by J. L. Myers
Sound and comprehension fled Lucifer then, leaving only the compilation of blazing fire and rushing blood in his ears. Even his need for vengeance escaped him as he fell to the ground, landing in Zachias’s ashy remains. There was no pain. No darkening of his soul to concentrate on. All Lucifer felt was emptiness. A total loss that took the life right out of him, rendering him as a living statue as he stared at the inferno that had taken her from him. Any call to the souls inside those smoldering bodies was gone.
Thanatos appeared before Lucifer then, rushing in and falling to his knees. His hands were clasped, his expression panicked as fast words Lucifer was unable to hear were spoken.
Then his son slapped him with the force of a hefty rock.
Lucifer’s head snapped sideways and he roared as he righted the bad angle. The clearing of his eyes as he leaped up and dragged Thanatos up with him stopped Lucifer from doing to his son what he had done to Zachias. The inferno had changed. Still ablaze with heat that blasted his face despite the ten yards distance from him, the change was unmissable and remarkable. An iridescent glow more powerful than a full moon’s light on a clear night was beaming from around the fire, containing the flames and creating a domed bubble around it. The fire continued to hiss and spit, twining below the surface. It wasn’t being put out. Instead, it seemed to be growing more angry and volatile, feeding the light that haloed it exponentially.
“What is happening?”
Thanatos faced the spectacle, failing to answer Lucifer’s question as he neared the blinding heat as if mesmerized. His other offspring circled the growing light too, their faces awed as they crept closer and closer.
“I remember,” Bathory breathed beside him. “But it’s too late to stop it now.”
Michael appeared beside Lucifer in a flutter of wings, delivering a vampire with his arrival. He shoved the vampire back at once, running forward. “Get back!”
Lucifer staggered after him—and was thrown back as the light blasted out. The two vampires were thrown too and knocked out cold when they hit bordering trees. Breaking up, the power shot into the chest of every one of his thirty offspring, flattening them to the ground.
Chapter Twenty-One
Every one of Lucifer’s offspring writhed on the ground, a beacon of light and pain. The sounds from their mouths were choked and strained, gasping and wheezing. Their limbs were taut, muscles straining and popping as their arms flung out to their sides along the ground in twisted shapes. Their legs twined together, and if they hadn’t been flat on their backs, they would have resembled a circle of cross-strung humans being hung out for death.
“What the hell is happening to them?” Lucifer wanted to gag on the fumes of the smoldering bodies that centered his offspring. Burned hair, melted flesh, and cooked organs made for a sickening aroma. The fire was all but out, but the aftermath was as clear as the unmoving black and bloody pile. They were dead, every one of the hybrids. His hope of returning to Gabriel was dead. And now grown his children were… “Dammit, Michael.” Lucifer grabbed the angel’s bicep and shoved, forcing his wide stare from the glowing circle of bodies that arched up from the ground.
Michael shook his head, causing his black hair to shimmy as he cast away his shock. “The souls of the dead. They do not simply vanish. They are stripped of their tether to the Earth. Stripped of their darkness, leaving only the light that was used to create them in the beginning.”
Did that mean all hope was not lost? Lucifer wondered, except the look on Michael’s face was anything but hopeful. It was downright grim. “Quit your riddled tongue and speak plainly. Can we still save Gabriel? Tell me what I need to do.”
“I do not know.” Michael tugged his arm free of Lucifer’s ever-tightening grip. A handprint was left around his bicep that turned blue with the onset of internal bleeding. Michael ignored the punishing mark and ducked as sudden beams of light shot from the hearts of each of Lucifer’s offspring.
Lucifer ducked too, watching the spears of blinding light shoot up past the treetops and into the sparkling sky like invitations to God.
“But I do know this.” Michael was up on his feet in a flash, marching toward the radiating lights and leaving Lucifer and the two unconscious vampires behind. “As half breeds, they cannot contain the purified angelic power. The cannot survive it.”
