Page 59 of Fate and Fury

One of the knives broke from its fellows and inched closer, wavering, until it hovered scant inches from Sammael’s throat. He snatched it, and Elena’s concentration broke.

“It doesn’t do me much good to practice this sort of thing without you,” she said as the rest of the knives clattered to the stones. “It only works when you’re with me. It’s like therelationship between Shadows and Dimis, except instead of shielding me from demons, you’re lending me your gifts.”

Sammael laid the knives in a straight line once again. “I don’t think I’m lending you anything, Elena. I don’t have the gift of manipulating the elements. No, I think whatever has altered the dynamic of your world has allowed us to tap into the magical aspect of your own nature, the gift in your blood that allows you to give birth to Shadows and Vila.”

The thought gave Elena a strange turn, as if she were perverting her birthright. “I don’t have magic,” she protested.

He flicked his gaze at the knives. “I beg to differ.”

“That’s different,” she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I told you, it’s only possible because you’re here.”

Sammael leaned back on his hands, tilting his head as if in thought. They’d been meeting for a week, and each time, he’d imparted a different bit of magical lore. Sometimes it was their shared history—the centuries-long war between Dimis, Shadows, and Grigori. Sometimes, if she was lucky, it was a bit of his personal story. He’d laughed when she’d asked him if he was over five hundred years old. “Try five thousand,” he’d said, lounging back against one of the rose-wrapped columns that flanked the altar, and laughed harder when her mouth fell open in shock.

But what Elena liked best was how Sammael treated her—like an equal, not a fragile girl to be protected or a deluded Vila who didn’t know her own worth. He was never the slightest bit inappropriate with her, never impatient or angry. “Are you sure you’re a demon?” she’d asked him once, after he’d spent thirty minutes explaining the basic principles of magical energy exchange, without once losing his temper or scoffing at any of her questions.

An odd expression had crept over his face then—sadness, mixed with regret. “If there is one thing I am sure of,” he’d said,toying with the frayed cuffs of his shirt, “it is that, Elena Lisova. I never forget it for an instant. And if you are wise, neither will you.”

He always came to her in the guise of the red-haired man. Once, she’d found the courage to ask him what he really looked like. He’d shrugged, looking abashed. “I hardly know,” he’d said. “I’ve spent the years wearing a thousand faces. Do you not like this one? I can offer you an infinite number of alternatives.”

“This one is fine,” Elena had said hastily. Having such an obvious demonstration of his alien nature would have been more than a little off-putting—an inescapable indication of what she’d gotten herself into, for the sake of Niko’s salvation.

As petrified as Elena was that she was committing a horrible sin in the name of a holy pursuit, she had to admit that being with Sammael was thrilling. He’d taught her how to draw on his demonic essence, pulling his energy through her so that she could accomplish amazing things. By the end of their first real lesson, she’d been able to suck the life from a patch of clover and send the plants shriveling to the earth. By the end of the second, she’d loosened one of the ancient stones from the altar and propelled it end over end down the steps into the grass, using the power of her mind. Now, a week later, she could lift knives into the air and send them hurtling at her enemy—not with tremendous force, but still.

“Have you ever done this before?” she asked him now, sinking onto the steps below the altar. “Shared your power with a Vila like this?”

He blinked down at her in surprise. “Never once. If you’d asked me, I would have told you it wasn’t possible. You are unique in all the world, Elena Lisova.”

A hot blush suffused her cheeks, and she looked down at the steps to hide it. “I still don’t understand why you’d help me this way. Surely you have better things to do.”

“Like what?” His voice was gentle.

“Oh, I don’t know.” She gave him a small, flirtatious smile. “Stealing souls. Corrupting the innocent. Picking the world’s bones clean, one vulnerable creature at a time.”

A shadow passed across Sammael’s face. “What makes you think,” he murmured, “that I’m not?”

Elena sat up straight. “Maybe that’s what you do every second you’re not with me, Sammael-of-the-Void. But you’ve been nothing but kind to me, and I won’t forget it.”

“I keep telling you, Elena, that I am a demon.” His eyes dropped, as if the effort of holding hers was too much. “And demons do nothing for free.”

She was about to ask him what his price might be when his head rose and his nostrils flared. He leapt down the steps, arms outstretched to shield her.

“What—” she began, getting to her feet, but he hushed her as a tall, dark-haired man strolled from between the trees that bordered the ruined chapel.

“Gadreel,” Sammael said, the word a warning.

Gadreel.An extraordinarily powerful demon, the fallen Angel of War. Her heart began to thunder, so hard she worried he could hear it.

The dark-haired demon’s lips lifted in a smile. “Sammael. So this is where you’ve gone off to. I suspected you were up to something, and here you are.”

“Congratulations,” Sammael said, not moving an inch. “Now leave.”

“So rude. What are you hiding, I wonder? Is it that book of yours?” He sidestepped Sammael and looked Elena over with a focused scrutiny that made her skin prickle—as if he were wondering how she might taste. “Ah,” he said. “Not a book after all, I see.”

“You most certainly do not.” Sammael’s voice vibrated with scorn.

“Come now, Sammael. Are you not even going to introduce us?”

Sammael toyed with the cuffs of his shirt, rolling his eyes in exasperation. “Elena, meet my oldest enemy, Gadreel. Five thousand years at each other’s throats, and still he enjoys antagonizing me as if it is the first time.”

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