Chapter Twelve Lucifer
Chapter Twelve
Lucifer
I should have suspected something was amiss from the moment I dropped her off at the pier this morning.
I’m alone at the Metropolitan Club on Sixtieth and Fifth Avenue near Central Park East, halfway through my second glass of whisky, as I wait for a black-market dealer who purports to know the exact location of another one of my Father’s prophets, when a sudden awareness hits me.
A tension I cannot place coils behind my sternum, the kind of silence that falls right before the celestial dawn—or the cut of one of my blades.
I set down my glass. Not gently.
Wherever she is, my wife needs me.
I come to my feet, the club’s crystal chandeliers and coffered ceilings adorned with a few annoyingly rhapsodic family paintings looming over me. Azrael, in one of his many versions, appears by my side a moment later, confirming what I already suspected.
I throw back my glass, steeling myself for the battle ahead.
It’s show time, apparently.
“Take me to our girl, Reaper.”
Death nods, a rare moment of understanding passing between us.
In this and only this can we find a truce.
An agreement that we will both do whatever it takes to ensure her safety.
Abruptly, Azrael grips the back of my neck, drawing me so close that I let out a brittle laugh at the mere thought that he might actually be foolish enough to kiss me. Our eyes meet for a beat too long, before his lip curls.
“Careful now,” I taunt, snaking one of my hands about his waist and dragging him against me. “You wouldn’t want her to think you still care for me, would you?”
Azrael’s eyes narrow. “Never.”
I smirk wickedly.
The next thing I know, we both become shadow, our bodies temporarily evaporating into the ether and reforming in a way that is now both familiar and foreign to me, until I am standing, suddenly alone, in the middle of a busy street on the south side of Battery Park.
A yellow taxicab lays on its horn as it barrels toward me.
But I don’t pay it any mind.
The Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and the open water are at my back, and in the distance, I can see where my future bride now stands facing my least favorite brother, half a block away from me. But I am unable to reach her.
An unhinged growl escapes me just as the taxi and I nearly collide.
I slam my hands upon its hood, denting it, just as it stops abruptly.
The driver leans out the window. “What the fuck, asshole? You—”
I shoot him a furious look, and he pales as soon as he recognizes me.
Humanity knows exactly who’s in charge here.
And it’s no longer my Father, thankfully.
I set my sights upon Charlotte, and the driver shrinks back into the cab as I climb on top of the car’s hood. The soles of my Armanis find purchase before I ascend to the roof of the cab, finding my balance.
A few of my demons sense my presence and emerge from the street, but I refuse to take my eyes off her.
Now that I am mortal, my presence alone shouldn’t be enough to summon them, but somehow, they can still sense me. As Seraph can. And I can feel it too.
My power, simmering just beneath the earth’s surface.
Ripe for reclaiming.
Mortality is but a mere diversion in my path.
Not even the loss of my powers can stop me.
Not when it comes to her.
I leap from vehicle to vehicle, my eyes never leaving her, as more humans, more onlookers start to point and flee at the sight of me. My mind begins to connect the dots, the patterns, as the path forward suddenly becomes clear to me.
I thought I knew the whole of the game the first time I lost her.
But that was nothing compared to the rage, with the terror I now feel, watching as she stands on her own against my family.
With only the trust and the promise of all I have wrought, all I have given her.
And if she dares die again before she chooses to be mine, well, I can no longer be certain she’ll remain in my realm for all eternity.
Not now that she’s chosen to make herself into a guardian angel for humanity.
I didn’t think I could possibly hate them more.
But I was wrong about quite a lot, frankly.