Cover Him with Darkness (29 page)

“Uh-huh.”

“What's that, exactly?”

Azazel waved the bottle. “He's the Accuser. The Adversary.” He peered at me as if trying to read my reaction, and shook his head. “Well, last time
I knew him, anyway. His job is to uncover dissension within the Court of Heaven. Secrets and sins among the Sons of God. He sets traps. Keeps us on the straight and narrow.” He hunted for words. “Like an internal police force, you know?”

“No, I didn't know.” I'd found Uriel arrogant, snobbish, vain—but quite humorous, in his way. He made me nervous, but I hadn't really disliked him.

“Well stay out of his way. If he can think of a way to get at me through you, he'll do it.”

Too late,
I thought.
Way too late
. I'd played right into Uriel's hands, I was starting to suspect.

“Unless that's what you want,” Azazel added grimly.

“What do you mean?”

“You want me locked up again?”

“No! Azazel, no!”

For a moment his prickly, defensive stance held, and then he relaxed a little. “Then what do you want, Milja?” he asked.

I want you to save me
. The words sat on my tongue, and I could neither spit them out nor swallow them down. “If Uriel came up against you, what would happen?” I asked, deflecting the question.

He shrugged with drunken over-expressiveness. “He's an archangel, but no warrior. It's all yap yap yap with him. I could take him apart.”

“Good,” I whispered. But what if Egan was right in his boast? What if there was a way to trap one of the Fallen?

I moved toward him. “Azazel, do you know what
vidimus
means?”

“In what language?”

“Latin?”

“
We have seen
.”

Of course
, I thought. I had, after all, heard those words before. “But what does that mean? What is it?”

“It's an old word for a sketch-plan for a stained-glass window. Why do you ask?”

I wasn't sure. But the phrase had occurred and recurred in my dreams long before Egan spoke the words out loud. Something about it creeped me out.

“Just something someone said,” I answered weakly. If Azazel didn't
know about Egan or how he'd betrayed me, I didn't want to tell. My shame was too bitter, and Azazel would only laugh at me. It was better he didn't know.

Lightning went off like a flashgun. It lit Azazel's tall form—all angles now, all lines of starvation, his eyes pits, his collarbone stark above the bloodied line of his top. It lit the miserable little village. It lit the things sprawled in the puddles. I cringed.

“What is this place? What happened here, Azazel?”

“It's a bear village.”

“A what?”

“A bear village. They go out into the forest around here and they catch bears. Black ones with a white blaze on their chests. They bring the bears back and they put them in cages, really tiny cages where they can't turn round or stand up or anything, and they stick an open tap through a puncture-wound in the walls of their bellies, into the gall bladder, and they harvest the bile, drip by drip. For fake medicine.” His sullen growl shifted to an almost childish delight. “I set the bears free. They were hungry. I told them they could kill anybody they liked.” He looked around us, tipsily bemused. “What a mess.”

“Oh Christ.”

“One more time: nothing to do with him.”

“Azazel…these were poor people. Families. Just trying to make a living.”

That produced a derisive snort. “I really don't care.”

I chewed my lip. “Other people will catch the bears before they get far enough away. They'll all be shot or put back in the cages.”

“I don't care about that either.”

“That's not true,” I said, very gently. “You couldn't stand to see them caged and in pain.”

He considered this. “Then I'll do it again,” he announced. “And again. Until all the bears are free or dead.” He smiled, with a wild mirthless satisfaction.

“Is dead better?”

“Better than the cages.”

I reached out and touched the back of his wrist, just the merest brush of fingertips. “Do you understand why I couldn't leave Egan, then?”

He looked down at my hand. His voice cracked when he spoke next. “What do you want, Milja?”

“I want to say sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you.”

He touched me gently on the cheek, his fingertips cold. Lightning flickered again, a long-drawn-out stutter. I could see the new gray in his hair, the shadows of exhaustion around his eyes. “Milja…”

I could not do it to him. I could not throw myself on his forgiveness and beg his help and draw him into whatever trap awaited. I didn't know what Father Velimir and Egan were plotting—for all I knew Egan might be lying to the priest just as he'd lied to me—but I could not risk that. I couldn't see Azazel trapped again, not for my sake.

“That's all,” I whispered. “I understand now. I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have said those things. Now I have to go.”

“Go?” He drew himself up taller. “You came back. I…can forgive.”

“I'm not staying. No. Find yourself a nice girl, Azazel,” I said quickly, before my resolve could weaken. “Be gentle with her. Let her grow to love you.”

He grimaced, bewildered.

“Just don't get her pregnant though—they'll use that against you.”

His fingertips traced the lines of my face, like he was blind and trying to see me. “Why aren't you like the other women, Milja?”

“What do you mean?”

“They were all proud to be with me. Proud to be loved by a Son of Heaven. How is it that I'm not good enough for you?”

I shook my head gently, though inside I could feel my heart tearing itself to shreds. “You'll find someone like that,” I promised. “Plenty of women would…” I'd been about to say
sell their souls for a guy like you,
but it seemed a really unfortunate choice of words. “Just not me,” I finished; “so you must stay away.”

He lowered over me, washing me in alcohol fumes and broken dreams.

Don't kiss me,
I prayed.
Please don't kiss me. If you do I will break, I will not be able to hold back, I will give up to you. And you will take charge and come to my rescue, because that is what you are like—and then they will have you, because that is what they have planned all along. Everything for them depends on us being lovers. I am your weak link. I am your Achilles' heel.

