Chapter Fifty-Eight Lucifer
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Lucifer
The moment my wife is safely distracted by the task I have given her, I slip from the confessional, my blade at the ready.
Immortal or not, I would never allow her to face off against her father’s soldiers like this.
She’s already freed herself from them, no need to revisit old wounds, and considering her former congregation have been working alongside my brother for some time now, there’s no telling the true threat they pose.
If I’m going to die on my wedding day, it’s not about to be in some bloody confessional in a church near Broadway.
I ease around the confessional’s edge, pressing myself against the far side where I’m unlikely to be seen. It’s not exactly difficult to remain stealthy to human ears.
Even when I am not in my top form.
I will destroy every one of the Righteous and feast upon their entrails before I allow them to steal my last chance to regain my power.
My last chance at immortal life with Charlotte.
There are other prophets, other avenues, to be certain, but none I’m likely to locate before my goddamn family do what they always do and cock it all up.
My wife won’t be forced into relocating to another universe.
With or without me.
I grip my blade, holding it at the ready as I slip toward the far side of the room. Father Brown and his companion are on the other side of the sanctuary now, still talking, but the menace is facing away from me.
“You don’t understand, Father. He doesn’t deserve a pew. He deserves the pit. You’d seat Satan among your flock and call it grace, but all he’ll do is poison the well and laugh while your church burns from the inside. Renounce him. Tell us where he is, and no harm will come to you.”
“Satan is his brother, actually,” Father Brown says, his face giving nothing away when he spots me.
I place a finger to my lips, approaching slowly.
“You don’t understand. The serpent is no longer an angel.”
Father Brown presses his lips into a fine line. “I think he’d disagree.”
His aggressor’s voice grows even more hostile. “He’s the rot in creation, the whisper in Cain’s ear, the thing that watches when you think even God has turned His face away.”
I’ve never had someone flatter me so thoroughly. I cast a smug look toward Father Brown, and he smiles at me. “You don’t say?”
“If you won’t tell us where he is, won’t join us, then I’ll have to—”
The cultist reaches for the gun at his back.
I raise my blade, and it’s only then that Father Brown notices the celestial knife in my hand. “Sammael, no!”
The congregant spins, his gun lifted.
I gut him in one swift blow, stabbing my blade into his stomach and using the whole of my strength to grip his shoulder and drive it up into his sternum. A pulse of satisfaction runs through me. I see the moment the realization settles in, the moment he realizes his soul is mine. “See you in Hell.”
I watch the light fade from his eyes, the last few beats of his heart pulsing. I shove him off the end of my blade, wiping the blood on my suit’s pant leg.
Thankfully, black covers everything.
“That was entirely too easy.” I stare down at him.
The priest looks down at the man almost regretfully. The brown of his face is slightly ashen, but he’s not as horrified as I expected he’d be.
“He could’ve repented.”
I scoff. “Before or after he killed you?” I roll my eyes, crouching to check my victim’s pockets. No doubt Charlotte will be able to ID him, but that doesn’t mean I’ll make it easy on the NYPD. Though many of them are already in my pocket.
“You killed him,” Father Brown says, like he’s confused by it.
“Yes, I believe we’ve established that.”
“To protect me? An unarmed priest?”
I shoot him an incredulous look. “Of fucking course, I did. I need you. To restore my powers, and I—”
His gaze hardens. “I’m not a prophet, Lucifer.”
I huff. “If you’re not a prophet, then I’m a monkey’s uncle.”
“I’m not a prophet, Sammael.” He holds my gaze, but it’s the way he says that old name that gives me pause.
My eyes narrow.
“You’re more like your Mother than I ever expected you’d be.”
My stomach drops. “Pardon?”
A round of shouts on the far side of the sanctuary follows.
Our unwanted guest wasn’t alone, obviously.
Of course, he wasn’t.
I stand, quickly ushering Father Brown past the bleeding corpse. “We need to get you out of here. Now.”
“But I’m going to be late for morning—”
“Do you want to live or not?” I grip him by the shoulder as we reach the door, and I hear my sister’s high-pitched cackle on the far side of the sanctuary.
“Mimi,” he says.
She’s going to love tearing into those fools.
Though how in the bloody hell he knows the nickname I’ve called her since we were cherubs, I don’t know.
I open the door, shoving Father Brown through, but that’s when I see an unmarked car waiting just outside the building.
The window rolls down.
The car moves forward.
The barrel of a semiautomatic emerges.
And Father Brown does the most disgustingly sanctimonious, self-sacrificing thing he could possibly do. He steps in front of me.
“Your redemption isn’t as far-fetched as you think it is, Sammael.”
And it’s only then, from the disappointed look he gives me, that I recognize him for who he is. Without a doubt. The sound of gunfire rings out.
My Father casts me a pained expression as He crumples onto the church steps in front of me. As He uses Himself as a human shield to protect me.
Fucking bastard.
And to think, I was certain He couldn’t make me hate myself more.