“I see. So what about God? How does he or she or it fit into all of this?” she asked.
“The energy that created the planet was powerful enough to also create the force you know as God. However, it has been called many various names over the years and many different Gods and Goddesses. When Heaven went last, that force broke away with it and forged the angels from the image of what man was becoming.
“Over time, the planes became a symbiotic network of different species. Some of us are more different from others, but for the most part, demons and angels are all men and women. The angels all look very similar to each other too, though the fallen ones changed upon plummeting to Earth and entering Hell. They became more demonic in appearance than their cloud-hopping counterparts.”
She started to laugh then winced when the movement jarred her ribs. Taking hold of her hand, I squeezed it within mine. I’d tried not to harm her during our sparring sessions, but I had done this to her, and I would have given anything to take her pain away from her. I wouldn’t be able to take it easy on her when she was healed either. In battle, no demon would take it easy on her, and she must learn how to kill in order to survive.
“How do you know the fallen angels changed?” she asked.
“Legends passed down through the generations.”
“What do the angels who are still in Heaven look like?”
“Like humans, they’re all different colors and races. They have their feathery wings and glowing auras. Disappointingly, there is no halo.”
“That is disappointing,” she agreed. “What else do you know about them?”
“Like us, they’re exceptionally powerful, but some of their abilities are different than ours.” I held up my hand to fend off her next barrage of questions. “No, I can’t tell you what they can do.”
I also wasn’t going to tell her thatallnon-fallen angels had one distinctive feature in common.
Her face fell, and her mouth twisted to the side as she stared thoughtfully at me. “Can you tell me everything you’re capable of?”
“Maybe one day, but not today.”
She started to sigh but broke off on a hiss. She waved me away when I rose and reached for her. “I’m fine.”
My hands fisted impotently as I sat in the chair again.
“Do Heaven and Hell fight each other?” she asked.
“No. We have no contact with each other, and until they tossed out their garbage, we had no problem with the flying saints. Now, I’d happily pluck the feathers from their wings before cutting their heads off. They may not have known what would happen when they threw those angels from Heaven, but we’re the ones who have had to deal with the consequences of their actions.”
“That sucks,” she mumbled.
I hated the pallor of her skin and the shadows beneath her striking eyes.Mortal. The reminder caused my claws to lengthen slightly as they dug into the palms of my hands. I felt the almost overwhelming need to make her immortal…
Then what? Stay with her? That was not my way. That was not the demon way unless it was with their Chosen, and she could not be mine. There had only been two varcolacs in history who had found their Chosen. They had been some of the first leaders, before Lucifer entered Hell, and it had taken both of them tens of thousands of years to discover their Chosen. I did not expect to find mine.
“How old are you?” she inquired.
“Far older than you. I am fifteen hundred and sixty-two years.”
Her eyes widened as she gawked at me. “Holy shit that’s old!”
I couldn’t help but smile as I ran my finger over her brow again. “I suppose, to a human, it is.”
“To anyone it is.” I wondered if her eyes might actually pop out of her head as she watched me. A smile tugged at my lips as her eyes ran over me again. “Amazing.”
“And how old are you?” I inquired.
“I turned twenty-two on March eleventh.”
So young, and yet there was such an aura of wisdom and age about her, of knowing things one her age should never know, at least not on this plane. I’d been far younger than her, barely free of the fires, when I’d waged my first battle and killed my first of Lucifer’s followers.
“For someone so old, you’ve really adapted to our world,” she said.
“We’ve made ourselves fit into your world so you humans won’t fear us as much, and so our species can aide each other. These clothes aren’t our way of dressing; your culture isn’t our culture. Your languages are not our languages.”
