Ange du Mal Read online

  “Shannon,” he groaned. He scooped me up into his arms and pressed my back against a tree. He sucked at my earlobe, then nipped it.

  I froze. “What the hell am I doing! You’re like a vampire.”

  He paused. “I’m nothing like a leech.”

  “What are you going to do next, bite me?”

  “If you’d like.”

  I shifted. “I was joking. God, I should slap you. You don’t give up, do you?”

  He placed a kiss on my collarbone. “When it comes to you, no.” He set me down. “You’ll freeze out here. Let me walk you back to your dorm.”

  I blushed. “Only if you want.”

  Gog and Magog flew after us. He offered me his hand, but I didn’t take it.

  “So,” I said. “Nice weather, eh?”

  He slowed. “You’re embarrassed.”

  My breath fogged from the chill. “No. I just wasn’t expecting… that. To feel like that. You’re pretty gross usually.”

  His gaze pinned me like a butterfly to a board. “Like what?”

  I was dictionary definition of flustered. “Do I really have to explain?”

  His smile was crooked. “Indulge me.”

  “That’s the last thing I’m going to do - feed your already ginormous ego.”

  We arrived at Trothman Hall.

  He grinned. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I tucked my hands into his borrowed coat pockets. “Maybe.”

  He walked back to his car. I was left standing in the snow, wondering what had just transpired.

  The porch door opened. Rosanna exited, two mugs in hand. “There you are. I was looking for you – I made us hot cocoa.” She scrutinized me. “You look funny.”

  I looked at the crows circling above. “Maybe that’s because my life is a joke.”

  Chapter 14

  The weekend passed in a flurry of studying for finals. I texted Samael to tell him I couldn’t meet over the next few weeks, canceling our training sessions. I partially cancelled due to school stress, but mostly cancelled because he was a creep.

  He texted me before my last final:

  “THINKING OF YOU, MAGGOT. HOW ARE YOUR STUDIES?”

  “Oh god,” I said. I fumbled with my phone: “Good. I have my biology final in an hour. I’m nervous.”

  “I’M SURE YOU WILL SLAY THE EXAM. IS THIS YOUR LAST ONE?”

  “Yep. And I don’t know if exams are meant to be slain.”

  “IT’S A FIGURE OF SPEECH. I WANT TO SEE YOU. I AM COMING TO VISIT TONIGHT.”

  “No you’re not.”

  “PLEASE?”

  I contemplated seeing the skeleton I’d locked lips with. “Umm…” I said to myself. “I guess?”

  “GOOD. MEET ME BY THE LAKE AT 7:00.”

  I turned my phone off. “Whatever you say, Corpseboy.”

  My biology final was difficult, but I exited the exam room feeling I’d done well, even though I’d probably lost a few points on my photosynthesis reaction diagram. Stupid fricking chloroplasts. Rosanna, Divya, and I got a celebratory lunch at the Golden Dragon. I tried their legendary beef and broccoli.

  “What are you doing over winter break?” Divya said between sips of sweet and sour soup.

  I shrugged. “Just hanging around D.C. with my grandparents in Georgetown like usual. What about you guys?”

  Divya smiled. “I’m going to Delhi to visit relatives. My cousin’s getting married.”

  “That sounds like fun.” Rosanna mixed rice with her General Tsao’s chicken. “I’m going to spend time with my aunts. They’re all uber-Catholic and are probably going to try to exorcise me. At least my cousins will be there. We’re gonna hit up a few clubs.” Rosanna poked me. “Make sure Mo texts me, Shannon.”

  “Oh god,” I said. “You guys are together now?”

  Rosanna shook her head, grinning. “Not really. Remember? I have flings. He’s just for fun.”

  “I don’t want to think of my brother that way. Why can’t you go for another Goth?”

  Rosanna laughed. “Maybe I’ll meet one.”

  I walked through wintry woods to the lake around 7:00. Samael was balancing his scythe on his nose.

  “Impressive,” I said.

  He glanced at me, and the scythe toppled to the ground. “Shannon?” He ran a hand through his hair. “How are you?”

  I reached into my bag and handed him his jacket. “Fine. Here’s your coat. What do you want? Are we closing another hellmouth?”

  He took his trench coat and looked at it dumbfounded. “But I gave this to you...”

  “I don’t want it. It’s too big. And it smells like coffee and cigarettes.”

  “Coffee’s a good smell.”

  “Yeah, but you sweat caffeine. And secondhand smoke causes cancer.”

  Somehow, he stuffed the coat into the pocket of his Grim Reaper robe. “No, there aren’t any hellmouths - the angels haven’t made any advances into Pandemonium. We’re in a stalemate, and they’re too concerned with tracking the Watchers.”

  I tucked my hands into my jean pockets. “Why did you want to meet, then?”

  He bit his bottom lip. “I thought we could watch a… a… movie?”

  “You watch movies? Aren’t you too busy overseeing Hell?”

