(this is the second of two chapters I posted today - make sure you catch the one before)
When the elevator doors opened to the Lux penthouse suite - after two different security codes had been entered, because she was so done with people just walking in - Mazikeen did not immediately exit.
Someone was here.
She felt it first, drawing out a curved blade as she pressed her back against one wall.
Her senses were screaming celestial.
Not Amenadiel.
She knew his feel and scent and neither were here.
This was something new. Something she'd not sensed before.
The hairs rose on her arms.
Come forward
Mazikeen gasped.
That voice!
How long had it been since she'd heard that voice, speaking that tongue?
It pulled her from her refuge, even as every instinct told her that something was wrong.
She stopped dead.
Standing before one of the carved stone walls from Mesopotamia was a winged figure in a long gold robe.
Under shortly cropped and curly black hair, dark eyes tracked her intently. Clean-shaven skin framed his unsmiling mouth.
"Lucifer?!" she cried.
If she had been anyone else, she would have dropped the knife in her hand.
Instead she gripped it tighter.
This was not possible.
Lucifer was dead! She'd seen his corpse! She'd laughed at his spirit two days ago!
But... he was standing before her now?
How?!
He tilted his head and his dark eyes took in her measure.
Her skin crawled under his gaze.
It didn't feel right.
The look he was giving her had no familiarity to it at all.
Why are you here
The words of the angelic tongue made her wince, and she waited for the glasses and bottles on the bar to stop rattling before daring to speak.
"This is my place now, Lucifer, you know that." She gestured with the blade towards him. "How are you alive?! And why the Hell are you dressed like that?!"
He frowned.
Why do you keep saying, he switched to English, "Lucifer?"
Maze's heart clenched within her chest as her skin went ice cold.
He had said that word with no accent at all.
Was this a game? A test?
"Lucifer, you were shot, ho-"
My name is Samael
Maze swallowed. A light sweat beaded on her brow.
Why are you here, demon, the angel asked, taking one step forward as his voice lowered.
Maze spun back into the elevator and hit the button to close the door, drawing her blade up.
My name is Samael
Lucifer had said that as she'd stood over him just after he'd Fallen, lying broken and burned in the crater he'd made.
Her answer had been short:
I don't care
But she very much cared now.
Because if Lucifer was calling himself Samael, and wearing angelic robes, then she was in trouble.
The doors began to close, and Samael's impassive face appeared between them, his eyes glowing in flame.
The flames were brightly gold.
His hands clasped the doors, his fingers crumpled the frames, and with the scream of tearing metal, he tore the doors from the wall.
With a scream of her own, she struck with the Hell blade, aiming for the thick meat of his shoulder - wanting to stop him not kill him - but he caught her wrist on the down stroke and twisted it, breaking it and snapping the bones in her forearm like twigs.
She swallowed the pain and caught the knife dropped by her useless hand, then sliced the blade up where his throat should have been, no longer wishing to be kind.
But he pulled back from her blade, yanked her from the elevator, and used the momentum to throw her across the room.
Twisting to avoid hitting the stone wall with her head, she caught the blow against her shoulder instead, dislocating the broken arm.
Feeling him near, she whipped out with the blade with a cry of pain, seeking to cut the meat of his legs and bring him down.
A thunderous blow came from nowhere against her temple.
The world flashed in agony and stuttered to silence.
And then she was choking as he drew her into the air.
He intercepted her final blow and plucked the blade from her hand, before tightening his grasp.
And as she choked he studied it, turning it under the light.
She kicked at him, hoping for a soft spot.
Without looking up, he threw her back against the stone pillar hard enough to crack it.
The world blinked out again, but she fought her way up, and staggering to her feet, she drew the second blade from the sheath against her hip.
Samael punched her in the throat, crushing her trachea.
She dropped.
The angel snatched the blade from her spasming hand and tossed it aside. Slowly, he crouched over her as she gasped and clawed at her own throat.
You are the first of your kind I have met, demon
She shook her head against his words, trying desperately to speak as the edges of her vision began to fray.
Samael's hand drew towards her neck as her struggles grew weaker.
She knew then that she was about to die.
It was a fucking disappointment - she'd been promised a death in battle against an army, and here she was gasping on the floor of a penthouse?! What happened?!
There was a soft swell of warmth and a light that obliterated her vision, and when his hand withdrew, she could breathe again.
Drawing in sucking breaths, she savored the air as her mind struggled to grasp what'd happened.
He'd healed her.
It didn't make any sense... Lucifer hadn't healed a single soul since his Fall...
I sensed your presence here and had to come. Are you allied with the darkness
Maze blinked up at him from the floor, understanding none of this.
"Lucifer... what happened to you?" she asked, staring up into eyes that held nothing of her once-lover.
The man who'd ruled Hell, with her help.
Her King.
He just wasn't there.
ANSWER MY QUESTION, Samael shouted, with the full force of his voice, and Maze screamed as one of her eardrums burst and the bottles over the bar shattered, showering them with glass.
Then slowly, she started to laugh.
"Allied... with the darkness?" she spat, the laughter growing bolder. "Oh, Lucifer, what did they do to you?"
My name, demon, is Samael
And it is time to take you back where you belong
All mirth sank from her in an instant. She looked up at him with wide eyes and struggled to rise.
"What? Wait, I belong here!"
Samael grasped her about the chest and waist and stood as she tried to free herself, drawing his arms around her so tightly she couldn't fight back.
She could only face the bar where they'd shared so many drinks together, now shattered and broken. Kicking did nothing, as he dragged her out to the balcony, and the warm, dry, LA breezes stirred around them both.
"PLEASE!" she screamed over the city, thrashing against him. "DON'T! THIS IS MY HOME NOW, PLE-"
With a sudden beat of his white wings, they were gone.
