In Bonds of the Earth (Book of the Watchers 2)

by Janine Ashbless

  You’re not jealous, are you, Milja?

  Twitchy, I rose to my feet and prowled around the room. A frantically baroque silver statue on a low table turned out to be a haloed and armored saint stabbing a dragon. I wondered just how much a thing of that size and antiquity was worth.

  It’s Michael casting Satan down into Hell.

  Saint Michael, the warrior archangel. Patron saint of my own family line. If anyone could recapture Azazel, it would be Michael.

  I jumped as Ms. Veisi’s secretary re-entered, bearing a tray with a coffee pot and hot pastries. He didn’t address me as he left them on the desk and departed. I looked at the tray, surprised. There were two cups. This wasn’t the reception I’d been expecting. My lips felt dry, and I wondered if it would be considered rude to help myself, then decided I didn’t dare.

  I distracted myself with another turn around the room, looking at the paintings hung there. The first was a vivid panel depicting a crowd of androgynous figures in complex robes holding what looked to me like an iridescent beach ball. The second, rendered in a very different impressionistic style, showed a youth, shirtless but wearing a blue sarong, sitting with his arms about his knees and staring pensively into the distance. There was another painting beyond that, possibly by the same artist but this one much bigger—I had to study it to work out what it depicted in its chaos of blues and pinks and golds. A high mountain range, its snowy peaks lit by sunset. Occupying the foreground was a naked, prostrate figure whose neck was twisted at a terrible angle, possibly broken. He lay amidst a welter of golden peacock feathers, as if the fall had smashed his glorious wings.

  Icarus? I wondered, but a cold worm of doubt and dread had crept up my spine.

  “Demon Downcast,” said the woman I’d not heard come into the room behind me. “By Mikhail Vrubel. I bought those two after the collapse of the USSR.”

  I spun around, swallowing hard. The woman smiled.

  “Such a sad story, really—the artist became obsessed by the notion of a wicked angel who falls in love with a mortal. He painted the subject over and over again. The same demon every time. He couldn’t stop. Even when this picture hung in the Moscow gallery, he would come in and repaint the face—until he had a breakdown and had to be taken away to an asylum. He died blind and insane.”

  The part of me that was listening to her story knew exactly what that felt like, what that meant. Vrubel, undoubtedly, had been in thrall to an imprisoned Watcher just as I had been obsessed by mine. The more aware part of me managed to respond, “Ms. Veisi?”

  She was short. I mean—okay, I’m tall, I’m Montenegrin, and we’re on a par with the Dutch. I guess she was average for an American. And while I’m tall and skinny, to put it bluntly, she was a doll-like package of womanly curves, and even in her business suit she carried them with pride.

  “Roshana.” She turned to the coffee pot on the desk and began to pour. “Call me Roshana, Milja. Have you eaten breakfast yet?”

  “No.”

  “You should never skip breakfast. It’s the most important meal of the day.” She dropped a pastry into the saucer and presented the gift to me. She had black-lashed sloe eyes and her long hair was a blue-blonde like I’d never seen before, but I suspected entailed many expensive hours in the salon. When she smiled her mouth moved but her forehead stayed Botox-smooth. I guessed she was in her thirties, but it was hard to tell.

  “Thank you,” I said meekly, though I didn’t like coffee with cream.

  “Do you know why you’re here?”

  I had a presentiment, but I didn’t want it to be true. “I assumed it was some sort of disciplinary hearing,” I mumbled, even though that was stupid.

  “Far from it. Milja, I want to offer you a new position. Personal attaché.”

  My mouth fell open.

  “Flexible hours. Add a naught to your current salary. Take on any design project you find yourself interested in. I’ve seen your portfolio—you’re clearly very imaginative. With a fine aesthetic eye.” She gestured with a small remote at the screen on the wall and the soothing video was suddenly replaced with scans of my college designs, one after the other. “Some of them aren’t practical of course, but that comes with experience and I’ll assign you a mentoring advisor.”

  What. The. Actual. Hell.

