Fallen. I’ve never before had to track one after they’ve made contact with the muse. As well, this world, and your need for me, is new.”
“My need for you?” she said on a nervous, chuckly tone. “Please. I don’t need any man.”
Quite a unique woman, then. What had become of the subservient, faithful and devoted women who answered to their husbands and cared for the children?
“Can you fend off the Fallen when next he shows?” he countered.
“I …” Divertí ng her eyes from his face, she looked away and sighed. She stepped inside the home, leaving him to follow, which he did. “Maybe I don’t want to fight him off. Maybe I want to talk to him. It’s not every day a girl gets to meet an angel.”
She may think she was strong, but he sensed her lacking confidence. Yet the tiny bit of gumption she did possess intrigued him. She had thought to defend herself with that little blade against a man twice her size and possessed of supernatural abilities.
Everything about her was different from the women he had known so long ago.
Ashur had been in fine palaces of marble and stone. This one was similarly luxurious, though on a smaller scale. The decorations were elaborate and resembled flowers and curved leaves. The style pleased him. Lights on the walls were not torches, but contained within fine glass. Remark able.
He must not question the changes in the world since he’d been Beneath. To do so would surely drive him mad. So he would simply accept them. Easy enough when he had greater things with which to concern himself.
Six opened a steel container lighted inside and which boasted an array of vegetables. The food storage box, he guessed. She took out a clear container and offered one to him, which he accepted. He watched her twist off the cover and drink from it.
Ashur tried it. Water in a bottle. Convenient.
“I know a thing or two about angels,” she said. And then as a challenge, she offered, “Does that disturb you?”
Ashur strolled through the room he labeled the galley and into a vast room with plush divans and chairs. Huge ferns and small decorative trees in pots gushed from every corner. The walls were floor-to-ceiling windows. The view of the city was remarkable, and he walked up to scan the buildings and tiny spots of people below.
“No,” he replied. Because whatever she thought she knew was wrong.
“Then you’re the first who is not troubled by it,” she said, joining him. “I’ve been dreaming about angels all my life.”
He turned to find her gazing out the window, a small smile curving her lips.
“I’ve been waiting for something like this to happen,” she said. “To finally have proof. To know that what I know is not delusional.”
Ashur sighed. Though he’d no protocol on how to interact with the muse, he did not think lying or avoiding the situation wisest. She needed to know the facts—which were undoubtedly far from her idea of the truth.
“Proof? Is that so?”
“Yes,” she said on a wondrous hush.
“Well, let me tell you about the Fallen. They once walked the earth, yet were removed many millennia ago, during Noah’s flood. Recently, though, Fallen ones have been conjured by ceremonial magic. Others are investigating who is behind the conjuring. That is not my concern. So now Fallen walk the earth, their mission renewed as they seek their muse.”
“I’ve read the book of Enoch. It’s about the angels called the Watchers, or Grigori, falling.”
“Was that book chosen to be included in the Bible? I’ve not been around since Constantine’s time.”
Fascination brightened her eyes. Ashur wondered briefly if they had color.
“No,” she answered, “that book was suppressed in the middle ages, and ruled fantasy. Pseudepigraphal. You’ve been alive that long?”
“Yes. But back to the Fallen. And you. You wear the sigil he seeks.”
“Seriously?” She stroked the skin near the mark on her forearm. “Numbers? What wiseass thought that one up?”
“Yours is the first number I’ve seen. They are symbols unique to the angelic dominions. It is a good means to locating a match.”
“And I’m that angel dude’s match?”
“You are a muse. Whether or not you are a match is something I do not know.”
“Well, if I’m not a match.”
“If the Fallen has already claimed his match, he can then seek other muses.”
“A muse. I thought muses were gorgeous women who inspired artists, and all that.”
“You inspire the Fallen to seek you.”
She leaned in the archway between the two rooms, tall and slender. The thin fabric shirt did little to conceal the gorgeous curves beneath. Curves Ashur assumed would feel exquisite to touch.
Touch? It teased at his memory. Her hand against his chest, clinging as they rode through the city. There was that want again.
And yet the desire was accompanied by a twinge across his back. Flesh-stripping ghosts of violence. A violence so dark and rending it had brought him, the Stealer of Souls, to his knees.
Inspecting the gash above her eyebrow with a finger, Six winced. That was enough to distract Ashur from his fall into wicked memory.
“I can heal that for you,” he offered.
“Really?”
He approached her, holding out his hand in offering. Surprisingly lacking in concern, she nodded and he placed it above her eye, not touching the flesh. The intense wave of her body heat pulsed against his palm. Mortal warmth. Another experience he had forgotten. An experience he’d had tortured out of him. Now he used that connection and focused his own inner healing salve to emanate outward. Within moments the cut healed.
She smoothed a finger over her brow. “Wow. You actually did it. And when you took the blade from me, and it flew through the air … You have powers. What are you?”
As new as the world was to him, he did know to keep some things to his chest. “If it is important to label me, then you may call me angel slayer.”
She lifted a beautifully arched brow. Ashur turned toward the view again. He should not waste time admiring her beauty.
“A slayer. Of angels?” She exhaled, and her breath touched Ashur’s black heart. He suppressed a shiver. “That’s sort of sad.”
He tilted a curious look to her. No, her breath hadn’t touched his heart. That organ was hard and black and impervious to everything.
“I mean, well, first reaction is it’s sad,” she said, unaware of his struggles. “But like I said, I know about angels. They’re not all fluffy and full of grace. The fallen ones are downright evil. I suppose someone has to take care of the bad ones.”
“The Fallen are lacking in grace and compassion. It’s dangerous to have a soulless angel walking the earth,” he said. “They have little concern for their actions, and are focused only on finding their muse. I am surprised you say you wish to speak to one.”
“That might have been my excitement talking. He really wants to find me? What for?”
“Now that the Fallen one has been conjured, it resumes its original intention upon falling. I am not familiar with how many millennia have passed since the original fall. Then, two hundred angels fell to earth to mate with human females.”
“I’m familiar with that story.”
“It seeks its muse.”
“That’s the part I’m not familiar with.”