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“They’re going to call the police,” I say as we drive out of Heidelberg on the first leg of our journey.
“I’m having the room cleaned. Don’t worry about it. Those rooms are all externally soundproofed, and my team will leave the place pristine.”
“It’s that easy for you to kill someone?”
“He came for you, Elise,” Cosmos says. “I’ll kill anybody who lays a hand on you. Fleisch need to understand that you are not an easy target. You’re mine, for eternity.”
He’s so absolutely serious. I wonder how a man like him can make such a complete and total commitment within hours of meeting me. It’s not because he loves me. He can’t. He doesn’t even know me. He is dedicated to me for the same reason those other maniacs are trying to kill me. It’s all about this angel blood.
I find myself a little jealous of this nebulous nonsense. If Cosmos wasn’t clearly a homicidal maniac with extremist radical tendencies, he’d be my type. Hot is my type. Sexy is my type. And I think crazy might be my type too.
“So,” I say, humoring him, which seems like a bright thing to do. “Tell me about this angel blood — and why anyone would think I have it.”
“Short version…” He flexes his hands on the steering wheel. They’re both bandaged across the knuckles, because of all the punching he was doing. “Angels used to mate with people regularly. Angel blood lies in several human bloodlines to this day. People with it find themselves with powers, sometimes.”
I ignore the part about powers because that’s clearly mad.
“So you’re referring to something genetic.”
“No. It’s not in the DNA.”
“But DNA is the only way we pass information from one generation to the next.”
“It’s not the only way. There are plenty of demons passed through familial lines. Why not angelic influence as well?”
I don’t know if I agree with that premise. I sit, silent and disapproving.
He sighs. “You’ve seen the men trying to kill you.”
“Yes. I believe there are madmen ready to kill for the slightest reason. That doesn’t make this angel blood thing any more real.”
Cosmos shrugs and falls silent. He can’t produce evidence because there isn’t any evidence. There’s just wild speculation and bald belief. I sit back, feeling slightly more in control than I did before. There’s something just so very satisfying about telling someone how very wrong they are about something or other.
“We need breakfast,” he says. “I’m going to pull into one of the rest stops off the autobahn once we get on it.”
He’s a little more serious and subdued now. I wonder if it is the sting of my logic or the repeated killings of the day. It’s so strange, I always thought I’d be more hysterical if I saw something like that. But when it’s really happening it just sort of doesn’t feel real. A human body turns into a general mixture of slushy parts surprisingly quickly under the blade of a skilled killer.
A yawn creeps up on me. I’m tired. I was woken up very early. All this madness unfolded before nine in the morning, and frankly, I don’t think I can keep up with it. As we drive into the well risen sun, I close my eyes and take a little nap.
Cosmos
She’s cute when she’s asleep. It’s only when she’s speaking that she’s an obnoxious little brat who deserves to be spanked long and hard. Turning her over my knee in the hotel room was very satisfying.
She’s probably afraid of me. She saw what I did to the second attacker, the harsh and terrible lesson I taught him for the sin of touching her and defying me. Our marriage might not mean much to Elise yet, but it means everything to me.
Fleisch did their research well enough that I feel as though I know her. I know that she is alone in the world. She was raised by a single mother, who is now hospitalized in Maryland. Elise has been living and working in Germany for the past three years. Half her wages go toward paying for her mother’s care home, and the other half to her meager living expenses. Her apartment was not well appointed, and she doesn’t own much in the way of fancy clothing or possessions. She’s been looking after her mother since she was a teenager.
She does not know who her father is, but Fleisch did. I know because she was fathered by one of the more prolific angels who kept a record of all women he mated. Her mother’s name was on his list, a document unearthed by Fleisch and used to find the hapless descendants of what now seem to be careless unions.
Elise’s entire worldview is based on the notion that there’s nothing other than the basic mundane. That is all she has ever experienced. The basic, and the mundane. She’s never touched the transcendental. And she’s never experienced anybody caring for her. That means there are two challenges I have to overcome with my bride. Yes, I have technically only known her for a matter of hours, but unlike Elise, I do have faith. That faith is part of a series of sensitivities that make me an excellent fighter and an even better lover. I knew the moment I laid eyes on her that she was mine. It was a certainty I felt at the very core of me. She can’t feel that knowing. She will have to fall in love slowly and probably painfully. The sadist in me will enjoy that, and the masochist in her will flower awake.
