by J. L. Myers
The pain became blinding, stealing Lucifer’s view of the swirling black and red above as well as the hefty crack that led up to Earth. All the souls’ mortal crimes stabbed through his mind all at once. The thieving, arson, evil plotting, murders, rapes, and devouring of life with chewed flesh and crunched bones assaulted him relentlessly. He saw it all. Every earthly crime that had secured their pass to Hell, and every new heinous act that they committed since their escape.
And for the first time, in his pain-induced living coma, Lucifer agreed with God.
These souls did belong in Hell. They needed a ruler with a black heart. And if they ever got out of here and above, they would be the end of all that was light and pure.
Lucifer knew he could never let that happen. He knew that he had his purpose, and now as he lay paralyzed, Lucifer vowed that if he survived, he would do his duty. He would rule over Hell—even without Gabriel.
And then it was all over.
The pain fleeted, and Lucifer’s eyes cracked open as sounds of movement reached his ringing ears. His chest had closed up, fully intact but for the raised red scar that ran from his sternum all the way down to his navel. The souls were home, leaving only their tether linked to his soul for safekeeping.
With a groan, Lucifer’s head tipped sideways, seeing the source of the shuffling sounds. Hellions. Every single one of them twitched and shifted, slowly rolling to their knees and hands. Most of the non-deformed hellions inched back down the streets and out of sight, while every monstrous set of black eyes leveled at Lucifer.
Snarls and hisses sang like a chorus as they clambered to their spindly legs and gnarled feet and hooves. The remaining humanlike hellions melted back into the shadows, knowing the hellions Lucifer had deformed were thirsting for blood and vengeance.
Lucifer rolled upright with a groan, pushing with his hands to get to his shaking legs. Whipping out the double-tipped dagger, it failed to blaze or snake down with burning red. And then it disintegrated, falling like sand from his tight grip. His only weapon had served its sole purpose, and now it was gone. And even if he hadn’t been weaponless, Lucifer couldn’t battle them all. After all he’d been through, he was too weak.
He cut a glance at the cave.
Michael hadn’t come out. He hadn’t appeared with Gabriel in his arms to soar up through the gaping crack in the earth’s crust. Which meant one of two things. Either Gabriel was already dead, or Michael had been ambushed and couldn’t get to her.
Either way, Lucifer knew he couldn’t stick around and return order to Hell. At least not yet.
Lucifer backed up as they hobbled his way on their oddly bent limbs. Some of them had arms that reached the ground like spears and stabbed downward with each nearing step. Lucifer would never outrun them. There were too many, and he couldn’t stop the shaking of his legs. But he could…
Fly.
The hellions noticed his black wings that blended in against the ashy landscape behind him. One grated, “Tasty wings,” while others bared their sharp teeth in anger. “Get. Catch him. Tear.”
A familiar mop of red hair bobbed through the grotesque crowd as Lucifer backed up faster. Zachias’s face came into view as he pushed to the front. “Go now,” he mouthed, red eyes deathly serious. His reformed armor sported the fatal slice the dagger had inflicted to pierce his heart. The sharp-ended length of thighbone he held made a puzzle of his words. “Now!”
The hellions reacted as if Zachias’s command had been one of attack.
Lucifer turned and ran, wings striking out and begging for liftoff. But the air down on the ground was thick and still and the effort of using what had once been burned to cinders struck through Lucifer’s back with bone-cracking splinters. As he glanced back at the loud cracking sounds and resulting grunts, what he saw shocked him.
Zachias swung the bone mallet, knocking hellions back before stabbing into others. He was helping Lucifer escape, but there was no time to wonder why. The other stampede forfeited the shock assault and was gaining on Lucifer fast.
The hellions were right behind him, running with a speed that was far superior to his own.
Lucifer was so close. The mouth of the cave was in sight. But he would never make it up those stairs before talons caught him. He had to liftoff. He had no choice.
Batting the thick air, Lucifer mashed his teeth together at the strikes of pure torture that ripped through him. “They’re phantom pains,” he told himself. “They’re not real,” he added even as he heard a crunch and a pop.
