He pushed open the door silently and slipped inside. She was asleep, as she had been those first days
after hed brought her and he wouldnt leave her bedside. He could recognize her now. Her battered face was no longer swollen, the bruising faded to an ugly yellow. She was healing, slowly but surely.
She no longer had tubes connected to her body, though she looked very small and frail in the big white bed. It wasnt right. He thought of her as strong, powerful, not a vulnerable human.
She still had bandages around her arms and legs, and her torso looked swollen under the sheet, either from bandages or her injuries. He didnt want to wake her.
He sank down in the chair Allie had banished him from and watched her, contemplating her injuries. Allies gifts as a healer were extraordinary; such was always the case with the Source, and Rachel would be well very quickly, much faster than with normal human medicine. Raziel and Allie had decreed that she would stay. They hadnt taken her into account.
If hed learned one thing, it was that Rachel had a mind of her own. The problem was, she wouldnt be safe anywhere else. Uriel hadnt finished with her, and only the walls of Sheol could keep him out. At least for now. Uriel had spent millennia trying to figure out how to breach them, and hed only succeeded with the Nephilim a few years ago. Sooner or later he was going to come up with an answer, though, and there would be little they could do.
She stirred in her sleep, murmuring something, and he jerked his head up, holding his breath. She slipped back into sleep again, and he relaxed, glancing toward the monitors that kept track of her pulse and her blood pressureonly to see that they were spiking.
His eyes swiveled back to her, and she was looking at him with such complete terror that it shocked him.
Do not scream, he said, his voice soft so as not to alert anyone.
She was shaking, and he wanted to put his arms around her and pull her against him, soothing her. Except he was the one who was frightening her. I cant. It was barely more than a breath of sound in a raw, damaged voice, and he remembered that Uriel had said her voice had broken.
Im not going to hurt you, he said, starting to rise, but she shrank back, and he quickly sat down again so as not to spook her. I wanted to see how you are.
There was no missing the flash of contemptuous disbelief in her face. Why should you care? she whispered.
That was one question he couldnt answer. Allie is a very gifted healer. By now hed gotten used to praising Allie, though it still stuck in his craw just a tiny bit. She brought you back from the brink of death.
No thanks to you, she whispered. Hed forgotten she didnt remember hed saved her. It was hardly enough penance for allowing them to put her through such hell in the first place.
No thanks to me, he agreed. But I promise you, you have nothing to fear from me. Not ever again.
And you lie so well. Her voice was getting weaker, and he knew he was putting a strain on it.
I never lied to you. I am incapable of lying. It was the truth. Hed explained nothing, but he hadnt lied.
Get out of here. The words were barely audible, but there was no missing the hatred in them.
It was no more than hed expected. Not the fearthat had been a surprise. But the hatred and anger were normal. Hed betrayed her in every way a man can betray a woman, sent her off with torturers with his seed inside her. In truth, he was the monster.
No, he wasnt going to tell her hed changed his mind and gone after her. Too little, too late.
He rose, and stretched out one hand to touch her, wanting the feel of her to be absolutely certain, but she shrank away in such terror and revulsion that he pulled back, knocking against the chair as he went.
Dont come back, she whispered.
He closed the door silently behind him.
I STILL COULDNT CRY. GOD, if ever there was a time when I needed to weep, this was it. He was the monster, not me. How could anyone make love with someone and then hand her to her executioner? Not that it was making love. In fact, it was sex, hot and rough and primal, and Id wanted it just as much as he had. I couldnt remember muchmaybe Id even instigated it. I knew Id been waiting, longing for him to touch me again, kiss me again.
But I couldnt remember where wed been. There was water, and a door behind my back. It was night, but it seemed as if it was always night in the Dark City. Wasnt that what theyd called it?
Beloch had been nowhere to be seen. My memory was full of holeshed been kind, hadnt he? Almost fatherly, in his book-lined study with the comfortable smell of pipe tobacco. He couldnt have known that they were
I couldnt think about that. About the things theyd done to me. Id discovered I could refuse to allow certain things into my memory. There
were too many lifetimes, too many horrors to withstand, but I could choose to banish those I couldnt bear. I needed to banish the Truth Breakers, and the knives, and the cooing sound they made.
Gone. It was that easy. Just as Id banished the hundreds upon hundreds of years of lying down with monsters. It wasnt this body, and it was over. Gone as well.