I wasn’t sure what I’d say to him. How to react. I knew instinctively that this wasn’t the start of a love affair. If I went up to him, touched him as a lover would, I could just imagine his reaction, and I shuddered. I would have to do my best to read him. If he was suddenly affectionate . . . the thought was seductive in ways far more dangerous than simple sex. Not that sex was simple, in particular sex with Raziel. Sex with an angel. Sex with a vampire. The best sex of my life, afterlife included.

But that wasn’t the way it was going to be. As sure as I knew he was gone, I knew he was going to act as if last night had never happened. And I could damned well do the same.

I was going to have to be careful, though. He could read my thoughts, see my fantasies, and he’d never believe my lies. Really, that was as close a definition of hell as any. A place where you couldn’t fool your lover.

Your lover. He wasn’t my lover. He was the man who’d taken me to bed last night for reasons I hadn’t quite understood. It had been necessary, he’d said. For an act of duty rather than desire, he’d managed pretty damned well, I thought, letting the shower pound down on my body. But why had he done it a second time?

I wrapped myself in one of the huge bath towels, white terry cloth, of course, and went to the closet, resigning myself to white cult couture. Instead my eyes were met with an explosion of colors, rose and green and aqua and pale yellow. For the first time, my heart lightened. Sarah had come through. And how Raziel would hate it. It was enough to cheer me up.

I pulled out a swirling dress of rainbow colors. The neckline was too low, exposing my abundant charms, and I almost chickened out. But I pulled it on anyway, heading back into the bathroom to check it out.

It fit perfectly. I stared at my face in the mirror, shocked. I looked like me, and yet like a stranger. My thick brown hair curled around my face, my eyes were huge, my lips . . . I had to admit it, they were swollen from his mouth.

But that wasn’t the only place his mouth had been. I saw the mark on the side of my neck. Not the distinct puncture marks from vampire movies, but a scrape, made by something sharp. His teeth? He’d tasted me, I realized, but he hadn’t fed.

He’d had sex with me, but we hadn’t made love. And I was suddenly depressed.

As far as I could tell there were no clocks in Sheol, but I surmised it was somewhere around midday, both by the level of the sun in the misty sky and by the growling of my stomach, which was impressive. I climbed out one of the windows and went out onto the parapet. The damp sea air caught my hair and tossed it back, and I breathed in deeply. Suddenly looking at the ocean wasn’t enough—I needed to be down there, walking barefoot in the grass, wading in the gentle surf. I was tired of being a pariah.

The apartment’s front door opened easily, to my relief. I passed people on the stairs this time, but the hostility I’d felt from them seemed to have disappeared. No one glared at me—they even managed a friendly smile here and there—but clearly I was the least of their worries. Something was going on, and my self-centered mopiness faded as a real sense of anxiety began to intrude.

I made it all the way down the endless flights of stairs, though I knew that was the easy part. I half-expected one of the angelic gatekeepers to stop me as I went toward the door, but no one seemed to have any time for me, an absolute blessing.

I stepped outside onto the thick green grass and quickly kicked off the sandals I’d found. The wind was blowing in from the sea, and I let the damp air sweep over me, closing my eyes in pleasure. My skin would taste of salt, I thought. His skin would taste of salt. And that familiar/unfamiliar heat surged between my legs. Where he had been.

I walked over the grass, then the layer of small stones, then onto the sand, leaving wet footprints as I moved toward the retreating waves. It was odd that I’d never learned to swim, when I loved water so much. I think I’d always been slightly afraid of it, certain that I’d drowned once in a past life. How strange to think that in truth it had been in an afterlife, while trying to save a fallen angel.

I looked around me. The grounds spread off to the right, and for a moment I stared. It almost looked as if there were a shimmer at the distant edge, like a heat mirage, but the weather was temperate and there was no bright sun. I started toward it, walking in the sand, half-expecting it to move. Would I be able to touch it? Put my hand through it? Could I walk through it, to the other side and the real world that Raziel insisted no longer existed for me?

I would be a fool not to try.

I thought it might coalesce as I got closer, but it didn’t. I was close enough to feel it, and I stopped short, staring at it. It was some kind of Star Trefe-ian energy field. It pulsed, almost as if it were alive, and I reached out my hand to touch it—

“Move away from the wall, Allie,” Sarah said, her tone sharp, and I jumped back, startled.

“Is that what it is?” I said disingenuously. What else could it possibly be? But for some reason I didn’t want Sarah to know I was thinking about running away.

“That’s what it is,” she said, her usually warm blue eyes flat. “What were you doing?”

I shrugged. “I was curious.”

She surveyed me for a long moment. “You’re lying,” she said eventually. “And I don’t know why. Raziel told us he lay with you, that he used the Grace of Knowing and even tasted your blood, and that there was no darkness within you, so it must be true.”

“He told you?” I said in a strangled voice. “All of you?”

“All of us. Otherwise you’d be back where he was told to leave you. Most of the Council wanted you gone anyway—only Raziel and I fought for you.”

“Raziel fought for me? Why?”

A small smile curved Sarah’s mouth. “You’ll have to ask him. I know you have a reason to be here in Sheol, but I see things others don’t. Maybe Raziel was simply being stubborn. Maybe it was something more. But you need to come away from the wall. The others won’t be as open-minded. They still think Raziel might be blinded by . . .” She let the words trail off, and her smile widened.

“By what?”

She threaded her arm through mine. “Never mind. Let’s just get away from here. It will be getting dark soon, and the Nephilim are near.”

I shivered, suddenly cold, remembering those howls during the long night when I’d watched over Raziel’s body. Time seemed suspended, moving oddly. It seemed so long ago that I’d curled up next to him, and it was only three days.

I’d heard those unearthy screams last night as well. Before Raziel gave me something else to think about.

By the time we reached the grass, I’d almost managed to shake off my feelings of dread. Until I looked into Sarah’s eyes. “What’s wrong? Where is everyone?”