During a full day of healing the dead, something pulls Lucifer out of his routine.
Be advised, the tone of this chapter is much, much darker than the first.
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The gates of hell groaned but yielded to his will as they had so many times before.
Amenadiel set his feet down in inch-thick ash and walked toward the nearest corridor. Things looked the same. He felt a coldness inside him. Heaven was growing stronger. He'd expected Hell to be weaker or lighter or at least different.
When he'd filled in for Lucy after Charlie was born, Hell had given him a sense of chaos, confusion, the counterintuitive sickness of shoving a splinter up your own fingernail. Instead, he felt an immobile, reddened despair weighing down the atmosphere like a weather front. He held up a hand and caught a flake of ash. It smeared between his fingers, touched with moisture.
Amenadiel watched the ash fall to the ground. Different.
He took a step and heard a bright, almost cheerful clunking sound. He prodded at the ash at his feet and saw a conical piece of metal. He moved to pick it up, and a full chain studded with lumps of something else rose out of the ash a link at a time. He pulled and saw the far end was connected to the side of the gate, nearly halfway up. He strung the chain out in his hands and saw it had been severed in the middle by something sharp.
"What are you up to, Lucy?" he asked. He rubbed his thumb against the metal and blinked to clear his eyes. The chains were hell-forged steel. But these other bits, whatever they were meant to do, shone silver. Amenadiel stared hard, wishing that growing into his father's "all-knowing" state of being wasn't taking so long. What in Hell was this?
Amenadiel walked toward the nearest set of towers. He couldn't stay long. It was one thing for an angel to visit, but quite another for Hell to feel the presence of the Almighty, even if so far he'd only managed Almostly.
Soon, he heard the sound of footsteps.
"Demon!" he called out.
The footsteps stopped. Then they started up in the other direction. Very fast.
Amenadiel loosed his wings and leaped powerfully into the ash-laden air, setting down in the demon's path between the cliffs.
The demon covered its face with two hands. It was clearly on respite from some Hell loop or other, still disguised as a human. It was wearing an approximation of a Roman legionnaire's kit, adapted for cold climates, blood dripping from his gladius, but there was a garish inaccuracy. This was the way a barbarian might remember Romans in a nightmare.
His eyes sharper than they'd ever been as a mere angel, Amenadiel saw the demon's true form. An extra, nearly useless arm dangled beneath the first, decayed sinew weakening his left thigh. A third eye that could only see the color red peered at half the world from above his ear. Amenadiel's eyes narrowed. And there was...
"You don't have to kill me! You don't have to kill me!" the demon called up. "Lord Morningstar says we're all—" the demon stopped, looking at Amenadiel over its fingers. "Wait," it said. "Do I—I know you!" it chirped, sheathing the gladius, still wet. Amenadiel tried not to wince at this sloppy treatment of a weapon. The demon's thin chest puffed up with a breath as it pointed with its free hand. "You're the second king!"
"Yes, I've ascended the throne of the Almighty," said Amenadiel.
"Whatever. You were our king! During the third reign," the demon prompted.
"What?" asked Amenadiel.
"The first reign was going on when we got here. Then Lord Morningstar left for a really long time. Then he came back. Then there was you. Then you were both gone for kind of a long time—"
"Yes," said Amenadiel, "that was me," he said, summoning the memory. "And you're Crevos."
The demon gave a beaming grin that showed at least four rows of teeth, some of them serrated. "Are you here to overthrow Lord Morningstar?" the eyes were guarded, all eleven fingers touching in front of him.
"And if I said I were?"
The demon drew itself taller, limbs resettling inside the human shell like a moth about to shed its cocoon. "You shouldn't try it."
"Because you'd stop me?" Amenadiel couldn't keep the touch of contempt out of his voice. He could have taken this sniveling shell apart, without help, without weapons.
Two of the demon's eyes looked away. The third held steady. "And if I said I would?" Crevos finished at last.
Amenadiel gave a small laugh. "I am not here to overthrow Lord Morningstar. Where is he?" he asked.
"In his office," the demon clipped.
