CHAPTER ELEVEN #4
I withdrew from Lucifer’s psyche at the same moment he began to retreat, finally ending the standoff between him and Alexander.
The door behind Lucifer opened as if it was responding to a silent command.
He looked at me, but he didn’t say another word before he took another step and the door slid shut between us. I stared at it in disbelief.
“He backed down. When you pulled a sword on Lucifer, he backed down,” I said, replaying the whole scene through in my mind.
“You say that like it’s so baffling.” Alexander sounded vaguely insulted.
“Lucifer could’ve beaten you with his hands tied behind his back,” I replied distractedly, only half-hearing the annoyed noise Alexander made. I was still mulling over those last moments of the confrontation. It felt like I’d missed something important. Why had Lucifer given up so easily?
The devil never did anything without a reason. Every word, every decision was calculated. It was a step closer to his endgame. And what was his endgame? I asked myself.
That one was easy. Above all else, he wanted Olorel’s grave. But the last update I’d gotten on Lucifer’s search for the grave didn’t connect to this. Oliver’s voice echoed through my memory, and I remembered the agony in his eyes. He has another way.
Say the two things were connected, I thought, still staring at the door. Why break in to the Order’s headquarters? Was it really to save me, or did coming here align with this mysterious new tactic to find the grave?
Bright, searing realization flared in my mind. It was immediately followed by a hot rush of horror.
“Open the door,” I said hoarsely. Alexander looked at me, and when he didn’t move, panic roared through my entire body. “Open the door.”
Whatever he saw in my face made Alexander leap to action, and he slammed his palm onto the wall panel.
I was already over the threshold before the door had finished its whooshing sound.
I darted into the other room, and when I saw the carnage, my heart rammed up in my throat.
I spun and raced past the bar, heading for that third room.
I’d left the Order sitting at the table—
I skidded to a stop. My eyes darted around, registering every detail with a familiar numbness. The silence rang in my ears.
They weren’t sitting at the table anymore.
Now they were dead. All of them.
No, not all, I thought faintly. It was difficult to tell from this vantage point, because there were demons and Fallen alike scattered everywhere, but I was pretty sure there were fewer council members than there had been at the start of the meeting.
I forced myself to move deeper into the room and look at every face.
The scene reminded me of all the houses Collith and I had been to, once Lucifer and the Beast were done with them.
I sensed Alexander appearing in the doorway.
He made another sound, this one quiet and stunned, but I kept going.
It was impossible to avoid walking through the gore. My shoes squelched with every step.
One of the demons, I noted, was the same species as the one that had attacked me on the road. This was why Lucifer was getting them through. To do his dirty work. They were his lackeys, here to be muscle and nothing more. How many could he possibly have if they were this expendable to him?
During my search, I didn’t see Nan, or Dracula, or Mab.
Unless they were amongst the corpses near the elevator, they must’ve escaped somehow.
I felt a surge of sorrow when I found the werewolf alpha, along with her beta.
The kitsunes were also amongst the dead.
I hadn’t liked them, but I certainly hadn’t wished them dead.
When I found Micah’s body, however, I couldn’t bring myself to feel the same regret. Numb from the shock of seeing their ruined bodies, I raised my gaze toward the place where the Horn was mounted.
The wall was empty, just as I’d known it would be.
Lucifer hadn’t been here for me. He’d just bided his time in the other room while Oliver and the demons had taken care of the Order.
The Beast was even more powerful than I’d thought, if he was able to overpower these council members.
I looked around at the carnage again, wondering if this was all just a bad dream.
It looked like my other dreams. Blood covered the floor, the walls, the ceiling.
As my gaze fell on a severed hand resting at my feet, I remembered those strange sounds Alexander and I had heard.
Now that I’d seen this, I knew exactly what they’d been—tearing flesh, breaking bones, and anguished screams cut short.
It had all happened so quickly the Order had barely been able to make a sound, much less defend themselves.
Another piece clicked into place. This was why Lucifer had never bothered to cover his tracks with all the killings.
Clever, clever devil. Those messy crime scenes had carried out two purposes.
The first was to find that damn grave. The second was get the Order’s attention. He’d wanted them to intervene. To meet.
He hadn’t been after the members, not if some of them had managed to escape. It had to have been because he’d wanted to find Raas itself, and consequently, the Horn he must’ve known was here. But why hadn’t Lucifer come the first time I’d attended a meeting?
I turned my back on the bloody room, unable to stomach the sight anymore. Alexander stood in the doorway, his eyes wide as he looked at all his dead comrades. I walked toward him, my voice strained as I said, “Can we go? Please?”
Alexander caught up with me and didn’t protest as we headed for the elevator. But when we reached the hallway, I slowed at the sight of a small figure lying across the path, face down.
“My lady, don’t—” Alexander started.
I approached Honey’s body. Or what was left of it.
I studied the keeper first, then the gruesome scene around her.
My mind worked through the details, and a scenario began to form.
Earlier, when Honey had heard that sound, it must’ve been the elevator moving.
She’d gone to investigate, and Oliver had come out.
He’d shoved her, sending her into one of the beams between the glass panels. That explained why it was bent.
But whatever Honey had been, she’d given the Beast a run for his money. Every other body within sight was a demon, and they were in even worse shape than Honey.
I rolled the keeper onto her back as gently as I could, because it felt wrong to leave her like that.
Then I pushed myself up and kept walking toward the elevator.
Once again, Alexander followed me wordlessly.
He didn’t speak as we got on. He put his hand on the panel, and the doors slid shut, blocking out the sight.
Once we started moving, Alexander’s voice floated through the horrible stillness.
“You know more than you told the Order, Fortuna Sworn.”
