Succubus withdrew backward, astonished at first, then she gave a wave. Her cassock lying on the floor dissolved in the air. Like smoke, it soared and gathered around her body. Within a second the same cassock materialized over her naked body. The hood came over her head itself and hid her face.
“As you wish,” she teased, and turned her back to him.
“Succubus,” Samael cried after her at the moment she was about to leave. His voice rang in the corridor and vibrated the walls. “You have orders to take me in,” he reminded her as she peered back.
“You know my price.” She pointed the room. Samael kept his silence.
Lily looked at Raphael, hoping the archangel would help Samael. Raphael stood still. He was going to watch the performance in silence. Meanwhile, Succubus came up to Samael again. With one gesture she lifted the torch, and it hung in mid-air soaring above their heads.
“I offered you a pleasant deal. Me,” she indicated her body, “for your business.”
Samael raised his head. At first, Lily didn’t recognize him, because the eyes she could see now didn’t belong to the creature who had loved her several hours ago. These eyes shone like green flames. His eyebrows arched, his hands balled into fists. If those wings weren’t gray, she would definitely believe that a devil stood there in place of Samael.
Samael’s wings opened wide, reaching from one wall to the other. She saw the throes of anger that momentarily twisted the ninth archangel. Before Succubus could understand their meaning, she was struck by Samael’s invisible power. Like a waving wind, charged with inhuman power, Samael’s wrath released itself from his body and enveloped Succubus. He hadn’t even touched her, but Succubus was tossed backward, before she crashed to the ground. Lily looked from her to Samael in puzzlement.
“Raphael, do something,” she begged.
“All is well” he said, unfazed. “My brother’s wings need some freedom. Let’s allow him that much, shall we?” He winked.
Samael looked in their direction as though he had heard Raphael, although the archangel had told Lily that they were invisible and inaudible.
Succubus jumped to her feet, the hood slid down off her head. She shrieked loudly, and the floor and the ceiling shuddered in unison. Lily pressed her hands to her ears. Sand rained onto her head.
She glanced at Samael. Samael stood his ground, wearing the same malicious look.
The people from the nearest rooms wandered out, naked and with curiosity in their eyes. As soon as they saw Samael, a muttering gasp went through them, some put their heads into their hands, some bowed to him and withdrew back. Lily watched them retreat back into the rooms, flabbergasted.
“Bow your head, Succubus,” Samael’s devilish voice pierced through the corridor. Lily glanced at him instantly – his mouth was shut. He spoke telepathically, just as he had to Beelzebub before, when he had come to rescue Lily.
A sharp wind came from the end of the corridor. It passed Samael and Lily, then reached Succubus. Her hair and cassock were ruffled back. She closed her eyes.
“This is one of the archangels of the Great Nine.” His voice strangled the air in the corridor. “You will show me the respect I am due.”
“Did you show me your respect when you left me here, Samael?” she growled. “You’re a liar. The ninth archangel, you left your love behind, you left me to be tortured.” All of a sudden she set off at a run toward Samael, her right hand raised above her head. Lily spotted a gleaming thing in her hand. It was a sword, she was going to stab it into his chest. Samael darted toward her. He was much faster than she was. He grasped her by neck and remorselessly slammed her into the wall. A shriek tore itself out of Lily’s mouth, she clapped her hands to her mouth in horror and could swear that the wall itself rattled. Succubus’s howl of pain flooded the corridors.
Lily took a step closer to them to get a good look. Samael was holding Succubus with one hand, her feet kicking uselessly in the air. Succubus moaned, but his grasp tightened around her neck, and she choked on her own voice. Lily saw her bleeding. Samael’s right hand held his gray sword. It was still stuck in her shoulder.
Lily looked at his face, expecting to see a predator with long teeth, but Samael’s eyes had already calmed down. He released her, pulling his sword back to let her roll over the ground. Succubus struggled into a sitting position, clutching at her shoulder. Her hands were covered in her own blood. God had gifted such creatures with blood too, Lily thought.
