Jovienne held up one hand. “Let me guess. This is where you tell me your Master didn’t seek revenge by tempting Eve?”
Araxiel copied her former pose and crossed his arms. “Priests will tell you Adam and Eve were immortal before eating the fruit and that they became mortal only because they ate that fruit. But do you know the Bible? According to Genesis 2:17, Yahweh told Adam not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil saying, ‘for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.’
“Lucifer pitied mankind, so weak and fleshy, and nothing more than the pawn of a vengeful, jealous god. He was also suffering for Yahweh’s egotism. It would have been wrong for him to stay silent. So yes, Lucifer told Eve the fruit would not kill her as Yahweh had said it would, and he told her it would open her eyes so that she saw Good and Evil as Yahweh did. He did not tell her to eat the fruit—check a Bible if you don’t believe me. People focus on that idea, as if Lucifer told her to do what Yahweh didn’t want her to do, but those words aren’t there. He only warned them that they were being used and lied to. The truth was right there and still today ‘believers’ choose to ignore the fact that Yahweh. Had. Lied!” He shouted the last. “It was proven when she ate and ‘in the day’ did not perish!” He puffed and paced. “And still my Master is the one dubbed The Prince of Lies?”
Jovienne crossed her arms. “If Eve had been bolder, she and Adam would have had snake for dinner, not fruit.”
“Ah, and we would not be here to have this conversation… but Eve was not you.” He pointed at her. “And that is an impeccable segue into the next point: angels also feed.
“Divine beings feed on eis, the numinous light of God. My Master, and those who dared to adore him more than Yahweh, were cast upon the dirt. They had no nourishment, yet immortal, they couldn’t die. Over time they degenerated and devolved. Some lost their wings. Some, like me, lost the very substance of their bodies. All were altered. All grew darker, angrier. Fighting, surviving in the crudest of ways… they became evil because He starved them.
“At first, My Master gave of his light to sustain his friends, but without eis to regenerate, his burning hunger literally consumed the last of his own light and created Hell—”
“Enough. I get it. You’re trying to sell me a different version that riles my sense of injustice and aligns me to your purpose, but just stop. What do you want me to do, how and when, and what compensation and protections do I get for it?”
He pulled the sword into view again. “You take the sword and use it to sacrifice a certain someone to create a marvelous Hellgate like no other and—”
“No.” She retreated three steps.
“No?”
“No! What happened with Damnzel was not a sacrifice. I won’t purposely kill anyone.”
“Except demons.”
Her eyes narrowed and she slipped into a ready-stance, sword drawn. “Exactly. Demons. Like you.”
He considered countering her with the golden sword, but Lucifer had been clear about him not wielding it. The necessity of winning her over tempered his aggravation. Delivering her to Lucifer was the only way to stay on this side of the surface. He pulled on every persuasive aspect he could. “One kill stands between you and your goal. Do not tell me you would prefer to spend your days killing thousands of demons.”
Her shoulders fell a fraction of an inch. It was barely perceptible, but Araxiel saw momentous indecision in the unconscious move.
“Do not be rash, Jovienne. Again, understand that I do not seek to force you into anything. Go. Consider this offer. Let it be that when next we meet, it will either be as enemies and we will see what ending we find…or you will choose to align with me, I will stand at your side and give you the freedom that you desire.” His shoulders squared and his chest stuck out proudly.
“Aligning with you is changing one horrible master for another.”
“Have you heard nothing I’ve said?” He replaced the golden sword in his coat and groaned, turning away from her in disgust even as he tried to put aside his fear that she would ram her sword through him. “Do you actually want to suffer? Do you need to fulfill that altruistic notion and elevate the spiritual through the deprivation of the corporeal?” He kicked at the garbage in the alley. “Because I can tell you, searching for fulfillment in nonfulfillment is shit.” He faced her. “You have tried refusing the Call, haven’t you?”
The look she gave was answer enough. It disappointed him.
“He hurt you for it, didn’t He?”
She nodded, once. She sheathed her sword.
