Embrace, Entice, Emblaze (42 page)

saved her life, but if I ever see you again, I’ll take pleasure in driving this dagger through your heart. I don’t imagine your judgment will be favorable.”

Phoenix looked back at me, still sitting on the ground. “Violet?” he said quietly.

“Leave, Phoenix. Don’t come back.”

I looked into his eyes and they flickered with pain and…some-

thing else. Then, with a trailing breeze, he vanished. I wondered how it was that I had never questioned who, or
what
, he really was.

Maybe he had influenced me; maybe I’d influenced myself. Maybe

I’d never know how much of myself had been under his spell since the day we first met.

Lincoln dropped his dagger and fell to his knees in front of me.

He pulled me onto his lap and rocked me back and forth.

Neither one of us spoke.

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chapter
thirty- five

“Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life!

Th e evening beam that smiles the clouds away,

and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray!”

Lord Byron

I sat in the school library, reading the various versions of the story of Lilith. I really should have been studying. But the whole thing kept niggling at me and I couldn’t seem to pick up any other books.

Eventually, when I’d exhausted the options on the library shelves, I turned to the Internet, which was not so limited.

She was everything from Adam’s fi rst wife to the original

demon, the Bringer of Darkness, the Mother of All Evil, the

Serpent of Eden, the consort to the Devil. I blushed red hot when I read how she was the incarnation of lust and seduction, and

couldn’t avoid the fll ashbacks to the intense time I had spent in Phoenix’s arms.

I now understood why Phoenix was so good at a lot of things.

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Even moving like wind. Lilith had the ability to create and

become windstorms. One of her many names was Lady Air. I was

yet to find out if he had inherited her most dominant ability—

vengeance— but something about the look he’d thrown me at

Hades before he disappeared made me nervous.

All in all, the most consistent theme was that Lilith was credited with a whole lot of pure evil. The next most consistent myth was that she brought death to infants. As I read one of the stories, I found myself staring at the words.

Three
angels
were
sent
to
bring
her
back
for
judgment, but she
refused, swearing instead to bring suffering to the offspring of man for
all time. She did, however, concede that if she saw the angels’ names
or forms represented in an amulet, she would have no power over that
infant and would spare its life.

The
angels
sworn
to
protect
humanity
from
Lilith
were: Senoy,
Sansenoy, and Semangelof.

I dug through my school bag and fished out my baby necklace.

On the back of the amulet was engraved,
S.S.S. Protect.
I remembered the inscription on the bottom of my mother’s box. “Evelyn bar Semangelof,” I whispered.

“Earth to Violet!”

My head snapped up. Steph was standing over me, slurping on

a Popsicle.

“Sorry,” I said, looking back down at my baby necklace.

“That’s okay, I like being ignored.”

“Sure,” I said, still staring at the amulet.

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“Are you actually in this conversation?” She took a closer look at me. “I know that look. What now? If they’re boarding the ark, you better let me know. I have more than most to pack.”

“Hmm?” I couldn’t break my dazed state.

She gave an overly dramatic sigh. “Hello? You’re missing out on some good lines here!”

“Oh, sorry. It’s just…I think I know who my mom was supposed

to defeat.”

“And? Don’t go all Bible on me.”

“What?” I said, finally looking up in confusion.

“You know, tell us everything but the stuff we really want to

know.” She raised her eyebrows, urging me on. “Well?”

“It was Lilith.”

“
Lilith?
As in Phoenix’s
mother
, Lilith?”

“Weird, huh?” I said, still dazed.

“That’s one way of putting it. Are you sure?”

“No.” I ran my hand over the amulet, letting the necklace slide through my fingers.

“Well, if it turns out your mom and the mother of the damned

were…immortal enemies, let’s just say it’s a good thing you and Phoenix aren’t bumping hips anymore. Could lead to one
hell
of a family intervention.”

“Good point.”

“Look, Vi. He’s out of your life, isn’t he? I mean, you haven’t seen him since that night, have you?”

“No.”

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“So, do you really need to get caught up in this stuff? You’re not even sure it’s true. Come on, haven’t you earned yourself a little break? At least until after finals.”

I stared at the computer screen, then up at Steph. “You’re right.” I closed the search screen and deleted the history. Then I threw the books on the returns shelf.

“Hallelujah! Of course I’m right. Not everyone needs to rely on divine intervention, you know!” We both laughed.

While we waited at the bus stop, Steph occupied herself texting Marcus back and forth. The two of them were inseparable these

days. I worried at one point that she would want to tell Marcus about the whole angel thing, but she assured me it wasn’t high

on the list of things she wanted to share with him. Apparently, he’d been so wiped out that night at Hades that when the glamour dropped, he was busy in the bathroom throwing up. By the time he resurfaced, most of the drama was under control.

On the whole, it had been eye- opening the way people had just

carried on with their night after a few random explanations about gang violence and turf wars. I even overheard one girl say she’d seen that kind of thing at Hades before. The club owner had been quick to assist, keeping our people covered until we had things under control. Griffin thought the owner may have known more

about us than he let on and said he’d pay him a visit when things had settled down.

