Embrace, Entice, Emblaze (15 page)

rude and mostly spoke in Italian. I don’t speak Italian, but I knew enough to realize they weren’t using terms of endearment.

The only free table was wedged in a tight corner near the kitchen door. It wasn’t near the pizza oven, which at least meant I wouldn’t be sweating the whole time. But as a consolation prize, there was a good chance of getting knocked out at some point by waiters slamming in and out of the swinging door. Phoenix wasn’t perturbed

and glided across the room, following our fat Italian waiter who dropped the menus on the table and walked away without asking if we wanted a drink or anything to start. He was sweating so much I almost wanted to let him have my seat while I found
him
a drink.

When I spotted a red- haired waitress finally moving in our

direction, I sank into my chair.

How
could
this
be
happening
to
me
again?

I racked my brain as she closed the distance. She was wearing

the customary waitress outfit— white short- sleeved shirt and black skirt— but tonight her hair was out, waving to just below her shoulders. As she drew close, I spotted the gold name badge pinned to her collar. I smiled, trying not to focus on it too obviously.

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“Hey, Violet,” she said, flicking her hair back, clearing the view to her name badge.
Claudia!

“Hey, Claudia. So this is the other place you work.” I felt terrible for always forgetting her name.

“Yeah, unfortunately.” She leaned toward me, lowering her

voice. “Shitty tips and crap boss, but it’s work.” She shrugged.

I remembered my manners this time. “Claudia, this is Phoenix.”

I wasn’t exactly sure what I was introducing— exile, stalker, or freaky friend?

Phoenix seemed totally uninterested. He lifted his eyes from

the menu. “Pleasure,” he said, lingering over the word, looking only at me.

My body tingled and I had to clasp my hands under the table,

pressing my nails into my palms for distraction. I glanced up at Claudia, who was swooning over the table. I imagined she would

have fallen over if Phoenix had actually looked at her.

“Hi,” she squeaked. “Can I take your order?”

I ordered a diavola pizza, much to Phoenix’s amusement. He

ordered the same and a glass of red wine. I stuck to water. Once Claudia was out of earshot, I saw no point in delay.

“You said you’d answer my questions.” I knew my only chance

was to take control of the conversation, steer it in the direction I needed it to go.

“I did.” He stretched his legs out and leaned back in his chair.

With all that had been going on, it surprised me that I found it hard to stop my eyes from drifting over his body. Then again,

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just because everything had gone belly up in my world didn’t

mean I was blind. Phoenix was pretty damn close to a perfect

brooding hottie— that is, if I hadn’t already seen total perfection in someone else. His dark hair fell around his face, shimmering with waves of purple and silver, and his physique looked like it was made to be in Calvin Klein underwear ads. Not that I was

thinking about what he would look like in underwear. At least,

I was trying not to. He didn’t make it easy, sprawled out in front of me.

Crap, Violet, get it together.

“Why are you still following me?”

“You leak power,” Phoenix said. His eyes were drifting around

the room. It irritated me the way my question seemed so insignificant to him.

“Great, well that explains nothing,” I grumbled.

He gave a dramatic sigh, finally looking at me. “Everywhere you go, you leave a trail. You haven’t embraced your angel part, but you still radiate. You’re like red in a world of bulls.”

“Okay, so what? That still doesn’t explain why you’re being

all stalkerish.”

“Others who mean you harm won’t have difficulty finding you.

You are so obvious, it would be more subtle if you took out an ad in the paper.” He made quote marks in the air. “
Powerful
Grigori
in
the
making. No powers, no defenses, easy to find.
” He shook his head. “When they find you— and they will— there’ll be nothing

you can do.”

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“Right. So, you just want to look out for me?” I said. And pigs might fly.

“I was bored.” He shrugged, like it was no big deal.

I held his eyes, determined to get more answers.

After a waiter delivered our drinks, Phoenix sighed again. “I saw you…that night at Hades, you were so…unaware. I could sense

what you were, even though you clearly didn’t know. Normally I

wouldn’t care. Believe me, Grigori are the very last thing I’d want to…” He quickly looked away and then back again, a smile playing on his lips. “But it worked out, didn’t it?”

I couldn’t help it; I felt myself smiling back.

“Yeah, it worked out.” Without planning on it, my tone had

softened. If I was honest with myself, I was oddly glad to know that he was around. “So…what’s it like? Being an angel?” I asked.

“Ha! Such an obvious question. I was hoping for something

more original.”

“Okay. What’s the first thing you did when you became human?”

He laughed. “Hmm, much better.” His eyebrows lifted sugges-

tively. I was suddenly red hot and sure I had asked the very, very wrong question.

“It’s okay. I can imagine,” I said quickly. “How about this then, why did you leave your realm? I mean, you chose to, didn’t you?” He looked past me toward the wall. “Sort of.”

“Why?” I prodded.

“Think of it as being born into a culture with arranged marriages.

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can be…” His voice trailed off. Wherever he was, it wasn’t here.

And there was a lot he wasn’t saying.

“Do you miss your friends? Did you have friends? I mean…”

He gave a soft laugh. “There were some minds that I enjoyed

the presence of, but it’s not like it is here. Angels have no corporeal form. Human flesh is considered a lesser form, a vessel with so many frailties.”

He saw my confused look and elaborated. “A prison of flesh, a

heart that relies on lungs that in turn rely on oxygen to be ever-present. An intellect that relies on senses of the flesh to feed it knowledge. That’s why most of our powers, even after we take

human form, are still centered on intangible things: imagination, memory…the passions.”

