“Yes.”
I controlled my instinctive flinch. Clearly he didn’t believe in cushioning blows. “And who does that make you? Mr. Jordan?”
He looked blank, and I stared at him. “You’re an angel,” I clarified. “One who’s made a mistake. You know, like in the movie? I shouldn’t be dead.”
“There is no mistake,” he said, and took my arm again.
I sure as hell wasn’t going quietly. “Are you an angel?” I demanded. He didn’t feel like one. He felt like a man, a distinctly real man, and why the hell was I suddenly feeling alert, alive, aroused, when according to him I was dead?
His eyes were oblique, half-closed. “Among other things.”
Kicking him in the shin and running like hell seemed an excellent plan, but I was barefoot and my body wasn’t feeling cooperative. As angry and desperate as I was, I still seemed to want him to touch me, even when I knew he had nothing good in mind. Angels didn’t have sex, did they? They didn’t even have sexual organs, according to the movie Dogma. I found myself glancing at his crotch, then quickly pulled my gaze away. What the hell was I doing checking out an angel’s package when I was about to die?
Oh, yeah, I’d forgotten—I was already dead. And all my will seemed to have vanished. He drew me toward the crack in the wall, and I knew with sudden clarity it would close behind me like something out of a cheesy movie, leaving no trace that I’d ever lived. Once I went through, it would all be over.
“This is as far as I go,” he said, his rich, warm voice like music. And with a gentle tug on my arm, he propelled me forward, pushing me into the chasm.
CHAPTER TWO
THE WOMAN WAS FIGHTING ME. I could feel resistance in her arm, something I couldn’t remember feeling before in any of the countless people I’d brought on this journey. She was strong, this one. But Uriel, the ruler of all the heavens, was infallible, or so he had managed to convince just about everyone, so this couldn’t be a mistake, no matter what it felt like.
She was just like so many others I had brought here. People stripped of their artifice, shocked and needy, while I herded them on to their next life like a shepherd of old, not wasting much thought on the entire process. These humans were simply moving through the stages of existence, and it was in their nature to fight it. Just as it was my job to ease their passage and see them on their way.
But this woman was different. I knew it, whether I wanted to admit it or not. She should have been anonymous, like all the others. Instead I stared down at her, trying to see what eluded me. She was nothing special. With her face stripped free of makeup and her hair down around her shoulders, she looked like a thousand others. The baggy clothes she now wore hid her body, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t care about women, in particular human women. I’d sworn off them for eternity, or for as long as Uriel kept me alive. This one should have been as interesting to me as a goldfish.
Instead I reacted to her as if she somehow mattered. Perhaps Azazel was right, and swearing off women and sex had been a bad idea. Celibacy was an unhealthy state for all creatures great and small, he’d argued. It was even worse for the Fallen. Our kind need sex as much as we need blood, and I was intent on keeping away from both. And instead of things getting easier, this woman was resisting.
I paid no attention to my hunger—it had nothing to do with her, and I could ignore it as I’d been ignoring it for so long. But she was somehow able to fight back when no one else could, and that was something I couldn’t ignore.
There was no question—Allegra Watson was supposed to be here. I had stood and waited as she stepped in front of the bus, moving in to scoop her up at the moment of death and not a second before.
I never lingered. There was no need for her to suffer—her fate had been ordained and there were no last-minute reprieves. I had watched the bus smash into her, waiting just long enough to feel her life force flicker out. And then it was over.
Some argued when I brought them away. In general, lawyers were the biggest pain in my ass, also stockbrokers. They cursed me—but then, they weren’t heading where Allie Watson was heading. Lawyers and stockbrokers and politicians uniformly went to hell, and I never minded escorting them. I took them to the darkside, pushing them over the cliff without a moment’s regret.
It always shocked them, those who were banished. First they couldn’t believe they could actually die, and when hell loomed up they were astonished, indignant.
“I don’t believe in hell,” many of them had said, and I always tried to resist the impulse to tell them that hell believed in them. Sometimes I even succeeded.
“You’re a goddamned angel,” one had said, never realizing quite how accurate he was. “Why are you sending me to hell?”
I never bothered to give them the straight answer. That they deserved it, that their lives had been filled with despicable, unforgivable things. I didn’t care enough.
Goddamned angel, indeed. What else would a fallen angel be, a creature cursed by God and his administrator, the archangel Uriel? As man had developed and free will had come into play, the Supreme Being had all but disappeared, abandoning those in heaven and hell and everywhere in between, leaving Uriel to carry out his orders, enforce his powerful will. Uriel, the last of the great archangels to resist temptation, pride, and lust, the only one not to tumble to earth.
The curse on my kind had been clear: eternal life accompanied by eternal damnation. “Ãnd ye shall have no peace nor forgíveness of sín: and ínasmuch as they delíght themselves ín theír chíldren, / The murder of theír beloved ones shall they see, and over the destructíon of theír chíldren shall they lament, and shall make supplícatíon unto eterníty, but mercy and peace shall ye not attaín.”