“I always knew you were emotionless. You’re a dead man walking,” she wheezed, coughing blackened blood out of her mouth. “But I always loved you, Samael. If you leave me here, I’ll hold you here with me as well. I will see your handsome face every day, but your eyes will be mournful, because you’ll be trapped in here forever.”
Samael knelt down in front of her, narrowing his eyes. Holding her chin, he lifted her head carefully. “Show me the way, Succubus,” he snarled. “You don’t want me to torture you forever. Don’t play with me. I’ll send you to the Island of the Dead.”
They glared into each other’s eyes unblinking, Lily watching them, uncomprehending.
“What is the Island of the Dead?” she asked.
“It’s the place where deceased unearthly creatures live,” Raphael replied. “You can find nothing there except for darkness, gloom, and emptiness. Believe me, it’s a fate you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. There is no way back from there.”
Succubus’s yell split the air in the corridor again, making Lily tear her eyes from Raphael and peer at Samael. He held Succubus by the wounded shoulder and hoisted her onto her feet. She laughed out loud through her pain, as if she enjoyed it. Samael bent forward, he smelled her face. He traced his finger over her neck down to her breasts.
“Too beautiful, but still cold and unreal,” he hissed unsympathetically. Lily had to strain her ear to catch his voice. “You’ve got blood,” he touched her wound, “but it’s not hot, it’s as cold as ice. Tell me, can you love at all, Succubus?”
She moaned, but Lily didn’t hear her answer. Holding her for some seconds, Samael finally let her go and spun around.
“Lead the way,” he ordered dryly, his green wicked eyes looking at Lily’s direction.
“I thought you said that he can’t see us?” Lily stepped back to Raphael as though she was scared of Samael now.
“I’m cheating,” the monk grinned. “I created this place, after all. This is my world, and I can do to it what I like.”
Succubus flinched. Her head was covered with the hood again. She picked up the torch slowly and started off. Samael readjusted his shirt and followed her.
“If you’re the creator of this place, then why do we need Succubus to find the way out of this maze?” Lily responded as she and Raphael began following Samael.
“Dudael has been changed several times,” Raphael replied mildly. “First, it was empty save only Azazel, then Gabriel advised me to let the people who longed for immortality into the prison forever. Some of Lucifer’s companions liked the idea, and they came here and built the place you see now. Thus this place is like Earth; God created it and gave it to mankind. Then man changed it.”
“Does he have a hand in those changes?” Lily looked at Samael, who was walking his hand thrust into his trousers. “He was in this prison before, this isn’t his first visit, is it?”
“He used to hang out here with Lucifer’s other partners a long time ago,” Raphael affirmed.
“He was a prisoner?”
“The prison has two entrances. We came through one, but the other was for Lucifer’s comrades. He sends his people here every so often–”
“Can’t he just set Azazel free?” Lily cut him off.
“No. He won’t run such a risk for Azazel,” Raphael supposed. Lily saw Samael veer to the right at the end of the way. Darkness fell in the corridor momentarily.
“Raphael!” As soon as she said his name, the corridor was illuminated by a heavenly bright light coming from the monk�
�s clothes.
“Come,” he ordered, and hurried ahead.
The next corridor was the same as the previous. Lily can’t help stealing a look at the scene behind the first doorway. Entirely naked, a red-haired woman sat on a chair, legs sprawled out, head tossed back. Her eyes were closed. Between her legs was a black-haired woman whose face Lily couldn’t see. Hunched forward, she was kissing the red-haired woman’s belly hungrily, then her lips moved down over the other woman’s skin and got lost between her partner’s legs. Lily shook her head in disgust, then the image passed out of her view as she raced to catch up with Raphael.
The distance between Samael and Lily had widened, the slight light of the Succubus’s torch could hardly be seen from so far a distance. Lily didn’t want to lose Raphael’s heavenly light and find herself alone in the corridor among those immortal humans.
“I always hoped that one day Samael would feel, because living without feelings is the same as being dead,” the monk confessed. “I know he told you he loved you, but I’d advise you yet to keep some distance from him. You’ll never unravel his true intentions, trust me.”
