Page 23 of All’s Hell That Ends Well (Infernal Covenant #4)

CHAPTER 23

Azazel

T his time, Naamah and I met on one of the upper floors of a building towering high above New York City. Some architect’s office, apparently. The floor-to-ceiling windows allowed a stunning view of Manhattan sprawling out from the financial district toward Central Park.

When I entered the room, having used telekinesis to open locked doors to get in, Naamah was standing in front of the wall of windows looking outside, dressed in a magenta pantsuit, her auburn hair braided into an elaborate updo. The office was currently empty, the digital clock on the wall showing it to be Sunday.

Upon hearing me, Naamah half turned to glance my way, her turquoise eyes glowing from within, her throat working as she swallowed hard. “You came.”

I joined her at the window, slipping my hands into my pockets. Gaze fastened on the bustling streets below, I quietly said, “I’m sorry.”

She twitched slightly, the involuntary movement betraying her surprise.

Before she could pose any questions, I continued, “I reacted rashly. I wasn’t hearing you. I should have taken the time to think about what you were telling me, instead of letting myself be governed by my anger and pain. That is not who I am, and I know better than to explode without thinking.” I took a deep breath, my chest aching with it. “Therefore, I apologize. I treated you harshly and unfairly. My parting words to you were cruel, and I hereby rescind them.”

At her silence, I glanced at her. Her eyes shone wetly, her lips curving into the softest smile.

“Thank you,” she said, a husky note to her voice. “And for what it is worth, I understand your reaction. I do not blame you for lashing out.” She looked out over the city once more, that smile turning a tad sly. “I was just like that in my youth. Quick to anger. Explosive in my responses. My emotions have always burned so bright in me, especially my fury. It would often get the better of me, outpacing my rational thoughts.” Her eyes tracked back to me in a side-glance. “So I know where you get it from.”

I made a soft sound of sardonic amusement.

“But you already show so much more restraint and self-control than I ever had,” she continued. “And I also know where you get that from.” Another side-eye. “That cold control of yours? That iron will to govern all aspects of yourself, the unyielding hardness of the mask you display for those not privileged to your heart? That is your father.”

My hands clenched in my pockets, the muscles of my back and shoulders locking tight, a visceral reaction to the subject of him. I had yet to untangle the mess of emotions left behind in the wake of his death.

“I suppose,” she added softly, “as far as parental gifts go, it isn’t the worst. You have turned out to be a remarkable male, despite the failings of your mother and father.”

“You didn’t fail me.” My voice came out rough.

Naamah remained silent, her lashes fluttering over incandescent eyes that were fixed on the skyline.

“You didn’t,” I repeated. “I know you wanted to be there for me, for us. I do not hold the twisted prison that was your mind against you, for that wasn’t your fault.” More quietly, I added, “And I do not begrudge you the bond you have with your father. If it weren’t for him, I would have truly lost my mother eons ago. But he kept you here, kept you alive, and no matter the strife between him and me, I can appreciate how he took care of you.”

She gave a shaky nod, blinking fast to clear her eyes of wetness.

“I know you did what you could to mitigate the situation for me and Zoe,” I went on. “It may have taken me time to process, but I see that now.” One side of my mouth curled up. “The fact that Zoe gave me a talking-to might have helped a bit.”

She turned to fully look at me. “Zoe?”

I gave her a rueful smile. “She is too wise for her years. I fear she’ll make me feel like a buffoon in a few centuries’ time when that emotional insight of hers has matured even more.”

Naamah’s smile was brilliant. “You are truly blessed to have found someone to complement you so. I had the impression before, but now I see it all the clearer—she is good for you. She makes you stronger. Both of you together are more than each of you alone.” Her brows drawing together, she asked, “Are you able to see her freely now? Go visit her whenever you want?”

I nodded. “Seems like Lucifer has given up his objections to our meetings.”

“I am glad.” Her lips pressed together. “I have been urging him to be reasonable about it, though I didn’t know whether my pleas wouldn’t fall on deaf ears.” She grimaced. “He can be so stubborn.”

“Well, Zoe yelling at him to not be a dick might have contributed to his change of mind, too.”

Her mouth fell open, then her lips quirked up in a devious grin. “She didn’t.”

“Most assuredly so.”

“And she got away with it unscathed?”

I shrugged. “He can’t exactly harm her, as per the oath you made him swear and the spark of Lilith inside her that makes him incapable of hurting her. And he needs her alive and functional to search for the reincarnation. Which means she is in the unique position to speak her mind to him without fearing consequences. And she makes good use of it.”

With the turquoise of her eyes sparkling like sunlight glinting off Caribbean seas, she clapped her hands and said, “Oh, I like her. I like her so much.”

I tilted my head. “Though, to be fair, Lucifer could always wield the fate of her father’s soul as leverage to ensure proper respect and compliance.” I raised a brow. “I am surprised he hasn’t used it yet. The threat is there, but Zoe’s father has been left alone so far.”

