by J. L. Myers
“What ailed you since last eve—” Lucifer leaped back as the sword sliced, any questions stalling on his tongue as their welts shrank and repaired before his very eyes. “You heal as I do.”
The king lunged again and scored a track across Lucifer’s chest. His guards went to pounce as Lucifer stumbled back to the balcony. But as he stood, ready to defend, none of them came closer. The king glared at the naked angel bathed in sunlight. He spat through clenched teeth, “You have condemned us!” His arm lifted, fingers tense like he was imagining how much he’d love to strangle Lucifer, but it was the step forward that made the difference. Bathed in sunlight, Cyrus’s arm bubbled and smoked, continuing to sizzle after he pulled it back out of the light. “Monsters chained to darkness. Two of my guard perished this morn, burned to cinders while they screamed.”
The noise Lucifer had woken to. Not a dream.
After the success of last night, Lucifer could have taken this revelation as a downfall, a setback. Instead, he saw the advantage. Now the king had a weakness, one that gave Lucifer more power than before. “It matters not to our plans. This changes nothing.”
The king bared his fangs, red eyes pulsing. His guards looked equally ready to tear someone’s head off. “This changes everything. We can’t fight wars if we cannot step outside.”
Lucifer shrugged, easing down onto the animal furs on the step down from the balcony. The cut on his chest tingled as it healed. “We fight wars as we have always done. With men willing to kill and lay down their lives for their king. Who care not for whom they kill or why, but who kill solely to follow your rule.”
“Then this thing you have created of us, it is nothing but a curse—”
“No!” Lucifer’s shouted interruption made the king’s face redden. He stood and came face to face with King Cyrus in the shadows. “It is a gift. What you are, and the creatures we will continue to make, are my gift to you and this Godforsaken world. At times of war when soldiers come to collect their dead at night, when the exhausted armies and their commanders retire to battle another day…we will strike. We will hit them when they least expect. We will take them in their sleep. Their men will feed your bellies and our numbers. Their loss will be our triumph. No army or king will ever take what you have, and none will ever keep what you want to take from them. I promised you the world, and now I deliver, Cyrus the Great.”
The old king would have balked at the idea of killing without honor, of taking people out while they slept—but not the new king, the improved king. Cyrus the Great smiled, the dried blood on his lips cracking as his smile stretched wider. “Looks like this day you live, fallen one. Now, have chambers sealed of sunlight. Many of them. And do it this day. We need a safe space to build our army of monsters.” Facing his men, he declared, “For this night and every night thereafter, we shall feast!”
The guards grunted and cheered their king.
Lucifer donned a clean robe and made for the door, complying only because it served his cause to ruin God’s sinning race. “It will be done.”
Chapter 5
DEVINE INTERVENTION
Gabriel hovered way above in the sky, so high that any onlooker to gaze up could mistake her for one of the glittering stars that surrounded her. Finally, she was taking the leap she’d been desperate and fearful to take for so long now. Hear heart ached while her strong wings kept her aloft as she followed the movement down on the ground. Desperation sat like a coiling ball of energy in her chest.
The enemy camp below crawled with lurking men. Lucifer’s creatures. There was nothing she could do to stop the events that were about to play out. Yet, even though she had not been given approval to be here, she knew she would do something.
She had to.
Great white wings slowing, Gabriel descended lower, her sight of the action rising up fast. The first of the creatures slipped inside enemy tents—and then the screaming started.
The sound shot through Gabriel and she dropped faster, the air fighting with her robe as she landed with a thump amongst sheltering trees. Beyond the secluding darkness, she stared helplessly as humans escaped their tents and scrambled to get away. Except there was no escaping. Not for any of them. The monsters moved as fast she could, catching a clawing into their prey until one and then another fell quiet. She scanned the red-eyed faces and terrified people—
From only a hundred yards away, she felt a sensation that stole her breath. Like all the nightly ambush attacks over the years since his first monster was created, Lucifer was here. And if she could feel him—then he could feel her.
