by Rae Foxx
If Gabriel saw the stones breaking, that didn't bode well for the condition of the realm as a whole.
Demons slipping out was a huge deal. I'd never known a demon to escape Abaddon without the help of a Fallen or higher Demon. And those higher Demons were closely monitored to ensure they didn't take matters into their own hands and let their lesser Demon counterparts out.
My home in Abaddon was both inside and outside the gates, positioned so that I could both help Lucifer with the management of the realm as well as have a place to live with all three mates.
"Do what you have to do to shore up the gates." I took his hand. "Use the Fallen and have them add layers of protection to it. We only have weeks to go. Surely, we've waited this long, we can wait a few more weeks." He had to see reason.
Gabriel shook his head. "I'll try, but if it doesn't work, I'm going to have to take him out."
I thought about my handsome, winsome husband. As much as I knew it was necessary, I didn't want to lose him. Lucian was the husband that Lucifer had forgotten how to be. Over the last few centuries, Lucifer had become jaded. He'd gotten into his role as the devil a bit more than I thought healthy. He enjoyed sentencing the dark souls sent to us from the Pearly Gates. "You just hang on until this baby is born if you know what's good for you." I'd argued with him enough. I left no room for argument in my tone.
Gabriel froze and turned his head toward the road, which wasn't too close to our house. We had a long driveway. "Lucian is home."
He pressed a firm kiss to my mouth. "I may be gone a few days," he said. "Trying to deal with the gates without killing your new favorite husband."
I rolled my eyes. "Oh, stop. You've never been jealous before. Don't start now." The guys had always been happy to come home to me. Our jobs meant that all four of us were always busy, always doing something or another, but when Lucifer and I settled down to run Abaddon, I had a bit more time. I was able to create a schedule for my part of the realm's management and give the guys time and attention as well.
Gabriel gave me several more kisses then disappeared as the garage door opened. I sighed and waddled into the kitchen to greet my husband. It would be nice to get Lucian's memories back. Maybe I could figure out a way to wake his memories so that I could quit sneaking around like a cheater.
Two days later, I walked beside Lucian into our favorite restaurant, an Italian place with the best breadsticks in the world.
Literally. Now that I had all my memories, and they were sticking around thanks to the frequent visits from Michael and Gabriel, I remembered the plethora of restaurants I'd visited over the years. Of them all, I couldn't remember a place with better breadsticks.
The hostess seated us with a smile, then returned with our sodas and bread. The restaurant was busy and impersonal, everyone focused on their dinner and lives. The sort of place anyone could blend in without a problem.
I pushed Lilith's problems away and enjoyed dinner out with my husband. It was far too easy to do. Without Gabriel and Michael there to remind me, being Constance was simple. Lilith simply ceased to exist for a short time.
After we finished our entrees, laughing over the enormous portions and the fact that we'd never be able to finish them, we studied the dessert menu, clearly not as full as we claimed.
"I can’t resist dessert," I said. Eyeballing the menu, I decided if there was a better time to go for it, it was at the end of what was sure to be my only pregnancy. I signaled the server. "I'll have the chocolate lava cake."
As I grinned, Lucian ordered the apple pie with ice cream. We joked about stealing each other's desserts, but then my laughter died in my throat as Gabriel walked in. The same hostess seated him at the table behind Lucian. Gabe sat in the seat facing us and shrugged. "It didn't work," he mouthed.
Lilith crowded back into my head. By it, Gabriel meant shoring up the gates and walls of Abaddon. If it hadn't worked, then demons were still leaking out of the realm. When Lucian looked toward some loud laughter at the front of the restaurant, I gave Gabriel a severe shake of my head, but he just smiled. "Sorry," he mouthed.
Narrowing my eyes at him, I wasn't able to school my features back to a neutral tone before Lucian looked back at me. "Who are you looking at?" he asked.
"Nobody. The man behind you was saying something. I thought he was talking to me, but he wasn't."
Lucian swiveled his gaze, but by the time he looked back at Gabriel, he was peering at the menu. Luc shrugged and smiled at me. "Oh, well."