We were the outcasts, the eaters of blood. We were the Fallen, living our eternity by the rules laid out.
But there were the others, the flesh-eaters, who had come after us. The soldier angels who were sent to punish us instead fell as well. They were unable to feel, and driven mad by it. The Nephilim, who tore living flesh and devoured it, were a horror unlike anything ever seen before on the earth, and the sounds of their screams in the darkness rained terror on those left behind, those of us in the half-life.
We had taken one half of the curse: to live forever while we watched our women die, and to become eaters of blood. While the Nephilim knew hunger of the darkest kind, a hunger for flesh that could only be fed with death and terror.
This had been our lot. Two of the oldest earthly taboos—eating human flesh and drinking human blood. Neither could survive without it, though we Fallen had learned to regulate our fierce needs, as well as the other needs that drove us—that had driven us from grace in the beginning, before time had been counted.
In the end the Fallen had made peace with Uriel. In return for the task of collecting souls, we were allowed at least a measure of autonomy. Uriel had been determined to wipe the Fallen from the face of this earth, but the Supreme Being had, for once, intervened, staying our execution. And while there were no reversals of the curses already in place, there would be no new ones levied against us. For what little joy that brought us.
As long as we continued our job, the status quo would remain. The Nephilim would still hunt us by night, rending, tearing, devouring.
The Fallen would live by day as well, fed by sex and blood, with those needs kept under fierce control.
And Allie Watson was just one more soul to be delivered to Uriel before I could return to our hidden place. Do the job and get back before too much time elapsed. The duties of a fallen angel were not onerous, and I had never failed. Never been tempted. There had even been a time when I rushed to get back to the woman I loved.
But there had been too many women. There would be no more. I had one reason and one reason alone to hurry back.
I couldn’t stand humans.
This particular creature was no different, though I couldn’t understand how she had the strength to resist my resolve, even the small amount of r
esistance I felt beneath my grip. Her skin was soft, which was a distraction. I didn’t want to think about her skin, or the unmistakable fear in her rich brown eyes. I could have reassured her, but I’d never been tempted to intervene before, and I wasn’t about to make an exception for this woman. I wanted to, which bothered me. I wanted to do more than that. My hands shook with need.
I looked down into her panicked face and I wanted to comfort, and I wanted to feed, and I wanted to fuck. All of the needs I kept locked away. She didn’t need anything from me. If she did, she’d have to make do without.
But the stronger her panic, the stronger my hunger, and I gave in to the safest of my urges. “Don’t be afraid,” I said, using the voice given to me to soothe frightened creatures. “It will be fine.” And I pulled her forward, spinning her out into the darkness and releasing her as I stepped back.
It was only at the last minute I saw the flames. I heard her scream, and I grabbed for her without thinking, dragging her back. I felt the deadly fire sear my flesh, and I knew then what had been waiting for me, out there in the darkness. Fire was death to my kind, and the flame had leapt to my flesh like a hungry lover. I pulled the woman out of the dark and hungry maw that should have been what humans referred to as heaven, and I sealed my own trip to a hell that would have no end.
We tumbled backward, onto the ground with her soft body sprawled on top of mine, and I was instantly hard, my rebellious flesh overruling everything I’d been trying to tell it for decades, overshadowing the pain as a pure, unspeakable lust flamed through me, only to be banished a moment later.
An inhuman howl of rage echoed up from the flames. A moment later the rocks slid closed with a hideous grinding noise, and there was nothing but silence.
I couldn’t move. The agony in my arm was unspeakable, wiping out my momentary reaction to the woman’s soft body sprawled across mine, and I could almost be glad. The flames were out, but I knew what fire did to my kind. A slow, agonizing death.
It was one of the few things that could kill us, that and the traditional ways of disposing of blood-eaters. Beheading could kill us as surely as it would kill a human.
So would the minor burn on my arm.
If I’d only stopped to think, I would have let her go. Who knew how she’d spent her short life, what crimes she’d committed, what misery she’d inflicted on others? It wasn’t my place to judge, merely to transport. Why hadn’t I remembered that and let her fall?
But even as I felt the pain leaching away any semblance of common sense, I couldn’t help but remember I’d brought any number of innocent souls to this very place, seemingly good people, cast them forth, assured them that they were going to the place of peace they’d earned. Instead it had been hell, the same hell to which I’d taken the lawyers and stockbrokers. This was no temporary glitch. I knew Uriel too well. Hell and its fiery pit were Uriel’s constructions, and I knew, instinctively, that we’d been offered no alternative when we’d delivered our charges. I had been dooming the innocent ones to eternal damnation, unknowing.
The sin of pride, Uriel would have said placidly, with great sorrow. The cosmic hypocrite would shake his head over me and my many failings. To question the word of the Supreme Being and the emissary he’d chosen to enforce it was an act of paramount sacrilege.
