I couldn't stay in my bedroom after that, not after seeing two angels die - one physically and one spiritually. I had to get out of there, out of the apartment. None of the others seemed to notice or care that I fled. With Nyx captured, there were bigger things to worry about in the universe than one distraught succubus.
I'd been driving in the car for about ten minutes before I realized where I was going. Dante's. Vincent's talk about the evil charm suddenly seemed unimportant. What I needed right now was to talk to someone about what I'd seen. Seth wouldn't entirely understand, and besides, matters still weren't fixed between us. Discussing serious things with the vampires was hard for me sometimes. I was still mad at Hugh. I wouldn't bother Erik since he was still recovering. Dante was all I had left.
He opened the door to his store after I banged on it for about five minutes. The messy hair and wrinkled clothing showed me that I'd woken him again. He looked annoyed, as usual, when I walked inside.
"Didn't it work? I told you - " He took a closer look at me. "What happened?"
I staggered to one of the chairs and collapsed into it, hands resting on the side of my forehead. I could have been a mirror of Yasmine. I opened my mouth to speak, to explain what had happened...but no words came out. He knelt beside me.
"Succubus. You're freaking me out here. What happened?"
I stared blankly at him for several seconds before finally focusing on his concerned face. "She fell."
"Huh? Nyx?"
"No...Yasmine."
"Who?"
My eyes went unfocused again as I remembered that black flame. The horrible sound. Blinking, I tried to shake it off and turn my attention to Dante. "She's an angel. Was an angel. Maybe she still is. I don't know. Fuck, I don't know. I don't know what she is."
He reached out and gripped my arms, shaking me slightly to get my attention again. "Look, you're losing me. I don't know how an angel falling ties into Nyx. If it ties into Nyx. You've gotta calm down and start from the beginning. Take a deep breath." I did. "Now another." I did. "Now talk."
I did.
It was hard at first, and I had a few false starts. Finally, however, I was able to back up and explain the cast of angels to Dante. The story slowly spilled from my lips, and I told him all about what had happened: Nyx's capture, Joel's death, and Yasmine's fall.
He kept his hands on my arms when I finished, and I later realized it was to steady me. I was shaking. Several quiet minutes passed as we sat there. He exhaled at last and shook his head.
"Fuck, succubus. That's a lot for one night. Even for you." He touched my chin with his hand and tilted my face up. "But you know angels fall. You know they still fall. All the time."
"But I've never seen it," I whispered. "In all this time...
I've never known anyone who was an angel and then became a demon. All the demons I know...well, they've always been demons. I never saw them when they were angels."
"First time for everything."
I met his eyes. "But I liked her."
I expected some comment like, "Bad things happen to good people." Instead, he just shook his head. "I'm sorry."
I swallowed back tears - I'd already cried enough tonight - and leaned forward, resting my head against his chest, just as I had the other night. He ran a hand down my hair and rocked me.
"What hope is there?" I asked. "If even angels fall, what hope is there for the rest of us?"
"There isn't," he said. "We're on our own. And we have to make the choices we think are best for our own survival. If your angel friend had been thinking like that, she wouldn't have fallen."
"But that's the thing...angels don't think about themselves, right? They're selfless."
"Maybe," he said doubtfully. "She let things get that far with the nephilim...that wasn't really selfless. Now they're both fucked, and we've got another member in the club."
"What club?"
"The club. Our club. The one for people who make one mistake and are punished forever because of it." He paused. "It's a pretty big club."
I gently pulled out of the embrace. "What did you do?"
"Hmm?"
"Your one mistake. Vincent found the charm...he said it was horrible. Black magic. He said you had to have done something really bad to make it."
Dante's eyes were sad as he regarded me. "You really want to know?"
I nodded.
"No. You don't. Right now, for the first time, you're talking to me like maybe I'm not the biggest asshole on earth. I tell you the truth...and you'll lose all respect for me."
"I won't. I'll respect you more."
He rolled his eyes. "People always say noble things in hypothetical situations. 'I'd never cheat on my spouse.' 'I'd return the million dollars that I found on the street.' It's bullshit."
"It's not," I argued. "I respect the truth."
"But you won't like it. Why do you think I didn't kiss you that day outside Erik's? I joke about wanting to sleep with you - hell, I do want to sleep with you - but if we'd done it, you'd have felt how little energy I really have."
"I buy the low energy thing, but I still want to know the story behind it."