"How long has he been in his office?"
"Since the ...the thing, my lord."
Amenadiel stepped forward, and the demon Crevos shrank back against the force of divinity in the body that had been the bane of all demons long before it sat a throne.
"What thing?" he asked.
The demon gulped.
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Long ago.
"Crevos, you're on Teutonic duty. Fancy a stretch in hobnails?" Lucifer moved to another line. "Now, Zekke, I understand your client has been—"
An uncanny sound, harmony over discord, sliced through the air, the multi-throated shriek of demonkind following. Crevos had put his hands over the holes in the sides of his head, but half the sound, the fair notes, cut through him like he wasn't there at all. The noise intensified like a fly vibrating the spider's web. Then a snap. Then silence.
Lord Morningstar put down his clipboard and pointed at Zekke and Vull. "You two are to locate the prisoner and see to it no one speaks to him. Kschee, take Bezizel and Crevos and see what has happened at the gates. Report back to me immediately."
"But it's over," said Kschee, pulling her cartilage down from where it had covered her ears. "That terrible noise has stopped, Lord Morningstar."
"Go," Lucifer snarled, his eyes burning. "Wait!" he held up a hand. "When I say 'report back immediately,' I mean you are to lay eyes on whatever entered my realm, your eyes and absolutely nothing else."
Kschee looked away and back again, mouth hanging slightly open.
"He means no eating it, dummy!" hissed Crevos. He looked at the king. "Right, Lord Morningstar?"
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Amenadiel took this in calmly. "And what did you have to report?"
Crevos took half a step back. "Lord Morningstar forbade us to speak of it! He ordered us to forget it happened. If you really want to know you—you just have to ask him!"
"Fine," said Amenadiel. "It sounds like I need to have a talk with 'Lord Morningstar' anyway."
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Crevos took him to the only door that didn't shake on its hinges. It hardly needed to, he thought, the shadow of Hell's throne would intimidate anyone, demon or not. It sprung open at Amenadiel's hand. He blinked hard as he stepped into a dim space with what appeared to be hardwood floors. A no-nonsense desk stood at the other end of the room. Amenadiel recognized it immediately. It had been his once, after all.
"The sign says 'Do Not Disturb'!" Lucifer's voice spilled over the desk before he raised his head and watched Amenadiel fold his arms.
"Is this the back office at Lux?" Through the stone, the Hell's filtered soundscape might be mistaken for a music through steel-framed walls, if the instruments were badly tuned enough and the bass badly struck enough. "What do you do here, paperwork?"
"Is it?" Lucifer looked around as if he'd forgotten what the room looked like. "That's right, I updated the décor after that fiasco with Dromos." Through the stone, the Hell's filtered soundscape might be mistaken for a music through steel-framed walls, if the instruments were badly tuned enough and the bass badly struck enough. Lucifer knocked a clipboard onto the floor as he reached for a glass of clear liquid. "Here to berate me, Brother?"
Amenadiel shook his head. "Everyone needs to know what happened, Lucifer."
"Then tell them," he said. "You're all-knowing."
Amenadiel considered lying. "Not all of Father's power is awakening in me all at once," he said instead, "and half the point of Hell is that it's out of God's sight. And we both know you already knew both those things, so cut the bullshit. What went on down here?"
Lucifer raised his head.
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Earlier. Time not measurable.
"I really appreciate you spending this quality time with me, Brother," his voice dripped with sarcasm. "But next time we go on a little bro trip, maybe someplace a little less..." Michael turned, looking expansively at the door-studded canyons of Hell that stretched out behind them. "Maybe the beach?"
Lucifer regarded his twin sullenly and handed him one end of the chain. "Fix this end over there." He pointed to the far end of the gate.
"But I can't fly," protested Michael. "I can see how you'd forget that little detail, seeing as I have only two gaping, pus-seeping holes in my back!" he snarled.
"Then climb," said Lucifer.
Michael snorted. "Of course," he said, suddenly giggling. "Why didn't I think of that?" He slung the chain over his shoulder and headed to the far side of the gate with a passable swagger. Even in the ashfall, he managed a tuneless whistle.
