42. Celix
Iknew a lot about angels because I paid attention in school, but I was realizing how much I either didn’t know or completely underestimated. I knew they were hard to kill because they had divine healing, but now that I’d seen it in action, I realized how in the dark I was.
When Lucifer came out with Lilith, he was clean shaven with a haircut.
The resemblance between Sydney and Lucifer was even stronger once he was cleaned up.
He was less gaunt too. I mean, he pickled himself in the bubble bath for what seemed like forever and Sydney got a little squirrely because she moved from being terrified to worried.
But he wasn’t in there long enough to fill out as much as he did.
And Sydney was Sydney. She walked right up to Lucifer and poked him in the chest.
“Are angels like those capsules when I was a kid that you threw in the bathtub and it grew into a dinosaur? Because you just look like you took the Master Cleanse too far.”
I had no idea what any of that meant, but it was a valid question. He was still thin, but he was no longer emaciated. Lucifer just booped her on the nose and smiled.
“I wasn’t born. I was created fully formed and the magic running through my veins tries very hard to restore me to how I was created.
It was part of why I was too weak to figure out how to break out.
My body was being starved and my magic was trying to overcompensate.
It was a trick both sides used during the war when we needed to keep someone alive. ”
“Uh, I was born. Can I do that?”
“You’re more angel than any Nephilim that’s existed before, but I honestly hope to never find that out. I’m an archangel, but I don’t know what choir your other angel ancestor was with and we all have different duties and powers.”
“Which one blows shit up? Because I keep doing that when I get emotional.”
“Seraphim. We called them the burning ones. But that shouldn’t be possible.
They are the closest to my father and never leave home.
I didn’t know your mother when she was old enough to manifest powers, but if it was a Seraphim, then your mother had way more of that DNA than you did. She would have blown things up too.”
“Uh, was my mother a completely different person when you dated? She was completely unflappable. Mom could be utterly terrifying without losing her temper. You can asked my third-grade teacher since she’s probably currently in Hell being tortured by demons who look like precocious kids.”
“Actually, she was. Your mother could be quietly terrifying, but she was also a firecracker when she wanted to be. Your mother and I were sitting next to a gentleman at a bar ranting about the Pregnancy Discrimination Act that had just passed and she completely obliterated him. I had to hold her back. It was quite sexy.”
“I have a question,” Sydney asked. “Mom got sick when she was in her sixties. My magic showed up when I turned forty-six. I’m guessing Cambion and Nephilim have their magic build, but it doesn’t set off your alarm until it manifests.
I’m guessing that has to do with emotions?
I just had a really infuriating call with my soon to be ex when I exploded my bathroom. ”
“Yes,” Kujo said. “Mine manifested when my abusive foster father was trying to hurt me, but I’d been having this feeling something big was going to happen soon.”
“Excuse me, infuriating call with your soon to be ex?” Lucifer said.
Lilith just rolled her eyes like she knew Lucifer was about to get completely ridiculous about Sydney’s ex.
“So, if I tell you this, you’d better protect him, but Nero took care of it.”
Sydney had a lot of trust issues, but she’d obviously let some walls down with her father.
She was fiercely protective of all of us.
When she killed Kujo’s family to protect him, she knocked us all out, but we weren’t hurt.
She wouldn’t have breathed a word about what Nero did to her ex to anyone who would have punished him for it.
Lucifer’s eyes glittered as they landed on Nero, but he wasn’t angry.
“Good. I don’t even need to know what he did.
He upset my child and he had it coming. He’s human, so there’s no magic for the curse to permanently latch onto.
It’ll eventually wear off. And I voted against it being illegal for you to use that magic.
So did Satan and Abaddon. We were outnumbered.
My other brothers don’t like that you can manipulate their feelings or completely knock them out.
My argument was don’t give you a reason to. ”
“It’s completely ridiculous because if the Beast of Eden gets triggered, he’s not going to differentiate between angels and demons.
He’s just going to kill anyone around him and it’s going to take a ton of demons like Nero to take him out when he’s in the thick of it and they won’t help without permission,” Lilith said.
“Sorry, but you and your brothers have made a mess of things. You need a functional government that represents everyone because some of your brothers make shitty decisions.”
Damn. She wasn’t wrong, but I didn’t think I’d say that to the devil even if I was his kid.
“I agree with you. So does Satan and Abaddon. We’d just prefer not slaughtering the only family we have left to do that because that’s what it would come to unless something drastic happens to convince them otherwise.”
Yeah, we were long past drastic. Something told me if anyone could all of this to come up with a solution that fixed Hell and no one had to kill their family, it was Sydney.
Even if she clearly didn’t care for most of her new family.