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

by Janine Ashbless

“You’re a giant show-off, you know,” I admonished, but I laughed. And that made Azazel pull me down again and kiss me.

  “You have to be joking,” I giggled, feeling him hard against my thighs. Good grief, how would I cope if his visits weren’t constrained? I’d spend my whole life as a sex zombie.

  “Not joking,” he murmured, sliding down the length of my body, nuzzling between my breasts, his lips hot and fervent on my nipples and then my belly.

  “Wait!” I yelped as he neared the point of no return. “I’ve something important to tell you.”

  Azazel looked up from between my open legs, crooking one black brow.

  “Penemuel,” I blurted. “I think I’ve found Penemuel. Your friend, right? The other one of your three? He’s in Ethiopia.”

  Okay, that got his attention. He sat back up on his heels. “How do you know?”

  I told him—about Roshana and the exhibition at the Chicago Institute, about the old Book of Enoch and the illustration therein. I didn’t mention Egan. There were a bunch of things about Egan that I’d never told Azazel, largely because I thought it would be a whole lot safer for the man if the angel never found out.

  Maybe because I was ashamed too. A bit.

  “The book came from a church in a town called Lalibela. I looked it all up—there are a whole bunch of really old chapels cut out of the living rock there. But the book’s even older than the churches—it dates from the previous dynasty.”

  Azazel listened to every word, his expression as intense as a hawk’s, then rose to his feet. “Wait,” he ordered, and vanished in a clap of displaced air and a whirl of dislodged feathers.

  “Oh right,” I mumbled, too late. I was on my own.

  The first thing I did was check how much of a mess Azazel had made of my tingling bum—which turned out, to my relief, to be none at all. Then I stood and looked around our little love-nest. I had absolutely no idea where he’d brought me. There was barely any room in here—Azazel had had to stoop a little when he stood upright. Just enough room for a mound of feathers to stretch out on.

  I imagined Azazel plucking feathers from wild birds in flight. Not that I’d ever seen him fly, but it wasn’t something that would have surprised me. He definitely gave the impression of wings sometimes.

  The only light in the cramped chamber came from a barred vent in the dome of the ceiling over my head. I could see blue cloudless sky and hear, beyond the warbling throb of the wind blowing over that vent, birds singing and the faint honk of traffic. The pallor of that sky made me think somehow that it must be early morning, maybe dawn.

  Brazil makes sense. Same dateline.

  Standing, I tried to peer through the skylight, but it was too far over my head. I paced the very small circumference of my prison, trying to ignore the creeping sense of claustrophobia.

  “Come on, Azazel,” I muttered, to no avail.

  When I leant against one of the concrete rafters I could feel it vibrating faintly. Machinery…or wind? I bit my lip, then scrambled up between the two inclined braces to the grill overhead. A bolt held the metal bars in place. Even with my face up against them, I could see nothing but sky.

  I worked the bolt back, dropped the grill on its hinge, and pushed my head out into the light.

  “Oh no.”

  The breeze tore at my face, making my eyes water. I saw a domed concrete shape, the exterior of our little chamber, falling away around me. I saw a blue bay hugged by green mountains, and a city far below me, clustered in the hills’ embrace. I saw a gigantic concrete arm to my right, stretching off for a hundred feet over the gape of the air. And I recognized it all.

  The colossal statue of Christ the Redeemer, towering over Rio de Janeiro.

  We’re camped out inside Jesus’ head.

  I’d barely pulled back in and dropped to the floor when there came a faint whumph of air, a sudden scattering of feathers, and there was Azazel again, hunched beneath the curve of the dome, the open codex in his hands.

  Still naked.

  “I’m not sure that this is such a great idea!” I tried telling him, but he wasn’t listening to me.

  “Qāla barakat za-Hēnōk za-kama bāraka ḫərūyāna wa-ṣādəqāna ‘əlla hallawu yəkūnū ba-ʿəlata məndābē la-’asassəlō kʷəllū ‘əkūyān wa-rasīʿān,” he read out. “Written for those who will be alive in the Days of Tribulation.” He flicked through the pages and brandished the familiar double illustration at me. “That’s what you saw?”