He could accept that she wasn’t the bold and ballsy rival he wanted her to be, but the fact that she had not yet left told him that her interest remained. Perhaps he could mold her into the vicious player she had potential to be. She’d only need a nudge to put together some of the details. “Have you seen those with the blind, mindless devotion?”
“I have.”
“And when you witnessed this most basic form of freedom, the freedom of thought and will, removed from others, how did that make you feel?”
“Sick. Afraid.” She hugged herself. “Were they always like that? Willingly? Were they beaten so many times that submission is what they have become? Did they never feel as I do?”
“You delight me,” he said, “and I wish you did not have to know the regretful aches so like my own.” Employing as earnest and sincere look as he could muster, he added, “I know a secret, Jovienne. Being as smart and savvy as you are, you will come to know it on your own in time, but once you know, oh, how you’ll wish you could forget.”
He pulled the sword into view again. What would it take to convince her to accept the sword? Once it was in her hands she’d never want to let go.
“You do want this, don’t you?” As he offered it, one hand pulled the black fabric away to reveal the reddish-gold blade. It was magnificent: a scimitar. The surface glinted with a fine sheen and flames flicked and surged within the strange metal.
Her hands twitched, but she kept them at her sides.
“You do. I can see it in your eyes.” She more than wanted it, she needed to wrap her cold fingers around the hilt. Containing his delight, his arms relaxed, bringing the weapon closer to him. “I misspoke earlier. It isn’t a person you’d be asked to kill, but more a thing. A thing you already harbor hate for. A thing you already want to kill. This sword was forged with one lethal purpose, constructed specifically to ensure the obliteration of one unique target. Oh, the edge is sharp enough to kill, but like the blessings infused into your holy steel to keep it from hurting you, this Hellborne steel will not slay a demon. As fantastic as this curved sword would look belted at your waist…it will not aid you as an abhadhon.”
She could not tear her eyes from the gleaming golden blade.
“If you accept this gift, you agree to wield it to slay one entity as fuel for the best Hellgate you’ll ever open: the one that frees you.” He whispered, “What say you, Jovienne?”
WITH GREAT EFFORT, Jovienne managed a single backpedaled step. Her yearning to touch the sword increased with her distance. Shaking her head as if her denial could make this easier, she found she could not bear it if she looked away from that blade, so she forced her eyes shut.
He must have replaced the sword under his coat because what she felt next was the slightest of touches, his fingers caressing her chin. Desire erupted hot within her. Her breath escaped.
Fierce anger followed her desire, filling her up until her skin felt like a tight sheath covering her. She’d told him not to touch her.
Twisting to escape his touch, she turned her back on the nameless man. Still, the world was quiet, hushed, waiting for her answer.
She called the wings. Hurry! She raised them so the first beat would lift her from the ground, but his warm fingers curled over the hard edges where they sprouted from her shoulders. His touch kept her feet on the ground.
“Gorgeous.” His whisper in her ear made her knees weak. “You are the most beautiful c
reature, Jovienne. Not just for your features…but for your heart which desires to do good even as you are so deadly.” His fingers slid downward, no longer restraining but caressing the skin around the wings. It made her tremble deep inside. It made her yearn for more.
“Do you want to do His ‘good’ deeds, regardless of the cost they weigh upon you?” His touch drifted under the leathery appendages to the backs of her arms, and then glided down to the gauntlets. “Or do you want someone to see you, the real you that is flawed, vulnerable, and even so, finds you good enough?” Cupping her fists in his palms, he squeezed her hands gently. Thus, he embraced the very essence of her, her anger and her strength and her fight.
She wanted that acceptance, that appreciation, to never end. “I want both.”
He leaned to her ear so that she could feel his breath on her skin. “And, if you cannot have both, which will you choose?”
He lingered for a heartbeat, and then eased away. As soon as his touch disappeared, she flew away.
Saturday
ANDREI DID NOT find Jovienne.
