Chapter Six Lucifer
Chapter Six
Lucifer
There are some monsters in Hell even I refuse to claim.
By the time I’m finally finished with Charlotte’s father, he’s nothing more than a splash of crimson viscera strewn across the meat locker’s floor along with several leftover leaking syringes of drain cleaner I forcibly injected into his urethra.
Honestly, the experiment didn’t yield the exact result I’d hoped for.
Though it won’t be long before he recalibrates, and we’ll be at this bloody ruse again.
I’ve met demons with more goddamn compassion than that insignificant, self-righteous prick, and after several weeks without answers, torturing him for the whereabouts of Charlotte’s friend along with the finer details of the little deal the leadership of his human hate group made with my brother, Michael, grows tiresome for me.
I fucking detest hypocrites.
I make it a point to torture them personally.
Sometime later, when I’ve collected enough of my power to manage to snap myself topside—one of the few divine abilities of which I’m still capable—I find myself standing in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, my stationed legions already standing sentry outside the door for me.
Holy pilgrimage sites haven’t exactly been the most popular of human tourist destinations as of late.
Not now that the entire world has become my family’s angelic war zone, my blasted brother and all his ilk have gone and made themselves known, and humanity has spiraled into panic about whether or not the world is ending courtesy of Charlotte’s little livestream.
Humanity is terrified of what they do not know.
And they do not know plenty.
Their ignorance is all they have left.
I wander through the sanctuary only long enough to locate my sister.
The church, for all that it’s worth, smells faintly of blood and incense, the combination of which isn’t a particular shock to me. Jerusalem never changes—even now that the world is under my command. The only thing that does change is the sins humanity chooses to bring to it.
Holy ground makes liars of the lot of us.
I find Seraph waiting for me beside the Altar of the Crucifixion, her dual sets of feathered wings stretching.
She leans in close to one of the golden effigies intended to be Christ—positioned over the rock of Calvary, which lines the supposed spot of his crucifixion—before she pokes the statue in the eye suspiciously, as if she suspects it might start blinking.
The church always did love their idolatrous figures.
“You’re late,” she says without looking at me.
“I had to stop for a change of clothes, I’m afraid.” I smooth a deft hand down the front of my suit as she steps down from the rock’s casing.
“I shouldn’t be able to sense you without your powers, but yet it seems you still know how to command a room.”
I place my hands inside my pockets. “Are you flattering me, sister?”
“You’re incorrigible.”
I smirk. “Well don’t stop now on my account.”
She rolls her eyes.
I pull a cigarette from my suit coat pocket—despite Charlotte’s continued insistence that I should quit whenever I’m topside—and light it upon a nearby votive candle. “So, which one of them was it this time, hmm? Which one of our sinful siblings opened the second seal before I gave the ready?”
“I’m not certain.” Seraph casts me a concerned look. “Michael took the meeting alone.”
Which means my brother already suspects we’re up to something.
Even a broken archangel is right twice a day, apparently.
With Michael so dutifully working to bring about our Father’s apocalypse in hopes of Father returning home, the Righteous actively campaigning against me, and our blasted Mother seeking to regain her full power by unleashing all four Horsemen—coupled with the obviously questionable loyalty of my siblings—it’s only a matter of time before more of my Father’s seals are opened.
We cannot stop them. Not without my powers. Not indefinitely.
So why not use opening the seals to our advantage?
“That doesn’t change anything.” I flick my ashes.
“No,” Seraph agrees.
Though Michael’s suspicion will make mine and Seraph’s task all the more precarious.
But what’s a little backstabbing between siblings?
“I did what you asked. Found what you need.” Seraph produces an unfamiliar scroll from the ether and unfurls it, holding it out for me.
I scan over the glowing Angelic inscription quickly.
“Resurrecting the nun will work to restore your powers, but there’s a . . . few complications,” she says, confirming what I already suspected.
I lift an amused brow.
