In
R A Z I E L
—
T
he space between them purrs with the promise of something dahlia-bright and bloodied. He can feel it: the way it twitches like skin under flies and pulls him in three inches closer. As he does step forward, the breeze picks up and warns him of the secrets hidden under stygian lashes. There is death in her hair, not in the classic sense of heaven, hell and white demise but something that smelled like moss-growing hesitation; the death of years spent under rubble and renaissance. But it doesn't stop him from hanging like a spider on a thread, carnivorous and patient. He cannot know of the tragedy she has endured, just as she cannot know of his and it is likely that neither should care to change the fact. Their histories, his estranged and hers sepulchral, are tattooed onto the bottom of their feet like fine print on a bottle. By the time it is read, it is often far too late.
The Nazaret man watches quietly as the decanter rises above her head and releases its inebriant into that hungry, endless mouth.
Dangerous.
He can almost taste the smack of it, can almost see his wine-stained teeth in the mirror.
A single tear falls from the hollow between lip and rim and laughs at him in shades of scarlet as it courses down a throat he does not see. She is invisible as he stands in darkness; blinded by the sight of his weakness.
But he is struck into seeing by the dark-rimmed voice that address him, a voice that sounds granular and dusty; as though it were rough with disuse. His eyes find her again. He breathes.
On a different night he wouldn't have followed her, this girl with wings and too-blue eyes. On a different night he would have simply watched her vanish into the humming crowd like a light burned out, but upon this eve Raziel melts into her shadow as though she were Gahenna -- as though he was not utterly alone. His chest hitches a little, yielding against the alien movement of his long wolfish limbs, and it takes a little more from him with every fluid step.
“Raziel Nazaret."
History has its eyes on you
![[Image: deadj5s-7ea0ce6c-63ed-494d-a2b1-1ea29d98..._KYezSKapw]](https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/62895f4e-8c60-4924-a6f1-54bf30743d42/deadj5s-7ea0ce6c-63ed-494d-a2b1-1ea29d98adc1.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOiIsImlzcyI6InVybjphcHA6Iiwib2JqIjpbW3sicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvNjI4OTVmNGUtOGM2MC00OTI0LWE2ZjEtNTRiZjMwNzQzZDQyXC9kZWFkajVzLTdlYTBjZTZjLTYzZWQtNDk0ZC1hMmIxLTFlYTI5ZDk4YWRjMS5wbmcifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6ZmlsZS5kb3dubG9hZCJdfQ.No4YMruHY_LHkiZwS9oVnGKGelURHdwU3_KYezSKapw)
