Chapter 24 #3
“I’m willing to show you, but you’re being ridiculous,” Luce snapped. “The measure of your character is admitting when you’re wrong, Foster, not clinging to your bias to feel comfortable.”
“Do you even realize how hypocritical you sound?”
Luce arched a brow. “I thought you were trying not to be like me?”
Foster snarled, then blinked in confusion at his own reaction. He looked up at Luce, and for a moment he was young, vulnerable, and confused. “What is happening to me?”
Luce softened and rose back to his feet to approach his son. “I’m not sure. But I’m willing to help you work it out.”
His son’s expression darkened. “I don’t need or want your help. I know where to find Gabe when I want someone’s opinion.”
“That’s not happening.”
“Excuse me?”
“He’s too dangerous, Foster, how are you not understanding this?”
Foster scowled. “I understand perfectly fine; I just don’t agree with you.”
“It’s not a matter of opinion! Gabriel impersonated me so I would be exiled and has almost gotten you killed in pursuit of who knows what ends!”
“That’s the kicker for me,” Foster jabbed a finger towards Luce. “All I’m hearing so far is that he did something to screw you over, which I don’t personally blame him for, and you can’t even tell me what his supposed evil goal is in all of this. You sound like a bitter old man.”
Luce was at the end of his patience and grabbed Foster by the upper arm. “Bitter? Possibly. Old? Yes, ancient. I am the first of the Seraphim Eterna. I am Lucifer of the Morning Star, and I am your father. Honor thy father, Foster. You will do as you’re told and let me save your ungrateful life.”
The tension between them was tangible, and Foster leaned toward Luce for a heated, electric moment. “No. I’m officially done listening to you.”
He yanked his arm away, and Lucifer lost his cool.
“That’s it. I tried to be compassionate and patient. I tried to reason with you.” Luce clapped his hands together firmly, then slowly spread them apart, a warm golden light emanating from his palms. “Apparently, I must employ the age-old tradition of putting my foot down. You’re grounded.”
It was so unbelievable, Foster laughed. “I’m a grown man!”
“A grown man who will be forcibly confined to his room until I deal with the matter of Gabriel.”
Foster threw his arms wide. “What, here in my ruined apartment?”
Luce sniffed disdainfully. “Absolutely not. Even if it wasn’t an absolute wreck, I clearly can’t trust you to make your own choices. You’ll be returning to Hell where I can keep a closer eye on you.”
“You’re about twenty years too late to be giving a shit.
” Foster rubbed his own palms together as if scrubbing off a stain, then mimicked his father’s actions and pulled the space apart.
His own hands gave off the bright white light he had created before, and he marveled at it for a moment.
“You can let me walk out of here, or we can have this fight. Personally, I’m happy to have a chance to beat your face in. ”
“Insolence is unbecoming,” Luce sneered. “Your mother would be ashamed.”
Foster could hear himself yelling, but his world narrowed to a furious blur centered on his father’s face. He rushed forward, throwing his hands ahead of him in an attempt to maim or at least to wound with his power.
Luce swiveled to the side and returned the volley, golden light arcing out in a sweep toward his son. Foster ducked, and Michael made a guttural sound of alarm as he rolled his battered body out of the way.
“Sorry!” Luce yelped.
“Look out!” Michael pointed frantically behind him.
Luce whirled around, only to catch Foster’s glowing fist across his cheek. “Damned Souls, Foster, this is madness!”
“What’s madness is that you’re so desperate to control my life!”
“To save it!”
Another bolt of gold swept past Foster’s head and blasted a hole clean through the wall. Foster peered over his shoulder at the smoldering drywall and rickety stairwell.
“Oh yes, it definitely looks like you’re saving me!”
“You’re a demigod,” Luce said dryly. “You’ll heal.”
Foster gave a guttural shout and rushed at Luce, catching him around the waist and sending them tumbling into the kitchen.
He reached up on impulse, grabbed his freshly brewed coffee from the warmer, and sloshed it into his father’s face.
Luce bellowed in pain, covering his face with his hands, but when he pulled them away the blistered red wounds were already healing.
“This is my favorite jacket,” he declared indignantly. Foster only grunted before bringing his fist down hard on Luce’s nose. It gave a sickening crunch, and the Devil yowled.
Foster continued raining down blow after blow, driven by deep seated resentment and centuries of repressed anger, hot tears pouring almost unnoticed down his cheeks.
Lucifer barely resisted, bearing the onslaught with the occasional weak attempt to push his son away.
It was so uncharacteristic that it was almost obscene.
Michael averted his gaze and groaned, shifting himself to all fours.
He’d taken a stronger beating than he had expected, but it was downright humiliating to be laid low by a novice as if he were completely untrained.
But what was he supposed to do? Sit aside and let Luce be brutalized by his own son?
No. He had to summon the will—and then a thought crept in.
Summon. He might be too injured to help, but he knew someone that rivaled his own abilities.
Someone who would gladly risk his life to serve Luce.
Michael pushed himself up, using a splintered chair leg as a makeshift cane, and fell heavily against the wall.
With a quick movement, he dashed his palm across a jagged remnant of the shattered window and dipped his fingers into the ichor that came spilling out.
Carefully but quickly, he sketched out the summoning spell best suited to the situation.
It had never been his forte, but he was good enough for an emergency.
Luce hissed on the kitchen floor, finally flinging his son away and scrambling back to his feet.
His face was a horrifying sight. His proud nose was sharply askew, one eye socket broken and rapidly swelling, a lip so badly split that he couldn’t fully close his mouth, and every inch of flesh a different mottled shade of purple and black.
