“So if I stayed, I’d be just like you and Jax and the other brothers?”
“Not just like us, no. You’d go with us on takedowns, and you’d be Mephisto, but you’d still be Anabo, which means you’d never lose Heaven. You’d also have children, someday, and they’d be born like you, a mix of Mephisto and Anabo. They’d grow up and join the fight.”
Again she was quiet. Jax watched the sky finally open up and snow, the flakes falling large and thick, laying a fresh layer on the old, draping everything in pristine white. He wondered if he’d throw up. He felt sick enough. Why wasn’t she saying anything?
“Only two?” she asked.
“Only two.”
“And the other was Jane. She was yours.”
It took a moment for Phoenix to respond. “Yes. You have no idea how great a threat Eryx is to you, Sasha. That’s why we need a fake painting to give him. He wants the numbers and won’t rest unless he gets them. We decided to give them to him, but we couldn’t give him the real painting because, with God’s hand touching Jax, and Lucifer touching you, the picture depicts the Mephisto Covenant. Eryx doesn’t know that we can be redeemed by an Anabo. As it stands, he’s satisfied with trying to take those who we find, to prevent them from bearing our children. If he knew we could be redeemed, he’d have Skia and lost souls across the globe actively searching for Anabo and killing them on sight.”
“But there are only two. You said so.”
“Only two that we know of. There could be more.”
“Why aren’t you hunting for others?”
“We don’t have the manpower that Eryx has. There’re six of us and one hundred twenty-two Luminas, and all our time is taken up hunting Skia and lost souls. Eryx has thousands who follow him that we haven’t discovered yet. We’re limited to accidentally stumbling across an Anabo, like Jax did when he popped into that warehouse in San Francisco.”
“Doesn’t it frustrate you, knowing there may be more, but not knowing where, or who?”
“Frustration doesn’t begin to cover it, but M says we need to be patient, that we’re going to be here forever, and we’ll eventually all have a mate, but we’re not made for patience. We’re sons of Hell.”
“What does that mean, really? Jax tells me all the time that he’s got a dark side, but I never see it. I don’t understand.”
“You wouldn’t because you’re Anabo.”
“I still want to know.”
Jax could hear Phoenix begin to pace.
“The dark side is just what it sounds like. It’s despair, and the rage that goes with it. There’s an unfairness to our existence, justice that’s never served. We didn’t ask to be born this way, without any hope of Heaven or knowledge of God. We know about him, of course, but we were born without his even being aware. He can’t hear us, can’t help us, offers no solace. All humans, whether they realize it or not, are connected to God, and that makes all the difference.”
He paced some more, and Jax waited for the worst part.
“The rage sometimes takes over, and bad things happen.
We’ve killed men who weren’t lost souls. We’re punished for it, but we still do it. We fight a lot, with each other and with complete strangers and with men who piss us off. We have anonymous sex because we’re eternally eighteen-year-old guys, but mostly because it’s the only way we can ever feel close to a female.”
“How do you do that if they run away screaming?”
“We’re masters at disguising what we are. We find willing partners in dark places, like nightclubs. Back in the day, we visited taverns and back alleys. We’re prone to jealousy and hate. We aren’t above blackmail to get what we want, and we’ve stolen a few things over the years. The key here is that we don’t feel remorse. The only thing that keeps us from twisting off completely is the dim hope of finding an Anabo. God said we would find love and earn Heaven if we didn’t actively earn Hell. So we try to stay on the straight and narrow, but as I said, we’re sons of Hell, and sometimes the rage gets to be too much.”
Silence fell, but Jax couldn’t make himself turn around to look at her. He couldn’t stand to see the look of disgust on her face.
“Why did your father do it? If he knew being with an Anabo was forbidden, why did he seduce her?”
Phoenix replied in a low, quiet voice, “He was lonely. Mephistopheles is the dark angel of death, so when someone dies and his spirit’s bound for Hell, M or one of his thousands of assistants escorts him. Mephistopheles is feared and despised almost as much as Lucifer, but Elektra wasn’t afraid, and she didn’t hate him. When he finally crossed the line and broke the rule, she didn’t say no. He fell for her, hard.”
