Chapter 21 Deziel #3
I laughed out loud. “And you think he would betray me. Michael bent his precious morals for me, so we could create a weapon against you. That’s what your destruction is worth to him: the compromising of who he is.”
Galilee had gone deathly pale. “What the fuck is she saying, Luci?”
I snaked my head toward her. “I’m saying I came down to earth with an archangel, not too far from Kincaid land. I’m saying
we found a human, a fisherman named Gifty Williams, and I changed my form, and Michael took him as a vessel.”
Lucifer’s rage was flat and dark. “You fucked Michael,” he snarled, as the truth finally slapped him in the face. “You let
him give you a child.”
I shrugged, knowing it would infuriate him further. “That was the whole point, Lucifer. Michael insisted on using a vessel; we weren’t even sure it would work with me in this form, but it did. Once we knew I was with child, Michael returned to Heaven, and I stayed with the fisherman.”
My daughter let out a broken gasp, but I was floating in my memories, a small smile on my lips.
“He loved the land and the waters, knew them like the back of his hand, and he thought you were his, Galilee.” I sighed, remembering
the months I’d spent in that little cabin. “Maybe you were, a little, who knows? Certainly, nothing like you has existed before.
But Gifty loved you from the moment he knew you were forming within me. He had no memories of being taken by Michael—a mercy
I insisted on—and he’d sing to you as fireflies rose at night, out on the front porch. When labor started, it was just the
two of us, and Gifty caught you in his hands. Cut the cord.”
Galilee choked back a strangled sound. “Where is he now?”
My smile never wavered. “I cut his throat right after,” I answered. “He fell to his knees—he was a big man, you know—and the
blood jumped out of his neck like it was singing to be somewhere else, and I held you up in it. Bathed you in all that love
of his.”
It had felt transcendent. He had loved my child, and I had slaughtered him for it, certain that his blood held all that power,
that the new baby would be marked by it, whatever she turned out to be. I couldn’t have let him live. If not at my hand, then
he would have died at Michael’s. The archangel never meant to leave any loose ends.
“Galilee.” Lucifer was saying her name low and urgent. “Pull it back.”
I returned to the present to see my daughter’s power spilling white-hot in her eyes, bright and streaming from her hands,
light wrapping tendrils up her arms. How strange that it would take this little story of a man she didn’t know to pull her
apart like this!
“Why did you do it?” Galilee’s voice held new guttural tones, and the air trembled.
I leaned in, my eyes hungry. “Because I could. Because your power needed a sacrifice, and he loved you so much, Galilee. Do you think this power you use even now is free? Did you think no one paid for you? Gifty paid, my child, so that justice to the Devil might be served one day.”
I was looking directly at her when the rage took her over. Her light flared around her body, gathering in a whirlwind of wailing
bright armor.
“Pull it back!” Lucifer’s voice was raised, but it made no difference. My child was no longer Galilee Kincaid. She was what
her fathers and I had made her into: a weapon, a howl of fury, a senseless burning thing. The floor of the room buckled, and
the stone plinth leaned as half the demons shouted.
“The ward is failing!” one of them yelled. “Lucifer, even the angel’s ward is failing!”
My laugh was drunk and warm. She could break my wards; she had Michael’s power after all. I couldn’t wait to tell him.
“Looks like I never had to break the gate, Morningstar,” I yelled. “Just needed her close enough to it, and the first thing
you did was make a deal to bring her here. She’s perfect, isn’t she?”
The thing that used to be Galilee was a storm now, and Lucifer was begging it. “You made a deal with me,” he said to her.
“Galilee, please.”
I scoffed. “What is a deal when you are this strong, Galilee Kincaid?” I was a curved cut of glee, a mouth, a throat. “What
honor is there among monsters? I want you unleashed, blood of my blood. The Morningstar wants you collared.”
“Shut the fuck up.” Lucifer looked like he wanted to tear me apart.
“Ask him what his plan was,” I continued, ignoring him for the incandescent horror that was my offspring, my angel spawn.
“Ask him how he intended to stop his demons from executing you.”
From inside the storm of light, Galilee looked out at Lucifer just in time for both of us to see the slackening in his face,
the guilt already chased by desperate apology. I took a step forward.
“He was going to seduce you into a bargain for your soul,” I told her, my voice soft and sympathetic.
“It would mean that you could never move against him or his demons. It would neutralize you, and in return, they would allow you to live.” My voice took on an edge.
“But you are my daughter, and no one gives you leave to draw breath.”
Galilee wasn’t even looking at me; she kept her eyes on the Devil.
“A collar fashioned by Hell,” I whispered. “That’s what he had planned for you, Galilee, in all your brilliance. What is a
deal when the broker wishes to enslave you?”
Past Lucifer, the demons were throwing up desperate wards in an effort to keep the hellgate intact. “Lucifer, we need you!”
the snaked one screamed. “It will not hold!”
The yellow-eyed demon was beside her, the muscles in his arms straining as he corralled screams and closed rips in the air.
His sword was cast to one side, useless in this battle. Galilee glanced at him, and I followed her eyes. That was the demon
who’d spoken to her with affection, and when he looked back at her, a guilt matching the Devil’s filled his yellow eyes. “Galilee,”
he said.
“In the garden . . .” Her voice echoed on itself. “. . . you said Lucifer had a scheme, where my power wouldn’t be a threat.”
The demon winced but didn’t look away. “We needed to keep him safe, Galilee.”
“You see?” I whispered. “They all knew your soul was up for grabs, and none of them cared. You are too strong, and they are
afraid. Like the humans, they want to destroy or control what they fear.”
“Galilee,” Lucifer interrupted, “don’t listen to her. She understands nothing. Michael is going to destroy her, and no matter what happens here, he is going to come for you. What they did is forbidden by Heaven.” He was frantic, speaking fast as if he could outrun her judgment. “You’re a loose
end, evidence of his sins. I wanted to protect you. He can’t touch you if you belong to Hell.”
Galilee gave him an unforgiving stare. “If I belong to you.”
Lucifer fell silent. We could all hear how it sounded, how it made her a thing, a weapon to be passed around. I reached into the storm of light whipping around Galilee and stroked her hair. It could not burn me. It was of Heaven.
“How can you trust anything he says?” I asked. “He shared none of this with you. Let me tell you what it took me too long
to learn, daughter. If you let him, Lucifer Morningstar will be your downfall.”
Galilee jerked her head away from me and screamed, devolving even further into light. I pulled back, satisfied.
“That should do it,” I said, almost to myself, and then I glanced over at Lucifer. He was staring at Galilee, devastation
and regret carving through his face as she slipped irretrievably away from him. He thought I didn’t understand his loss or
the wake of it, but I did. I had lost so much when he Fell. I had lost him. And just as he had changed over time, I had to believe that so had Michael, that the archangel who had given me a child
would not punish me for an old slight. Working with Michael had been the first time I didn’t feel so lonely in Heaven since
the war. I wasn’t willing to sacrifice it on the word of the Devil.
I gazed at Lucifer one last time, at his pain and his beauty, and the hellgate wrenching behind him. I did not expect I would
ever see the Devil again; God’s work was done here.
“Good luck, Morningstar,” I whispered.
The Devil turned to me, but I was already gone, leaving my daughter behind to destroy his world.