Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2
LILITH
“ S o, like, in your head, did this idea seem … you know, sane ?” Adam asks with faux curiosity, a cup of tea held halfway to his lips. “Because if it genuinely did seem like a sane idea, I think we might need to book you in for some sort of mental assessment. Where’s my phone, I’ll look up treatment centres right now.” He makes a show out of patting his pockets, “searching” for his phone. When he retrieves it, I lean over the kitchen island to slap it out of his hands.
Adam gasps dramatically, clutching his cup of tea to his chest as if he’s afraid it’ll be the target of my next assault. He darts a hand forward, seeking retribution by pinching a corner from my chocolate brownie that’s sitting on the ripped-open bakery bag. I slap at his hand again, harder this time, and Adam yelps, quickly drawing back, pouting at me like an injured puppy, practically forlorn.
"Touch my brownie again, and I will end you. In the face," I say, pointing my fork at Adam threateningly.
He shakes his head at me, brown eyes wide with innocence behind his glasses. The massive liar, I saw him checking out my chocolatey goodness, and I shall not be sugar robbed by my own brother.
"That doesn't even make sense," Adam says, like he thinks I care what makes sense. It's like he doesn't even know me.
I put the fork down and point a finger at my face. "You see this? This is the face of a woman who spent half the night trying to convince a runaway Angel to stop bloody staring at me with those creepy white eyes. She just sat there, Ad, on the sofa, not moving or talking or anything.”
It’d been a while since I’d been in the same room with an Angel, and I’d forgotten how disturbing their lack of … everything can be. Angels are like candles without a wick, their souls reaped by Death and bodies laid to rest until the Angels drag them back, half formed and barely alive. Just looking at her—Azrael—pisses me off. Not at her, but for her. For all they took that was not theirs to take and that she may never get back.
"How dare she!" Adam mocks, sarcasm heavy in his voice. “What troubles you’ve faced. What mountains you’ve climbed. What creepy Angel-shaped hurdles you’ve overcome this night.” Twat.
I pick up a small packet of brown sugar that I brought back from my visit to the bakery this morning and throw it, hitting him square in the face. "Anyway, so my night was shit, therefore I need my chocolate-brownie fix. You will not take it from me, Ad. I will battle you to the death, I swear to fuck."
Adam snatches the packet of sugar from where it landed on the table and throws it right back at me. It lands inside my cup of tea.
Tea splashes everywhere. Adam grimaces, and I shake my head him. "Fail, bro, epic fail."
"Your face is an epic fail," Adam mutters, his cheeks flushing with embarrassment.
I smirk at him. "Like, for real, though, that was just monumentally terrible. I don't think you'll ever be able to show your face in here again. Personally, I would move. Maybe to Mexico."
"I'm not moving to Mexico!”
I snap my fingers and put on a mocking “eureka” expression. "You're right, Mexico isn't far enough. People might still hear about the epic fail that just occurred. You could try ... New Zealand. Or bite the bullet and finally give yourself up to Heaven."
Adam pulls that face he always pulls when he's trying to think of a really great comeback. His lips kind of purse, and his eyes glaze over just a little bit. It's sad. I really do feel for him. But he’s my brother, so I reserve the right to tease him into oblivion without any guilt weighing down my conscience.
"If I go to Heaven, then you're coming with me. I am not facing God alone," Adam finally comes back with. See, so sad.
I pick up a napkin and start wiping up the sloshed tea. Luckily, none of it got on my clothes. Tea stains can be a bitch to get out, especially if it's the real-deal stuff. There have been many times when I've damned my need for high-market tea after I've spilt it on my clothes or my bedsheets.
But I refuse to drink any of that swill sold by most cafes around here. So yeah, I'm a tea snob. Whatever.
"I'm not taking on God to defend your honour. If that deadbeat dad wants to eat you, then I'm afraid you're just going to have to accept your fate." I rip off a bit of brownie, completely discarding the fork this time, and shove it into my mouth with absolutely no thought to how it will look.
I'll act like someone with manners and decorum tomorrow. Right now, I just want to scarf down my brownie.