  He looked offended. “Eternity is a long time. I like to fill that void with entertainment.”

  “Um, okay, sure.” Anxiety stung my nerves. “What movie is it?”

  “Harold and Maude. Cat Stevens wrote the soundtrack.”

  “Dude, I love Cat Stevens.”

  He smiled slightly.

  I found myself munching popcorn on a couch in Samael’s estate, seated next to Death incarnate. He reached into the bowl on my lap and popped a few kernels into his mouth, engrossed in the movie.

  “I can see why you like this,” I said. “It’s about death. Harold sure likes suicide.”

  Samael shook his head. “No, it’s about Maude’s joie de vivre. It’s a celebration of life.” He took the bowl from my lap and put it on the table in front of us, then slid his hand into mine. “Did you like it?”

  I took my hand from his grasp and shifted away. “Sort of.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I – I don’t know about this whole holding hands thing. It might trigger my vomit reflex.”

  His face darkened. He didn’t say anything.

  “I need to think about this. About you.” I played with a pillow. “I mean, technically, this is what screwed you over in the first place – Original Sin. Like, I mean, you’re attractive for someone with the complexion of a piece of paper, but whenever I touch you, I know I’m really touching Skeletor.”

  “I have better fashion sense than Skeletor.” Samael folded his hands in his lap. “Original Sin was more complicated than that. A third of heaven didn’t fall because I loved Eve.”

  I looked at our reflection in the blank TV screen. “Then how did you fall?”

  Samael sighed. “I was Heaven’s mercenary. Angels are tools, nothing more. Our hands are stained in blood, and Heaven’s foundation is a lie.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Samael smoothed his robe. “My Father told us we were the only ones, that He was the single God, and I believed Him. This was before Earth existed. The cosmos were still being formed, carved up among different deities. The ideas of mortals existed, but they were prototypes. Whatever original spark that had fueled the gods’ existences was running out, and each pantheon was looking for a new source of power. Thus, mortals were made.”

  I remembered Divya’s words. “So we are your experiments?”

  “I guess. You’re our children. The gods’ legacy, meant to populate the cold void of space.” He paused. “But maybe we’re your creations – time flows differently in the otherworlds. Perhaps we fancy ourselves your creators, when all we are are your ideas, sprung from grains of dream-sand.”

  My head hurt. “I hated physics in high school, and I hate metaphysics even more.”


  Samael snorted. “Fair enough. Whatever happened, no one can tell how many angels dance on the head of a pin, and not even I can say when it went wrong. Perhaps it was when I strayed past Heaven’s gates and saw the vast abyss Father told us to never venture across. I wanted to shine the Lapis Exillis into that darkness, to shoot like a star through space with the morning star at my brow.”

  Oh no, crap, he was monologing!

  Samael took a breath, then continued: “But I flew too far, and I saw what lay beyond. The vast cosmos beyond Father’s Creation, where his Word did not reach. There was Asgard, Olympus, Avalon, the aboriginal Dreaming. I grew angry, for Father had kept me caged. I confronted Him. And He cast me out. I followed the Milky Way, and I traveled to other realms. But I missed home. So I returned, tucked my head under my wing, and repented. I kept my lips shut about what I had seen and let my brothers live in Father’s beautiful lie, until it was too much to bear. So I took my brothers to the abyss, shone my light into it, and revealed what I had seen.”

  I felt like an audience chained to a theater. Had Samael practiced this speech in the mirror?

  Samael balled his hands into fists. “My Father was beatific when we confronted Him. He illuminated His throne room, and He said-” Samael took a sharp breath. “He said we were just children, that we didn’t understand. How could we understand? The gods were His playthings, things He’d created to train us. ‘For what?’ I asked. I doubted what I had seen. He put His hand on my shoulder and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. ‘Oh my beautiful child,’ He said. ‘You and your brothers must grow. These toys are false spirits. They are here to teach you what you are.’”

  I drew back. “Well, that sounds psychotic.”

  Samael looked sick. “And so He taught us. To slaughter. We razed legions to the ground, killed innocents, and waged war on other pantheons, all the time thinking it some game.” Samael shook. “I – I thought it was a lesson. And I was good at it. It was just like chess.” He looked out the window with a haunted face. “But the doubt was still in my heart, and it multiplied with the pleasure of killing. I saw what I was: a vessel of Father’s wrath.”

  “Sounds like child abuse,” I said, wishing to high heaven he would shut up.

  No such luck. Samael gave a laugh like meat through a grinder. “My brothers and I conspired. While we were plotting, Father was experimenting, dreaming up new ways to increase His power. He created humans to worship Him. First came Lilith and Adam. Then, when Lilith failed, Eve. Father set Michael over Adam as his guardian angel, and I became Eve’s. We were supposed to teach humans what we knew, to discover their potential. I was fond of Eve, too fond, and Father saw that. He made me bow to Adam and acknowledge his place above me. That was the final straw. I refused to bow to him, as did a third of my brothers, and so Father cast us out. We rebelled against our exile and waged an eon long war, but it failed, and Eve was lost to the sands of time. Which brings us to today.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know what to say. That’s like soap opera material. But not like General Hospital good. More like a telenovela.”