“Hm.” Naamah gazed out at the urban jungle once more, her expression contemplative. After a long moment, she said in a soft hush, “Speaking of fathers, how are you, knowing Azrael is gone?”

Hurt spread corrosive fingers inside my chest, the memory of seeing my father decapitated right before my eyes landing like a punch to my stomach.

“Mostly,” I said with a growl at the back of my throat, “I am angry.” Before she could say something, I clarified, “With him.”

“Tell me.” A gentle request.

“Thousands of years,” I gritted out. “Thousands of years of silence and abandonment, only for him to develop a spine and a conscience two seconds before he was killed!” The last part of the sentence came out in a near shout, my anger rising to the fore.

Naamah made a commiserating sound.

Rounding on her, I snapped, “He couldn’t have had that change of heart centuries earlier? A millennium prior? No, he had to stew in his cowardly attitude all this fucking time, wasting eons. Depriving me, and Azmodea, of true reconciliation! And then”—I pointed my finger, baring my teeth—“he has to go and do the one thing that abso-fucking-lutely earns my eternal forgiveness, but instead of being there so I can tell him how much that fucking means to me, he lets himself be cut down by some bloody angel, and now what do I do?”

My wings erupted with a whoosh without my conscious doing, and the windows rattled with the force of my power.

“How can I let him know how I feel now?” Though still a near shout, my voice cracked, and the glass pane next to me cracked as well. “How am I supposed to thank him? How do I tell him how grateful I am that he took care of Zoe? That he preserved her memories against all odds, without my asking? That he came to our aid there in the end?”

“Azazel…” Naamah laid her hand on my shoulder, a bold move considering I was seconds away from laying waste to this entire building.

“He should have seen that angel coming,” I ground out. “How could he have been so oblivious to his surroundings to not notice her creeping up on him?” My voice rose to a yell. “He should have seen her! I should have seen her!”

I flinched at the last part, my power flickering. Wide-eyed by that subconscious admission, I turned away and ran a hand over my face.

“And there it is,” Naamah said softly. “The true cause of your anger.”

Breath coming heavy and fast, I stared out at the city, not seeing a fucking thing. My mind replayed that scene over and over, how I’d turned toward the gate, missing the moment the angel had stalked up behind Azrael, only Zoe’s shout of warning making me whip around again. Too late to stop the angel swinging her sword for my father’s neck.

Too late.

Too late.

Two words that haunted me in my quietest moments, damning me to regret and self-recrimination. I should have seen that angel. I should have stopped her. I should have?—

“It wasn’t your fault,” Naamah murmured.

I sucked in air, my lungs burning.

“And it wasn’t his fault either.” She had the courage to lay her hand on my shoulder again.

At my sides, my hands clenched and unclenched. My power ran hot in my veins, unwilling to be soothed.

“I never lose sight of my surroundings,” I gritted out. “I am always aware. I take care of threats before they arise. And I should have cut the heads off the angels Zoe incapacitated with the darts.”

Naamah tsked. “You had just been freed from torture, you were still recovering, and you had just fought a group of angels, all while knowing the clock was ticking for you to get out of Heaven. And then your father showed up and helped you, turning what you knew about him on its head—it is no wonder you didn’t see the threat that was lurking. Do not blame yourself for something that was outside of your control. You are not in charge of every little thing that happens!”

My energy wanted to lash out and smash these windows, much like the irrational voice inside me wanted to argue the point.

“You are not!” Naamah repeated, her voice rising to a shout. “Azazel Helel ben Shachar, you snap out of this right now.”

I winced at hearing her address me by my full given name, the latter part a cognate of Lucifer—and the reason I usually pretended it wasn’t part of my name.

Her using it now had the intended effect. Like all children whose mothers brought out the big guns of calling them by all of their given names, I snapped to attention, looking at her with a mix of wariness and perplexity.

Though being shorter than me by more than a foot, she managed to make it seem like she was looming over me, pointing her finger right in my face. “Do you suffer from a bout of absurdity? Did you not just minutes earlier tell me you are more than your anger and pain? Where is that rationality of yours now, hm?” She flicked her fingers against my forehead. “Do you blame Zoe for not killing that angel in time?”

“Of course not.”

“Then you do not blame yourself either.” She put her hands on her hips, looking daggers at me. “Lay those self-recriminations to rest. Fate is a cruel mistress, and to dwell on the twists and turns she deals is the surest path to madness. You are not at fault. And that need of yours to let him know of your gratitude? You can thank him by cherishing the gift he gave you instead of blaming yourself for his death.”

I blinked at her, once more reminded of where Azmodea got her spunk from.

Nodding once, I rasped, “All right.”

“Good.” Her expression softened. “Did I hear that right earlier, that it was thanks to him that Zoe’s memories were actually preserved?”

“Yeah.”

I rubbed my hand over my face again, realizing Naamah might not have known about this part. I’d figured Zoe might have mentioned it before everything went down, but it made sense that she hadn’t had the chance to tell Naamah while in Heaven.