  The cold feeling had spread from my spine into my stomach. “That’s very kind. Why?”

  She perched her magnificent rear on the edge of the desk, taking her time as she sipped at her own coffee. “Did you notice a theme here?” She indicated the room around us with a flick of her dark eyes.

  My throat was so dry I could hardly swallow. “Angels.”

  “Yes. It’s a hobby of mine.”

  “I… What has that to do with me?”

  “Oh, don’t be disingenuous, Milja.” She tilted her chin. “Let me see—does any of this sound familiar? You can’t cry any more, not normal tears anyway, though in extremis you leak blood from your eyes. Cats adore you, but dogs are terrified. You have strange visions, and can sometimes see the dead. You create dreams so powerful, so real, that you can draw other sleepers into them, and sometimes those dreams seem to come true in real life. The lights are never against you when you want to cross the street, in fact you have the ability to force the hand of Chance in all sorts of little ways. Have you tried playing the lottery yet, by the way? I recommend you don’t do it too often—you wouldn’t want to draw attention to yourself.”

  I stared at her, speechless. Then I put my coffee cup down on a low table because it was rattling in my hand.

  “When was the last time you had a cold, Milja?”

  “I…don’t know.”

  “You won’t get ill anymore. You won’t suffer from hangovers, or food poisoning. You won’t be able to overdose, either, should you try it. Your body is changing under his influence. Optimizing. And if you are relying on hormonal contraception, you need to be aware it won’t work. You will become super-fertile.”

  Oh no! I can’t have his children! I think my eyes flashed wide at that point because I saw a glint of amusement in hers. Angels could be bound, among other things, by fetters made of the flesh and blood of their own progeny. Any child of Azazel’s was a weapon that could be used by archangels, or men, to bind him again in the darkness. Just as his Bronze Age sons had been used before now.

  “Don’t worry, you have control over your body, if you wish. You can make sure his seed does not take root—but you do need to pay attention.”

  I drew myself up. “I have no idea what you are talking about,” I rasped.

  “Valiant try, Milja. But I’ve done my homework, very thoroughly. The Scapegoat Azazel himself has taken you for his paramour. And exposure to his essence changes you. You’re becoming what Enoch called a siren.”

  A witch, Father Velimir had labelled me. “Are you with the Church?” I asked through gritted teeth. It hadn’t occurred to me that she could be Serbian Orthodox, not with a name like that—but Catholic maybe? One of Egan’s lot?

  “Hardly. I’m very much a private individual.”

  “How do you know all that stuff then?”

  “I have a great personal interest in angels. And I would very much like, in return for the promotion I’m offering you and all the opportunities it affords, to meet your extremely handsome boyfriend.”

  An angel groupie?

  “I’m not his pimp,” I snapped—unwisely, as it turned out. Roshana lifted the remote again and the picture on the screen was replaced by video once more. Only this time it was footage from a security camera in the office stairwell.

  “I can see that,” she said smoothly, as onscreen Azazel fucked me against the banister. His face wasn’t visible on the footage, but mine was. So were my spread thighs.

  Heat flooded my face. “Stop that.”

  The merest twitch of her finger hid the shameful images, affording me temporary relief.

  “I don’t control him,” I managed to say, mastering my words. “I
can’t make him come to see you.”

  She spread her hands. “I’m only requesting that you ask him. Nothing more.”

  “He might kill you.”

  “But that would make you feel very bad, wouldn’t it, Milja? Because you still like to think of yourself a good person, despite the fact you’re getting it on with one of the Fallen. Setting a vengeful angel on someone who’s upset you would be pretty despicable, don’t you think?”

  I wanted to slap her, but she wasn’t wrong. “What the hell do you intend to do to him?”

  She looked as affronted as the Botox would allow. “I don’t intend to do anything. I’d just like to meet him in the flesh. At a time and place of his choosing, if you wish. I’ll come alone.” She smiled. “Unarmed. What are you afraid of?”

