Epilogue
THE NEXT THING DEZ KNOWS, she’s sitting in a wood-paneled booth at a restaurant facing the sea.
The moon is high, the stars are bright, the waves a swish of silver on the shore outside her window.
Her hands grip a steaming mug of coffee as she looks up, startled to find a stranger across the table from her.
He looks a few years older than her, wears a leather jacket over a white T-shirt, and has curly russet hair. He’s sketching something on a napkin, hardly seeming to notice her.
“How did I get here?” The words rush from her mouth. Only a moment ago she was with Rafe and Asher, trapped in an unholy ring of fire.
“Heaven must be running out of angels if you’re down here,” says the guy across from her.
“Who are you?” Dez demands.
“That line never works.” He shakes his head, dismayed.
What happened to Asher? Where is he? Where is she? How did they get separated when Dez swore she wouldn’t leave him? Was any of it real? From this distance, at this ordinary restaurant, wherever she is, what she remembers from the hiking trail seems impossible.
But then, looking down, she notices the smoke stains on her shirt. From the ring of fire Rafe ignited when he landed on the trail.
“You actually love him,” says the man with the russet hair. “This Asher person?”
“I … I …” Dez stammers. The man is looking at her strangely, with an intense curiosity, as if he truly wants the answer.
What does he know about Asher? She closes her eyes, waiting to feel ashamed for kissing Rafe with Asher dying by her side.
She takes a sip of coffee and swishes it around her mouth, trying to remove all traces of that kiss.
She thinks of what she said to Asher at the end, after his memories of her had been wiped clean. She couldn’t help telling him she loved him.
And then … that shocking final moment when he opened his eyes and said her name.
“He was dead—” Dez whispers.
“He was,” the man says, and laughs. “So, you told him the truth? Seems a little late to do it.”
Dez realizes the man is familiar. She’s seen him before. Not him exactly, but his portrait. Hanging on the Vault’s wall.
“You’re Samael.”
Without looking up from his sketch on the napkin, he nods.
A server buzzes by, holding a tray of platters piled high with fish and chips. Tourists walk in through the front door, wiping sand from the backs of their legs. The speaker in the corner’s playing Tom Petty’s “Learning to Fly.”
And Dez sits across the table from the angel who made the films for Adam and Eve.
“Angel of Death,” she says.
“Former Angel of Death,” he corrects her. “Present rejected lonely-boy, but I guess you don’t want to hear about that.” He looks out the window, pensive. “I’ve always been intrigued by love. You know, it’s forbidden to angels.”
“Love?” Dez asks. “Forbidden?” She’s never heard of this before. Is that why Rafe and Jet and all the other White Lights can’t keep their hands off human flesh? They want what they can’t have?
Is that why Samael quit?
“Do you know where Asher is?” she asks.
“I’m afraid I’m out of the loop,” Sam says. “But I imagine he’ll soon make his presence known.”
“Is he … alive?”
“Very much so,” Sam says. “You changed the game, Desdemona. Really flipped the script.”
“How did I do that?”
“By compelling Asher to kill death. Via love. Or the promise of it, anyway.”
“I was only trying to save his life.”
“Some beings simply have a larger capacity for love. You have great compassion, as your subjects have experienced in your films. But your mightiness comes from your gift for romantic love. It’s a combination I’ve never seen before.”
“I need to find Asher.”
Still drawing, Sam says, “I suspect he’s with the other side.”
“What other side?” Dez asks, impatient.
“The Angels of Life. Old friends … or old enemies of mine. After a while, it’s hard to tell the difference.”
“Asher’s with another sect of angels? How do I get to him?”
“You ascend.”
“I can’t. Even if I wanted to, which I don’t, there’s no way they’ll let me. Not after what I did.”
“All you have to do is make up with Rafe and—”
“No.”
“I get it, believe me, the guy can be a drag. I spent half the time I was with him trying not to punch him. But ascension is the only way you’ll ever see the one you claim to love again.”
“But if I become an angel,” Dez says, following his logic, “I won’t be able to love Asher anymore. Isn’t that right?”
Sam sips his coffee. “That’s a problem for the future.
And a rather selfish one at that. You don’t seem to appreciate the cosmic chaos you’ve unleashed.
A death-killer absconded by the Angels of Life …
I can’t think of anything more dangerous.
” Sam lets out a low whistle. “The White Lights are going to lose their shit.”
“The second I go back to Acheron, they’ll send me to Sheol—”
“They can’t afford to at this point. Acheron needs you too much. The whole White Lights system needs you. The great war is coming and you’re the odds-on MVP.”
“Samael, please help me—”
Samael pounds on the table and a gleam of the fearsome angel he once was rockets into Dez’s heart. All of a sudden, she’s terrified.
“Find Rafe,” he says in a low voice that’s grave as hell. “Kiss and make up. It’s the only way.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t ever want to see him again. I can’t imagine he wants to see me either.”
“Well, that can be hot sometimes,” Sam says, pulling out his wallet, dropping twenty dollars on the table. “It’s going to have to be. Believe it or not, Rafe’s your best ally at this point.”
Now Sam slides the napkin across the table toward Dez.
“Here’s my forwarding address,” he says, sliding out of the booth. “Drop me a line sometime and let me know how it’s going.”
“Wait,” Dez calls, but Sam doesn’t answer, doesn’t say goodbye, doesn’t even turn around. He pauses only to kiss the waitress, passionately on the lips, on his way out the door, leaving her flushed and stunned.
And then, the former Angel of Death is gone.
Dez picks up the napkin. Finds an address for a P.O. Box in Champaign-Urbana on one side. She flips it over and her breath catches in her throat.
On the other side of the napkin is a sketch of her she’s seen before. It looks precisely like the one Rafe gave her months ago, on the very first night they met.
The only difference is that this time, Dez has wings.