“It must have killed him when she was murdered, and by their own son.”
“He never got over it. He suffers the guilt of her death, as well as guilt over fathering a son who’s the worst evil the world will ever know.”
“So all this, because a man was lonely.”
“Loneliness is a terrible place to live. We became immortal over a thousand years ago. We have each other, and M, and the Luminas, and the Purgatories. We have our work. We have everything we need or want, can travel anywhere in the world at the speed of light, have amazing powers, and some of us are even mildly talented. You should hear Zee play the piano, or watch Jax play basketball. What we don’t have is a companion. Everyone wants someone, and maybe we’re all from Hell, but when it comes to girls, we’re as human as any guy out there.”
Jax heard his brother stop pacing. “I hope you’ll stay with us. I want it for Jax because he’s my brother, and I want it for all of us on the mountain because we need your help, but as much as anything, I want it for you. This is what you were born to do, and if you don’t stay, it’ll be as if you never really came to life.”
In the silence that followed, Jax knew he’d disappeared.
Sasha moved to stand next to him and look out at the snow. “What he told me … it’s almost like a Greek tragedy, or an old Bible story.”
He moved to stand just behind her, sliding his arms around her and resting his chin against her silky hair. “Why did you call me, Sasha? Was it just so I’d bring you to see the painting?”
She didn’t answer right away. He heard the clock on the mantel tick away almost a minute before she whispered, “No.”
“Why did you call me?”
Turning in his arms, she looked up into his eyes. “I’ve never felt like that before, completely alone, like I had no one, not even my mother. All I could think about was you, that I wanted you. I was so sad, and scared, and I felt like my whole life was a lie.” She slid her arms around his waist and tilted her head back to look up at him. “I don’t understand why, or how, but ever since I met you, the only time I feel right is when I’m with you. When I’m not, I feel nervous, kind of jumpy, and not exactly sad but not myself. Out of sorts.”
“I’m sorry, Sasha. It’ll go away as soon as I’m gone and you can forget about me. We’re pretty sure the meeting is next week, so once Bruno is out of the picture, we’ll take the lost souls and that’ll be it. I should be gone from your life completely by Christmas Eve.”
He expected her to say she was glad.
Instead, she burst into tears.
Tightening his arms, he wanted to make her stop, wanted to fix whatever was making her so miserable. But he was totally lost, had no idea why she was crying into his neck like this. How could he fix the problem if he didn’t know what it was? He asked, twice, but she only cried harder. She was so despondent, so sad, he started to get choked up, and it freaked him out.
That was the only explanation he had for why he blew off his resolution not to kiss her again.
He lifted his hands to her head and turned her face up to his, intending to give her a nice, easy little kiss, to offer comfort. Maybe he even had a subconscious motive to surprise her into not crying. He had to do something, because this was killing him. Lowering his head, he barely brushed his lips across hers, tasting
the salt of her tears. While he was still being amazed that anything could be this soft, he felt that same liberating sense of calm he remembered from when he’d kissed her before. Eryx, the Skia, Hell on Earth, the crazy jealousy he felt for every guy who looked at her, the rage he harbored against her family— even, ironically, his unrelieved lust for her—all seemed so much less overpowering.
With a shuddering sigh, she melted against him and kissed him back. He dropped his hands to her shoulders, then lower, across the bumps and ridges of her sweater, exploring the way her slender body curved from the span of her waist to the flare of her hips. It wasn’t as if he’d never touched a girl before, but this wasn’t just a girl—this was Sasha, and he wasn’t in a hurry.
His nice, simple, comforting kiss turned into something else when he felt her hands slip beneath his shirt and glide across the bare skin of his back. She subtly turned her head one way, he instinctively moved the other, and without conscious decision, he wasn’t just tasting her tears. Their tongues touched, and she made a funny little sound, low in her throat.