Lucifer hefted the other end and flew to the far gate in one beat of his wings. Chaining the entrance of Hell shut wasn't possible. Lucifer had tried it during what he'd started to think of as his first reign, when he'd occasionally gotten visits from smug siblings ready to lecture him on the folly of defying Father. Or worse, the ones who wanted to "help" him back into the fold by teaching him the error of his rebellious ways. He hadn't believed a word of it.
Lucifer looked over his shoulder at Michael.
The cuts in Michael's back were as red and raw as the moment the flaming sword had severed feather from flesh. Clear fluid ran, leaving trails through the grime. Ringing the graying skin on the left side were small, round holes, exactly as thick as a leather awl.
Lucifer lifted his end of the chain over the hook he'd had Squee sink into the stone and held it just out of contact. He heard an unhellishly harmonious ring as the rest of the line went slack. He looked across the gateway to see Michael cursing from halfway up the far side. He watched his brother clamber down and snatch the endpiece off the stones from where he'd dropped it.
Michael saw Lucifer watching him. "Bells made from celestial silver, Brother? No wonder you couldn't have any of your Lilith-spawned flunkies help with this home improvement project." Michael managed to get the end ring around the far hook. Lucifer dropped his end into place at the exact same moment and felt the fire of his intent pass through steel and silver. The chain sealed itself to the gates from both ends, smaller bell-chains unfurling like a spidery curtain. Michael gave a shout and reeled as if from an electric shock, then half-slid, half-fell back to the ground.
When Lucifer landed, Michael was making a show of brushing ash off what was left of his clothes. "What's with the silent treatment? You can't still be mad at me for killing your pets during that little spat over my ascension," said Michael. "After all, you couldn't have cared that much about lovely Chloe or else you wouldn't have dumped her and run back down here." He searched Lucifer's face for signs of anger. "Or is she in one of these loops?" He tsked. "Peter Peter only put his wife in a pumpkin shell. Doesn't sound like a healthy relationship choice, Brother."
Lucifer shot him a glare.
"Oh!" Michael touched broken-nailed fingers demurely to his bare, ash-smeared chest. "So she kicked you out." He dug into the crack he'd imagined in Lucifer's armor, scrabbling for something to pry open. "A woman handcrafted by Father to put up with your exact brand of bullshit, and you still couldn't make it work?" Michael smiled. "Well you'll always have me, Samael."
Lucifer didn't say a word. In the wastes beyond the canyons, Beizichor and Vull had found the collapsing shell of a hornbeast. Its head had been smashed savagely with a nameless rock. Its throat had been hacked open with a lava axe. Its wings had been removed with a flint-sharpened knife and implacable, painstaking precision.
"So much for your 'the doors aren't locked' policy," Michael said primly as he leaned back to take in their work.
Lucifer didn't look at him. Michael glared and his mouth soured into a sneer. "This makes no difference, Samael," he said sharply. "It will not keep me from escaping this pit. When I figure out what you did to stop my wings from growing back—"
"You are the one stopping your wings from growing back, Michael," said Lucifer.
"—behemoth shit," snarled Michael. "I may have lost the throne, but I am a survivor, and one way or another, I will rise again!"
The base of the hornbeast's left wing had been pitted with holes the exact size of a leather awl. As if someone had tried to lash it onto a different body.
"We both know that no chain," Michael stalked closer, "no bar, no lock can stop any non-crippled celestial being from going wherever they damned well please," Michael's teeth flashed white against the grime. "That little piece of tinsel won't keep human souls out or demons in. The only thing that string of tinkly nonsense will do is make a racket if another angel tries to fly in." He pressed his hands together and pulled his face into a rictus of concern. "Trouble in paradise? Amenadiel's kinder, gentler reign not all whiskey and booty dancers like you'd hoped?"
Lucifer said nothing.
Michael shook his head in disgust. "And it's got no style, Brother. You used to care about that."
Michael covered his eyes and peered up at the chain again. Lucifer eyed the connectors and wished Mazikeen were there to check his work. The seals seemed solid.
