by Ash Krafton
Simon also got a touch of Lucifer. Of His unique perspective. Of His role in what Luminea had become. It was a difficult cocktail to swallow. It resonated with a place in his deepest vaults, one he didn't like to remember was even there. Too many skeletons rattling in that closet.
The flash of anger and authority eased back somewhat, allowing Simon to breathe, to process the situation, the external influence, the stark realization of what—of who—he was facing. His words came from a mixture of all that. Some of them his. Some of them…not.
"I get it, love." He marched over to grabbed Luminea by the hand, softening his touch when he realized it was still too gruff. "I see this great wall of hate you hide behind. I know why you built it. I understand. It looks like a fortress that hides an army but it's just a wall, hiding yourself."
She pulled free of his grasp and retreated to the corner of the room.
He let her go, but caught her reflection in the large mirror. Her eyes were thawing beneath an unwilling vulnerability. "A woman. A mother. A heart that had been trampled. It's important to protect yourself and the one you love. Especially when you feel defeated and vulnerable. It's self-preservation. Key to survival. But sometimes you put all your effort and energy into keeping others out and you just end up trapping yourself."
She turned to him, the sunlight catching the edges of her hair and illuminating her face. Her beauty was ethereal, so bright and radiant. It was a face that would give hope to even the lowest sinner, a view of redemption, something higher than himself. He saw that terrible beauty, and the part that wasn't him wanted to reach up, cup it, catch it in his hands like sunlight.
"I have no place to go." She shook her head gently, her voice sounding far away. "This plane is all I have left. What He did to me ruined me. I can't go home. I don't even remember how to get there."
Sensing a shift in the dynamic, Simon went to her and reached once more for her hand. She needed to be held, to be protected from her corrosive outburst. "You were a victim once. You don't have to be one anymore."
"I'm not a victim. I have power. I have leverage. I have a legion. I am no victim."
"Well, she shouldn't be one, either." Simon nodded toward Chiara. "I can't tell you what to do about—Him. But don't make the child pay for it."
"I never hurt her. I am her mother. She is the only good part of anything I ever was. She is all that's good in me." She patted his hand before stepping away from him. The chill had settled onto her again, a brittle, sharp change in the atmosphere. "That's why I have to do this. I can't allow a weakness to remain."
Plunging her hand into the mirror, she pulled out a wicked-looking blade.
Simon bared his teeth, a bull ready to charge. Smoke curled from the corners of his mouth. "You can't conquer the darkness by murdering the Light."
Luminea matched his vicious look with one of her own. "It's called fighting fire with fire, mortal. I'll beat Him at his own game."
"No, I'm sorry. You'll never even come close to beating Him. And if you think you'll start by hurting her, well." Simon stood his ground in front of Chiara, doing his best to shield her. "You'll have to go through me, first."
He snapped out his hands, fingers curled around tongues of blue hellfire.
Luminea smiled a smile that could have cut glass. "Don't threaten me with a good time."
"Simon, no." Chiara drooped her head against his back. "You don't know what she's capable of doing."
Not willing to take his eyes off the Enochian, Simon only craned his neck. "Doesn’t matter. I didn’t come this far to stand here and let her hurt you."
"You won't be standing long, mortal. The first thing I'm going to do is geld you." Luminea stalked toward them, raising the blade, murmuring words he couldn't decipher. The knife glowed, a mix of silver and gold.
Chiara gasped, a swift sound of pain, and crumpled against him.
He leaned back against her, just a moment, as close to a hug goodbye as the circumstances would allow. “Kid, you run. Run and don’t look back.”
Simon shook his wrist, and his wand slipped free, dropping down into his fingers.
Chiara groaned. "Your magic isn't enough."
Wasn't it? Already that magic rolled beneath the surface of his skin, as if he'd summoned a storm just by thinking of it. It rolled and built and waited for his command. It was more than his magic—it was Lucifer's, too. The Morningstar. The mother of all storm bringers.
His mouth, though…that was still his. "Would 'I have a trick up my sleeve' sound trite?"
