A Glow of Stars & Dusk by Eve L. Mitchell

I was sittingin a corner of a ruined castle, shivering. It had no roof, and the windows were mere open areas of stone, unlikely even to have had shutters, never mind glass. The wind howled overhead, and I watched the demon who stood silently, looking out to the North Sea.

Zel had indeed shut me up. I was gagged, and my hands were tied in front of me. My head rested against the stone as I watched him. The information plaque that was on the opposite wall told me that this was a former bedchamber of the Countess where she entertained her guests. According to the plaque, she also had a private entrance to the chapel, the chapel where the others were now in.

“You’re shivering is annoying,” he told me with a scowl.

Robbed of being able to snap at him, I simply glared. Zel crossed the stone floor and roughly ripped the gag from my mouth.

“It’s freezing.”

“I’ve been colder,” was his offhanded reply. When my teeth started chattering, he looked at me as if I was doing it on purpose. “Are you serious?”

“It’s October, I’m wearing two layers of clothes, you have me on a stone floor. I’m sorry if my dying of hypothermia annoys you.”

“You’re such a complete waste of my time,” Zel snarled as he shrugged off his jacket. He threw it at me, and I didn’t care about the speed with which I caught it and wrapped myself in it.

“Thanks,” I grumbled.

“Shut up.”

“Why do you hate me so much?” I asked quietly.

“I don’t hate you, I just don’t like you.” He leaned against the wall, his stare returning to the sea beyond us.

“Okay, well why do you dislike me?”

“You’re a witch.”

I waited and he said nothing else. “What?” I looked at him in growing disbelief. “You don’t like me because I’m a witch?” He shrugged in agreement. “You mean it isn’t even personal?”

Zel considered it. “You are irritating,” he mused.

“I can’t believe you.” I dropped my head onto my knees, as I huddled under his jacket. “So,” I asked after a long silence, “what’s your name?”

“Did you hit your head?”

“I mean your full name. Chazaquel, Penemue, Samyaza.” My breath hitched on his name. “What are you?”

“Azazel,” he said with a mock bow.

“Huh.” I squinted at him in the poor light. “Suits you.” Zel huffed in reply, but I thought I saw a slight smile. “And the others?”

“Amaros and Gadreel,” Sam answered as he walked into the room. He glanced at Zel before he looked at the jacket, and his eyebrow rose in question.

“Chattering teeth are irritating,” Zel told him.

“Chaz says a blood moon is in three nights,” Sam told him, ignoring me again. “He wants to wait.”

Zel glowered at me as if it were my fault there was going to be a lunar eclipse. “Three more nights?” His sigh of discontent was loud.

“Drama queen,” I said to him even as I snuggled into his jacket. When I got no response, I looked up and realised he was gone. Sam stood watching me. “What did I do now?”

“We’re making camp.”

I looked around the stone ruin. “Here?”

“There are caves below.”

“Caves?” I struggled to my feet, my bound hands making me clumsy. “In the cliffs?” He nodded, and I looked at him as if he were crazy. “The caves beside the North Sea?”

“Scared of getting wet?”

“Scared of drowning,” I answered waspishly.

“Why would we go into caves where we could drown?” His head tilted in question. “Smugglers’ caves are exactly that as they keep the goods dry.”

“Why can’t I go home and come back in two days?” I asked indignantly. “My home is warm and dry and not here.”

“A blood moon isn’t always powerful, sometimes the night before has the power, sometimes the night after. It can be temperamental.”

“Sounds like a demon I know.”

“Sounds like a witch I know.” His hooded stare met mine, and I felt the butterflies. That he could still cause the fluttering in my tummy confused me. He had flung me through the air. He had choked me. He had made Zel gag and bind me. I refused to be attracted to him.

“You threw me first,” he spoke into the night as he looked out over the sea, as Zel had. “You caused the first wound when you allowed another to touch you after I had given you—” He cut himself off.

“After you had given me a part of you,” I said quietly as I stepped up to the other window. I refused to say seed.

