“Okay,” I muttered.
“It was sufficient reason for me.” He wasn’t in the least embarrassed, and of course did not register that I might find the subject uncomfortable. How could I possibly be upset by his behavior five thousand years before my birth, after all? How unreasonable, he would think, amused by how short-sighted I was. “But my brother Samyaza had vision. He wanted to advance your kind.” He flicked a forefinger at me across the table. “He’d been at it for millennia before the Ash Winter, even. Back when you were only apes. He was the one who made you human in the first place. There is an echo of the story in Genesis, as in all your creation myths. The Serpent, they call him.”
Oh right. The Garden of Eden. “Wasn’t that Satan? It says it was Satan.” And Satan is…
“No it doesn’t.” Azazel rolled his eyes. “Don’t you even read your own holy texts? It says the serpent—that’s all.”
I turned a tomato slice over with my fork, confused and disappointed. “So we did Fall.”
“You rose. The knowledge of good and evil, remember?” He stroked the cat under its dirty chin. “How could that make you less? Some animals have self-awareness, but only you know that you are not the center of your universe. That you are an individual, separate from all Creation. That all others live with the same sense of separation and hope and fear as you do, neither lesser nor greater than yourself. And that just as the world existed before you, so you will inevitably die and be forgotten.” He smiled darkly. “That way lies empathy, and hence justice and all morality—and despair too. Such loneliness. You are no longer innocent.”
“Cast out of Paradise.”
He shrugged. “Cast out of Nature.”
“That was Samyaza’s thing then?” I wasn’t sure how I should feel about that.
“Yes. He believed in what the human species could become. And he persuaded me to join him in his great project. I stood at his right hand, as my brother Penemuel stood at his left. We three led the others into this realm.”
Samyaza’s a good guy then, you’re telling me? It’s the story of Prometheus again.
Azazel drummed his fingers on the table, and I wondered what words he was rejecting as he sifted them behind his eyes. “I need Samyaza. I am one against four hundred, and I cannot fight them all if they turn on me again.”
“But they haven’t done that,” I said nervously. “I remember you saying to U—”
“Don’t use his name. He can hear you, remember?”
“I’m sorry.” I could have slapped myself for such a beginner’s error. Angels can hear you when you speak their name. And they can all hear anything you say if you do it on holy ground. Churches are dangerous. “You told him that if the Host were coming to get you, they would have done it already. Something is stopping them, isn’t it?”
Azazel drummed his fingers again. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “They have largely tolerated my freedom this far, though they moved your Church against me. They left the dirty work up to men. Why they are holding back…I don’t know. Perhaps it is fear of the destruction that will be wreaked.” He pulled a face. “I think if I release Batraal and the others, if I find the two hundred lesser Egrigoroi and try to set them free one at a time…I fear that the divine patience will snap.”
“So you have to keep your head down.”
“No—I have to find Samyaza. He is the key. He will know what to do. Penemuel is smart, he knows the names and the signs, but Samyaza has the foresight. He sees the paths of the future.”
Yeah, I’d already been told—somewhat cruelly—that Azazel was the muscle of the rebel leaders, not the brains. “Where is he being held, then?”
“That I don’t know, either.”
But you think I might be able to help. That’s why you brought me here to look at Batraal’s prison. I wonder why I can see things that you can’t?
Pondering the question, I popped a piece of syrupy, crunchy baklava between my lips and chewed slowly, then licked my fingertips clean. I should have realized this would distract Azazel from more abstract concerns. As my awareness dawned of the renewed intensity of his gaze, he smiled. “You’ve finished eating then?”
Subtle, babe. “Yeah. I mean, give me a moment.”
The world shot back into focus, with its sounds and smells and motion. Oh, being around him made it all seem so unreal sometimes. Like a movie one could pause or set aside for later. You didn’t really have to worry about other people, because you could always put them on hold or just walk away. There were no inescapable consequences. It was both exhilarating and disturbing.
“Where would you like to go, Milja?”
