really annoyed me—the patriarchal control extended millennia, apparently.
I turned away. Apparently the only way to make baby fallen angels was to have female angels in the first place, and someone had neglected to create them.
I was starving. How had he gotten that food up here last night? Was this some kind of fairy-tale world, where all I had to do was wish to make it happen?
I closed my eyes and tried to visualize a quart of Ben & Jerry’s, then opened them again. Nothing on the coffee table in front of me, but on a whim I slid off the sofa and went to the freezer, looking inside to see . . . absolutely nothing. Crap.
Maybe it needed Raziel’s magic touch.
I started moving around the apartment, restless, trying to keep my mind off my stomach. One bedroom—his, with the king- size bed in the middle of it.
Looking at it made me start thinking about points south of my stomach, and I quickly elevated my mind to purer matters. Someone had made the bed, so maybe the place came with maid service, which was a good thing. I wasn’t about to start picking up after him, though chances were he was neater than I was. Most people were.
One closet, and not much in the way of clothing. I’d already rummaged through and borrowed the stuff most likely to fit me. The rest would be impossibly tight on my far-from-coltish figure, assuming I could even get the clothes on. Besides, the black was almost as depressing as the white.
I guess had to give up on the idea of ever being lithe or willowy. I was going to spend eternity being just this side of voluptuous, and I didn’t like it.
On the other hand, I’d never get fat, so that was something.
I wandered into the kitchen. The sun was flame red now, reflecting off the windows in front of me, and only a small sliver was left above the horizon.
Once it dropped, everything would be dark, and I leaned against the counter, watching. If the sun rose and set here, surely this must be the real world, and I must be alive. Otherwise it made no sense. Why bother with all the trappings of normal life when reality was so far removed?
The last shimmer of red dipped beneath the foamy surface, and I didn’t move, almost in a meditative state as I watched the water churn and splash, the air cool and damp against my face. I licked my lips and could taste salt, and I found myself smiling. My mother had told me to lick my lips when we went to the seashore—it was the souls of the dead babies giving me a welcome kiss, trying to drag me down with them.
Hildegarde Watson had never been a bundle of laughs. Why she thought dead babies would end up in the ocean had never made sense, but I never tried to reason with my mother. It was always a losing proposition.
But damn, the old lady would be tickled pink to know that her blasphemous daughter was consorting with angels. Sleeping with one, in fact, though it wasn’t quite the kind of “sleeping with” that I tended to think of. And it was safer not to let my mind go in that direction, not when it came to Raziel.
Actually, it was much more likely to be Neptune or Poseidon who was going around kissing me with salt-chapped lips. The gods of Mount Olympus were always a lot more entertaining than the Judeo-Christian God, who tended to be obsessed with punishment and sin. Not that Hildegarde believed in any god but her own angry, moralistic one who’d somehow morphed out of a gentle, loving Jesus.
I really should have hedged my bets, since it was my mother’s gloomy god who’d turned out to be the one with the power. Though it seemed he was even pre-Judeo-Christian. I wondered what Hildegarde would think of that. She’d flip.
I should try harder to get the hell out of here, and I probably would if I knew where to go. I was on borrowed time with Raziel—sooner or later he was going to sneak into my brain and see the doleful daydreams I was trying to fight, see the unbidden, lustful feelings that were stronger than anything I’d ever felt in my life. And that would be humiliating. If I couldn’t control my—my crush, then I needed to escape. I just needed to know where.
I was so hungry I could eat his pristine white sofa. Someone had cleared away my dishes from the night before, so I couldn’t scavenge for leftovers. The doughnuts were long gone, and I was bereft.
I flopped down on the sofa, putting a hand over my eyes as I moaned piteously. Ben & Jerry’s, I thought longingly. Super Fudge Chunk or Cherry Garcia, to start with. If I hadn’t already embraced the motto “Life is uncertain, eat dessert first,” the last twenty-four hours or so would have convinced me. But Raziel’s refrigerator had been as stark and barren as this apartment. No help there.
After that, lasagna, thick and gooey, with gobs of garlic bread and cheese, accompanied by a nice cabernet. At this rate, I’d settle for a can of Ensure.
I moaned again, turning over on my stomach and hiding my head against the cushions. The thought of food filled me with such longing I almost thought I could smell it. Lasagna, which I’d assiduously avoided during my dieting years. In retrospect, that seemed to be my entire freaking adult life.
