Chapter Sixty-One Lucifer
Chapter Sixty-One
Lucifer
I meet my sister on the Rue du Charlemagne in the fourth arrondissement, in the Le Marais near Saint-Paul and the Seine.
The streets are narrow, the frozen cobblestones and petite crêperies providing little protection from the winter wind, but such human novelties hold little interest for me.
To the west, the Seine glimmers faintly, its waters nearly frozen with cold.
But I enjoy the cold, despite the hellfire humanity’s come to expect of me.
Though not for much longer, obviously.
Not if my family has their way.
Seraph appears next to a closing shop, examining the hand-painted menu written in fading chalk, like it interests her greatly. She’s always been amused by humanity’s inventions. It’s like watching a monkey learn to ride a bike, honestly.
“What are these?” she says, as I pass her the mound of vellum and ribboned cardstock my wife sent with me.
“Wedding invitations. Charlotte insisted.”
She glances down at the Angelic inscriptions my wife begged me to hastily scribble upon each. “You mean to die alongside her?” My sister is quick on the uptake.
I give a curt nod.
“Seems like a waste.”
I huff, taking out a cigarette and lighting it. There’s no point in attempting to quit now. Might as well destroy what’s left of this mortal body while I still can. “A waste of what? Money? I could burn mounds of it and still have enough to buy Heaven.”
Money is the religion of power.
And I am the true god of it.
She shrugs, tucking the invitations under one of her wings. “Of life? Of potential? I don’t know. But I’ll fight with you.” She sighs before she turns to leave.
She crosses a few meters down the cobblestones, the tips of her dual feathered wings trailing on the ground behind her. They’re nearly larger than she is.
Not that it’s ever stopped her from fighting our Father’s battles more fiercely than any other angel I’ve ever known. Save for me, at least.
Back in my angelic heyday.
Now look at me.
“Why now?” I ask, calling after her.
The question nearly dies on the wind.
But it’s something I’ve been wondering for some time, frankly.
She gives me a hesitant look.
“Why stand by me now and not when I rebelled?”
She sighs, striding back to me. “Your rebellion was foolish. Fueled by your own pride, your fear of losing Father’s love and little else.” The words come quick. Like they’ve been sitting upon the tip of her tongue for eons.
But it’s nothing I haven’t said to myself already. Or heard dozens of times before. In every dialect in every tongue and language known to man. My shame is nearly as public as my image.
Thanks to the villain they’ve made me.
“But you weren’t wrong about humanity.” She drops her chin, gesturing to the empty street about us, her brows lowering. “They don’t deserve His love, His mercy. But I think that might be the point.” She lifts her gaze to me. “And what came after . . .”
For a moment, I think she may leave it at that, walk away without admitting what she truly thinks, but then she looks me directly in the eye, an unexpected certainty in her gaze.
“Father was cruel. Unkind. The punishment didn’t fit the sin, and what He made of you after, the way He cast you out like you were a monster, like you hadn’t always been His most devoted, His most loyal son since the dawn of time.
” She shakes her head. “It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair, Lucy.”
I place my hands in my pockets. “Thank you, Seraph.”
She smiles, but there’s a bit of pity in it.
And I hate that I understand it.
Hate that I’m aware of all I’m missing.
Of all He stole from me.
“And now?” I ask.
Her sigh is long and weighted, like she feared I’d ask this, given enough time. “You’re still my favorite brother. But I suppose I’d hoped there might’ve been a chance you could still be . . .”
“Redeemed?” I let out a chuckle, but it doesn’t hurt like it used to. I flick some of my still smoldering ashes onto the stones. “I hate to break it to you, sister, but if there were a path, I’d have already tried it. I spent hundreds, thousands of years searching.”
Her mouth pops open. “You did?”
I nod. What’s the point in putting up a front anymore?
I’ve already sunk to my lowest low.
Preparing to die. To save fucking humanity.
My wife has made certain anyone who’ll listen knows the pathetic truth of me.
That I bled for Him in the way He never bled for me.
Not until recently, at least. I scoff.
“I did,” I admit, blowing out smoke as I think back to all the time I wasted.
All the schemes I planned that never panned out.
“And do you know what that bloody Bastard said to me? Before He died on the steps of that church near fucking Broadway, of all places?” I wrinkle my nose in disgust. “He said, ‘Your redemption isn’t as far-fetched as you think it is, Sammael,’” I mimic in his voice, my tone mocking. “What self-righteous horseshit.”
Seraph tilts her head at me, eyes narrowed, but I’m uncertain what it is she sees. “Perhaps you don’t need it. Perhaps you can give yourself what you need. I don’t think you’ve been looking in the right place, Lucy.”
I chuckle, unamused. “Oh, and where’s that? Timbuktu?”
“No.” She repositions the invitations she’s holding so that they’re no longer pressed to her chest. “The part you’ve always tried to keep under lock and key.” She drums her fingertips overtop her heart. And then she flies off.
I cast what remains of my cigarette onto the ground, asking myself the same questions I’ve been asking myself for eternity. But if there is one strategy, one outcome that has always eluded me, it’s this.
I will never know my Father’s forgiveness. His mercy.
And I think it might be high time I make peace with that, finally.