by Joy Nash
She exhaled an unsteady breath. “Thank you.”
He felt nothing but trust radiating from her mind. The trust he’d worked so hard to put there. Trust he didn’t deserve.
Guilt sliced at his innards. He was a bastard, to use her this way, to lead her, blind and trusting, to bondage. He released her hands and stood. Pacing to the window, he opened one of the shutters. The narrow street, two levels below, was painted with the long shadows of early evening. A shabbily dressed man trudged past without looking up.
“What time is it?” Maddie surprised him by asking. Such a mundane question.
“There’s a couple hours of daylight left.” He turned back to her. “You should rest. Before tonight.”
He phrased it as a suggestion but in reality it was a command; the urge to blurt out the truth to her was very strong. He had to put some space between them before that happened. With the strengthened link between their minds, it was easy to force her acquiescence without her even knowing he’d done so. She yawned almost immediately. A moment later, her eyelids drooped.
“I don’t know why I’m so tired all the time,” she groused.
“It’s normal during transition.” That wasn’t completely false.
He guided her to the bed. Unprotesting, she stretched out on the mattress and said, “Maybe I will sleep, just a little. But”—she blinked rapidly, fighting the heavy droop of her eyelids—“what happens tonight?”
Cade didn’t answer.
Chapter Thirteen
Lead was for the earth, bronze for war, silver for joy. But gold—pure, shining, perfect gold—was the essence of enlightenment, the divine spark from which all creation sprang. If one possessed gold, one possessed all. To truly possess gold, one must create it. To create, one must sacrifice.
Lead, bronze, silver, gold . . . Lilith breathed the progression as she scraped metallic, orange-red dust from a silver tray. The powder, every grain, dropped into a rounded clay vessel. She lifted her eyes to Azazel’s.
“Go on, Daughter.”
She nodded. The hilt of the knife felt slick in her left hand. She adjusted her grip and pressed the tip of the blade to her right palm; her white skin opened in a red slash. Curiously, she felt no pain. She opened her hand over the clay vessel. Blood dripped. Silently, she counted seven drops before pulling away.
“Now, replace the cover.”
A silver moon shone down from a brilliant sky, illuminating her task. The vessel was completely round except for three supports that kept the sphere from tipping. A copper sheet lined the inside. Under the watchful gaze of her sire, Lilith joined the two pieces. She twisted the top once, until the ridges on its edges locked into place with the grooves on the crucible’s base.
“Good,” Azazel said.
Hands trembling, Lilith took up a beeswax candle and touched its wick to the flames in the forge. Tilting the taper above the crucible, she dripped wax over the top and along the seam of the two pieces she had joined. She filled the gaps carefully, not lifting her head until she was satisfied every crack had been sealed tight, and she let out a breath when Azazel once again nodded his approval.
“The crucible is the woman’s womb,” he said. “The flame is man’s desire. Join the two, Daughter.”
Lilith lifted the small vessel—it was surprisingly heavy—and placed it on the fire. The flames rose; the wax melted, sizzling as it struck the coals. Lilith stared into the conflagration, aware of an all-consuming tension. Was she worthy of her father’s faith? Would she succeed?
Azazel did not speak until the clay turned black. Then he indicated for Lilith to take up a small bronze rake and drag the crucible from the fire. She did so. Long moments passed. The cooling clay whistled and groaned.
Lilith waited, not speaking, not daring to raise her eyes. She would rather die than meet her father’s eyes and reveal her rising fear. At last Azazel dipped his chin. Lilith stepped forward. Bare hands trembling slightly, she cupped them around the heated vessel. The air left her lungs in a rush. The burned clay was cool!
Her lips parted in surprise; her father’s deep chuckle sounded behind her. “Come now, Lilith. You did not think I would allow your tender flesh to come to harm, did you?”
Flushing, she looked up at him in wonder. “But . . . it emerged from the fire. How is it possible?”
“The greatest virtue is knowledge,” he told her. “All things are possible to the one who comprehends the divine.”
“I do not understand,” she said.