"Who says I won't be the one defending your honour?" Adam huffs. He takes a drink from his way-too-big coffee cup and watches me over the rim.
I chew and swallow another bite of brownie before answering. "Uh, because I'm genuinely lovable, God would adore me. I wouldn't need defending. And even if I did, I wouldn't ask you."
Adam looks offended. I have no idea why since this is an extremely hypothetical conversation we're having.
"Why not? I could totally take on God, probably, maybe."
I snort out a laugh, unable to help myself. "Can I please direct you to the epic fail of five minutes ago as example A of why you so completely could not take on God?"
"You're mean today," Adam complains, his nose scrunching up in mild annoyance. I know he's not actually annoyed, though, because he taps his glasses when he gets really pissy.
"Suck it up and deal, princess," I say, not bothering to hide my grin.
Hanging out with Adam always makes me feel less shitty, even when I've had a really shittastic day. He makes me smile, no matter what. It's like his superpower, and I love him for it.
"Princess? That's a new one." Adam frowns, mouthing the word “princess” to himself a few times.
"Suits you, I think."
Adam opens his mouth to say something, but just then the door to my flat opens, revealing our sister, dejection in the slump of her shoulders and downturn of her mouth. Adam turns in his seat, smiling at Eve as she plods over and parks herself next to him, leaning on the kitchen island with her forearms crossed in front of her. She doesn't smile back at him. If anything, she becomes even more mopey. I wince internally.
Unlike me, my siblings are both human, and despite the fact they don’t technically need to work since money is the last thing we need to worry about after however many millennia we’ve been alive, Eve has always had a penchant for choosing career paths to dominate from century to century.
This time around, she’s all-in on becoming a journalist. She had an interview for her dream job at our city’s local newspaper, the Rogue Review . She was more excited for it than I’ve seen her be about anything in a long time.
Eve’s eyes, a perfect match in shade and shape for Adam’s, are downcast, and she's fumbling with her fingers. Adam shares a loaded glance with me, both of us aware of what this behaviour probably means. I reach across the table to grab Eve’s hand and give it a sympathetic squeeze.
"Give me the interviewer’s name, and I will end them,” Adam says.
Eve gives a slight huff. "Don't bother."
"Yeah, Ad, fuck’s sake, just let it go.” I give Adam a mock slap on his arm. "You're so scary when you get all protective."
Eve rolls her eyes, but Adam puffs his chest and drawls in a fake alpha-bro voice, "I take care of what's mine, ladies."
I almost choke on my piece of brownie. I have to grip the table and cough for a few seconds.
Eve makes a sound a lot like a heavy sigh, and we both turn our attention back to her.
"It was going really well," she says tiredly, "until they started talking about how the main part of my job would be working under Diane Foxley.”
Adam and I exchange another look, this one more of a shared grimace.
Diane Foxley is a scaremongering “journalist” infamous for her prejudice against the LGBTQIA+ community. She writes a weekly column for the Rogue Review , too, mostly with updates about the terrible actions of our local queers in power and queer-related organisations, twisting the truth and even telling outright lies when it suits her.
"Working under her as in … reporting about how all queer people are out to destroy society and take over the world?” I ask, my brow furrowing.
Eve sighs, rubbing a hand through her white-blonde hair and tugging on the short strands. "Pretty much, yeah."
“Shit,” I hiss, squeezing her hand again. “So you walked out of the interview?”
“Had to, didn’t I?” Eve scowls, frustration creasing her features. “Can’t exactly work for the woman who wants people like us dead, can I?”
It’s weird to have been alive long enough to see the world grow its hatred like mould on a damp ceiling. It’s spread so fast and caused unfathomable damage to humanity. The people alive now weren’t there at the beginning, before that hatred was born. If they were, if they could have known a world without it, then maybe they wouldn’t fight so hard to hold onto it.
“Well,” I reason, just drolly enough to annoy her, “if we’re being technical about it, she’s only ever publicly stated that she wants the government to lock us up in a deep dark hole forever, not have us executed.”
Adam gives me a dry look. “You’re right. Let’s not be overdramatic snowflakes about it.”