“Apparently,” I explained, “he made the spontaneous decision to try to preserve her memories from being erased back when he transformed her into an angel. According to him, the memory wipe is usually an automatic thing, not something he does on purpose.” I paused, then said softly, “Did. Did on purpose. But with Zoe, he decided to interfere. He wasn’t sure if it would work. That was why he kept checking in with her, to see if his intervention had taken, if she might remember anything—or if what he’d done might have had negative side effects. For years, Zoe showed no signs of her memory still being there. Until she met me.”

Her eyes lowered to the floor, she murmured, “He really helped you more than I knew. More than any of us were aware of. I’m not sure if it makes up for the sins of his past?—”

“It does,” I said hoarsely. “At least for me. Knowing that without his interference, Zoe would never remember me, our history erased, our love lost, it balances all the scales. No pain I have suffered weighs heavier than my appreciation for having her back in my life. No slight dealt, no harm caused cancels the gift of having her look at me and know who I am, loving me for every part of me.” I shook my head, my nostrils flaring. “And he died never knowing that this makes all the difference to me. That this would have bridged the chasm of thousands of years of estrangement.”

“He died knowing he’d helped you,” she said softly. “Let that be enough. At the very least, he’d cleared his conscience with regard to you.”

I paused and studied her, some of my anger abating. “How are you, with him not here anymore? You said once you were beyond caring now.”

She lifted one slender shoulder, her eyes following the flight path of a faraway angel who soared over Central Park. “To say it wasn’t a shock when I heard he’d died would be a lie. I guess I never thought there’d be a time when he wouldn’t just be . Realizing that he’s gone forever did hurt me, despite my claims to be above it all. It’s not that I had the intention of talking to him or reconciling…” She shook her head. “I don’t think I could have forgiven him. I am not the type to give second chances. And yet, I didn’t wish him ill. I might have enjoyed seeing him bewildered and at a loss for words when chancing upon me in Heaven, but I didn’t want him dead.”

“At the end,” I muttered, “he said he wanted to apologize to you.”

“Well.” She blew out a breath. “It’s good to know he came to his senses. It wouldn’t have changed my stance, but it would have been nice to at least have him acknowledge the wrong he did. Sometimes, all you want is for the person who hurt you to truly understand and regret the pain they caused you. And so few of us ever get that.” Her candescent eyes met my own. “I can make peace with that knowledge.”

I nodded and let comforting silence hang between us for a moment before asking, “Who has replaced him as Angel of Death?”

Someone had to fill the role, and it was a particularly thankless job. Right after Azrael’s death, there’d been widespread chaos on Earth, with souls stuck in this sphere that should have been immediately ferried to Heaven, and other souls not being properly marked for Hell. Things had settled down now, so it stood to reason that Heaven had appointed another angel to do the task.

She regarded her nails, her brows rising. “Well, I suggested Gabriel, but he didn’t like that idea very much. He became quite growly. In the end, they picked a seraph named Saureil. Apparently, she has some penance to bear, so she was assigned the position.”

One side of my mouth tipped up. “You really hold grudges for millennia, don’t you? Are you still wreaking havoc in Gabriel’s estate?”

Her eyes sparkled. “On a daily basis.”

I laughed softly and shook my head. Sobering after a moment, I broached the subject I’d been meaning to tackle. “Lucifer’s position is becoming more vulnerable. Ashtaroth is watching him like a hawk, assessing his weakness and waiting for the moment when it is most opportune to strike. Not much longer, and she’ll have convinced enough of the other archdemons to form an alliance against him.”

Naamah made a sound of grim displeasure.

I fully faced her, trying to convey the urgency through my voice. “You must talk some sense into him. You are the one he’ll most likely listen to. Daevi said he barely sees her anymore, and he’s pushed away those who would have given him good counsel. He doesn’t seem to realize how far his grip on power has slipped already. He put Zoe under a decree of personal protection, and yet she was ambushed by a group of demons in his palace .”

My blood still boiled at that thought, at how close I’d come to losing her yet again, this time forever.

Naamah’s eyes were hard. “Who did that?”

I shook my head. “We don’t know. Vengeance ripped them all to shreds. There were no survivors to question.”

I gave her the rundown of what exactly had happened, including the conflict with Samael that had followed and Lucifer’s intervention in Vengeance’s execution.

“And he hasn’t seen fit to give her guards as a result of this,” I finished. “He thinks her innate power and the training he offered her will be enough to let her repel any other challenges, plus he apparently believes this attack to have been an aberration and that Zoe’s station and his favor for her should be sufficient protection.”

“When in reality,” Naamah chimed in, “there is obviously someone in his inner court who is actively working to undermine his authority, not shying away from violent means.”

“Exactly.”

She clucked her tongue. “I shall talk to him. Though I’m not sure how much my words can sway him. Sometimes he listens to me, and sometimes he doesn’t. That stubborn streak of his could well extend to him willfully choosing to remain blind with regard to how much his authority has suffered. That, and his pride.” She sighed. “It’s always been one of his greatest flaws.”