“And I don’t understand who you think I’d be running around with. A human? There’s a town up the road where I’ll go have a drink sometimes, talk with some of the locals. I’ll play a game of pool now and then. But if I plan to stay in this area, and not go around shape-shifted most of the time, I can’t show my face too often or people begin to wonder why I’m not aging.”
Okay, there was that. She’d had to move several times, too. No one truly minded a blue woman living in their neighborhood, because it wasn’t worth getting out the pitchforks and torches for an eccentric who dyed her skin with indigo. But an eternally young one? That would cause more concern. So moving to a new apartment every few decades was preferable to shape-shifting every time she went home.
“And if you mean a woman. . . Hell, I’ll just show you why.” He crossed the room, pushed open the door separating the living area from the kitchen. At the refrigerator, he pulled a pint of ice cream from the freezer. “I bought this at the grocery a few months ago. There was a long checkout line, and a pretty woman in front of me who let me know she was interested in the dessert. Probably more.”
Radha couldn’t blame the woman. “Were you?”
“I was tempted. I’d just slain Basriel after chasing him for years, and I didn’t have a single person to share that with.” He set the ice cream on the table, met her eyes. “But I couldn’t share it with that woman. I couldn’t tell her anything unless I wanted to lie. So I wasn’t all that tempted anymore.”
And that was why she didn’t want a list, Radha realized. Marc wouldn’t be tempted just by sex. There had to be more, and so every woman on that list had meant something more to him.
Starting with her. “So what did you do, instead?”
“I flew east and spent a day walking along the Great Wall.”
“That was better than sex?”
“It was better than feeling like shit afterward.”
She’d had a few of those. “I suppose I’d rather have spent it walking along the Great Wall, too.”
“Then you can go with me next time.”
It wasn’t really an offer, she recognized. He was just trying to settle this issue, to give a solution to his solo travel that would satisfy her. She knew he didn’t expect her to take him up on it.
“That’s a good idea.” She circled the table, stopped directly in front of him. “Next time, give me a call. I’ll join you wherever you decide to go.”
Except for a slight clenching of his jaw that betrayed his doubt, he didn’t respond—but he didn’t back away or laugh in her face, either. In the silence, she reached for the ice-cream pint, pulled in a spoon from her cache, and scraped away the ice crystals that had formed at the top. Vanilla. She wasn’t surprised. Simple, not too sweet, with the rich vanilla bean adding such wonderful depth. The perfect flavor for him.
She settled against the table’s edge and scooped out a bite. “Why not a Guardian, then?”
He gave a tired laugh, rubbed the back of his neck. Done with this conversation—but she wasn’t.
“Well?” she pushed.
Frustration flattened his mouth. “Who? Who’s left after the Ascension?”
After thousands of Guardians had gone all at once, choosing to move on to their afterlife? Not many.
So he had a point there, too. “What about before?”
“No. That was about the time I pulled my head out of my ass.”
What? She swallowed the ice cream she’d been melting on her tongue. “With the ‘God’s celibate warrior’ thing? Only ten years ago?”
“Yes.”
“Was it because of the Ascension?”
“Radha—” Now his frustration had an edge to it. “I don’t know what you want from me. Are you trying to set me up with another Guardian, couple me off? Because I’m sure as hell not interested in that.”
Neither was she. That was the last thing that interested her.
“I’m trying not to rush,” she said. “I don’t want to be hurt again, and I need to know what kind of man you are now. The problem is, I’m not good at going slow or at resisting something that I want. So I’m trying to find out as much as I can before I jump all over you.”
His eyes lit like green flame. With a single step toward her, he leaned forward and flattened his hands on the table on either side of her hips, caging her between his arms.
Bringing his lips within an inch of hers.
The ice cream seemed to evaporate from her tongue. Oh, yes. This was what she wanted. This intensity, this focus, this heat—and Marc.
Glowing brilliantly green, his gaze searched hers. “So you want answers first?”
“Yes.” Though right now, waiting seemed a more foolish choice than rushing.
“And it’s a test to see whether I’m good enough.”
Oh. “When you put it that way, it’s not what I meant—”
“I know it’s not. And I don’t want to hurt you, either. I’ll do everything I can to keep from doing it again.”