“Hey.” I hold up my hands. “I just don’t want to get done in for slander.”
Eve jabs me in the arm with her elbow, throwing me a high-intensity glower. I bite my tongue between my teeth and wink at her. She rolls her eyes. "Shut up, Lil."
I place a hand over my heart. "I was just fact-checking you; good journalists are supposed to care about that. Fuck, you're so emotional sometimes."
Eve balls up a napkin and throws it at me. It hits my forehead and then falls to the tabletop.
I dart my eyes between Adam and the wadded-up napkin. "See, now that's how you throw something at a person who's sitting two feet away from you."
Eve looks between us questioningly.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Adam mutters, refusing to meet my eyes.
I blow out a breath, shaking my head mournfully. "Denial. So sad."
“There’s news!” Adam says, flashing an amused grin at Eve and flipping me off at the same time, clearly about to use the knowledge of Azrael’s existence as revenge against me. Eve’s gonna be so pissed.
Eve frowns at him, rightfully suspicious. She slides a wary glance at me. “What’s happened now?”
“Our sister has decided to adopt a pet Angel,” Adam tells her with exaggerated excitement. “What joy this way comes.”
Eve whips her head between us, her mouth open in shock, disbelief written across her face in a furious scrawl. “What the fuck? Seriously, an Angel? Where is it?” She turns her head, searching the flat for some sign of my new guest as if she thinks Azrael will be hiding behind the sofa or something.
“She’s not an ‘it,’” I say sternly. “Her name is Azrael, and she’s lying down in my bedroom, so keep your voice down, for fuck’s sake.”
Eve shoots me a scowl of confusion. “But Angels don’t sleep.”
I shrug. “They dream, though.”
“So … what,” Eve says slowly, a horrified look dawning on her face, “you have an Angel daydreaming in your bed right now?”
I bob my head. “Pretty much the size of it, yeah.”
“Have you gone absolutely bonkers?” Eve hisses at me, darting a fearful glance towards my closed bedroom door.
“That’s what I said,” Adam chimes in unhelpfully, and I make a face at him, which he promptly ignores in favour of sipping away at his tea. I resist the urge to knock it out of his hands. Barely.
“Chill out,” I soothe Eve. “It’s not that big a thing.” Except it really, really is, to be fair.
Eve does not chill out; if anything, she becomes even more irate in response to my blasé attitude. “You can’t keep an Angel here, Lil. Michael and his cadre of feathered bellends will come storming in, all righteous and stupid and stabby.” She makes a stabbing motion with her fist. “I don’t want to get stabbed by Michael.”
Adam raises his hand. “I second not wanting to get stabbed.” He screws up his nose. “Especially by Michael. That prick .”
“No one’s getting stabbed.” I wave them off. “They won’t come for her yet. At some point, Michael or Gabriel will contact me, asking for her back first.”
“And you’ll tell them …?” Eve prods.
“To take a flying fuck at a rolling donut, yeah.” I tap out a quick rhythm against the table edge, flashing her a jaunty grin.
“Lilith!” Eve and Adam both yelp with varying degrees of shrillness. They’re looking at me with despair on their faces, so identical it takes real effort not to take the piss out of them for it. This is not the time for jokes. I’ll only get hit, and Eve is strong for a human.
I don’t know if Azrael was waiting for the chance to interrupt, or if she just has the best accidental timing in the world, but her trepidatious wandering from my room to the kitchen couldn’t be more welcome.
Azrael, despite her quiet demeanour, comes off as relatively menacing in the light of day. Or that might just be the distrustful scowl she’s aiming at Eve and Adam as if they’re the ones who are intruding and might have suspect motives for being here.
She’s still wearing the same clothes from last night: a simple halter top, the only sort of shirt she could wear to allow for the wings without getting creative with the sewing scissors, and some combat trousers stuffed into similar military-style boots. All black, like Heaven had a Charlie’s Angels movie night and decided to develop a sense of humour, finally.