“Allie.” Sarah’s soft voice penetrated my misery.
I flipped over, rattled, to find Sarah standing in the living room beside a younger woman holding a tray. “I didn’t hear you come in,” I said, feeling embarrassed. Apparently Sarah didn’t hold with knocking.
Sarah’s faint smile might have been an apology or it might not. “This is Carrie. She’s Sammael’s wife, and she’s one of our newest residents. I thought you two might like to talk.”
I looked at the newcomer. Carrie was another tall one, with long blond hair, a sweet smile, and a shadow in her perfect blue eyes. Clearly the Fallen chose Aryan Amazons to marry, which let me out. Not that I wanted to be in the running anyway, I reminded myself. I even managed a welcoming smile.
“That would be great. That wouldn’t be dinner, would it?” I looked pointedly at the tray, my spirits rising.
“I hope you like lasagna,” Sarah said cheerfully. “I’ll go put the ice cream in the freezer.”
I recognized the Ben & Jerry’s packaging—who wouldn’t?—and I didn’t bother to ask what flavors. I knew.
Carrie set down the tray and sat opposite me, pulling the covers off the plates. “No garlic bread,” she said with a faint smile. “It interferes with the blood flow.”
A stray shiver danced down my backbone. I looked carefully at the young woman, probably five years younger than I was, but there were no marks on her neck or wrists. Then again, there had been no marks on Sarah’s wrist just after Raziel had fed from her. I squirmed, still bothered by the thought.
Though far more bothered by the notion of Raziel at Sarah’s thin, blue-veined wrist than of anyone else feeding from her.
“What blood?” I asked, helping myself to the lasagna, too hungry to be squeamish. I didn’t really want to know, but I was trying to be polite.
“The blood I give Sammael,” she said simply. “Garlic affects clotting time.”
This sounded perfectly reasonable, if you didn’t consider what they were doing with the blood in the first place and how they were getting it. I forcibly swept it out of my mind. “Do you want some of this?” I gestured toward the overburdened plate. They seemed to bring me twice as much as I wanted. At this rate I’d get—no, I wouldn’t.
“I’ll wait and eat with Sammael. He prefers it that way. Right now he and the other Fallen are looking at the defenses before the meeting, making certain there’s no way the Nephilim can break through. There have been rumors that they’re going to try.”
“There are always rumors,” Sarah said softly, coming in from the kitchen. “It’s better not to pay any attention to them. The men can walk around and mutter things and feel important, but in the end the Nephilim will either break in or not, and I don’t think there’s any way we can affect that.”
“And the Nephilim are the flesh-eaters?” I asked, suddenly taking a good look at my bright red pasta. I set my plate down again.
Sarah nodded. “There are no words to describe them. A living nightmare. They’ve never been able to pierce the walls of Sheol, but that’s no guarantee they won’t.” She fell silent for a moment, as if she were looking at something in the distance, something unbearable. And then she rallied, serene as ever.
“In the meantime all we can do is live our lives. They’ve been a threat since the beginning of time—worrying gets us nowhere.”
The lasagna was no longer sitting very well on my stomach, but I knew that the ice cream would take care of my nausea. There was nothing in this world, or whatever world I was in, that ice cream couldn’t fix. I headed for the fridge, pausing to look out the windows at the men on the wide expanse of beach.
“When would they be likely to attack?” I asked, staring at them. At him.
“After dark. The Nephilim cannot go out in daylight—it burns their flesh. They sleep during the day; then the hunger rouses them and they go in search of whatever they can find. And apparently they have found Sheol.”
“Found it?”
“Sheol is guarded by the mists. They were lifted when you were brought in, and we’re afraid that was enough to alert the monsters.”
“You mean, I’m to blame for letting the crazies in?” I turned away from the beach.
“Of course not,” Sarah said in her soothing voice. “They’re not in, and they won’t get in. They can storm the gates and threaten, but they cannot come in unless someone invites them. And no one would invite their own death.”
Suddenly the air felt cold, almost clammy, and there was a feeling of foreboding that I couldn’t shake. So much for a cheerful afterlife. “What about the Fallen? They can go out in the daylight. Do they have to be invited into a place before they can enter?”
She shook her head. “That’s only for the unclean.”
“And vampires aren’t unclean?”
“We don’t use that term,” Carrie spoke up. “They’re blood-eaters.”
“It has too many negative
