Rebel (15 page)

I
WISH
I
COULD HAVE SAID THE SAME
for the next three nights. It should have been easier. I didn’t see Cain. He was there—I heard him at times on the other side of the wall, moving around. But he wasn’t at dinner; I didn’t run into him in the hallways; he didn’t appear when I least expected it. I could walk on the beach with equanimity; I could train under Michael’s tutelage in a full workout room that never included Cain. I could sit and talk with Allie, keeping her company, knowing Cain wouldn’t suddenly appear to pay his respects. I was safe.

I was miserable.

At night I dreamed, and I almost would have preferred the double-edged sword of my visions. Instead I was plagued with dreams of such blatant sexuality that I woke up blushing. I was in a state of constant
arousal, my very skin ready to jump in response; I tried to tell myself they were simply erotic dreams that came to taunt me, haunt me, wake me up in a state of shivering completion. It didn’t work. It made no sense. My dream climax would wake me, yet when I woke I was aroused and wanting, and even my own experienced hands couldn’t bring me ease. After my first attempt I didn’t even want to touch myself. I wanted someone else’s hands on me. And I knew whose hands they were.

“What’s wrong, Martha?” Allie’s voice broke through my abstraction, and I realized I hadn’t made a move in our cribbage game for the last five minutes.

I looked up guiltily. By now, three days after the attack, things had settled down to a relatively normal pace, although Raziel was prone to charge in at unexpected moments, as if he were afraid all hell would break loose if he didn’t pay close attention. Allie now had round-the-clock protection, and I was merely one of those keeping her company.

“Sorry,” I muttered. “My brain was elsewhere.”

“I know exactly where your brain was,” she said, laying down her cards and pushing the cribbage board away.

I called her bluff. “And where was that?”

“In Cain’s pants.”

I jumped, startled. “Allie!”

“All right, all right, I shouldn’t have put it that way,” she said easily, not the slightest bit abashed. Allie had never been the shy, retiring type. “But it’s true, isn’t it?”

“Of course not. I’m not interested in sex.”

Allie let out a hoot of derisive laughter. “You can fool yourself, baby, but you can’t fool me. I recognize all the signs. I honestly thought you didn’t have it in you. I thought you’d put all that in the grave with Thomas, and you stayed with us so you could hide. In fact, I still think that’s true. It’s just that Cain’s arrival hauled you out of that grave, kicking and screaming.”

I made a face. “That’s a really horrible image.”

She grinned. “It is, isn’t it? So how does it feel to be human like the rest of us? Prey to animal lust?”

“I’m not! You’ve misinterpreted my very real dislike for the man. He enjoyed teasing me, probably because he thought I was repressed. Which I am, and I’m perfectly happy to stay that way. Fortunately, he got over it.”

“Aha,” Allie said.

“Aha, what?”

“That’s what’s got you in a swivet. I will admit that Cain isn’t the best possible choice for a partner. He’s manipulative and wicked and totally untrustworthy, according to everyone, and if he says he’s turning over a new leaf, there aren’t many who believe him.”

“So you can see why I have no interest—”

“Don’t bother,” Allie interrupted me. “You’re practically palpitating with interest. I’m not saying he’s good for anything but a roll in the hay, but he’s legendary for his sexual expertise, and you could do with an expert. Enjoy yourself for the first time in your life, and when he leaves,
if
he leaves, you can consider a more suitable long-term partner.”

“You’re crazy,” I said, wondering what legendary sexual expertise consisted of. “I’m not that self-destructive. Besides, he’s not interested in me.”

“You didn’t see the way he looked after you had your second vision.”

“You didn’t either. You’d been drugged,” I shot back.

“You were out a long time, baby,” she said. “Whatever drug they gave me was relatively short-lasting. I woke up to see Cain sitting on the floor, cradling you in his arms, snapping like a pit bull at anyone who tried to take you away. I saw the way he looked at you, the way he stroked your hair. I
saw
him, Martha. Whatever game he’s playing, with you, with Azazel, with all of us, there’s still something between you.”

“And you base this on your observations as you were recovering from doping and a murder attempt?”

Allie shrugged. “I calls ’em as I sees ’em.”

