No, no I didn’t. Not that last one. I had to keep reminding myself of that.
“Milja, honey.” She reached out and squeezed my arm. “Take your time. Let’s be calm and sensible about these things. We’re not in a rush, are we?”
“I’m not.”
“There you go. Let’s be friends.” She leaned in and kissed me on the cheek, filling my head with the scent of her perfume. “Now, enjoy the party. I have mingling to do.” Waving her fingers merrily, she sashayed off into the well-heeled throng.
Leaving me alone.
I wanted, suddenly, to sit down. I wanted out of this scented, cosseted atmosphere. I wanted off these too-high heels. I wanted to splash my face with cold water and clear my head and turn over everything I’d been told until I found the little gold seed of certainty beneath. Come outside with me, Egan had asked, and I wished now that I’d agreed to the offer swiftly enough to escape Roshana.
But that thought reminded me of something she’d said too, something I’d not had time to dwell on mid-conversation: I don’t know why he inveigled his way into this soiree to see you.
That was a really good question. It was such a good question that, midway to the exit of the gallery, I paused and leaned against a door jamb to consider it.
If Egan just wanted to talk to me, why did he put in the effort to gate-crash a society party where he’d be surrounded by witnesses? Why not find me at home, or on the street?
Why here? Why now?
He’d said he had recused himself from stalking me on behalf of his handlers. I believed him, sort of. He was a good Catholic and he didn’t lie because that would be a sin. Or rather, he didn’t tell overt lies. Mental reservation; that was what he’d called it. I’d looked it up. It means you’re allowed to tell half-truths and lies of omission, even when you know you are leading someone into false expectations.
He’d misled me before. Deliberately. And oh so badly.
What are you doing here? I’d asked him, and he hadn’t answered.
I stared back toward the gala crowd and the glass cases overtopping their wealthy heads. Egan had stepped up to speak to me just as I was looking at that display nearest the fire exit. When I’d turned my back on him and faced the case again—that was when he’d put his hands on my waist and got all personal.
A very effective distraction.
Biting my lip, I sidled back into the room. It took me only a few moments to re-find the right case and the right spot where I’d been standing. Oh yes—there it was. The picture of the angel lying down on the hillside.
A slight chill ran up my spine. The primitive picture lacked all perspective. It was easy to misinterpret. A kind of black blob surrounded the angel’s form, which I hadn’t even noticed last time.
Not lying on the hillside. Lying under the hill, eyes wide and staring in the dark.
This was an entombed angel. Imprisoned.
I looked at the interpretation card next to the manuscript, and even then it took a moment for my brain to click.
The Book of Enoch, Aksumite Period, Bet Giyorgis, Lalibela, it said, followed by a translated quote from the text. One which, so help me, I already knew because its astonishing lack of self-awareness had struck me as laugh-out-loud funny the first time I came across it: And he instructed mankind in writing with ink and paper, and thereby many sinned from eternity to eternity and until this day. For men were not created for such a purpose, to give confirmation to their good faith with pen and ink.
This was the actual Book of Enoch. Not the first 1821 translation into English by Laurence. Not a printout of R H Charles’ 1917 version from the Internet, which is what I’d been cribbing off. This was how it looked in its original state, because only the Ethiopians regarded it as canonical and only in Ethiopia had the text been preserved since its first composition, copied and recopied and used by the Church there—for who knew how long? The Western Churches had lost Enoch’s text for centuries, though they knew about its stories by reputation and from fragments in Greek and Latin. It was even quoted in the New Testament epistles from Peter and Jude: God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment.
Here was a picture of a Watcher incarcerated beneath the earth.
And I knew exactly which one.
5
THE SEED OF ANGELS
Azazel snatched me from my bed early on Sunday morning. I was still half-asleep as he scooped me in his arms and pulled me through a fold in space to…well, to somewhere else. Somewhere simultaneously soft and slightly prickly. I opened my eyes enough to work out that I was lying in a pile of feathers—actual feathers from real birds, not angelic wings or anything—but as Azazel spooned up behind me, his bare skin warm against mine, I decided I was quite happy staying half-asleep. His caresses were unhurried, his breath soft in my ear.