Thankfully, no Grigori died at Hades, though that didn’t make

it much better. Griffin arranged a memorial service for the Grigori 358

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who had been lost in the nights before. Most of them had no family left, so it fell to fellow Grigori to take care of things.

I didn’t make it to the service; I had another funeral to attend that day. There were so many people in Claudia’s extended family, we could barely fit in the church. It was a nice service, though; they displayed her artwork and sculptures for people to see, and one of her sisters sang “Amazing Grace.” Steph had gone with me.

“Study or shopping?” she asked now, breaking into my thoughts.

“Neither, actually. I promised Griffin I’d catch up with him this afternoon.”

“
Just
Griffin?” She raised her eyebrows.

“Yes.” I knew where this was going.

“You can’t avoid him forever. You haven’t even seen him since,

you know…” She made a stabbing motion at her stomach.

I sighed. Not seeing Lincoln hadn’t exactly felt like my choice.

While everyone was cleaning up at Hades, he had just up and

disappeared. He hadn’t said good-bye or been in touch since. If he was trying to send me a message, I was getting it loud and clear.

“He doesn’t want to see me,” I said. “And after the way I treated him, I can’t say I blame him. I’m still having flashbacks to some of the awful things I said to him…If I were him,
I
wouldn’t want to ever see me again either.”

“Sure, but it wasn’t your fault,” Steph said sympathetically.

“You’ll never really know until you talk to him. He’s going to be your partner for, like, a hundred lifetimes or whatever. It kinda makes avoidance a problem.”

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“True.”

But just thinking about Lincoln tore at my heart. How could

he ever forgive me? I was sure he would know, just as I did, that the hatred Phoenix had used and exploited had all stemmed from

my own feelings— even if he
had
amplified them by a gazillion. I’d once thought that friendship with Lincoln was not enough, but

now I craved him in my life so badly, I would take anything. I just didn’t know if I could bear the rejection.

————

Griffin was waiting for me outside my building. We had been

meeting regularly to work on focusing my powers.

“You know, I would still feel a lot better if you’d agree to go to one of our training facilities for a few months. Most Grigori spend some time there, learning our histories and how to control their powers.”

Instead of heading upstairs like we normally did, he motioned

ahead. We walked along the pavement, sipping the to- go coffees he had brought with him.

“Sorry, but no can do. Not right now, anyway. I have exams and

then art school, and I plan on doing both. Anyway, you’re practically an encyclopedia on all things Grigori, so I’m sure you can fill me in.”

“I
suppose
I could get a couple of senior tutors to visit at some point,” he said, pretending I hadn’t just given him his favorite kind of compliment.

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“Yes, but believe it or not, I am actually of some importance.

Plus, it won’t hurt that you’re a Grigori anomaly.”

I rolled my eyes. “Thanks, Griffin; you really know how to make a girl feel special.”

“Sorry.”

“That’s okay.” As much as I had tried to fight it, I was learning to accept and even welcome my future as a Grigori. Even the idea that there were still so many unanswered questions didn’t frighten me as much as it once would have. I knew the answers were there to be found— and I knew I was going to find them.

“So, what about this list they were talking about?” I asked, refocusing on what was now my priority.

“I’ve got people looking into it. We always thought it was just a myth, but given that both Onyx and Joel were convinced of its existence, they were obviously privy to some information that we have not discovered yet.”

“If there is a list or scripture thing out there, we need to find it, Griff.” The idea of exiles knowing the identities of future Grigori before they had any idea themselves— let alone the fact they would be powerless— was unthinkable.

“I know. We will.”

I stopped midstep. “How do
you
know who’s going to end up Grigori if you don’t have a list?”

Griffin stopped too. “The guides. They always make sure we

know the identity of the first of a pair.”

“And then the first finds the second, like Lincoln found me.”

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“Correct.”

“Griff?”

“Yes,” he said, like any underpaid, much admired professor.

“When I embraced, my guides didn’t tell me what rank my

angel parent comes from. Why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because they knew your powers were

tainted and they didn’t want you to have too much information, be too vulnerable. Or…maybe they didn’t know.”

“How can that be? Aren’t they supposed to know everything?”

He pondered that for a while before he answered. “There is

one exception.”

“Which is?”

“They cannot know what comes from above. Angels have a hier-

archy, as you know. If you carry the essence of a higher angel, it would be within that angel’s power not to disclose his identity.”

“How many angels can do that?”

“Not many, I suspect.”

I remembered the rank of angels who were not part of the hier-

archy. “The Sole,” I said, thinking aloud.

Griffin nodded. “It’s one possibility. But in the end, maybe

you’ll have to accept that you may never know. At some point, we all have to try to have a little faith that, even in the chaos, there’s a purpose.”

“It’s a nice thought, Griff.”

And it was. I just wasn’t sure I was ready to buy the souvenir

T- shirt.