Chapter Seventy-Seven Charlotte
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Charlotte
I wander for what feels like days, though it must be a lot longer.
Time passes more quickly here. Like how the minutes slip by in the playroom when I’m completely lost in my own pleasure.
Night never comes, though there’s occasionally stars overhead, and the sky and the landscape is like an endless stretch of infinity.
I pass terraced mountains, rainbow deserts, the layered sediment flowing from red to orange to yellow with pops of cactus green.
There are glacial lakes with the bluest water I’ve ever seen.
Trees covered in pink cherry blossoms that float through the breeze and coasts lined with endless white sand. I’m never hungry, never tired.
I’m never anything but at peace.
But I know time is passing quickly here.
I mark it in the changes in my body.
The way my breasts are a little fuller, my belly a little rounder as I reach each new landscape.
Until I can feel mine and Lucifer’s daughter regularly squirming inside me.
Faith. I think that’s going to be her name, if Lucifer approves.
She’s a hellion all right. Like her dad. Like Death.
Kicking me in the ribs every chance she gets.
But it doesn’t feel like pain. Just contentment.
And even though I’m alone, I’m happy.
I walk and walk and walk. I could go on like this forever, if I weren’t vaguely aware there was something even greater out there waiting for me. I wander until I’m drawn toward . . . something, though I don’t exactly know what.
Occasionally, I change direction, switch paths, but I don’t know where any of them lead.
I let my intuition guide me.
Count our baby’s kicks.
Eventually, I reach a rocky coast, and though I’m not tired, if I stay here much longer, Lucifer and Azrael are going to miss my entire pregnancy.
With how quickly time’s passing, I’m way further along than when I arrived here, but just when I’m considering turning back, in the distance I see a figure standing on the edge of the coast.
It’s the first person I’ve seen all day. Days? Weeks maybe?
I’m not sure, honestly.
I pick up my pace, jogging a little to catch up to them before they disappear. I’m not so big that I can’t move easily, but there’s no hiding my bump now.
It’s going to be obvious to everybody.
I draw closer and closer to the edge, the landscape dipping and then rising so that I lose my view. The crest over the hill seems to take ages, until I’m hoping, praying with all my might, that when I reach the other side, I’ll find Him there.
But when I reach the cliff’s edge, it isn’t God.
It’s His prophet.
Jax.
She turns and looks at me, her smile wide and her dark hair swept back from her face. I’m not certain if I say anything. I just pull her into my arms, clinging to her, and she lets me.
If Heaven is a place where nothing hurts, then all our loved ones must already be there.
She pulls back, placing her hand on my bump. “Look at you. You’re adorable. You’re glowing.”
“You are too.” I laugh.
She looks like an angel, but without the wings.
Like she belongs here.
“I’m sorry. I—”
“Don’t.” She shakes her head. “This was always how it was meant to be. You did exactly what you were supposed to.”
“Except find God.” My face falls. If I don’t turn back soon, then what? “Lilith’s going to destroy everything.”
Jax smiles. “I think He likes to turn up when you least expect Him to.” She nods over my shoulder, and I turn to find God standing there.
Or Father Brown, what He calls Himself when He’s in His earthly form, anyway.
“Charlotte.”
He offers me His hand.
I don’t know whether to take it or whether I want to scream.
To rage for all the ways He’s failed me.
Failed us. But I’m too at peace to do anything but stand there.
A part of me also wants to thank Him for . . . everything.
He seems to catch on to my dilemma, nodding like He understands, before He gestures over His shoulder. “Walk with me?” He looks toward the coast.
I give a reluctant glance toward Jax.
“I’ll see you again,” she says. “Even if you’re Hell’s queen.”
I trust her. She hasn’t steered me wrong previously.
I pull her in for a hug, muttering a quick, “I love you.”
“I love you too.” She rubs my belly one last time for good measure. “You’ll be an amazing mom. Don’t let Lucifer make you have too many. You know he comes from a huge family.” She laughs, smiling at me and then God, like they’re old friends.
