For a moment thoughts left Beelzebub's mind, and he could not feel the cold water, or the sunlight in his eyes, or smell the salt. All he could feel was Bat El's body pressed against his, supple and soft, and all he could smell was her hair; it smelled like flowers despite the war, fire, and seawater she had been through.
God, that feels good.
She trembled against him—from fear or excitement, he did not know—and he stroked her hair. He knew without having to be told that this was her first kiss.
If Zarel finds out, she'll kill the angel and try to kill me too,
he thought. He banished her from his mind.
To hell with that.
All he cared about now was Bat El, her scented hair, her arms around him, her body pressed against him.
"I shouldn't have done that," Bat El whispered, but she leaned her head against his shoulder and kept her arms around him. "You... you used to be my sister's lover. It's wrong."
"Horribly wrong," he whispered, and kissed her again, and kissed her until they trembled in the cold water and their fingertips wrinkled up. They swam to the beach, walked along the sand, and were silent for long moments.
Michael might have won one sister to his side,
Beelzebub thought as he kissed Bat El in the sand, reaching under her tunic to feel her skin raise goose bumps under his fingers.
But I have won the other.
* * * * *
Laila stood in the burned battlefields of Caesarea, head lowered, her cloak wrapped around her. Strands of her black hair peeked from her hood, fluttering in the cold wind. Ash roiled in the skies above her, black and red, and swirled around her boots. Smashed columns and walls littered the landscape, scattered fires burning between them, and the bones of demons and angels peeked from the ruins.
Volkfair stood beside her, and Laila put her hand on his back, running her claws gently through his fur. Patting her wolf could always soothe her, ease the pain that forever burned through her veins. Since the hive collapsed above her, her bruises and cuts had healed, but fire still burned in her, the pain of her angel and demon blood warring, sizzling.
My body is healed, but there can be no healing for this torn heart.
The wind was cold, and she wrapped her wings around her. She looked at the sky and saw vultures circling below the burning ash, occasionally swooping down to pick at a demon body. The battle for Caesarea had ended, and Heaven had claimed the city, but her war was far from over, Laila knew. Her Uzi hung over her back, a familiar weight.
I won't rest until Hell is mine. That's the only way I can find a home, find a place to belong, find some peace, some end to pain.
She caressed the grenades that hung on her belt.
I ran from you last time, Beelzebub, but we'll meet again soon.
"Laila," came a voice behind her, and she turned to see Michael walking toward her, dust coating his sandaled feet. He stared at her, eyes hard. More dust filled those angelic curls of his.
"Hello, Michael," she said softly, staring at him from within her hood.
"I hear you are healed, that you've been flying, hunting, running with your wolf." He stood before her among the ruins, ash on his cheeks. "I'm glad you're getting stronger. If you are fully healed, I have more work for you."
She glared at him. He could always kindle the anger within her. "I work for no one. Remember, angel?" Volkfair growled by her.
Michael put a hand on her shoulder. She tried to shrug him off, but he kept his hand there. "You have rested here long enough, Laila," he said. "There are more enemies for you to fight. Angor was just the beginning." He turned to walk away, still talking, not turning to see if she followed. "We're heading north. We have a fortress to recapture."
Laila shook her head. "Forget the fort. Beelzebub won't let you have it." She smiled crookedly and pulled back her hood, her halo bursting into flame. "You want the fort back? You want Bat El? We'll grab his church, and we'll grab his wife. Then we make a swap. Come, Michael. We go to Jerusalem."
* * * * *
Beelzebub lay in bed, unable to sleep. No matter how much he tossed and turned, he was uncomfortable. His blanket was hot, yet whenever he kicked it off, he felt cold and pulled it back on, only to feel hot again. Memories of Bat El kept floating through his mind—the way her wet body had pressed against him, the taste of her kiss, the blue of her eyes. How could one sleep this way? Finally Beelzebub stepped out of bed and lit a candle.
In the flickering light, he surveyed the chamber he had chosen for his bedroom in this fort. It must have been Michael's bedroom once; the bed was wider than a simple soldier's cot, and a heavy desk stood in the corner, topped with bristly papers and pens. His brother never lived anywhere without a desk, Beelzebub knew.