His eyes narrowed in frustration. "Look, succubus. I don't even think I could tell the story if I wanted to. It's too hard."
His comment about kissing suddenly inspired me. "Can you show me?"
"What?"
I moved toward him. "Kiss me. I can hardly get any energy from you, but if you open yourself to the memory, I should be able to feel pieces of it."
I hoped that was true, at least. While my lovers' thoughts and feelings came through to me during sex, it wasn't exactly a system we could control. I couldn't summon up specific things. Usually what I felt was whatever the guy was thinking about just then. More often than not, it was amazement or perhaps a guilty conscience over the lover he was cheating on.
But maybe...maybe if Dante was specifically thinking of whatever he had done, it would come through. It was worth a shot. I leaned closer to him. He didn't move, so I went in all the way and kissed him.
Initially, it was just a kiss - all physical. Gradually, I started to get a bit of his life force - but it was just like he'd said. His soul was too dark. The life energy that flowed into me was barely a trickle. It was only a few drops, like a leaking faucet. Then...once I'd assessed the energy, I felt something else. I felt his soul - felt why it was so black, so devoid of the shining life most humans had. That blackness began pouring into me, that sickening and oozing evil...and there, behind it, was despair and anger and hopelessness and frustration. It was nauseating. Blackness and blood. I wanted to pull away, but I had to see what he was hiding.
The memory came through to me in disjointed images, but I was able to piece them together and form a narrative. I saw a sister. Older than him by ten years. She'd taken care of him throughout his childhood - both in a motherly way and as an instructor. She was a psychic too. She'd taught him how to harness his power, to tap the magic of the world that was unseen to most humans. She had been powerful, but he was even stronger. It hadn't been enough, though. He'd wanted more than to simply control his power - he'd wanted to enhance it. But as Hugh and Vincent had told me, few humans were born with the magnitude of power that he'd craved.
So, he'd taken it. Ripped it out.
From her.
I saw his face when he killed her, felt his pain as the dagger touched her throat. She was half-mother and half-sister to him, but he stole her life anyway. And with that act, his power had grown by magnitudes - both because he'd gained hers and because of the spell involved. The blood of the innocent always brings power, and the black magic intertwined in this death brought it in spades. It had left him feeling like a god.
And wishing he were dead.
He'd damned himself. He still loved the power, still loved wielding it...but after killing his sister, he'd hated himself. He'd withdrawn from the world, trying to bury his memories in drugs and alcohol, only occasionally using his powers for small, nickel-and-dime con jobs.
I broke the kiss, not wanting to see or feel anymore. If we went further, I'd probably see what he had to do to make the charm. It wouldn't be as bad as what he'd done to his sister, but I was through with all this. Wide-eyed, I scooted away from him on the floor.
"She was Erik's lover," I said softly. I'd had a brief glimpse of Tanya - that was her name - and Erik together. "She was the woman in the picture. That's why he hates you."
Dante nodded. "The three of us...we were going to do great things. We were all so fucking talented, you know?" He rested a hand on his head, eyes full of grief. "Unsurprisingly, Erik chose to end our friendship after this. He wanted to kill me...he should have. He really should have. But, well. He's not that kind of guy."
"No," I agreed, voice cold. "He's not." I stood up and backed away from Dante, who was still sitting on the floor.
He looked up and realized what I was doing. The miserable face turned angry. "Leaving so soon?"
"Yes."
"Well. Thanks for stopping by. And thanks for proving me right."
"About...?"
He threw his hands in the air. "This. I told you you'd hate me."
"I don't - " I stopped. I did hate him. I couldn't help it, not after seeing how much he and his sister had loved each other. Not after realizing how much this must have hurt Erik. "Dante...what you did..."
"Was a mistake. One I would take back if I could. One mistake to damn me forever. Just like your angel friend. Just like you."
"No," I said. "It's not the same. Yasmine fell because of love."
"She fell because of selfishness," he argued. "But I won't challenge that point. Tell me about you. Did you fall because of love?"
I didn't say anything. I'd fallen because of lust. I'd cheated on my husband because I was hurt and lonely and bored and...well, because I could.
Dante regarded me sharply. "You see? I get it. You fucked up too. I understand you - you're not going to find too many people who do. I bet your boyfriend doesn't."
"He accepts me."
"But does he understand? Have you ever told him in painstaking detail what you did?"
"No, but it doesn't matter."