“No matter,” Sam said brusquely.

“This rage you have for me is all because of the other demon?” I asked him as I pulled on Zel’s jacket. “Even though you know that I made a mistake.”

“It’s no matter.” His voice was hard.

“He looks so much like you,” I whispered furiously. “Why aren’t you mad at him?”

“How do you know I am not?” Sam asked me carefully.

“Because you’re taking it all out on me!” I wailed. “He knew exactly what he was doing!”

“As did you,” Sam said coldly as he turned away from me.

“No!” I shouted, uncaring who could hear me. “He knew exactly who I was. How many times do I have to tell you this, I thought he was you.”

“You thought wrong.”

“I know,” I growled. “But when I called him Sam, he didn’t correct me. He did what he did even when I called him another’s name.”

Sam stopped and half turned back. He looked over his shoulder as he stilled. “You called him Sam?”

“Yes.”

“The entire time?”

“Yes.”

“Did he tell you his name?” Sam turned back to me.

“No, why don’t you ever hear me? This is what I keep telling you, and you won’t listen, I thought he was you.” My chest was heaving, and I was pretty sure I was out of breath.

Sam bowed his head and cursed in his Latin-that-wasn’t-Latin language. When he raised his head, the fiery demon from earlier looked back at me. His eyes glowed green in the darkness. The weird green hue from his eyes illuminated the old granite and was kind of amazing, albeit really, really scary. “It changes nothing.”

“Okay,” I whispered in despair.

“His name is Yeqon, and he will pay.”

Sam disappeared. He didn’t walk out of the room. He vanished. Zel came running into the room, followed by the others.

“What did you do?” Zel prowled towards me angrily.

I recounted my conversation hastily in case the angry demon decided to pick me up and throw me to the rocks below.

“Yeqon knew you thought he was Sam?” Ros asked with a frown. “Ah fuck, he’s going to get himself thrown in the pit.”

Chaz nodded in agreement. “Who stays with Star?”

“I will,” Pen answered, and my mouth dropped when the others all winked out of the room.

“They vanish?” I asked incredulously. “You vanish?”

“We call it travelling.”

“No.” I shook my head in denial. “I’ve travelled with Sam, I didn’t disappear like a goddamn magic bunny in a hat.”

“You have a thing against rabbits,” Pen said as he studied me. “It’s…strange.”

“Me not liking rabbits is not strange. It’s a preference. Me having an irrational fear of sharks is exactly that, an irrational fear. You being able to vanish in and out of…existence! That’s what’s the strange thing here.”

Pen grinned. “You’re funny.” He held his hand out to me. “Come, there are warmer places we can be.”

“My cottage?” I asked with hope as I took the demon’s hand.

“Unfortunately no, but I know a nice warm cave with your name all over it.”

We winked.

I had no other terminology for it. One minute, I was in the Countess’s bedroom, the next I was in a cave. I didn’t care. The cave had a roaring fire, and I almost fell over my feet in my haste to get closer. There was also food and blankets.

“This is how you get your clothes. I never know how you get things, but you do this,” I said to Pen as I held my hands out to the fire. “You wink.”

“Wink?” Pen chuckled lightly. “Travel.”

“Why don’t you do this when I’m with you, instead of carrying me or using my fuel and my van?”

“Sam didn’t want to spook you too much.” Pen sat down on a pile of blankets.

“And now he doesn’t care if I have a mental breakdown?” I asked quietly.

“It is hard for us, when we—”

“I swear if you say seed, I will punch you,” I cut Pen off with a glare.

“Do you punch yourself if you say it?” he asked me with amusement.

“Good point,” I conceded.

“What I was going to say, when we join with someone, we feel slightly possessive towards them. Sam was not yet finished with you when you decided you were finished with him.”

“Finished with me? Such a charmer.” I growled as I clenched my teeth. “I thought he was Sam.”

“Did you?” Pen considered me speculatively. “You don’t know Sam’s touch?”