“My Milja, my love,” he murmured, kissing my shoulder, and I smiled to myself, letting my eyes drift closed again. Somewhere deep inside me that knot of fear that I’d been carrying since Athens slipped loose. He was safe, and he had come back to me.
And he was eager, of course. I could feel the hot, stiff length of his erection rubbing up against me as he snuggled closer. Hard against my ass cheeks and the softness of my thighs, incorrigible in its probing quest between them, silky where I was wet. Tracing up and down the split of my sex. Eternally curious, never satisfied—a cock for exploring all of Creation, but right now focused on me. I liked that. I liked the way he was pretending that he didn’t need to rut right now, so that I could pretend he wasn’t disturbing my sleep. I liked his restless appetite and his disingenuous gentleness, his simultaneous impatience and patience, his primitive optimism. I liked the way he rubbed against my clit and my labia and the hidden well of my sex, the way it made my body tingle and ache.
Arousal stirred inside me like a serpent uncoiling. My eyes strayed open. The feathers were mostly white like those of gulls, but a brilliant blue one drifted just before my nose like a slice cut from the fabric of Heaven.
Azazel had a hand down there now, guiding his stiff flesh more precisely. He nudged into the tight mouth of my sex and I shifted my hips to engulf him further, inviting him deeper into that wetness as I moved my own fingers down to my clit. My inner flesh had to make room for his bulk. For a moment I held him in my wet and willing embrace, as we rocked gently against each other.
Then he slipped out once more, slicked with my juices. Again the slow luxurious rubbing—down my pussy, up the cleft between my bum-cheeks—as if he needed to feel so much more of my body than just that one wet hole. I didn’t mind. I was in no hurry, still woozy with sleep. It felt good, his cock massaging my every intimate inch. Even the muscled iris of my rear declined to clench, enjoying the firm pressure.
I could feel my own wetness gathering, slippery beneath my fingertips.
His movements were more urgent now, though still contained, still subtle. But I could feel the lock of his muscles, the gusts of his breath on my nape and ear growing deep and harsh. The push of his cock was denting my flesh, threatening entry at my virgin whorl, never quite enough to force it but putting on an increasingly relentless pressure, and I could feel that portal softening and dilating in response. There were shivering little pulses of need waking within me, in places I was not used to, and a strange feeling of hunger inside as if an undiscovered emptiness needed to be filled. But all was dreamlike, all slow-motion, all muffled by feathers and sleep and his warm embrace.
And then he came. I felt the shudder run through his frame, heard the groan in his exhalation. A hot wet slickness surged between us, creaming the half-furled rose of my bottom. For a moment I held my breath, savoring the sound he made in his throat and the sigh that followed. My own pulse thumped in my ears. My empty sex ached like a collapsed star.
I had no time to feel disappointment. Azazel took a deep breath and, riding the wet tide of his own making, pushed full on into my rear
hole. My guard was entirely down. Before I could remember to be afraid, before I could dread any pain or revulsion, he was already inside me. And the shock was as vast as his girth.
He felt like he was filling me, every part of me from head to toe. He was huge, and he fitted to perfection. This was physical closeness on a scale I had never experienced. Every nerve-ending sang. And when he moved, sliding deeper…I came, in a wave of sensation so shameful, so wonderful, that I couldn’t stop myself.
My cry echoed, not deadened even by all those feathers.
“Yes,” he whispered. His left hand, no longer needed for guiding his cock, slipped around to stroke the wild sleep-mussed hair from my face for a few tender moments, though whether he was rewarding me or reassuring me I could not tell.