Dante stood up and approached me. "It does matter! Being with him is a joke. It can't work. I'm not saying you have some great romantic future with me either, but at the very least, you should stick with people who know where you've come from."
"Right. Hanging out with you means I'd just drink and hate life."
"Your point?"
"Seth makes me hope for better things. Makes me want to be better."
"But there's no point!" exclaimed Dante. "Why don't you get that? Things can't change for you. Even your own fucking palms say so."
"No...Nyx said...Nyx said the dream could come true. The man in the dream - "
" - was her scamming you. You would have fallen for it, too, if your angel hadn't fallen first."
I clenched my teeth. "Her dreams are true. Seth and I - "
" - are going to get married? Run off into the sunset? Have babies? Succubus! Wake up!" Dante was shouting, his face inches from mine. "It can't happen. Not for you. Maybe it can for him - but not with you. Every day you spend with him just ensures his life is going to be as empty and meaningless as yours."
"That's not true!" I screamed. "We're happy. We're going to be happy together, and I don't care if you don't believe me.
I'm never going to see or speak to you again. I know why Erik hates you, and I hate you too." I kicked the door open. "You deserve to burn in Hell."
I left him, but I still couldn't make myself go home. With nothing else to do, I simply found a twenty-four-hour diner and drank coffee, pointedly ignoring anyone who talked to me. I watched the sun come up over the Olympic Mountains and finally went to work when the bookstore opened. I helped out with the last-minute Christmas rush, doing mindless and mechanical tasks. We were closing early that day, and everyone was finishing up their shopping. It was hectic and crazy, but it gave my zombie-like body something to do.
When we closed, it was nearly time for me to take Maddie to the airport. She needed a few more Christmas purchases herself and asked if I'd swing downtown with her. After witnessing the death of an angel, shopping seemed like the most trivial thing in the world. Still...I had nothing else to do, so I agreed. I probably would have agreed to anything.
Downtown Seattle was decked out in its Christmas finery, with lights and wreaths strung along the shopping nexus that centered around Fourth Avenue. At four in the afternoon, it was already dark outside. Rain pounded down on the pavement, the kind of torrential downpour most people believed we had year-round. Really, it only rained in the winter, and that was usually a drizzly type. This heavy stuff was a rare event, as though perhaps the heavens mourned Joel's passing.
Through a window, I watched the rain and pedestrians fighting with umbrellas while Maddie searched in Banana Republic for something for her sister. I'd half-heartedly looked for a present for Seth, but my motivation eventually faded, and anyway, there was no way to compete with the ring. I still wore it around my neck. It felt heavy today.
Along with my grief over what had happened to Yasmine, I still kept thinking about Nyx. In particular, I kept thinking about what she'd said to me. The man in the dream. Who was the man in the dream? The question consumed me, as futile as it was. I kept repeating Dante's words, trying to tell myself it didn't matter - that the whole thing had been a hoax. But that dark silhouette still haunted my mind's eye, and some part of me believed that if I knew his identity, then maybe it could all be real.
"Georgina?"
I turned from the rainy street and saw Vincent standing in front of me. Beyond him, a preoccupied Maddie flipped through a rack of cardigans. I'd thought he looked grief-stricken in my apartment, but that was nothing compared to what I saw now. His face was pinched and pale. His eyes were glassy and red, but whether from crying or lack of sleep, I couldn't say. Probably both.
He handed me my apartment key. "Just wanted to give this back."
I took it. "You didn't need to find me for that. You could have left it."
"Yeah." He stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked at the ground. "I guess I just...wanted to talk to someone."
"Have you, um, seen Yasmine?"
He shook his head. "Nope. I don't know what happened to her. I mean, I know...she's off somewhere in Hell. Maybe they have orientation or something. I don't know. Whatever it is, it must be awful. And it's my fault."
"It's not," I said automatically. "It was her choice."
"She did it for me, though."
"It doesn't matter why. The point is that she did it willingly. It isn't your place to question the decisions she makes."
As the words left my mouth, I had a total holy shit moment. I was saying exactly what everyone had been telling me about Seth. I was saying exactly what Seth himself had been telling me for so long.
"I guess. I don't know." He sighed. "It's so fucking stupid too. All these years, we've been so cautious to stay at arm's length, so she wouldn't fall. We were so good - holding back from what we wanted. And then, we get the same results from a stupid moment of confusion and passion. It just happened so fast, you know? I acted to protect her, she acted to protect me..." He trailed off and looked as though he might weep. I kind of felt like that myself. It's a pretty big club, Dante had said.
