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She had just begun to feel that shtness, too, but, looking at Akiva now, it felt very far away again, and so did he

As she understood it, there had been several thousand Misbegotten soldiers as recently as last year, and the final berserk push of the war had reduced that number to those she knew from the Kirin caves Akiva had endured that, survived it, and then he had endured and survived the death of Hazael, and noas here, safe, while possibly--probably--he lost all the rest

What Karou saw in hi, it wasn’t where they were supposed to be, but it felt… inevitable Brimstone had told her, just before her execution, "To stay true in the face of evil is a feat of strength," but ht Karou, sick at heart, it was just too th was tooof half death ith her still She felt flattened out, or hollowed out Again

She turned to her friends and, with effort, spoke alet a rooht--hoped--Zuzanaright up to the gate on Virko-back or so, but she didn’t She just nodded

"Do you realize," asked Mik, in a bald effort to jostle some Zuzana-ness back into Zuzana, "that our three wishes are about to come true? I don’t know if they’ll have chocolate cake here, but--"

Zuzana cut hi ers "One: for our friends to be safe Two: for Jael to drop dead, and three…"

Whatever she e it Karou had never seen her friend look so lost and fragile She cut in "If it doesn’t include food," she reently, "it’s a lie At least, so I’ve been told"

"Fine" Zuzana took a deep breath, centering herself "Then I could really use some world peace for dinner" She was all dark-eyed intensity So was lost in her Karou saw it and e Your framed portrait of life is sly, and you don’t even want to look at it let alone hang it on the wall, but you have no choice, once you know Once you really know

And as Zuzana going to be, now that this knowledge was hers?

"World peace for dinner,"his beard stubble "Does that co better," said Zuzana "Or I will send it freaking back"

The angel’s name was Elazael

The church founded by her descendants--and they preferred the term church to cult, naturally--was called the Handfast of Elazael, and every girl child born in the bloodline was christened Elazael If, then, by puberty, she had not ift," she was rechristened by another name Eliza had been the only one in the last seventy-five years to hold on to it, and she had often thought that the worst thing of all--the cherry on the cake of her awful upbringing--was the envy of the others

Nothing glitters in the eyes like envy Few could know this as profoundly as she did It had to be soiven e extended family would probably kill and eat you if it ift" for themselves, Renfield-style

The Handfast was h priestess Converts were called "cousins," while those of the blood--venerated even if they didn’t have "the gift"--were "the Elioud" It was the ter of the better-known "Nephiliress with humans

It was notable that in Nephiliels were roup except the Ethiopian Jews--tells of the leader of the fallen angels, Sa his hundred and ninety-nine fallen brethren to, essentially, get busy

"Beget us children," he commanded, and they complied, and no mention wasin writings of the era, the eny that sprang from their woiants and "biters," whatever that el Gabriel to destroy

And maybe he did Maybe they had existed, all of them: Gabriel and God, Sa babies Who knows? The Elioud dismissed the Book of Enoch as absurd, which was kind of the pot calling the kettle black, Eliza had always thought, but wasn’t that what religions did? Squint at one another and declare, "My unprovable belief is better than your unprovable belief Suck it"

More or less

The Handfast had its own book: the Book of Elazael, of course, according to which there weren’t two hundred fallen angels There were four, two of ere fehest rank of angels, they were o What had becoetting of their oas unknown, but Elazael, for her part, by way of congress with a human husband, was fruitful and multiplied

(As a side note, it said a lot about Eliza’s insular childhood and early education--or lack thereof--that she was a teenager before she learned that the governing body of the United States was called "Congress" In her world, itLoin fruit Doing it As a consequence, congress still sounded sexual to her every titon, DC, was often)

In the Book of Elazael, unlike in the patriarchal Book of Enoch, or Genesis for that iver of seed, but the receiver The angel wasweren’t ically

The Book of Elazael wasn’t written down until the late eighteenth century--by a freed slave named Seminole Gaines who married into the rowing the church, at its height, to nuht hundred worshippers, el Elazael herself, he wrote that she was "ebon-dark, and the quicks of her eyes white as starfire," though, living eight hundred years after she did, he was hardly an unimpeachable source Beyond that obviously el; no, even better: a fallen black el--the book was actually pretty orthodox, derivative enough that it could alnetic poetry, Bible edition

You know, if hteenth century Or refrigerator doors

In any case, what Eliza wanted to know about her heritage would not be found in the Book of Elazael At least, not that edition The real book of Elazael ithin her

She… contained it Not in her blood, though only those of the blood had it It was, in fact, encoded on the thread of her life, that tether hooking soul to body that would be found on no anatomy chart ever drawn in this world She didn’t know that, even as she fell headlong into it, in the backseat of a car on a long, straight road

Right into the heart of the madness that had claimed each and every "prophet" to come before her

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HUNGRY