At first, the lack of a Call after the cringe alarmed him, and then he decided it meant a much-needed break for her. He hoped Eitan had been able to…well, he wasn’t sure what he hoped Eitan could do, as long as it benefited Jovienne.
Though disheartened about not seeing her, he had not sulked off to McGhee’s. Instead, he’d made his way around the city until he arrived on the scene of the Choices Clinic. The firemen had finished hosing down the building and were making way for the rescue team. He walked away, certain they wouldn’t find survivors.
Two disasters in three days. Perplexed that this had happened on an evening without a Call, he’d had to acknowledge that the additional instances of the cringe over the last few days could have escalated the rage in the city, affecting people who couldn’t even hear it.
Then he’d felt a second cringe.
When it passed, he walked for hours, finally climbing into the heights of the great red bridge.
In the cool embrace of the sea breeze, exhausted, he considered suicide. He could leap and turn his face to the sky. He wouldn’t see it coming. If the impact didn’t kill him, it would surely render him unconscious. He’d drown. It wouldn’t be frightening. A moment of uncertainty, sure, but compared to months or years of things as they were now…
Regardless of the spiritual consequences, he could take that action. He could. Was there any reason to resist this overwhelming powerlessness and stay alive?
Then another dawn spread before him and there, on the bridge, he found himself on his knees before the glorious sight. “I know I haven’t spoken to You in too long,” he prayed, “but I have something to ask.” He faced the bright golden beams that reached like open arms. “Jovienne needs help. She’s suffering. She’s in pain. She was never meant to be an abhadhon. I was. I know I failed You, and her, but please, send a wind to push me from this height or let me make this right.”
He stood and opened his arms.
The sea breeze faded. Everything was calm. He waited. The air remained still.
The walk to his apartment was solemn but soothing. God wanted him to live.
He climbed the steps to his apartment, more than ready to fall into bed and anxious to sleep this exhaustion away. Later tonight, he would try again to find Jovienne.
He pushed on his bedroom door and heard a creak.
His door never squeaked. It wasn’t his door he’d heard. It was the bed. Her bed.
Spinning on his heel, all tiredness forgotten, he leapt toward Jovienne’s door, but stopped his shaking hand an inch from the knob. What are you doing? You’re so tired you’re imagining things.
He turned back toward his own room, but let his ghost arms sweep out and through the wall. He nearly fell over getting back to her door when he detected a body inside. Thrusting the door open without knocking, he saw her curled on the bed in her leather gear, wingless. Her boots lay before the chest of drawers and, like days gone by, books were stacked beside the bed.
His heart sang, knowing she was home. Tears brimmed in his eyes. “Jovienne!”
She moved slowly, too slowly for the joy he felt. He impatiently stepped forward but stopped. The last time he’d seen her, she’d left hating him. With good reason.
Her eyes were swollen and red. She stood. Trembling overtook her arms as they slid around herself. His delight ebbed into concern. “What’s wrong?”
She tried to be strong, he could see her fight for that valor and he watched her fail. “Everything.” Her face fell and her eyes squeezed shut.
Instinctively, he put his arms around her. She didn’t yield to his embrace. She stood squarely on her own feet. This time though, she didn’t push him away.
He didn’t know what he should do, if he should release her or hold her. He knew what he wanted to do, and that was never let her go. His embrace tightened. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “I’ve got you.”
She crumbled in his arms.
For long minutes, he held her, feeling the sobs wrack her body, listening to her whimper. Finally, she pulled gently away and sat on the end of her bed. Her eyes were red, but her cheeks were dry as he sat beside her. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“I need answers.”
“Ask away.”
“What if I ask questions you don’t want to answer?”
“I’ve told you the worst already, Jovienne. I have nothing left to hide. Ask.”
Her fingers fidgeted. “Do you remember when I asked you about the magic energy in stones and crystals and such? You told me it was witchcraft?”
“Vaguely.”
“I still say it’s hypocritical bullshit to have the powers of the quintanumin and scoff at the notion of witchcraft.”
“I still disagree.”