Lucifer was right there with Michael, for once trusting the words of his enemy rather than questioning him. He could see the proof with his own eyes as he looked from Thanatos and around the wide circle. Each body had forks of light cracking out all over their skin that was exposed beyond their battle gear. And these were nothing like the dark veins that riddled Lucifer’s body with every soul reabsorption. These were literal cracks, fissures in the skin that stretched wide as they tracked down arms, around legs, up necks, and even across their faces. Their eyes glowed white and their mouths were wide and gaping, unable to release the agony that consumed them. They were literally being torn apart from the inside out.
Dread stole the words from Lucifer’s mouth as he dropped to his knees. All he could see was his daughter being born in Hell before bursting into light. She was gone. Dead. Gabriel was dying as he kneeled here, failing again. And now…the last beings in this world he might ever care for were being obliterated before his very eyes. All Lucifer had ever wanted was the freedom to love. Did he really deserve all this torment for the simple desire that had started this anarchy? Did all the good in his life really deserve to die while he suffered on through immortal life?
Lucifer raised his face to the stars, silver tears tracking from his eyes to trail along his square jawline. “Are you happy? Is this what you wanted?!”
“Lucifer, it is not too late.”
Michael’s stern but distant voice had Lucifer’s head snapping back down, and he scrubbed away the tears as his expression turned volatile. “Too late for what, Michael?” He stood fast, racing around the light-breaking bodies to where Michael now crouched at the head of one of his grown daughters. “There is nothing left to fight for. He has taken everything from me. Heaven can fall for all I care. It can burn to the ground. I am not His puppet to toy with—”
Michael smashed Lucifer in the face so hard and fast he didn’t see it coming. World spinning, Lucifer recovered quickly, snarling and ready to take God’s golden boy down.
“It is not too late to save your offspring, you undeserving ass.”
Lucifer’s clenched fist stalled in mid-air. The menace controlling his face melted with confusion. “How?” He watched as Michael bent and placed a palm on the forehead of one of Lucifer’s daughters. Like the others, her skin melted back from her insides, splitting her muscles and tendons beneath and revealing specks of bone with every passing second.
But then something changed.
That spear of light from her chest dulled, the glow returning to her body and lighting up her cracked, pale face. Her hair floated as if underwater, dancing as if made of weightless light. “What are you doing?”
“Saving her. Saving them all.”
As the light moved up Michael’s arm, the funneling of power increased in strength. Close enough together that this woman’s hands touched the bodies of two of her brothers to either side, their spearing light dulled too. Strands of it increased over their splitting arms, channeling into the girl and up into Michael. The archangel’s natural glow increased in size and strength. His teeth gnashed, the pain of the resulting power clear as sweat sprouted and streamed down his face. And then, like an uncontrollable wave, every one of their bodies was connected, the brilliant power being pulled from each of them and into Michael.
But he was doomed to fail.
Lucifer knew it as he watched in awe that quickly turned to fear.
Michael tipped forward out of a suspended crouch and onto his knees. His free hand planted against the ground. Those cracks that had halted over each of Lucifer’s offspring now snaked out all over Michael. And he was not merely sweating in strain. Blood streamed from h
is eyes and ears as he gasped for breath. More blood poured from the cracks in his skin, drenching him and his armor in glimmering silver.
“I…I can’t,” Michael grated between clenched teeth. “Not. Strong. Enough.”
“Like hell.” Lucifer despised Michael almost as much as he despised God. His interference had set in motion so much of the havoc Lucifer had suffered through. He had lost Gabriel in the start because of what he now knew was Michael’s jealousy. Michael’s death would be one less enemy on his growing list. But he could not do it. He could not choose easy vengeance over the lives he had created that were now starting to scream as the light returned to them in rapid pulses.
Shooting around the circle, Lucifer dropped to his knees. Michael screamed, “Stop! Lucifer, no!” but it was already too late. Hand planting over Thanatos’s split open forehead, the power struck Lucifer like the time his wings had been incinerated from his back. It burned even worse than the lake of fire in Hell before his immunity took over. It radiated pain like it was a direct punishment from God’s very own hands.