And with that simple statement, uncertainty slipped away from her, as easily as a breath. I don’t want to hurt you. That was all the reassurance she needed, wasn’t it? Either she believed that he’d try not to hurt her or she didn’t.
She didn’t know everything about him yet, but she believed that. Maybe he would hurt her, someday—but if he tried not to, if he made the effort, that mattered more.
But he was already straightening, turning away. Fine. She’d lure him back. She reached for the knot tying the scarves at her hip.
“So, you want to know what happened during the Ascension?” He repeated her question before facing her again. “I almost went with them.”
Radha froze, her fingers suddenly nerveless with shock and disbelief. “What?”
“Yes,” he confirmed, smiling slightly.
Maybe he could smile about it. He’d had over a decade to get used to the idea that he’d almost chosen to ascend to the afterlife.
“Why?”
“Well, it was the ultimate test, wasn’t it? How much faith do I have?” As if amused by the memory of it now, he shook his head, still smiling. “I wasn’t even in Caelum that often, and I saw the Ascension coming. A movement, sweeping through the Guardians—half of them believing that just by existing, they were an insult to God. After all, if He takes care of everything, what does He need Guardians for?”
“If He even exists,” Radha interrupted. Oh, but she remembered those Guardians. They’d been intolerable. She’d avoided Caelum as much as possible in the year before the Ascension.
The truth was, they just didn’t know. Only their leader, Michael, had ever met any angels, when they’d passed on their powers and Caelum to him, along with the responsibility for protecting the Earth. Those powers had enabled him to create the Guardian corps, transforming humans who’d sacrificed themselves. Demons were fallen angels who rebelled against Heaven—but no one she knew had actually seen Heaven. That some power existed was obvious, but the source of it . . . ? Who knew.
Just to piss off some of the more self-righteous Guardians, Radha used to argue that the angels were aliens. She’d almost convinced a few with her illusions, too.
Good riddance to the lot of them.
“We’ll debate that later.” Marc grinned briefly, as if recalling their old arguments—or looking forward to another. “You know what I think about it. And you know that there were other Guardians saying that the humans needed more faith. That if their belief was strong enough, they’d have enough faith to defeat the demons on their own, that we were getting in the way. That humans didn’t need us.”
“And you believed that?” She couldn’t believe he had.
“No. That was the problem. I’d seen too much, killed too many demons. I knew humans needed us. But I wondered if I should believe it—and I wondered if the reason I’d spent the past forty years being so f**king miserable was just because I didn’t believe it enough.”
Miserable. Her throat tightened. “Forty years?”
“After I came to Earth and became that celibate warrior I’d always planned to be. And I did it well, Radha. If I wasn’t chasing down a demon then I was searching for another. I never faltered. I never stopped hunting. I never did anything else at all.”
How could that be? “Nothing else at all?”
“No. And at first it was all right. I had a purpose, I had a mission. I was happy to be carrying it out.”
But doing nothing else? She couldn’t wrap her mind around it. “Not even stopping for a cup of tea. A biscuit.”
“No. I didn’t eat or drink.”
“Passing a few minutes on a park bench.” Or half a day, as Radha sometimes did—especially if there were children about. Using her illusions only as weapons would be such a waste. If demons brought despair, she’d bring a little joy. “Chatting with the old men in a café.”
“No.”
What would he be unable to resist? Singing, perhaps. He’d sung often in Caelum, and he had a beautiful voice.
“Watching a musician on the street.”
He smiled, shaking his head. “No.”
“Did you sing?”
“No.”
She couldn’t imagine. Because everything she’d felt in his emotions a few hours before, that loneliness and despair—that was after ten years of coming back from that low. Despite every illusion she could cast, every silly thing she thought up, Radha simply couldn’t imagine the loneliness and misery that he’d put himself through, the low point he must have reached to even consider ascending.
“No wonder Heaven seemed so appealing. If it’s not really a spaceship,” she said, and his low laugh seemed to break apart the icy pain that clawed at her throat.
“I didn’t care about Heaven,” he said. “I just wanted to be a Guardian—but I didn’t want to live in Hell anymore while being one. And I thought that if I just lacked faith, the Ascension was the perfect way to prove it.”