Epilogue
Death isn’t the end.
I mean, I knew that, but with Soul Reaper doing the ending, I kinda thought I’d be obliterated.
But nothing ever truly dies; at least that’s what I’ve been told.
Ascension, for Lucifer, meant something much more than I’d realized.
It meant taking God’s place.
All the power.
The right to rule.
Lucifer took it all because she was God’s heir.
I’d like to say I was there to see it unfold. That I was there when she kicked the Dominion’s ass and obliterated Michael. Damn I would have liked to see that. But I was on a journey of my own.
An ascension of my own.
You see, the soul has its own voyage, and my soul…
well, it wasn’t as new as I’d been led to believe, and when I was in that in-between state, not completely obliterated, but not grounded either, everything made sense.
The knowledge of the cosmos was mine. But that time that felt like a blissful eternity ended too soon.
“Ah, there you are, little one. Open your eyes.” Lucifer’s voice coaxed me back to being.
I emerged from the endless light to find her looking down at me. Where was I? What had happened?
I’d died.
Shem too…
Where was Bastian? Gabriel? Where was—
“Hush now. You’re safe. Everyone is safe.”
I sat up on a bed in a decadently decorated room, all cream and silver and filled with afternoon sunlight.
“Where am I?”
“Home.” Lucifer smiled.
She was no longer dressed in her battle clothes but was in a loose-fitting shirt and dark slacks. Her hair was braided, the tail dangling over her shoulder, and why was she looking at me with such wonder?
“Where is home…exactly?”
“Heaven, Rue. This is heaven.”
“I died.”
“Yes. Your mortal body is gone, and your soul was revealed in all its glory.”
“I’m confused. How am I here?”
“Because this is where you belong, Rue, just like me. You see, gods procreate by either sharing their divine essence with another god or by creating a being from their own essence. The god of this world did the latter. Twice. Once with me, and then again with you.”
“Wait…what?”
“Yes, Rue. God is our father, and you and I…we are sisters.”
This was insane. It was totally impossible, so why was there a calm inside me? A gentle acceptance as if…as if I’d known it all along. “I was mortal.”
“Your test was mortality. Your test was fixing that particular world, just as mine was managing Gehenna. Our father loves tests just as much as he loves creating beings from the ether that connect us all. We are both here now because our tests are complete. He promised me ascension, and I have it, but I believe he sent you into the world blind.”
“Yes, I…I don’t remember him. I don’t remember my creation. But the Cherub we met a while back said I was created specifically to house a piece of Shem’s soul.”
“Your mortal body was, yes,” Lucifer said.
An awful thought occurred to me. “Wait, what about Shem? Was he…Is he our brother?”
Her eyes twinkled. “No, Rue. Shem was created by our father and Thanatos in a collaborative effort. He was the anchor to the Morningstar relic which housed a piece of my soul. You see, you and I have both been fractured. You on earth and me in Gehenna. I’m whole now, and so are you.
When Soul Reaper ended your body, the fragment of your soul that had been on the mortal realm reunited with the divine aspect of you.
You know this, you feel it. But it will take time for it all to assimilate. ”
She was right. I did feel it. I felt connected in a way I’d only ever felt with the watchers. “The Dominion?”
Her mouth thinned. “Gone. Their essence dissimilated and thrown back into the ether. They were created without form. Never blessed with the ability to create their own physical bodies. Their power lay only in their control over the scribes and the reputation they built here before the fall.”
“And Michael? He tried to fight them in the end.”
“Yes, he did. We spoke and he realized his mistake. Maybe I would have forgiven him, but he was tainted by ambition and greed, and I fear in time he would have made the same mistake again. Some souls crave power, and Michael is one of them. I could not suffer him to live. He was also dissimilated.”
Michael had made his choices and his end was fitting. But the others? “What about Shem, Gabriel, and Bastian? What about the watchers, and Bee? Are they okay?”
“You know that Shem was obliterated by Soul Reaper, but you may not know that your friend Bastian also perished.”
I’d known, deep down, I’d known as soon as he’d hung up the radio. My eyes heated, but I blinked back tears because if she was now the new God here and I was her sister then… “We have to bring them back.”
The corner of her mouth lifted. “I thought you might say that.” She stood and held out her hand. “Come with me.”
I allowed her to lead me from the room, out onto a balcony that floated above mist. Steps came off that balcony extending up into clouds and more mist to join with other balconies where disembodied doors waited.
“This is heaven?”