After that, he couldn’t be sure how it happened, but she wasn’t crying anymore and he wasn’t thinking. At all. His hands were underneath her sweater, touching every inch of her warm, smooth skin; they were kissing like two condemned people suddenly given a reprieve; and his feeling of calm morphed into happiness so intense, he’d swear his blood was singing.
She broke the kiss but didn’t move, blinking up at him, her eyes so blue, he decided there was nothing on Earth as beautiful. “I’m sorry I’m such a crybaby,” she whispered.
“It’s okay.” He feathered little kisses across her forehead. “I just hate for you to be so sad. I want to make it better, make you happy.”
“As much as I’m sad for me, I’m sad for you.”
“Why? Are you feeling guilty for not wanting to stay? Because you shouldn’t. This isn’t about me. If you change your mind and stay because you feel sorry for me, it won’t work. It has to be what you want.”
“I’m sad that you didn’t have a choice, that your mother died, that your whole life you’ve been something people are afraid of.”
“Don’t pity me. Ever. I like it better when you think I’m repulsive.”
She looked surprised. “Feeling sad for you isn’t pity, just like grieving for the person I thought I was isn’t the same as feeling sorry for myself. Sometimes, things are just really, really sad, and it makes me cry.”
“What do you mean, the person you thought you were?”
Laying her head against his shoulder, she pressed her cheek to his chest and tightened her arms around his middle. “My real mother, the one who actually gave birth to me, didn’t leave me in that old house. I think someone who isn’t an ordinary human left me there, with that painting, knowing a woman with a big heart and no chance for babies would find me and keep me until I was old enough to understand who I am.”
“None of that changes anything, Sasha. Your mother still loves you, is probably missing you awful, right this minute. And maybe you’ve learned things most regular people will never know, but you’re still the same girl you were before that Ravens meeting. You still have a choice.”
Lifting her head, she stared up at him. “Someone, maybe God, maybe Lucifer, maybe a rogue band of angels, went to a lot of trouble to leave me in that old house. I was supposed to be found by you and your brothers.”
“So? Everyone bears the weight of someone else’s expectations, but at the end of the day, they still have free will. They always have a choice. Maybe you don’t know it, but I also have choices. I want you, Sasha, more than you can begin to imagine, but even if you were willing to stay, even if you wanted to stay, I’d still have the choice to say yes or no.”
“Would you say no?”
Pulling away from her, he stepped back and ran a hand through his hair, all the reasons he wasn’t supposed to kiss her flooding back into his mind. “It’d kill me, but I might.”
“Why? Is it because you don’t really like me? I’m the only Anabo you’ve ever found, but that doesn’t mean you have to like me.”
“Oh, I like you, Sasha. I like everything about you, except maybe for that crying thing. I think we’d like being together for the next gazillion years. I’d love nothing more than to wake up and see your beautiful face every morning, and go to sleep with you right there next to me every night.” He reached out to smooth her hair, tucking it behind her ears. “But turning you to Mephisto means changing you so you know rage and hate, and I honestly don’t know if I could go through with it. I can’t stand the idea of your feeling like I do.”
Her eyes were wide with surprise, and something else. Maybe disbelief. “If I become immortal, do I have to be Mephisto?”
“You can’t do what we do if you’re only Anabo, Sasha. Anabo is a state of being that feels compassion for every living thing, and that includes the lost souls. You can’t capture a man and send him to Hell on Earth if you feel any compassion for him.”
“But I don’t feel compassion. I don’t feel anything toward Brett and Melanie and Mr. Bruno except anger, so when I think about them being gone, I’m relieved.”
“That’s because you’re already changing, which freaks me out like you wouldn’t believe. I see your anger toward them, like yesterday with Scott, and today with Mr. Hoolihan in biology. Your instincts kicked in and you challenged him, which is just a precursor to what comes next.”
