Chapter Forty-Seven Charlotte
Chapter Forty-Seven
Charlotte
I’m falling so fast it feels like I’m fragmented.
Like a part of me is broken and I’ll never be able to get it back again.
The sound of my own agony rings in my ears as I scream and scream and scream.
Until I scream myself hoarse. Suddenly I’m jerked out of midair by an invisible force, and I’m standing on my own two feet again.
I’m in the middle of a desolate landscape, the sky stretching as far as the eye can see.
There’s nothing but ground here.
Like primitive Earth.
It’s no more than a hastily molded lump of clay.
Lucifer lies in the mud and the muck nearby, curled in on himself and bleeding, but despite the pain of betrayal I feel, I stagger toward him.
But I pass straight through him.
“Lucifer?” I ask, but he doesn’t hear me.
He stirs slightly.
I turn and find Azrael crouching over him, his hair uncut, his arms and chest bare of all his tattoos. He reaches out, but then Lucifer lashes at him with his hand.
Above his eye, like I always suspected.
Then the scene shifts, and I’m in the middle of a lush garden, the smell of fresh apples all around me. The best I’ve ever tasted. I know that without even eating any.
Lucifer stands in front of a woman in the shade of a towering tree, and I can feel Azrael in the near distance, watching, the cold shiver of his power rushing over us.
I can’t help the hint of jealousy I feel—it twists like a knife in my gut, igniting a flash of anger as I see the way Lucifer looks at her, and then Azrael. And I realize that she must be . . .
Eve.
The scene shifts again.
It’s the scent of olives I notice first, the scent putrid on the dry desert air. I’ve never been to this part of Jerusalem before, but I’d recognize the gnarled roots of the ancient trees anywhere.
Gethsemane.
Lucifer and Azrael are kissing, but it seems like a goodbye, and somewhere nearby in what I guess is Aramaic, I think I hear what must be . . . Christ.
A shiver runs through me.
The scenes go on and on.
An endless stretch of stories, of moments, of memories, spanning out over the whole of time, the knowledge of each one gleaned in only a few seconds.
A kingdom. A bloodline. A doctrine.
Destruction. Death. A creed.
Like I’ve bitten into the apple, and now it’s given me all the knowledge I’ve been missing.
Azrael’s voice rings loud and clear, clanging around in my skull like it might be his memories I’m seeing.
Each moment that led to when he first saw me.
The scene shifts abruptly.
He holds me in his arms, cradling me, on the floor of Grand Central as Lucifer prowls toward us.
But then I blink, and we’re somewhere else.
“If that’s the case,” I hear Death saying, “then I think that I may have a better offer that suits you.”
We’re standing in an old, abandoned mall now, sometime within the last century, the decaying relics of a forgotten era making the atmosphere eerie, but it’s the devious grin Lucifer gives Azrael in response that chills me.
“What exactly are you offering, Reaper?”
The sequence shifts again. It doesn’t allow me to stick around long enough to hear anything. But I know already what Lucifer agreed.
My body shared with Death in exchange for his protection.
Until the right time, until sacrificing me could no longer mean saving humanity.
So Lucifer wouldn’t lose me.
No matter the cost.
When I come to a stop again a few moments later, I’m standing in the middle of a familiar orchard, the sickly sweet smell of rotting apples all around me, like in my dream, but this time, I recognize where it is.
Eden.
But the Garden’s dying.
And it isn’t Lilith that greets me.
It’s Jax.
I rush toward her, throwing myself into her arms.
I want to cry. I want to scream. I want to collapse in relief, but something makes me hesitate.
She pulls back from the hug. “We don’t have much time.”
I glance over the familiar planes of her face. “What do you mean?”
“Charlotte, whenever they demand you open the fourth seal, I need you to know you can’t stop it.”
My brow furrows. “What do you mean I can’t stop it?”
“What’s going to happen. It’s a part of God’s plan.”
“God’s plan?” I only seem capable of echoing her words back at her.
My mind feels distant, fuzzy, like the weight of all those memories is drowning me, like I might be in the middle of a . . .
A dream.
Is that what this is?
“This isn’t just a dream,” Jax says. “It’s a prophecy. I’ve been trying to send it to you, to show you. In the orchard. What’s going to happen when he—”
“Charlotte,” a sharp voice hisses, rattling inside my skull.
Lucifer.
I’m certain it’s him, but for some reason, I don’t want it to be.
“Don’t leave me,” I say, grasping Jax’s hands.
“I have to.” She squeezes them and then places a protective hand over my belly. Clearly, she already knows about the potential life growing there. “I’ll see you again soon.”
“But what am I supposed to—”
“It’ll all be okay. Just let it happen,” she says. “Just let God’s plan unfold.”
I shake my head. “But what does that mean?”
How can I stand by and do nothing? I need answers.
“Charlotte!” Lucifer’s voice hisses inside my head again.
“I have to go,” she says, glancing over her shoulder, her eyes wide like she’s suddenly panicked. “Lilith’s coming.”
“Lilith?” I pale at the thought of what she might do to her.
“Charlotte!” Lucifer’s voice echoes.
I try to grip Jax’s hand. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“I know, but I’ll be okay,” she says. “Go.”
“But I need you to—”
“Charlotte!”
I come to on a gasp, surging forward before I immediately turn and vomit all over the floor.
I realize only seconds later that I’m no longer in the re-creation of God’s throne room.
Instead, I’m on all fours in the hall leading into my father’s torture chamber. Like I was only out for a few seconds.
But it felt like a whole eternity to me.
Lucifer has a hold of me.
He grips me by the shoulders, his face as white as a sheet and contorted with worry, but I have a vague memory of Azrael forcing him to confess his sins, of how he broke his promise before he—
But there’s no time for that.
I shove him off me, trying to surge to my feet.
But he grabs my hand. “Charlotte, please. I don’t think it’s the best idea right now if you—”
“You don’t get to make my choices for me,” I hiss, unbuckling my collar and tossing it onto the floor in front of him. “Not ever again.” I turn to Azrael, addressing him like the celestial soldier he’s always been. “I need to see my father. Now.”