Demon

by Kristina Douglas

  He moved back to Rachel’s body and froze. Her eyes were open, and she’d watched everything, the horrific savagery he was capable of. And then she closed her eyes again, as if even looking at him was seeing an unspeakable monster.

  He held her carefully. Her life force wasn’t strong; she’d lost a great deal of blood, and if he didn’t get her help soon she would die. And much too late, he suddenly realized that he couldn’t bear it if she did.

  He kicked open the door into the moonless night. The rain had stopped, but the gloom remained. How fitting that this was Uriel’s idea of the perfect afterlife. Heaven, Paradise, Valhalla. The Dark City, with no sunshine, no joy, no light.

  He looked down at Rachel. Yes, she was Rachel, not the demon, not the Lilith, no matter what darkness hid inside her. She was Rachel, and he’d betrayed her.

  There was only one person who could save her. He would have to take her to the woman he hated, the woman who’d taken Sarah’s place. He would have to take Rachel to Sheol, to Raziel’s wife, the new Source. And pray to the God who had abandoned them that Allie could save her.

  He spread his wings wide and surged upward, into the dark, threatening sky that surrounded this cursed place. Up toward the brilliant sun, leaving the Dark City and the archangel Uriel far behind.

  S HEOL

  C HAPTER F IFTEEN

  THE EARLY MORNING AIR WAS still and silent in their bedroom looking out over the ocean. Allie lifted her head, shoving back her thick brown hair. Over the years her senses had grown more attuned to the rhythms of Sheol, their hidden fortress in the mist, and the Fallen who lived there. She knew their comings and goings, their anguish and joys, their needs. God, she knew their needs. Right now someone needed her quite desperately, someone who wasn’t there yet, and she started to roll over, but Raziel caught her arm and pulled her back on top of him.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he murmured lazily. “We only just got started.”

  Allie laughed, burrowing against his lean, strong, deliciously naked body. “May I point out to you what we did down on the beach in the moonlight just last night? And then what we did when you carried me back to bed?”

  “It’s a new day,” he said with a wicked gleam, rolling her underneath him. He was fully aroused, and she let out a little purr of delight.

  “So it is,” she whispered, reaching up and pulling his head down to hers. Their kiss was full and sweet, and she was warm and ready, tilting her hips up for his thick, gorgeous slide, closing her eyes and losing herself in the sweet dark magic of desire. The ebb and flow, thrust and withdrawal, building and building, almost to the point of pain, and then glorious release, cascading down.

  Later, when she lay spent and breathless on the huge bed, she watched him rise and stretch, a man, an angel, a blood-eater well pleased with himself and his life. He cast her one salacious grin before heading into the bathroom, and she managed a weak grin back. She only wished she had his energy.

  After seven years their bond had only grown stronger, so tight that nothing could break it. Not even the laws of nature, she thought with a trace of grim determination. She didn’t care what the rules were. She was never going to die, never going to leave her immortal husband. She flat-out refused.

  It was the way of things, she was told. The Fallen didn’t make mistakes. Once they’d chosen a partner, that connection became unbreakable. As the wife grew older and older. And the husband stayed young forever.

  She was lucky, though. She was the Source, the spiritual leader of the Fallen, the mother, the nurturer. And the source of blood to sustain those without partners, even the grumpy and unaccepting Azazel, husband of Sarah.

  As the Source, she would live much longer than the short human span. But after a couple of hundred years she would die, and Raziel would go on. And she couldn’t bear it.

  She sat up. She considered herself a practical woman, and she limited her brooding to a few minutes daily at the most. Right now there was no time for it. She had a naked husband in the huge walk-in shower, and she needed to bathe as well. And he was so good at soaping her up.

  She needed to eat, and to get ready. Something was coming that would require everything from her. Something was coming that would change everything.

  She needed to be ready.