Turning away from her, he walked around the room. “If you had the ability to pick him up and take him around the world to the entrance to Hell on Earth, you’d have to fight yourself not to do it, to wait until everything was ready, until you had a plan for his fake death, until M had provided a doppelgänger. It would frustrate the hell out of you to wait, and in the meantime, you’d feel so much anger, you’d practically choke on it. You’d see how others don’t know, how unsuspecting they are, and vulnerable. You’d watch those innocent kids follow Mr. Bruno, and more than it would make you sad, it would piss you off. You’d want to take him, immediately, and at the same time, you’d be frustrated with the humans. You’d have no compassion, just like me. You’d experience rage and violence. I can’t stand the thought of doing that to you.”
“Even though you want me to stay?”
“It makes no sense, but that’s how I feel.”
“Why am I the only one to change? What about you?”
He stood in front of the TV screen with Phoenix’s game paused and stared at the exploding demons. “If I love you without prejudice, unselfishly, I’ll have the same chance of redemption as any other human. Not a free pass, like you’ve got right now, but a chance. I don’t know for sure, but I think that would make me different.”
“Do you have to love me for me to stay, or can I become Mephisto even if you don’t?”
“I don’t have to love you, no, but if you choose Mephisto, you’re stuck with me and no one else. You could become a Lumina, if you wanted, and stay here to help, but not do what I do. Maybe you’d like that. You could work on the mountain for the rest of eternity and maybe find a nice Lumina who doesn’t live and breathe violence and rage.”
She was quiet for a long time before she said, “That’s only a theoretical possibility, right?”
He sighed and shoved his hands into the pockets of his trench coat while he turned to face her. “Yeah, pretty much. I’d want to kill anyone who touched you, even if he was a Lumina, and killing an angel would buy me a one-way, instant ticket to Hell.”
She pushed away from the desk and walked across the rug to where he stood, standing so close he could feel her breathe. “See, here’s the thing. I wouldn’t want a Lumina to touch me. I don’t want anyone else to touch me. There’s just you, Jax. And what confuses me is wondering if I’d feel this way even if I wasn’t changing to Mephisto.”
“The changes are all about getting your body and mind ready to take on Eryx. Whatever you feel about me—good or bad—is all you. But no worries. After next
Thursday, Lucifer will change you back to how you were before, and I’ll be gone, so you’ll forget about me.”
Her eyes welled with tears again.
“Oh, God, please don’t cry. What did I say? Why aren’t you glad about that? It’s what you want. You said so, over and over.”
“Jax, you’re such a … such a … guy.” Turning, she walked away, around the room, staring at the floor, talking as she moved. “I don’t want to forget you. I want to be how I was before, but I don’t want to never see you again.”
“I want to stand on holy ground and not catch on fire. I want to take all your clothes off and carry you to that bed over there. We all want things we can’t have, Sasha. It’s one of the most painful parts of growing up, the realization that we can’t always have what we want.”
She stopped at the end of the bed to stare at him. “Phoenix slept with her, didn’t he?”
The train they were on just took a detour, and he tried to follow. “What?”
“When Phoenix met Jane, he seduced her, just like your father seduced Elektra. Why haven’t you seduced me?”
“Because you’d be marked, and Lucifer can’t change that. You’d have no choice but to stay here until you die. Otherwise, Eryx would kill you before the next sunset.”
“But you could have what you want. I’d stay, and maybe you’d love me and could stand on holy ground. You could’ve had all you want, if you’d had sex with me before I knew too much. It’s not like I would have for sure said no. So I ask again, why haven’t you seduced me?”
“I can’t interfere with free will. I’d be taking the choice away from you.”
“So Elektra knew what she was getting into when she didn’t say no, and Jane was totally up on what it meant to sleep with Phoenix. Is that what you’re saying?”
“I don’t know, Sasha. I wasn’t there when they didn’t say no.”
She glanced over her shoulder at the bed, then looked at him with the strangest expression on her face. “If I said I’d climb in that bed with you, right here, right now, would you do it?”