“Clearly I married the wrong woman,” he muttered beneath his breath.
I reached out to snatch the bowl away from him, but he was too fast, catching my arm before I went in for the kill.
“Your cooking is divine,” he said. “And just to prove it, I will generously offer to take your portion off your hands as well, since you’d rather fight with me than eat. My appetites are simple enough since I’ve fallen. Put food in front of me and I eat. Give me a beautiful woman and I’ll have her in bed in twenty-four hours.”
In a vain moment I hoped he meant me. I risked complete degradation and said, “It took more than forty-eight hours with me.” I waited for him to say something unkind, something crushing.
But for once he smiled at me, such a beautiful smile that my heart sank. Because I loved him, and a smile like that would bring me nothing but grief.
“You were worth the challenge.”
I let the words sink in. It was a lie—I had hardly been that interesting a bed partner, particularly to someone who’d explored the breadth and depth of sexuality that Rachel said he had.
I longed for him so badly, and I couldn’t have him. The best thing I could do was keep the atmosphere light. “Keep your hands off my tomato soup.” I reached for more saltines. He was right, they were delicious mashed into the soup. Who would have thought? “And tell me what your plan is. You do have a plan? You made this place sound like some kind of hell.”
“It is.” The smile had left his face.
“Hell is 1950s suburbia? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. We’re just lucky you happened to find this place.”
“Lucky.” His expression was unreadable. “Have you looked outside?”
“Actually, no,” I said with surprise. I was usually more curious than that. I just happened to be far more interested in looking at him than at the landscape.
“Go to the window and tell me what you see,” he said in that voice I was coming to think of as the Archangel Voice.
But I wasn’t going to argue. I took the last bite of my cracker sludge and went over to the window. “Just a boring suburban street,” I said. “Half a dozen houses, all identical. Perfect lawns, no cars in the driveways, no sign of anybody.” I looked back at him, and he nodded, clearly not surprised. “So what happens next?”
For a long time he said nothing, and I wondered if we were back in the “I’m not giving you straight answers” mode.
Finally he spoke, almost reluctantly. “There’s a place here where the veil between this world and ours is very thin. We need to find that place, and with luck I can break through and fly us out of here before Uriel’s enforcer finds us.”
“He’s got an enforcer?” I said. As if we didn’t have enough challenges.
“Yes.”
We were back to monosyllables. “I thought no one knew anything about the Darkness. Come to think of it, Technicolor Suburbia Hell is a better name for it here.”
“Too unwieldy. And there’s more to the Darkness than suburbia.”
A sudden chill shot down my back. “How do you know that?”
But this time he wasn’t going to answer. “It won’t be easy,” he said instead. “But it’s our only way out. If we’d stayed in the Dark City, Beloch would have found us no matter where we hid.”
“How?”
“Beloch can always find me.” His words were troubling. He glanced out the window. “We can’t risk going out now—it’s already starting to get dark. Time moves strangely here, and I have no idea how long the daylight will last. It could be a few hours or a few days, but we need to make sure we’re not stranded out in the dark. That’s when the Wraiths come. Assuming we get past the enforcer.”
“Oh, holy Christ, new monsters to deal with?” I had had enough. “Who the hell are the Wraiths?”
He was unimpressed by my temper. “Just what they sound like. The ghosts of creatures who’ve been sent here.”
I digested this. “And what do they do?”
“They suck the light from you, leaving only darkness, despair, and emptiness.”
“Just great,” I said. “And how do we avoid these Wraiths?”
“Keep in the sunlight and look out for shadows. They can’t survive in direct sunlight.”
“More vampire wannabes,” I grumbled.
“We’re not—”
“Yeah, yeah.” I dismissed him. “So how long before it gets back to full daylight?”
He shook his head. “Your guess is as good as mine. In the meantime, you ought to try to get some sleep.”
“I’m not tired. I don’t suppose this place comes with a nice old black-and-white television with I Love Lucy on it?”
“What’s I Love Lucy?”
I shook my head. “Never mind. I’ll find something to keep me busy. Maybe I’ll just sit around and try to annoy you.”
He just looked at me. “There’s no ‘try’ about it. And I could always strangle you.”
“No you couldn’t,” I shot back. “Because then you’d have to put your hands on me, and if you do we’ll end up having sex again, and that’s the last thing you want.” I held my breath, hoping, praying, he’d deny it.
He froze. “We’re not having sex again.”
I kept my face impassive. “Then don’t try to strangle me.”
For a long moment he said nothing. Then he pushed back from the table and picked up the empty bowls. “Go find your I Love Lucy,” he said. “And keep away from me. We’re stuck with each other until we get back to Sheol, and in the meantime I need to be alone.”
“Ditto,” I snapped.
I saw him blink at the word, then place it. “Ditto,” he agreed coldly. “Go.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
MICHAEL WATCHED HER GO, the skirt swinging around her calves, her breasts moving softly beneath the T-shirt. Damn her. He was having a hard enough time not thinking about her, the taste of her skin, the taste of her blood.