No paintings hung on the walls. No photos stood in frames on the bedside table. Beelzebub sighed, suddenly feeling sorry for his older brother. Michael lived for this war, nothing more; he never got married, never raised a family.
Why not?
Beelzebub wondered. In the old days, Michael had known his share of women, Beelzebub remembered—both angel and human. In the old days, before the rebellion, they used to sneak down to Earth, Michael and him, Gabriel too, and make love to mortal women. When had his brother become so austere, so... dedicated?
At the thought of women and lovemaking, Beelzebub found his blood heating, and the image of Bat El filled his mind. At the memory of her soft lips on his, her wet body in his hands, his pulse quickened. He sighed.
I'll get no sleep if she doesn't leave my mind.
Beelzebub left his chamber, carrying the candle, and wandered through the fort. A thousand years old this fort was, crumbling and dank. The angels had tried to reconstruct as much of the ruin as possible, but they could not hide the age and decay of this place. Knights had built this fort during the Crusades, a foothold in the Holy Land; what would they say now, if they saw the devil wandering its halls? The thought tickled him.
Should he visit Bat El's chamber? Would she welcome him? She had been quiet on the walk home from the beach, and had refused to look at him, as if embarrassed that she had kissed him, that she had allowed him to touch her. When she did meet his eyes, just briefly as she stepped back into her chamber, they had said,
I made a mistake.
Still, Beelzebub found that his feet led him past the fort's chambers, across its hall, and toward the tower where Bat El slept. She still hated him, he knew. She would still escape in a heartbeat if given the chance.
But a part of her is mine, and will remain mine.
Beelzebub had known enough women to recognize the first glimmers of love. Laila, Bat El's younger sister, had been the same.
Without meaning to, Beelzebub found himself walking up the tower toward Bat El's chamber. If he could kiss those lips once more... lie in bed with her, teach her all the mysteries of love making.... To lie with Bat El in bed would make Earth almost bearable, he thought. He would sleep like a baby, if he could sleep beside her. It had been many years since a girl stirred his blood like Bat El.
There's just something irresistible about taking this innocent, virginal angel and showing her all the pleasures of Hell.
A smile spreading across his face, Beelzebub reached Bat El's door, unlocked it, and stepped in.
Once inside, his smile vanished.
The window was open. The chamber was empty.
Chapter Nine
"How do you even know Zarel is still at the church?" Michael asked Laila as they flew toward Jerusalem, thousands of angels flapping wings behind them. "She could have joined Beelzebub in the fort."
Laila smiled as they flew over dunes, burned hills, and ruined towns. The Holy Land was small; she could see half the country from here under the clouds, from Caesarea behind to the hills of Jerusalem ahead.
Such a small land,
she thought,
yet for thousands of years humans fought over it, and now we creatures of Heaven and Hell destroyed the planet in our own war to claim it.
"I saw the Demon Queen," Laila responded. Her bat wings made deep, thudding sounds while Michael's swan wings sounded like grace and light. "She's not Beelzebub's type. He'll have left her behind to guard his church."
"That's conjecture," Michael said, his spear and armor glinting in the dawn. "Not knowledge."
"I
know
," Laila said, snarling. "I know Beelzebub like few others do. I almost married him, remember?"
She looked behind her at their troops. All of Heavenfire flew there, Heaven's fabled Fifth Division, bearing banners of flames on white fields. They flew in two brigades—Orion and Barracuda, five thousand angels each. Heavenfire was an old division, Laila knew, formed thousands of years ago, trained for nothing more than killing demons. Here were Heaven's elite troops.
Back in Caesarea, they had left Heaven's Sixth and Seventh Divisions to keep the city.
Would it be enough?
Laila wondered. Between the fort, Caesarea, their trenches in Jerusalem, and their other towns across the Holy Land, Heaven was spreading its forces thin. Most angels had perished during the past twenty-seven years of war, and angels were born far fewer, and grew far slower, than demons.
We'll have to defeat Hell soon.