"Congratulations, Once and Present King of Hell, you made the portal to damnation look like those plastic things that humans use to keep their cubs from falling down the stairs."
Lucifer felt his posture go stiff. He managed not to make a sound, but the hoot from Michael's throat and the slap of his hand against his thigh showed that his ever-perceptive brother hadn't missed the tell.
"Oho! Is that what we spent all morning doing?" Michael asked. "Well I say morning, but, you know, the howeverlong of soul-numbing eternity. We were baby-proofing the gates to Hell?" He laughed hard and ran a hand through his ash-coated hair. "Well," he clapped his hands together. "Now I know why Amenadiel took Father's mantle—so he'd have the power to scribble out Charlie's humanity. Is he flying already? The little tyke." He clicked the consonant.
Lucifer leveled a glare at his brother. "It's time for you to get back to work. Oral B or store brand?"
"Family time done already? Well maybe our nephew can join us. We can go fish in the magma lake for whatever those things are that crawl out and bite my neck while I'm sleeping."
"I can always put you in a loop, Michael. If you want to get out of here, work through your guilt."
Michael narrowed his eyes. "Amenadiel's going to be just like Dad, you know. The minute Charlie turns out to be anything but the perfect little soldier." He stepped closer. "Come on, Brother. You of all people know that."
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He frowned. "He thinks I used the power of the throne to transform my son?"
Lucifer looked up at him. "Did you?"
"No," Amenadiel said emphatically. He stared into the paneled wall behind Lucifer's desk. "It hadn't occurred to me that I could." He looked back. "But he thought Charlie was the only one?"
Lucifer gave a snort. "I wasn't going to tell him otherwise." He levered his arm underneath himself and finally sat up. "Anyway, it couldn't have taken long in Earth time. What happened up there?"
Amenadiel breathed in.
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Yesterday.
Amenadiel sat across from Charlie by Linda's kitchen table. The boy held up a piece of paper, finger paint still wet.
"Is it a battlefield?" asked Amenadiel. All-knowing, at least some of the time, he knew the brown-and-blue blur was nothing of the kind. He knew everything Charlie had already done, but not what he would do next. There was joy in asking.
Charlie shook his head, smiling.
"Is it a forest?"
The boy shook his head again, giggling.
Linda's shoes tapped across her kitchen the floor. "Yes, he's here," she said into the phone. She waved Amenadiel to come over. "Chloe, calm down—" And in her voice, Amenadiel knew. He reached for the handset and clicked it to speaker.
"Trixie's about to call you, Chloe," he said.
"Trixie's fine! She's at home studying for her PSATs," Chloe's voice was raw. "I'm at Rory's daycare, because they can't find her!"
Linda piped in, "I don't want to dismiss your feelings Chloe, but she's nearly three. Sometimes toddlers get into things—"
"One of the aides said there was 'a purple blur and she just disappeared'!" Chloe shouted at the other end of the line. "They're giving him a drug test as we speak."
"Trixie's about to call you, Chloe," said Amenadiel. "She's looking for her phone."
"You have to go find her," said Chloe. "Or tell whichever of your brothers or sisters is on Earth to do it. Or—" there was an angry pause with shouting in the background. "Or just go get him."
"Chloe," Linda began.
"Linda, do you think I want to as your baby's father for help with mine? Amenadiel, tell Lucifer—"
"Chloe, you don't want me to do that."
Her voice dropped to a hiss. "I agreed to this because the adult Rory told me I raised her just fine on my own. If I can't, then there's no point to him staying away. Tell Lucifer—" there was a beep at Chloe's end as her phone registered another call "—tell him his family needs him."
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Lucifer's eyes snapped up to Amenadiel's. "She said to come back?" he asked.
"She said 'if,'" said Amenadiel. "She was having a crisis of faith."
"That's hardly what I'd call it, Amenadiel!"
Amenadiel tipped his head to the side. "Fair," he said. "But what happened next?"
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"What did you see?" ordered the king. A gust of ash-raddled air amplified his voice. "Now!"
