Samael (16 page)

Lilith hesitated before speaking again, but when she did, her expression and tone were both resigned. “Do you believe that’s what happened?”

Michael’s gaze narrowed on her. “What are you saying, Lilith?” he asked. Ever the cop, his tone was all business and his question brokered for the facts. Like everyone, he could tell their doubts were probably justified.

“I know that Sophie was attacked,” Lilith said softly, with a respectful nod to Sophie. Sophie nodded back and tried not to look embarrassed. “And I understand it was Jason who harmed her.” Now her eyes peered right through Max, focusing intently. “What other information do you have, Max?”

The truth was, they had nothing else at all. They knew Jason was Sam’s right-hand man. And Gregori had warned them of Sam’s intentions. They’d come to find out the rest.

Without waiting for an answer she knew wasn’t coming, Lilith faced the rest of them. “Samael is not here. Furthermore, he’s currently untraceable. I believe he has given up his magic.”

Everyone was dead quiet.

Max tried to process what she was saying. “What do you mean, he’s given up his magic?”

Lilith sighed. She looked at the ground and shifted her weight. “What I can share with you is limited. But rumor exists that he’s taken himself off the grid. And Angel too.”

Max turned to look at the others. He met Michael’s gaze, analytical and processing.

“He’s trying to protect her from Gregori,” said Mimi.

Everyone looked down at her. She took a step back, likely feeling a little under attack with so many powerful gazes locked on her. “What?” she asked, shrugging. “It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

Michael nodded. “It does.”

“We haven’t met, Mimi. I’m Lilith.” Lilith smiled and leaned forward, offering the red-headed girl her hand. Mimi took it with confidence, and Max could see the grip was firm.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Mimi returned. The fact that Lilith knew her name was not lost on the girl. The knowledge reflected in her wary eyes, despite her sure hand shake.

“I should have known Sam wasn’t here,” said Eleanore. “I mean, the sun is shining.” This, with a glance up at Azrael. “Storms have been hammering Chicago for weeks. We all know they were Sam’s doing.”

Lilith nodded sagely. “He’s… dealing with a lot. Things are changing.” Her eyes were back on Max. “They’re coming to a culmination.”

There was no doubt she meant to insert the double meaning in her words, but she left no time for them to ask about it, because she nodded then, and asked, “Have any of you eaten lunch yet? I think we could do with a sit-down and a long talk. There’s much to discuss – Adarians and all. Besides, we’re attracting quite a bit of attention out here like this. It might not all be welcome.”

It was three in the afternoon, but archangels and their archesses tended to be night people. So, of course, none of them had eaten. And she was right about gaining unwanted attention. They weren’t even doing anything, and they were making a scene. Even a cop down the street had turned his sights on them.

Gabriel spoke up. “You know where we can get a good pint?”

Lilith laughed. “In Chicago? I know ten places within walking distance.” She wove her arm through Max’s shoulder, which he didn’t even realize he was holding out for her. But was very happy she’d taken.

Max grinned as they all began making their way down the street. “I grew up here, you know.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

The George Bernard Shaw Play House in Manhattan was to exclusive what Godiva was to chocolate. It wasn’t that it only allowed certain prosperous and influential humans through its invisible doors. It was that it barely let humans through them at all.

The high end restaurant featured the very best in culinary creations, and the finest actors from various realms performing what were arguably the crème de la crème of life’s plays. Tonight’s performance was “The Diaries of Adam and Eve” by Mark Twain, otherwise known as Samuel Clemens. It was Sam’s favorite play, and the actor playing Adam and the actress playing Eve were currently the best actor and actress in the realm. Of course, it just wasn’t the mortal realm. Not that it mattered, effect-wise. They looked mortal enough. Mostly.

The Play House catered to seven supernatural realms in all at the moment, but the owner was always vying for more exposure, and word was getting around, because the owner was a very good businessman. The fact that Samael was currently all but mortal was fortunately not going to be an issue with management, seeing as how he was the one who owned the play house.

