Page 72 of The Fallen
Raphael’s skin has a faint blue tinge, washed out and almost translucent. His shaggy black hair stands out against it like charcoal on marble.
Uriel has rope burns around his throat and bruises on his neck in shades of black and yellow that never fade.
Sariel’s are the worst, five bullet holes in her chest and torso, the skin ripped open and blackened along the edges. Like mine, they don’t bleed, and they don’t heal.
They say I belong to them, that I am theirs, and in turn, they are mine. Brothers and sisters, fused together by death and the hunt. But I don’t feel much of anything, good or bad, so it’s hard to know if that’s true for me.
Other than the hunger, which has dug its way inside me with razor-sharp claws, scratching a ravenous poison into my flesh, baiting my worst instincts.
The taste of fresh soul on my tongue has become an addiction that has seeped into my heart and marrow. When I swallow pieces of them down, their last vestiges of life burn my throat and sit like hot coals in my stomach. Their acidic warmth rushes through me like adrenaline, harsh and dangerous.
I don’t remember what it felt like to be alive, to breathe and pump blood, not really, but eating the lost is as close as I’ll probably ever get.
CHAPTER 1
AZRAEL
They don’t expect me to ever run from them. So when I do, it’s easier than it has any right to be.
Angels don’t sleep, but we can dream. Between hunts, we close our white eyes and conjure up visions of whatever our shredded minds can piece together from the waste.
That’s what we spend most of our time doing when our stomachs are full of soul flesh, glutting ourselves on life that doesn’t belong to us.
I douse my brothers and sisters in gasoline and holy water and throw a lit match on them whilst they dream. They are not lost, so they don’t feel pain, their second deaths a silent thing, but the torn pieces of soul shriek in agony when the flames burn down deep enough to reach them.
If I knew the shape and taste of mercy, that’s what I would call it.
Without them, I have no reason to hunt. There might be desire, the low simmer and faint hum of it just beneath the surface, under my skin like a rippling buzz, hornets jammedbetween my muscles, furious and loud. But I ignore it and instead go in search of something I cannot name.
I find what I’ve been looking for in Ireland, in the city of Rogue. It isn’t my first time in this country, in this city. I’ve eaten here before. The lost wander everywhere, from continent to continent, endlessly, until we end them.
Her name is Lilith. I’ve heard the other Angels talk about her plenty of times, Raphael especially as the only one to have ever met her in person. They’ve spoken about Lilith in hushed, almost fearful tones, which was enough to get my attention. Angels do not fear anything, because they have nothing to fear; the worst has been and gone for us.
But they were terrified of her.
Demon, they called her. The first. Lucifer’s heart song. Sinful. Powerful.Evil.
I did not understand that word when they used it. Evil does not exist. People do, the creatures that become the lost, who then become part of the Nothing. They are many things—cruel, kind, selfish, selfless, lovelorn, loved—but they are not evil.
But Raphael explained when I asked. He said that Demons are not people. They do not die, because they never lived. Not as people do. Demons live like volcanoes and oceans, forces of nature, uncontrolled and chaotic. They came to be and cannot be undone by death. It cannot touch them.
Lilith finds me sitting on her sofa in the dark. She seems surprised but not overly so. There’s more exasperation on her face than anything else. She huffs irately, her shoulders hunching when she comes to stand in front of me with crossed arms.
“Did they send you?” Lilith demands, pink mouth tugged down on both sides. Then she frowns and darts a quick glance around the otherwise-empty room. “You’re here alone?”
I’m not sure who “they” are, so I don’t answer the first part. “I was,” I say pointedly, looking hard at her.
Lilith strikes an imposing figure, over six feet tall and muscled in the arms and thighs, her hips wide and her biceps thick, shown off in her white tank top and skintight leather trousers. Her eyes are jet black, darker than the long spiral of hair that spills over her back in a waterfall of curls.
When I asked the other Angels what I look like, Raphael said, “Tall, pale, blonde,” and left it at that. I didn’t ask for more, because it was irrelevant anyway. The only ones looking at me were them and the souls whose last sight would be me and my brothers and sisters ripping into them.
“Right,” Lilith says, breathing out through her nose, angry but not at me. Her ire is directed elsewhere, but on what I cannot fathom. She pins me with a fierce glare. “If you’re here to take me back, you should consider doing the impossible and defying their orders for once in your pathetic existence.”
“I’m not going to take you anywhere,” I promise. I don’t know where she thinks we’d be going if I did, and I don’t ask either, certain nothing but trouble would come from it, the asking and the finding out.
Lilith squints those shards of obsidian at me, like a suspicious spider. “Why the fuck are you here, then?”
My wings are too large for this sofa, the bottom feathers crushed against the fabric. It dips harshly no matter where you sit on it, the faded green pillows old and sagging. When I first got here, I barely paid attention to the décor, too detached from the burden of free thought. Voicing opinions was not viewed well by the other Angels, so I stopped having them.