"Yeah." I laughed and took a bite of my lava cake, which was amazing.
When I opened my eyes, Gabriel was staring intently at Lucian. Oh, no.
Lucian's eyes widened as he gave me a panicked look.
"What?" I asked. "What's wrong."
He waved his arms around, flapping his hands like a bird.
"Luc, people are starting to stare," I hissed. "What is it?"
Abandoning the flapping as I looked around at the diners around us, all of whom were watching Lucian act a fool with avid fascination, he pointed at his throat.
"I don't understand," I said stupidly. "Wait...are you?"
Gabriel stood as Lucian made a gasping noise and realization washed over me.
"Oh, Lucian." I jumped up, clutching my stomach. "Does anyone know the Heimlich?"
As I ran around the table and tried to position myself behind Lucian, a strange man stood from a table nearby. "I do."
I jumped out of the way, and the man took my spot behind Lucian. In seconds, a piece of apple flew from his mouth. The stranger let go of Luc, and he slumped down into his chair, clutching his chest and gasping. The restaurant burst into applause.
Throwing my arms around the stranger, I thanked him profusely before turning my attention to Lucian, whose face was still quite red as he breathed hard at the table.
"I'm okay," he rasped. "But my throat hurts."
"Come on," I said. "Let's go home." The waiter hovered nearby, so I signaled him. "Could we have the check?"
Lucian was on his feet, already walking toward the car. "I'll drive," I called to him. "Hang on."
The waiter held out his hands. "No, no check. After that, it's on us." Lucian disappeared as I was dealing with the waiter; I was sure the scene had mortified him.
I argued, but only for a second. It wasn't the restaurant's fault that Gabriel had caused my husband to nearly choke to death. "Then I insist you take this tip." I grabbed a couple of bills from my purse, made sure they were both twenties, then pressed them into his hand. "Sorry for the commotion."
Gabriel had disappeared, of course. I scurried for the car, unwilling to leave Lucian alone. Gabriel might try something else. I was going to throttle him.
"Luc," I called as I tottered across the parking lot. "Hang on."
He stopped in the middle of the lot and turned back toward me. "Sorry, sweets. That embarrassed me."
I'd figured. "I know."
A car sped out of the back of the parking lot, headed straight for us. Lucian, facing me, didn't see it coming at all.
It would hit him far before it got to me, killing him and sending Lucifer back to Abaddon.
In all of his previous lives, he'd lived on the edge. Either a daredevil or into some dark, underbelly activity or another. Once he'd been a part of one of those fight clubs where they fought to the death. It had never been an issue. Generally, in his early twenties, he died.
And since God had cursed me to be tied to him, I died very soon after. Generally, my heart stopped, then I woke up in Abaddon with my husband, while the humans that had been in my life mourned the young woman that died of a heart attack too young.
"No!" I threw out my hands and channeled something inside me I'd forgotten I had access to.
My magic.
The trajectory of the car altered, and it swung wide, missing both Lucian and me.
"Geez!" Lucian held his arms out toward the driver of the car as it sped away. I knew it was Gabriel, but he couldn't have known. "Jerk!" H
e tried to yell, but his voice was scratchy from the scene in the restaurant.
He put his arm around me. "Let's go home. Almost dying twice in one night is enough for me."
Arching an eyebrow, I took his arm off of my shoulder and clasped his hand. I wanted to be able to keep my eyes open for any more attempts by Gabriel.
I was going to make him pay for decades for ruining my fun on Earth. And if the baby was harmed, it might mean the end of our relationship.
I drove us home, my gaze flitting from mirror to mirror as I tried to make sure Gabriel didn't appear again. I didn't think he'd directly hurt me and the only way for him to get to Lucian was to hurt me, too. We made it home in one piece. "You go up to the bedroom," I told Lucian. "I'm going to pee, then I'll be right there."
He kissed me. "Don't be long. I need lots of kisses to soothe my throat."
I hummed and pressed my body against his, which meant I squished Turtle, earning a big kick, which Lucian felt. We laughed, then I pushed him toward the stairs.
When I was sure he was out of earshot, I closed myself in the office and locked the door. "Gabriel," I hissed. "Get in here!"