And then she saw him.
As with every ambush since his first creature was created, Lucifer didn’t join in on the initial attack. His battle clothing was free of blood and would remain that way. His hands were no longer used in battle as instruments of pain and death. At least not until the time came to turn these unsuspecting soldiers into his own. Staring up at the heavens, terrified men scampered around him. His strong chin lifted and his arms opened as if in invitation. An invitation to God that to this day had never been answered. Gabriel had seen it all from the Light Realm above. Had watched how each refusal to act had turned Lucifer’s damaged heart darker while provoking his ambition.
Now she only hoped she would be enough—to stem his hatred and fill the void he felt.
As a tear rolled down her cheek, Lucifer’s head snapped down. He stared straight out in her direction, the silver intensity of his irises so bright she was sure he could see her. His lips curled back from his teeth in an expression that was too cruel to be a smile. He struck out fast, grabbing a young male soldier around the neck.
Gabriel watched in fear as the boy screamed and struggled to get free, but Lucifer didn’t break his neck. Instead, he stalked toward her and away from the camp, dragging the boy whose screams failed with the tightening of Lucifer’s grip.
Shrieks and cries continued to split the air as he closed in on the sheltering trees ahead. “You finally grace us with your presence. To see firsthand what your most prized possessions, even above your angels, truly are.” He thrust the boy down to his knees and freed his sword to cut open his forearm before re-holstering the weapon. His smile dared retaliation—from God. “How perfect they are in their freedom.”
As Lucifer stared into the darkness beyond the thick line of trees, something was horribly clear. He thought she was God. Gabriel’s heart sank like a stone. “You know better than to taunt Him.”
Lucifer’s eyes widened, a flash of happiness stealing away that hard edge. But then the expression fell with grief and he shook his head. “I suppose I should have known better after all this time. I along with this Godforsaken Earth may as well be dead for all he cares.” When he glanced back up he looked as lost as the time they’d been separated from the looking glass—her to join God’s side and him to venture below to spread the word of God to humans. Gabriel came forward, remembering how he’d fought for and advocated for humans in the beginning. She remembered how he’d desperately wanted to be like them. Free.
Moving forward around thick trees, her bare feet padded over the leaf-mulched ground. The gentle light that surrounded her intensified as if she were a white flame burning brighter because of their closeness. Lucifer regarded her face, his lips parting as if mesmerized at the sight of her. Yet on glimpsing her saddened expression, his morphed with the same pain that had resonated across his face the day he’d fallen. “Lucifer, please. Let the boy go.”
Seconds went by, his expression unchanging and body unmoving. When his arm had almost healed, he blew air through his nose and tugged the shocked boy up, shoving him back in the camp’s direction. His eyes didn’t leave her face for a second. “It has been almost three decades.”
And yet, he looked exactly the same as he had all those years ago. As did she. Timeless and eternal.
But still, so much had changed.
Gabriel spoke as Lucifer remained still. “I have missed you, Morning Star.” Her tender name for h
im. “You tempt your fate too much.” She moved closer with the weightlessness of the wind, coming right up to him. When she reached for his face, Lucifer leaned his cheek into her warm palm. “I fear what this petulance will cost you. His forgiveness may not withstand—”
Lucifer jerked back with a snarl and Gabriel’s hand fell along with the hope she’d held onto for all these years. “God’s eternal forgiveness is saved for his precious humans. They alone are his pride. We are merely his servants. Loyal and pure is not what he values. Now I am like them.” He held his arms out to either side of him and glared up at the sky. “Existing solely for my own gain and other’s demise.”