“You will.” His dark eyes flowed over her. “Open the vessel.”
It was more difficult to open the crucible than it had been to seal it. Azazel handed her a bronze knife; she inserted the tip between the vessel’s two halves. Steam hissed free in an almost human sigh, and diaphanous yellow mist seeped into the air. The two pieces of clay parted. Lilith gazed into the top half of the crucible.
“Oh!” The copper sheet had changed. It was now a mystical, translucent red. “How beautiful.”
Azazel smiled. His crimson aura sparkled. “The color tells us your effort has succeeded. Well done, Daughter.”
Her eyes flew to the base. The reddish dust she’d scraped into the vessel had transformed into a shining black residue. When Azazel handed her a curved bronze scraper, she used the tool to transfer the dark material from crucible to a small stone bowl.
“The prime substance,” her father said. “The seed of creation. Utterly devoid of light. As was the universe before illumination by the divine spark.”
Lilith cupped the bowl in her hands, tilting the black powder—the prime substance—so that it spilled back and forth. The material was so black it seemed to cause everything nearby to brighten.
Some might have called it ugly. Frightening, even. But truly, it was the most wondrous thing Lilith had ever seen.
“And I created it,” she breathed.
“That is only the beginning, Daughter.”
Maddie woke, disoriented, the dream image burning the inside of her skull. She sat up abruptly, shaking her head as if to dislodge it. The mental experience was so real, almost as if it were her own memory. According to Cade, her dreams were actually her ancestor’s. Lilith. A few days ago she would have scoffed at the notion. Now she believed him. Against her better judgment, against all instinct, she was beginning to trust Cade Leucetius.
Where was he? Her eyes darted around the shabby room. Something squeezed inside her chest when she realized she was alone. She let out a long breath, fighting a quiver of panic. She should be glad for a bit of privacy. Just thinking of what had happened between her and Cade caused her body temperature to rise several notches. She could hardly believe what she’d done. What she’d let him do.
It had been the most incredible sex she’d ever had. No. Scratch that. To call what she and Cade had done “sex” was like calling a category-five hurricane a summer shower. She felt stretched more ways than she’d thought possible. She was sore between her legs, and the tops of her breasts stung from the scrape of Cade’s stubble. A red mark graced her shoulder from his teeth and lips.
The lock on the door, she found, was broken. But though the knob turned freely, the door itself wouldn’t budge. She set her shoulder against it and shoved. Nothing. Kicked it. Nothing. She pounded on it with her fists and called out. No answer.
The door had to be bolted from the outside. There was a bright light in the hallway, illuminating the door’s edges. Frowning, she ran a hand down the crack beside the jamb. The light was an odd color, dark and silvery, and when she pulled her hand away, opalescent ribbons followed her fingertips. Strange.
A day ago, she would have blamed the visual disturbance on the tumor. Now she wasn’t so sure. If Cade’s assertions were true, her cancer was gone and she was in the midst of some kind of transformation from human to Nephilim. Could the light be . . . magic? Some kind of protection?
Not protection. Imprisonment. The words rose in her mind, almost independent of her thoughts, a whispere
d voice in her ear. A chill ran through her. It intensified when she spied a flash of movement near her toes.
A snake! She jumped back, heart racing, and the creature slithered to a position in front of the door. She backed toward the bathroom as it lifted its head. It hissed in her direction, forked tongue darting past twin fangs.
Thankfully, the reptile stayed in position by the door. Almost as if it were a guard. Maddie frowned, examining the animal more closely. Red and black markings decorated its body. The thing might have been a twin to the one she’d shooed out of her hut two nights ago. Or the two snakes might be one and the same.
On that disturbing thought, she slipped into the bathroom and shut the door, questions rising into her mind like so many bubbles in a bathtub. Where was Cade? Why had he left her? What was he doing? Did she even want him to return? She couldn’t help thinking of the snake tattoo on his leg, the one that looked so much like the snake in her hut and also like the snake in front of the door. Coincidence? Hardly. What the hell was going on?