In other words, do what you’re told and don’t ask questions. Our failure to do that was why we had fallen in the first place. And I had done more than question—I had just contravened the word. I was in deep shit.
Night was falling around us. The woman rolled off me, scrambling away as if I were Uriel himself. I tried to find my voice, to say something to reassure her, but the pain was too fierce. The best I could do was grit my teeth to keep from screaming in agony.
She was halfway across the clearing, huddled on the ground, watching me in dawning disbelief and horror. Too late I realized my lips were drawn back in a silent scream, and she could see my elongated fangs.
“What in God’s name are you?” Her voice was little more than a choked gasp of horror.
I ignored her question—I had more important things to deal with. I had to gather my self-control or I was doomed. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to save myself at this point, and I couldn’t save her either, not that I particularly cared. She had gotten me into this mess in the first place.
She was going to have to help get me out of it, whether she wanted to or not. I shuddered, forcing the agony back down my throat. In a few minutes I wouldn’t be able to do even that much; a few minutes longer and I would be unconscious. By morning I would probably be dead.
Did I care? I wasn’t sure it mattered one way or the other. But I didn’t want to leave her behind, where the Nephilim could get her. I’d rather finish her myself before they tore her body into pieces while she screamed for help that would never come.
I sucked in a deep bite of air, steeling myself. “Need . . . to make a . . . fire,” I managed, feeling the dizziness pressing against my brain, feeling the darkness closing in. I could hear the monsters out in the night forest, the low, guttural growling of the Nephilim. They would rip her apart in front of me, and I would be paralyzed, unable to do anything but listen to her screams as they ate her alive.
Things were beginning to fade, and the nothingness called to me, a siren song so tempting that I wanted to let go, to drift into that lovely place, the warm, sweet place where the pain stopped. I managed to look over at her—she was curled in on herself, unmoving. Probably whimpering, I thought dizzily.
Useless human, who probably belonged in hell anyway.
And then she lifted her head, staring at me, and I could read her thoughts easily. She was going to make a run for it, and I couldn’t blame her. She wouldn’t last five minutes out there in the darkness, but with luck I’d be unconscious by the time they began ripping her flesh from her bones. I didn’t want to hear the sounds of her screams as she died.
One more try, and then I’d let go. I tried to rise, to pull the last ounce of strength from my poisoned body, struggling to warn her. “Do not . . .” I said. “You need a fire . . . to scare them away.”
She rose, first to her knees, then to her bare feet, and I sank back. There was nothing else I could do. She was frightened, and she would run—
“And how am I supposed to start a fire?” she said, her voice caustic. “I don’t have any matches and I’m not exactly the camping type.”
I could just manage to choke out the words. “Leaves,” I gasped. “Twigs. Branches.”
To my glazed surprise, she began gathering the fuel from nearby, and within a few minutes she had a neat little pile, with branches and logs on the side.
The last of the twilight was slowly fading, and I could hear them beyond the clearing, the odd, shuffling noise they made, the terrible reek of decaying flesh and old blood.
She was looking at me, expectant, impatient. “Fire?” she prompted.
“My . . . arm,” I barely choked out. The last ounce of energy faded, and blessed darkness rushed in. And my last thought was now it was up to her. I had done everything I could.
And the night closed down around us.
CHAPTER THREE
HE’D PASSED OUT. I STARED down at him, torn. I should leave him, I thought. I didn’t owe him anything, and if I had any sense at all I’d get the hell out of there and leave him to fend for himself.
But I could hear those noises out in the darkness, and they made my blood run cold. They sounded like some kind of wild animal, and in truth I’d never been Outdoors Girl. My idea of roughing it was going without makeup. If those creatures out there liked to eat meat, then they had dinner stretched out on the ground, waiting for them. It even smelled as if he were already slightly charbroiled. I didn’t owe him anything. So what if he’d pulled me back from the jaws of hell . . . or whatever it was? He was the one who’d pushed me there in the first place. Besides, he’d only gotten slightly singed, and he was acting like it was third-degree burns over most of his
body. He was a drama queen, and after my mother and my last boyfriend, I’d had enough of those to last me a lifetime.
Hell, who was I kidding? Whether he deserved it or not, I wasn’t going to leave him as food for wolves or whatever they were. I couldn’t do that to a fellow human being—if that was what he was. Though I still didn’t have the faintest idea how I was going to start the damned fire.
I edged closer, looking down at him. He was unconscious, and in the stillness the unearthly beauty of his face was almost as disturbing as the unmistakable evidence of fangs his grimace of pain had exposed. Was he a vampire? An angel? A fiend from hell or a creature of God?
“Shit,” I muttered, kneeling beside him to get a closer look at the burn on his arm. The skin was smooth, glowing slightly, but there were no blisters, no burned flesh. He was nothing more than a big baby. I reached out to shake him, then yanked my arm back with another “Shit,” as I realized that beneath the smooth skin fire burned.
That was impossible. It looked as if coals were glowing deep under the skin, and the eerie glow was putting out impressive amounts of heat.
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