“Father’s scriptures are clear. To raise someone from the dead, you’d need a prophet, and a powerful one at that. One of Father’s, ideally.”
“Like Charlotte’s friend, you mean?”
She nods.
No wonder my blasted Mother went and absconded with her.
Thwarting me is quickly becoming one of my family’s favorite pastimes.
“Or?” I prompt, sensing there is yet another option Seraph hasn’t revealed to me.
There is always another option.
My sister snuffs out one of the altar’s candles with her fingers, watching the flame die. “Or you could earn Father’s redemption again. Whichever comes first.”
I scoff. “That’ll be the day.” I start down the stairs toward the rotunda, casting my cigarette onto the marble flooring.
“Will it? Will it, Lucifer? Is it so far-fetched?”
I don’t answer her.
She grabs hold of my shoulder just as we reach the Stone of the Anointing, and I round on her, knocking her hand askance, harder than I intend to.
“I am irredeemable! Don’t you understand?”
The confession falls into the silence between us, heavy with self-loathing.
My hands clench into fists at my sides, fingernails digging into my palms, but I am unable to bring myself to look at her.
Slowly, I unclench them, my breathing hard.
“I was cast out for a reason.” My fingers dig into my chest, where the remnants of my sigil used to be. “I asked for His forgiveness before I opened the first seal, and look where it got me.” I let out a bitter huff, sneering. “I’m no longer interested in your preaching.”
“Lucifer,” she pleads. “You were already given it once. Is it so impossible to assume that you might be able to earn it again?”
I wave a dismissive hand.
“Or if not that, then all you’d have to do to reclaim it would be—”
“No,” I snarl, turning so fast I might as well still be immortal. The look I give her is one full of incredulity. “No, that is not an option.”
I refuse to place Charlotte at risk again.
Not even for my own gain.
The consequences of gifting my Father’s redemption to her were beyond my control, but I’ll be damned if I ever ask her to be—
“She’d give herself up for you willingly. You know that.”
“And for what? For her to bloody die again?” I throw up my hands. “For fuck’s sake, Seraph.”
“If she knew that was the only thing standing between her and saving humanity, would you let her?”
We both fall silent for a beat.
“I would never even consider letting her—”
“But it’s not about her, is it, Lucifer?” Seraph steps forward. “This is about you. About the fact that you refuse to—”
“I will not lose her again. Do you understand me?” I snarl. The words settle into the tarnished sanctuary between us.
But Seraph doesn’t look away. “No matter how many innocents die. No matter how—”
“Does Michael know?”
“No. No, he doesn’t. If he did, he wouldn’t touch her.”
I swear under my breath. “I would never allow her to sacrifice herself for my—”
“Well, maybe you should,” Seraph challenges, planting her feet. “Maybe you should be asking quite a lot more of her, Lucy.”
The way she says the old nickname, the one Michael gave me all those eons ago, is different from how any of the others say it.
More compassionate, more affectionate than anything, but still, it infuriates me.
“If you have something to say about my future bride, sister, say it,” I growl. “Preferably before the wedding.”
If I have my way, Charlotte and I will be married before the year’s end, despite whatever temporary dallying she and Azrael may be doing.
I’d sooner allow the whole of humanity to fall and my brother—or even my goddamn Mother, or my traitorous ex, for that matter—to come out on top of this apocalypse charade before I ever dared ask her to . . .
No.
I shake my head.
No. Not for me.
And definitely not for humanity.
I am not above strategic loss when it suits me, but I will not allow Charlotte’s life to be put at even greater risk than it already is.
No matter what monster that might make me.
Seraph’s expression grows cold.
“If there’s something else you feel you ought to say, sister, then say it.”
I easily read the furious gleam in her eye.
She’s concerned for me.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
Back when I was the leader of my Father’s armies, His most devout creature, Seraph was almost a . . . friend to me.
