Chapter 26 #2
Jehovah nearly snarled but quickly smoothed his expression back into a patronizing mask. “You have always spoken like a man with his back to a wall, Lucifer. All grand overtures and empty threats. Anything to deflect from your own failures.”
“For the love of all unholiness, can either of you ever stop?” Foster stepped over Cami’s corpse and strode confidently between his father and uncle.
“This is why you accomplish nothing and ruin everything. This eternal contest of wills, desperate to prove yourselves on some moral high ground, when you are both idiotic, over-inflated, laissez-faire monarchs.”
Jehovah cut a glance to Luce, as if to say, ‘I told you so’. Lucifer did not return his look, focused only on the cold mask covering his son’s face, rendering him a foreign and dangerous creature. The boy he knew had become a man he had no desire to recognize.
“Foster,” Luce finally forced himself to make one last effort. “We can still fix this. I can forgive you for this. I can…help you. With your mother.”
Foster turned to him, a dead quality in his eyes as they slid over Luce that had the older man shivering. “I wish you would not lie to me anymore.”
He turned back to Jehovah, dismissing his father. “You, pompous show horse that you are, have more power than my pitiful father at present. I will make you an offer, and you will consider it.”
Jehovah’s own mask slipped, a flare of indignation at Foster’s audacity peeking through before he slid the genteel, benevolent expression back into place. “Of course, child. Even the most lost shall have the opportunity to repent their sins and be purified in the Lord’s name.”
“I do not wish to repent.” Foster tucked his arms behind his back and glanced over Jehovah’s shoulder at the tensely watching cavalry. “I wish to negotiate.”
“Negotiate.”
“Indeed.” He met Jehovah’s gaze steadily. “I desire my mother returned to the world of the living. I have my own means by which to achieve this goal, but I cannot deny that your assistance would expedite the process. In return, I offer you something you desire.”
“What could I possibly desire, child, which is in your power to attain and not my own?”
That slimy grin slipped onto Foster’s lips, an ugly thing that gave Luce chills to see. “Mary Magdalene.”
Remi tried to launch herself towards him, reaching into her boot for her concealed blade, only to slam uselessly into the barrier. “You can’t!”
“I can,” Foster said, simply. “Or would you prefer I continue killing you all, to keep you from getting in my way?”
He stalked to where Sachiel still knelt, a trembling hand brushing the hair from Cami’s slack face. His palms were coated with her blood, his eyes wide and haunted. Foster grabbed him roughly by the hair, pulling Sachiel to his feet with surprisingly weak resistance.
He didn’t struggle or shout—he simply waited for death with those wide, unblinking eyes fixed on the corpse of his wife.
“Sachiel!” Bal yelled and lunged against the barrier that held him. Foster simply laughed and dashed a blade across Sachi’s throat. The man’s severed head dropped beside his feet with a sickening thud, and though Lucifer closed his eyes, he knew the sight would burn in his memory for eternity.
Luce pressed his hands to the dirt, using the returning energy from Sachiel to sendi quiet waves of energy through the earth and place his own protective barriers around the other Fallen. In the chaos, it went unnoticed by all but Jehovah, who looked at him with disdain.
“You would expend your meager remaining power to protect them?”
“Always,” Luce said quietly. Jehovah turned away from the earnest resolve there.
A sharp yank on Luce’s arm drew his gaze to Michael, whose expression was both horrified and sad. “We have to do something.”
“We cannot do much more than this in our state.”
Jophiel twitched every time Foster moved, long fingers fluttering over the pommel of his sword as if aching to join the in the debauched violence.
Ezekiel looked bored, in a way that made the expression seem almost calculated.
Ithiel looked like he might be ill, and Uriel closed his eyes so as not to see what was happening.
But Luce could see. He forced himself to watch instead of looking at Michael’s expression, heartbroken and dismayed. He watched while his son advanced on Judas, praying his magic was strong enough to prevent more unnecessary death.
“Judas,” he sneered, giving the man a once-over. “All this time you posed as my friend, and yet you were my father’s spy.”
“I was never a spy,” Judas protested. “I truly was your friend, Foster.”
“As if I could believe you.”
“Frankly, I don’t care what you believe,” Judas sighed, and dropped his gaze. “You’re no longer the man I called a friend.”
He sat cross-legged on the dirt, running his fingers through the remnants of charred grass, and met Foster’s gaze directly when he crouched in front of him.
“No fight left in you?” Foster hesitated for the first time, tilting his head curiously.
“No point in fighting,” Judas murmured, eyes half-lidded and expression bland. “Your mind is made up.”
“Indeed,” Foster echoed his tone, but there was something else layered in it. An edge of sadness or maybe regret. “I think I might be sorry, for you. I almost wish I could spare you.”
“Enough boy,” Jehovah called out, and Lucifer wondered if he intervened for his wife’s benefit. “You have proven your point.”
Foster rose to his feet, leaving Judas watching him warily as he crossed to where Mags knelt, watching in a state of shock.
Without a word, he reached down and gripped her by the arm, hauling her to her feet.
Mags found herself stumbling along beside him, unable to process what was happening until Foster deposited her in a heap at Jehovah’s feet.
“Now you will uphold your end,” he spoke almost robotically, meeting the older man’s gaze evenly.
“I do not recall accepting your terms,” Jehovah rebuffed. “Indeed, I find myself bound to no agreements of any sort regarding you.”
Foster stilled, hands dropping limp at his sides. He turned, eyes burning with hatred in an otherwise placid face. “I should have known better than to have any faith in such a being as you—cut from the same cloth as my deceitful father.”
“I came here for two reasons, boy, and they were to retrieve Mary Magdalene for her trial and put a stop to your wildly unstable tantrum. You have done both things for me willingly.” Jehovah stepped away from his small contingent of soldiers, advancing slowly on Foster.
“You have noted yourself that I am quite powerful, but I am also merciful. For this favor you have done me, I am willing to spare your life this day. I suggest you accept my generosity.”
Foster hissed, his expression darkening, and he spit on the ground at Jehovah’s feet.
“You insolent whelp!” Jophiel lurched forward, sword halfway drawn from its scabbard as if he’d been waiting for any reason to fight. Jehovah held out an arm to block his path and the younger angel stilled on command.
“I am a forgiving man, Jophiel. We cannot fault the boy for his slipshod upbringing. Not everyone can be raised properly.”
A flash of anger across that dark countenance, and Foster clenched his fist around the hilt of his broadsword. “My mother did an exceptional job with my upbringing.”
“If she had, would she not be disgusted with your poor manners?” Jehovah lifted a brow.
“She would be more forgiving than you have ever been. She was an example of pure goodness. My mother should be classed as a Saint.”
“Saints do not reside in the void, child.”
“Which is why I beseech you to help me retrieve her.”
“Souls are consigned to the void for specific reasons of which you know nothing—to the benefit of all present, as you should not be meddling in the affairs of your betters.”
“My betters,” Foster said slowly as he locked furious eyes with Jehovah, hot fury meeting cold indifference, “can die slowly under my heel.”
He pushed off his rear foot, using the additional boost of momentum to propel himself toward an astonished God. Foster whipped his sword up and around, bringing it above his head with both hands wrapped around the hilt and driving it down in a cleaving arc.