I kept my eyes on the doors, my thoughts returning to Lucifer. I couldn’t stop ruminating on his timing. Why hadn’t he come to Raas sooner? Why tonight?
My mind went back to the day of the first meeting. My heart quickened when I remembered that I’d had a dream about Oliver that night. A dream full of grimy glass walls and indescribable pain. Lucifer had been asking him one question over and over again. Where is it?
Oliver had refused to tell him. He’d tried fighting back, tried fighting Lucifer’s control.
The agonizing pain I’d felt in the dream had only been a moment, a tiny fraction of the horrors he must’ve endured.
But Oliver hadn’t given in. That’s what he’d been trying to tell me at the barn.
So Lucifer must’ve just followed me this time instead of trying to use his beloved Beast.
I frowned and shook my head, clearing it. I was focusing on the wrong part of the puzzle.
Why the Horn? Laurie had said it was useless to our kind. Unless … unless Lucifer wasn’t our kind. My stomach sank, and suddenly I felt like I was going to be sick.
All this time, I had been wondering what I’d created when I brought the devil into this world. The fact he thought he could blow the Horn told me everything I needed to know.
Lucifer was an original angel again.
The elevator stopped, and Alexander and I got off quickly, both of us eager to put this place behind us.
We walked silently up the stone steps. When we finally reached the narrow opening in the rocks and slipped into the open night air, I breathed deeply, trying to get the smell of blood and death out of my nostrils.
Beside me, I could hear Alexander doing the same.
We still didn’t speak as we started down the beach.
We’d only gotten a few steps when, a few yards ahead of us, something emerged from the water.
It was too small to cause worry, but I still reached for a weapon that wasn’t there—I hadn’t even tried hiding one when the kitsunes came for me at the loft.
Something had told me they would’ve known.
Now I wish I’d tried anyway. I began to gather my power around me, and the air prickled as if a storm were coming.
“My lady,” Alexander said in a low, urgent tone. “Wait.”
As we drew closer, and I got a better look at the creature, tension seeped out of my shoulders.
It was an otter.
Once it got to dry sand, the animal paused.
Its body began to snap and crack. I immediately recognized the signs of a shapeshifter, and in that same instant, I knew who the otter was.
Relief unfurled in my chest. Alexander and I stopped, waiting patiently for Nan to finish changing forms. The small otter continued to contort, pieces of skin and fur plopping wetly to the sand.
Less than a minute later, a familiar brown-haired girl knelt in front of me. She was naked, and I saw her skin pebble in the biting wind, but otherwise she didn’t seem affected by the cold. Nan pushed herself up, strands of her long hair draping across her pale body.
“I’m glad you survived,” I said, guilt piercing my heart like a hundred tiny needles.
“I almost didn’t. I’ve never seen anything like that creature.
The speed of it …” She shook her head, and the look in her eyes was a blend of wonder and horror.
“At first, I thought it had come for you. But after I dove into the water, I hid and watched it take the Horn. What possible use could a creature like that have for a weapon meant for angels?”
The genuine bafflement in her voice made the needles inside me burrow deeper.
My jaw clenched, and I turned my head away, scanning the dark horizon as I worked up the courage to tell Nan and Alexander about Lucifer.
They deserved the truth, or some of it, at least, not only because he had just slaughtered most of the Order, but so they could warn their people.
Now that Lucifer had the Horn, he could move to the next phase of his plan, whatever that was. I just knew it wasn’t anything good.
“The Dark Prince is here. In our world. He’s the one who wants the Horn, and he’s the one who controls the Beast,” I said. I still couldn’t bring myself to look at them. I was afraid they’d see the shame in my eyes.
Alexander was silent, but I could feel the force of Nan’s attention intensify. “How do you know this?” she asked.
“Because I’ve met him. He likes useful things, and the prince considers Nightmares incredibly useful.” Bitterness swelled in my throat. Lights appeared on the other side of the water as a car made its way down a winding road. “He sent the Beast to fetch the Horn while he spoke to me and Alexander.”
Nan looked to Alexander, her eyebrows raised in a silent question. He nodded. “It’s true.”
“What does he intend to do with it?” she asked.
This, I knew, was meant for me. I finally turned back to her. The dim moonlight touched the smooth planes of her young-looking face, which went cold as I said, “I have no idea.”
The Shapeshifter Queen’s fear whispered over my tongue—dandelions. She looked at me with her brows knit, as if I’d disappointed her. “This would have been good information to know much, much sooner, Fortuna Sworn.”
“Telling you about him would’ve led to more questions,” I said. Nan’s frown only grew. Time to change the subject. I turned to Alexander, who had remained curiously subdued throughout our conversation. “Is the Order gone, then?”
“We are never gone. There are contingencies in place for an event like this. Well,” he amended, “maybe not quite like this.”
“Oh, so you didn’t expect the Dark Prince to show up in this world and steal an ancient artifact off the wall of your super-secret headquarters?
” I asked dully, remembering the sight of Anna Tombs’s ruined body.
One of the demons could’ve killed her, maybe, but the marks on her ribs told me otherwise.
I’d seen enough of the Beast’s victims to recognize the work of its claws.
Oliver had taken out a werewolf alpha like she was nothing.
Alexander didn’t answer, and the three of us fell silent. It was still surreal that, not far below our feet, a massacre was suspended in the water. People I had known.
“We should get to safety. It’s foolish to be in the open like this,” Nan said. Something in her countenance tightened. “I will send someone to retrieve the remains and notify their families.”
She didn’t say anything about the reason the Order had met tonight in the first place, and I decided not to remind her. Nan’s body began to snap and crack again. As she grew wings and launched into the air, I expected her to transform into an owl, like she had the first time I’d seen her shift.
Instead, she changed into a small, black bird.
A crow.