Then, still sheathed in my ass, Azazel shifted his bulk to sit up over me, his knee ploughing through the mound of feathers. I still lay on my side, limbs loose, but he was kneeling astride my lower thigh now, his spread knees bracketing the curve of my rear. I looked up past my left shoulder to see him stooped over me like a mountain eagle, his eyes black with hunger. With his dark hair hanging down in sweaty tails and his skin glossed with perspiration, he looked like the eidolon of some ancient priapic cult, and though I knew he was a false god my heart shook in worship.
Somehow he got his hand down between us, and his thumb into my neglected sex. Then he began to move into me, slow and fierce, his cock slippery from his first ejaculation but no less hard, no less needy for all that.
Like I said, not human.
Every thrust of his cock taught my body new things about pleasure—where it could come from, and how little it had to do with dignity or decency. He was turning me inside out and his movements tore great long inarticulate pleas from my throat. I was soon sobbing under that shuddering assault on my ass—but not with pain, instead delirious with a pagan ecstasy.
When he felt his second climax approach he pitched forward over me. Sweat droplets spun in the air, spattering my skin. My eyes were unfocused, barely open; I saw his locked forearm thrust into the feathers before my face as he braced himself, the muscles beneath his skin standing out like carvings. I heard the grunts of release resounding deep in his chest.
Then slowly he eased down, muscles slackening from their ferocious rigor. Sliding off and out of me, he stretched out face to face, cradling the curve of my waist in his hand. Already his eyes were back to their depthless quicksilver and I could see my head reflected within them, dark against the feather lining of our nest.
Azazel smiled as I pressed my palm to his panting chest, feeling the thud of blood beneath. My own heart was pounding like it wanted to jump out of my breast and join his. I was still in shock, to be honest, and floating on endorphins. I couldn’t quite believe what we’d just done, nor that I’d survived such a hammering unharmed. I pictured his semen drifting like iridescent smoke in the dark caverns of my body, and a small part of my mind wondered what sort of alchemy it was working on my flesh. For a long time we lay there just gazing at each other. A downy feather, barred scarlet and yellow, drifted down to land on his shoulder and cling to his damp skin.
“Good morning,” he said, the skin around his eyes crinkling.
“Wow.” I had no words for the collision of feelings, both physical and emotional, within me. “Some guys would start with a cup of coffee.”
“I can get you coffee, if you like.”
“No. Don’t.” The last thing I wanted was for him to leave. “You’re okay?” I whispered at last, lifting my palm to cup his cheek and feeling the rasp of his stubble. “You look tired.” He should have been radiantly smug after what he’d just done to me, but he really looked like he could do with a proper night’s sleep. Or whatever was the angelic equivalent. And there was gray streaked through the darkness of his unruly hair.
Well, I could fix that. I tilted in to kiss him, letting my concern for him and my desire for his wellbeing flood through me from head to toe. By the time I finished the kiss, his hair was midnight and raven wings once again.
“My little witch,” he laughed softly, running his hand over my waist and up the curve of my hip.
“I was scared, Azazel. I thought…”
“Scared?”
“Did you fight with M—” I bit my words off. “With Mr. Row-the-Boat-Ashore?”
He laughed again, but his eyes darkened to a pewter glint. “I ran. This is my life now. I run, he follows. I hide in places he won’t think to look. I see you when I can. I keep moving.” He cupped my breast, holding it as if it were some fragile treasure. “I wish it were not like this. I wish I could stay with you day and night.”
That confession shook me, and I traced my thumb across the rasp of his jaw. With all his power, all his resources…yet he lived the life of a hunted animal? “That’s what was going on in Athens?”
“I would fight any of the archangels one-on-one, but they do not fight fair, and they will call in allies if they think they’re losing. I’m too outnumbered.”
I bit my lip. “But I heard you tell the Lightbringer that he didn’t have the Host to back him up.”
I meant Uriel, whose name means God is my Light. He’s often pictured carrying a flame in his open palm. Of course, Lightbringer is more often rendered in Latin as Lucifer.
