Chapter Thirty-Four Charlotte
Chapter Thirty-Four
Charlotte
When I return to the penthouse, thanks to the slowed time in Hell, it’s nearly twenty-four hours later, and I haven’t seen or heard from Azrael.
Emergency services are still spread too thin throughout the city, so when Lucifer meets me right on time in the foyer, we decide he’ll go ahead to Apollyon to assess the damage without me.
The ambulances and other medical staff are serving the most critical parts of the city down near Battery Park and the surrounding piers, triaging those who were severely injured, and searching for some of the victims still trapped beneath the rubble as other crews from farther inland are bused in to assist in other areas.
The penthouse is going to be occupied for a while.
But we have more than enough room.
I work with the staff to coordinate providing bedrolls, blankets, and other necessary toiletries and essentials to those with nowhere else to go, and I even field a video call to the current acting head of FEMA to send additional funding.
Most of the survivors Azrael and the other Originals managed to get out were in the immediate vicinity—Battery Park or somewhere nearby was their home neighborhood—so there’s little left for them to return to.
I understand the feeling.
Once I’ve finished assisting the staff and ensured everyone’s as comfortable as they could be, circumstances considered, night has fallen, but I find the strength of mind to snap myself into Apollyon’s boardroom.
It beats having Dagon drive me uptown. The subway isn’t running, nor is it safe for me to ride due to the Righteous and the paparazzi.
When I arrive, I’m not surprised to find Lucifer and his siblings arguing.
Lucifer sits at the head of the table with Greed to his left, while Azrael’s claimed his usual corner near the window. Wrath, Gluttony, and Envy are there as well, but Lust and Sloth are nowhere to be seen. Az has probably jetted off to Paris, already in prep for Haute Couture week. Good riddance.
Though I’ll need to get him back in my corner eventually.
I head straight toward Azrael.
“Are you okay?” I whisper. “If you think I’m scared of you, I’m not. I just—”
“Later.” He nods to the executive table.
Neither of us wants an audience for this.
I give his hand a quick, reassuring squeeze before I join Lucifer. He pulls out the chair next to him for me, not missing a beat from laying into Envy like he used to do when he was my boss.
He clasps my hand, and I can’t help but think about how strange it is to be back in this room, where he and I started.
So much has changed since then.
“I think we’re far past that, don’t you?” Gluttony interjects, arguing about the city’s dwindling food supply now that Famine is loose.
The city is never going to be the same. We’re still standing, but even I can feel the shift, the power structures crumbling.
I lift a brow. “Where’s Mia?”
Everyone freezes.
As my assistant, she’s always waiting for me outside meetings like this, keeping me on schedule, but I haven’t seen her since yesterday morning.
Lucifer lowers his head, but it’s Greed who says, “I went back to the studio for her, but the tide had already come in, and so close to the pier, she . . .” Her expression hardens slightly.
My throat closes.
I’ve never seen Greed this unsettled before, but I think she and Mia might have been . . .
I hang my head, not allowing any tears to fall.
I knew we weren’t all going to make it through this. I knew and yet . . .
I never expected to lose someone I loved so quickly.
I close my eyes.
There’ll be a time and a place to mourn our losses later. When all this is said and done.
If I let myself feel the pain now, I might break completely.
I glance toward Azrael, knowing he can see how I’m struggling to hold myself together. But he’s got me. Once this is over.
“And the security team? The other mortals on staff? Evie?”
I haven’t seen or heard from her since she ended up back in the hands of her twisted older brother when she called the police to report Jax missing, but according to the paparazzi, she’s been spotted a few times down in Brighton Beach, so she’s alive at least.
Last I knew anyway.
“Still unaccounted for,” Lucifer answers.
I inhale a deep breath, glancing toward him, but he gestures for me to take the lead.
Getting his siblings to help us fight the apocalypse was my idea after all.
Even if it hasn’t gone as smoothly as we’d hoped.
Wondering who opened the second seal and why is still irking me.
I sigh, looking at the other Originals. “Today was a mess.”
The noise in the room erupts as everyone begins arguing.
“We need a more coordinated effort.” Wrath.
“And how exactly do you expect coordination when we don’t know which fucking seal Michael’s opening?” Greed throws up her hands.
Gluttony rolls his eyes. “The possibilities narrow with each additional seal. We can make contingencies.”
“With what knowledge?” Greed shrieks. “None of us even know what Father’s demands are going to be.”
