The Night Eternal полностью

When the men of the city converged upon Lot’s house, having heard that he was harboring mysterious strangers, Ozryel was enthralled by their shouts. The men, brandishing torches and weapons, demanded to be shown the visitors, so that they might know them. So aroused were they by the rumored beauty of these travelers, they desired to possess them sexually. The brute carnality of the mob fascinated Ozryel, reminded him of his own hunger, and when Lot went to bargain with them—offering his virginal daughters instead, only to be refused—Ozryel used his power to slip outside of the house, unseen.

He shadowed the crowd, briefly. He kept a few feet away, hidden in an alley, feeling the delirious energy of the mass movement—an energy so unlike God’s. Yet they were filled with the same beauty and glory that were gifts of the divine. These undulating sacs of flesh—their faces never at rest—raved as one, seeking communion with the unknown in the most animalistic manner possible. Their lust was so pure—and so intoxicating.

Much has been made of the vices in Sodom and Gomorrah but little could be seen as Ozryel walked the streets of that city, lit by a complex system of bronze oil lamps and paved in raw alabaster. Gold and silver door frames adorned the porticos of every door within its three concentric plazas.

A gold portico announced wares of the flesh and a silver one announced darker pleasures. Those who crossed the silver doorways would seek cruel or violent sensations. It was this very cruelty that God could not forgive. Not the abundance and not the abandon but the rank sadism the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah would show to travelers and slaves. Inhospitable cities they were, and uncaring. Slaves and captured enemies were bought from caravans to please the patrons of the silver porticos.

And, whether by design or by accident, it was a silver threshold Ozryel crossed. His hostess was a stocky woman of light olive skin. Unrefined, ungroomed—the wife of a slave driver and interested only in commerce. But that night, when the hostess looked up from her post at the vestibule of the pleasure house, she saw the most beautiful, benevolent human-appearing creature standing before her by the golden light of the burning oil. The archangels were perfect, sexless vessels. No hair on their bodies or faces and immaculate, opalescent skin and pearlescent eyes. Their gums were as pale as the ivory of their teeth and the grace of their elongated limbs came from perfect proportions. They had no trace of genitalia: a biological detail that would be echoed obliquely in the horror that would spawn.

Such was the beauty—the benign magnificence—of Ozryel that the woman felt like weeping and asking for forgiveness. But years at the trade gave her the fortitude to peddle her services. As Ozryel witnessed the refined violence within the walls of the establishment, the archangel sensed his primal grace wane—abandoning him as desire arose—and even though he did not know exactly what he was looking for, he found it.

On impulse, Ozryel gripped the hostess’s neck, walking her back against a low stone wall, watching the woman’s expression change into fear. Ozryel felt the strong yet delicate tendons around the woman’s throat, then kissed them, licked them, tasting her salty rancid sweat. And then, on an impulse, he bit, deep and hard, and tore open her flesh, plucking her arteries like harp strings with his teeth—ping-ping—and savagely drinking of the blood essence that poured forth. Ozryel slayed this woman, not as an offering to his almighty Lord but simply in order to know Him. To know. To possess. To dominate and conquer.

And the taste of the blood, and the death of the burly woman, and the fluidity of the exchange of power, was sheer ecstasy. To consume the blood, made of the essence and glory of the divine—and, in doing so, disrupting the flow that was the presence of God—put Ozryel into a frenzy. He wanted more. Why had God denied him, His favorite, this? The ambrosia hidden in these imperfect creatures.

It was said that wine fermented from the worst berries tasted sweetest.

But now Ozryel wondered: what about wine from the richest berries of all?

Left with the limp body at his feet, the spilled blood shining silvery in the high light of the moon, Ozryel was left with one thought only:

Do angels have blood?

MR. QUINLAN CLOSED the pages of the Lumen and looked up to meet Fet and Gus, fully armed and ready to go. Much was left to learn about the Master’s origins, but already his head was swimming with the information that the book held. He jotted down a few notes, circled a few transcriptions, and rose. Fet took the book and wrapped it up again, put it in his backpack, and then handed it to Mr. Quinlan.