Fall From Grace(69)

“You didn’t answer my question.  Is that what you think?”

“I didn’t think about it at all.  I just don’t want you to do something you don’t really need or want to do.”

Shane leaned in closer, our cheeks brushed against each other.  His breath tickled in my ear, “Funny thing is, Grace, needing and wanting is exactly what I am doing.  And, just for the record, it is not those girls I need or want.”

Without saying another word to me, he delicately took my arm and sprinkled a small pinch of salt on the soft skin of my inner wrist.  He raised my arm to his mouth and I watched him lightly press his tongue against my skin, skimming it across the surface.  My breath caught.  He downed his tequila and squeezed the lime into his mouth, smiling.  Oh. My. God.  “God, Grace.  You do taste like heaven,” he whispered breathlessly.

I felt a delicious heat rise all over my body.  “I think I should go home now.  I’m...really...tired.”  I whirled around and practically ran towards the bathroom.  I had no idea where Conner and Lea had gone.  They were probably headed home already.  I just needed to splash cold water on my face.

“Then I’m going too,” he yelled after me.

I pushed through the crowds of people and ran into the back hallway.  I headed for the women’s room, but hesitated when I touched the handle of the door.  Dread crept over my body.  The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, eradicating all of the burning desperate hunger Shane’s touch invoked.  Of course, I opened it and walked in anyway.  I am in a bad horror movie.

The only window in the bathroom was wide open, and a fine layer of snow covered the tiled floor.  I scanned the room.  I heard a soft movement in the one stall that was closed.

“Are you really stupid enough to believe, Gabriel?  Do you really believe after thousands of years, all the lifetimes, he’ll get his little human prize?” a voice growled.

The door slowly swung open.  My heart thudded to a stop.

Looking intensely at me was Carl Sumpton, or at least Carl Sumpton’s body staring at me though ancient blue eyes.  His hands clung to the sides of the stall as if he needed the help to stand.

“No human has eyes the color of an angel, who are you?” I whispered.

“Shamsiel always did say you were a smart one,” he hissed.  His body tried to step closer to me, but it only managed to slump back and fall against the toilet.  Its flesh was transparent and bluish.  The skin around its eyes was bruised and swollen; its cheeks were sunken in.

“It looks to me like that body is about to send your soul elsewhere, who are you?  I’ve never heard of an angel who shared the same punishment as me.”

The body trembled, taking great pains to continue breathing life through it.  “Azazel, child, and my punishment was far worse than yours, and I’ve grown too tired of the burning fires of hell,” it coughed.  A fine trickle of deep red blood spilled from the corner of its mouth.

I lurched forward, grabbing his face in my hands, searching his eyes.  Blood splattered on my arms.  “A Grigori?  One of the Watchers?  That Azazel? Where is Shamsiel?  I’ve been in hell here searching for him!”

“You will never find him.  I won’t let him get what the rest of us can’t have.  Do you really think, child, that we could possibly be forgiven?  We have fallen, and there are no second chances.  And I sure as hell won’t let him get what I can’t have, when his sin was no better than mine.”