"It was a human," said Crevos.
"No, it was an angel," said Kschee.
"It was too small to be an angel," said Bezizel. "Lord Morningstar, it was a human, a cub."
Lucifer's eyes flared.
Crevos swatted Bezizel in the side. "Is!"
"Is!" corrected Bezizel. "It is that size. It was when we saw it. It's probably bigger now," she nodded quickly. "They get bigger, right?"
"Only when they're still alive," corrected Kschee.
"Right," said Crevos. "This was a human that still had its body. Is!"
"Dark skinned with gray wings?" asked Lord Morningstar.
Crevos shook his head. "No. We didn't see any wings, but..." he patted at his tunic and pulled something out. "Here, my Lord."
A feather. Downy and softer than anything that should touch Hell.
Dark purple.
"I picked it up off the ground," Crevos held up both hands. "The human didn't even see me."
The king grew quiet. "Where is it now?" he asked.
Bezizel pointed. "Not far from the gates. It was walking toward the canyons when we left."
The king drew a breath. "This creature must leave Hell."
"It wandered in. Couldn't it wander back out again, Lord Morningstar?" offered Kschee.
"Humans are drawn to the doors, Kschee," said Crevos.
"It's not a human, Crevos! It's an angel!"
The king was quiet for a long moment. "Crevos," he said. "Give me your blade."
The demon dropped to his knees. "I swear I didn't mean to fail you, my Lord. Please don't—"
"Just hand it over!" Lucifer shrugged out of his suit jacket. "Imbeciles!"
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"You just went after her?" asked Amenadiel.
"She wasn't about to skin her knees on the sidewalk, Brother!" snarled Lucifer. "And no, nothing so dignified."
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"Come. Make no noise." Lucifer's voice was muffled from behind the impromptu cloth mask harvested from his now-shredded suit jacket. He walked, not waiting for Crevos to shed his hobnailed boots and catch up in bare feet.
The canyons nearest the gates were very old. Lucifer knew every crack and twist as well as he knew his own hands. The tenants walking the loops had very old fears. The lion. The hunger. The flood.
His shoulders twitched. If he flew, she might see him. But flying would be faster, and faster might make all the difference. His mind filled with the thought of a small hand reaching upward toward a latch. Was it his fears or was Hell telling him something?
Lucifer's foot bumped against something that didn't feel like rock. He looked down into the ankle-deep ash and nudged something heavy.
He motioned to Crevos, who dropped down and cleared away the ash.
"From the flesh of Lilith," Crevos and Bezizel recited in unison.
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"What was that?" Amenadiel asked.
"Something the demons started saying when we find a dead one."
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Nothing rotted in Hell. Decay was a living process, tiny organisms growing and reproducing, promising regeneration. In Hell, the shells of the dead turned to gray and then sunk inward like wax. What was left of Zekke's eyes stared up, clawlike fingers already deforming in the ash-laden wind.
His throat was collapsing around a cut made with a sharpened flint knife.
Zekke dead. No sign of Vull.
Or Michael.
Lucifer knelt, touching the empty loop at the demon's belt.
"Did Zekke carry steel?"
Crevos and Bezizel looked at each other. "He did," said Crevos.
Michael couldn't be allowed to keep his new toy, but that was not today's problem.
Lucifer looked in the direction of the gates. He imagined he could feel the ground like a surface of a drum. He walked toward the beat of a halftime snare.
The loops pulled humans in, kept them from leaving. The doors weren't locked; they were only there to require the tenant to perform an act—turn a knob, twist a handle—to accept their new home. Each room was a poison-nectared flower luring one buzzing victim at a time in colors only they could see. But they all called out to all humans, and none were any place at all for a child.
Lucifer tugged at the mask on his face, feeling the absurdity. He placed his hand against one side of the rock, feeling the slight vibrations the door on the other side rattled. He rounded a corner and stopped moving. Stopped breathing. His heartbeat may have found something else to do.
He could see a head of short dark hair walking away from him.