“You’re a hopeless romantic who wants true love and happy endings for everyone,” I said, hating all this. “And life just isn’t like that.”

“No,”
she agreed. “Life isn’t. But Sheol can be.”

I turned on her. “I had my true love and happy ending. He’s gone, and now I can live on in a nice, peaceful widowhood. If certain people didn’t decide I was fair game to tease and taunt and pretend . . .” I trailed off, realizing I was ranting. If I wanted to show how untouched I was by all this, ranting wasn’t the way to do it.

“Pretend what?” Allie picked up on that unfortunate word immediately.

“Pretend he cares about things when I don’t think he has any emotions at all,” I finished, a little lamely.

“Oh, Cain has emotions, all right,” Allie said judiciously. “Most of them aren’t pretty. I think he feels hatred, anger, contempt, lust, a powerful need for revenge. I think he longs for justice, even if he doesn’t know what that is. And I think he longs for you, even if he won’t admit it. He’s so wrapped up in the role he’s playing that everything real and good is hidden inside.”

“Good God, Allie. You need to get back to writing. You’re making up novels out of real people. All these things you’re telling me about Cain—they’re your imagination. He’s not a tormented hero. He’s just a shallow troublemaker who’s manipulating people into reacting to his games.”

Allie smiled, unoffended. “Cain would make a lousy hero. He’s too complex. Maybe if I wrote inspirational fiction instead of mysteries—”

“Maybe if you wrote fantasy, because what you’re talking about doesn’t exist,” I retorted. I picked up the scattered cards. “I’m sick of cribbage. There are only so many times you can count to fifteen and enjoy it. Let’s play gin.”

Allie took the cards. “All right, I get the message. We won’t talk about it anymore. But I think you need to have an open mind when it comes to Cain. He tries to provoke knee-jerk reactions. You should know better than to dance to his tune.”

“I’m not dancing with anybody,” I muttered grimly, wishing I had something to do with my nervous hands. I was suffused with tension, so unlike me. I plucked at the loose folds of my lavender dress. I had suddenly grown sick of all my clothes, which I blamed on the restlessness that filled me lately. I’d found a few things with more color than I was used to in the back of my closet, and Tory had descended with an armful of her old dresses. She was taller than I was and a little more voluptuous, and at least one dress, a deep emerald green that I’d always admired on her and secretly coveted, was cut so low it would expose the top part of my scarring, which meant I could never wear it. But I kept it anyway, because I loved it.

“Glad to hear it,” Allie said, her eyes soft and knowing. “I’m not saying you should do anything about all this, you know. I still think Cain is a very dangerous man. But admitting you’re capable of
feeling lust is a good thing, and eventually you’ll find someone you want to f—”

“Yes,” I said hastily, cutting off Allie’s salty language. “Maybe.” I couldn’t escape Allie’s watchful gaze until someone else came, but I couldn’t stand thinking about Cain for another moment. “Any chance we could talk about something else? Like what you remember from three days ago?”

“Nothing,” she said flatly. “I don’t even remember anything from an hour or so beforehand. I gather Rachel and Metatron were visiting, but they left together. Next thing I knew, everyone was crowding around me and I was coming out of a druggy stupor. And you were lying on the floor, cradled in Cain’s arms.”

“Skip that part,” I said hastily. The man was like an albatross, a curse that followed me into every conversation. “Did anyone look suspicious? Curious? Anyone here that surprised you?”

Allie grinned wryly. “You’re thinking that criminals return to the scene of the crime? I’m the mystery writer, remember? I’ve looked at this from every angle and gotten nowhere. I trust everyone here.”

“You shouldn’t,” I said, my voice flat.

“No, that’s clear.” Allie sighed. “It seems strange, though, accepting that someone wants to hurt me.”

“Some people like to hurt.” My voice sounded fine to me, but I felt Allie’s hand on mine, and I didn’t jump as I usually did. I had been trying to school myself to accept another’s touch, but it was hard.

“Yes,” she said softly. “But the people in Sheol aren’t like that.”

“Which is why I choose to stay,” I said brightly. “And if we could just get rid of Cain, then everything would be perfect.”

