Chapter 1
ONE
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 jammed between 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.
But now that Lilith is here and questioning me, I find my gaze wandering around the room, searching for the pretence of distraction.
The flat is small, the living room and kitchen squished together in the same space, the bathroom and bedroom visible from here, down a short hallway.
There’s striped, peeling wallpaper in shades of grey and green and scratched wooden floors.
None of the furniture can be any less than thirty years old.
Overall, Lilith’s flat seems drab, pockmarked by mould and splattered with stains that have probably changed colour half a dozen times since they were created.
The state of the flat contradicts quite heavily with Lilith herself, who seems impeccably put together, her clothes and makeup simple but well-fitting and artfully applied.
It all screams safe house to me although I don’t know why I’d think that. Safe or otherwise, this is a flat anyway, not a house.
Despite her earlier displays of anger, Lilith doesn’t rush me or even appear annoyed by the delay in response.
She stands there, towering over me, elbows bent and fingers digging into her sides, watching me expectantly.
Her tank top is short enough that when she moves her hands to her hips, it rides up just a little, revealing a swathe of toned stomach.
There are tattoos that swirl in intricate patterns over her abdomen.
I can only see parts of them, so I can’t decipher the symbols or their meaning, supposing they have any.
She’d need to reveal more skin, lower, where her leather trousers cover her up.
“They’re scared of you,” I answer finally.
It’s what led me here, that terror I saw on the other Angels’ faces when they spoke her name in hushed, sometimes frantic tones.
Lilith’s squint becomes slightly less suspicious and a lot more curious. I’m not sure if that’s better.
“Who are you?” she asks. Then when I don’t respond straightaway, her patience slips, and she pushes. “Tell me your name.”
There’s a large window in the living room that looks out onto the cobbled streets below.
It was raining earlier, so droplets of water obscure the view.
Moonlight still manages to seep in, bathing Lilith in a silver glow from behind.
The shine seems as if it’s exploding out of her, giving her wings that appear far softer around the edges than mine.
“They call me Azrael,” I tell her.
You hunt the lost now, It said, your name is Azrael. My Angel.
Lilith doesn’t look satisfied by that, her lips pulling back into a snarl, white incisors flashing in the dark, like razors cutting through shadow.
“What’s your real name?” she pushes, angry again for reasons I still don’t understand.
When I continue to stare at her, uncomprehending, she blows out a frustrated breath and offers, “I mean, from Before.”
She makes it sound like the plot of a story told in two parts, like one end of a book to another. There was then, something happened, and then there was now. Prologue and epilogue, with Nothing in between.
When I still don’t answer, because there’s no answer I could possibly give, Lilith inhales sharply, like I’ve told her a terrible, no-good, very-bad truth.
“They took it all from you, then,” Lilith muses, a sad downward twinge to one corner of her mouth. She breathes out harshly. Her nose flares. “Those fuckers.”
I don’t ask who “they” are, or what she thinks was taken from me.
Not because I’m afraid of the answer. I already know, and the knowing doesn’t change what any of it means, which is nothing.
I came from the Nothing, and that is all I have left inside me.
I was hollowed out by it, burnt to a husk, a shell scraped clean and raw and empty.
“You’re not my problem,” Lilith tells me as if I’m unaware of that fact.
I dip my chin in a slight nod anyway, so she knows that I understand exactly how little sense any of this makes. My showing up here was an imposition and a mistake.
“I belong to them,” I say even though it feels like my tongue is twisting in the wrong direction by acknowledging that simple reality. The Angels and their possession of me still clings to my skin, slick and hot like a coating of wet tarmac.
Lilith’s eyes snap up, suddenly fever bright and intense, two black suns still blazing from within their core despite everything around them having gone hard and cool.
“No!” Lilith barks at me in reprimand. “Don’t ever say that. They stole you. Stolen things can’t be owned.”
Her show of hostility doesn’t surprise me at this point, but the catch in her voice does, a more fragile emotion betraying some old hurt from a past that I know as much about as I do my Before.
I tilt my head, furrowing my brows at her in contemplation. Lilith clocks my sudden shift in mood, the interest spooling out inside my chest like a quickly unravelling piece of thread.
Regaining her composure, back straightening and face smoothing out into a guarded mask once more, Lilith’s voice comes out steely but not unkind. “What do you want from me?”
“They’re scared of you,” I repeat. “Too scared to come after you. If I’m with you, they won’t be able to come for me either. They won’t try and take me back.”
Lilith stares at me then, shocked at first, but then her expression turns calculating as if she’s running through possible outcomes in her head, a way to tell me no, and what will happen to me when she does.
She seems reluctant to let, or at least watch, those scenarios play out to their inevitable conclusion.
It confirms that I’m right. Whoever I ran from will come for me if I’m on my own. I wasn’t sure if I mattered enough, the idea that I am seeming vaguely laughable, but if Lilith thinks I do, then she’s probably right.
“They’ll still come,” Lilith warns on the back end of a sigh. “If they’re motivated enough, they always do.”
I stare up at her, thinking that over.
“Are you scared of them?” I ask, wondering if that’s how it works. Mutual fear. Mutual risk. Battle lines drawn, one only crossing over to the other if conflict is instigated by one side. Keeping me with her would likely constitute an act of war. Stolen weapons. Stolen soldiers.
But you can’t own stolen things. They can’t claim that Lilith has taken me if I was already stolen from someone or somewhere else.
I don’t believe that will stop them, and Lilith doesn’t seem to think so either. It makes me feel better about denying them, though.
Lilith’s mouth cuts up into a jagged smile, malice shining in her eyes. “Never,” she says. “And that’s what terrifies them.”
A shiver runs down my spine at the malevolent satisfaction Lilith appears to get from that truth.
“Can I stay with you?” I ask.
Lilith considers me again, her scrutiny almost a physical thing that drags over my entire being, scratching across my skin, something new and confusing rippling underneath, a sickening ball of sensation squeezing in my gut at the open appraisal.
Her eyes catch on my wings for a moment, and she hesitates, but then they slide lower to my exposed arms, lingering on the scars without shame.
“Alright,” Lilith allows, nodding her head once. “It’s been a while since I pissed off the fam.” She offers me a wan smile. “This is gonna be some good, fun times.”