Luminea lifted her hands, her chants growing louder, the knife glowing. Something about the light hurt his eyes, made his skin crawl. She stomped the last few paces toward them.
Simon lifted his left arm, warding off her advance, and raised his wand.
Luminea laughed and shook her head at him. "Oh, that's so tough."
"It's all I got." He shrugged and rolled his shoulders.
She raised her hand and twisted her wrist, light glinting off the knife. "And it's not enough."
"Isn't it?" He winked at her and jammed the wand into his elbow. The tattoo lit, the silver ring zipped around. His throat burned with his screaming and he just couldn’t hear it, so great was the roar in his head.
The overhead lights wavered and cracked. The air pressure went from breathable to cement at the center of a black hole. The windows blew in, glass pulverized and showering them with fragments like sand. A silver line zigzagged down from ceiling to floor, a lingering streak of lightning.
A portal opened. A hell gate.
It split, widening, spreading. Lucifer stepped through, looked around, and tugged his sleeves straight.
"You! How dare you—" Luminea's face crumpled into a mask of loathing. "How did you—?"
"Nice place." Lucifer sniffed, a superior dismissal. "Although I can't say I like the wards. Quite offensive."
"Get out." Her lips curled back, baring teeth. "I banish you."
"You can't banish me. I'm insidious." He stalked toward her, a panther on the prowl. "And truly, that has been the root of the problem all these years. You resent me and you hate yourself because you loved me."
She held the knife between them, keeping him at bay. "I don't love you, rapist."
"No, I'm not a rapist." He glanced at the knife before dismissing it. "I hurt you…but not like that."
"You seduced me because you wanted offspring. Another soldier."
"And you aren't planning to do exactly the same thing? To our daughter?" Lucifer took a deep breath, seeming to quell the rage that had leaked into His voice. "I fell for a woman who was everything I could not be. She was courageous and willing to step beyond that boundaries of safety and familiarity to follow her heart, her passion. You seduced me. We didn't spend long together, no. I left sooner than you wanted me to."
Luminea curled her hand into a fist, the fingers holding the knife going white with the exertion. She rocked back on her heels and turned away from him. "It's called abandonment."
"I had to leave." Lucifer spread His hands in a small show of apology behind her back. "It was business."
"I was business." Her voice quivered, the words betraying her deepest hurt.
"You were a blessing." Since she would not face Him, He placed a tender hand upon her shoulder and turned her toward Him. "A relief. A balm to the constant burn on my soul. You, a scion of the Light. You made me remember what I most mourned. But I tarnished you."
Those words. Simon blinked. The Metatron’s prophesy. Which meant…
Luminea keened softly. Her eyes shone with sudden tears. "You could have stayed with me. In paradise."
"Paradise is not meant for me." It was His turn to look away. "I will always be denied that."
She pressed a fist to her mouth, stifling a sob. Luminea's mournful cry cut through to Simon and he saw her for what she really was: a woman, scorned, soured on love because she could not make that one love stay with her. Love became a curse, not just her love for Him—her tot
al capacity for it had been twisted. Love lost its true definition because it had failed her.
And the wounds were still deep, and fresh, and capable of causing pain. Renewed, that pain reduced her to the agony she'd never moved past—only buried beneath guises of scorn and ambition and revenge. She was a woman who needed more comfort than the entire universe would be able to muster.
"You could have loved me," she whispered, daring to touch His face, a hesitant contact.
"I cannot love you." His voice was steel, His gaze direct, His jaw set. "It is a commodity I am not afforded. But I never meant to hurt you."
She nodded, disappointment and disdain trembling her chin. Her walls slid back up. "Cruelty. That is all you know."
"You think the king of Hell has no feelings?" He leaned in toward her, pointing his thumb into his chest. "You forget—Hell was created to punish me. I feel it all too well. I am Hell. I am every ounce of pain that Hell has ever tasted."
"You deserve to feel it," she spat.
"That's what I hear." Lucifer took a stiff breath through His nose. "But, see, Luminea, I don't allow my pain to cloud my judgment. I use it. It is my compass, my drive, my fuel. I use it to get the job done."