“Hnh, yes. He doesn’t have backup. He doesn’t appear to be working together with the Boatman—and I don’t know why, to be honest. I’m somewhat out of the loop.” He snorted. “You look in your Old Testament; Satan barely appears and when he does he is an obedient member of the Court of Heaven. Yet by the New Testament he is the great enemy, doing ill everywhere. Something has happened since I was around.”
“Well duh—he was cast down from Heaven.” Except that he’d told us he hadn’t been: “I never fell.” And Uriel still featured in the iconography of the Church as an archangel.
“I think not. He’s certainly not on the side of the Watchers. He’s no rebel.”
I wrinkled my nose, acknowledging the truth. Every word Uriel had spoken to me reeked of unctuous loyalty to God. He was sarcastic, snobbish, a little bitter, yes—but not a rebel.
Azazel shook his head. “I don’t know what’s going on.”
That worried me. If Azazel couldn’t work it out, who could? Who exactly were we up against?
“So… How did the Boatman find us? Was it the consecrated ground?”
“Yes. He hounds me. He’s made it his special mission not to leave me in peace, and is trying to provoke me into combat. To prove once and for all that he is the greater warrior.” He blinked slowly, and touched the huge old scar that angled like a lightning strike across the right hand side of his abdomen. “He was never disposed to like me…not even when we served together. There was always rivalry.”
I didn’t wholly understand, but I slipped my fingers amongst his, feeling that hard puckered scar tissue, that one wound that had never entirely healed. It was Azazel’s only disfigurement.
Michael did this? What sort of a monster is he? But I knew that Michael was the implacable enemy of evil, the great warrior-angel who led the armies of Heaven. He wasn’t going to be a model of compassion, not with that resume. An itch of anxiety blossomed between my shoulder blades.
“Will he find us here?”
“Perhaps not. The Host don’t have much imagination.” He snorted. “It’s almost their defining feature.”
“But if they know where I am, where I live, they can find and trap you, surely?”
He misunderstood my alarm. “You’re safe, don’t worry. The unfallen Host have to abide by certain rules. They can’t do anything to you directly without orders from On High, or else your own permission. Unless it’s to save your life, of course. We have always been allowed to save people on our own initiative.” He grinned. “That’s where all the trouble started, to be honest; your kind are so irresistibly vulnerable. But the Host can’t take you anywhere, and they can’t hold you prisoner. Don’t be frightened.”
“I’m not worried about me.”
He pulled my forehead to his lips, breathing the scent of my hair. “Sometimes I worry it is too much to ask of you,” he said indistinctly.
No, really? I supposed that was a good sign, if only a tiny one.
Then he went and blew it. “Your little life is so fragile, like a house of sticks.”
I let out a sigh and rolled back to put a little gap between us. “I have a new job, thanks for asking. Same employer though. She wants to meet you, in fact.”
Azazel cocked an eyebrow. “Why?”
Because you’re hot on camera. “She has a thing for angels. She’s a bit weird, to be honest. I don’t trust her much.”
He grinned wickedly. “Is she pretty, by any chance?” The unspoken accusation was loud and clear.
“What?” I was affronted. “She’s ten years older than me, at least.”
He laughed. “But still beautiful…”
Damn, he was too sharp.
“I’m serious. She knows a lot—maybe too much. I told her I’d ask you, but that doesn’t mean you should agree to meet up.”
“Now you’ve got me really intrigued.” He wasn’t hiding how much he was enjoying my discomfort.
I sat up, but rather ruined any show of dignity by having to pull a sharp quill out from beneath my ass. For the first time I looked around the tiny room we found ourselves in. It looked like the interior of a giant concrete egg. The walls arched in overhead, and were braced by concrete struts. “So where on earth are we?”
Azazel propped himself lazily on an elbow. “Brazil.”
I rolled my eyes at his obfuscation. “At least we’re indoors,” I muttered. “You need to be more careful. Less posing about on rooftops. No more shagging in churches. Or cafes.”
He grinned. “Come on. I couldn’t resist.”
In Bonds of the Earth (Book of the Watchers 2) Page 7