Magic, Mystery and Superstition -- Halloween! by Linda Nightingale

Magic, mystery and superstition – Halloween!

The holiday began as the Celtic festival of Samhain, the end of summer and beginning of winter, when the worlds between the living and the dead blurred, and ghosts roamed the earth.  People felt especially close to deceased relatives and friends. For affable spirits, places were set at the dinner table, treats left on doorsteps and by the roadside.  Candles were lit to guide loved ones on their return to the spirit world.

Today in our trick-and-treat celebration of the holiday, many of the rituals have become obsolete. A lot of the old customs focused on the future rather than the past—on the living instead of the dead.  Some traditions purported to help young women identify their future husbands and, with luck by next Halloween, they would be married.  At some Halloween parties, the first successful apple-bobber would be the first one to walk down the aisle.

I love to dress in costume for Halloween whether I’m handing candy to trick-or-treaters, going to a party or going for a drink with friends.  I have a vampire costume, a dark fairy costume, an angel costume with wing (real feathers in blue and green) and a Cleopatra costume (I usually wear this with vampire fangs as Anne Rice’s Queen of the Damned).

Do you dress in costume for Halloween?  What’s your favorite costume?

Night Before Doomsday isn’t a Halloween story or an inspirational.  It is about fallen angels. In Genesis, "The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair; and they took wives for themselves from those who were pleasing to them."

Azazel was a leader of the Grigori, the angels sent to Earth to teach Mankind after the oust from Eden, how to survive in a less hospitable environment. Nine-tenths of the Grigori fell from Grace, but was it love or lust?

This novella presents the Grigori's tale in first person from Azazel's point of view--the temptations, his struggles and the final realization that Heaven doesn't speak to him anymore.

Excerpt:

One spring night I picked my way down a slippery path and found Ruth bathing in a moonlit lake. The sight took my breath away, and the song taking shape in my mind fled.  

“Golden Azazel descends to his humble servant.”  Ruth twined her arms above her head, her wet, succulent breasts gleaming in the moonlight.

She forged into shallower water. Excellent night vision bared what the lake would have hidden.  The dark curls at her mound drew my gaze.

I averted my eyes. “I’ll leave you to your peaceful ablutions,” but anticipation rooted my feet to the sand.  She'll come to me...I was certain.  I turned, placing my wings between me and temptation.

“Ho, Azazel!”

I angled my body so that I could see her.  Beckoning, she strode through the lake, shedding her mantle of water to stand naked on the beach.  Moonlight traced lush curves and the ivory globes of her breasts.  I could almost taste the rosy, pebbled nipples.  Wet hair streamed to her small waist.  My breath hitched.  My heart raced, pumping blood to the shaft tenting my robe.  Guilt plucked at my nerves, but I couldn’t look away.

Magdalene waited for me.  I should leave before trouble closed the distance between us.  My feet refused to move.  Enchanted, I stared at the feline huntress.  I might have conceived this sensual work of art, my own hands molding from river clay that perfect feminine shape.  A thudding awareness of the power she’d been born with, and that lust had given her, held me prisoner.  Then Magdalene’s face flashed before my eyes, turning me toward home.

Deep, throaty laughter mocked me.  “You’re afraid of me, Mighty Archangel.”

I spun to face her. “I am not afraid of you, Ruth.”

“Oh?” Her arms glided around my shoulders, her fingers massaging tense muscles.

She snuggled her face against my wings, her hands stroking the tender underside.  She must know that caressing my wings fired lust.  Which of my brothers was Ruth’s lover?

“Bad Ruth,” she purred, “Azazel is a married man.”

I held her back from me.  “I’m not a man. I’m an angel.”

“A fallen angel.”

Shame and anger jerked me out of her embrace.  “Mind your tongue.”

She teased my nose with a feather that had fallen from my wing.  “You committed the Original Sin.”

“The Original Sin was Disobedience.”

Her eyebrows flickered, her expression mocking.  “Did you not disobey when you took Magdalene into your bed?”

The truth tore a gasp from me.  Angels are the Word made manifest.  The Word no longer spoke in me.  I had betrayed divine trust.

She rubbed her arms.  “Your eyes burn my skin.  I’ve made you angry.”  With her hand, she traced my hipbone, her fingers then slid across my thigh.

I caught her hand before she could touch the hard evidence that I wanted her.

“Smite me with your Seraphic sword.”

“Ruth.”  Her name was a plea, a prayer to withstand temptation.

“I’ll never forget the first time I saw you.” She winnowed her fingers through my hair.  “Thick, straight, silky as the gold thread you’ve taught us to spin, your hair spilled over the whitest, grandest wings of all.  I wanted you then.  I want you even more now.  I can make you feel better than you’ve ever felt before.”  A fingertip dotted desire on my lips.  “I promise.”

Ruth made good her promise.  Her body clutched, sucked and milked me dry.  Delirium took me down, down, deeper and deeper.  As a delicious explosion tore me asunder, I cried, “My God, Ruth.”

No, not my God, any more....

I tried to stay away from Ruth, but memories of her lusty embrace left me moaning, sweating in my bed.  I touched Magdalene, felt Ruth.  I craved, yearned, stopped myself just short of praying to be consumed by her fire.  Shadows in the moonlight, we stole heaven beneath eucalyptus trees.  To her credit, Ruth never told our secret—that she’d tempted the first angelic husband from his wife’s bed.  If she had other lovers, there was no evidence, and our passion blazed out of control

Thank you Emma for letting me guest today on your beautiful blog.