A fleeting glimpse of the monk’s eyes was enough to understand he was extremely serious. “What do you mean by saying he’s unpredictable?” Lily asked. “I believe that he has feelings for me. Maybe it’s not the same way a human loves, but it’s a feeling all the same.”
“Look,” Raphael sighed, “Samael is too clever because he was created to be. Being a fallen archangel, he remains trusted by God, but you’ve got to be careful because Samael works only for his own purposes. He’s a loner, he keeps his distance from every other archangel. He was Heaven’s archangel, he was Lucifer’s partner, he helped humanity, he killed Eve’s progeny – Efran and his whole family,” Raphael stopped abruptly. Lily did the same. Her eyes were scared, but thoughtful. “What do you think the too-clever man would want to have most?”
Different answers hovered in her head, but her mouth remained shut.
“Purpose,” Raphael answered his own questions solemnly, “An impossible purpose. Something that hasn’t been done before.”
“What is his purpose now?” Lily mouthed.
“Ah!” Raphael chortled loudly. The walls echoed his voice, sucking it in. “Even Father doesn’t know his purpose. Nobody knows what is in his mind. Sometimes Michael and Gabriel overestimate him, but I have always known that Samael never makes an unplanned movement. His love for you can’t be just coincidence. I can’t believe you first encountered each other in a club.”
Lily instantly forgot to breathe. A lot of thoughts popped into her mind simultaneously. There might be sense in Raphael’s words, in regards to why such a beautiful and mighty creature as Samael should fall in love with such a primitive and meaningless girl like Lily.
“I just want you to be careful around him,” Raphael resumed morosely, breaking the silence. “Don’t trust him completely. You can’t be sure what the angel of death is capable of.”
“Angel of death?” Lily was surprised, her eyebrows arched. “Samael is the angel of death?”
Raphael looked into her eyes gloomily. “He takes unearthly creatures to the Island of the Dead and gives them to Uriel.”
“Is it a bad thing, to find and remove the evil souls?”
“The body and soul of Unearthly creatures is one entity, they can’t be separated,” Raphael replied mildly. “Evil and good are only for humans. Angels and demons, they aren’t good or bad. By the way, God sent Eve to the Island of the Dead too, as a punishment for disobeying him. God knows forgiveness, but Samael never forgives. He had something with Succubus once, but I believe that now he will remorselessly send her to the Island of the Dead too, the cruelest place for unearthly creatures.” Raphael looked around, turning his heavenly light to the walls using his hand as if his palm was a torch. “I guess we’re nearly there.”
“Where?” Lily asked impatiently.
“In Azazel’s realm,” the monk replied solemnly, then hummed something incomprehensible under his breath. An air wave formed around his outstretched hand then it expanded and hit the wall. It exploded. Lily closed her eyes. The sound of the explosion deafened her ears briefly.
Being deaf and blind, Lily began to see into other queer worlds. Her memories took her back through time and she saw a blonde woman’s face smiling on her. At first it was blurry, then the picture cleared up. With her brown eyes filled with happiness, she wanted to say something to Lily, but her thin lips didn’t move. Lily was sure that the woman had something to tell her. Why didn’t she just say it?
Her face was familiar, but Lily couldn’t register where she had seen the woman. The way the woman was looking at her warmed Lily down to her bones.
Lily smiled involuntarily. The woman opened her mouth, but Lily didn’t hear her voice. Lily wanted her to repeat the words, wanted to hug that woman, but she came to the realization that she couldn’t control her body.
She looked over the woman’s shoulder. They were in a car, but Lily couldn’t see the driver. There should be someone steering the wheel. The upcoming image behind the woman made Lily’s eyes freeze. Fear flooded her. A big track was a yard away from them. Within a second it crashed into the car that she and the woman were in. Lily tried to cry, she opened her mouth but her voice refused to come out, as if her lungs were entirely airless.