"As do I." She glanced down at her hands. The knife. She lifted it, and it burned once more with a painful glow. Both Simon and Lucifer winced at the light, simultaneously. "Now step aside and let me finish this task."
"It's already over." Lucifer shook His head ever so slowly. "All of it. Over, now."
"No. Not until she is gone—you love her and I will take that from you." She lunged past Lucifer, who didn't even move to stop her.
All Simon could do was spread his arms and try to shield Chiara. He anticipated a terrible impact, the slice, the rip, the pain of a divine retribution.
Lucifer's voice was sharper than any blade.
"I said: it's over." He held up a hand, pausing her, and twisted His wrist before swiping left. Another portal opened and swallowed her. A silent flash of light.
Luminea was gone.
A strangled cry from behind reminded Simon to look for Chiara. Her eyes were only upon her father.
"What did you do to her?" Her wrists still bound, she grabbed her father's hand. "Was that a hell gate?"
He cupped his daughter's cheek, briefly. His voice was gentle, full of tender regard. "I sent her home."
"She couldn't go home." Chiara shook him, as if trying to shake sense into him. "That's why she was here, stuck here, where she wasn't happy. She wasn't allowed to go home."
"Because she so decreed, not they." He freed His hand from her nagging grip and tugged His sleeve back into place. "She is Enochian. She belongs there. And now, she will never leave."
"She's really gone?" She searched first his face, then the room. Her voice tiny, she seemed to have forgotten the peril she'd been in so short a time ago. "I didn't get to say…"
"Say what, Chiaroscuro?" Lucifer seemed to regain His usual tone of arrogance. "Goodbye? I love you? She meant to torture and kill you."
"But… she's my mother. She raised me. She was all I knew as a child."
"And was she the same woman now? Hate ruined her. Hate for me. I ruined her. I never meant to do it, you know. She was the Light. She was—" His voice trailed off. "But it is settled."
"No." Chiara reached for Him again. "Father. Please. Let me—"
"It is settled." Lucifer's eyes flashed silver and thunder rolled.
Simon tried very hard to look invisible. This time, the magic didn't respond.
Lucifer used a finger to draw a vertical silver line in the air. The shining silver slice opened once more, this once smoother, more elegant, almost breathtaking to behold. A hell gate supreme. Simon drank in the sight, feeling the resonance.
Another gesture, a softer one, and Chiara's bindings fell free, hitting the floor with a metallic thunk. He dipped His chin in one last nod to her. "Be well, Daughter."
Lucifer flicked His gaze at Simon before stepping through the portal. It shut behind Him with a metallic zip.
The Devil had left the building.
The silence He left behind was utterly deafening.
"That's it." Simon breathed in, as deep as his bruised side would allow. Poultice time, for sure. And tape. He'd definitely be taping ribs later. "Well. I can't believe I'm still alive."
Hugging his chest, he rubbed his arms against stubborn goosebumps. This is why skyscrapers didn't have window screens. Altitudes meant cold.
An afterthought crept in on kitty cat feet. The tattoo was quiet, cool, unnoticeable. The open drain inside his head was sealed shut. The hell gate was closed, the power dissipated. Right as rain.
This room, on the other hand, looked like a fricken bomb had gone off.
And the kid—he leaked out a low whistle as he took in the sight of her. Chiara looked like she'd been rode hard and put up wet. Her clothing, rumpled, her hair a tangled mess. A severe welt on her cheek, wrists rubbed raw from where they'd tied her. Dark bruises under her eyes, shoulders slumped in weariness. She needed a nap, a bath, and a fifth of Scotch, all simultaneously.
"Let's beat it. I hate Atlanta." He brushed off his jeans and did a quick inventory. Wand, wallet, ring of charms…
Turning away slightly, he surreptitiously cupped himself. Jewels were still there, intact. He closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. Enochian bitch and her stupid threats. "All present and accounted for. You ready?"
When Chiara made no reply, he turned back to look at her.
