by C. M. Owens
“No. I think I’m hilarious and completely underappreciated. And I think no one wants to explain anything because they’re too busy arguing or distracting me. But that’s just one girl’s opinion, and I did die. Still not clear on the reasons why.”
Rafael looks even angrier, so I take a step closer to Lucifer. I don’t know if he’s stronger than Rafael, but it feels safe to gamble with the Devil I know right now, instead of the one who wears a halo when killing.
I still hate Lucifer for his manipulative illusions, but I’ll deal with him later.
“You think you’re the victim in this scenario, which shouldn’t come as a surprise. Hell always plays the victim, despite their sins. The righteous are always judged by all of you,” he goes on.
“Says the guy who killed me and beat me for the hell of it today, while letting the Devil break my heart and torture my mind. My soul is dark and twisted. What’s your excuse?” I volley.
“Sitting yourselves on a pedestal as you hold yourself to such a small standard of accountability,” Rafael bitterly rambles, not acknowledging the fact I just spoke.
“She couldn’t defeat him!” Lucifer snaps. “Now we know that for certain.”
At this point, I think Lucifer is just shouting things. Truthful or not? That’s the balance with him; you never know when it’s a lie.
“I can do this all day. Out of the two of us, I’m the only one who hasn’t murdered the other,” I say sweetly, batting my lashes at Rafael and ignoring Lucifer’s outburst. “Hardly think of you as righteous, so you can stop with the haughty tone.”
“Why are we even arguing? This is my decision now,” Lucifer growls.
“You really plan to do this? It won’t work,” Rafael says in a desperate sort of way that only confuses me more. “She has to fight Jahl.”
“She has to fight pure evil? How? She is evil!” Lucifer shouts back.
“But she has enough compassion and the perfect balance for this,” Rafael goes on.
Turning my head from side to side, looking over one shoulder and then the other, I listen as the angel and Devil argue back and forth. I shake my head, wondering how this metaphor just got so real.
I gesture between them as they take another few jabs at each other, and give my guys that unspoken question I expect them to hear. Can you believe this is actually happening right now?
Jude gives me that neck-wringing glare and points to his side like I’m supposed to immediately obey and zap myself there.
Right. Serious shit is going on. No time to be distracted by shiny things.
Still, when they lean over me to argue over my head—the Devil on my left and the angel on my right—I snort and choke back a laugh.
Rafael takes a few immediate steps back as I recover from my momentary slip. I hear Lilith and Hera both giggle as well, so I know they at least got the silent joke.
I hate them a little less for that.
“What’s truly funny, and you’re missing the point, is the fact you think I’m the villain and you’re the misunderstood victim in this equation because you have no memories of the truth, Apocalypse,” Rafael says with a snarl. “You’re the villain.”
“Simply because you have unsullied lips and mine are poisoned with sin?” I volley.
“No,” one of the other angels says, drawing my attention away. “Because instead of making a selflessly selfish or selfishly selfless decision, you just made a selfish one. You were going to end the world and help Lucifer seal hell,” he tells me, stealing all the lingering humor from the air.
My brow furrows as Rafael takes a step toward me, regaining my attention.
“You wanted to level it all, shatter the balance, and lock yourself safely behind hell’s front door and give Jahl the world.” He takes one step closer as a heavy weight settles on my chest. “After, of course, you spent a mortal life as a Romanian gypsy with her traveling harem,” he adds bitterly.
“That doesn’t sound quite like me. I was fearless,” I argue. “Everyone and everything says so.”
He goes on as though I haven’t said anything at all.
“Hell can’t fully be sealed to contain all its occupants, as you once were perfectly aware—no entrances, but plenty of one-way breaches. Who knows what would happen if Jahl gathers enough souls to breach one or both of us eventually,” Rafael continues as I slowly take a step back. “He has plenty of followers already in hell who would gladly turn over their souls, believing him to be a grander Devil than Lucifer.”