“Passions?”

“Emotions— love, hate, desire, fear, hope, despair— the things

that lead people to their ultimate bliss or eventual downfall.” His words sounded with regret and there was some longing in them too.

“So, if we’re so frail and angels are so powerful, why take human form?” Someone had to stick up for us mere humans.

“The very thing that overwhelms you,” he said, opening a hand

toward the crowded room of diners.

“I’m lost.”

He swirled his glass of wine, the liquid clinging to the sides

before trickling back down to the bloodred pool. He tilted the glass toward me. “This. For one. Our knowledge is immeasurable, our

power beyond compare. Yet I could only
know
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of; I could not sip it or roll it on my tongue. I knew the tartness of a lemon, but could not wince from it. It became unbearable to witness the sun’s power and watch it strip a desert dry, burn a forest bare, and yet I could not so much as feel it warm my skin. It’s why you feel physical senses to alert you that we are near. Those senses are humans’ defining strength— and their weakness.”

Like flicking a switch, he returned to his more familiar, seductive tone. “There are some feelings, some touches, some sensations…” He inhaled and exhaled slowly, lingering, I was sure, for my benefit.

“
Flesh
against
flesh
. No knowledge, no matter how great, can understand
those
touches. Only humans.” He didn’t blink once.

His eyes, oh my God. He hadn’t said anything R- rated, but that didn’t matter—he still made it sound so…steamy. My heart was

racing and I didn’t know where to look. How had he gone from

seeming so genuine one minute to exploding with sexual innu-

endo the next? How did I go from being all
I’ll ask the questions
to
Someone
get
me
water
’cause I’m burning up!

I fixed my eyes on the kitchen door swinging open and shut. I

forced myself not to look at him, not to look into his eyes. I didn’t need to anyway. I knew without looking that he’d have that same smirk on his face, reveling as I squirmed.

I gave myself an internal count to ten to pull myself together. I made it to seventy- five before I spoke.

“So…” I wrapped my hand around my glass and took a sip. It

was empty. I snuck a look at him. He was shaking a little, holding back a laugh.

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“So…?” he prompted.

“I was just wondering. I mean, I’m not exactly religious…but

have you met…Do you know…?”

“God?” he jumped in.

“Yeah.” I never thought I would have to resort to God as a

change of subject.

Claudia returned with the pizzas. I ate quickly, using my hands.

Phoenix ate slowly and I felt him watching me intently. It should have bothered me, but strangely I was starting to feel more and more comfortable around him. For the first time all night, I felt myself physically relax into my chair.

He half laughed, as if he knew what I had just thought, then

carried on with our conversation. “It’s not like what humans say in fairy tales, Violet. In some ways it’s even harder for us to know the answers to those questions than for humans.” He was far away again. When he let his facade drop, it was easier to see his otherworldliness, see the depths of his eyes, the stillness of his features.

He noticed me studying him and his tone lightened. “Anyway,

the existence of a being so powerful that it could create life and worlds doesn’t need to be revealed to any other being unless it chooses to do so.”

“And does he? I mean does anyone know for sure?” I asked.

“Apparently.”

“So who, then?”

“Only angels who have taken actions so momentous that they

would not have been possible without the knowledge and perhaps

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help of a higher power. They are known as the Sole, the few who have been elevated beyond their normal rank to…something else.

There are only two that I know of.”

“Okay. I’m listening.” What? Did he need a drum roll?

“The Sword Michael and his opposite, the Star Lucifer.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “As in…the devil…Lucifer?”

I spoke quietly, afraid that the nearby tables would overhear.

“If that keeps it simple for you,” he said, shaking his head a little.

“So there is a Hell?”

“No…and yes. It’s a nice perspective that humans have of

good and evil. It would be easier if it were right. If it were so basic though— to break it all into one or the other, Heaven or Hell— it would mean that angels of
Heaven
could do no wrong and angels of
Hell
could do no good, effectively leaving angels with no free will, and that is not the case. Within the angel realm, angels of light and angels of dark exist equally. For every angel who offers a bridge to walk over, another angel is there to entice someone into troubled waters. Without this, free will would not be possible.”

“But I thought evil only existed after Lucifer fell from Heaven.” I was no expert, but I had been forced to sit through over a decade of religious studies in school.

“I bet you thought angels had wings too.” He raised his eyebrows a little.

I pursed my lips in a vain attempt to defend myself, but of

course he saw right through it.

“I can’t explain everything. This isn’t something that can be

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summed up over just one pizza. Trust me, evil has always existed.

The very story humans tell of creation, its first line, gives it all away.” He put on a formal voice. “
Let
there
be
light,
yada yada
yada
…But consider this: how could
light
be needed if
darkness
had not preceded it?”

I don’t know why, but I felt sad for Phoenix as he spoke. I didn’t know where it came from. It was as if his sadness was leaking into me somehow. I instinctively reached across the table and placed my hand on his, offering comfort. But I almost jumped out of my chair when we touched. Apple. I had forgotten the senses. Sparks flared between us and I reacted quickly, starting to move my hand away, but he grabbed it before I could. Birds’ wings started flapping as if there were a swarm of them inside my head. I pulled at my hand to release it from his grip, but he just pulled back. I stared daggers at him. This wasn’t a game. But when our eyes met and

locked, a wave of calm flushed my body, like being doused with a bucket of cool water on a sunny day. After a few seconds, the senses were gone and I was just holding his hand.