"But...if she's already fallen...well. Maybe you guys can be together now."
Vincent shook his head and gave me a small smile that made him look sadder than when he hadn't been smiling. "I don't know. I don't even know if she'll meet with me now. Something tells me she won't want me to see her like that."
"And how do you feel?"
"I love her unconditionally...or, well, at least...I loved Yasmine the angel unconditionally. She's not that woman anymore. I mean, she may hate what's happened...she may be miserable. But eventually, she'll settle in. They always do. And then she'll be one of them. She won't be the same Yasmine, and I don't know if I can love her or if she can love me. Part of what made her such a great person was that she resisted that temptation...and I think she felt the same about me."
I forgot Vincent for a moment as my attention turned inward, toward my own situation. Again, it was like Seth and me, I realized. The continual tension in our arrangement was a pain, yet the morals it was based on were part of what attracted us. He might have said he was okay with us not having sex, but I think some part of him loved me because of my continual refusal to give in to that. Likewise, I loved his stead-fastness - not only in abstaining from me but from other lovers as well. It was part of what had made the fight so shocking. I didn't expect him to be weak.
And yet...even if we admired each other for our principles, was it worth it? And had that really been weakness on his part? Vincent and Yasmine had been together much longer than Seth and I had, torturing themselves in the same way. In the end, it had done them no good. Things had unfolded as they had.
"Star-crossed love isn't as glamorous as it seems," Vincent said, perhaps guessing my thoughts.
"I never believed it was."
"Sometimes I think...well, maybe it would have been better if she and I had never been together at all. These years have been wonderful...but well, she'd still be the woman I loved if I'd never gotten involved."
I didn't know about that. Surely, brief moments of joy were worth the pain that might follow? Wasn't that why I was with Seth, despite knowing he'd eventually die? Maybe Seth had been right about taking chances. Life was short. Maybe you needed to seize what good you could. It was all so confusing, and all of a sudden, I wanted to talk to Seth about all of this - about living life and taking risks, about what made us love one another, and about what made our relationship worth fighting for. I didn't want to make the mistakes Yasmine and Vincent had. Seth and I needed to sit down with open minds and make this thing with us work.
"What are you going to do now?" I asked Vincent. I didn't think now was the best time to argue relationship philosophy with him.
He gestured vaguely behind him. "Leave town. Even being masked, I know they're looking for me. I need to hide out somewhere."
I nodded. I was sad to see him go, but I knew what the other angels and demons would do if they found him. So, I wished him well and shared a brief hug before he departed. As I watched him leave, I again pondered the cautionary tale he represented. Growing anxious, I hoped this airport trip would go quickly so that I could call Seth.
Wandering to the other side of the store, I found Maddie paying for her purchases.
"Who was that guy?" she asked me, handing over her credit card. "He was cute. Bedraggled...but cute."
"He's had a long day," I told her. And a long eternity to go. "He's just a friend."
"Is he single?"
I thought about it. "Yeah, I guess he is."
While I waited for her, I looked over at a nearby mirror. Maddie was still going strong with her new cute and stylish self. She'd gotten a haircut too, the layering of which made her face appear delicate and lovely. The slacks and sweater, though simple, looked sleek and elegant on her.
By contrast, I looked kind of like the ugly stepsister. Oh, I still had the nice figure and pretty face born of shape-shifting, but I'd thrown on jeans and an old coat, not really concerned with high fashion today. I also hadn't bothered to shape-shift my hair. I'd simply brushed it into a high ponytail. Most telling of all was my face. I wore as much grief as Vincent. There was a hollowness to my eyes that startled me. It counteracted all the other beauty of my features. Glancing back at Maddie, I realized she was the hot one today.
When we finally hit the road to the airport, traffic was as horrible as I'd expected. I-5 was at a standstill, and with my luck lately, there was probably an accident up ahead to compound the rush hour and holiday mess. Sighing, I settled back into my seat.
"Okay," I told Maddie, desperately needing distraction. "What's the report? What adventurous things have you done? I'm pretty sure you've more than met your quota."
"Well," she began. "There's the new clothes, of course. You've seen a lot of them, and I own more lingerie than I ever have in my life. I was always kind of afraid of it, but there's so much cute stuff out there, you know?"