  “Penemuel is the angel who taught mankind to write,” I said. “That’s him, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” He stared as if dazed. There was an expression on his face I was unfamiliar with, and it took me a moment to identify.

  Hope.

  It tore at my heart.

  His finger stabbed at the second picture. There was a word inscribed on the hillside. It was very short—only two letters—and written in the clear discrete alphabet of Ge’ez. “This says Roha,” he told me.

  “Okay. That’s the old name for Lalibela.” I’d been doing my research.

  “Lalibela,” he muttered, tossing the priceless antique aside into the feathers. “I will go look.”

  I crossed swiftly to where he stood and wrapped my arms about his neck, pressing my bare body against his. The heat of his skin, the rough caress of his chest hair against my breasts, his hardness against my softness—it was only natural that I mold my flesh against his, and just as inevitable that his hands fall upon the curve of my back and then down to the swell of my bottom. I looked hard into his eyes. “Take me with you?”

  His lashes swept down like a fall of soot. “It’s too dangerous, Milja.”

  “You said the angels couldn’t touch me!”

  “Dangerous for me, not you. But if I’m taken prisoner, I would not have you abandoned in a strange country.”

  “If you’re taken,” I told him fiercely, “I will find you again. Wherever it is. I will find you and free you—I’ve done it once and I’ll do it again.”

  He smiled, but his silver eyes reflected light like raindrops on a day of wintery mourning. “Don’t promise that, Milja—such a hope would keep me alive for years.”

  “But that’s a good thi—”

  “No. If I’m taken again, I would rather you forgot me. Find another man. Let me die.”

  “Don’t say that!”

  “Love is their weapon, Milja. They created it. They use it against us.”

  I pressed my face to his throat and he slid his arms around me tight. I can’t face losing you, I wanted to say. Don’t go. Stay with me.

  But I couldn’t say that. I couldn’t ask him to live like a rat trapped by a dog. I couldn’t chain his immortality to my fear. It would be cruel and stupid to even express such feelings.

  “Please be careful,” I whispered.

  “This looks good,” said Roshana, tossing her tablet down on the sunbed next to where I sat. “I’ll get John Ellis to start work on it, put a team together.”

  And just like that I was an architectural engineer. I suppose I should have felt happier. As Roshana wandered over to the little table nearby and poured out two icy mojitos from the pitcher, I looked around us. We were sitting near the pool on the third story roof garden of the Aqua skyscraper, because Roshana kept an apartment there for when she was in Chicago. A few other people strolled in the distance or sat talking, but not close enough to impinge upon our privacy. In daylight, if I squinted hard, I might be able to see through the forest of high-rises to the marina on Lake Michigan. Right now, over my head, a vast undulating façade of white balconies and black glass soared over eighty floors into the evening sky, reflecting the city lights. It was a stunning building, and the tallest in the whole world designed by a woman. I couldn’t shake off the guilty feeling that Jeanne Gang had earned her opportunities and her plaudits the honest way, unlike me.

  “Now,” said Roshana, coming back with the tall glasses, “let’s talk about something more interesting.” In deferen
ce to the unseasonable warmth of the October night she was wearing a casual sundress with keyhole cleavage that I found quite disconcerting. “Have you spoken to your boyfriend?”

  I took a sip of my mojito, appreciating the sourness. “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “He’s…not unwilling. I mean, I didn’t push him.”

  “Of course you didn’t.”

  “But yeah, he’s sort of interested in seeing you.”

  Roshana sat down abruptly on the sunbed facing me, and put a hand over her nose. I could see the flash of her wide eyes.

  It startled me into asking, “You’re scared?”

  “Of course I am,” she gasped, then recovered herself. “I’ve never met an actual angel. You’re used to him.”

  “I suppose so.” It was a little shocking to think what I took for normal now.

  She smiled. “And aren’t you nervous when something you’ve dreamed of all your life is about to come true?”