  I didn’t know. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

  “Me? I’m jealous, Milja. You’ve made love to a creature of the heavenly realms. Wouldn’t any woman be jealous? You’ve had experiences I can only imagine…”

  “He’s not going to want to fuck you.”

  “Of course not. But it’s rare enough to encounter one of the Host still walking this world. Lethally dangerous to seek out the imprisoned Watchers. Your Azazel, fallen but free…he’s unique.”

  I knotted my fingers together, my palms sweaty.

  She knew she’d won, at least for the moment. “Listen, take a few days to think it over. I’m making you a very generous offer and you’d be foolish not to consider it, at least. You’ve got a whole life ahead of you, Milja, and there’s more to life than romance. Think about how you want to shape yours. Think about the support you’ll need as you change physically and mentally—because it doesn’t stop with street lights and scratchcards.”

  I shook my head, overwhelmed.

  “I can help you. We can be good friends. Now, when you go outside, Mario will have a company credit card waiting for you. Buy yourself a nice new dress, some shoes, some ear-rings maybe. I’ve helped sponsor an exhibition at the Art Institute and the gala opening is on Saturday night. I’d like to see you there and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.”

  All I could think was that she’d given me leave to go. To get out from under those appraising black eyes. I grabbed my box and lurched toward the door. But a thought stopped me before I got there. I’d learned the hard way from Egan not to believe in coincidence.

  “Is this why I got this job in the first place?” I asked, my voice shaking. “Have you been watching me all along?”

  Roshana smiled like the cat with the cream. “I’ve been aware of your potential for a while, Milja. And it’s an honor to offer you a hand up in life.”

  I sucked my lips in tight to stop the words that rushed to them escaping. Then I swept out.

  Mario the secretary was waiting for me with a raised eyebrow and a purple credit card upraised between two fingers.

  I don’t need this, I thought. I can manage on my own. I can play the lottery and steal cash from ATMs and keep moving…

  “You should buy a blue dress,” he said. “It would work with your coloring. Try Hannah’s on 131st.”

  I snatched the plastic from his hand and stalked off.

  I went home.

  And, remembering the murder and dismemberment of Azazel’s sons, I spent a long time concentrating very hard on not being pregnant, because, dear God, that was absolutely the last thing I needed.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have gone to the gala opening at the gallery. Maybe I should have just taken off and run for it. In theory I could have gone anywhere I liked, with Azazel’s help.

  Except that he hadn’t reappeared and he wasn’t answering my whispered pleas for attention. He wasn’t what you might call reliable. So I was alone, in a new city, without any family on my side, without any friends to call on. My father was dead and I could never return to my homeland. Even my beloved cat, Senka, had been given over to my roomie when I left Boston, since I couldn’t be sure that I’d be around to look after her. I was teetering on the edge of unemployment and the financial strategies at my disposal all put me on the wrong side of the law. Which, when you’re an immigrant, is not a comfortable place to be.

  And I hadn’t the faintest doubt that Roshana, if she chose to be vindictive, could make sure that I never worked in the engineering field again. She had the contacts and the influence, and that security footage could pursue me forever. She’d made no overt threat, but I didn’t think she needed to.

  I was way out of my depth.

  All she wanted was to meet Azazel. That’s what she’d said, anyway. And he was big enough to look after himself, surely? I couldn’t believe he’d find her much of a threat.

  If he was still around. Maybe he was lying low to throw Michael off my scent.

  If Michael hadn’t somehow forced him to abandon me.

  Crap crap crap. I paced my apartment for hours, trying to see through the fog of uncertainty. Wishing that there was someone there to hold my hand.

  In the end I went shopping, as Roshana had suggested. I bought a dress and earrings and a necklace, and was persuaded into heels that I could barely walk upon. Because security is better than insecurity—or at any rate, easier. Even when you know they’ve not got your interests at heart.