Michael winced in sympathy, even as Foster got back to his feet and readied himself to charge again. Enough was enough. The angel slammed his still bleeding palm to the center of the summoning sigil and it flared to life with golden light.
“Balthazar! By divine blood and angelic power, I beseech you come to the aid of your commander, Lucifer, at the plea of Saint Michael the Archangel!”
A fierce wind stirred in the apartment, sweeping from the blown-out window and whipping through the room, before abruptly dying.
The light of the sigil died, and Michael’s stomach sank.
Either his magic wasn’t strong enough or he had done the sigil wrong, he wasn’t sure.
But it hadn’t worked, and he wasn’t strong enough to try again.
His wings were ruined for at least a few days, his healing all but slowed to a crawl trying to repair his damaged internals. He couldn’t teleport, or open portals. There was nothing he could do to help. Michael hung his head in bitter defeat.
“What in the seven circles is goin’ on in this dump?” A curious but disdainful voice came from the window, and Michael glanced sharply up. Cwall lounged in the empty windowsill in his skeleton form, inspecting the trashed apartment with mild curiosity.
Michael blinked, then lifted a hand slowly and pointed into the kitchen, where Foster and Luce were currently flinging knives and ceramics at each other with their powers in between bolts of clashing gold and white light.
“Oh shit, they finally workin’ out their issues?”
Michael rolled his eyes skyward, seriously considering invoking Jehovah. He was bad at summoning, sure, but to ask for Bal and get Cwall? This was a joke; it had to be.
Foster snagged a knife as it flew past his head, spinning it in his palm and preparing to plunge it into Luce’s throat.
Immediately, Cwall’s demeanor changed. He snarled harshly, lunging off the windowsill, ready to leap in between the two men.
But Luce deflected the blade with a dinner plate and knocked his son backwards with a concentrated ball of energy.
“Hey, kid!” the demon called out, but Foster ignored him, lost to his anger again.
“It’s no use,” Michael cautioned weakly. “He’s in a bloodlust.”
Cwall frowned. “Wait...wait, I got an idea!”
The Dirge brought his palms together, the skeletal fingers letting out little sparks where they rubbed.
Slowly, ropes of muscle and tendon began to spread over the white bone.
Color flooded the tissues as the demon carefully formed a body of flesh and blood to cloak his true form, golden skin the shade of Michael’s tawny feathers spreading over the framework of a body.
His form stretched and distorted, changing from short and portly to tall, willowy, and graceful.
A long blue dress cascaded over his newly formed feminine breasts and hips, while honey blonde hair sprouted from his head.
Michael inhaled sharply as warm amber eyes opened, and he found himself gaping at a perfect recreation of Angela Morningstar.
Cwall winked, an odd gesture on the woman’s serene face, and strode confidently into the kitchen. “Foster, that’s enough.”
Even the voice was exactly right. Soft but steady, it was a tone that flowed like water over smooth stones and commanded attention without demanding it.
Foster reared back from his father as if he’d been electrocuted, whirling to face the demon wearing his mother’s face. “Mom?”
Luce scanned her from head to toe, squinting, and then went deathly pale as he realized what was happening. He looked sharply from ‘Angela’ to Foster, slowly inching backwards as if to put as much distance between them as possible.
“No,” the woman shook her head, form melting away as quickly as it had come on to reveal Cwall standing in the kitchen. “But I knew ya’d see reason if she was the one who told ya to knock it off.”
Foster’s expression was heartbreaking to witness; a look of blind, desperate hope shifting to utter betrayal and despair.
The air stilled, then seemed to rush out of the room with a swiftness that reminded Michael of the rip current in an outbound tide.
He found himself straining to breathe in a room suddenly devoid of oxygen.
When Foster spoke, his voice was like ice, “How dare you.”
Cwall cocked his head. “Huh?”
“I said,” Foster hissed softly, “how dare you? How dare you impersonate her!? Use her face for a cheap trick!?”
“I wasn’t—”
“How dare you insult her memory!” The boy advanced on the demon, eyes glowing like hot coals.
Michael glanced down and saw Foster's hands once more ringed in white light—but this time tinged with a core of smoldering black.
Lucifer slowly edged around behind his son, crossing towards Michael, eying the boy warily like he was a ticking bomb.
“Fossie,” Cwall tried to placate him, lifting both hands and reaching for the young man’s shoulders.
He never made contact. The light swelled outward, cloaking Foster in a ball of painfully bright white before it unfurled and washed the room in his furious power.
The impact before had winded Michael, left him with ruined wings and internal bleeding and stung like a nasty sunburn.
This was like being inside the sun. Michael’s skin stretched taught against his bones as his body was rocked with a wave of hot air strong enough to knock his head back.
His damaged wings fluttered like old paper in the torrent.
The temperature in the apartment built to a blistering peak.
Something touched his hand, and Michael glanced down at Luce’s fingers encircling his wrist as a cooling sensation spread along his stinging skin. Michael leaned his shoulder into Luce’s, trying to convey his gratitude without words.
Even if he’d had the energy to speak, the force rippling over them would have whisked the sentiments away.
The wrecked foundations of the building shifted; the walls warped and cracked against the strain.
The floor rolled under their feet like a wave, and Michael fell hard against Luce.
The other man pulled him close to his chest, as if trying to tuck him away and shield him.
But the chaos was all around them; there was no escape. In the center of the ruined apartment, Foster began to scream, a furious bellow of raw fury. With a loud crack, a chunk of the ceiling came down and punched a hole clean through the ratty carpet and into the apartment below.
The last straw had finally broken. The building shuddered violently, and then the floor was yanked out from beneath them, crumbling away to little more than open air and fragments of rotten wood.