Sam approached the brick wall that disguised the entrance to the restaurant and theater beyond. It was a normal brick wall, crumbling in places, and nothing more to the casual observer than a part of an alley in a mid-range neighborhood in the business district of Manhattan.

Sam was distracted. He was on edge. He had been the moment Angel had opened her door in the Nautilus, and suddenly found himself standing before the most stunning creature in the multiverse, stripped down to what she truly was, and then wrapped up in red silk like a gift for the luckiest son of a bitch in the Cosmos.

She’d taken his breath away. He didn’t know whether he’d been capable of hiding it; he’d tried so hard. It wasn’t like him to be caught off guard. It wasn’t like him to be surprised, not in any capacity. He knew damn well what Angel really looked like, despite her non-stop attempts to hide her true form behind one magical disguise after another. He knew what she looked like, smelled like – she smelled like freshly fallen rain, just as he did – and sounded like. He even knew the feel of her skin, so teasingly perfect, soft as the silk she now wore…. No.
Softer
.

But in that moment, just after her door had opened and he’d stumbled into a time lapse of immeasurable proportions, he was not only reminded of how perfect she was, he was presented with just how much
better
than perfect she could be.

How much better than
him
she could be.

Because the thing about Angel is that she was just that. She was the epitome of goodness, of strength, and of everything that was right in the world. He’d known it the first time he’d glimpsed even the tiniest part of her in a fevered dream months ago. That impossible goodness poured out from her like a moonlit glow. It encompassed her like some sort of prismatic cocoon, and the inherent, disproportional beauty that was a direct result of that goodness, was a painful reminder for him of just how far out of his league she really was.

It also acted like a dark mirror on Samael. Instead of seeing any good in himself when he looked at her, he regressed. He saw everything good that he
wasn’t
, and rather than reflect her own kindness and strength, all he wanted to do, immediately and intensely, was be everything that she considered bad: Brutally powerful, stubbornly over-protective, jealously possessive, and positively primeval.

He couldn’t help it. He
really
couldn’t. She couldn’t mean to, but she was bringing out the monster in him. All he wanted to do was grab hold of her, pull her against him, and destroy everything that so much as glanced in her direction. Even as they entered that alley with that waiting, magical door, he sensed the beast stirring within. He heard it growling, deep down low. He knew it was sheer seconds and one fool’s mistake away from awakening full-force and taking over.

May the fates have mercy on anyone who dared cross him that night.

To say he was distracted, in fact, was a gross understatement. So, rather than making a show of revealing the play house as he’d originally hoped to do in his plan to impress Angel, he simply placed his fingertips to one of the higher bricks and stepped back.

The stone lit up in its place, as if it had caught fire from the inside, and the glow spread into the mortar connecting it to the wall. There was a brief flash, followed by the sound of rock moving against other rocks.

Sam reached out and took Angel’s arm, moving her back a few paces alongside him. His fingers automatically wrapped securely around her forearm, then slid to her wrist. The grip was possessive… and even after the doorway magically outlined itself and slid inward and to the side like the charmed masonry that it was, he had trouble letting go.

Fortunately for him, Angel didn’t seem to notice his hesitation. She was transfixed by the magic entrance and what she’d just seen. This was odd to him. Unlike the other archesses, Angel had been around for the full two-thousand years since her spirit had been dispersed to the planet. In all that time, she had known about the supernatural world, just as he had. Something as simple as a hidden door into a private play house should not have surprised her.

But a moment after the conundrum presented itself, Sam figured it out. Angel was not accustomed to things of this nature because she was not like him. She spent little to no time relaxing in magical retreats, enjoying the finest things life had to offer. She used her powers to save the world.

And that was about it.

A pain moved through Sam’s chest. It was hard to identify, but he would wager a cool thousand easy that it had at least a little to do with the fact that this was yet one more reminder that Angel was too good for him. There was no way in the nine hells she would ever come to accept him. Not as anything other than what she saw him as already.