A slice cut through Lucifer’s flailing feathers, making him hiss.
The hellions were right at his back, plucking feathers as they came so close to being able to grasp flesh and bone to pull him back to their hungry mouths.
Lucifer roared with determination, putting every ounce of strength he had into flapping his heavy wings. Another loud pop rebounded back at him off the rising cliff, but then he felt the air beneath his feet. The pops were Lucifer’s bones punching back into their sockets, realigning his wings into the place they had been burned from so long ago.
Beating harder, Lucifer left the ground and the snarling mob behind, soaring up the rough vertical incline with a speed that had his heart racing. Down below, Zachias was nowhere in sight. Good. He hoped he had died for a third time. And now he had a promise to fulfill.
Finally, Lucifer was whole once more—but if he failed to get to Gabriel in time, he would never be whole again.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Lucifer’s wings tucked in tight as he swooped inside the mouth of the cave. His feet kicked down and forward as he torpedoed past the many barred cells. Clawed hands and gnarled fingers reached for him through the bars, slowing him down. Lucifer pushed on harder, ignoring the cuts and scrapes to speed up. Hell was back in business, all its occupants returned to their former bodies and locations.
Did that mean Lucifer had accomplished his goal?
Had he delivered on Gabriel’s deal with God?
The clash of metal and grunts from further down the torch-lit tunnel revealed his answer. If Lucifer had collected all the souls, there would be nothing to fight over. God would have freed Gabriel of this place. And unless ambushed, Michael would have swooped back out and flown high, escaping Hell through the cracked Earth with the beating of his mighty wings. But it was the archangel’s shouts that rebounded off the tunnel, his muffled words of promised menace, and his lunging and retreating shadow that danced along the walls with every strike of his sword.
And Lucifer knew why.
Apart from the burned hybrid-hellions, he knew which soul he had failed to collect.
Darius.
Speeding past the twin reaching walls of hands, Lucifer met the action quickly. Down here it was darker, less flaming torchlight to illuminate the widening dead end. But Lucifer didn’t need light to see the horrible truth, to see the undeniable proof of his failure.
Michael feuded in a battle to the death with Cyrus, Darius, and eight guards. Armed with the blazing angel sword, Darius nudged his father. “He’s here.”
The old king’s face brightened with what almost resembled relief as he glimpsed Lucifer’s arrival. He slashed out with the angel dagger to force Michael back. Surrounding them were the bodies of four others. Three were guards, ones who’d betrayed their loyalty to Lucifer for Cyrus. They were now lumpy obstacles that Michael sidestepped over and around to arc his sword at the others.
The fourth body was smaller and so much more fragile.
Bruised and bloody, Gabriel lay on her side, knees tucked up to her chest and encapsulated by her arms. Arms that may have once held on tight but now lay limply in the pool of silver that haloed the rocky ground beneath her and drenched her dirty gray wings. “Gabriel,” her name from Lucifer’s mouth was all but a muted whisper, tearing from his lungs as he stared in shock. She was so still, so discolored, her body taking on a bluish gray tone with sallow spots of old bruising.
Gabriel’s head moved—actually mo
ved. Her eyes that were caked in dirt and blood cracked open halfway. Firelight danced in their hollow depths. But she could see him, Lucifer was sure of it. Her split lips pulled wider on one side, flashing silver-stained teeth. Then her bottom lip quivered, shaking as if she were trying to call for him but didn’t have the strength.
Lucifer thought his heart would explode at the sight. Gabriel was alive. Barely. But Lucifer would take anything he could get at this point, any sliver of hope that he wasn’t too late.
Michael kicked Cyrus back with a force that sent him flying, and then he caught sight of Lucifer. The wall their common enemy hit vibrated like an earthquake. At the same time, Michael stabbed his sword through the heart of one of the remaining guards as they rushed at him. “Stop!” The silver length came free glossy red, and Michael wielded it sideways to force the other guards back who now realized they had twice the company. “You cannot take her—”
Michael’s words cut off as Cyrus plunged the glimmering dagger into Michael’s thigh. The slicing angel sword from Darius barely missed taking off the skin over Michael’s armored chest as it cut off his breastplate.