The circle of light beamed stronger again, dulling from the sides as both Lucifer and Michael absorbed the currents of power and pain. With every second the intensity increased. Lucifer’s body glowed brighter and brighter, mimicking Michael who now had his head raised and his mouth gaping. Blood flooded from Lucifer’s eyes, stealing his view of Michael over the smoldering pile of bodies as the light bashed around inside of him.
It was too much. A hundred times too much.
And it wanted out.
Lucifer could feel it with every internal collision that threatened to shoot a hole right through his flesh and bone.
And then the power found its exit.
Palm slipping from Thanatos’s forehead, Lucifer’s hands hit the ground as he screamed. Twin holes burst from his back, spewing out in a steady luminescent stream. He was sure he was finally dying, that God had looked down on him and decided that enough was enough. That he had suffered for his sins and could finally rest. But the pain didn’t end, the feeling of stretching and burning, of breaking and…reforming?
Lucifer gasped at the sensation that draped over his raw body and sensitive back. It was reminiscent of a gentle brush of her lips and as comforting as her loving arms. But it was not Gabriel.
“Dear God.”
Lucifer craned his head up. All around, his offspring were recovering. Rolling to their sides, they gasped for air as the splits in their skin pulled back together with rapid healing. But it wasn’t any of them that had spoken or even the two vampires that now groaned and twitched with returned consciousness. No. It was Michael.
Standing over him, the angel glowed with brilliance. The beacon of light around Michael was so bright that Lucifer blinked as stabbing pins pricked his eyes. The angel was brimming with power. God’s power. His wings stretched out behind him in all their glory—now pure white once more. But Michael wasn’t looking at himself.
He was staring open-mouthed at Lucifer’s back.
Unlike Michael, Lucifer wasn’t glowing. Not even a little bit. But something had changed. He could feel it as softness brushed over his back that felt like it was being prodded with needles. Suddenly he understood what the soft and comforting sensations had been.
Feathers.
Sight snapping over his shoulder, the words of awe from Lucifer’s offspring came as he gasped. Lucifer could barely believe his eyes as he clambered up to his feet. He expected what he saw to vanish like a delusion. But they didn’t. Lucifer’s wings, black as ever and perfectly intact, sprouted from his shoulder blades to arch around him while draping all the way down to the bloodstained grass. “How—?”
Michael spoke up before he could ask. “Guess you finally did something right. And now…” Michael directed his hands down at the ground, tension shaking his fingers and arms as the Earth began to rattle and quake. “It is time we finished what we started.”
The sound was deafening as the ground cracked open between them, splitting wide like the reverse of what was happening to Lucifer’s healing offspring. Fire and brimstone came into view as heat rose up from below. Along the burning lake that snaked through the mountains and along one side of the dormant city, Lucifer’s eyes went straight to the hole in the rise up toward his castle.
The entry to the dungeon caves.
“Gabriel.” Lucifer’s wings ruffled at his back, ready to deliver him below to save her. “I am coming for you.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Lucifer fell down to Hell, his hands joined above his head in a dive that had him plummeting with speed. Blistering heat rushed up at him, feeling like it was seeping through his skin and down into his marrow. But Lucifer wouldn’t hit the fiery lake below this time. His wings, now folded neatly back, were tingling with life, ready to fling out and arc him up at the last moment.
A glowing presence torpedoed down alongside Lucifer, keeping in pace. Michael. With his own wings folded, he fell in time with Lucifer. Two stars destined for Hell.
Lucifer snarled, that heavy darkness in him peeking out as if to remind him it had always been there, right beneath the surface. “What are you doing?”
“Helping you save her.” Michael’s wings tucked in ever tighter, dropping him faster to the charred ground that rose up quickly from below.
“I do not need your help. Not anymore.” Lucifer’s deep-seated mistrust reared its ugly head. Would Michael be the one to save her while leaving Lucifer trapped in Hell? Or would Michael kill him as soon as he got hold of Gabriel? Perhaps he had never intended to help Lucifer at all. Perhaps the plan all along had been to return Lucifer to Hell knowing that they would never make it in time to save Gabriel.