Oh, I was being indulged today. Dinner and a passionate night out of my choosing. I wasn’t used to this. “Venice?” I said. “I’d love to see Venice.”
He set the cat down gently on the ground, stood up and held his hand out to me. The animal trotted off with no sign of a limp.
“Um, if you don’t mind, can I have a look at those handbags over there first?” I needed a new one. Preferably one with a designer label on it, albeit ever so fake. Americans noticed things like that, I’d found. It mattered in the office what you wore and what you carried. As a girl brought up in a dirt-poor mountain village without even a television, I had found that a steep learning curve.
“If you like.”
We wandered off from the table, undoubtedly leaving the waiter very confused; from his point of view he’d only just served us and there I was abandoning empty plates and a generous overpayment within seconds. Azazel even tried to wait quietly in the background as I checked over the faux-Versace and -Prada and -D&G offered by a diffident Somalian youth wearing scuffed plastic sandals, though when Azazel squeezed my ass for the second time I had to slap him away, giggling.
“Get off! You’re not helping!”
He blew a fake sigh of disappointment and wandered off.
The vendor was grinning at us when I looked back, but he stifled it. I made my purchase at last and turned, only to find my angel dropping to his haunches before the offerings on another of those makeshift stalls. I thought at first that the old lady in black was dealing in retro second-hand goods, and then I realized that the objects set out on the piece of carpet almost certainly represented the contents of her living room—everything from ash trays and photographs of bishops to an old CD player. I felt sad looking at this dingy collection. The global recession, as I recalled from the news, had hit Greece hard. A lot of people were struggling just to feed themselves.
But the old lady wasn’t letting any distress show, at least for the moment. She rose from her stool and advanced on Azazel, grinning from ear to ear. He stood as she grabbed his arm and patted his shoulder, hooting appreciatively and talking loudly as she squeezed his muscles.
I knew bits of Greek from my father’s vocation as a priest. Enough to make out the word ‘god,’ anyway. Then she swung around to me, laughing, and said “Ares, yes? Ares?”
I couldn’t help smiling back at her. You don’t know how close you are, I agreed inwardly. I wondered if Azazel would take offence, but he seemed only amused as she rubbed his six-pack through his shirt with her skinny little hand. He towered over her, but she seemed not the least bit intimidated. Old women just don’t care.
“Poios eínai aftós?” he asked, pointing at a framed watercolor on her carpet. At least that distracted her momentarily from committing what would have been tantamount to sexual assault if she’d been a younger woman. Not that I could really blame her—that body and that wickedly lupine face and those feathery black lashes were an irresistible combination in my opinion—but I was startled by her boldness.
She pointed to it and then to her own breast, chattering to him rapidly in Greek and sighing. He listened attentively, nodded, and then smiled and took her hands in his, drawing her into the center of the square. She followed his lead, giggling, and then as he started to move his feet she joined him, her movements a little tottery. They were dancing. The folk band
noticed almost instantly and swung into an appropriate melody. Quite suddenly this little hunched old lady was the center of attention as her god of war spun and paced with her, accompanying her with simple and self-effacing grace. Her steps became more confident, her movements more fluid. She looked up into Azazel’s face, her own expression alight with pleasure.
Onlookers joined in, clapping along to the rhythm.
Once I got past my initial surprise, I moved over to look at the picture, wondering what had provoked this strange exchange. The painting showed a young woman in a flowing skirt, dancing on the tips of her toes, her long dark hair swirling around her.
Is that her, I wondered, painted in her youth? I couldn’t help, despite my shame, feeling the tiniest bit put out—Azazel had never danced with me, after all.
He was loving dancing with her.
“He’s got quite a way with the ladies,” said a man behind me.
“Yes,” I said dryly, looking from the watercolor to the dancing couple and sparing only a glance for the stranger. His accent had sounded American, and even out of the corner of my eye his clothes confirmed that: blue denim shirt, big belt buckle, office-casual jacket.
Long hair.