Gabriel unfurled her wings. The soft downy feathers quivered with the sadness that pooled in her eyes. She was losing him. “Lucifer, no. You allow your anger to blind you. He does not want—”
Lucifer shoved Gabriel back, and she continued back stepping as he stalked forward until her wings hit a tree. With his next words her fear and frustration peaked. “I am human. One of his precious creations. Still I am not good enough. He cast me out. He took my wings—”
Her warring emotions exploded and Gabriel punched Lucifer in the face. It was all too much to contain. Knowing she wasn’t getting through to him. Knowing she was failing him like the day he’d fallen. As he stumbled, her wings flung open, huge and powerful as her ability to be soft vanished. Striking out, her long fingers grabbed Lucifer around the neck. “I will not let you continue this.” She squeezed with the might of God as silvery tears streaked down her cheeks. At the sight, Lucifer’s entire body turned rigid, but he didn’t fight back as she spoke. “This plague you have cursed the earth with…I cannot bear to see it. Not for them, but even more so, not for you. I know you, Lucifer. You burned so brightly once. It can be that way again.” Her grip loosened as she blinked her eyes clear. Her full lips lifted with a small, hopeful smile. “If you would only let go of this pain and accept your place among us once more. Accept God’s love again, Lucifer. Do it for you, for what we both know you can be.”
Tightness melted from Lucifer’s body and his sigh was resigned. Gabriel’s hand around his throat fell. With her hope redoubling, she tried to ignore the indent she’d left around his neck as it faded. When he reached up, she let him brush her cheek with his rough hand and tuck her waist-length hair behind her ear. His hand lingered there with his arm outstretched between them, a battle waging on behind his eyes. Then he took a hesitant step closer and brought his lips to her forehead. His hand moved at the same time to clasp the back of her neck.
Gabriel softened at his touch, her heavy wings dipping lower as gentle wind swept her silvery hair back from her shoulders. “Lucifer, please…”
“I am sorry,” he whispered, his breath warm against her forehead and hard to hear over the rustling of tree leaves. Lucifer’s grip tightened on her neck. He freed his sword of its sheath and drove it into her gut, stopping only when the hilt reached her body. “My place is here where he left me. I am the humans’ God. Their messiah. I will make every last one of them mine. I will ruin his precious humans by bringing out their true natures. Tell your God to keep watching from his pearly throne as the world turns black. Or until he undoes this mistake he created and eliminates this hell.”
A sudden well of blood choked up Gabriel’s throat and she coughed, silver splatter coating Lucifer’s face the same color as her streaming tears. The pain was merciless, but she didn’t care. This had been her one chance and now it was gone. Even her love couldn’t sate Lucifer’s hate of their maker. “I will pray for you.”
“Do not bother.” Lucifer tugged his sword back. The anger across his face broke into disgust then fear at the sight of the bloody hole he’d cut into her. His sword fell from his hand as if it had become too heavy to hold, and as he spoke, his voice cracked. “God is not listening.”
Letting her blood fall freely, the light around Gabriel dimmed. Her angelic light, the power of her soul and eternal life. And yet she made no move to leave Lucifer. She spared a glance down at her gouged stomach, the silver staining down her white robe. “I won’t leave you, Lucifer.” In truth, she couldn’t bear to say goodbye. To leave him for good. “Despite it all and what you think, you have never been alone. I believe in you. In what you used to be. In what you still can be.”
Lucifer staggered, hand covering his heart and clawing into his armor as if he were in pain. As he stood straighter, fighting the tremble of his legs, she knew he still cared. The horror across his face proved it. He knew as well as she did that if Gabriel stayed, the injury he’d inflicted would kill her. Angels could heal of almost anything…if they returned above in time. In his anger, his long and wide sword had almost cut her in half.
Lucifer’s expression hardened, any gentleness chased away. His fists clenched so hard, blood dripped from his hands. “Then stay and die. I will use your cold body as a trophy, as proof to show humans that I rule over even the heavens. I will mount you to the castle wall for all to see. I will watch you rot like all who plot against me.”