  Of course I did everything I could to find out about Roshana Veisi online. It wasn’t that much, so I suspected money had bought her a measure of privacy. She owned a number of companies, was a patron of the arts and bred racehorses as a hobby. She was a wealthy second generation Syrian-American who had inherited a fortune from her mother. I couldn’t find out if she had any religious affiliation, but assumed she was either Muslim or Syrian Orthodox. I’ll admit that from a purely selfish point of view I hoped it was the latter, as the Syriac Church was a persecuted denomination with many more things to worry about than my relationship with Azazel.

  Despite a long history of ethnic conflict between my people and Muslims, Islam was a mostly unknown quantity as far as I was concerned. An Abrahamic religion, of course, and they believed in angels too, even if they numbered and named them differently.

  I arrived in a cab at the Art Institute of Chicago on the Saturday night. The gallery on Michigan Avenue turned out to be an arched stone building which I thought quite ugly, though I liked the green bronze lions standing guard over the steps outside. My fear that I had overdone my attire in my sparkly mid-thigh cocktail dress—copper colored, not blue—was allayed as soon as I saw the other guests in their sweeping gowns and their formal evening suits. A group of musicians in folk costume played whiny stringed instruments in the main foyer, completely at odds with our finery but looking a lot more relaxed than I felt. We handed in our coats and processed up broad staircases and through corridors and courtyards to where the Treasures of Sheba special exhibition was housed in the more modern Rice wing. Blown up photos on the walls here showed jagged mountain profiles, vast geometric steles and weathered buildings carved out of the living rock.

  Everybody else in the crowd seemed very gracious and garrulous, but no one spoke to me except the waitresses bearing canapés and flutes of champagne. I felt completely at sea. Clinging to a glass as if it were a lifebelt, I looked around for Roshana Veisi, but I didn’t spot her until several people mounted a small dais and the opening speeches began.

  The antiquities on display here were mostly books and artworks on loan from collections in Ethiopia, and three slender men dressed in white wraps represented, it turned out, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church authorities who were responsible for the ecclesiastical treasures. They left most of the talking to a middle-aged American man who looked corpulent by contrast, and he introduced the various sponsors of the exhibition, including Roshana Veisi.

  She wore the most beautiful gown I’d ever seen; a strapless black lace sheath over shimmering jade green that left her shoulders bare and clung to her curves all the way down to her ankles. She looked even more assured in her beauty here than she had done at the office. I stared at her as thanks were of
fered and applause rippled through the elegant crowd.

  How do I even know someone like that? I grew up in a house with no electricity and no hot water. This is not my world.

  As soon as the talking was over I buried my nose in the complimentary information leaflet. It told me that Ethiopia converted to Christianity in the fourth century, well ahead of the rest of the world including the Roman Empire. Its ecclesiastical language was Ge’ez, its calendar ran sixteen years behind the rest of the world and consisted of thirteen months, and even before conversion it had strong connections with Judaism, including the visit of its legendary Queen of Sheba three thousand years ago to the court of King Solomon. Menelik, her son by him, founded the Ethiopian royal line that continued into the twentieth century.

  These dizzying claims were entirely new to me. I’d had no idea that there even was a pre-colonial Christian church in Africa, never mind one with such deep roots in history and myth. Roshana was right; my interest was piqued. Which was more than could be said of the other guests, who seemed more interested in talking to each other than in perusing the exhibits. I walked from one glass case to another, fascinated and uneasy.

  The physical treasures were a little disappointing to be honest—copes and robes and stoles sewn with gold and gems, silverware croziers and censers in unfamiliar designs, their symbolism opaque but their significance only too familiar. I’d spent the first eighteen years of my life surrounded by ecclesiastical regalia so I found nothing very exotic here. It all only served to remind me of the father I’d lost, and I felt the weight of his absence in my breast.

  At least I’d seen him again after his death, I told myself, and had the chance to ask forgiveness.

  But the books were glorious. Codices and scrolls were covered in black Ge’ez calligraphy, enlivened by paintings of biblical stories and the lives of saints. I confess that to my eye, brought up on the grave and melancholic icons of my own faith, so painstakingly crafted, these pictures looked garishly technicolor and almost cartoonish, even though some were several hundred years old.