Stones Unturned Read Online Free PDF Page B

watching. She closed her eyes, wanting to lose herself in the pulsing beat, wanting to be part of this microcosm of humanity, even if it was just for a little while. Maybe he'd go away if she ignored him.
    "You dance beautifully," said a cold, soft voice that somehow managed to be heard even over the blare of the club's sound system.
    She opened her eyes to see that he was closer, less than two feet away. Eve doubted that the others could see him, but they still gave him space as he moved across the dance floor, unknowingly moving out of his path.
    Jophiel . He was part of the heavenly host, one of the Cherubim. Eve had not seen him since they had run into one another at a symposium in Tel Aviv on the forgotten books of the Old Testament. That had been five years ago, and the time before that . . .
    Eve turned her back to him and tried to lose herself in the moment, hoping the physical act of dancing would keep the painful fragments of her memory at bay. It did not. In her mind's eye she saw Jophiel as she had the first time, so very, very long ago, wearing armor that seemed forged of the sun, brandishing a sword of fire. The beating of his powerful wings as he chased them out of the Garden had sounded like the end of the world.
    And in a way, that was precisely what it had been.
    "What do you want?" she asked the angel, continuing to dance.
    Several people around her shot confused glances in her direction — obviously believing she was talking to them — and they moved away, allowing Jophiel to glide closer.
    "It amuses me to see you here — among them." The angel smiled, and it was the most hideous thing she had ever seen. "What would they say, do you think, if they knew?"
    Eve turned her back on him, directing her attention to a darkly handsome college guy dancing with an attractive blonde. It only took about a second for him to notice her. He danced closer, leaving the blonde to continue her dance alone.
    "If they understood . . . truly understood who you are, and what you and your mate stole from them . . ." Jophiel whispered in her ear.
    The angel's mere presence sickened her, dredged up within her all of the terror and anguish of her existence. All the regret. All the pain. Ignoring him simply wasn't going to work.
    Eve continued dancing, but, masking the motion as part of her gyrations, she shot her elbow back hard, gauging the distance so that she would hit the angel's face. She'd anticipated a satisfying crunch. Fully manifested, angels could be hurt. They healed quickly, but it would still feel good to shatter Jophiel's nose or cheekbone.
    The angel wasn't there. Her elbow shot backward, and she danced into its momentum. As she turned, she realized that she had nearly struck a heavyset bald man with glasses, who seemed oblivious to how close he had just come to dying. With her strength, that elbow would have shattered his skull.
    Eve had no idea what had made Jophiel so obsessed with her. The angel took it upon himself to track her down every few centuries to remind her of the magnitude of her sins, as though he worried that she might, even for a moment, forget the horror she had caused and have a day or an hour without the weight of the world's guilt on her shoulders.
    Really, he was just a whiny little shit.
    As if she could ever forget who she was and what she had done. There were nights when the wind was just right and the sky clear and pure that she could close her eyes and still taste the sweetness of the forbidden fruit on her tongue and lips.
    The original sin. The original crime. Yes, she was guilty. But she was just a toy, a puppet trapped in a tug-of-war between the Creator and Old Scratch. The Creator should have trusted her. If He'd not made her so ignorant, she would have known better than to fall for the serpent's lies.
    Now here Jophiel was to remind her again, and all she wanted to do was scream at the angel and tear out his eyes. Hadn't she suffered enough? Driven out of the Garden, raped and