“The central hub of heaven. Every nodule of heaven can be accessed from here. You’ll get used to it.”
Because I was staying here? But what about earth? The people? My friends? And there was something else. A promise I’d made. Jilyana’s face filled my mind. “The djinn, Jilyana, she said she had a daughter. I believe the Dominion were keeping her hostage to control Jilyana.”
“Yes.” Lucifer sighed. “There was indeed a child, born of a celestial and djinn union. An abomination that the Dominion kept hidden until she perished.”
“What? She’s dead?”
“A long time ago, but they didn’t tell Jilyana that. I saw it all in their collective memory when I ended them.”
All this time they used her. They lied to her. Poor Jilyana. “She didn’t deserve what happened to her. “
“No, she did not. But let us turn our thoughts to happier things.” She led me up a stairwell suspended over nothing and through a door into a cozy living room, and my worries melted away at the sight of the occupants.
Two celestials, with glowing white and gold wings, broke off their conversation and turned their attention to me.
My heart skipped several beats. Because I knew these faces.
Shem’s features were etched into my memory, except now he’d been restored, bronze and beautiful, chestnut hair laced with gold and neon blue eyes piercing my soul.
And Bastian…Bastian looked larger and exuded radiance.
Lucifer had ascended him somehow. Made him a celestial.
“A gift, dear sister,” Lucifer said. “I’ll leave you to your reunion.”
She slipped away, and I ran to my guys. They cocooned me in a group hug and showered me with kisses as they wrapped their wings around me.
“This is a dream.”
“No, Rue, this is reality,” Shem said. “Forever.” He cupped my face and kissed my forehead.
“Look at you.” I beamed up at them both. “You look amazing.”
“You should see yourself,” Bastian said. “I didn’t think you could get any more beautiful than you already are.”
My cheeks warmed. “The others? Are they all right?”
“Yes. They’re on earth,” Bastian said. “We’ve been rebuilding.
Gabriel dismantled the Golden City and tore down the walls.
The watchers have been cleaning up the surrounding areas of any monsters that weren’t sucked back into Gehenna.
Bee’s taken a leadership role in the city too, and Storm is helping. ”
“The world is healing,” Shem said.
How long had I been gone? It didn’t matter. I was here now. “I’d like to see it. I…I want to see everyone.”
Shem stroked my cheek. “Gabriel should have been here too.”
“I told him to come,” Bastian said.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Why didn’t he?”
“I don’t think he feels it’s his place,” Shem said. “Not yet anyway. But you can change that, Rue.” My gaze shot up to meet his and he smiled. “It’s all right to let your heart love him.”
“He’s a good guy,” Bastian said.
“Yes…yes he is.” I looked from Bastian to Shem. “Please, take me home.”
TWO MONTHS LATER
New Hope City stretched out below me as far as the eye could see. The view from the Freedom Tower was impressive, proving how much could change, how much could be accomplished by the will of the people.
The monsters were gone.
Gehenna was sealed once more, and humanity was beginning to thrive.
The people had a new government headed by the leaders who had kept the majority safe in their time of need.
Storm, Oliver, Bee, Mira, and several others had come together to create a council and form a new democracy, where the people who’d had their voice taken away were given it back.
My watchers and I had helped, but our work here was done.
It was almost time to leave.
“Hey?” Bee said joining me on the pinnacle. “Gabriel said I’d find you up here.”
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
She came to stand beside me. “It is. It truly is.” She sighed. “Do you have to go?”
This place, which had once felt like home, was beginning to feel more and more alien to me as time passed. I was changing, becoming whole, becoming who I was meant to be, and that being didn’t belong on this world.
Still, I’d miss the people. I smiled and turned to face her. “I will come visit, and one day…one day you’ll be with me.” I looked up at the sky. “Up there.”
“You best make sure I get a decent view.”
“You know I will. No matter what, you and I…we’ll always be friends.”
She pulled me into a hug, and I breathed her in, sweet and slightly sweaty and wholly human. Unlike me.
She broke the hug and reached up to push my hair out of my face. “How soon after the ball do you have to leave?”
“At dawn.”
Her gaze flicked over my shoulder to my wings, and I folded them tighter against my back.
They were a beautiful silver which shimmered blue in certain light, but I was still growing into them.
They felt too large, too elaborate, unless I was flying.
Then…then they felt just right. I hadn’t quite gotten the hang of hiding them yet, but Gabriel said that skill would come with time.
“What do you think Lucifer has planned for you all?”
“I don’t know.”