  “I… Uh.” Yes. Of course. I’d spent so much of these last few months in a state of excitement or terror—and sometimes it had been impossible to tell them apart.

  “So where shall we meet? What about my ranch? I have something to show him that I’m sure he’ll want to see.”

  I couldn’t help the arch, suspicious look I threw her. “I think something more like neutral territory would be better.”

  “As you wish. When?”

  I made an irritated gesture with my glass, feeling hounded. “I don’t make his timetable. Azazel has lots of things to do, you know. He’s—” Then I stopped short as her eyes widened and she stood, her gaze fixed over my shoulder.

  He heard me. Oh…

  I turned. The terrace pool had been empty of swimmers, spot lit from below the waterline to a brilliant azure. Azazel, as ever a master of the inconspicuous, was standing in the pool. On top of the water. The light from beneath his feet had bled up into his silvery eyes, so that they blazed blue.

  Oh well, that’s that then.

  At least he was back in some clothes.

  He strolled toward us across the water, tracking bare wet footprints onto the slabs of the surround. I stepped aside with studied politeness.

  “Azazel, this is Roshana.”

  And then something happened. It happened in his eyes first, as the blue turned to crimson. Every one of the bulbs in the pool imploded as the water rose to a hissing boil, and then all the ambient lights on the terrace winked out with a fusillade of shattering glass. I heard little shrieks of surprise from people in the near-distance. The air around us suddenly grew so tight I could hardly draw breath, and a magma glow from the clouds overhead provided illumination to the scene.

  Roshana pulled herself upright, head high, chest lifted proudly.

  “Az—” I gasped.

  He wasn’t even looking at me. He had eyes only for her. He stalked right up to her and grabbed her by the throat, forcing her jaw high. I could see the fear in her eyes—fear and a strange lustful defiance. I cringed inside as he stooped over her, thrusting his face to hers, his lips almost brushing her cheek and her shoulder—sniffing her, to my absolute horror, in a manner that was more bestial than angelic.

  Then he pushed her away hard and she staggered, clutching her bruised throat.

  Azazel shoved his hands into his wild hair, staring like he’d been stabbed through the heart. I could see the glint of his bared teeth. “Avansha,” he said. “No.”

  The hairs on my arms and nape crawled at the broken horror in his voice.

  Roshana set her feet. She was still unbowed, though her eyes shone wetly. “Hello, Father,” she said.

  The air around us pulled into tight striations and then, with a thunderclap as of huge wings, Azazel vanished.

  6

  PENEMUEL

  Why on earth are you asking me?” I might have sounded like I was wailing, but that was because I was clinging to a railing at the top of an ancient brick tower that leaned at an alarming angle over the city streets a hundred feet and more below. Of course I didn’t doubt that Azazel could catch me if I started to slide, but I wasn’t one bit comfortable.

  “I want a human perspective.” Azazel sat right at the edge of the roof, his back to me and his bare feet hanging into thin air. His agitation was visible as a shudder in the air around us. “She wants to see me. She keeps asking. What should I do?”

  “A human perspective?” I didn’t know where the hell we were, but the terracotta rooftops and pillared colonnades below looked Mediterranean to me. The regular tourists in the taller second tower behind us—the one that still stood vertically—were pointing through their safety wire and shouting at us, but of course my lover was oblivious. “Uh. If she is your daughter, then you should go see her. She deserves that much. You should see her and tell her you love her.”

  “I don’t love her. I loved her mother, Ansha. I loved my two little boys and my little girl. I don’t know this woman. I don’t know what to think about her.”

  Okay, full marks for honesty, Azazel. “How old was she, last time you saw her?”

  He twisted to glance over his shoulder at me, looking perplexed. “I, uh…small. Maybe six or seven?”

  “Then please, you have got to apologize for abandoning her, at the least.”

  “I didn’t abandon her—I was imprisoned!”

  “You think a six-year-old knows the difference?”

  “She’s not six now. She knows what happened!”

  I shut my eyes so he couldn’t see them rolling. I’d had to cope with Roshana’s frigid, brittle sang-froid since their horrible first meeting, and I could only imagine what emotions she was trying to bottle up.