Lucifer groans. “I’m the Devil,” he states.
“But it’s just the Devil with a little t in my head. I have a big T with my title,” I state as if compelled to do so, and then I grin when Lucifer glares at me.
Why does it feel like I’ve just somehow won a prize?
“The point is, Jahl’s people—your rebels—would possibly drag all the souls from hell that Jahl needed, and you lazy, selfish, distracted ingrates wouldn’t do a thing to stop it,” one of the angels dryly states, giving Manella an incredulous look when Sloth himself startles awake.
He smacks his jaws before releasing a loud yawn.
“If Jahl can consume enough true souls like he’s been attempting to do for centuries, he could eventually consume both heaven and hell,” another angel supplies, eyes on me.
“That doesn’t mean she deserved to die!” Lucifer says, restarting the argument. “It was never her place to have to fight him!” he roars, shoving Rafael, who simply turns the other cheek.
“I killed her because the balance needed to tilt to purer times, and the only way to do that was to banish a great evil. She was acting selfishly, so there was no cost of balance from her death,” Rafael bites out.
“Did it work?” I ask Lamar, glancing over my shoulder as a dull pain starts in my temple. “Did the scales tip to purer times?”
“No,” Lucifer growls as Lamar lowers his eyes like he’s not allowed to speak. “It’s gotten considerably worse. Because he killed the only one of us with an ounce of compassion.”
He shoves Rafael across the room, and the angel grunts when he hits the wall, but his eyes stay averted as his jaw tics.
“Better or worse is actually highly subjective, depending on perspective,” an angel replies.
“Paca was the balance holding hell at bay, and none of the rest of us are capable of caring what happens to the mortal souls, least of all me. There’s a reason she was a master at balancing—she saw the part everything and everyone played,” Lucifer says, snarling.
Rafael ignores Lucifer as his eyes land directly on mine, while I try to pretend to be the impervious hell spawn I’m supposed to be in this moment.
“You wouldn’t risk your precious Horsemen. The five of you together could have ended this and saved the world. But you’d never let them fight, so you ran. Like a coward. So much for the fearless Apocalypse,” Rafael says seriously.
“You want to see a coward?” Lucifer asks as a familiar laugh echoes behind me.
I whirl around as the Devil adds, “I’ll show you a true coward.”
My eyes are on the movie playing out before me like a phantom projector is in the room, casting the screen on the wall.
It’s me. In a very familiar graveyard. The one the guys use a lot when reaping escaped souls.
I’m not really sure where the reel is coming from or if it’s just another illusion.
“Or you could simply make my room purple. It’s my new favorite color. Lilith is being greedy by keeping that color to herself for so long,” the me on the screen is saying to…no one.
It looks the Paca on the reel is talking to herself, much like I do now. I gravitate toward the screen, seeing the past Paca with an easy, wicked tilt to her lips.
“Yes, I know greed isn’t one of her impurities,” she says on an annoyed groan. “It’s a figure of speech. You really should expand your vernacular at some point. The nineties will be here before you know it. Just a few short centuries away.”
Her h
ead falls back, and she smiles as her eyes close like she’s enjoying something. “Gotta go. Malek is trying to summon me, and I can’t find this imbalanced royal escort Heratio swore was wreaking havoc and tipping the scales topside.”
The Paca on the screen stops talking to herself, looking around like she senses something.
“Heratio, I think your angel radar is messed up. I feel no imbalances that are lethal. You’re supposed to be a master of balance too,” that Paca says loudly, eyes up like she’s saying this to the skies.
Snow is falling, blanketing the ground, piling up on the gravestones she’s walking around. Not much has changed in that cemetery in the past five hundred years.
She sighs like she’s agitated, and when she turns around, I suck in a sharp breath, because on the screen is a very familiar man.
“Unholy hell, Heratio,” that Paca snaps, throwing her hands up. “Why are you sneaking up on me? Do you want me to explode your head?”