As they flew, Jerusalem growing larger ahead, Laila thought of Bat El. They had not heard from the young angel since Beelzebub took the fort, but Laila doubted that Beelzebub would harm such a lofty bargaining chip. Bat El was Gabriel's daughter, worth far more alive than dead.
That, and, well....
If Zarel was not Beelzebub's type, Bat El was everything he loved in a woman, Laila knew. The angel was young, frightened, inexperienced, and not hard on the eyes.
Like myself when I first met Beelzebub.
The fallen angel loved the role of the mentor, the father figure, the wise and handsome ruler who could provide protection and knowledge. He had seduced Laila with his little game; at seventeen, confused and frightened, she had fallen for it. Bat El—callow, scared, in peril—might find the same comfort in Beelzebub's arms.
Lucifer was mean and frightening,
Laila thought.
Beelzebub is charming and sweet—a far better devil.
Laila did not know what disgusted her more; the thought of her former lover with another woman, or the idea of her innocent, angelic sister in bed with the devil. Neither was a pretty concept, and Laila tightened her lips and fists, forcing herself to think only of the battle ahead. That was what mattered now, only this war, and certainly not whatever love still lingered within her for Beelzebub.
Think only of claiming Hell's throne, Laila,
she told herself.
That is your destiny now. Hell will be your home, and you'll never more have to run or hide. Beelzebub is no longer your lover, Laila. He is an enemy, and regardless of how you might still feel for him, you will have to kill him.
"You think you're strong enough to capture Zarel?" Michael asked, and for once, true concern filled his eyes. Laila hated when she saw love and pity in him; she found the stern, cynical Michael moderately less grating.
"Maybe not," she confessed, wings churning wisps of cloud. "But she's the only demon we could swap for Bat El. And as annoying, sanctimonious, and prissy as my sister might be, I kind of, well... love the girl." She growled at Michael. "Don't tell her I said that."
Michael smiled thinly. "Not a word."
Jerusalem was below them, pale in the morning light. The ruins spread across the hills, a hodgepodge of tumbled stones, rusty cars, skeletons, columns of fire, and endless weeds. Laila descried Beelzebub's church atop a hill, swarming with demons. The streets around the church rustled with more shades.
"You attack from above," she said to Michael. "Take Barracuda Brigade and drop on the church from the sky. I'll lead Orion from the streets."
Michael shook his head. "We shouldn't split up. The plan was we all descend from above. Together."
"I'm changing the plan," Laila said. "We attack from two fronts." She slammed a magazine into her Uzi. "We'll confuse them a little. Meet you in the church. Last one there is a rotten demon egg."
Michael sighed and issued a few commands, and soon the force of angels split in half. Michael led Barracuda's five thousand angels toward the church, to drop from the skies onto the demons. It would be a hard battle for Barracuda, she knew; thousands of demons fluttered over the church, waiting for them. Yet Laila knew that her own brigade faced a tougher battle; they would have to duke it out in the streets, an uphill battle toward the church.
Uzi in hand, she led Orion—another five thousand angels—toward the Jewish Quarter. They landed in a large cobbled square. This was still Heaven's neighborhood, but just ahead, behind the Mount of Olives and the Temple Mount, lay the dominion of Hell. There rose Hell's church where Zarel waited.
"We proceed on foot," she said to the angels. She folded her wings against her back and checked her arsenal: her trusty Uzi, loaded with a full magazine; seven more magazines strapped across her chest; six grenades on her belt; her claws and fangs. Would it be enough? Remembering the last duel with Zarel, Laila regretted not having brought a Hydrogen bomb or two; perhaps that was the only weapon that would break Zarel's scales.
Last time we fought, I gave her a bloody lip,
Laila told herself.
She's not invincible She
can
be harmed.
Laila preferred to forget that just that bloody lip took several magazines and grenades. She wished Volkfair were with her. She missed him. Remembering how Volkfair was wounded in the last duel with Zarel, Laila had left the wolf behind, though it tore at her heart. She hated being apart from her best friend.
It must be how Nathaniel feels without his wings.
The wingless angel, as if summoned by her thoughts, stepped toward her. The dour lieutenant, commander of one of Orion's platoons, stared at her with his good eye. A patch covered his other eye, and stubble covered his face.