“I could be better, if I tried,” he offered uncertainly. “All I need is for you to love me, Milja.”

That nearly killed me.

“No, no,” I said, my voice hoarse. “You're an angel. Don't stoop like that. We're just apes, remember?”

“You are creatures of infinite wonder. You are climbing to the stars. We…only fell.”

“You didn't fall; you jumped. Don't you forget that.” I hardened my voice. “Fight your way back, Azazel—don't just stand in the rain having a pity party. You look pathetic.”

His hand recoiled. Red light flared in his eyes.

“That's…cold, Milja.”

I hated myself. “It's the truth.”

“You will kill me.”

And that was true too, if Uriel's words could be trusted at all. It was, quite literally, Azazel's fatal weakness: he needed to be loved.

“They will bury you again,” I said through gritted teeth, “unless you stop feeling sorry for yourself. And if you need someone to love you, then
go earn it
. You're no more entitled than anyone else.”

Lightning flashed, filling my vision with his bleached-out face, beautiful and ravaged. Then darkness returned, and when I blinked away the blooms of color in my eyes he was gone, and only the fallen bottle lay at my feet, spilling its contents to mingle with the rain.

I woke up in my cell, my socks wet with mud.

On the fifth day, at six in the evening, my guard of the day brought me in a bucket of water to wash myself, and a clean dress.

“Make yourself look respectable.” His name was Ratko, which suited him better in English than in Montenegrin, where it meant “happy.”

I stared at these offerings and rattled my handcuff meaningfully against the pipe. With my right hand tethered, getting changed was impossible.

“Fair enough,” he said, and came to unlock me. But the moment I was free he took out his gun and pointed it at my face. “No tricks,” he said, as he retreated a few steps.

“You can't shoot me,” I countered. “Father Velimir needs me.”

The muzzle of the handgun dipped to a different angle. “He doesn't need your pussy.”

I clenched my jaw, outmaneuvered.

“Get on with it, girly.”

It made me feel like my stomach was full of barbed wire, but I obeyed, glaring. Getting undressed in front of this wiry, hard-faced man was nothing like being stripped in public by Azazel, in my dreams. It wasn't titillating. It wasn't even shameful, to be honest. It wasn't sexual at all, not from my end of things, though his smirk certainly suggested that he was finding some entertainment in the exposure of my grubby flesh. I just felt cold and vulnerable and angry.

I washed as quickly as I could and pulled the dress on over my still-damp skin, leaving my unbearable underwear on the floor. At least the dress, though faded, was clean—though it was the sort of sack-like floral smock a middle-aged woman might have picked, and I'd not normally have been seen dead in such a thing.

Once I was dressed my guard locked me up again and took away the key. He made sure to lean against me in the process, breathing hard, though he didn't quite get as far as groping.

I pictured Azazel's hand around his throat, squeezing.

Half an hour later, Egan entered the cell.

That took me by surprise. I stood up from my mattress, inhaling deeply as if it could fill me with words, my heart flip-flopping over. He looked better than the last time I'd seen him. At least they'd given him a black clerical shirt and let him clean himself up, and the bruises were fading. But his mouth was compressed to a thin line and his shoulders were tense.

His eyes were all sorts of blue with pain.

Standing there in my thin flower-sprigged smock, I found myself starting to shake. All those vitriolic monologues I'd rehearsed in my head whilst alone—they were still there somewhere inside me, but filed away. I wasn't ready for him, weirdly. Some stupid part of me still wanted to throw my arms round his neck.

“You knew,” was all I managed to blurt. “You knew
all the time
.”

Egan opened his mouth, hesitated, and then nodded. “Yes. Some of it.”

His admission was like lemon juice poured on a wound—the harm
was already done and known, but the fresh pain was out of all proportion. It seemed to run right through me. I wiped at my face, looking away, momentarily speechless.

“Milja, we're going outside now, and it's really importan—”

“How long? I mean—from the beginning? You were following me when I flew here?” It wasn't coming out the way I'd imagined.

“We, um…you'd been watched. Your family. A long time. I mean, centuries. We knew there was something there. We just didn't know what…who. You came to the States, and we watched. When you suddenly headed home…”

The familiar soothing confidence had gone out of him. He was all hesitation now, picking his words like they were steps through a minefield.

“You were sent to take me?” My voice was raspy.

“To keep watch. To find out,” Egan said, not meeting my eyes. “To act…if necessary.” He was ashamed, I realized. That, oddly enough, gave me fire.

“You played me, you lying bastard,” I said. “You
used
me. Dear God, Egan. I hate you more than I hate Father Velimir.”

His eyes were narrowed and glistening wet. “I deserve that.”

“Where were you taking me?”

“I was going to keep you safe. You're not going to believe me—”

“Too right I'm not.”

“—but I was trying to help you. I have tried all along.”

“Safe? Where? Rome, like he said?”

He nodded.

“You were going to hand me over? Your lot instead of this lot? Were you hoping for a sweet little Nephilim baby too? Was that your plan?”

“Milja…”

“Different shovel, same shit,” I spat.

His mouth twisted. “I would never have let anyone hurt you.”

I laughed at him. “Yeah, right!”

“Milja, I promise I wouldn't, I mean, you and me, we have become…I wouldn't harm you. Ever.”

“Bull!” I sneered. “You would have done what you were told, just like everyone else in this setup.
Just following orders
. That's what you people do.”