CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR #2
“What … what did you do?” Zara said. I didn’t think I’d ever heard her so shaken before. “Wait, my lady, not so quickly!”
I sat up and got to my feet. The healer stood with me, her eyes dark with worry, but I just gave her a brief nod and replied, “Thank you, Zara.”
She stared at me. I left her there and moved through the chaos, effortlessly drawing tidal waves of power to me. This time, I didn’t cross the battlefield swinging a sword.
I walked.
I leveled Lucifer’s army like it was nothing. Even the ones that belonged to Samael. Screams and moans followed in my wake. As if the thought had summoned him, the Prince of Solitude reared up in front of me.
“We had a deal!” he shrieked, spittle flying from his mouth, his eyes bulging with wrath. “We had a—”
With a single thought, I made the demon prince’s entire body disintegrate.
While Samael’s remains blew away on a cold gust of wind, I continued on, snuffing out more lives as I went.
I held my arms wide as though I were making my way through a summer meadow, and in my mind, I was.
It felt as though part of me were in the dreamscape, back when it was a place of warmth and joy.
I stopped seeing the horde as I ended their lives, and I remembered Oliver’s sweet smile.
I finally understood what it meant to be a Nightmare, I thought, catching sight of my own reflection in a demon’s sword as it ran at me.
My red eyes shifted, fixing on the creature’s birdlike features as I moved my arm with only a flick of effort, decapitating it in an instant.
Meanwhile, all the demons around us continued to topple over like dominos.
Onward I went, heading for a bright figure on the other side of the battlefield.
Over the years, my kind had been reduced to creatures with norms and limitations.
Rules and boundaries, like vampires or werewolves.
We had allowed it, maybe because we’d started to believe them, or simply to survive.
But in the beginning, starting with Persephone, Nightmares could change reality.
We could make thoughts and dreams into physical matter.
We could create worlds and openings between universes.
And we sure as shit could take out one petty, bitter angel.
This time, I reached the devil in minutes.
When our gazes met, he lowered his sword.
He’d seen me coming, no doubt, and realized the futility of fighting.
The screams of his dying army filled the air.
But his surrender wasn’t enough, I thought, as I continued stepping over all the bodies between us.
Not even Lucifer’s death would satisfy me now.
I wanted his dignity, too.
“Kneel,” I said tonelessly.
Lucifer’s knees hit the ground with such force that it sounded painful, and the moment reminded me of what he’d done to Thuridan. My heart felt like a piece of granite as I approached. The Dark Prince tipped his head back, his eyes flashing with fury. Fury … and fear.
“You would have been a god,” he snarled. “And yet you chose these pathetic creatures. What can they give you that I can’t?”
I didn’t smile, but the corners of my mouth lifted. Wind whistled between us, tugging at a strand of my hair. “Everything,” I said.
I bent down and put my face near his. Lucifer stared at me silently, but I could see the violence in his expression, the dark longing.
I knew he wished we were in those cells beneath his tower, where he could do a thousand terrible things to me.
Remove my skin, break my bones, hear the lovely cadence of my agonized screams. I knew all that because I was in his head, which was unguarded to me now.
Not even the devil’s impressive defenses could keep a power like mine out.
There was a reason we’d chosen fear, I thought as my nostrils flared, detecting a new scent. It was the easiest way to control our morsels.
It was also the most delicious.
And for the first time, I was tasting Lucifer’s. The devil’s terror tasted like blood. He wasn’t afraid of light or death, I noted coldly. He was only afraid of failure.
My eyes met his, and then I crooned, “You lost, Lucifer. This world will live on. So will yours … especially when I go back and free every soul you put in chains. Your legacy will fade into nothing, and someday, you’ll just be an old, sad story.”
His throat worked, and he opened his mouth to respond. But before he could say another word, a fist burst through Lucifer’s chest.
I wasn’t sure who was more surprised—me or him.
Lucifer lowered his eyes slowly. For a moment, he stared down at his own heart, and the blood dripping off the massive, clawed hand that held it.
When Lucifer looked back up at me, I knew he wouldn’t find any hint of regret or guilt.
I couldn’t read his expression, but I recognized the faint smile curving his lips.
It was the same one he’d given me that last night in Hell, while we were flying through a black sky, rain shining on our skin.
He was saying goodbye.
At the same moment Lucifer opened his mouth to speak, his killer pulled their fist out.
The devil’s body jerked, and blood burst from his mouth.
A glassy sheen entered his eyes. The sun shone through the hole in his chest, bright, streaming ribbons of light.
Then Lucifer tipped over and landed on his side, his armor making a dull sound against the earth.
As he died, it felt like something inside me gave way.
As if I’d been holding my breath for months, and now I could finally let air back into my lungs.