  IT WAS ENDLESS, FLYING THROUGH storms and dimensions, past the angry roar of a demigod, her broken body wrapped carefully in his arms. She didn’t awaken, which was a blessing. She was afraid of flying, and he’d had to knock her out the last time he carried her, or her struggles could have sent them hurtling toward the ground. He would have been fine, but a crash could have killed her, and he hadn’t wanted to risk it.

  Right now she was barely breathing. There was a ring of blue around her lips as she struggled for breath, and he wondered if they’d damaged her heart.

  No, he was the one who’d done that. Stupid and cloying as the idea was, he’d seen the look on her face when the Nightmen arrived and known that was exactly what he’d done. He’d broken her heart.

  But what choice did he have, one he’d brought her to the Dark City? He had survived his incarceration there long ago, and he’d lied to himself, told himself that she would survive as well.

  He’d been an idiot not to realize the lengths to which the archangel Uriel was willing to go. An idiot not to recognize the Dark City for what it was: Uriel’s perverted afterlife, a heaven made for those who had already lost their souls. And he’d delivered her straight into Uriel’s bloody hands.

  He was half-afraid Uriel would do something to try to stop him; but if an angel, fallen or otherwise, chose to leave the Dark City, no one could prevent him. The laws of free will still held, no matter how Uriel despised them. He would find a way to circumvent them sooner or later; but so far he’d only been able to send the Nephilim in an abortive attack upon Sheol.

  Azazel wasn’t going to think about that, about the unbearable day seven years ago when Sarah had died. He had to concentrate on getting Rachel to safety, getting her the help she needed. He had to let go of mourning and concentrate on the living, at least for now.

  He landed on the beach lightly. The early morning mist was rising from the sea, and the sand was deserted. He looked up at the huge, cantilevered building that housed the Fallen and their wives, its blank windows reflecting the deep blue of the sea. He would have to wake them. She hadn’t moved, hadn’t made a sound for the last hour, but she was still breathing. He held on to that much, and started toward the wide entrance, cradling her carefully.

  She stepped out onto the lawn. She looked straight at him, clearly waiting for them, and he felt his usual anger flare up. But it was no match for his need.

  She took one look at Rachel and immediately became efficient. “The infirmary is set up for her, and I have Gabriel’s wife, Gretchen, waiting. What happened?”

  He followed her into the hall, responding to her businesslike tone. “She was tortured.”

  “The Truth Breakers?”

  He was surprised she even knew of their existence, but then he’d forgotten the bond that grew between the Fallen and their mates. Raziel would have told her everything. “Yes.”

  “Poor child,” she murmured.

  “She is not a child,” he said sharply. “She was once the Lilith, the first woman, and a murderous demon. Even if she has forgotten her past, she could still be dangerous.”

  “Then why are you holding her so carefully?” the woman shot back. “I don’t care what her history is, right now she’s a wounded child and she needs help.”

  “Yes.” He didn’t have to ask her, didn’t even have to call her by name. She would do what he needed, because that was who she was. The Source, as his Sarah had been. The healer, the nurturer. The only person he could trust who could help her.

  He laid Rachel carefully on the hospital bed, but she didn’t awaken. There was a hitch in her shallow breathing; he could sense her pulse, the blood in her veins, and they were sluggish, fading. She was
dying.

  He turned to the woman he hated, the woman he refused to call by name. “Please,” he said. “Please, Allie. Save her.”

  She looked at him for a long moment. “I will.”

  I FELT AS IF I were drowning in something thick and viscous. I couldn’t fight my way out of it—the more I tried to push toward fresh air and sunlight, the more it fought me. I was dying and I knew it. I couldn’t breathe, and the sun was too far away. I fought. I wasn’t ready to die, but I could barely form a conscious thought. I didn’t know who I was, where I was, I only knew that the pain was unbearable, and I would scream until they came and put something in a tube, and then I could rest again.