As all the possibilities flooded Lucifer’s mind like the hot lava lake that spat up at them from below, another sensation dared him to fall faster than heavenly possible. It pulled at him as if invisible hands were hooked inside him and tugging with unending relentlessness. Suspicion and Lucifer’s desperate need to get to Gabriel was not all he felt. Something more dark and sinister stirred inside him. Something that wanted out.
And it wanted out now.
“Those souls want out of you. And I am not risking Gabriel’s life when you go down. You need me to keep this door open and to make sure you get her out. You need me to—”
“Look!” Lucifer pointed out into the distance, his arm fighting the upward rush of air. “Darius.” The king’s spawn repelled down from the crack in the earth, sliding down a long rope that would deliver him to the castle landing—and put him in close range of Gabriel.
Zachias’s actions and deception along with the burning of the bodies, Darius was behind it all. He had to be.
But Lucifer never got the chance to wonder what they hybrid’s end game was.
Lucifer lost all feeling in his wings and body, suddenly falling without control rather than diving with purpose. His wings hit the blasting wind, no longer tucked in tight to his back. And then he was spiraling, spinning so fast that all he saw was a swirl of black and red.
“Dammit!” Michael’s curse cut through the rushing in Lucifer’s ears. Under the aggravation, the archangel actually sounded alarmed, like Lucifer falling to his death might be a bad outcome. Or maybe it was simply the notion of failing in his mission—if that was, in fact, to return Lucifer to Hell alive.
Whatever the reason, Lucifer knew one thing. His end was rushing up fast. And this time, there was no escape. The soft lava wouldn’t break his fall. He was heading straight for the solid rocky ground of the city center that was surrounded by the bodies of dormant hellions. “Get Gabriel out! Don’t you dare leave her here to die with our enemies,” Lucifer’s final words were swept away on the rushing air. He didn’t know if Michael had heard them. There was no response. And he knew he would never heal in time before what he needed to release set upon him and ripped him limb from limb.
This was finally it—
The archangel was suddenly right there, plowin
g into Lucifer with outstretched wings as he hooked his arms around Lucifer’s body. The wind knocked from Lucifer’s lungs at the sudden collision, but he didn’t curse or retaliate. Because he hadn’t hit the ground as he should have. Hanging with Michael at his back and the angel’s arms hooked around Lucifer’s torso, they touched down. Michael’s supporting arms relinquished, and Lucifer crumpled to the ashy ground, landing on his tender wings.
No longer numbed through, burning fire lit like poison in Lucifer’s veins. He arched up on his back, spine jutting off the dirt and leaving only his head and the tips of his toes touching the dusty ground. All around, bodies littered the streets between run-down dwellings and huts. Some were humanoid, but most were in the form of grotesque beasts. All the souls Lucifer had scoured the earth to reabsorb. And now he’d brought them all back to where they belonged. He’d brought them home.
A shrill cawing punched into Lucifer’s ringing ears as Belial swooped overhead. But Lucifer’s pet didn’t stop. Soaring higher, he flapped at speed, reaching the stairs up to his castle—as Darius met the cave and disappeared inside.
“Gabriel,” Lucifer croaked with a spurt of silvery black from his mouth. “Stairway. Cave. Darius. Help her…”
Michael scanned around and then up, seeing the gaping mouth to the cave partway up the rocky mountain’s stairs. He started to back away, nodding his head. “I will protect Gabriel and I will get her out.” Michael’s expression was somber for the first time Lucifer had ever seen. “I’ll tell her what you did.” And then he was running, his long wings spreading out to lift him up into the air.
Lucifer roared as his ribs burst open through his skin with a cloud of billowing black. Tendrils snaked off in the atmosphere, shooting out and weaving around buildings and over roofs. Some even shot up to the sky, diverting to race up to the castle and into the cave.
The cave Michael had just tucked his wings in to swoop inside of.
