25. Vesper
Vesper
We come back down the driveway under the streetlights, Bethie tugging on my arm, ready to charge to the next house. And then, I see it—scattered on the damp asphalt.
A handful of tumbled tiger’s eye crystals. The tightly bound sage bundle I’d shoved into his pockets before we left. And right in the center of the driveway, sitting all alone, is his Jinu hat.
I stop. My breath hitches, a sudden, cold panic seizing my lungs before I can even process. I go down on one knee, my oversized blue tiger onesie rustling in the dry leaves, and pick up the wide-brimmed black hat.
A small, neatly folded piece of paper is tucked inside the inner band.
My fingers shake as I unfold it. His handwriting is elegant and steady.
“Do not mourn me, my Evening Star. Five months with you gave me a richer life than seventeen centuries ever did. You made me something I had never dared to become. You made me yours. You made me family. And if I have a soul, surely, it must belong to you and no other. If this is where my story ends, then know this—I leave full. You and Bethie have all my love, my Ves.”
A hot, excruciating pain blooms in the center of my chest, so sharp, it feels like a physical blow.
But beneath that agony, threading through the raw ache of our bond, I can still feel him.
He is alive. I’ve never felt this emotion from him.
His soul is so quiet. He isn’t afraid. No, he has wrapped himself in grief, layered with pure sacrifice, genuinely believing he has found his final purpose by saving us.
That damn demon. My throat closes up. My lungs compress.
“Vesper?” Manny asks, stepping up behind me, his magpie wings rustling with concern as he looks at the scattered crystals. “Where’s the big guy? Did he run back to the house to check the grout again?”
I stand up. I wipe a single hot, angry tear from my cheek and turn around, holding the letter tight in my fist. I can’t fall apart. Not when he needs me more than ever. I snatch Bethie into my arms, kiss her cheek, then hand her sequined form to Manny.
“Go on without me,” I say, my voice filled with a low, lethal energy. “I’ll catch up soon. I have to find Vale.”
Manny blinks, taking Bethie, his expression going from confused to deeply worried. “Is he in trouble?”
I nod through a fresh wave of tears, less like sorrow and more like liquid fire. “Yeah. But I’m going to be bigger trouble.”
Manny looks at the hat, then at my face, and he puffs out his feathered chest. “That’s my girl. Go slay, Queen!”
“I intend to.”
I turn and run back to the house. I don’t panic.
I don’t cry anymore. I have spent the last two months since the shadow demon incident on my shop breaks, during the quiet hours when Valefar falls asleep with Bethie on the couch, reading the leather-bound book Harold left me.
I haven’t just been studying history. I have been formulating a plan.
A completely insane and dangerous plan in case they ever tried to take him back.
Even if I could find some way to Hell, I will not abandon my daughter for a suicide mission. But I’ll still go to the ends of the earth to bring my runaway demon back to me.
So, I am going to do something much worse. I am going to bring Hell to me.
I gather my supplies from the basement shelf: black candles, protective salt, the protective ward from the crypt, and the chalk.
I go into the kitchen, turn the stove on, and brew a massive, comforting pot of chamomile tea.
If I am going to wage war against the ruler of the underworld, I need to be hydrated and cozy.
I carry the hot kettle, a single porcelain teacup, a lawn chair, and a bright red household fire extinguisher out to the center of the backyard.
I set the lawn chair down, pull my blue tiger hood up over my head, and begin to draw, ready to raise some hell.
* * *
VALEFAR
The chains of the Pit are not made of iron. They are made of condensed gravity, old regrets, and ancient sins, binding my limbs to the obsidian pillars of the basalt chamber.
Lucifer stands before me.
He is as beautiful as he is terrible: a mesmerizing figure of dark elegance against the glowing rivers of magma below. He grins with a casual, cruel amusement, a predator having caught his prey—except the prey surrendered.
“I hope you enjoyed your little holiday, Valefar,” he says, purring low and resonant. “It ends tonight. Along with your miserable failure of an existence. Do you have any last words?”
I hang in the chains, my body battered, but my spirit is entirely at peace. I face the Morningstar, and for the first time in seventeen centuries, I feel no terror. I feel only a quiet, indestructible gratitude.
“Nothing you do could possibly hurt me now, Lucifer.” A faint laugh blows through my nostrils. “I will go into the fires of Hell knowing I have lived the past month in the blessed realm of paradise. It was enough.”
Lucifer’s smirk vanishes, replaced by a cold, dangerous sneer. “You have been a major thorn in my side these past few months, Valefar. I do not appreciate rebellion.”
