I couldn’t read the expression on his face clearly. I was a little confused by his revelation, but there was something that I wanted him to know, and something that I had wanted to do from the moment I first saw him.
I stood and approached him, stopping in front of where he sat in the chair. He looked up at me, his face revealed in the moonlight.
He didn’t back away from me, but he watched me cautiously, unsure of what I would do. I wasn’t really sure what I would do, either.
I stopped when there were just a few inches between us, close enough that I could feel the heat coming off his body. I laid my hands very gently on his cheeks, and looked into his starlit eyes. “But what I do know, what I can see, is that you are no monster.”
He said nothing, but the muscles beneath my fingers jumped. His skin was hot, like he was running a temperature.
“Why are you always so warm?” I wondered aloud.
“Because angels, even fallen ones, are born of the sun, and we carry a tiny piece of it inside us. You do, too, but it is tempered by your humanity and your inexperience. When you come to the full maturity of your magic, you will not be as aware of the differences between us.”
I had leaned closer to him without realizing it, mesmerized by his eyes and his voice. His breath was sweet, like cinnamon and cloves, and it brushed across my face, featherlight.
My lips touched his, for an instant, and then I stepped away and smiled down at him. I wasn’t ready yet for whatever else might come, not ready to answer the tension I’d felt thrumming through his body. He watched me warily as I stepped away.
I sat on the bed again, and we just watched each other for a few moments. I considered what Gabriel had said about being born of the sun, and it reminded me of my dream.
The magic inside me surged up, warning me not to tell Gabriel. I wondered why my magic was so vociferously arguing against sharing the dreams with anyone else. It was almost like the power inside me was its own being.
“Gabriel, do you remember when the nuvem attacked me?”
He raised an eyebrow. “How could I possibly forget such a thing?”
“Well, you asked me what happened when the nuvem was inside me.”
“And you never answered me.”
I gave him a dirty look. “I wasn’t the only one around here keeping secrets.”
He lifted his shoulder in acknowledgment and indicated that I should continue.
“It was weird. I had a kind of vision, or a dream, about a girl named Evangeline,” I said. “It was like I was there, in her body. I saw her in love with a fallen angel, and she was pregnant.”
“Evangeline,” Gabriel whispered, and he said it like her name was holy.
“What about her? Is this something else I should know about before another demon shows up to kick my ass?”
“She is the Lost Mother,” Gabriel said.
“Refresh my memory?” I said, giving him an exasperated look. “Just because you’ve decided to let me into the club doesn’t mean I know all the secret passwords.”
“She was Lucifer Morningstar’s bride,” Gabriel said. “Evangeline carried his children, the first he had successfully gotten upon a human woman.
“But the Morningstar’s enemies stole her from him before the children were born, and he never found her again. It was as if her existence had never been,” Gabriel finished, and he looked troubled.
“And the children?” I asked, and I thought I felt the fluttering of tiny wings inside my own body.
“Also lost. How the Morningstar raged when she was taken from him,” Gabriel said. His eyes looked haunted. “The nuvem is just a minor demon. It should have tried to bind your magic or suffocate the life from you.”
“Well, to be fair, I think it was probably doing that, too.”
“I am disturbed by this vision of the Lost Mother,” Gabriel said.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s the least disturbing thing that’s happened to me all week.”
“Tell me what you have seen, exactly, down to the last detail,” he demanded, and there was an urgency in his voice that hadn’t been there before.
So I told him of Evangeline, and how she had loved Lucifer, and how she had escaped the house of her enemies and destroyed them, and given birth to her children.
“Are they nephilim?” I asked. “Is that why I’m seeing these visions? Is Ramuell trying to manipulate me?”
“I do not believe Ramuell has this kind of power. In any case, the children of Evangeline were not nephilim. That is why Lucifer cherished her above all others.”
“Not nephilim? But how?”
Gabriel shrugged. “We do not know. I do not believe Lucifer himself knows. But there is this, Madeline—there has been no trace of the Lost Mother since she disappeared. There have been no dreams or visions, no evidence of any kind. If there had been, the Morningstar would have heard of it and used it to try to discover her.”
“So you’re saying ...”
“That your vision has endangered you further. Once the Morningstar discovers that you have had this vision of Evangeline, you will become as valued to him as she once was.”
“And that will mean his enemies will find me just as interesting.”
Gabriel nodded. “Yes.”
As if I didn’t have enough on my plate, I was now Lucifer’s most wanted. Hooray.
11
“I CAN’T SLEEP ANYMORE,” I SAID, PUSHING OFF THE bed and going to my dresser. I yanked a pair of raggedy gray sweatpants from the bottom drawer and pulled them on underneath the nightgown. I felt exposed in my virgin-sacrifice garb. I didn’t want to be caught wearing nothing but a cotton nightgown when the demonic hordes came for me.