He followed her into the hall, responding to her businesslike tone. “She was tortured.”
“The Truth Breakers?”
He was surprised she even knew of their existence, but then he’d forgotten the bond that grew between the Fallen and their mates. Raziel would have told her everything. “Yes.”
“Poor child,” she murmured.
“She is not a child,” he said sharply. “She was once the Lilith, the first woman, and a murderous demon. Even if she has forgotten her past, she could still be dangerous.”
“Then why are you holding her so carefully?” the woman shot back. “I don’t care what her history is, right now she’s a wounded child and she needs help.”
“Yes.” He didn’t have to ask her, didn’t even have to call her by name. She would do what he needed, because that was who she was. The Source, as his Sarah had been. The healer, the nurturer. The only person he could trust who could help her.
He laid Rachel carefully on the hospital bed, but she didn’t awaken. There was a hitch in her shallow breathing; he could sense her pulse, the blood in her veins, and they were sluggish, fading. She was dying.
He turned to the woman he hated, the woman he refused to call by name. “Please,” he said. “Please, Allie. Save her.”
She looked at him for a long moment. “I will.”
I FELT AS IF I were drowning in something thick and viscous. I couldn’t fight my way out of it—the more I tried to push toward fresh air and sunlight, the more it fought me. I was dying and I knew it. I couldn’t breathe, and the sun was too far away. I fought. I wasn’t ready to die, but I could barely form a conscious thought. I didn’t know who I was, where I was, I only knew that the pain was unbearable, and I would scream until they came and put something in a tube, and then I could rest again.
There were people around me, shadowy shapes tending to me, tending to the body I hid inside, and there was nothing I could do to stop them. I wanted to crawl off to a cave and heal myself, but I sensed that was no longer possible. I needed help, and I had no choice but to accept it as I learned to ride the pain; it ebbed and flowed, crushing me in an iron fist and then releasing me. I had to fight so hard to live through the storm. I had been through worse, I knew it instinctively, even if I couldn’t remember where or when. I had survived unspeakable horrors, but those memories were locked away in a place I never had to visit again. If I could just get through this, I thought, struggling to breathe. One more minute, one more hour, one more day, and then everything would be all right.
Even in my half-conscious state, I knew that was a lie. I knew that once I worked my way through whatever torment was being visited upon me, the respite would be brief; then life would once again pull the rug out from under me. It would never be all right. It would be pain and despair and disaster, and it would be so much easier just to let go.
I tried to. I felt the soft, sinking cushion enfold me, and it was so warm, so comforting, that I wanted to release the desperate hold I had on everything and drift into it, lost forever. I let myself float, only to have a harsh voice call me back, berating me, angry and demanding. I knew that voice, knew that tone. He should have been no inducement to live, but he was. I pulled myself out of the soft darkness and went toward him, knowing instinctively that there was the light. There was why I wanted to live.
And I began to fight anew.
AZAZEL PACED THE SAND, GLARING at the house. Allie had banished him from the sickroom, and he couldn’t blame her. Yelling at Rachel not to die wasn’t going to help. He’d felt her slipping away and he’d panicked. It had been all he could do not to grab her shoulders and shake her. Instead he had told her she’d damned well better not die. He’d harangued her, threatening her with all sorts of ridiculousness, a return to the Dark City being one of them. If she died, there might be nothing left. Demons had no souls, and if Rachel had possessed one, it should be long gone by now. What happened when a demon died? Did it simply disappear?
He ran a harassed hand through his hair, staring out at the sea. He felt like the ocean, storm-tossed and angry. Its healing beauty seemed out of reach. He felt no urge to strip down and dive beneath the cool, blessed waters. His body was whole. It was his mind, his spirit, his soul, that were in torment.
Did the Fallen have souls, or were they no better than demons? They’d argued that for millennia, over campfires and by candlelight and gaslight and electricity, and there was no clear answer. God had stripped them of everything, including any possibility of redemption. There was no forgiveness for the fallen angels, only eternal damnation according to the angry God of old and his zealous administrator, Uriel.
But that God had changed. He’d granted free will to everyone, the Fallen included. Had he granted them souls at the same time?
He started pacing again, back and forth along the edge of the water. The tide was ebbing now. He’d been walking since it was coming in, splashing through water at high tide. Now it was pulling back, and there was still no word from the infirmary.
“You’ll wear a rut in the sand,” Raziel said, sitting down carefully, his iridescent blue wings closing around him. “No word?”
Azazel barely glanced at him. “No word. Go talk to your wife. She banished me from the sickroom.”
Raziel arched a brow. “And you went? You astonish me. I wouldn’t have thought Allie could get you to do anything.”
“I didn’t do it for her, I did it for Rachel.”
Raziel looked at him. “Rachel? Do you mean the Lilith? Or have we made a mistake?”
Azazel halted his pacing. “She doesn’t remember who she is. She has no powers, apart from the seductive one that pulls any man she sees into her web.”
“That must have been inconvenient when you were in the Dark City. Did all the men start following you around in a pack?”
Azazel glared at him. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Because that’s what would have happened if the demon Lilith had been about. No one would have been able to resist her. They would probably have tried to kill you, but you look like you’re unscathed. How is that?”
