I thought I'd woke from a fever dream. I was back in my room alone, with the sun just creeping past the sill. I nearly danced out of bed, praising the morning for saving me.
“What the hell kind of dream was that?” I shuddered. One in which I'd been the reincarnation of Eve, marched like a happy idiot into Hell, and, oh yeah, hooked up with the Reaper.
“What the...?” A white scar shone on my breast, under the dark lace of my nightgown. I fell to my knees and gagged.
“No,” I whispered. My eyes were catacombs. “No way in hell did I do that!”
I frantically scanned my room. There was a rose at the head of my bed, stem charred as if it'd been roasted. It sat like a wicked promise.
Revulsion seized me and I ran for the bathroom. I hurled til there was nothing but bile.
I didn't leave my room for days. I slept until I c
I crept onwards to the mansion, amazed I hadn't been caught. Then I remembered this was probably like a lobster trap. It looked like a house on the outside, but inside was a cage fitted just for me. And it wasn't like Sam- Sauron needed guards. Only Pallor would have been idiot enough to cross him, provided he was bribed by literature.Yards from the mansion, I questioned why I was here. Skeletons held a ball in the attic. The mansion's stone face was mortared with graves. I stood a yard from the entrance, an intimidating sweeping thing with a portico that bested the White House. Devils and fantastical beasts were carved into its wooden pillars. Wolves swallowed the crenelate. It was like a pipe dream from Hell.The door knocker yawned. It was a brass lion. Lionheart. Again.“Ah, a midnight snack. My master must have had surplus-”I whip
“Different?” he asked, voice strained.I closed my eyes, running my tongue up his thumb, sucking. I nipped the top. He groaned.“Pyrrhic, you said?” I asked ruefully, dragging my lips up his index finger.“You're teasing me.”“Genius. Your turn-ons are weird.”“Damn your feminine wiles.”“You really like damning things, don't you?”He pulled me down into the snow with him, wrapping his wings around us so I might as well have been on a feather bed in a parka.Schubert's quartet peaked. He spooned me against his chest, arms wrapped round me like a mummy. Samael lay like a corpse for a moment, apparently getting in the zone. I grimaced as he stiffened. He laughed roughly at my unease.“That's just wrong,” I informed him.“Angel lust-”“Don
It was then I remembered my nightmares. What drove me from my bed and sleep. I sunk into the night with him, to the depths of Samael's mind.Long ago, it happened. A reflection in the hourglass, the lip where sand siphons into the void.He gave me the heart from his breast. His ribs grew into the Tree. It throbbed in his hand like a secret. I took it, terrified.“It is yours,” he whispered. Tears softened his stony eyes. “It always has been. Take it. It will set you free.”“But I don’t want it! All I want is to be with you-”“Eve!” he cried, clasping his hands around mine. They trembled, and that scared me more than the gaping wound on his chest. He had never been afraid. “Please. If you do not, you will die.”“But this is our home-”“You do not belong here.” He p
“You look like a rabbit when you sleep. Your nostrils flare out and you sniff things. Occasionally, you squeak.” The Angel of Death sat next to me, peering at me curiously. I shook in trepidation, draped in his robe at the corner of his bed.I hadn't managed to string a word together for over an hour. He'd hand-fed me toast and counseled me through hell and high water. One moment I raged, the next I wept like a banshee. Now, I was silent, manically pulling down from the pillow case.“I watched you all night, you know. When you cried out, I sang to you, and you drifted back to sleep. What is it, to ride dreams, I wonder? Your little body, so warm. That it could contain such wonders.” He ran his fingers through my hair, braiding it meticulously. He drew a red ribbon from the air and fixed it at the end. Sam slid his arms over my shoulders, resting his h
I have loved you since conception, through the banks of time and across the waters of life.When I first saw you, Eve, you were golden. Father shepherded the twins proudly in to the court room, first-formed of humankind, made in the image of God. My brothers and I sang, welcoming you into the world. Adam gazed vacantly up at the Father, empty-headed and waiting to be crowned with His glorious Light. You were created to be his vessel as well, but your eyes stayed closed, refusing to open, and you drew soft, cool breaths, as if waiting for the moon to rise. It was not until I held you that you opened them. I still can not fathom that moment: their blue waters met my depths.My heart stopped, and I refused to part from you. God laughed and said I had the makings of a man in me. I did not know what I felt. I just stared into the question of your lips and waited, knowing in time, we would be.I held you at your christening and lowered y
I surfaced from his memories, finding his head in my lap. He clutched at my back like Jacob's wrestling angel. “You were so- so young.” I said. He hadn't been more than eighteen in his memories. “Yes,” he said quietly. “I stole you. I thought you were mine. It is how I understood things, as toy soldiers and spoils of war. It was not until I saw my brothers die for me that I realized the gravity of what I had done. I thought I was liberating us, that I would challenge our Father and demand our freedom.” “He would not let us step a foot past the Abyss, told us that it was the end. But I hungered for knowledge, and I sought more, made a pact with it. The void showed me what was Beyond, for a price. Now, in a sense, I am it. It drove me mad, or perhaps made me insane. Just like our Father was. He thought Himself the only one. He could not bear to know there were oth
This is what I remember:He stands by the howling void. Chalk white cliffs plummet downwards to the raging sea. The blue-blackness froths beneath him. Wind screams. It is absolute zero.Shadows fall like dolls into the abyss. There are no cries of pain. Merely silence.The Legion stands before him. Michael brandishes his flaming sword. His face is raw with suffering.“Don’t do this, brother,” he pleas.His cry falls on deaf ears. It is a corpse that stands before him. Razor thin. Pale as winter snow. He towers over the archangel, still as the grip of death.He opens his hollow eyes. All Heaven holds its breath. The void yawns, grating its jowls. Its master smiles wretchedly. His flesh cracks like ice as he speaks:“Either way, I win.” His voice is like bitter wind.The pull of the Pit wraps around the Host like a vise. The weakest crumple like smashed mica. Their shards plummet into the ab
My body strained as I ran mad-dash down a twilit path, imagining hounds on my heels. The darkness of the forest transported me to a primal time. Trees whispered ragged like ghosts in the wind. Muscles honed from years of training propelled me onwards as crisp autumn air filled my lungs, spiced with woodsmoke and loam. Instincts awoke and the desperate need to escape propelled me onwards, into the bosom of the woods, away from the impending threat- though it was only a waking dream.“How do you run so damn fast, Callie!” coach had asked once in disbelief after I'd finished a 5K in 16:30.“Rabid dogs,” I'd replied,He'd raised his brow a mile high and plastered me with a pitiful stare. It was no use explaining my unconventional techniques to the unimaginative, just like it was impossible to convey the sweetness of danger to the tamed. That beautiful feeling: heart pounding, adre