Lucifer was gone. He couldn’t hurt anyone else, and for the first time in years, it felt like my family was safe.
I held a hand against my stomach, making a strange, strangled sound deep in my throat.
Relief, and pain, and release all at once. I was free. I was free.
Oliver stood over Lucifer’s body. He was still in his Beast form, and he clutched the devil’s heart as if he wanted to crush it into a mass of ruined flesh.
But the way he looked at me was entirely Ollie, and I wondered if the ichor coating his skin meant that he’d turned on the demons he was supposed to fight alongside.
No wonder I hadn’t seen him during the battle.
I felt a jolt of terror when I realized what Lucifer’s death meant.
Michael’s voice whispered to me, and suddenly the words felt like a vicious, dark taunt. What happens to one happens to both.
Oliver had known, of course, and he’d killed Lucifer anyway. We stared at each other, waiting for something to happen. But as the seconds passed, one after the other, he still stood there, whole and alive. I stretched out my hand.
“Ollie,” I said softly, daring to take a step toward him. “Ollie, this could be—”
Suddenly his gaze shifted, and any trace of the man I loved vanished, leaving only the Beast. Whatever Oliver saw behind me made his wings snap out.
Without a word, he launched into the air, and the force of it blew my braids back.
The dark shape of the Beast flew into the horizon, and the light-tinted clouds swallowed the sound of his distant roar.
I stood there long after he was out of sight, wondering if I’d just made another mistake by letting Oliver go.
Slowly, I became aware of the rest of the world again.
Dawn streamed into the world like a golden river.
It spilled over the hills and shone across the crushed, bloodstained grass, lending a dreamlike feel to all the carnage.
But I felt like I was waking up. Suddenly I could feel how much power I’d expended, and in that moment, I wanted nothing more than a hot shower and my warm bed. I reminded myself that there was still work to be done.
Swaying on my feet, I took stock of who was still alive.
Adam was nearby. Overall, he looked no worse for wear.
There was a cut over his eyebrow and someone had ripped a piece of his beard off, but his visible wounds—inflicted by demon glass, no doubt, which explained why there weren’t healed—all seemed superficial.
Lyari appeared unharmed, as well. Along with Cyrus, Ariel, and Gil.
Tension eased in my chest, and I continued my search of the battlefield. There was Laurie, standing with his inner circle. Tabitha had also changed back to her other form, and she held a saddle blanket around her naked body, nodding at something her king said.
Once I knew they were safe, my thoughts moved to my allies. I spotted Alexander N?rg?rd off in the distance, and Cora was with the wolf packs. There was the Rat King, Savannah and the witches, and the fae of both Courts. I didn’t see Nan, though. Had she survived her battle with Abaddon?
The wind carried another soft sound to my ears. I turned, and I wasn’t surprised to see Collith standing nearby. Oliver must’ve seen him, too, and that was why he’d left so abruptly. Collith’s eyes met mine. In the light of morning, they looked startlingly green.
“You turned on Samael,” he remarked.
I’d all but forgotten about that. I made a vague sound and looked down at a dead faerie.
She wore the armor of a Guardian, and it looked like her throat had been ripped out.
Blood coated the grass beneath her and most of the faerie’s lower face, which was frozen in an expression of horror.
Her beautiful eyes were open and vacant.
As I bent over to close them, I answered Collith.
“I was never going to tell Samael about the Unseelie Court. The moment I made that phone call, I knew I was going to double-cross him, and I knew what I was risking.” I straightened and stepped over the fallen warrior, moving to stand next to Collith.
My gaze went back to my friends, who were still gathered close by.
Something tight and hard inside me loosened when I saw Gil removing what looked like porcupine needles from Lyari’s back.
She was grimacing and cursing, but she didn’t move away from him.
My voice softened as I finished, “I decided they were worth it—eternal damnation. For them, I would cover my soul in a thousand stains. And I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
Collith looked at me for a long moment. I couldn’t read his expression. “You sound like Laurie,” he said.
At the mention of the Seelie King, my eyes found him again.
Laurie had left his companions, and he stood on his own now, staring up at the sky.
There was something in the set of his shoulders that made it clear he wanted to be alone.
I knew that he was grieving the ones he’d lost today, and I thought of my own losses.
“He’s right about one thing,” I murmured. “We’re not human, Collith … and sometimes the monster does win. Today, it was just the better monster.”
There was no bitterness in my voice, but I couldn’t bring myself to say anything else. And though I longed to go to those people waiting for me, to celebrate and exalt in the miracle of another dawn, and the fact that we were alive to see it, I couldn’t bring myself to do that, either.
Instead, I turned away. I began to scan every face I passed, leaving Collith to pick my way through the sea of dead.
I had a body of my own to find.