“He’s only touched me once, and I had a lot of cider and whisky that night,” I confessed as I looked away. I thought about it, and I turned away from the fire. “His kiss was different,” I admitted softly. “At the time, I wasn’t thinking, but now, when I consider it, he was…rougher.” I rubbed my head tiredly. “His grip was painful, his fingers almost clumsy in their…ministrations.” I looked over at Pen. “Do you want more?” Pen nodded solemnly as he got up and handed me a prepacked sandwich. I opened it realising I was starving. I took a hearty bite and chewed thoughtfully. “It’s embarrassing.”

“I’m a demon, nothing embarrasses me.”

I laughed despite myself. “It’s not your embarrassment I was concerned about.”

“Keep talking,” Pen encouraged me.

“I’ve never had what he did to me done before.” I avoided looking at Pen, my face burning with humiliation. “My previous partners didn’t do that. I didn’t know it felt like that, I didn’t realise it could be sore.”

“Sore?” Pen looked confused. “What was he doing?”

“He bit…it.”

Pen’s startled laugh made me want to die, but he quickly sobered. A warm hand covered mine as he sat down beside me. “It’s not supposed to be sore,” he said softly. “It’s supposed to be nothing but pleasure. A little pain some may like, but overall, pleasure is the purpose.”

“I mean, I still reacted to the, well, you know. But after I left on Hound, I realised that Sam, he wouldn’t hurt me, he has never been anything but what I wanted.” I wrapped my arms around myself as I spoke to Pen. “Not before. After it happened, yeah, he now throws me through the air and stuff. I guess I understand his anger, but do I really deserve it? I’m not sure.”

“You were tricked,” Pen said firmly. “Yeqon can take on some features, he does look similar to Sam,” Pen conceded. “His hair is slightly longer, he’s not as tall or as broad, but you are slight, all of us are bigger than you.” He smiled gently.

“You think I should have been able to tell them apart though, despite your kindness, you think I should have known?”

“Yeqon does not have green eyes,” Pen said, and though he was being compassionate, I still heard the condemnation. “And they sure as shit don’t glow.”

“I never looked at his eyes,” I whispered. “After I had slept with Sam, the actual Sam, I felt shy.” I dropped my chin into my hand as I stared at the fire. “It was sort of intimate. When he was in the room, I was unsure how to react to him. I don’t sleep around; it’s not normal behaviour for me to sleep with a man.” I put my sandwich to the side, my appetite gone. “Then when Sam, no, Yee, the other one,” I floundered spectacularly, “he was so fixated on drying my hair, it was weird but nice. And so gentle for Sam, I didn’t look at him, in case it ruined the moment.” I gave a disgruntled laugh at my naivety. “Then he kissed me, briefly, and then he was on his knees…well, you don’t need a picture drawn.”

“He distracted you,” Pen mused. “He knew how Sam would react.” Pen stood. “He would know you were Sam’s, just as he knew that we would all scent another’s seed on your skin.”

I groaned long and loud. “Ugh, I cannot believe I have to ask this, but who did you think it was if you could all smell me and know it wasn’t Sam?”

Pen laughed. “We are able to change our see—essence,” Pen hurriedly corrected himself at my glower. “If we wish for others of our kind to stay away from a female, we can mark her, for want of a better word, so others know she, or he, is not to be touched. It has to be taken into the body for the mark to be effective. Yeqon was clever in that he made sure he spilled outside; it was enough to let us know you were with another, but not enough to identify who.”

“So when I was with Sam, he basically peed on me?” I asked, feeling slightly nauseous; there was something fundamentally wrong with these demons. Pen nodded, his eyes twinkling with humour at my terminology. “And scumbag of the century didn’t mark me, which is why Sam thought it was Chaz?”

“Yes, both Chaz and I were not at the cottage that morning. Our absence was an unfortunate coincidence. Or was it?” Pen looked thoughtful. “What is his goal?” he wondered aloud.

“Who is he?” I asked quietly.

“He was one of the main ringleaders for the rebellion,” Pen told me easily. “When we were cast out for wanting the same as humans, Yeqon was the one to encourage us to not only watch but enjoy the fruits earth gave us.”