He pushed the thought out of his mind. There was no longer anything keeping him from indulging in every carnal fantasy he’d ever had, but something held him back. He was going to have to watch her die, watch all that humor and vibrant energy be crushed, and he hated the thought. The closer he got to her, the worse it was going to be. He was already having a hard enough time trying to keep his emotions in check. He’d always thought he didn’t have any, but he was wrong. At least as far as Tory was concerned.
He glanced around at the plastic kitchen. It was a stark reminder of who and what he had been. God’s enforcer. Which made him Uriel’s, delivering justice with a flaming sword, casting souls into the Darkness. Of course he knew more about the Darkness than anyone who’d been there. He was the only one who had ever returned.
The Fallen hadn’t even known of its existence until he’d been forced to join them, and he’d always been deliberately vague.
Once Uriel had cast him out, Metatron had probably taken his place. In the short time Metatron had been in Sheol, he’d managed to avoid any substantive conversations with Michael. They both knew the truly terrible things that had been their lot, and to speak of them would only make them more real. The question was, who had taken Metatron’s place? Who would be pursuing them through the bizarre worlds that populated the Darkness?
It had been his job to cast people into this. Those who had most displeased Uriel were sentenced to the Darkness, and Michael had brought them there. And if they’d managed to evade the Wraiths, he had come back and hunted them down.
He had always tried to believe that the people he’d hunted had deserved the horror of endless darkness. But Tory didn’t deserve it. Tory deserved light and love, joy and happiness and a long life.
Instead she’d gotten a fallen angel who didn’t know how to love and a death sentence. And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
He pushed away from the table and headed toward the rectangle of light that Tory saw as a window. It looked as it always looked, a blur of colors that
could coalesce into whatever vision of safety and comfort was most likely to lull the hapless quarry into a false sense of security. It made the payoff that much more devastating. And more fun for his previous taskmaster.
There was no question that Uriel took pleasure from the pain of those he punished. And no question that the crimes he’d punished could be relatively minor. Michael had wiped out entire villages, from newborn babies to ancient crones, as punishment for one man’s blasphemy, and he’d done so without question.
Questioning had caused his fall from grace. And questioning had caused the fall of the first angel, Lucifer, God’s favorite. Michael had been the one to fling Lucifer from heaven, and he’d never regretted it.
He pushed away from the window. Time was passing, much too swiftly. He knew from experience that time moved differently in the Darkness. For all he knew, Uriel would try to keep them there while he sent his armies to destroy Sheol. Michael had to get Tory out of there as quickly as possible.
Night came swiftly. For a moment he feared that Uriel’s sadistic mind had given them a false haven, that there would be no lights to keep the monsters at bay. But as the shadows grew longer and he could see the glimmer of the transparent Wraiths waiting for them, the lights came on automatically. He wasn’t sure that was a good thing. If they didn’t control turning the lights on, then they had no control if something decided to turn things off.
He needed to stay near Tory in case that happened. He wasn’t sure what the outcome would be if he were to battle a Wraith. In truth, in the entirety of his existence, he’d never been truly tested by an adversary. He was the Sword of God, and even in a universe where God had disappeared, leaving everything up to a stand-in archangel and the doubtful conscience of mankind, he still held that place. Even Uriel couldn’t deny him that, though he could throw him out of heaven.
He moved through the house in search of her. It was easy enough to follow the sweet scent of her skin—even modern soap and shampoo couldn’t mask the erotic imprint she’d made on his senses. He would find her wherever she hid.
She was stretched out on an orange and brown sofa, staring fixedly at a paperback book with a lurid cover. She wasn’t nearly as aware of him as he was of her—she didn’t even notice that he was watching her. He could look his fill at the long legs, her mass of dark hair she tried in vain to control, her breasts . . .
She wasn’t wearing a bra, goddamn her. In the artificial light he could see the darkness of her nipples beneath the thin white cotton, and his arousal quickened at the thought of what he’d like to do with those breasts. He’d put his mouth on them and suck, hard, till they came to sharp little points in his hungry mouth, and—
They were already forming hard points. As he watched her, motionless, her nipples hardened, and he reached down and shifted himself in the loose khaki pants he’d found in the bedroom. Not loose enough, apparently.
“Stop staring at my breasts.” She hadn’t moved, but her voice was caustic. He caught a flash in her eyes, one of the fleeting images that had haunted him for the last few days. She wanted his mouth on her. She wanted everything he did.
“I wasn’t looking at your breasts.”
“Angels aren’t supposed to lie.”
“I’m a fallen one, remember? I can lie if I really want to, I can drink, I can fornicate.”
She glared at him. “How come when you’re talking in the abstract you use a nice polite word like fornicate, but when you’re talking to me specifically you use a word like fuck?”
He shouldn’t smile—it would probably infuriate her—but there were times when she was just so damned cute. “Because when I look at you and talk to you, all I think about is fucking. Specifically.”
She sat up quickly, her chest rising and falling with temper. Which was particularly nice without the bra. “You’re . . . Never mind.”
He laughed, and her eyes narrowed. “I’m what?”
She rose, ignoring his question. “I’m going to find a bed,” she said, heading toward him, clearly expecting him to move out of the way.
“Good idea,” he said, not moving.