“The snake in the Garden of Eden,” Allie said. “I’ve read the stories. It’s why the angels fell in the first place. The quest for knowledge. Wanting to know
why
. The question is, do you want to continue in ignorance, hiding in the garden? Or do you want the knowledge the snake brings? Think about it, Martha. You’ve never been a coward.”

But, Lord, I wanted to be.

T
HE SEER HAD
to die. Metatron knew it with certainty, accepted it. He felt no regret—he never felt emotion, and lives meant nothing to him. He had been a soldier, Uriel’s second-in-command. He enforced the archangel’s decrees without a moment’s hesitation, and he would again, once he regained his proper place.

He wasn’t weak like Michael, his predecessor. Michael was haunted by guilt and regret for all he had done. The number he had slaughtered was impressive, even to Metatron—yet instead of pride, the archangel felt shame and sorrow. Ridiculous.

That weakness would prove to be the Fallen’s
defeat. You couldn’t win an epic war like the one waged between the inhabitants of Sheol and those of heaven without being inured to loss, to sorrow, to shame. Those were human emotions, petty, useless. The Fallen had become too tainted by humanity, which had always been their fatal flaw.

Michael would never kill a woman, not unless he was forced to. To Metatron, men and women were the same, tools for his master’s use. And without that master, Metatron had felt lost, rudderless, until he became determined to earn his way back into Uriel’s good graces. After all, it wasn’t his fault he’d fallen. After he’d been killed in battle, his army had left him behind to be disposed of, and the sea had brought him back. The same sea that had destroyed the army when it returned.

He’d watched them die, Uriel’s soldiers, their wings dragged under by the icy water, and he couldn’t understand why the thing that had healed him had destroyed his people. He didn’t waste time worrying about it. He had been well trained to ignore questions or doubts.

The way he saw it, there were two problems with killing the seer. First, how to do it. He had been trained to kill, and it was one of the few things that brought pleasure to his highly disciplined life. He didn’t get many chances to indulge his expertise, and he planned to let his imagination run free. Nothing quick and
painless—there was no challenge in that. He remembered the fear he used to see in people’s eyes when Uriel had sent him. He had enjoyed that fear.

He could have it again with Martha, if he planned it carefully.

The other problem, of course, was Cain. He was too interested in the woman, and not in a good way. He wanted to lie with her—but then, the Cain he knew wanted to lie with anyone female. Cain had plans for her, but he hadn’t shared those plans with Metatron, so it wasn’t his fault if he killed her before Cain could make use of her. It was Cain’s, for not telling him what her role would be.

How to kill someone discreetly? It was a weighty problem, and he would think long and hard. For the time being he would make no new move against the Source’s spawn. They were watching her too closely for him to do anything now. The thing growing inside her could wait awhile longer. If he thought hard enough, he might be able to come up with the perfect solution, one that involved both Martha and the fetus, discrediting her and any disturbing visions she might have before he disposed of her.

It gave him something pleasant to ponder while he trained, simulating beating someone to death. Before long, when he regained his seat of power, he would do so in fact. Wiping Sheol out of existence.

C
AIN COULD BE A PATIENT MAN
when the situation deserved it. Martha required more than her fair share of patience, and his temper was beginning to fray around the edges. Each night he lived the dreams with her, fantasy fucks that were beginning to drive him crazy. He was doing it to arouse her, bring her to a state of helpless acquiescence, and instead he was walking around with a constant boner and a bad attitude. He needed her in the flesh. He needed to smell her, taste her, feel her. Kissing her in that empty room had only made things worse—now he could use memory instead of imagination. He was tired of dreams—he needed the real thing.

He knew just how to touch her. The long, slow, heated kiss they’d shared in that deserted bedroom should have been enough to jump-start her dormant
sexuality. The question of who wanted to hurt the Source would occupy her mind. Both would bring her to him.

It was taking too damned long.

Three days, and he was ready to explode. She was the one who was supposed to be so restless, so desperate that she’d come to him. He was supposed to be in his room, like a spider, waiting for her to get up enough nerve. Instead he was pacing the floor, fighting the urge to go through the garden and show up at her door, which would ruin everything. She had to come to him. He’d pursued for long enough—the balance of sexual power would shift if he had to seek her out.