He appeared in front of me with his hands up in supplication. "I'm sorry, but Lil, it's bad. He's got to go home, pronto."
Stalking toward him, I knew I didn't look intimidating, but damn it, I was pissed. "When I get out of this human body, you're going to regret what you did."
"I already do, I swear." He whispered, but his voice was full of desperation. "I don't want to ruin this for you, Lil, you know that."
Pulling back, I shoved him as hard as I could, which in my human body wasn't very hard. "Gabriel, you will wait three to five weeks until I deliver this child. At thirty-five to thirty-seven weeks, the baby will be safer. Right now, it's too early."
"I can't wait any longer. I'd rather cut off my toes than hurt you, but Lucifer must return to Abaddon. I have no idea how much longer the gates will hold, but I can't be sure they'd last another three weeks."
"I guess we're going to find out because I won't let you kill him." Stepping back, I arched an eyebrow at him. "I love you, Gabriel, I do. But it's not about me or Lucifer. It's about this baby growing inside of me. If you kill Lucian, I'll die, and the baby might be hurt."
Gabriel nodded. "I know. That's why I want to kill Luc myself, so I can be nearby to help you and get the baby to a hospital."
I threw out my arms. "And then what? What if it comes out an angel?"
He shrugged. "Then I'd bring it to you in Purgatory."
"And if it's human?"
He sighed. "Then the humans will care for it. Come on, Lil, you're usually more pragmatic than this."
"Pragmatism goes out the window when it comes to motherhood." Putting my finger in his face, I waggled it with as much threat as I could muster. "This is your last warning, Gabriel."
He grabbed my hand in his and kissed my finger. "I love you, Lil." Without much of a warning, he disappeared.
Huffing, I stomped upstairs to join Lucian. What a night.
"Can I come with you today?" I asked Lucian as he pulled on his shoes. I'd gotten up early and got ready, putting on stretchy maternity jeans and a cute top with a stork on it. "I don't feel like being alone."
Of course, that freaked him out. "What's wrong?" He tied his shoe and crossed the kitchen to me. "Are you okay?"
Laughing, I used his thick arm to steady myself as I stepped into my flats. No heels for me, as much as I loved them. I'd worn them for most of the pregnancy, but I was too unsteady on my feet now. My balance had shifted. "I'm fine, worrywart. Just hormones." Anything was excused by hormones. "They make me want to be near you."
He wrapped his arms around me and rubbed my back. "I'd love for you to come. Bring your laptop. You can edit while I work."
"Okay." I grinned at him and pushed up onto my tiptoes to press a kiss to his lips. "I love you, Lucian."
And boy, did I love him. My Lilith memories were firmly planted in my head. I knew the importance of getting him back to Abaddon. And though nothing could happen until I had the baby, we'd have to kill him after. He'd understand, of course. If not for the baby, Lucifer would always vote to return to Abaddon to right the problems there. He'd been forced into the creation and stewardship of the realm initially, but over the years he'd grown to love his home and took pride in his job.
He pinched my butt as I walked away to get my laptop. "I'll start the car."
When I entered the office, Gabriel sat in my desk chair. "Lil, we have to get that baby out of you."
"Not yet," I hissed, stepping back into the hall to make sure Lucian was in the garage. The rattling sound of the garage door opening filled the air, so I sighed and turned to Gabe. "There has got to be another option. Have you consulted God?"
Gabriel scoffed and spun the chair around. "Of course not. You know how he is."
God spent most of his time focusing on small, day-to-day human matters. They fascinated him. He was omniscient, so he knew what was happening with us, of course. He knew everything, but he chose not to interfere. He wanted us to make our own paths, right our wrongs, and so forth. He'd changed over the years, growing more interested in being a Watcher instead of a Doer.
"I think this is escalating to the point of asking for a little help." I grabbed my padded laptop bag and tried to bend over to unplug the charger, but the belly got in the way.
Gasping, I reached further down, the baby's bulk pushing up into my lungs and shoving all the air out. "Stop," Gabriel said. He laughed at me and helped me upright again, then unplugged the charger for me. "Lilith, I'm not doing this to hurt you. I'm doing it to save the world. You know what would happen if all of the demons got out of Abaddon."