  He’s never been a child. Remember that, Milja. He has no idea what it’s like. He didn’t grow up; he was always like this. He talks about his brother angels, but they’re more like fellow soldiers than family.

  “You asked for a human perspective,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “Well, if she’s your daughter then, humanly speaking, rejecting her now would just be incredibly cruel. It would break her. You have to take my word for that.”

  “Why do you keep saying ‘If she’s my daughter’?”

  “Enoch said the Nephilim stood three hundred cubits high. That’s like four hundred and fifty feet tall.”

  He snorted. “Does that seem likely to you? How would such a creature stand upright, Milja? Use your common sense.”

  I caught my breath, biting back sarcasm. My common sense gave up a long time ago, Azazel, and is off quietly drinking itself into a stupor in front of reality TV. I contented myself with, “And he said explicitly that they only had a lifespan of five hundred years. If Roshana’s telling the truth, she’s more like five thousand.”

  “Hm.” His eyes narrowed.

  “You should know, shouldn’t you?” I tried to sound casual. “Ansha was just your last human wife, wasn’t she? I’m sure you’ve had a bunch of other children over the years?”

  He sighed. “Our children were…difficult. They grew up quarrelsome and very ambitious, and they fought each other. Most died violently, even before the divine purge. I admit, our grandchildren fitted in better with human society.”

  That made sense. The vision I’d had of his two sons had suggested boys with extraordinary powers. I could imagine that going to a young man’s head very badly indeed. No human mother could hope to curb them, and—forgive me for being a little judgmental—I doubted very much that the Watchers had made for good fathers or role models.

  And yet here, if she was to be believed, was one of the Nephilim who had somehow escaped the divine genocide and kept a low enough profile to survive down the centuries.

  Hell yes, Azazel owed her his attention. But she also represented a terrible danger to him. Roshana’s body, if it fell into the wrong hands, was literally a weapon. On a brutally practical level, his best bet would be to kill and cremate her as soon as he could.

  I didn’t want to ask if that had occurred to him too.
I felt dizzy, and it wasn’t just vertigo.

  “How did it go in Ethiopia?” I asked—anything to change the subject.

  “Not well. The old part of the city is almost entirely consecrated ground—even the dry river bed.” He shook his head angrily. “I need to take you there to look for his cage. To try to talk to him. But they’re waiting. I put one foot in there and they will know I’m coming.”

  I switched my weight from one cramped hand on the railing to the other. “Can’t you use a cat to sneak in?” I hated to use the word possession, but I’d seen him use a cat’s body before to infiltrate a monastery unnoticed. It hadn’t ended well for the animal, mind.

  “Someone’s worked that one out. There’s not a cat left alive in the town.”

  “Some other animal then?”

  “It would have to be an animal allowed free movement. Of those, only cats are both willing and strong enough.”

  I bit the inside of my lip. “What about…”

  “What?”

  “When I was at college in Boston, you…stayed in contact. Through my dreams. Could I talk to the Watcher that way?”

  “You’ve no connection with Penemuel.”

  “But you do. If you came with me… Could you reach out to him?” I wasn’t going to mention the torrid occasion on which I’d inadvertently dragged both Azazel and Egan into my dreamspace. The less said about that the better.

  Azazel jumped up onto the edge of the roof, balancing thoughtlessly on the crumbling stone in a way that made my stomach lurch despite everything. “Yes,” he said. “Maybe. You’re smart, Milja.” He smiled. “And I will talk to Avansha, if you think I should.”

  I tried to smile back, though a big part of me wanted Azazel to have nothing to do with Roshana. I distrusted her less now that her interest in him was clearly not sexual. But I didn’t feel good about this sudden change.

  Then the sunlight turned golden around us—everywhere but in Azazel’s eyes. His upper lip lifted in a snarl.

  I glanced around and caught the briefest glimpse of Michael standing at the far end of the roof, his long hair billowing around him like a goddamn shampoo commercial, before Azazel lunged forward and seized me.