Chiara's eyes were wide, disbelief etched in every line of her face, and she shook her head slowly, like she didn't recognize him. Once more, the Devil’s voice echoed through his head, but it was more memory rather than direct communication. Light’s scion…tarnished.
Luminea was Love’s betrayer. She was the subject of that warning, not Chiara, as Mack had led him to believe. Which meant…the second part of the prophesy—a crushing blow will deliver to the lone-heart, the mortal savior of souls—could still refer to himself. He resisted the urge to cup himself again, remembering the crushing blow she actually had delivered.
But he knew better. Chiara was the victim. Just looking at the bewildered hurt of her expression convinced him.
She looked absolutely shell-shocked. What had she been through before he arrived? Far worse than he, certainly, and he felt like his pieces were barely glued together.
"It's okay, kid. You're safe again." He reached for her, needing to feel her warm and alive and real beneath his palms. Needed to know it was over and they were both alive. And free.
She backed away with a jerk of her shoulder.
"What's wrong?" A though hit him low in the gut, fury bubbling up like hot tar as he remembered the mind-storm the renegade angel had forced into his head. His voice slid into an oily dangerous tone, more growl than words. "Did they hurt you?"
"No. They—Simon. What did you do?"
He probably looked like a fish, bulgy-eyed and gaping. "Me? What do you mean?"
"That was my father."
Her voice broke on the last word, as painful to hear as it must have been to say it. Where fury had taken root, a gripping heartbreak froze over, cracking the surface with sharp grief.
Simon had only wanted to save her, single-minded and narrow-visioned and absolutely determined to succeed or die trying. Even then, death was going to end up a long shot because there were a lot of ways to almost die but not quite. If there were two cells left in his body with a heartbeat between them, he'd use them to fight.
That fight, he won. A fistful of charms, a hand full of aces, and a deal with the Devil. If that wasn't a recipe for disaster then one didn't exist.
But he'd emerged victorious. He conquered. He won.
So why did it feel exactly the opposite? Why did she look at him like he was the bad guy?
He hung his head, his brain too loud with an unexpected discord. Because he was the bad guy. A lifetime of trying to make up for it didn't change the truth,
especially when all he did was prove he'd make a bad choice all over again.
A moment of self-blame was all he allowed. It was an indulgence he couldn't afford. If he had to do this all over again…if that was the only way to get Chiara back…the bad choice would still be the choice he made. Results mattered.
"Yeah." He lifted his chin with a cocky tilt. "That was."
"He knew you."
What could he do, but shrug his agreement? "He knows everyone."
"No. He knows you. He's touched you."
"Ah, nope." The way she said it—it was distasteful, like she'd caught them playing Two Minutes in the Closet. "Fricken no, sir, He didn't."
"Simon." She regained her composure, straightened up, and walked over to him. She grabbed his t-shirt by the collar and jerked it back over his shoulder. "New tattoo?"
"Huh?" He twisted his neck to look. Thick black lines streaked over the top of his shoulder. Yanking his shirt over his head, he went to the mirror. Looked like a black hand print, like someone clapped him on the shoulder. "What the hell?"
"Exactly." Chiara took his shirt from his slackened grip and folded it over her arm. "I'm sorry. It's my fault you got caught up in all this."
"How is this your fault? I knew what I was doing when I went looking for Him. I couldn't do it alone. I had to—" He swallowed a thick lump of shame. "I couldn't do it myself. I failed. Again and again and in so many ways. I needed help. I was desperate."
"And He owns you, now. Do you realize what that means? You were the only one—" She covered her mouth and blinked, looking like she just found out the Mayans had miscalculated and the world would end tomorrow. "I mean, you were for the Light. No matter how you talked or acted or pretended. You were for the Light. And now, you can't be. What did I do? What have I done?"
"You didn't do anything." Suddenly, he felt exposed, bare and grotesque in her sight. Taking the shirt from her unresisting hands, he pulled it back on, ashamed of the mark. "I'm the one who got here. And, you know what? I was meant to be here. Mack said the Metatron prophesied this. You were going to be killed by her hand and I stopped it. So knock off with the self-blame. Destiny brought me here. You didn't drag me."