Lily blinked. The picture before her eyes stopped moving. The time stopped. Staring at it with unfocused eyes, she saw the woman’s brown eyes looking at her mournfully. The air filled with glass and debris, so close that Lily could reach out for them, if only her body would obey her. She felt cold, and finally she exhaled, puffing out a white huge cloud which erased that surreal picture.
It was swallowed up by darkness momentarily, then a bright light replaced it. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she saw Raphael’s anxious face above her.
“Are you alright?” he asked. “Can you get up?”
“I guess I can,” Lily struggled into sitting position, feeling giddy, and Raphael helped her up. “What just happened?”
“You collapsed to the ground,” Raphael straightened her loosened hair. “It’s okay in this prison, you aren’t the first.”
“I had a vision,” Lily said, taking her face into her hands.
“It wasn’t a vision, it was a memory. This prison brings back your worst memories and makes you watch them again and again until you lose your mind. Later, you won’t know where the line of reality and insanity is, and your mind will be lost in these walls forever.” Raphael held his hand out to help Lily stand up.
As she was on her feet she looked around. There was a big hole caved into the wall, big enough to pass through. Pieces of wall were soaring in the air as if gravity didn’t exist here. Lily’s eyes became magnified in surprise.
“What’s going on here?” she squeaked.
“I told you, this is my place. I slowed down time,” Raphael said jovially. He made his way toward the hole and beckoned Lily.
“Slowed down time? But that’s…that’s…”
“Impossible?” he finished her sentence.
“Yeah.”
“Impossible on Earth. The rules on Earth aren’t fit for here,” Raphael explained. “Watch your head.”
Lily bent forward to avoid the large pieces hanging in the air.
“We have to take a turn here,” Raphael said, and veered to the left. “I guess that time can go on normally now. Look up.”
As he trailed off, the stones fell to the ground quickly, and the voices, moans and wind returned to life instantly. Lily looked ahead; there was a light at the end of the corridor. It was the way out of the maze of sexual games, the maze of uncontrollable memories, and the maze of self-humiliation.
15. Azazel’s Realm
The sound of shouting hit Lily’s face, as if a crowd had erupted opposite the doorway. The light at the end was seemingly an entrance into an entirely other world, one having nothing to do with the dingy mazes.
> The light blinded her. When her eyes adjusted to it a huge place opened in front of her. She instantly saw an enormous stadium full of people yelling, shrieking and supporting the ones on the stage. Lily found herself like an ant in a huge hole. Cliffs like icicles jutted out of the ceiling. Orange light lit the stadium, like thousands of candles and torches had been placed around it. As Lily’s eyes dropped down to the stage, her heart was stopped by the eerie performance everyone was cheering for.
It reminded her of an arena of gladiators. Death and destruction were spread everywhere, as below her people slaughtered each other, tore each other open like beasts. The stage was colored poppy red with blood streaming to the edges. Lily couldn’t count how many people were down there, maybe several hundred, or even a thousand. The crowd shouted with every blow, and gasped with every drop of blood shed.
“Raphael,” she exclaimed, dumbfounded, “what’s going on here? Why are they killing each other?”
“This is a common ceremony for this prison, Lily,” Raphael explained unsympathetically. “The one who survives the battle will take the gift. This time the bet is very high. That’s why there are a lot of humans and inhuman creatures in the arena.”
Some steps out from the corridor Samael stood, leaning against the railing that was wrapped around the stadium. He was watching the slaughter. Lily, alongside Raphael, came up and stood beside him. Lily looked at Samael’s face surreptitiously; his eyes were dark and thoughtful. She wondered what he had recalled from his memories related to this gladiator’s arena. Had he ever fought in it himself?
“Stay close,” Samael hissed abruptly. Lily raised her eyebrows.
“Does he see us?” She peered at Raphael where he was standing on her other side. “You said nobody can see and hear us.”
“He can’t see us, but I told you that he can feel us. Especially you.”
“Why me?”
“Because he loves you.” Raphael sneered and turned his face away.
Godforsaken: Book 1 (Shade of Light) Page 17