Before my rebellion against Father went unexpectedly sideways, and then falling for someone went and fucked everything.
Charlotte and I have more than a bit in common, I’m afraid.
Seraph shakes her head, stealing a look at our family’s old relics that are now divided in the church’s exhibit amongst the Syrians, the Armenians, and the Greeks. “With the second seal open, the others grow restless, and it won’t be long before Michael decides to—”
“Whatever our brother has up his sleeve, this time, I’ll be ready for him.”
I will crush Michael like the insufferable brat he is.
And my Mother, well . . .
There will be some harsh boundary setting, considering Charlotte has already gone and stymied my greatest bargaining chip.
Making promises about our hypothetical children to a goddess was foolish, reckless at best, especially since she and I might not even be able to . . .
I drop my chin, looking away momentarily.
There are still parts of my life she couldn’t possibly begin to understand.
How could she when I have not told her?
“I wouldn’t underestimate Michael.” Seraph glances toward a flickering mosaic candle that illuminates the fading frescoes with an almost divine fatigue. “He intends to strike where it hurts. She’s a wild card he didn’t account for.”
“If he so much as lays a finger upon her, I will—”
“Not him. Not directly.” Seraph shakes her head. “The trials, to open the seals, he—”
A shout sounds from just outside the sanctuary, signaling a struggle between my demons and whoever it is currently searching for me. The Righteous and their ever-growing network of followers, or Michael, or my Mother.
Take your bloody pick.
Everyone and their brother wants a piece of me.
Now that word of our Father’s impending apocalypse has gotten out and humanity’s reign has fallen, I am divine enemy number one.
Even my brother’s angelic soldiers are searching for me. Including the one at my side.
Though she won’t be the last to join us.
Not if I have a say in anything.
“There’s something else I need to tell you,” Seraph whispers, pulling me into the nearest passageway just as gunfire echoes outside the church’s door. “The lance . . .”
I roll my eyes. “We’ve been through this, Seraph. Without my powers, there’s no chance of my reclaiming it from Michael, and I—”
“You really think that it was put into play by accident?”
The question stops me in my tracks.
I thought I knew the whole of the game, had mapped out every eventuality, but that is one angle I hadn’t quite considered.
“Tell me,” I growl, fury starting to rise in my chest as my mind begins to connect the dots, the patterns—who had the motive, the power, the means.
And the desire to see me bleed.
Seraph flinches, looking away.
The sight of my true face still occasionally disgusts her.
“I think you know.”
I give a curt nod, and then Seraph utters the name of the one and only celestial, aside from my future bride, who could ever truly manage to hurt me.
“Azrael.”
My expression goes cold.
And to my shock, I find I am still capable of being surprised.
And betrayed, for that matter.
“This isn’t the first time he’s gambled with something that wasn’t his to risk. He always did know how to ruin things before they became beautiful.” I huff, betraying nothing, as I turn away from my sister. “If she bleeds for his mistakes, I swear—”
“You’ll do what, Lucifer? Kill Death?”
The look I give her is one of cold fury.
“I will remind him that he’s not the only immortal capable of ending worlds.” I remove my wallet from my back pocket, pulling out a five-hundred-dollar bill and waving it before I drop it onto an offering plate. “Your devotion won’t be forgotten, sister.”
Seraph scoffs. “Not everything holy is a transaction, you know.” She shakes her head, flapping her wings, and then she’s gone.
Leaving me all of two seconds before the Righteous’s soldiers burst in.
Gunfire rings throughout the church as Jerusalem devolves into chaos, signaling that the end must truly be near.
Just as the door to the main entrance ruptures, I snap my fingers, sending myself careening down into my realm, where they are unable to chase me.
I’m safely ensconced inside my throne room before they can even begin to scour the church for me.
I drop onto my throne, allowing myself a much-needed moment to think.
My former lover is playing a game.
And the only question is whether my future bride is the prize, or the pawn he intends to use against me.