Chapter 21 #2
Luce opened his mouth to interrupt, but Michael barreled on, finally able to get the weight that had festered and tormented him for centuries off his chest, “As if that wasn’t enough, Gabriel told me of your plots and machinations.
He told me how you spoke of using me, how I was to be your excuse and alibi, how you never loved me. ”
“All lies! Eve, of all people?!” Luce threw his arms wide, then buried them in his hair and pulled. “I cannot believe you actually thought—The way you came accusing me, it makes so much more sense now.”
His eyes burned golden, and he leveled the full force of that glare on Michael. “I was with Adam, Michael! And before your ever-flexible imagination begins its cartwheels, it wasn’t for adulterous purposes.”
“Yes, I remember you were with Adam!” Michael was shouting now, but he didn’t care. “After I saw you with Eve! You say I never gave you a chance to explain what you were doing that day. Clarify it for me now if I’m so misinformed.”
“With pleasure!” Lucifer spun on his heel and stalked across the room. “I have just the thing to settle this once and for all.”
Michael scrambled to his feet and followed, coming up short as Luce stopped abruptly in front of a simple wooden door. He shot Michael a glare before yanking the handle and throwing the door dramatically inward. The angel blinked, looked towards the doorway, and arched a brow at Luce.
“Yes, yes, go in!” He shoved impatiently at Michael’s shoulder, making the angel wince. “I didn’t open the door for you to look at it!”
Michael rolled his eyes, then peered cautiously around the doorframe. He almost expected some sort of trick or trap to assail him as soon as he stepped inside, but Luce’s impatient huff and his own pride made him shove aside his worry to cross the threshold.
It was a simple space, but a cluttered one.
In fact, so many seemingly unrelated objects littered the room that there was barely a path winding through it.
Towers of boxes spilled over with yellowing papers and scrolls, and wooden crates of rolled canvases and maps and assorted weaponry formed barricades and obstacles to traverse.
The dark-paneled walls were visible only in slivers, hung heavily with frames housing priceless artwork.
Bags of jewelry and gemstones were plopped unceremoniously on the floor.
Shelves lined the walls bearing a bizarre variety of pottery and figurines.
He shifted some electric guitars aside with his foot and had to lunge to grab a rack hung with fur coats before it toppled into an ornate Chinese vase on a pedestal.
Lucifer glared and swatted his arm. “Be careful you bull! These are my things. Many are fragile, and all of them are old and treasured.”
Michael rolled his eyes but moved with more care as they advanced into the space. Lucifer hung close behind him, casting his gaze about and making sure Michael didn’t crush any priceless artifacts underfoot.
“What is this?” He paused, something shiny catching his eye. Bending down, he shimmied an unusual looking weapon out from under a finely woven carpet.
“That is a blunderbuss.”
“Is it… a gun?” He turned it every which way, looking at the brass mechanisms and the unusually large barrel, hefting it in his hands to feel the weight.
“Of sorts, though it doesn’t fire bullets.” Michael arched a brow and Luce answered with a wickedly tinged smirk. “It will fire anything you put into the end. Nails, broken glass, small rocks, et cetera.”
“Interesting…”
He carefully replaced it on one of several large pieces of furniture that had been shoved into the room.
Other bulky pieces were buried under piles of books, or old clothing.
Some were draped in sheets and paint-splattered tarps.
Michael spied an old fiddle with chipping gold paint, half-hidden beneath a cluster of medieval weapons, and what he strongly suspected might be the Holy Grail balanced on a mannequin’s shoulder pad.
A sad, half-finished dress drooped from the form to the floor.
It was a fascinating look at Lucifer’s taste in hobbies—and his haphazard organizational system—but Michael wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be seeing that would explain this eons-old wound.
“So you’re proving your innocence with...a storage room?”
“Oh, for Hell’s sake,” Lucifer groaned, shoving past him to grasp a tall, dark cloth hanging on the far wall. “No! This!”