Trembling hands braced on the rim of the sink, she stared at her reflection in the cracked mirror. Her hair hung limply, too dirty to curl. Her face was pale, her eyes underscored with dark half-rings. Dried sweat clung to her skin. She hardly felt human.
Her eyes locked with the eyes in the mirror. According to Cade, she wasn’t human. She was like him. Part angel. Or, if she preferred, part demon. Soulless. Cursed.
If Cade was to be trusted, she was on the edge of a crisis. A crisis that brought overpowering sexual cravings. It might kill her. After it drove her insane.
He’s lying. He’s using you. The whispering voice echoed inside her skull.
She scrubbed her hands over her ears. “He hasn’t hurt me,” she said out loud.
He forced himself on you.
“Forced? Ha! I was the one who climbed on top of him.”
If you trust him, he’ll destroy you.
“Shut up.”
Turning to the shower stall, she cranked the faucet. It protested with a metallic squeal. The stream of water was thin and lukewarm. The soap was brown and coarse. She didn’t care; she stripped off her clothes and stepped in. She scrubbed her hair and body until her skin was red and her fingers sore.
She dried off with the single scratchy, threadbare towel. Cautiously, she cracked the door and peered into the main room. The snake was still at the door, but it lay still, its head down. She ventured in, treading softly. The reptile didn’t move.
Clothes bundled under one arm, she retreated to the opposite side of the room from the door, near the window. As she stepped into her shorts, she slipped her hand in the left pocket. Her fingers closed on the amulet. The breath in her lungs left in a weakening rush. The union felt like a homecoming. The relic was safe.
She took out the disc and cradled it in her palm. Despite the deep crease across the center and the damaged central stone, the piece truly was beautiful. The Seed of Life pattern sparkled white. The red gem glowed in a slice of shuttered sunlight.
Dr. Ben-Meir’s corpse rose suddenly into her mind’s eye. A hot flush spread over her skin and she started to sweat. Ben-Meir was dead. Because of the relic? Because of her? Could the explosion that killed the archeologist really have been magical? Had it come from this bit of metal and stone in her hand? The very idea was ludicrous.
And yet . . . she could feel the magic in the disc. Feel its response to her touch. She’d been angry when Dr. Ben-Meir had tried to pry it from her hand. Had she somehow activated a deadly force against him? Could she have stopped it? Was it her fault he was dead?
She wished suddenly that Cade had gotten rid of the disc. He should have flung it into the desert. But coming close upon the heels of that thought was the realization that she would have fought to stop him. She would have fought him even if he’d insisted on holding the relic for her. If he took the disc, if she fought him for it, would the relic respond? Would it kill Cade, too?
That’s what Cade believed, she realized. That was why he’d handed her the relic with no protest. He knew she was connected to the disc. It was hers. Hers. That scared the crap out of her.
She looked at the door, at the snake acting as sentry. If the disc was magic, could she use it to get out? Unfortunately, she had no idea how and she wasn’t really eager to try. She had nowhere to go, anyway. She shoved the amulet back into her pocket and took to pacing back and forth in front of the window, from wobbly chair to paint-chipped table.
“Damn you, Cade. Where are you?” How could he go off and leave her trapped like this, without a word of explanation? She didn’t want to be alone. She needed him here to tell her what was going to happen next.
Suddenly, her heart missed a beat. Her skin began to tingle. Her head lightened, as if the top of her skull was lifting off. She looked down at her hands and saw a strange glow flow across her skin, a light that was somehow dark and bright at the same time, similar to the light coming from the crack in the door. Charcoal and pearl and indigo, it moved and sparkled on her palms. It reminded her of a rare black opal she’d once seen in a jeweler’s window.
Tongues of blue flame sprang to life in her palm. She stared at the phenomenon, aghast. Holy hell. Fire burned in her hand and she didn’t feel it.
Waves of panic hit in such quick succession she had to gasp to draw breath between them. What was happening? She shook her hands, rubbed them together. The fire persisted, racing along her fingers.