That got my attention enough for a second glance, even though most of my mind was wondering what on earth Azazel was thinking of, flirting with an old woman like that. My second glance told me that the stranger wasn’t just New World, he was First Nations, with the most beautiful waterfall of straight dark hair I’d ever seen on a man.
“He had great aptitude as a warrior. A shame he wasted it all.” Then he blinked, deliberately, and for an instant his deep brown eyes flicked to pure gold without pupils.
My heart jumped up into my throat. I looked wildly to Azazel but he didn’t see me, absorbed as he was in his dance and in his partner. I turned back to the stranger, my heart pounding.
He was gone.
An angel. That was another angel! Oh hell, what do I do? What did he want?
“Azazel,” I breathed, looking all around me, as nervous as a mouse under the shadow of a hawk.
The music broke up into a few final phrases, and applause rang out across the little square from their audience. I hurried up to Azazel and grabbed at his arm, whilst still trying to watch all around us. “We should go now.”
He laughed. “What’s your hurry?” The old lady was still on his other elbow, wiping at the tears running down her radiant face. She seemed to be standing taller, her back less bent and her shoulders less crooked. He stooped to kiss her fingers tenderly.
“Please!”
Azazel arched an eyebrow at me. I practically had to drag him away from his new girl and out of the crowd, and he blew a kiss at her as he left. “She was a dancer when she was young,” he said happily as we passed into the shadow of the lane. “Inside her heart, she still dances.”
“We have to get out of here.”
“What?” He caught my shoulders and pushed me back against a wall. “Impatient, love? This will do. Right now.” He cupped my breasts, his appetite boiling to the surface again.
“Azazel—No! I saw another angel!”
All the horny humor went out of his face. “Who?”
“I didn’t recognize him. Long hair, really athletic looking.” That didn’t narrow it down much, I suspected. “He looked Native American.”
The evening shadows ran inky as Azazel’s mood bled into our surrounds. “He saw you?” he demanded.
“He spoke to me! Who is he?”
“Piece of shit.” Azazel drew himself up taller, and the shadows thickened. “He wants me to know he’s watching. He’s got nothing better to do with his existence than dog my tracks.”
“Who?”
The gloom was so dense now that his teeth seemed to gleam as he bared them. “Michael,” he said, but the name was not addressed to me.
“Hello, Daughter of Earth,” said the handsome man who stepped out from a lit doorway. His muscular arms were folded across his chest, and the thirty-watt bulb behind his head loaned him a halo of deep gold. “Don’t listen to him—he’s just a sore loser. Well, Azazel… Shall we dance?”
Azazel slapped his hand onto my breastbone and pushed me out of the way—out of the alley, out of Athens, and for a split second right out of the world.
I landed flat on my back with the wind knocked out of my lungs, on my bed, back in Chicago.
3
ROSHANA
I went into the office first thing the next morning. I planned to clear my personal effects from my desk before anyone else from my team got in, but to my chagrin Bryce was already there, lolling back in his chair and drinking a grande coffee from a paper cup.
“Hey,” he said, lifting an eyebrow.
“Hey,” I mumbled, not meeting his gaze. I dumped my cardboard box on the desk top and opened the top drawer.
“You have to go up to the eighteenth floor.”
“What?”
He pointed at the piece of paper taped up to hang over my monitor. I’d given it one glance and, assuming it was my marching orders, deliberately ignored it. “Roshana wants to see you. Right away.”
“Roshana?” I struggled to recall if that was someone I should remember from Human Resources. Was there some sort of paperwork I had to collect to be formally fired?
“Roshana Veisi.”
Still it didn’t sink in. I stared at Bryce blankly.
“The chair of the board.”
Whoa. That Roshana Veisi? The boss? The woman who owns this company?
I’d never met anyone that senior in the hierarchy of Ansha Engineering, of course. I didn’t even know what she looked like. “Why does she want to see me?”
Bryce shrugged. “Like I know.”