Pink and purple tights and one of Charlie's old Laker shirts. He remembered taking it from Linda's hands, folding it, carrying it up to Chloe's apartment.
She stopped and stood on tiptoe, one hand finger-creeping up the side of a pale gray door, white latchstring just out of her reach.
Lucifer felt his fingers twitch. Should he have Crevos herd her back toward the gate or—
"Charlie..." a voice slunk through the canyons like an eel through a reef. Lucifer's skin went cold. "Charlie, are you lost?" Lucifer could picture Michael's face, lips pulling back over a grin. "It's only your uncle Michael." His eyes would sweep back and forth like the whiskers of a catfish searching the sand for worms. "Come and say hello."
The girl's posture had gone stiff. Then she stretched up higher on her toes, small fingers catching and losing the end of the string. Lucifer realized she was looking for a place to hide. The door was probably telling her that if she came inside, she'd be safe.
Lucifer looked left through the canyons. He could sense Michael moving slowly like something flightless and predatory, and Lucifer knew with absolute certainty that in one more breath, he'd see her. The colors in her clothes would scream out from the gray.
"I heard your wings grew in, Charlie," Michael called again. And then lighter, almost singsong, "I'm getting out of here."
Lucifer was feathers out and across the space between before a heartbeat could pass, knocking Michael head over foot. Michael staggered, putting one hand behind him on the rock to break his fall. He let out a curse as his closed left hand hit stone.
Lucifer rounded on him, wings snapping to their full span, blocking Michael's view of the canyon beyond. Dimly, he could sense Bezizel and Crevos following, hear Bezizel clawing free of her human costume, all hooked legs gaining purchase on the rocks, leaping from peak to peak to follow after the king.
Michael bared feral teeth and struck out with his stolen knife. He moved like a cunning thing, like something that pretends to be prey to attract a hornbeast and cut up its body for parts. Lucifer ducked one strike and blocked the next with his wrist. Michael went for his neck, his stomach, his groin. There was a flicker of concentration in his eyes as he struck for the face again. "One thing I've learned down here," Michael snarled, striking again, "is that hell-forged steel can make anything bleed!" Lucifer blocked, realizing half a second too late, that Michael's other hand had spun a thin, handmade flint from nowhere. The steel went wide, but the rock dug deep.
Michael froze, eyes going big as a drop of red pooled on his brother's white shirt. "But that shouldn't have..." He smiled. "Feeling vulnerable, Samael? Got a soft spot for sweet Linda's baby boy?"
Lucifer struck back, punching and blocking and buffeting, driving Michael further back into the caverns, further from the gates.
In moments like this, Hell felt like part of his body. He could feel Bezizel jumping across the narrow gap between door-studded rocks. He could feel Crevos running to catch up. He could feel a door opening. He stiffened.
"What's that?" the whites of Michael's eyes stood out on his face. "Is that fear?" his mouth widened like a crocodile's.
Lucifer turned in one motion, saw Rory from the back, purple stripes making a pattern as she pulled on the heavy door. He ducked low, wrapping his arms around the girl from behind, pinning her arms to her sides as he lifted her off the ground. Without stopping, he headed for the gates.
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"So she didn't see you?" asked Amenadiel.
Lucifer shot him a look. "You know what you were saying about how holding my child in my arms even once would transform her life and undo all Chloe and I have given up?"
"I do," said Amenadiel.
"Well you don't have to worry about it."
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Rory had been silent since entering the hellplane, but now she screamed and kicked and babbled in the undecipherable talk of young humans. Lucifer could make out variations of "let me go" and "stranger" even as the crushing weight of hell's atmosphere gave way to rain and car exhaust.
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"She was terrified of me, Amenadiel," said Lucifer. "And this." He rolled up a shirtsleeve to show a round circle of reddish dents that irrationally reminded Amenadiel of the mark of Cain.
"She bit you?" Amenadiel's mouth wouldn't shut. "She has razor sharp flight feathers that cut through a steel chain as thick as my wrist. Why would she bite you?"
"You think I know?!"
