I was glad to be free of Roman, glad he was somewhere far away from me. He'd posed too much of a threat to both me and those I loved. Still, there had been something in him I found appealing. It was why we'd connected before things literally blew up. I understood his weariness with the games Heaven and Hell played. He'd offered to take me away and free me from it all, and there were days I would still wake up and long for that.
"No," Yasmine agreed. "They can't help what they are. And it's not their fault. But their existence is a reminder of our faults...of our weaknesses." She held her hands open in front of her, studying them as though they held answers. "None of us higher immortals want to be shown that we're weak. That's our hubris, I guess. Especially the angels. No one's perfect, but we like to play that we are." She sighed and let her hands drop. "I should walk away from this. I should have a long time ago."
I jerked my head up. "But you love him."
"Sometimes loving someone means you have to do what's ultimately good. What you need instead of what you want."
"I suppose. But ending it seems so extreme. There must be a way to...I don't know, have it all."
The door opened, and Vincent walked in. He didn't look surprised to see either of us, but then, he would have sensed our auras. His eyes met Yasmine's, and it was like lightning crackling through the room. Both of them lit up, shining in a way that I doubted my succubus glamour could even begin to compete with.
He expressed surprise over my Yuletide Forest but jumped in to help us, appearing just as excited as Yasmine over the activity. The two of them never touched, but I noticed the same thing that I had at breakfast: an intimacy in the way they interacted with each other. They didn't need to touch. Their relationship was obvious, and I wondered how it was possible none of the other angels had ever noticed this. Maybe it was like what Yasmine had mentioned about angels and hubris. Maybe angels always assumed they were perfect and were too blind to see flaws in each other, whereas someone like me - who exploited weakness - knew what to look for.
We finished Peter's tree, and then I found my ornaments from last year - the ones that hadn't been destroyed in the fire - and used them on the bookstore's tree. When my woodland paradise was finally complete, Yasmine and Vincent made their farewells and left. I still had no idea what their divine mission in Seattle was, but I assumed it had universal consequences. I felt a little weird that it had been put on hold to decorate my home.
As I cleaned up the boxes, I kept thinking about what Yasmine had said about needing versus wanting. In some ways, that was what Seth and I did. We wanted to have sex. We needed to avoid it.
I also found myself recalling Andrew again, that annoyingly good priest who'd caused me so many headaches. I hadn't thought much about his story since last week, but as my body mindlessly completed chores, the images began replaying in my mind.
Despite my best efforts, he'd remained a bastion of purity and willpower. While frustrating, it nonetheless continued to make the game fun. And although I didn't appreciate it as much back then as I did now, I sort of took pleasure in just hanging around him. He was good company, and he came to mean more to me than just a sexual conquest. It was obvious he cared about me too.
It would figure that things went bad between us on a beautiful, sunny day. I remembered it distinctly. I had wandered over to the church he ministered out of and sat with him in the vegetable garden. I stayed clear of the dirt, conscious of the yellow silk dress my bishop had just had made for me. Andrew, less concerned, worked on his knees, unhesitatingly digging in - literally - and cultivating the church's small crop.
"Don't you have other people who could do this for you?"
Squinting up at me in the bright light, he smiled. "Nothing compares to the satisfaction of doing something yourself."
"If you say so."
He returned to his work, and I continued to sit quietly, watching him and the lazy vista of that golden afternoon. Not far away, the sounds of daily hustle and bustle carried over. I liked this town - it was a nice break from the large, busy cities I'd spent most of my succubus time in. Eventually, though, I knew I'd grow restless and move onto some place with a little more excitement.
I turned back to Andrew. "Thomas Brewer just got back from Cadwell. He says they're all getting sick there."
Andrew nodded. "People are getting sick everywhere. There have been outbreaks in a lot of the western towns."
"Are you worried?"
He shrugged. "What comes will come. None of us can change God's will."
I grimaced. I'd heard about this illness, what later generations would call the Black Death. The rapid onset. The blackened skin. The swollen lumps. Even if it couldn't technically hurt me, I didn't want to see it spread here.
"I don't think God can be as merciful as you say in mass if He's inflicting something like that on his people."
"It's a test, Cecily. God is always testing us. It makes us stronger."
"Or dead."
He didn't respond.
"What will you do if it comes?" I pushed. "Geoffrey says he'll leave. Will you go with him?"
His dark eyebrows rose in surprise, like I'd asked if the sun would take tomorrow off. "Of course not. I mean, as bishop, I'm sure Geoffrey must...do what is necessary to continue fulfilling his duties, but me? I serve the people. I will continue to serve the people. If they're sick, I'll tend them."
My sarcasm gave way to shock, and I leapt to my feet, striding toward him. "You can't do that! Haven't you heard about this? People don't come back from it. The only thing to do is get out and let it run its course."
It was true. Call it cruel, but as I'd told Liam on our post-auction date, that was the way the world had dealt with epidemics for a lot of human history. Certainly, some people cared and ministered unto others, but when disease grew really terrible, with no clear answer in sight, ignorance and fear reigned supreme. Most people of that era saw the simplest solution as putting as much distance as possible between them and the illness.
Andrew stood up as well, wearing an expression so annoyingly wise and serene as he faced me. "If that's what you must do, then you must do it. My place is here."
I didn't even have seduction on my mind when I reached out and grabbed his hands. He flinched with surprise but didn't let go.
"It's stupid," I told him earnestly. "You can't stop it. You'll die, and I - I can't watch that."
"Then go. Go with Geoffrey. Or go...out to the convent. It's isolated. You'd be safe there."
I scowled. "Not that again."
"I just want what's best for you, that's all." One of his hands reached up and cupped my chin. "I don't want to see you suffer either."
It occurred to me then how close we stood. The heat building between our bodies rivaled that of the sunshine pounding down on us from above. Andrew, realizing this too, started and tried to pull away. I held on to his hand, anger flaring up in my chest.
"So that's how you'll let it end then? You spend your whole life living in poverty and chastity, only to die in a pile of stinking corpses with oozing sores and rotting skin?"
"If that's what God - "
"Stop it," I said, leaning forward. "Just stop it. Don't you get it? God doesn't care. He's not even paying attention."
"Cecily - "
I didn't let him finish. Instead, I pressed my mouth against his mouth, molding my body to his. I don't know if he'd ever kissed anyone else before, but if not, he was a quick study. He didn't break from me. In fact I would have sworn there was an eagerness to his lips as they explored mine, willingly letting my tongue stroke and dance with his.
And oh, God help me, he was so very good and noble that I tasted a sunburst of energy just from that kiss alone. It poured into me like honey, glorious and sweet.
And surprisingly, it was me who finally broke the kiss, though I still stayed pressed against his body, my arms encircling him.
"Don't you see how stupid it is?" I whispered, our lips so close we shared each other's breath. "Are you going to die without having lived? Without having tasted everything that's out there? Are you really just going to rush into death like that?"
His eyes weighed me, his own hands resting on my waist. "I don't need fleshly pleasures to complete my life."
"You're lying," I told him. "You want to."