  There were people around me, shadowy shapes tending to me, tending to the body I hid inside, and there was nothing I could do to stop them. I wanted to crawl off to a cave and heal myself, but I sensed that was no longer possible. I needed help, and I had no choice but to accept it as I learned to ride the pain; it ebbed and flowed, crushing me in an iron fist and then releasing me. I had to fight so hard to live through the storm. I had been through worse, I knew it instinctively, even if I couldn’t remember where or when. I had survived unspeakable horrors, but those memories were locked away in a place I never had to visit again. If I could just get through this, I thought, struggling to breathe. One more minute, one more hour, one more day, and then everything would be all right.

  Even in my half-conscious state, I knew that was a lie. I knew that once I worked my way through whatever torment was being visited upon me, the respite would be brief; then life would once again pull the rug out from under me. It would never be all right. It would be pain and despair and disaster, and it would be so much easier just to let go.

  I tried to. I felt the soft, sinking cushion enfold me, and it was so warm, so comforting, that I wanted to release the desperate hold I had on everything and drift into it, lost forever. I let myself float, only to have a harsh voice call me back, berating me, angry and demanding. I knew that voice, knew that tone. He should have been no inducement to live, but he was. I pulled myself out of the soft darkness and went toward him, knowing instinctively that there was the light. There was why I wanted to live.

  And I began to fight anew.

  AZAZEL PACED THE SAND, GLARING at the house. Allie had banished him from the sickroom, and he couldn’t blame her. Yelling at Rachel not to die wasn’t going to help. He’d felt her slipping away and he’d panicked. It had been all he could do not to grab her shoulders and shake her. Instead he had told her she’d damned well better not die. He’d harangued her, threatening her with all sorts of ridiculousness, a return to the Dark City being one of them. If she died, there might be nothing left. Demons had no souls, and if Rachel had possessed one, it should be long gone by now. What happened when a demon died? Did it simply disappear?

  He ran a harassed hand through his hair, staring out at the sea. He felt like the ocean, storm-tossed and angry. Its healing beauty seemed out of reach. He felt no urge to strip down and dive beneath the cool, blessed waters. His body was whole. It was his mind, his spirit, his soul, that were in torment.

  Did the Fallen have souls, or were they no better than demons? They’d argued that for millennia, over campfires and by candlelight and gaslight and electricity, and there was no clear answer. God had stripped them of everything, including any possibility of redemption. There was no forgiveness for the fallen angels, only eternal damnation according to the angry God of old and his zealous administrator, Uriel.

  But that God had changed. He’d granted free will to everyone, the Fallen included. Had he granted them souls at the same time?

  He started pacing again, back and forth along the edge of the water. The tide was ebbing now. He’d been walking since it was coming in, splashing through water at high tide. Now it was pulling back, and there was still no word from the infirmary.

  “You’ll wear a rut in the sand,” Raziel said, sitting down carefully, his iridescent blue wings closing around him. “No word?”

  Azazel barely glanced at him. “No word. Go talk to your wife. She banished me from the sickroom.”

  Raziel arched a brow. “And you went? You astonish me. I wouldn’t have thought Allie could get you to do anything.”

  “I didn’t do it for her, I did it for Rachel.”

  Raziel looked at him. “Rachel? Do you mean the Lilith? Or have we made a mistake?”

  Azazel halted his pacing. “She doesn’t remember who she is. She has no powers, apart from the seductive one that pulls any man she sees into her web.”

  “That must have been inconvenient when you were in the Dark City. Did all the men start following you around in a pack?”

  Azazel glared at him. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Because that’s what would have happened if the demon Lilith had been about. No one would have been able to resist her. They would probably have tried to kill you, but you look like you’re unscathed. How is that?”

  “I have no idea. It took every ounce of strength I had to resist her.”

  “And just how much did you resist her, old friend? You seem particularly disturbed by her condition.”

  “Because it is our fault. My fault. I handed her over to them, knowing what they could do to her!” he said furiously.

  “That’s what we agreed to do. That’s why you took her to the Dark City in the first place, took her to Beloch. Granted, we had no idea that Beloch was Uriel. I wonder if he always was, or if Uriel simply took over the Dark City and the demon who controlled it.”