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The sense of the place hit him like a burst levee as the floorboards bent under his weight. Chloe's shampoo. Trixie's art supplies. Hawaiian bread sandwiches, and a new, organically sweet flavor that matched the wriggling creature in his arms. Lucifer landed, crouched on the kitchen floor, and let Rory go.
"Teeeeeeeeeee!" she shrilled, running away from him.
"Rory?" came a voice from the next room. Deeper, alarmed, unmistakably Urchin. He was overwhelmed with the need to see her just once, to stay, to pretend it all had only been a dream. He wanted it down to his bones. He should self-actualize. His wings should fail.
Feathers flared white and Earth dissolved into a storm of ash.
"My lord!" called Crevos, his third arm now dangling uselessly from his ribs, his voice impossibly, perfectly real. A fraction of a second on Earth. Longer in Hell. Long enough for Michael to reclaim Zekke's knife and sever two of Bezizel's legs from their sockets. She was on her back, still twitching, hemolymph thickening the ash.
Michael dropped the flint knife, holding steel to Crevos' throat. "Hold still or you're nothing." The demon went rigid. He looked back to Lucifer. "That wasn't Charlie," Michael said with a grin. "Never thought you'd be that cliché, but I guess if you're going to pull a conceive-and-leave, take it all the way to Hell."
"There's no way out of this for you, Michael. Now release the demon."
He ignored him. "No wonder you won't let me back to Earth. Worried I'll steal your life again?" he dug the knife harder into Crevos, who made a noise. "Worried Chloe'll be happy to see me?" His mouth straightened. "Open the gates for me, and I'll let you keep this soulless piece of nothing. I'll even give you my word to stay away from Chloe, from the child, from everyone you ever knew on Earth." Another grin. Crocodile.
"That's not how this works," said Lucifer.
"Take the promise, Brother," Michael hissed. "I will get out of here, Samael, no matter what it costs me!"
Lucifer's eyes flared with hellfire and then to Crevos', but not at his eye level. He looked to the third eye, the one that could only see the color red. The demon nodded, just barely.
Lucifer feinted to left, throwing Michael off balance, giving Crevos just enough space to free himself. He scrabbled in the ash, probably looking for his lost gladius.
Michael reversed his grip of Zekke's knife. "Human kids get into everything," he hissed. "When there's only one fashion accessory that'll get me through that velvet rope, screw whether they're my color and to hell with the size!"
Lucifer gave a roar and lunged, crushing his brother against the rock wall. The knife fell to the rocky ground as the bones in his right wrist snapped.
"There it is," said Michael, his mouth widening into a grin against the pain. "There's fear." His skull stretched, lips drawing back to show more teeth, more hunger than anything in human shape could have. His eyes were suddenly deep black, as if any goodness within Michael had fallen where no light could reach.
Lucifer kicked the knife out of reach. Crevos stepped over and caught it.
Michael's face twisted again, looking normal now. Helpful. Offended.
"I'm only being honest, Brother."
"Crevos," said Lucifer, still calm. "Fetch chains."
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"Where is he now?" asked Amenadiel.
"Mom's old cell," he said. He breathed in. "Are you going to say?"
"Trixie was at the apartment, as you thought. She called Chloe. Rory was shaken up but otherwise unharmed."
"Did she—" Lucifer stopped. Reached for the glass that Amenadiel could now see had always been empty. He put it back down.
Amenadiel sat in the chair opposite the desk, at his brother's eye level for the first time. "She didn't ask for you a second time," he said.
Lucifer put his hands on the desk, but he did not rise.
"I will not make you go through with this, Lucifer," said Amenadiel. "I want you to, but I will not make you. I still don't know if the universe will tolerate a broken time loop. But you and Chloe are the ones making the sacrifice. You should be the ones to choose."
Lucifer looked to the door behind them. His hand closed around the glass on reflex.
"I was fine before she got here."
Amenadiel waited.
"I focused on my patients, threw myself into the work—" he looked up. "And I love it, Brother. There's nothing like having a calling."
"I know," he said.
Lucifer gave a tiny smile. "I just didn't think about them. On purpose."