A moment later, the flames died as abruptly as they had sprung to life. Maddie was left trembling and close to tears. Was this part of the mysterious crisis Cade had spoken of? What other horrifying things were going to happen? What, exactly, was she expected to face? Cade had been long on dire warnings, short on detail. He’d locked her in this tiny box of a prison and left her at the mercy of her terrified imagination.
Damn him.
She resumed pacing, rubbing her arms against a sudden chill, though in reality the room was quite warm. Fear and anger escalated with every step she took. She wanted Cade. Needed him. Hated him. Or rather, she hated her growing dependency upon him. Hated him for the secrets he was keeping from her.
The son of Samyaza is not to be trusted.
“Shut up!”
The needling voice inside her head fell silent.
Trembling slightly, trying to ignore the colors chasing over her skin, Maddie stepped to the window. The same dark light encircling the door frame ringed the window frame as well. She wasn’t surprised when the wooden shutters refused to budge.
She sneaked a look at the snake. The creature seemed unconcerned, so she slid the left shutter’s vertical bar and was rewarded when the slats tilted. Twin metal cables fastened on either side of the window supported an overhang just below the sill. Across the narrow alley, a pattern of cracks spiderwebbed across peeling stucco. Shabby wooden shutters, much like the ones on this window, were flung open. She detected no signs of movement in the rooms beyond.
At street level, off to the right, a restaurant board chalked with Hebrew characters was propped beside an open doorway. She wondered if the place ever had any customers. The alley, dingy and litter-strewn, was deserted save for a scrawny yellow cat. She watched its tail disappear around a corner.
She was just turning away when a new movement caught her eye at the end of the stone-paved alley. Human this time. Not Cade—the man didn’t have his height or his bulk. She adjusted the slant on the shutter slats and leaned forward to get a better look. The man walked in the shadows on her side of the street, head down. A whisper of red light trailed after him. Just before he passed out of view beneath the overhang, though, he glanced up. Maddie choked back a strangled cry.
Dr. Ben-Meir! He wasn’t dead after all!
She clutched the sill, waiting for the archeologist to reappear on the other side of the overhang. Long seconds passed, in which she was sure her heart would beat its way right out of her chest. Had he entered the hotel? Did he know she was trapped here?
; No. The man had only paused. Another moment brought his back into view as he made his way down the alley.
Maddie stared after him, noticing for the first time his hunched shoulders and slightly limping gait, and she turned away from the window in denial. It hadn’t been Dr. Ben-Meir after all. Of course not. He was dead. She’d seen that with her own eyes. The man in the alley was just a passerby.
She resumed pacing and worrying. The shifting patterns of dark light on her skin hadn’t abated; if anything, the colors had grown more pronounced. A glance in the bathroom mirror told her the phenomenon had spread to her face. Even her hair shone. A small lick of fire ignited on her index finger; she smothered it in her fist, unnerved by the fact that it didn’t hurt in the least. Where the hell was Cade? She was ready to jump out of her skin.
Though it felt like hours had passed, probably no more than ten minutes later his broad form filled the door. The strange illumination on the door frame faded as he entered. The door shut quietly behind him.
The snake slithered over his boot and wrapped around his calf. As it melted into his skin, Maddie stared.
“Your tattoo? It’s . . . alive?”
“In a way.” He made no further explanation. His eyes ran over her. “So. It’s begun.”
She lifted her hand. Dark pearlescent colors chased across her skin. Abruptly, she dropped it. “Where have you been?”
He held up a paper bag, an offering. She took and opened it, was greeted by the aroma of roasted meat. She forgot about the snake, forgot the colors on her skin.
“Food,” she breathed. “Thank you. I didn’t even realize how famished I was until right this second.”
“It’s to be expected,” he said. “Roasted lamb,” he added as she rolled greasy paper off pita wrapping savory slices of the meat. “Eat quickly. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover before the third wave.”
Hunger warred with apprehension. “But—”
“Questions later. Right now, eat.”
She nodded and tore into the food with a need that bordered on irrational. The lamb was barely cooked, dripping red juices. The first bite sent a shudder of delight through her body.