That man’s name is not Heratio. That man’s name is…Harold. Even through the unkempt beard and ragged clothing, I recognize him. I know very few people in this life, after all.
Gage’s hand is suddenly pulling me closer to the four of them. I’m not even sure when or how I’ve moved this far over in the room without realizing it.
The five of us stare at the screen, needing to see what happens next.
“There is an unbalance, Apocalypse,” Harold tells her, smiling grimly. “Know that I get no joy from this.”
I startle when past Paca’s eyes suddenly widen, and my eyes drop to the tip of the sword sticking through her stomach. One second it’s not there, and in the next it’s back again.
Her head lazily drops as she staggers, the blade still sticking through her, somewhat resembling this latest death I just suffered. Her veins start turning red, slithering through her as red blood drips from her lips and the wound in her abdomen.
Her eyes pitifully look up at Harold’s as she drops to her knees, and that’s when Rafael steps into view, eyes hard and cold like he’s handling an issue and not taking my life.
“Betrayal isn’t an imbalance I was expecting,” that Paca says so quietly that almost no one else hears it. “Someone’s going…to regret…that,” she adds on a strained whisper.
She doesn’t even spare Rafael a glance.
Harold looks away, turning his back on the girl whose red blood is melting away the snow.
“Have no pity for a being incapable of offering you the same if the roles were reversed,” Rafael states hollowly to Harold’s back.
It looks like a long, agonizing death happening as her body violently convulses, and she crawls across the ground, heaving for air, trying to speak like she’s going to call out for help or say something important. The attempt at speaking ends with her choking on her own blood.
I almost want to look away, but my eyes stay riveted to the screen, worried I’ll miss something too important if I so much as blink.
“A blessed champion’s sword dipped in the blood of a righteously balanced angel can turn us mortal and kill us, if we’re topside,” Manella says from behind me, proving he’s fully awake for the family movie night, as we all watch me slowly die on the screen.
When I collapse to the snow, lifeless and still bleeding out, the two angels finally vanish from sight.
Without regret.
Without guilt.
After all, I was just The Apocalypse. Why should they care?
I ignore the fresh tear that rolls down my cheek, blaming it on the emotionally taxing forty-eight hours. I can’t even look at anyone in the room right now, aside from my Horsemen.
The four of them are staring at the dead girl on the screen, not displaying any visible emotion. It’s like they’ve shut down their feelings, or maybe they’re indifferent, since they don’t remember how much that version of me loved them.
This is the day it was all taken away. A very long lifetime that was just ended so easily after surviving for so long.
As my body begins flicking to ash, swirling in the wind, instantly decaying, the reel stops playing.
“A true coward stabbed you in the back, because you wouldn’t be their new champion after theirs was slain,” Lucifer goes on.
Staring at the blank wall, I swallow thickly, the pain intensifying in my temple.
“Jahl’s rebels have been trying to kill your guys for months now, until Father became lucid and intervened. He immediately started the rebel culling to keep them away for you,” Lilith goes on. “Even after you’ve been dead for five centuries, you’re still his favorite. Such a spoiled little cunt.”
When the pain lessens, I half wonder if she knows I’m hurting and cursing me with insults, while also gifting me doses of relief.
It’s like I’m trying to figure every little thing out, and too many contradicting things start flying through my mind.
She sighs like she’s terribly putout by this, as though they’re all numbed to what I just saw for the first time.
As though this has all gotten terribly drab and inconvenient…
I can’t siphon as a whole being. I can’t carry things when I siphon. I can’t create real weapons, but I think I should be able to do all of it. I can’t find my crown, damn it.
“Total downer,” Cain says on a yawn, only proving my assessment about their attitudes correct, and also seeming to lessen that persistent pain in my head.
I’ll have to process all this later when I don’t have an audience staring at me, waiting for me to make the next move. I’m not sure who the bad guy is right now, but I also know something about all of this still feels wrong.