Azrael, despite the wings protruding out of her back that I will never be able to view as anything but obscene, is beautiful enough to have been cast in one of those films. I noticed that last night, but it didn’t strike me until now, seeing her standing here in my kitchen with the sunlight filtering through the windows to bathe her in a faint glow.
I’m the last person to believe in the divinity of Angels, but Azrael is stunningly beautiful, with her white-blonde hair down to her slim waist and genuine, no-shit heart-shaped face. Even her starkly Angelic white eyes can’t detract from her full mouth and sharp, model-esque cheekbones. She would have looked more fae princess than human in her Before state. Plus, she’s the same height as me, long in the legs and torso, which rarely ever happens.
None of that matters, obviously. Azrael could be the most hideous creature on this earth for all I care, and in some ways, she is, because even looking at an Angel can make me feel vaguely disturbed. I know too much about where they come from to ever be entirely comfortable being in the vicinity of one.
But still, I can’t help thinking that if I’d seen her in a bar when she was human, I’d have taken her home with me for a completely different set of reasons.
Eve and Adam are staring at Azrael in a mix of outright dismay and, in Eve’s case, mild hatred. Azrael, sensing Eve’s decidedly hostile reception, turns the full power of her scowl on my sister. I think she even hitches it up by a couple of notches. Whoever taught her how to convey her dislike via bitchface deserves at least three gold stars because wow, that shit is genuinely intimidating. Even my sister seems cowed by it, which is no small feat because that woman is an equal combination of both formidable and spiteful when she wants to be.
When Azrael continues to scowl her little heart out, Eve purposefully scoots away from her and drops her gaze to the table.
Score one for Azrael.
“Okay.” I try not to sound joyful about Azrael’s defeat of my sister. “Intro time. Azrael, this is Eve and Adam.” I lean towards her and lower my voice to stage-whisper, “Don’t worry, they already know all about your dark past, and they absolutely want to be your new best friends. Just don’t smite them; they don’t like that shit.”
Eve cuffs me over the back of the head and rolls her eyes. Adam, my fairer sibling, snorts out a laugh.
“Does anyone like to be smote?” Azrael asks, speaking for the first time in her low, melodic rumble. She seems perplexed by the idea.
Adam makes a thoughtful humming sound. “Depends on what ‘smiting’ is a euphemism for.” He waggles his eyebrows like a tosser and gets a flick to the forehead from me as punishment. He jerks backwards, slapping a hand over his own face and serving me a look of betrayal through his fingers.
“Don’t be crass to our guest, please,” I say primly, ignoring his whinging about violent sisters and who the fuck’s idea it was to invent them, turning my attention to Azrael again. “Do you want some tea?” I hold up my cup, brandishing it at her like I think she won’t know what I’m talking about.
Azrael still seems puzzled by the back-and-forth between my siblings and me, but she rallies fast enough. “No, I don’t need it.” Then she adds as if she thinks I won’t know, “Angels don’t need to eat or drink to survive.”
“I didn’t ask if you needed it to survive, Az,” I say slowly, my heart clenching inside my chest at the idea she doesn’t understand there’s anything other than survival that matters. “I asked if you wanted some.” I tap my ear with two fingers, winking at her. “Gotta listen, babe.”
“Oh, blimey,” Eve groans, wrinkling her nose like I’ve just done something truly distasteful. “She just gave it a nickname and a pet name. It’s only been here one night!”
“Don’t call her an ‘it,’” I scold more fiercely than I thought I felt about it. Uh-oh.
Eve shoots a beseeching look at Adam, smacking her hands down on the table. “This is how it happens, then. This is how we all finally get murdered by Michael and his fan club, all because some body”—she glares daggers at me, like we wouldn’t all have clarity over who she’s talking about—“wants to fuck an Angel.”
Adam sighs dramatically and bobs his head in agreement. “We’re doomed.” Although he can’t be that cut up about it, because he took the opportunity of my distraction to nab a piece of my brownie, the blasted fiend .
“I don’t know if I want tea,” Azrael interrupts, her mind still caught up on a whole other plain of conversational existence. She’s frowning now, which is less severe than her scowl but not by much, her pretty mouth tugged to the side like she’s resisting the urge to gnaw on it with those perfect teeth. She must have been a regular at the dentist in her Before life or something. No human just has teeth that straight and white without any sort of dedicated intervention.
