Chapter 11

Varya watched him exert himself at the woodpile, standing just inside the treeline. Why she felt the need for such subversive tactics she could not explain, but she was unable to bring herself to be in his presence for anything other than the required chanting and services. She now took comfort in the words of God in the Chant not just for their content, but to use them as a shield, to keep Gavril from getting too close. It shamed her to sully the Word in such a way, but until she could get this jumble of painful feelings sorted out, she merely prayed for forgiveness and strength.

The words he had spoken, of being a man, of the sin of man, resonated within her. Intellectually, she had known that this was what being man was. It was a constant battle waged within his soul.

But now she was living it, and none of what she knew was helping her. All that was left was what she felt. 

Her eyes followed his strong movements as he swung the axe, his bare skin slicked with sweat as he exerted himself. His hair was plastered to his forehead, and the muscles she rarely saw rippled. 

He was not perfect. Only a true creation of God was perfect, and she had been part of that for all of her existence until this mission. There were flaws, but for some reason, she was seeing fewer and fewer of them. Shouldn't that have been reversed? Shouldn't long exposure to him have revealed more of his imperfections to her, things to be corrected by the hand of God? Man was clay, rude and unready, until sculpted by the hand of the Father.

Perhaps he was growing closer to God through his own studies, and prayer, and meditation. Perhaps what she was seeing were the results of Gavril's own personal journey to divinity.

She shook her head. It was not so. She did not know the reason why she was seeing Gavril the way she was, but she did know that there was nothing divinely inspired by it.

And what was more, watching him thus caused strange sensations to race through her. Warm, tingling sensations that began in the pit of her stomach and raced to her extremities, which then itched to touch him. There was much warmth centered on him now, and it ranged often to actual heat. Temperature did not make her sweat, but as she studied him, she felt the unfamiliar beads on her skin, her upper lip. When she licked it the saltiness made her blink. 

While she did not require air to live, only to speak, her breath still came thick and fast, and normally there was no evidence when she spoke, but now it steamed from her lips in heavy gouts of white.

One hand pressed to her stomach. What was all this? And why was it so tied to Gavril? It was the height of unfamiliarity. Even the anger she had felt had not been entirely new, righteous fury was a gift granted to her and those like her to battle the Enemy. It was similar, but as the cause had been personal it had been highly unsettling. 

This, however, had no basis for comparison. It sent strange pulses through her, zipping along her nerves.

It was not unpleasant. Neither was it pleasant. It was a strange longing, but she did not know what she longed for, only that she did.

"You see him as a man, little angel," came a hatefully familiar voice.

"Czernobog, why are you here?" she asked irritably. 

"Oh, the little play unfolding is too delicious to resist! How could I stay away?"

"What play?" she asked distractedly, eyes still following the swing of the axe, the way his body absorbed the shock of blade striking wood. "What do you speak of?"

"Why the play you star in, little angel."

Hot, stinking breath enveloped her, and despicable heat wormed its way through her clothing as Czernobog appeared close behind her, mouth next to her ear. 

"You see him as a man, little angel," he repeated. "He is not your charge anymore. You desire him. This is why you cannot tear your gaze from him, and why you are so unsettled. Ah! Make no sudden moves, my dear, or he will notice us. He is truly a man of God and will see me, as he did before, although he was half dreaming. And he will see you, should you take your true form."

She froze, the demon's words cutting short the act of transformation she had been about to undergo, to slay the body that was his anchor to this world.

"Now we can continue our chat," Czernobog crooned in satisfaction.

"Get away from me."

"As you wish, little angel," he said cheerfully, and the presence removed itself from her back to some distance away. When she turned to face him, he was sitting on a stout tree branch, wings furled upon his back and held together with the finger claws at his black throat. The scuttling in the dead leaves and bracken around them told of the birds and small animals fleeing the immediate area.

"I care not for your 'chat'," she sniffed scornfully. "I only care that you leave this place, and take your ilk with you. There is nothing for you here, and there never will be."

"Oh, never say never, my dear. I think things are proceeding nicely."

"Nicely? You haven't even attacked in the last month. Obviously you are feeling how weak your position is."

"Hmph. You are obviously not a general. You have no knowledge whatsoever of tactics. I give you time, without such distractions as battle."

"I merely thought you too stupid to realize when the father was asleep."

"Still holding that against me? That was months ago."

"Why do you persist here," she asked tiredly. "I am in no mood to entertain you this day, and I still need to air the bedding before it grows too late."

"We are enemies, but I come only with the sincerest wish to help you, little angel. I can answer your questions about those uncomfortable feelings squirming about inside that attractive human body of yours."