“If Jahl isn’t a being, then why does it have a name?” I ask as I steel myself and face them.
Gage pulls me back, keeping my back flush to his front.
Rafael’s eyes are facing downward, not looking at anyone.
“Because everything has a name,” Lucifer says dismissively. “Jahl is from the angelic language.”
“What does it mean?” I ask him, ignoring the little throb in my frontal lobe that is pulsing with more and more pain.
“I thought it’d be obvious by now,” Lucifer says, sounding far more condescending than Lamar does when he pops that line off. His eyes hold mine as he finishes his dramatic pause and adds, “The English translation is beast.”
Well, this just got substantially more terrifying. And I already have a migraine.
Chapter 12
It grows silent in the room.
The guys have barely made a sound during this entire thing. It’s like they’re simply absorbing the answers to our questions while they’re accessible.
My head hurts so bad that it’s almost becoming debilitating. Swaying a little and cursing the fact I’m showing weakness, I glance down as a single drop of black blood drips from my nose.
Kai is suddenly in front of me, blocking me from view, as Lucifer and Rafael begin arguing anew.
In an almost drunken slur, I say, “An angel and the Devil are having drinks at the bar, and the Devil asks the angel, ‘How’s work?’”
“What?” Ezekiel asks as the arguing in the background gets louder.
Two heads turn into four, and then eight, as they blur in front of me.
“The angel tips his glass back and sighs as he puts it down, before saying, ‘All’s I can say is that ‘at least it’s not hell,’” I ramble on, not really sure why these words are spewing from my mouth.
There’s a loud rimshot drumming that follows that, and I glance over just as the pain eases somewhat, allowing me to see a lot clearer. The twins are twirling phantom drumsticks as they start a beat after that, drumming away.
The weird part is that it sounds like actual drums.
It’s as annoying as it is distracting, which is good, since it’s distracting me from my headache.
“You were designed to be a weapon to destroy the world and give souls mercy, should he ever escape,” Lucifer says to me, shouting the words like he�
��s still in argument-mode and has too much momentum to slow down right now.
“That’s just an excuse to keep her from using her power in any other way than the way you want,” one of the angels snaps, slamming his fist down on the table in frustration as the argument rages on.
“As the Angel of Death, you should understand that we all have our roles to play, Azrael,” Lucifer bites out.
The angel sighs and groans, massaging his temples. At least I’m not the only one with skull problems.
“It doesn’t make sense,” I tell the room, drawing all eyes to me, including Lucifer’s. “It’s out of character for me to run. My vanity wouldn’t have allowed it. I’m compelled to face things,” I answer, unable to tell the angels I do things that seem fearless even when I’m actually afraid.
Seems important they regain their faith in my fearlessness, since I want Rafael terrified of me as soon as possible. The throbbing in my skull eases just a little bit more as the twins’ drumming ceases.
“I went into the trials with no knowledge of who or what I was,” I say as I take a step forward, holding their gaze. “I fell from a hellfire firefall to face death with Famine.”
A sharp pain slices and renews the throbbing in my temple, but I work through it and try to keep it from showing on my face. Gage makes a sound behind me, but I press on, determined to get to the real truth.
“You wouldn’t have really died,” Lilith says as though I’m being dramatic. The second she says the words, the pain in my temple decreases once more, drastically. “You just like theatrics. Always wanting attention. It’s so childish and pathetic.”
“You don’t even know what she’s talking about,” Manella says dismissively.
“Don’t have to. I just need the historically accurate facts as evidence. Hellfire can’t kill hell spawn,” she goes on.
It’s not like I knew that, and her interruptions belittle the point I’m trying to make.
The pain continues to lessen.
“I faced the Devil and won a sword fight after just dying—again—from being stabbed topside—”
“That wasn’t a real death. Just a temporary one. Those aren’t really all that impressive,” Lilith cuts in with an eye-roll. “It’s not as impressive as coming back from a true death, which has never been done before.”