He gave a hard yank, pulling the curtain aside to reveal an ornate door set into the wall. Its strange material shimmered softly in the dim light of the storage room, swirling symbols and sigils carved into the frame that Michael couldn’t recognize. It was curious and unusual, but…
“A door,” Michael observed flatly, and the other man hissed in frustration.
“The door!” Luce slapped the wall beside the doorway. “Are you seriously telling me you don’t know it? The Portus Praeteritum!”
Well, that changed things. Michael reached out tentatively, fingers brushing the delicate details bordering the door. “It was thought to be destroyed. I had never even seen it.”
“Well, it was never for public use.” He sniffed haughtily. “This power is not for the faint of heart or those with delicate minds. It takes a powerful will to withstand the temptation to meddle in the past.”
“Is that even possible?”
“It could be. We are forbidden to try.”
“Forbidden by whom?” Michael’s brow furrowed. “You…and Jehovah? Who outranks you?”
Luce softened, arching a brow. “You truly believe there is no higher power? In all the world, in all the boundless universe, you think that my brother and I are the most powerful creatures?”
Michael blinked slowly, processing this. It wasn’t as if he had never considered it, but… “I suppose that would be quite incredible.”
“Trust me, if we were the top of the food chain, my brother would be much less intolerable.” He rolled his eyes. “Insecurity issues abound with that one. Constantly afraid of being overthrown.”
“And you’ve always followed the rule? That doesn’t sound like you.”
“Shut up,” he swatted Michael’s shoulder. “In all honesty, no. I tested the water, once. It… didn’t go well.”
“What happened?”
“That’s a story for another time.” He shook his head. “Right now we have a record to correct.”
“And how exactly does one do that?” Michael stroked his fingers over the door and noticed with wonder that they came away shimmering faintly. “There’s no handle.”
“That’s where you come in, my feathered accomplice.” Luce flashed a grin that teased a hint of fang. “This door opens only at the touch of a special key.”
He reached out and traced his finger over the arch of a tawny wing.
Michael tensed. “An angel’s feather.”
Luce made a noise of agreement. “Only one that’s willingly offered. That bit is meant to dissuade would-be meddlers from ‘acquiring’ some through illicit means.”
Michael considered this. A single feather was nothing. He molted them often enough that he hardly noticed when one came loose. But knowing Lucifer, he would need to carefully specify that, or he’d soon find himself stripped of all his feathers. “You may take one feather at this time only.”
That fanged grin split wide and took on a sour cast. “You’ve learned to be careful with your promises I see. You don’t trust me?”
“Should I?” He glared. “You did try to slice me in half not even an hour ago.”
“Touché.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “Alright, pluck it yourself then. Just so you can be sure I’m not trying anything untoward.”
Michael grunted but carefully felt through the edges of his wings to find a loose feather, presenting it to Luce with an overly dramatic flourish. The Devil smiled, taking it from his hand with a gentleness that caught him off guard.
“Come along then.” Luce pressed the feather flat to the center of the doorway. “Let’s settle this once and for all, so you can admit that I’m right and begin properly groveling at my feet.”
“I know what I saw, Lucifer.”
“Your inferior eyes clearly deceived you.”
Michael rolled his ‘inferior’ eyes. “Okay, but how do you—”
A sound split the air, stunning Michael into stillness. It was like a sudden burst from a cannon, followed by a slurping, sucking sound akin to walking through mud.
“Sorry, it’s been a while,” Luce stroked the doorframe. “Hard to open it once I used all my stragglers. Normally it’s much quieter.”
“What did you use them for? Was that when you tried to change the past? To undo your banishment?”
The door began to shimmer and spread, the strange substance becoming almost liquid as it shifted in the frame. A dull outline of white light spread rapidly from the doorway across the surface towards the center.
“Among other things,” Luce said, averting his gaze. “It was much easier to relay our stories to the devout by showing them. And it allowed them to fully commit to their beliefs.”
“You… you created the first of the Praeceptors. That’s how Lucio-Arcanism grew alongside Judo-Christolicism.”