"I wish for no answers from you."

"Pity. I do so hate to see someone founder in ignorance."

"Liar."

"Of course. As the scorpion said, it is my nature."

"Then why would I believe anything you have to say?"

"Because you know the ring of truth, even from one such as me."

"I suppose you will not leave until you have had your say," she grouched. "Out with it then, and begone."

"You yearn, but you know not for what. You feel peculiar sensations of heat when no fire is near. Your breast heaves when you do not draw breath for speech."

"If you know of such things then they must be of your doing!" it was nearly a cry, but she remembered herself at the last moment. Fortunately the ring of metal on wood covered the noise she made. "What have you done to me?" 

"Oh, little angel," he chuckled. "Would that it were I who made your body tremble so. That would make things quite interesting indeed, but it is no doing of mine."

"You…you speak truth."

"Naturally. It is in my best interest to do so."

"Then what afflicts me?" she demanded.

"What I said. Desire. You want him," one clawed finger speared through the air to point in the direction of Gavril through the thick barren trees. "You wish to know him…how shall I say this? Biblically."

Her mouth opened to berate him for the liar that he was, but no sound emerged.

"Ah," he said slyly. "You know I speak truth still. You are 'afflicted' with a very real and very common human condition. Attraction for someone of the opposite sex."

"Impossible. This is impossible. I cannot feel such a thing. It must be something else." She began to shake, dread blossoming like a cold and terrible flower inside her stomach. Unaccountable wetness sprang to her eyes, but she didn't even notice as it spilled down her icy skin.

"Oh, it's very possible, little angel. Your form is human, and so is your heart. And your loins!"

"No, no. I am not so weak as this!"

"It has nothing to do with weakness or strength, little angel. It merely is. A force of nature, like the wind that blows or the lightning that strikes. It is how you treat it that dictates whether or not it is sin. That is the beauty and the despair of God's grace."

"It interferes with my mission," she said, straightening, jaw jutting forward in stubborn determination. "It will be removed. I will ask for it to be taken from me, and it will be so. I am here for but one purpose, and that is to oppose you!"

"Is it, little angel? Is that your purpose? Or is there another one that the hosts of heaven have not seen fit to tell you of? Perhaps you have been given this mortal form for another reason besides that of bodyguard."

"Speak plainly, demon!"

"I believe you have had your menses," he asked lightly.

"What of it? It is a natural ability of this form."

"And what of not eating? Not drinking? Not sleeping? Not breathing? Are those natural for that form?"

"No, of course not."

"Then why give you the woman's cycle, when they have done away with so much else? It is not most inconvenient?"

"It…it is. But I—"

"You know its purpose, biologically speaking, do you not?"

"Of course I do," she snapped. "It is for—" Now all color did truly drain from her face, and her legs became weak as water. She dropped to her knees as if felled by the axe Gavril steadily swung. 

"You are slow, but you are steady, I will give you that much," Czernobog said, eying her with snide sympathy. "That's right, it is for one purpose, and one only. Reproduction."

"You are trying…" she swallowed hard, mouth very dry. "You are trying to say that I was sent to carry a child for Father Gavril? Have you no sense of decency?"

"None whatsoever," he said airily. "But if you think about it, it is the only logical conclusion, is it not?"

"No," she said, violently shaking her head. "No, it is not."

"What else is there?"

"There is…there is…understanding being human. Eating, drinking, those things are not necessarily what helps define a human. However, this is part of the very essence of being a woman! Of course I would have to experience it in order to fully appear as a human woman!"

"And that's another point…why send you as a woman? Why not a man? As a man, you might feel such desire, but it would not matter. His predilections do not lie in that direction, so you would be of no temptation to him whatsoever. Why make you an object of temptation if you are not to be used?"

"That…that would not be done to me…"

"Would it not? Was Sarai not made infertile, was Hannah not made beautiful, was Salomé not made an exquisite dancer? All with womanly ways, and those ways all part of God's greater purpose."

"But I am not human! And why in such a manner? Why not have him meet a suitable woman prior to God's call to him? They would have been able to marry and have children and he still would have been able to become a priest, and everything we need him to be!"

"I do not know. It must be something particularly special about you."

"You sicken me. Begone," she said weakly, hands working uselessly at her skirts. 

"No. I don't think I will this time. I will physically remove myself, but I will remain. Unless I move you can do nothing, so I think I will just make you a little crazy for a while, knowing I am here but unable to do anything about it."

"Then do so, vanish from my sight!"

His mocking laughter echoed in her ears for long after the demonic body faded from view.