And there it was. Michael’s betrayal.
Lucifer had expected it all along. Except it made no sense. Why help him up to this point if Michael planned to let Gabriel die?
Her sharp gasp reminded Lucifer of what mattered as the guard lunged at him. He hit out with fury, plowing the man back into the fray.
Lucifer took off as the guard’s body hit the ground, the thump felt through his running steps. Skidding down, his knees tore open on small rocks. He scooped Gabriel up into his arms, her dirty wings draped over his shoulder. She peered up at him through her hooded lids, the light to her once bright eyes so dull. “I am…dreaming? You…safe,” she got out between shallow gasps, her lips curving into a peaceful smile. “I am…ready now. I…can…go.”
“No. Never say that. Never believe it.” Fierce love burned in Lucifer’s eyes as he stared down at her.
There was shouting and movement in front of him as Michael fought the guards and Cyrus who now seemed to be holding the archangel back from Lucifer and Gabriel, but it was like they were worlds away.
All Lucifer could see, all he could hear clearly, was Gabriel and how every breath was shorter than the last. There was so much blood, a body’s worth of it.
The stabs in her heart. There were three. Identical to his.
Holding her close to his warm chest, Lucifer stood and began to move away. A jingle followed by a tug caused him to halt as Gabriel cried out. She had been yanked, one of her legs tugged out straight from her injured body. She was still chained like a disobedient dog. “You should have let me die. You should have—” Gabriel’s voice was whisper soft, but the moment sound left her bloody lips, Lucifer stopped speaking. “Then we…would both…be dead.”
Gabriel’s consciousness faded then, her head lolling back over Lucifer’s supportive arm. Too many emotions roiled through him, and he was so tempted to take his rage out on the men who’d tortured her before she took on his fatal wounds. But there was no time. Though he didn’t want to, Lucifer laid her back down in the dirt. He took hold of the chain that trapped her ankle and tugged with all his might, with all his desperation, and a little prayer above. He didn’t know which won out, but there was a creak then a groan as the metal heated up in his palms, the links glowing bright orange with the smallest return of his fire before tearing apart.
Freed of her restraint, Lucifer scooped Gabriel up and bolted for the exit, ready to fly her high before the blip of her weak heart gave out.
Louder sounds than the nearby battle echoed back down the tunnel, bringing Lucifer to a dead halt. At his back, another guard fell to Michael’s sword, his neck sliced through as Michael bashed a fist into Cyrus’s face. The archangel was in bad shape, covered in mottled bruises and cuts. But the fight behind him or his sudden shift in loyalty weren’t Lucifer’s main concern. Wiry shadows with talons moved over the walls and ceiling of the tunnel, growing closer by the second.
The hellions were coming, and they wanted blood. His blood.
“Michael, we’re boxed in,” Lucifer yelled, clinging to Gabriel’s dead weight. His wings flung out, touching the wide expanse of Michael’s own. They were suddenly back-to-back, Michael lunging out to hold Cyrus and the remaining guards at bay, and Lucifer standing ready for the incoming of Hell itself. “Damn your shifting loyalty. Help me save her like you promised.”
Michael must have looked over his shoulder because he cursed. “You cannot fly her above. I must—”
A strangled sound tore from Michael. His back smacked into Lucifer’s before he was wrenched away. Eyes shooting sidelong, Lucifer saw the bloody hole in the archangel’s throat that had severed his vocals. And there was nothing Lucifer could do to unpuzzle his words or to help his oldest enemy.
The hellions took form, following the path of their spindly shadows. They hissed and snarled, crammed in as they all vied to get to Lucifer first. The sight of them infuriated Lucifer. They wanted him dead, there was no question about that. But the way they looked at Gabriel with her tipped back head and dangling arms as he clutched her bared body made him see red. Burning red. They wanted to devour her too. The woman he loved, the woman who would die before ever lifting a finger to anyone in malice. And they were gaining fast.
But something in Lucifer had changed as burning heat flooded through his veins. He smiled wickedly. “Right on time.”