“And if I told you that long before I was in your care my grandmother taught me about that kind of magic, what would you think of me?”
“Look, it’s not your fault if she taught you something—”
“Evil?”
He hesitated because her brows dropped low at the word ‘fault.’ “I was going to say ‘something that makes you have questions.’ People who question things come away stronger, not only because they thought about the subject, but because of the answers they received.”
She rose and looked out her window. “What do you know about nephilim?”
He shrugged. “A kind of angel that lusted for human women. They’ve been extinct for millennia, wiped out in the great flood.”
“Are you sure?”
“They were said to be giants, so yeah. Pretty sure.”
“Giants?” She stared into the corner, working this information through.
“What does that have to do with anything now?”
“I’m not sure.” She shook her head. “Just something someone said.” The last was murmured. She crossed her arms. “When I was made an abhadhon, my quintanumin were enhanced. I followed a cinder and was able to actually see what the jerky movements were all about.”
He would have loved to hear more about the ‘enhanced options,’ but that was not what had brought her here. His gut tightened, afraid of where she was going with this. “And?”
“It performed a ritual. A dark and vile version of what my grandmother taught me. It raised a demon. I watched the whole thing happen.” She paused. “I think it’s possible Gramma wasn’t saying cinders as in ‘burnt and ashy’ like I always thought. She might have meant senders, as in their actions ‘send’ a demon here.” She faced him. “She knew more than she had time to teach me.”
“It sounds like you’re supporting my witchcraft theory.”
“She didn’t have the quintanumin.”
“So? I saw cinders before I had quintanumin. So did you. It’s the reason we were chosen. Wait.” He stopped as a new thought clicked.
“Exactly.”
DESPITE THE GNAWING certainty that coming here would prove to be yet another bad idea in what was fast be
coming a long string of bad ideas, Jovienne had wanted to be in the one place that promised a sense of comfort and home, to listen to her angel snow globe play Brahms’s lullaby. But she wasn’t convinced that Andrei could accept what she was telling him.
“I heard my father arguing with her one night.” As Jovienne said the words, a memory hit her so hard her knees felt weak. She backed against the window.
“Something’s wrong.” Her father’s shout cut into her sleep and roused her. “She won’t wake up!” Jovienne slipped silently from her bed, curious who her father meant, and who he was shouting for.
“Calm down,” she had heard Gramma say. “I gave her a sleeping tonic. She said she hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in years.”
“You drugged my wife?” Her father’s voice dropped to a low growl.
“You drug your daughter every night at dinner so you can relax. Is it any different if I drug mine once so she can rest?”
“Don’t you ever do that again.”
“Don’t you overreact.”
Hearing all the warnings in his tone, and worried for Gramma, Jovienne cracked her door to peek out.
“I do what I want in my own goddamned house,” her father growled. “You don’t decide what’s best for anyone here. I do.”
“Get a hold of yourself.”
“How about I get a hold of you, witch?”
Gramma screamed as her father grabbed the top of her long braid and dragged her close to the stairway. “Let go of me! What do you think you’re doing?”
“You want me to let go? Yeah. I bet you do. I really bet you do.”
“You’ve been drinking. You’re not rational. Stop this!”
He twisted her around so her back was against his chest. He was such a big, broad shouldered man that she seemed nothing more than a doll. He wrapped his sinewy arm around her neck and leaned down close to her ear. “Got a tonic for this?”
Gramma couldn’t answer. With his grip on her braid, he pushed her throat into the crook of his arm. Her fingers clawed at his forearm.
“I know the truth. I know about that horse-shit voodoo you do. And I know that whatever the fuck is wrong with Jovienne is your fault. You did something that fucked her up in the head. She sees monsters and demons for fuck’s sake! What did you need her for? What did you need her to do for you?” His voice had gotten loud at the last. He paused for a deep breath. “For years, I’ve wished Jovienne would die. Bet you have too, since you screwed her up. I see now that you’re here to try again, this time to do your evil work on Osi. But I won’t let you take my wife. You can’t have her!”
Jovienne Page 24