“What do you mean?” I ask, intrigued by her strange response.
Azrael tilts her head at me like a confused puppy, and I refuse to think of it as cute. Re-fucking-fuse, I say.
“I haven’t had it before,” she tells me.
“Not even once in all this time?” I ask, stunned. Angels are creatures of order and service, but they do have free will as proven by Azrael’s defection.
Azrael shrugs her shoulders. They’re slimmer than mine although I wouldn’t call her skinny by any means. She has defined muscle in her biceps that I absolutely do not want to bite into, leaving a claiming mark on her creamy skin, thanks for asking. Bruises and bite marks would look good on her, but that’s inappropriate, so we won’t think about that, will we? Nope.
“Never needed it,” she explains haplessly, “so I didn’t have it.” And there’s no point asking about her Before, because she wouldn’t know it if she discovered the original tea leaf, let alone ever drank the stuff.
“Ah, okay, gotcha.” I nod. Then I peer at her consideringly and ask, “Do you wanna try it, though?”
I’m not sure why this is turning into such a thing, or why I seem to give a shit if this random Angel wants tea or not, except it really feels like a big thing. Angels have so much taken from them; the second they’re chosen, everything they were or could have ever been ceases to exist, all of it drained away like water disappearing down the drain of a bath. If I can just give this one small bit of humanity back to her, even if it’s something as small as her opinion on tea, then, at least to me, that’s worth doing.
Azrael hesitates at the question, seeming more than a little unsure of how to answer as if she’s forgotten what it’s like to feel desire in any capacity.
After a silence that is far too heavy given the fact we’re talking about bloody tea, Azrael dips her chin slightly. “Alright.” Then she seems to gain confidence in her decision, and she nods again, more firmly this time. “I want to try it.”
I can’t help the smile that spreads across my face. It’s such a tiny act of defiance, but that’s exactly what it is, and I was the original rebel, so I would know. Unless you count Lucifer, I guess, if you want to be all pedantic about it.
Azrael doesn’t smile back at me, but there’s a softness to her expression that feels like a win anyway.
“Brilliant!” I get up from my stool and go around into the kitchen to make Azrael her tea. She watches me for a moment before I beckon her over. Whilst I fill the kettle, I tell her to get a mug for herself, pointing out where to go. She ambles across to the right cupboard and spends an insane amount of time choosing one, which probably, to be fair, just means I have too many mugs.
Adam and Eve watch on wordlessly, giving in to my madness as they often do. When Azrael is sitting down next to me at the counter with a cup of tea in hand—she chose the one shaped like a duck; I approve—we all wait as she takes her first sip of tea. She keeps it in her mouth for a bit, properly tasting it, then swallows it down.
“So what do you think?” Adam asks her, looking at her with sincere interest, and I love him for it.
Azrael takes a handful of seconds to give us her verdict. She makes a humming sound with her lips still partially pressed to the mug’s rim, then says, simply, “I like it.”
I resist the urge to brush my arm against hers in some show of silent camaraderie, but Azrael beats me to it anyway, leaning into my side to press up against me from arm to hip to thigh. I should pull away, but I don’t. She feels warm, more so than I thought Angels were capable of. They’re usually such cold creatures, like ice sculptures trapped inside human skin.
After that first accomplishment of the day, things between the four of us ease up a bit. Eve makes a peace offering, getting out a tin of biscuits and pushing them towards Azrael, who in turn gives Eve another one of those intensely hostile scowls and keeps it up even when she picks out one of the chocolate digestives to take a big chomp out of. Another first-time experience although Azrael seems far less unsure about her opinion on this one. Apparently, biscuits most definitely fall into the “like” column. Big surprise there. She polishes off at least five before she finishes her cup of tea.
Adam and Eve still aren’t happy about this; I can tell by how many significant looks they keep shooting at me, but I’m happy to let it be until Michael and his bastards inevitably show up to ruin things.