I meet his gaze, steady, certain. “So says the greatest rebel of all time.”
With a low snarl, Lucifer raises his hand. A torrent of white-hot celestial fire erupts from his palm, surging across the obsidian floor to consume me. I brace myself for the end, ready to let my physical form dissolve into ash.
But the fire never reaches my skin.
Two inches from my chest, the white-hot flames splatter against a shimmering barrier of blue-violet light. The heat dissipates instantly, leaving me completely untouched.
“What the devil?” Lucifer hisses. He thrusts both hands forward, unleashing a massive wave of crushing energy.
The blue-violet barrier flares, synchronizing in perfect harmony with the quiet rhythm of the bond in my chest. Vesper. I do not know why Lucifer’s power cannot touch me—as though some part of her has reached across realms and refused to let go.
Lucifer tries to strike again, but before he can raise his hand, his spine suddenly locks. His head snaps backward, the veins in his pale neck throb violently as utter, furious disbelief crosses his face.
“Fuck,” he chokes out.
And then, with a sharp crack of displaced air, the ruler of Hell vanishes into thin air.
* * *
VESPER
At the very center of the circle, I have added a highly complex, highly restrictive paralysis sigil, reinforced with four ironward stones.
I take a slow, calm sip of my chamomile tea.
A sudden, deafening crack of thunder shakes the maple tree, and a towering column of black fire erupts in the center of the pentagram.
I don’t blink. I set my teacup down, pick up the red fire extinguisher, and give the column of hellfire an enthusiastic blast of white chemical retardant.
The fire sputters and dies with a wet hiss.
Lucifer stands in the center of the circle, looking less like the Prince of Darkness and more like he lost a fight with a bag of flour. He coughs, his perfect, mesmerizing features contorting into a snarl that bares rows of sharp, demonic teeth.
“What the bloody hell are you doing, witch?” he roars.
I pick up my tea and take another slow sip. “You took my demon, Morningstar. I’d like him returned.”
Ancient wrath flares all over his face. “You dare—”
He lunges forward to rip my throat out, but the moment his foot hits the boundary of the inner circle, his body locks up completely. His arms freeze at his sides, his legs glued to the grass, and he stands entirely immobile, vibrating with silent fury.
“Feeling a little deadlocked?” I wag the leather-bound book at him. “Yeah, that would be the paralysis sigil I added to the circle. You can go back to Hell if you want, but you can’t go anywhere else in this realm.” I smile at him through my eyelashes. “So. Let’s talk.”
“Mark my words, Witch,” Lucifer hisses a low, vibrating hum which stirs all the leaves. “You do not wish to play the devil with me. Now, I have an execution to perform.”
With a sharp pop, he vanishes, returning to his domain.
I sigh, set my teacup down, and flip the page. I raise my hand and recite the rhythmic Latin summons once more, pouring my own blood-bound energy into the chalked lines.
Exactly six seconds later, the air cracks again.
Lucifer appears in the circle, roaring so loudly, the trees tremble. A fresh halo of hellfire sparks around his shoulders. I pick up the extinguisher and give him another thorough blast of powder.
He coughs, wiping the chemical dust from his tailored coat, his chest heaving with sheer, unadulterated rage. I would be lying if I said there wasn’t something deeply therapeutic about seeing the most feared being in creation standing in my backyard resembling an offended powdered pastry.
I take another sip of my tea. “Hell hath no wrath like a woman scorned.” I set the cup down. “Tell me, Morningstar, does Hell have a policy for when the woman starts scornin’ back?”
“I had no quarrel with you!” he fumes, his hands clenching into fists as he strains against the paralysis ward.
I tilt my head and give him a sweet, cold wink. “No. But I seem to have developed one with you. Now. Return my demon.”
“I do not answer to a mortal wench,” he snarls.
He vanishes again.
I sigh, shrug my shoulders, and begin the Latin recitation for a third time. This time, Lucifer appears for a fraction of a second, his face a mask of absolute fury, before he instantly forces his way back to the Pit.
“Rinse. Repeat,” I mutter, and begin the summons again, unable to help the amusement bubbling through me.
On the fifth attempt, the displaced air practically groans. Lucifer materializes in the center of the circle, his shoulders slumped by a fraction of an inch, his hand pressed against his brow as though he is nursing a massive, celestial migraine.
“Spawn of Lilith!” he groans.
“Aww,” I lean forward in my lawn chair, eager energy humming through my blood. “What a lovely compliment.”