Those words resounded in Gabriel with a hundred times more punch than his attack had. He didn’t mean it. Not a word. He was saving her. Forcing her to leave. And what choice did she really have? In her state, there was no saving him now. As she wiped her tears away, her sorrow remained. “Then I failed you greatly. I am sorry, Morning Star. I am so sorry.” With one last look at Lucifer, she bent at the knees and then pushed up with power that rippled out in waves on the air. Her wings beat with force to take her straight up—and away from him.
Chapter 6
THE RITCHEOUS
Michael watched as Gabriel exploded through the looking glass with a shower of shards and water that reformed and resettled once she’d cleared it. Collapsing in the shallow pool, warm light beamed up at her. Her knees were bent beneath her, and her hands below the surface held her body up, while her head remained bowed. A few deep breaths were drawn, the sight of her back clear as silver tainted the crystal clear water. The bleeding from her slowed and as she sniffed back tears she froze momentarily. Splashing water up to cleanse her face, she looked sidelong. “Who’s there?”
In her state, she hadn’t felt Michael’s presence straight away. But he’d been there the whole time. Watching. “You almost didn’t survive him this time.” At the edge of the looking glass, Michael shook his head as Gabriel spun around with a splash. Anger speared through him at the close view of her injury. An injury that could have killed her. Since the beginning, he’d always kept a close eye on her, especially when it came to Lucifer. She was too blind to the fallen angel’s charms. “You almost died in vain. And not for the first time.”
Gabriel eased onto her backside, face scrunching at the pain of it. Looking up at Michael as he towered over her, she seemed so small and fragile, so in need of protection. Even if she didn’t want it. She was so close to perfect—and Lucifer would never be worthy of her or God’s love.
“I know you saw,” Gabriel spoke up at him, that poisonous hope still alive in her teary eyes. She regarded his battle clothes with a frown but said nothing about it. “I almost got through to him. He forced me to leave him.”
Though no shadow was cast as Michael stepped onto the concaved glass, his feet disturbed the resettling water. He shook his head, dark locks softly curled and swaying. “You are blind to him, Gabriel. You always have been. You choose to see only what you want to.”
Gabriel grunted as she pushed her healing body upright. Her hands remained tense at her sides, looking like she was restraining from curling her fingers into fists. “I am the messenger of God. I choose to know everything that I have witnessed with my own eyes. I choose to see the whole picture, the bad, and the good. To…” She frowned again, trying to look past Michael’s huge frame. “Who is with you?”
Remiel stepped to the side as Michael glanced over his shoulder. With his hands clasped before him, his eyes were kind but filled with sadness. “When will you accept that Lucifer is not like us?”
When his eyes fell on the silver-stained hole in her robe and the healing flesh beneath, Gabriel crossed her arms over the damage. With nothing but endless light around them, there was nowhere else to look—or escape to. She was too weak to fly up to heaven. And that fact would serve Michael well soon enough.
“We are God’s archangels.” Gabriel’s voice was pleading. “All of us. We are all different in our own right, and despite what you all believe the future holds, I choose to hope for a better way. For all of us.”
“Then you are a fool,” Remiel said with sadness. He strode forward to one of the unbreakable anchors surrounding the looking glass that used to chain them to watch over the world. Hands now behind his back, he faced her from the glass edge but said nothing more.
Michael neared, wading through the huge, shallow pool. Sliding a finger under Gabriel’s chin, he forced her face to tilt up. Unlike Remiel, he didn’t let any emotion shine through. His strong, unbreakable, unswayable facade had never been cracked and now was no different. “He never belonged here. Not before and not now. And we will not lose you in your plight to save what cannot be saved.”
Gabriel backed up, her feet slipping as the curve of the glass worked against her. She frowned as she looked from Michael to Remiel. Something in Michael’s determined stare and Remiel’s inability to look her in the eye had her heart jumping in her chest. And then she saw the angel sword with its sapphire-jeweled hilt strapped to Michael’s side. The only weapon that could kill an angel instantly without any hope for healing. She stood taller. “You have no right to order me to do anything. Only He—”