“And that doesn’t do anything to protect the loss of human life,” I add.
We put as many contingencies in place as we could without sending the public into a mass panic. Every charity in and surrounding the city was overfunded and overstocked, but that doesn’t appear to have helped anything.
“We need a different plan.” Lucifer leans forward, turning his attention to me. “Opening the seals when they didn’t pose a mortal threat to you was one thing, but allowing Michael to play Russian roulette with your life is another. I won’t allow you to—”
“No.” I slam my hands down on the table and stand.
The whole room goes quiet.
I can feel Azrael’s reassuring presence at my back.
“The choice isn’t yours to make.” I clear my throat. “Until we have a better plan, we stay the course. There’s no other option for me.” Tentatively, I sit back down.
Lucifer’s expression is furious.
But I know Azrael will understand me.
“What did you promise Sloth?” Envy asks suddenly.
I wince. “I might have promised him that whenever I get around to reopening the pearly gates, I would get him back into Heaven.”
Lucifer’s siblings groan, but I keep my head high.
I’m not going to apologize for making a deal that saved countless people. As bad as the third seal opening was, it would have only been worse if Sloth and I hadn’t . . .
I shake my head, not even wanting to consider it.
Lucifer strokes his thumb over my hand in reassurance, capitulating, yet he doesn’t look happy about this outcome. But I feel a bit of victory in standing up for myself.
“Great.” Greed slouches back in her seat. “And just when I was starting to like you.”
“Starting to?” I glance toward Azrael, who’s been particularly quiet throughout all this, but he just gives me a heated look like he’s proud of me.
My cheeks flush pink.
I return my attention to the room. “I don’t see what’s so bad about that.”
Wrath scoffs, and Envy picks something from beneath his fingernails, looking bored, while Greed sighs dramatically. “Have you taught her absolutely nothing, Lucifer?”
“Taught me what?” I glance between them.
Lucifer leans back in his executive chair. “Reopening the pearly gates isn’t like inserting a key into a lock, darling. There’s twelve, each gate made of a single pearl, and the pearls are akin to”—he tilts his head, trying to find the right wording—“challenges one must get past.”
“Challenges?” I flick a wary look between him and Azrael.
“Living Creatures,” Azrael answers, like it’s his duty to translate. Among those present, he has the most experience with humans, or former ones in my case, as dark as that experience may be. “Angels aren’t the only things that guard God’s throne.”
“There’s cherubim,” Greed says.
“And seraphim,” her twin adds. “As well as—”
“Our siblings.” Lucifer’s expression turns grave, and I pale slightly.
I sink back into my seat with a groan.
When am I ever going to stop making every celestial situation worse?
Immortality isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
I’m in the learning-curve phase. I’m new to all this, I try to reassure myself, just as a bit of scripture comes back to me.
I’ve been revisiting it lately. With fresh eyes.
“‘One like a lion. One like an ox. One with a face like a man, and one like a flying eagle,’” I mutter, paraphrasing several verses from Revelation, one of many my father and our congregation’s Sunday school teachers forced me to memorize.
“‘Each has six wings and is covered in eyes, even under their wings.’”
“Their eyes are the least of your problems.” Wrath snorts.
A warning growl tears from Azrael’s throat, sending shivers down my spine, and Lucifer shoots his brother a menacing look.
“What? It’s true.” Wrath lifts his hands in surrender but stops talking.
This situation is only going from bad to worse.
“Well, one thing at a time, right?” I try to smile, but it’s not very convincing.
“Michael’s clearly out for blood. There’s no telling what he’ll do next time, and who even knows what Lilith’s doing to Jax in the meantime.
Not to mention, we still don’t know why the Righteous are so hell-bent on targeting me.
It can’t just be because I’m engaged to Lucifer.
It’s more personal than that, and if we don’t hit back soon, they’ll just keep coming.
I know them. They’ll use this as fuel to convert even more people.
It’s only a matter of time before they pull something drastic. ”
“So, what are you proposing, darling?”
I hesitate, thinking of the shocked look on Sloth’s face when I held back the seal’s flood, of that violent flyer the Righteous posted outside Pier59 Studios, of the fear in Jax’s eyes when Ian was keeping her captive.
Maybe holding my anger in isn’t protecting anybody.
Maybe it’s time to strike first.
“We hit back at the Righteous for abducting Jax. Get information. Remind them who they’re up against.”
Lucifer smirks in approval, glancing toward Wrath.
Wrath grins. “Leave that to me.”