Maybe they are, I guess.
I squeeze her hand, reluctant to let go, but the moment I set her free, her glowing form disappears entirely. I turn toward God.
We set off down the coastline together, walking in silence.
At first, it’s comfortable.
Companionable even.
But then it stretches on for too long, and I open my mouth, about to say—
“I know why you’re here, Charlotte,” He says, stopping near an outcropping of rocks and running His hand along the ridged surface.
His presence is calm and steady, the order to Lilith’s divine chaos.
Despite the wrath I know He’s capable of.
“How did you know? I thought your precognitive abilities didn’t extend to Lilith?”
He smiles like the term precognitive abilities is somehow amusing.
I suppose to a god, it would be.
“I don’t need to see what fate has in store to know what my wife is planning.” He nods to the edge of the cliff, to where Jax was.
Of course. Jax is one of His prophets. She would’ve told Him.
Though she wouldn’t have been able to come here, where she was supposed to be, if Azrael and I hadn’t smashed open the pearly gates. She would’ve had to stay in Hell with us.
It’s hard to not let that make me regret opening them.
“I’m not particularly happy about my gates being destroyed,” God says, reading my thoughts. “Even if it was a bit fun to watch.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Azrael’s still angry with me.”
I nod. “Probably.”
“Rightfully so.” He turns away for a moment before He asks, “And Lucifer?”
We both already know the answer.
“I think some part of him always will be.”
God’s solemn agreement is silent, a slight dip of His chin.
“Why’d you do it?” I tilt my head to the side, wondering what it must be like to be the Creator. The architect of all of Lilith’s raw materials.
“You want to know why I punished Lucifer? Why he fell, if I’d always planned for him to be redeemed?”
I nod.
“Isn’t it obvious?” He asks.
I shake my head. “Not to me at least.”
He smiles. “I’ve made mistakes. Just like you. I created humanity in my image, Charlotte, and I’m not perfect.”
I exhale, trying to suppress a smile.
He’s just as fucked up as we are.
I don’t know why, but that makes me feel a little better.
“Well, I don’t know that I’d exactly put it in those terms,” He says, reading my mind.
We both fall silent for a beat.
“So, you know Lilith’s coming for you, but you’re not going to hide?”
“No.”
“Why?”
If He loves us in spite of our flaws, I don’t see what would make Him want to end humanity that way.
“I deserve what she gives me. This is my penance. For how I’ve wronged my wife, wronged Lucifer.”
“But if you die, then . . .”
Humanity ceases to exist.
How come I seem to be the only immortal who can see that?
The answer comes to me in a second.
Because that’s the part of my humanity that remains. My hope that we can still be redeemed.
Just like Lucifer was.
“That doesn’t matter to you any more than it would matter to Lucifer, to Michael, or even Lilith, does it?” I ask.
God may have made us in His image, but to Him we’re just one small speck of stardust in an ever-expanding universe. A footnote in His celestial ending.
Unimportant.
But not to me.
“What can I say to change your mind? To stop you from handing yourself over to Lilith?”
God shakes His head. “There’s nothing you could do to convince me.”
And to think, I figured His wife was the unreasonable one.
Suddenly, Lilith appears behind God, her smile slow and wide, like I led her right to Him.
Why the hell had I not thought of that possibility?
I place myself between them.
Like I did with Lucifer and his siblings.
Though I don’t know exactly what it is I’m supposed to do to stop a battle between two creators. My attention darts back and forth as panic sears through me.
No. This can’t be the ending.
I can’t die without one last time in Lucifer’s arms. Or one more night with Azrael.
“Lovely of you to do the work for me, Charlotte. I have so little faith in Him anymore it would’ve been a struggle to find Him on my own.” Lilith looks at God, eyes narrowing. “Husband.”
“Wife.”
Their greeting to one another couldn’t be colder.
But there had to have been a time when . . .
