Chapter 27 Lucifer
LUCIFER
“You can’t walk away from this!” Luc shouted into the mist. “We aren’t done!”
No response came.
“The Fallen didn’t bring magic to Earth!” Luc screamed into the void. Malachi wouldn’t have left. He’d hear. He had to. “Mortal souls are magic. Humans have magic at their core, the same as Eternals. The sacred balance is a lie!”
Heavy silence followed.
Luc heaved a breath, his fire raging. He surged forward, pounding on the magic barrier sealing the gate shut. Sparks flew as he pummeled the invisible force, sending red-hot pain up his arms.
“Face us!” Rowan yelled.
Ash snarled, and the demons around him joined in, their voices raising to a deafening level.
The magical barrier vibrated and pulsed. There was an ear-popping sonic boom, and a force hit Luc in the chest, throwing him backward.
Luc’s ears rang as he soared through the air and crashed into the ground. His vision blurred, head heavy, as a high-pitched ringing drowned everything out.
He struggled to his feet. Onyx lay beside him, one wing crumpled at an odd angle. Luc lunged for him. He screamed, but couldn’t hear his own voice. Nothing penetrated the ringing in his ears.
He rolled Onyx over. His lips moved, but Luc couldn’t hear him. He pulled his brother to his feet and helped set his wing. It would heal, but he couldn’t fly until then. Fuck.
Luc snarled. He gripped Onyx’s hand tight, refusing to let go even when his brother tugged on him.
Beside him, Ash helped Dante to his feet, and Isaac was bent over Catalina, limp on the ground.
Shit.
A witch’s body wasn’t much stronger than a human’s. They fought illness better, but didn’t heal as rapidly as vampires and certainly not like demons.
Luc raced over, pulling Onyx with him.
“You heal her organs, and I’ll get her spine!” Isaac shouted to Lillian as she kneeled on Catalina’s other side, but his words sounded faint and far away.
Luc and Onyx stooped to help, Valac joining in. Soon, every demon was pouring magic into Catalina, healing each broken piece inside her.
Her heart fluttered, but didn’t stop. At last, Catalina’s eyes flew open and she drew a shuddering breath.
Onyx slumped against Luc, and the need to hold his brother was all that kept Luc from collapsing.
“Thank all that is damned,” Dante said. “If she’d died…”
“They can’t do this!” Ash’s snarl popped Luc’s ears, and suddenly, everything was loud again. “They can’t attack us like this. Hurting innocent beings is vile.”
Ash stomped toward the mist-shrouded archway, Valac at his heel.
Rowan stirred in the grass and sat up, looking dazed. Lillian murmured with Catalina, and the other vampires groaned as their immortal magic put their broken bodies back together.
“Shield’s up,” Luc ordered. “We can all lend power to protect our guests.”
Fire flared on all sides. Red coated Luc’s body, Onyx bathed in blue beside him, and a multitude of colors surrounded Catalina and each vampire.
“I’ll stay back for now, until the vampires are healed,” Lillian offered.
Luc nodded and marched toward the gate with Onyx.
“Come out and show yourselves, cowards!” Ash roared into the mist.
“We aren’t leaving unless you kill us,” Onyx yelled out. “Are you going to break the ultimate rule and admit it’s all bullshit? Or own up and do what’s right?”
Luc rested a hand on Onyx and Ash’s shoulders.
Dante caught his eye, black flames raging in his irises. “Don’t back down.”
Luc let the strength of his raging fire fuel him. He wouldn’t, especially not with his brothers at his side.
“We’ve seen the truth,” Luc called into the mist. “The universe is not built on opposites. Straying from one box or another has no effect on anything. The realms don’t balance each other.
Life does not balance death. Magic is not in opposition to mortality.
It never has been. All things exist in varied forms. Witches are not wrong for existing between what we thought were the only two ways of being.
There is no reason some souls should be damned other than to satisfy your need for control. ”
But Luc might as well have been yelling at no one. Silence filled the air. Even the ambient music of the half-realm had ceased.
The ground vibrated.
Dante growled. “Get ready.”
Ash pulled Dante and Luc back from the invisible barrier. “We need space to move. Brace yourselves.”
Valac and his supporters joined them. “No matter what’s coming, we’re not backing down.”
“No.” Luc reached into his well of power. “There’s no coming back from this.”
He was doing this for Dex—he longed for an unending life with his mate, there was no denying that—but it had become so much bigger.
His heart’s desire had brought him to a reality more important than any individual dream.
Dex had shown Luc a better world. Everyone deserved that world, and no one had the right to stand in the way in the name of a sacred truth.
“Lies!” Malachi’s voice boomed out of the mist.
“They are not!” Luc shouted back. “Discovering this new truth doesn’t have to be bad. We can change our beliefs. Letting witches into the Eternal Realm threatens no one.”
All it threatened was the council’s power. Eternals would question them in ways they hadn’t before, but that wasn’t bad. If anything, it was good. Unless you were a councilor clinging to power and unwilling to change.
“Your attempt to bring chaos into this realm will fail.” Malachi reemerged from the mist, flanked on each side by a dozen Eternal guards.
Hollis was conspicuously absent.
In a flash of eternal fire, the guards launched into the air, lightning crackling at their fingertips. Luc, Onyx, Ash, Dante, and their supporters rose to meet them.