  “I fail to give a rat’s ass,” Azazel snarled. Raziel’s soft laugh didn’t improve his temper.

  “So you did as we agreed, and then you suddenly went in and took her back, infuriating Uriel in the process. Why?” He sounded more curious than censorious; but then, when the roles were reversed, it was hard for the former student to reprimand the master. Particularly when Raziel had contravened the law in much the same way not so many years ago.

  “Because she …” Because she knew nothing? He had no certainty of that. Because she was someone else? He knew that wasn’t true—behind those bright, curious brown eyes and that mop of red hair was Adam’s first wife, the one who lay with demons and smothered infants. He knew it, when he wished he didn’t. “Because I wished to,” he finished lamely, trying to hide his truculence. “And I trusted my instincts.”

  “And you didn’t consider that your instincts might be clouded by the Lilith’s powerful sexual thrall? Because I hate to tell you, it’s quite apparent you got sucked in, if that’s the operative word, by her.”

  “I did not get—Damn you!” He whirled on him. “She’s dying, and you dare to make prurient jokes?”

  Raziel shook his head. He wore his hair longer—thanks to his wife, it was now past his shoulders—and he wore it loose, so that it swirled in the light breeze. “Allie will save her. She’s not going to die, I can feel it. You could too, if you weren’t so caught up in your emotions.”

  “I have no emotions.”

  Raziel let out a bark of laughter. “Then why did you sleep with her?”

  “Beloch—Uriel forced me.” And then he realized how totally ridiculous that sounded. Uriel hadn’t forced him to do anything he hadn’t wanted an excuse to do. He glared at Raziel once more. “I slept with her because I wanted to. Is that the answer you want? I told myself it was to see whether I could resist her, but we both know that is nothing but a lie. Whether I wish to admit it or not, I wanted her, and I have since … I’m not sure when. Since long before I offered her to the Nephilim.”

  “Honesty is always good for the soul,” Raziel said lightly. “Trust in Allie. You trusted her enough to bring Rachel here, enough to put her in Allie’s hands. I think worrying about whether Rachel lives or dies is a waste of time. She’ll live. You’ve got something far greater to worry about.”

  Azazel drew back to look at him. “And what could that possibly be?”

  “What the hell you’re going to do
about her when she does.”

  C HAPTER S IXTEEN

  IT WAS A VERY STRANGE FEELING. IT was as if I were being born, for the first time, for countless times. Yet I knew this was for the last time—it was one of the few certainties I had. No more names, no more lives. Just this one.

  The fog of pain was slowly lifting. The world was coming back into focus, and I could see I was in a hospital bed, with all the requisite tubes going into and out of my body. I observed them with distant interest. It was as if they were attached to somebody else. This broken body had betrayed me by giving me so much pain, and I preferred to keep myself aloof.

  I could smell the sea. I had always been afraid of the ocean, the pull of the riptide, the waves that could crash over you and beat you down into the suffocating water.

  Odd, because I was accused of suffocating infants.

  In fact, old memories felt more real than my current state, half in and out half of a pain-infused nightmare. I knew my curse now. Not to kill innocent children. But to catch them up and cradle them and carry them to safety when something ended their lives.

  The untouched ones were the hardest. It was called many things—witchcraft, crib death, SIDS. I carried them in my arms and washed them with my tears, each loss as wrenching as if it were my own child. It was a cruel and monstrous punishment, but there was more to it.

  I comforted the women who were barren. I held them in my arms when they slept and sang to them. I went to their husbands and whispered to them, and they would rise up and take their wives and sometimes, just sometimes, the women’s bellies would fill with the children they longed for. But too often they mourned, and the husbands went elsewhere, and I could only grieve with them.

  I lay down with monsters. I had a body that was used until it wore out, and then I was given another, and then another, as the foulness of their bodies defiled my human one. Their members were misshapen, barbed, clawed, and hideous, and each night my body would tear in pain, in punishment. But that was over. Long gone, and this body was new. I remembered only the acts, not the way I had felt. I was spared that much as I slowly came alive again.