“You both love your children,” I say, my voice smaller than I want it to be. “In particular, your son.” God may have kicked him out, given him a chip on his shoulder, but my husband is absolutely the golden boy of his family, and no one can convince me otherwise.
Maybe that’s why he’s so determined to make the world his stage.
Lilith’s expression turns accusing. “You threw him out at the first sign of struggle.”
God’s brow furrows. “You coddled him, even when he defied me.”
“What if you’re both right?” I shrug helplessly, feeling like I’m standing between Lucifer and Azrael all over again.
I think they’d both punish me if I told them they argue like an old married couple.
“What if you both need each other? There’s no order without chaos.
No light without dark. No pleasure without pain. ”
Just a lot of endless nothingness.
Void of meaning.
“I created Him.” Lilith sneers.
I huff.
Well, there goes that idea.
She steps forward as I scramble to find another way. Another path to resolve this.
This is a celestial minefield.
“But you also chose to surrender your power to Him, didn’t you?”
Lilith’s head whips toward me. “What are you trying to say, human?”
My stomach drops, and if it weren’t for the fact that I’m carrying her grandchild, I’m pretty sure she’d smite me. The ends of her hair blaze.
“He took advantage of you, yes, and that was wrong.” I shoot God a chastising look.
“But I think what you’re really angry about is the fact you let Him, that in the aftermath, you lost sight of your own power for a while, and now you don’t know how to reclaim it.
” Shaking, I try to take her hand, and to my surprise, she lets me.
“You think being angry will get you back to that power, and it might for a while, but that won’t get you any closer to where you’re heading. ”
I’m speaking to myself as much as I am to her. If PR has taught me anything, it’s that the best narratives come from a place of honesty, of shared experience.
I think about what I’ve missed the most during the time that’s passed here. From the gleam in Lucifer’s eye whenever he tells me to get on my knees to the devious grin on Azrael’s face whenever I make him feel seen.
That’s what Heaven’s missing.
Joy.
It has peace, contentment.
But it’s nothing without joy.
And joy can’t happen without healing, without moving forward, without moving on from dwelling on the past, long enough to recognize there’s no meaning to be found in something that’s senseless and unfair. Dwelling doesn’t reclaim anything.
And that’s where the true power lies.
In mercy. In forgiveness.
In reclaiming joy.
Even if it’s undeserved.
That’s the piece Lucifer and I have been missing all along.
We need to stop looking back.
We need to start looking forward.
I squeeze Lilith’s hands tight. “You don’t need Him,” I say, nodding over my shoulder toward God.
“You don’t need Him to be happy. You don’t need His apologies, or His forgiveness, or His explanations.
But you do need to give Him mercy, for yourself.
You already have all the power you need.
All you have to do is reach out and take it.
” I hold her gaze. “Take it and don’t look back.
Take it and create a new universe. One filled with life and abundance and joy and all the things He made you think you could never have.
A life filled with every wicked thing He couldn’t take from you.
That’s the real way to punish Him. To not let yourself be defined by what happened, but to thrive in spite of it. ”
God clears His throat. “As interesting as that little speech was—”
“Quiet, Jehovah,” Lilith snaps, holding my palms tight. “I suppose since Lucifer is still digging his feet in, Seraph will do. Perhaps you’re right, my creation. Perhaps I don’t need to destroy Him, but only if you—”
“Lucifer and I will come visit.” I latch on to that small thread of hope and pull. “And we’ll have plenty more babies, I promise.” I glance between them. “Though maybe not as many as you two.”
Lilith laughs.
When the Goddess isn’t raging, isn’t trapped by her own fury, she’s beautiful, joyful.
“All right, my child. You win. For now. But when humanity has finally fallen . . .” She glares at God, the darkness in her eyes flaring as she turns from one to three. “Don’t think I won’t still come for you.”
She fades into the fabric of the universe.
And then she’s gone, released from her fury, into the joyous chaos she was always supposed to be.
I look at God, my hand resting over my belly as I shake my head. “You owe me.”