“That sounds like the old worldly way of saying he told you to get down and dirty with the locals,” I mocked.

“Pretty much. Once we tasted the formerly forbidden fruit, we gorged.” Pen’s voice was thick with self-loathing. “We committed other sins, we taught the humans things only angels should know.”

“Like what?”

“I taught them the art of writing, Chaz the way to read the clouds, our brother the courses of the moon, another the signs of the sun, another taught them to read the stars. My brothers taught them weapons, how to make shields, knives, how to fight using them, how to deliver a killing blow.” Pen sighed. “And in doing so, we taught them how to break the commandments, heard of ‘thou shalt not kill’?” Pen asked, and I nodded. “We gave them the weapons, and we taught them the act of war.”

“Wow, and here was me thinking you were going to tell me that you told them what God looked like.”

Pen laughed loudly. “You are funny.” He smiled at me almost with fondness.

“So how many people are actually part angel?” I asked casually.

Pen lost his smile. “There are none.”

“At all?” I asked in shock. “All that gorging on the fruit, and no little cherubs?”

Pen snorted at my terminology. “When we first fell, we did not know the consequences of our actions.”

“No more wings?”

“Ha.” Pen gave me an amused look. “Children born of a human and an angel, even one that has fallen, are called Nephilim.”

“I know the term,” I told him.

“Modern day interpretation casts the Nephilim as powerful half breeds.” Pen frowned. “The Nephilim are monsters. Giants. They destroy everything, destruction is all they know, they sought to destroy this earth, and we fell to be part of humanity, not its destruction.”

“So you killed your children?” I asked, slightly horrified. Zel was so adamant he didn’t harm children, was this why?

“No, our Father sent the rain.”

“Sent the rain?” I looked at him, and then I was on my feet. “Are you fucking kidding me?” I screeched. “Noah? And the Ark and the flood! Are you talking about the rain for forty days and forty nights?”

“It was needed.”

“You’ve been here since the first book of the Bible?”

“I look good for my age, no?” Pen winked at me. He had no idea I was freaking out.

“You’re older than old,” I protested loudly. “You’re not even Twilight old, you’re millennia old.”

“Age is relative.”

I shook my head. “No, Pen, it really isn’t. You’re ancient.” I stared at him in wonder. “Holy shit, I think my brain just broke.”

“You accept we are demons with no issue, but I tell you we have walked this earth since it’s conception, and you freak out.”

I sank down on a pile of blankets. “Pen, I’m twenty-five years old…almost.” My head was reeling. “You’re a hundred million trillion billion years older.”

“Slight exaggeration.” Pen picked up my discarded sandwich and ate it. “You really do overreact in an extraordinary way.” He drank some water from the bottle he had given me. “It’s almost theatrical.”

“I think I may be sick,” I whispered.

“Why?”

“Because my brain is rejecting what you are telling me, at the same time as my body is rejecting what has touched it,” I told him savagely.

“Star, it changes nothing.”

“I think it does.” I stared around the cave. “Pen…I’m not doing well with this.”

“Hmm, I noticed.” He leaned against the cave wall and closed his eyes.

“Are you going to sleep?” I demanded.

“Yip.”

“What am I going to do?”

“I recommend sleeping,” Pen deadpanned.

I paced the cave for a good hour. No one else came back, and my train of thought took a detour from the ancient fallen angels I was surrounded by to the fact that I wasn’t currently surrounded by fallen angels. I had to call them demons. Every time I thought “angel,” my brain immediately drew horns on Zel. Somehow, knowing they were demons didn’t freak me out. Pen was right, I accepted their demon-ness? Was that a word? Regardless, I accepted them as demons. I had no issue making out with Sam the demon. Sam the angel? My brain farted in fear.

Eventually I lay down beside the fire and pulled blankets over me. I was still cold. I was in a cave, and although it was dry, I could hear the wind and smell the sea. I was never going to sleep in this cave.