“Well, I knew I couldn’t rely on my brother to tell the truth of us, and I’m sure you’ve read his ‘Bible’. If I’d left it to him, I’d be cast as an even darker villain than I am now. No, it was much better to show them everything and allow free will to decide their interpretation.”
“So you’ve revisited this scene before.”
“No. I…” Luce trailed off as he continued to stroke the doorframe absently, as if seeking comfort. “I couldn’t bear it. I kept most of our failings to myself…which could be why they seem to have an inflated idea of us, in retrospect.”
The light winked out suddenly, a black void filling the space and leaving grey specks dancing in his vision. Michael blinked. “Is it supposed to do that?”
“Uh…” Luce frowned. “Well, no. Actually-”
As if they had triggered it, the door began to wail. Michael leaned back in alarm as the sound rose towards earsplitting levels. “Is it supposed to do that?!”
“Definitely not!” He waved his hands quickly through the air, and the sound cut out. Ears ringing, Michael cut his eyes to Luce, who sighed. “This is embarrassing, I am woefully out of practice.”
“Performance issues?”
Luce flushed, whirling on him. “You shut your whore mouth!”
`“Oh, certainly. At once, your highness.”
“I feel like this sarcasm is the reason we had issues communicating.” Luce narrowed his eyes at the angel.
Michael arched a sardonic eyebrow. “I personally think it was your need for secrecy and inability to compromise, but to each his own.”
“Alright, alright! Enough!” Luce swatted the air as if batting away the criticism. “Come through this door and you’ll see for yourself.”
“Is it even safe? It just blacked out and then screamed at us.”
“I’m…sure it’s fine.”
Michael gave him a droll look and shook his head but said nothing. As if refuting his criticism, the doorway began to glow once again, a softer, warmer light than before.
“Ah! You see!” Luce grinned. “Perfectly fine!”
Michael narrowed his eyes. “I have no faith in your judgement.”
“…I’ll go first?” Luce offered, and Michael nodded firmly. “Right. I’ll just…give it a bit of a test.”
He stepped forward and pressed both hands to the space that should have housed the door, but instead of hitting any surface, they passed through and vanished in the wash of amber light.
“Ooh,” he chuckled. “Bit of a tingle; I forgot to mention. Refreshing, in a way.”
Luce took another measured step, immersing himself up to the elbows. Nothing horrible happened, and he drew his hands back, examining them carefully. Eventually, he turned to smile reassuringly at Michael. “Alright. Everything seems to be in order, so just…step in after me.”
Then he walked backwards into the portal, disappearing into the wash of golden light with a cheeky wave. Michael couldn’t help the smile that tugged his own lips, and he shook his head in exasperation. Some things never changed. Then his smile fell away.
For a long moment, Michael debated turning and leaving.
He had been kidnapped, tied to a chair, his wings were broken, and he had very nearly been smothered and cut in half.
Any sane person would be running for the door, and this was the perfect opportunity to do so.
He could be halfway through the estate before Lucifer realized what was happening.
But while Michael was certainly sane, he was also extremely curious.
If he walked away now, when the answers were literally a few steps away, could he ever forgive himself?
A part of him had been aching for centuries, blaming himself but then wondering if he was truly in the wrong.
This could lay all that doubt to rest, once and for all.
As if sensing his doubt, Lucifer’s head suddenly popped back through the portal. “What in Hell is taking you so long? I thought maybe you got lost.”
“I expect that happens more often in this room than I would hope,” Michael said dryly.
“Oh hush, we haven’t lost anyone in here since the 1600s…I think.”
“Comforting. I suppose, statistically, it’s safer to go through the doorway then.”
“Even if it isn’t safer, you can’t say it’s not more thrilling.”
There it was. The murky heart of their relationship.
The duality that drew him ever towards this dark king, even while Michael knew Lucifer was nothing but trouble he didn’t need.
And just as he always had, Michael threw aside his sense and stepped towards Lucifer, ready to follow him into the unknown.