She tried to push past him, a big mistake. The moment he felt her body touch his, his arousal went into overdrive, and he caught her arms so she couldn’t run away.
She was barefoot, smaller, and she looked up at him with sudden—it almost looked like fear. Impossible, and the expression vanished immediately, leaving her angry once more.
“Get your hands off me.”
He didn’t. Not at first. “Is that what you really want?”
It wasn’t. He could see the images that flashed through her mind, jumbled, erotic, insistent. He could almost feel her mouth on him, and he wanted to groan.
But she was made of sterner stuff, and she ignored the longing that was suffusing her mind and, by extension, his. “Yes, it is.”
He released her, stepping back, and for a moment she didn’t move. And then she was gone, her bare feet making a creditable stomping noise as she expressed her displeasure.
ARROGANT ASSHOLE! COMPLETELY egocentric, self-congratulatory son of a bitch of a bloody archangel, thinking I was standing there just trembling for his touch.
It didn’t matter if it was true. There was no way he could know it. Unfortunately, he seemed to understand everything I was feeling, whether I’d said something or not. He said I had an expressive face, but I’d been very good at hiding my feelings at the castello or from the bad-tempered nuns. Only Michael seemed to be able to read my mind.
Oh, God, that was a horrible idea. Because my mind had been running along X-rated lines, particularly when he was close to me. If he knew what I’d secretly, privately been longing for, then you might as well kill me now.
I hated him. He was probably laughing at me, at my poor, pathetic, love-starved self. He had been willing to fuck me, once—I could use that word too—but since then he’d kept as far away from me as he could. He wouldn’t even take the blood he needed so badly, the blood I was foretold to provide. The blood that would keep him strong. No, he would court death rather than drink from me.
Though, come to think of it, why had he given me his tattoos and gone through the Portal unprotected?
Because I was needed. That was why he had come to get me in the first place. The prophecy decreed that I was to come to Sheol and marry the Archangel Michael in order for the Fallen to triumph against the Armies of Heaven. Michael said the Dark City was heaven. If so, did that make Beloch God?
No, I’d forgotten. God had gone on an extended vacation, leaving Uriel in charge. But if that was the case, who the hell was Beloch?
Did I care? Did I care about any of them? The bottom line was that the only kindness and decency I’d experienced had come from the Fallen. No one lied to me in Sheol. No one wanted to smite anyone else; they just wanted to be left alone. The Armies of Heaven were going to attack, not vice versa. The Fallen were doing their best to be ready, but they weren’t the aggressors—no one suggested taking the fight to the enemy.
In the end, heaven and hell seemed equally bad, though I hadn’t had more than a taste of hell. I would make it through the Darkness, get back to Sheol, and help them fight off their attackers. And then I was getting the hell out of there and getting the first angelic/vampiric quickie divorce I could find.
Next time I was forced to speak to Michael—and I hoped I could wait a good long time—I would assure him that I wasn’t about to run off. At least, not until the Bad Guys who thought they were Good Guys were dealt with. He didn’t have to pretend, or take pity on any sexual fantasies that spun from my brain. It had nothing to do with him, and everything to do with my wanting to discover life.
I would make sure that wish got granted. In those few short hours in his narrow bed in Sheol, I had discovered a world of sensuality. I had . . . I had become too attached to him, but I would get over it. I’d always been a fast healer, and this was no worse than a broken bone or a case of the flu. I’d survive—I always did.<
br />
And the saintly Archangel Michael could go fuck himself.
I stomped into the kitchen, embarrassed and furious. I couldn’t even tell him that those fantasies had nothing to do with him. For one thing, the tattoos on his body had played an explicit part in some of them. For another, if I told him to stay the hell out of my mind, we would both have to acknowledge exactly what sort of licentious fantasies had been going on, and it was already humiliating enough. I certainly wasn’t going to discuss why I was having such thoughts. Whether it was because he was the first man I’d slept with in more than six years, the first man who knew more than the absolute basics. Or if it had to do with the fact that he was just so damned pretty. Or maybe I was just bored. It had nothing to do with the fact that he fascinated me, infuriated me, touched me in ways I couldn’t understand. Or that he’d come after me, rescued me, risked his own life again and again for me.
I opened the cabinet door so forcefully it bounced against the wall and snapped back. I was angry, frustrated, ready to explode, and even though I’d just eaten, I figured I’d better stuff something into my mouth before I screamed again.
Nothing to eat, maybe because the Über-God of Hell knew I wasn’t really hungry. I slammed the cupboard closed again, moving on to the next one.
“Stop having a tantrum.” Michael’s voice floated in from the living room, rich and seductive like everything else about him.
“Go to hell!” I shouted back. He was right, I was being childish, and I didn’t care. I considered myself an intelligent, adaptable, reasonably strong young woman, yet there was a limit to how much I could take, and I had just reached it. I was trapped in this hellish ranch house with a man who turned my knees to water, yet he took me only under duress. He wouldn’t answer my questions, he treated me like an idiot, and just when I was ready to give up on him he suddenly started to take notice. There was a term for that, I remembered, combing my memories. Dog in the manger. He had no interest in eating any of the hay placed there, but he wasn’t going to make way for those who needed it.
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