"Like swimming in cold water."
Lucifer snorted. "When have you ever—"
"That's how Chloe put it," said Amenadiel.
Lucifer quieted.
"She said that doing this without you, reforming the LAPD and raising Rory, was like swimming through cold water. Hard at first."
"But once you find a rhythm..." he nodded. You could enjoy the motion. You could take satisfaction in the distance you'd covered.
Lucifer breathed in and out, pushing up from his chair. "Well, it's good you're here. Come with me, and we'll seal the gates."
Amenadiel blinked. "What?"
"Against anything celestial getting in or out. Humans must still come and go. But one close call is one too many."
"No," he said. "I will not cut you off from our brothers and sisters or from seeing the results of your sacrifice. Isolating yourself won't help."
Lucifer's lip twitched. "The other choice is to send Azrael. With her blade."
"No."
"You do remember the part where Michael thought it was your son he was stalking!" Lucifer said darkly.
"I will never forget it," he said. And it was true. He put his hand on Lucifer's shoulder. "We will think of something else, you and I."
"Well we'd better come up with it bloody fast, Brother! Mom's cell was not meant to hold anything with a body, and even she got out eventually!"
He walked past Amenadiel to the ...office ...den. A three-eyed creature in legionnaire's kit turned around.
"Crevos," said Lucifer. "Walk with our guest to the gates."
.
.
"He told you what happened?" asked Crevos. "About the time with the prisoner and how the king saved—"
Amenadiel nodded. Hell's lie-riddled history would have the tale of Michael and the angel child.
"—me?" finished Crevos.
Amenadiel stopped. "Is that how you see it?"
All three eyes blinked at once.
Lilith had sired her children on the beasts of the night, with humans, with creatures long gone from the living world. Amenadiel couldn't figure how even her immortal body had managed a deep sea worm, whatever spineless creature would breed this scrap.
But... Amenadiel sometimes felt the universe as if it were part of his body. As if it could tell him things.
"That prayer you said when you found Zekke's body," Amenadiel began.
"What's a prayer?" asked Crevos. "Oh. Those things humans say when they want the pain to stop." He shook his head. "I don't do that, Old King."
"You looked at your brother's body and spoke with compassion," said Amenadiel.
Crevos shrugged.
"Have you always done that? Did your mother teach you?"
Crevos shook his head. "Nah, we didn't in the first reign. Or the second." He reached up with his skinny third arm and scratched his chin. "I don't remember when. It just started to feel good to do."
"Before or after Lord Morningstar decided to heal the dead?"
Crevos stopped, the larger of his three eyes staring ahead blankly. He nodded. "Yes... I thought it was stupid. I changed my mind after I watched Lord Morningstar with a tenant."
Amenadiel looked into him and he saw, truly saw.
"Marcellus..." the demon breathed the word out into the air. "He felt guilty about ...leaving his mother when she was sick." He breathed in, as if something in the air sustained him. Amenadiel watched.
Not a soul. Not even the beginning of a soul. A bare cleft in the branches was not a nest, not eggs, not birdsong. But Crevos was no longer a barren thing on which the divine could gain no purchase.
He turned back, watching Amenadiel with one eye that could only see in red and two that had begun to open.
"Why did I change my mind?" he asked. "Old King, can you tell me?"
Amenadiel was quiet. Another impossible question. "Continue to serve Lord Morningstar," he said, "and someday we may know."
.
.
The more I think about the finale, the more I think it would have made sense if Lucifer had died saving Rory. Not dead the way Uriel died, but just deprived of his body and ability to return to Earth. I have to wonder if the writers scripted that way and felt forced to make a change. I'm feeling maybe four or five chapters to this thing. Beta wanted. EDIT: So those of you reading this for a second time after December 2022 might notice a few of the details have been changed from the original version. I offer you this explanation: THIS IS FANFICTION AND I CAN DO WHAT I WANT! HA HA HA HA HA HAHEHEHAHAA! Seriously, I have my reasons and I think you'll like where I'm going with it. To those of you reading this for the first time ...hello.