“It’s a good time for me,” the man called Beloch said in a sharp tone. “You’ll have to adapt.” He turned back to me, and his smile was both charming and avuncular. If he and Azazel were enemies, then he was clearly my new best friend. “My dear, why don’t you have a seat across from me? It’s been a long time since I’ve had such a lovely young woman visit me in my old bachelor quarters. This is quite a treat. Azazel, pour us both a glass of brandy. Pour one for yourself while you’re at it.”
I’d been right about the brandy. I considered refusing—the idea of drinking anything stronger than wine was not appealing—but I didn’t want this distinguished old gentleman looking at me with the scarcely veiled contempt he directed at Azazel. A moment later Azazel placed a brandy snifter in my cold hand, and I reflexively closed my fingers around the stem, brushing against his skin.
He jerked back, and the brandy sloshed a little.
Beloch made a deprecating sound at such clumsiness. “You may leave us.”
“No.” Azazel’s short, unemotional response wasn’t reserved for me alone, I was glad to see.
Beloch’s mouth tightened. “Then sit in a corner and be quiet.” He must have noticed my worried glance at Azazel, for he continued in a warm voice, “Don’t worry about him, Rachel. He has a very controlling nature, and he doesn’t like bowing to the will of others. Unfortunately for him, I outrank him when he’s in this place, and he’s sworn to do as I command.”
At last, a champion, or at the very least a cohort. Someone with the power and ability to stand up to Azazel’s high-handed ways. I gave Beloch a brilliant smile as I sank down on the ottoman.
“So tell me, young lady,” he said, leaning back and surveying me out of those wintry eyes. “What brings you here to the Dark City? Besides our unpleasant friend over there?”
“I have no idea.” I took a tentative sip of the brandy. Again, the taste more than made up for the lack of color, and the richness of it burned my tongue.
“There is no need for games, Beloch,” Azazel snapped. “You know as well as I just why I brought her here. We need answers.”
“And how do you intend to get those answers if you’re terrified of her?”
Azazel’s snort conveyed his contempt for such a suggestion. “Terrified? Hardly. Even at full strength she would never be a match for me. She insists that she has no knowledge of her powers, but even if she did I’m well equipped to counter any of them.”
“Now, why don’t I believe you?” Beloch said in a silky voice.
I sat very still, cradling the brandy I didn’t want to drink, observing. While they were ostensibly talking about me, they almost seemed to have forgotten my existence, an ancient enmity surfacing instead. Which was fine with me—I had my own skin to worry about. As long as they were fighting, I could stay beneath the radar and try to figure out how to escape.
“You’re terrified the prophecy will come true,” Beloch continued, “so terrified you might have destroyed her before you found out what the Fallen are so desperate to discover. You won’t find out what secrets she holds until you face your fears.”
“Do not be tiresome, Beloch,” Azazel said, unmoved. “I am far older than you are—I never let human fears and frailties affect me.”
This was enough to startle me. If hunky, gorgeous Azazel was much older than the wizened Beloch, then the rules had really gone out the window. But then, I knew that. There was a great deal I knew, simmering just beneath my consciousness, things I didn’t want to remember. Was afraid to remember. It could all stayed buried as far as I was concerned.
Beloch snorted in amusement. “You may be older, Azazel, but you are scarcely wiser. I give you a choice. Take her back and test the prophecy and your resistance to it. Once you know the answer to that, bring her back and I’ll find the answers you need. That, or she stays here with me.”
Azazel’s expression didn’t change, but his hooded glance darted my way, and he couldn’t miss my watchfulness. He didn’t argue, however, rising from his seat and tossing back the brandy with a gesture that brought a disapproving sniff from Beloch. And then he looked at me. “Come.”
God, I hated that word in his deep, cold voice. Everything about him was icy, and I glanced back at Beloch’s avuncular expression, wondering if it would do any good to throw myself on his mercy.
But I wasn’t that naive. Beloch might seem like a kindly old professor, but there was a hardness in his eyes that he might reserve simply for an old enemy like Azazel, or that might be a clue to his real nature. Either way, I knew enough to think before I jumped from one trap into another.
I rose, setting my barely touched snifter of brandy down and giving Beloch a smile. “It was so nice to meet you.”
For some reason, my words amused him. “I look forward to continuing our association. Don’t let Azazel intimidate you. You have more power than you realize, if you only decide to acknowledge it. I expect it will be very interesting to discover just how susceptible our friend is.”
Not exactly my friend, but I said nothing as Azazel muttered something unflattering, took my arm in his hard grip, and pulled me out of the room. A few minutes later we were out in the dark streets of the strange city, emerging on a lower level from the restaurant near a black, fast-flowing river. Earlier, in what had passed for daylight, the city had been shrouded with shadow. Now it was pitch-dark, and I was suddenly ready to drop. Had it been only this morning that I’d been packing for a trip to the Great Barrier Reef and bright, endless sunshine? And now I was in some strange, colorless universe, once more a prisoner, and the fight went out of me as exhaustion swept in. All I wanted to do was find some quiet place to figure out what the hell I was going to do.
“We haven’t far to go,” Azazel said, and if it had been anyone else, I might have thought he had read my exhaustion and was offering respite. Both things were impossible—he didn’t care what I was feeling, and he would never volunteer comfort. He was my enemy, and I couldn’t afford to forget it.
I didn’t say anything, letting him steer me down the street, past the gray inhabitants with their soft voices and disinterested eyes. I had no idea what Beloch wanted him to do, and I didn’t care. As long as I could collapse in a bed for twenty-four hours, I’d be just fine. I stole a glance at my hard-eyed companion. He’d leave me alone, wouldn’t he? In the past he’d wanted nothing more than to keep his distance, as if I were unclean.
But he hadn’t released my arm, and I made no effort to break his hold as he guided me along the street, back