I pulled the piece of paper free and read the scanty lines typed there. I was required to report to Roshana Veisi’s secretary as soon as possible, in person. There was no indication of any reason and the tone of the words was entirely neutral.
“Was that your boyfriend then?” Bryce asked, casually, as I stood frowning at the paper.
“Huh? Um, yeah.”
“He…wasn’t what I pictured.”
I blinked, refocusing on his face. What can I say to that? I knew that Azazel and I made a mismatched couple. “I guess I got lucky,” I said, not bothering to hide the bitterness in my words.
Bryce seemed to shrink back a little from me, then turned away studiously to his own monitor.
Well, orders were orders. I collected my few belongings as I’d planned and carried the box under my arm to the elevator. I felt a little nervous, but at this stage it wasn’t as if I had anything to lose. I’d already thrown away my job, so what else could they do to me?
No, what mostly occupied my mind and churned my stomach was confusion. What on earth could Ms. Veisi want with an employee of my lowly station? Ex-employee, even. As I watched the LED numbers counting up to eighteen, I tried to recall what I’d heard about her, but it didn’t amount to much. She was a keen local patron of the arts; that was about all. Many original paintings hung in the atrium downstairs and in the elevator areas on each floor, all of them too modern for my taste. Oh, and she owned a small gallery uptown that we were all granted an annual pass to as a perk of employment here.
I hadn’t visited the gallery. Now I felt vaguely guilty.
The decor on the eighteenth floor was a revelation after the office areas I was used to. Lush carpeting muffled my footfalls, and soft concealed lighting made the foyer seem more like a spa lobby than anything to do with engineers. Only a gigantic oil painting behind the receptionist’s desk, depicting one of our most prestigious bridges against a background of cyan sea, reminded visitors what it was we created in this building.
“I’m Milja Petak,” I told the painfully pretty young woman at the desk. “I’ve been asked to come to Ms. Veisi’s office.” Privately I doubted anyone would want to see me at this early hour and I still suspected the summons was the result of an administrative
error somewhere.
She looked me up on her screen. “Go right ahead down that corridor, Ms. Petak. Ms. Veisi’s secretary is at the end.”
Ms. Veisi’s secretary turned out to be a young man with soft brown eyes somehow full of harsh appraisal. I was glad I’d worn a high-necked, even prim, blouse this morning to cover up the scattering of bruises that Azazel’s fingertips had left across the upper slopes of my breasts.
“If you’d like to wait in here…” he told me, opening a door to an inner office.
No, it wasn’t an office, at least not as I knew such things, I thought as he shut me in. There was a big mahogany desk, but it was conspicuously clear. There was no computer, just a wall-mounted screen currently playing silent footage of grasses blowing in a breeze. The thick carpet, the soft armchairs, the potted plants and the framed paintings—they all seemed to suggest an upmarket hotel bar.
I perched uneasily on the lip of a cushion, setting my box down on the floor. It was completely silent in here, despite the downtown cityscape outside the big windows. For the moment I had nothing to distract me from my own thoughts, and my worry for Azazel welled up again. He hadn’t reappeared after sending me home so abruptly. It scared me to think of what sort of trouble he might be in.
But I’d checked the international news channels when I woke first thing, and there were no reports of inexplicable devastation in Athens or anywhere else, so I had to assume he’d not launched into a full-on fight with Michael. Azazel would not have gone down easily. With any luck it had just been a stand-off.
Where is he? Is he okay?
I hadn’t dared call him this morning. I’d wanted to get my last trip to the office out of the way first. I’d whisper his name as soon as I got home, I promised myself.
And then he would come to me. Or not. As he chose.
I pictured him dancing with the old woman. His utter concentration, excluding even me for those moments, and his inexplicable tenderness. What had drawn him to her? His pleasure in the dance left me baffled and uncomfortable. I had to admit I didn’t understand all his moods. Angry, yes. Horny, yes. But sometimes he took me by surprise.
In Bonds of the Earth (Book of the Watchers 2) Page 4