with staggering poverty. Gorgeous domes built in ancient times stood next to modern office buildings that gleamed with twentieth-century glass, while burned-out buildings and unfinished constructions provided sanctuary for stray dogs and pigeons. And beyond the most outrageous skyline of chaos loomed the pyramids—right downtown one could look up and see one of the Seven Wonders of the World.
Celeste fought not to press her nose to the window and finally lost the battle, wishing that she could just jump out of the van to stand on the curb and open her arms and spin around in the atmosphere of it all. Yet as they passed the Eygptian Museum, something dark made her recoil from the window. She was distracted from the fleeting feeling by the way the brothers spread their palms against the glass, lighting it up with so much crackling energy that she feared it might shatter. That no one on the streets could see it still mystified her.