“What is this place?” she asked a little breathlessly.

Sam impressed himself. He should have been the one acting as Adam up on stage that night.
He
was the best actor in the world. He smiled his calm smile and, in a smooth, even tone, he said, “This is the George Bernard Shaw Play House. It’s lovingly referred to as “The George” for short. A rather exclusive play house, it’s my favorite place to both dine and relax.”

He gestured gallantly to the entrance, which was a white marble stairwell leading down. “Shall we?” He offered her his elbow.

Candle sconces in the walls on either side gave the entrance an ethereal glow, and the sound of softly playing music mingled with quietly speaking voices below.

Angel looked from him to the entrance and back again. She took his arm, and he gently placed his hand over hers, then led them down the stairs. The entire stairwell had been carved from one solid piece of polished white marble that extended up the walls and overhead like a cave. Despite the smooth stone, the stairs had been enchanted to prevent slipping.

At the foot of the stairs, a man came forward. Samael instantly met his gaze, and unspoken information was passed between them.

The man’s name was Charles, and he’d been the maître d’ of The George since its inception. As so many immortal creatures did, on the outside, he looked human. 

“Mr. Lambent,” he greeted politely and professionally, with the slightest bow. “It’s wonderful to see you tonight. I know you are going to thoroughly enjoy tonight’s show.” He turned his attention to Angel and looked upon her as if she were the most interesting creature in the universe.

Which, of course, she was.

“And this must be Miss Angel.” He held out his hand palm-up in the traditional manner a man does when he is prepared to kiss a woman’s hand.

Angel seemed taken aback for just a split second, but then she smiled graciously, her cheeks reddened a touch, and she placed her hand in his. He was obviously charmed by her shyness and lack of airs. And when he placed the gentlest tap of a kiss on her hand, because he was an old friend, Sam didn’t kill him.

Charles straightened, releasing Angel’s hand. “If you’ll follow me, I have your table ready for you, Mr. Lambent.”

Sam led Angel after him. From the corner of his eye, he watched for Angel’s reaction to the play house.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I’m in a dream.

Angel had never seen anything like it. Once the stairs going down opened up before them, she moved as if in a surreal sleep scape.

A path of inlaid multi-colored pebbled stones led from the stairs into the play house. It ran alongside a wide, crystal-clear light blue river, which babbled and sloshed welcomingly. The river came from either side of the cave, joined in the center, and formed a Y tributary that continued through the play house and disappeared beneath the luxurious marble stage at the far end.

The riverbed was white sand, and atop it, Angel could see a layer of shimmering stones that looked remarkably like multi-colored gemstones. The play house was laid out in levels, from highest to lowest near the stage, and as each level descended, so did the tributary, forming waterfalls that beckoned like flowing crystal.

On the right, where the river exited the play house, there was a large opening in the cave that resembled an enormous movie screen. However, the flowing water emptying into it proved it to be very real. It appeared as if an invisible barrier separated the interior of the play house from the world beyond it. That world was a long, white sand beach, washed periodically by a softly rising tide. The river from the cave flowed into the sand and trickled into an ocean, which stretched on forever. The night sky above was clear and bright with stars. It was a quintessential scene of peace.

To her left, where the river originated, the same sort of barriered opening revealed a thick forest with monster-sized trees, such as one would find in the Redwoods. The ground on either side of the river was carpeted with pine needles, ferns and giant clover. It looked to be a different time of day beyond that particular barrier, perhaps some time in the late afternoon or early morning. Mist hugged the ground, swirling lazily this way and that.

Despite the barriers, when she concentrated, Angel could smell the salt from the air of the ocean to her right, and the pine from the air in the forest to her left.

The ceiling of the play house sported thousands of tiny dangling, sparkling lights, like holiday bulbs, all yellow-gold and warming. Further lighting was provided by the multitude of hearths carved high into the walls. These crackled with welcome fires, yet, no-doubt magically, spared the room of smoke or overbearing heat.