They'd swarm the Earth and attack humans. It would be pure chaos. And humans couldn't kill demons with a gun or knife. It wasn't that easy... Nothing but Light could kill a demon. And the stronger the demon, the stronger the Light had to be. There were a few weapons, forged by the Archangels, that would do the job, but they were hard to make and took hundreds of years to grow. They wouldn't be a lot of help if the millions of demons in Abaddon escaped. It was bad enough when one of the tiny ones slipped out. Human possessions and the like came from those tiny demons.
He was right. We had to get Lucifer back to Abaddon pronto.
As soon as the baby was born. Nothing else mattered to me as Constance or Lilith. Let the world burn.
"I gotta go." I slipped my laptop in the bag and left Gabriel standing in my office.
Lucian smiled as I slipped into the passenger seat of the car. "What took so long?"
Blame it on the pregnancy. "Had to pee."
He chuckled. "You're always peeing nowadays."
I peered around the parking lot of Lucian's insurance office. We were the first ones in for the day. He had a secretary, Linda, but she didn't roll in until nearly ten. She was near retiring and didn't give a shit. But Lucian swore she kept the office running smoothly, and he didn't know what he'd do without her when she retired, so he pretty much let her do whatever she wanted to.
I walked ahead of him, looking around for anything that could endanger his life. At this point, the fact was that his life was more valuable than mine despite the pregnancy. Baby or not, if the entirety of the demons were free, the Earth would be a goner.
A robber with a gun, a giant ax mounted behind a door, ready to swing down on his head.
Gabriel had an interesting sense of humor, there was no telling what he'd come up with.
If it weren't for the baby, I'd join him in finding a fun way to kill Lucian to send him back to Abaddon. That, and the fact that Lucian was like a dream husband. Men like Lucian simply didn't exist in reality. His biggest flaw was a lack of flaws.
That was another concern in itself. How would we find out why Lucian was so different from Lucifer? Even though we were born on Earth without our memories, we were the same soul. Our personalities weren't all that different in a human body or angelic. So,
why was Lucian like all the best parts of Lucifer and none of the bad? Where was his cynicism? He'd been blessed with a healthy dose of skepticism, that was gone. One of Lucian's few flaws was naïveté.
The day passed uneventfully. Lucian even commented on the slowness of the day and how I must've been driving his customers away. "Har, har." I stuck my tongue out at him and went back to my video editing.
I'd stopped following him around the office when he noticed it and asked me what I was doing. I'd made up something about going to the bathroom and went back to his desk to work.
"Well, I'm out of work to do." He threw up his hands and laughed. "I need to make some cold calls, but first I'm going to fix that painting. Linda's been asking me to do it for weeks."
He moved to the closet and took a hammer out, then went out into the hallway. His offices had glass walls, so visibility from the front of the waiting room to the back wall was clear. The only rooms closed off were the bathroom and a couple of closets.
I glanced up as he moved into the hall, distracted by a piece of video that hadn't come out right. I'd either have to get myself in the same outfit and look exactly right to reshoot or leave the mistake in it. An editor's nightmare.
Freezing, my mouth dropped as I watched Lucian fall flat on his back. I couldn't see from the desk what he'd slipped on, but I saw the hammer fly out of his hand all too well.
As he hit the ground, probably unhurt but for his pride, the hammer circled into the air, straight up. As it changed trajectory and fell, I realized it was heading straight for his head.
So did he. He scrunched his eyes closed and threw up his hands to protect his face, but I twitched my finger. At the last second, the hammer deflected and buried its pointy end into the tile beside him.
"Holy shit!" he exclaimed.
Linda and I ran into the hall. Lucian struggled to his feet and stared down at the hammer, the wooden end sticking up. It had buried itself deep. "Sorry for the language," he said to Linda. Certainly not to me. I cursed worse than he did most days. "That thing was headed for my face." He looked around the office as if the answer to how it hadn't hit him would appear. "If it had hit me, I would've been hurt badly."