"Yup. I sure do."
"I got a bunch of high heels too. I'm still kind of learning to walk in them, but I'm doing okay, I think." She groaned and looked like the snarky feminist writer she was. "I feel like...well, like a girl."
I smiled and looked at the cars ahead of me. All the variables were in place for an accident, so I had to be careful. In this kind of stop and go, people tended to cease paying attention and fall into a lull. That was how cars got rear-ended. It was also an oddity that Seattle drivers had trouble driving in the rain.
"You seemed fine in the heels to me. What else have you done? Other than shopping?"
"I signed up for a judo class."
"You did not."
"I so did," she said, laughing. "It was the craziest class I could think of. Besides, I can finally get back at Doug after all those years he used to pull my hair."
"Well-deserved," I said. I moved over to the farthest lane, with the futile hope that it might move a fraction faster. "Anything else?"
"Mmm...well. I started looking for my own place."
"That's a good idea."
"And checking out flights to some places I've always wanted to see."
"Another good idea."
"And I slept with Seth."
I nearly drove into the median.
"What?" I said, jerking the wheel back to my own lane. Maddie had her hands stretched out protectively. "Did you say Seth?"
"Yeah..."
"Seth Mortensen?"
She sounded incredulous. "Of course. Who else?"
It was one of those things that was so ludicrous, I couldn't even fully react. It was like saying, "Hey, did you notice the earth just exploded?" It wasn't real because all the rest of the data in your known world said it was impossible. My brain wasn't going to bother processing it yet. Wasted cells.
"How...I mean, what..." I shook my head. "Explain."
I could see by her face that she was dying to. This was what had been bursting in her in my office yesterday.
"Well, two nights ago, I ran back to the bookstore after closing because I'd left something. I saw Seth out in the parking lot. He'd been out somewhere and was coming back to get his car."
"Somewhere" was my apartment. That had been the night of the fight.
"Anyway," she continued. "He looked kind of down, and I remembered what you'd said about taking risks. Plus, he still owed me the date, right? So, I asked him out for a drink, and he said sure."
I tried not to drive into the median again. "He didn't drink, did he?"
"No, not alcohol. But we stayed out really late, and we had a great time. You can't even imagine how great he is to talk to. He comes across as shy, but once you get to know him..." She sighed happily. "He thinks like I do too...wants to do all sorts of things, go places...Anyway, the place finally closed, and he asked if I wanted to go hang out at his place for a while."
I couldn't even look at her now. "Seth...asked you back to his place?"
"Well, if we went back to mine, we'd have to hang out with Doug, and we just wanted to talk more. And we did...except, well, after a while...we stopped talking. And one thing kind of led to another." She exhaled, like she still couldn't believe it herself. "I never do things like that. Not so soon. But, well, he's a nice guy, you know? And I wanted to do something adventurous..."
No, no, no. This really wasn't happening. This was a dream. This was Nyx getting back at me for not helping her. She was sending me a nightmare, one I hoped I'd wake up from soon.
I didn't realize how long I'd been quiet until Maddie hesitantly asked, "Georgina? You still with me? You don't think...you don't think I was too easy, do you?" There was fear in her voice, fear of my disappointment and disapproval.
"Huh? No...no...of course not." I took a deep breath. "So, um, it was good?"
"Oh, yeah!" She gave a nervous giggle. "I can't believe I'm even talking about this. But, yeah, Seth's a great lover. He's really attentive."
"Yeah, I imagine he would be."
"God, I can't believe this happened."
That made two of us. "What's going to happen now? Was it...a fling?" After all, what else could it be? Seth was with me, right? I had no reason to be upset. I'd given him the go-ahead to get sex elsewhere. In fact...I had told him to that night. If he wanted to sleep with her, that was fine. But obviously, it meant nothing. It had to be a fling, right?
Right?
"I don't know," she admitted. "I hope not. I really like him...and it was so great. I feel like we really connected...like the auction hadn't just been because he felt sorry for me. He said he would call and we'd go out again sometime." Once more, she turned timid and unsure. "You don't think...you don't think he's the kind of guy who'd just say something like that and not mean it, do you?" She was the Maddie I'd known before, the one who looked up to me and wanted my guidance. The one who didn't trust men.
I stared ahead and decided maybe the heavens were weeping for me now. After several moments, I finally said, "No, Maddie. If he says he wants to go out, he means it. That's the kind of guy he is."