Lucifer clung tighter to Gabriel and roared, flinging his hand out. The rage that burned in his veins exploded from his hand in a ceiling sphere of fire. It hit the first line of hellions and dropped them in a ball of flames. Glaring, Lucifer willed the fire to burn brighter, shooting it up to the cave ceiling so that it crackled along the walls before cutting back in without warning.
Michael barked out an agonized sound as the fire shot up on Lucifer’s other side.
Cyrus screamed out to his remaining guards, “Fall back!”
Now cocooned within the searing heat that Lucifer couldn’t feel, he knew Gabriel was not so lucky. Smoke billowed up, creating a coiling plume above their heads that was growing thicker by the second. Michael covered his mouth as he was blocked out, and Gabriel, no longer unconscious, coughed as if these were her last poisonous breaths.
The cave walls started shaking then, small rocks and larger boulders coming loose and falling around them. Alarm widened Lucifer’s eyes. He knew what was happening. Michael was closing the cracks in the earth.
Lucifer’s one chance to soar high and deliver Gabriel to safety was disappearing.
“Damn you, Michael.” The ground shook with the walls, everything around them moving as if coming alive with the tremors. Hellions shouted and snarled. A large boulder fell, creating a doorway through the fire that filled with their spidery arms. “Which part of this plan made you think it was a good one?”
Another hole opened up in Lucifer’s fiery protection as more rocks fell, and then another on the hellions’ side. Black soulless eyes and glowing red ones trained on him and Gabriel, ready to kill, ready to tear limb from limb.
Lucifer shifted Gabriel’s lax weight and stepped back, but there was nowhere else to go. They were done for, he knew it. But he wasn’t going down easy. He would fight tooth and nail to hold the hellions back from Gabriel if he thought it would do her any good. He would burn every one of them to ash to carve a safe escape from this place of death. But Lucifer knew the reality, even as he fired burning balls at the clawing arms that snatched at them through the gaps. He had lost. He would never get Gabriel out before she gasped her last breath, but he couldn’t stop. He wouldn’t.
Hellions clambered in and stalked their way on uneven legs. Lucifer shot a few quick fireballs at them to buy time while he spared a glimpse down at Gabriel’s face. “I am sorry I failed you. Please forgive me.”
“Lucifer!” Michael’s sudden shout had him whirling around. The angel dagger with its missing tip wa
s in his firm grasp, and he leaped through the gap in the fire to get to them. The hole in his throat had closed up, and Cyrus and Darius, the only men standing were on the ground, grunting to get vertical.
Bleeding profusely, Michael gasped, “We are not outdone yet, faithless. Give Gabriel to me.”
Lucifer tugged Gabriel away. He snarled as he kicked up a lost sword from the ground and held it between them. “So you can end her yourself? Never.”
“No. So I can save us all. You cannot—” Michael’s mouth gaped with a wheeze as the blue length of the angel sword speared through his chest, barely missing his heart.
Cyrus and Darius wrenched him back, but before they could finish him off, Michael glowed suddenly brighter. The glare forced the encroaching hellions and even Cyrus and Darius to stumble back.
The light condensed without warning into Michael’s hands, and then it split straight out. “Forgive me,” he begged as it raced straight for Lucifer and Gabriel.
Lucifer cringed for the impact that could crack open the world—the impact that never came.
With a scream, Cyrus moved at the speed of light. One moment he was behind Michael and twisting the sword in the angel’s back. The next moment he was blocking the path of destructive light. The speeding power hit the blazing length of the angel sword and blasted straight up into the roof of the cave with shattering force. Rock and stone exploded up, creating a gaping hole above their heads as the light died. A view of the swirling red sky welcomed them, as did the shaking sight of the earth’s crust as it vibrated and trembled, shrinking by the second.
Hellions recovered and wailed with Lucifer’s fire attack disturbed, and Cyrus lunged with his sword. “Stay and die.”
“Stop!” Michael screamed at Lucifer, whirling around to stab Darius in the shoulder. Michael ran at them as if he were suddenly acting in their protection, causing Cyrus to spin away from Lucifer. “You don’t know what you will cause.”
Lucifer’s knees bent and his thighs corded with popping muscles. “I do not care.”
