by Alicia Ryan
“It’s a pity you can’t see her anymore.”
“Yeah.” Tuesday nodded slowly. “But I don’t think she really intended me to. My assignment may have come from God, but I have no doubt it was Ariel who gave him the idea. This whole thing with Lucifer was her plan from the beginning.”
“So you and Lucifer?”
Tuesday gritted his teeth. “Don’t say it like that. You don’t know what he’s like. It’s not that easy – or that simple.”
“I’m beginning to get an idea of what he’s like.”
“Do you even think it’s possible? That there’s some way to reach him?”
Price shrugged. “Not if he reaches you first.”
The sound of two manila envelopes dropping out of empty space onto the desk across the room interrupted the dark descent of Tuesday’s thoughts.
“Wow – no rest for the weary,” Price commented. He ignored them, flopping over to lie face down on the bed.
“Think we’ll be together again?” Tuesday asked.
Price chuckled. “God, I hope so. Your vicarious love life is turning out to be the most fun I’ve had in years.”
Tuesday ran a hand down his face. “I wonder if I’ll ever stop feeling like I’m in over my head with all this.”
***
Before Price could reply, the room dissolved, and Tuesday found himself in Lucifer’s lair looking at the man – angel – he wasn’t sure was his lover or his enemy.
Lucifer rose from where he’d been perched on a rock on the edge of the giant stone protrusion in his fortress and came closer. “I hope not.”
It took Tuesday a moment to figure out Lucifer was responding to what he’d said to Price. Lucifer’s proximity again began to trigger the shattering lust he’d always felt when near him. He would be damned if he’d admit he’d missed it, though.
Lucifer laughed, prompting Tuesday to wonder if he could read his mind even when he was wearing Gabriel’s bracelet.
“Why do you care what I feel?” Tuesday asked. “Why do you force me to feel things for you?”
“Care?” Lucifer scoffed. “I don’t care. I simply like to see your submission. It pleases me.”
Tuesday hung his head, feeling inadequate to meet the heat in Lucifer’s gaze. “Well, my submission was easy enough for you to get. Any chance you’ll get tired of it soon?”
A pause. “I don’t think so.”
Lucifer took two steps, bringing him close enough to put his hand around the back of Tuesday’s neck. Heat seared into Tuesday’s skin, making him gasp.
“But, as you may have guessed, I’ve decided your unwilling submission is not enough. The real entertainment with you would be willing submission.”
“Never.” Tuesday’s voice came out stronger than he’d dared to hope.
Another deep, rolling, mocking laugh – but it carried a fierce desire along with it, making Tuesday shiver. “You will want to be here, Tuesday, and you will want it because you will come to care for me.:” Black eyes bored into him as Lucifer pulled his chin up to a level even with his own. “It took me a moment to see it, but in some measure, you already do. Up on that roof, you didn’t try to kill me.”
“Could I have?”
“No, but you didn’t know that.”
“None of this is true. I don’t…how could I ever care for you, knowing what you are? ”
“It’s simply part of your nature.”
Tuesday thought about that and cringed. Lucifer had to be lying.
The hand on the back of his neck tightened, and Tuesday closed his eyes. The image of Lucifer lying above a pool of tears flashed through his mind, striking him with the fear that Lucifer possibly spoke the truth.
Could he? Could he be the only one crazy enough to care for the devil? He thought of Ariel. Perhaps she cared. Was that why she had done this? Was this what he was supposed to figure out?
He thought for a long moment about all he had learned since the day he died, and he raised his eyes to again meet glimmering black ones. “You may be right,” he conceded, “but if it’s part of my nature, it’s part of yours, too. You didn’t leave all your love behind when you left heaven.”
Lucifer’s eyes flashed, and he shut Tuesday up with a cruel kiss. Tuesday reveled in it, unable to stop himself from welcoming Lucifer’s hot, condemning lips.
When he returned the kiss, a tidal wave of passion seared through him, but along with sensation came understanding. In that moment, he knew what was possible. Clarity exploded in his mind - what Ariel wished for, what God wanted.
Frightened to his bones, but suddenly hopeful, he knew without a doubt he could lose every one of these battles with Lucifer and yet still win the war. Lucifer was not a lost cause, and that meant neither was he.
Suddenly Lucifer was gone, ending the heated moment before Tuesday would have wanted, but he knew there would be more. Lucifer was no more indifferent to him than vice versa. He saw that now. Lucifer would fight it more strongly – but only if he ever let himself realize the tie existed. Until then, Tuesday felt he actually had the advantage. And that, too, buoyed his hopes.
***
Before he had a chance to act on his thoughts, he found himself back in the hotel room staring at an open-mouthed Price.
“What the hell was that?” he demanded. “Since when do you just disappear in the middle of a sentence?”
“I’ll give you three guesses,” Tuesday replied dryly.
“I think I only need one. What’d he want?”
“I…well, I guess you might say Lucifer and I have a thing.”
“A thing?” Price shot him a look from under brows arched to the ceiling. “What happened to declining?”
“You were right. Declining isn’t really what my assignment is about.”
“So you’ve changed your mind? It’s official, then?”
“Yeah, I think it is, but I don’t know what else to call it. It’s just a thing.”
“I know what I said about having fun watching your screwed-up love life, but do you really think this is a good idea?”
Tuesday smiled. “I don’t think it’s going to be easy, but, yeah, I guess I do.”
Price rolled his eyes and leaned back to plant both hands on the mattress. “It’s not every day I get a partner crazier than me, you know.”
Tuesday smiled. “Does that mean I’m improving?”
“That means you’re nuts.”
Tuesday looked over at the desk. “Shall we see what’s in the folders?”
Price waved him over, but didn’t get out of bed himself. “Onward and upward, my devil-loving friend. Onward and upward.”
Tuesday opened both envelopes, reading just far enough to see they again had the same assignment.
“Guess what?” he told Price. “You’re stuck with me.”
And the same applied to Lucifer, he thought, whether the devil knew it or not. He’d spent his entire life trying to avoid bad things. Now he was going to embrace a very bad thing, embrace it and change it.
He wondered again how he’d been chosen for this assignment, but, for the first time, it no longer seemed like bad luck.
Alicia Ryan
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