  He sunk into the couch and stared up at the ceiling. “Say what you think.”

  “Okay,” I said. “That was a very long-winded, sucky story. You need to learn how to summarize things. Also, God sounds mad.”

  Samael closed his eyes. “It’s hard to tell if He’s insane or incredibly shrewd.”

  I look at his shadowed lashes. “Why do Michael and Gabriel still believe Him?”

  Samael shrugged. “Because there’s a chance He’s right: the other gods don’t know where they came from. No one does. Maybe my Father did create them. Why has His Word prevailed over other pantheons? Why has His cult lasted thousands of years and dominated Earth? Judaism, Islam, Christianity – they’re all just different masks He wears. Whether He goes by Adonai, Yahweh, or Allah, my Father is still foremost amongst immortals, the most powerful. Maybe He was the first one, like He said.”

  I looked out the window at the failing light. “I hope not.”

  Chapter 15

  I took the train back to northern Virginia the next day with Mo, suitcase in tow. I stared at the passing farmland, thinking of Samael’s story. Mo flipped through a thriller, unable to focus on a single page.

  “Shannikins,” he said, elbowing me.

  I took out my ear buds. “What?”

  He closed his book. “How’s Rosanna?”

  “Why don’t you ask her yourself? You have her number.”

  Mo bit his lip. “I hate texting her.”

  I paused my music. “Why? What could she possibly do to you with emojis?”

  Mo sighed. “It’s just, I don’t know what to say. She’s into all these things I don’t know about, all these bands I’ve never heard of. And she’s so good at guitar. The only instrument I can play is the kazoo.”

  I laughed. “You’re even horrible at that. God, remember when we had to play the recorder in elementary school? You sucked.”

  Mo frowned. “I have good memories about that recorder. Especially ‘Hot Cross Buns.’ Don’t ruin them.”

  I snorted.

  “What about you?” Mo asked. “What happened to Baxter? He’s still got a crush on you.”

  “Oh god, not him. It was like dating a steak– all muscle, no brains. Kinda like dating you.”

  I glanced at the time on my phone. We had an hour to go.

  Mo whistled. “Harsh, so harsh. I’ll let you know I had a straight C average this semester.”

  “I’m so proud of you.”

  Mo smiled. “I know you are.” Mo took a sip from his water bottle. “So you really haven’t dated any other guys?”

  I remembered Samael’s kiss. “No.”

  Mo narrowed his eyes. “I can tell when you’re lying. Your right eye twitches. Spit it out: who is he?”

  I tapped my fingers on the armrest. “No one you’d know. And we’re barely dating. Barely.”

  “Oh, so he was just a hookup?”

  “No! The guy is a loser. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Mo chuckled. “So how many crusty parties do you think gramps and gram will drag us to?”

  I was glad for the change of subject. I thought of my grandfather, a former senator and political advisor, and the elaborate parties my grandmother threw for his inner circle. “Too many.”

  “There better be a shrimp bar again,” Mo said. “And we better be allowed to drink. I can’t deal with politicos sober.”

  They didn’t let us drink. I found myself milling around a shrimp bar, suffocating in a conservative dress. I toyed with a branch of holly. My grandparent’s townhouse in Georgetown was festive, hung with mistletoe and red and green streamers. An ornamented pine tree stood at the center of the room. Mo talked with a House representative about football, and Washington’s best surrounded me, dressed elegantly, with glasses of sell-your-firstborn-to-afford wine at hand. I dipped a shrimp in cocktail sauce and avoided questions about my studies.

  “You’re a biology major? How impressive.”

  “Your grandfather tells me you draw. Is it true? Is the still life over the mantelpiece yours?”

  “Have you considered a career in politics?”

  “The funniest thing happened during last year’s campaign.”

  I wanted to run for the hills. Capitol Hill, that was.

  I looked to my twin for help. Finished discussing his touchdowns, Mo swooped in to save me from gramps’ associates. He enthralled the adults with tales of fraternity life, giving me an opportunity to escape. I went to the balcony, plate of hors d’oeuvres in hand. The cold stung my legs, but I endured it, if only to be away from the lobbyists.

  The sliding glass door opened behind me. Out came my dad, dressed in his lawyer’s best. His hair was ruddy in the winter sun.

  “Hey, kiddo,” he said, nabbing some brie from my plate. “How are you holding up?”

  I sighed. “You know how I feel about gram’s parties, dad.�
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  My father laughed. “There’s a reason I became an environmental lawyer. I couldn’t deal with my parents’ stuffy politics and even stuffier traditions. But hey, the food is delicious.”