by Erica Crouch
“She wants Michael’s soul.” Which I was kind enough to hand over to him. He better not squander such a valuable prize.
“She understands the control it means Azael has over them, and the danger of that is significant enough to supersede whatever loyalty she still possesses for her brother.”
“Option one, Azael dies.”
“Yes, but that does not mean that she wins the fight. That possibility branches off into more… His soldiers might be infuriated enough to kill her and the rest. Or she could simply get away.”
I tap my foot, bite my lip. If they get away, my position in Heaven may not be safe for long. “Next possibility.”
“The second option,” he says, “is that Azael kills Pen. This line shows her revealing some news that is devastating to him. It causes a rift in his control, and he snaps. But the blind fury dissipates afterward, and grief curdles his mind. He won’t be the same—that is, if he doesn’t take his own life immediately, that’s always a risk. Again, this path also breaks into more possibilities. They branch off like—”
“Like veins,” I say, noticing the pattern of the ink. Black and spidery thin, like the veins of Lucifer I so badly want to pluck from under his parchment skin.
“Sure,” he says. “But after Azael kills her, the future splits off even more: Michael may kill him and claim victory, Azael may lose his mind and the New Genesis group would overtake the fortress, Azael trips into insanity that unleashes a torrent of destruction and they win, Azael may kill himself and they lose, Azael may kill himself and his soldiers still win.”
“Whichever way it unfolds,” I say, considering, “Azael may be lost to us. Either dead or insane.”
“You seem to cope well with those who are mad,” Gus says. “You deal with Jeremy quite well.”
“Different type of madness, Gus. What’s the third choice?”
“If the first was Pen kills Azael, and the second was Azael kills Pen, the third is that they both survive.”
I laugh. A harsh scraping of my throat that’s half amusement and half disbelief. “Explain that one.”
He traces the middle line of text, which darkens a little. “In this future, Pen still reveals whatever news devastates Azael. The fate is no more specific than that. But he doesn’t snap like he did in the previous version. He wavers. There’s a back-and-forth, an internal argument in them both. Kill the other—for Pen, to get what she needs; for Azael, to get rid of the questions—or convince the other to see things differently. Azael, obviously, still hopes he can persuade Pen to return to him. He wants her to serve by his side as Queen.”
I stiffen at that. My fingers twitch, and I nearly reach to touch the small scarring around my temple from the crown of roses Jeremy wove for me with his bloody fingers. Azael never intended to ask me to be queen. He was always holding the spot for his dear sister. The traitor, the coward, the angel-lover. Disgusting. She has no right to rule anyone—devil, angel, or man.
“Go on,” I say, my voice tight. Rage sits around my neck like jewelry, choking me.
“He believes—and then doesn’t believe, and then does again—that she’s worth taking a chance on, and he tries convincing her. In this path, he’s uncertain if he will still end up killing her should she refuse, but he won’t. Not in this future. And Pen tries to find an excuse not to kill him. She’s not ready for that yet. There’s the thought that it will come eventually, but she’s trying to delay the inevitable for as long as she can.”
“Can’t fight fate,” I whisper. “And how does this path end?”
Gus runs his fingers all over the page, his eyes bouncing from line to line. “It just ends. Blank.”
“I want to hear something better than that, Gus, or you’re useless to me.”
He closes the book and looks up at me. “I’ll tell you why I’m not useless to you: because I know these two. They have been under my advisement for a very long time, and I know how they think. I don’t have to rely on the fates to tell me how they will act and react to any given situation. I don’t need to divine anything to tell you how this will all end at the end.”
I gesture for him to do so. Tell me the conclusion of their story. Spoil it for me. I was never one for reading anyway.
“They will kill one another. That part of their fate lines has never changed, not once. But it won’t be that night. They are both still too unwilling to let the other one go in such a permanent manner.”
Under my breath, I mutter just what I think about Azael’s unwillingness to let his sister go.
“During this battle, their deaths would not come from their own hands, and the fates do not show anyone else interfering. Would one of Azael’s soldiers kill Pen given the chance? Yes. Will they get that chance? No. Just as Pen’s soldiers won’t have the opportunity to do what she is not ready to do herself: kill Azael.
“So,” Gus says, sighing, “because the only threat in this battle is each other, they will survive. They’ll find their excuses to explain it to the others of why it had to happen like this. Their choices—their survival—will cost Pen something though.” He taps on a page. “Something big.”
I wave the detail away, uninterested. “I want to know when their choices will cost them their lives. When will it happen if not during this encounter?”
“Eventually. Everything is unraveling too quickly for them to put it off for much longer. They’ll run out of options. That’s when it will happen, when they’re backed in a corner. When their hands are forced. When something breaks them so severely that this is the only way out they see.”
“‘Eventually’ is especially vague,” I say, narrowing my eyes at the closed texts.
Why are there no definitive answers? What is the point of divining fates if it still gives you no solution, no clue as to what will happen and when? How can I plan anything if I don’t know what the Hell is going to actually happen or what might just erase itself because whoever I’m tracking chose a different path?
This, I think, is why Heaven loves their guardian angels. The uncertainty must have driven them as mad as it is driving me—as it surely drove Lucifer. It must have eaten through their skin like bugs, and they were desperate to find a way to control the situation better, to know exactly what they were going to see in their future.
If you could get a guarantee, what morals wouldn’t you sacrifice? So shirk off the responsibilities of giving man absolute say over their lives, take just an inch of their free will, and push them toward the future that most benefits you. And that’s what they did.
That’s what they tried to do in Eden, back when I was Adam’s wife. The angels wanted me to stay. To remain trapped in their “paradise,” my prison. They lied about what lay beyond the garden: nothing. Desert, death, loneliness. They pushed me. Pushed me so hard that they drove me out—their plan backfired.
After spending my nights with Adam, I wasn’t afraid of anything they warned me of. I would have given up much more to get away from him. Who would have guessed that that choice would lead me here? Did they see that line of my fate, and if they did, why didn’t they kill me then?
It would have saved them—and Lucifer—a lot of trouble. But maybe my fate was as well hidden as my character. I’m full of secrets. Deadly secrets nobody knows the depth of. Maybe not even me.
“They won’t die on that night,” Gus says as an answer, the only definitive answer he’ll give me. “There will be a great, bloody battle. That’s all I can tell you from what I know of them. They’ll find a way to survive this, as they always have before. But eventually, that won’t be enough anymore. And then they’ll have to do something about one another.”
“Siblings,” I say dismissively.
Azael’s attachment to his sister is a weakness I never understood why he allowed himself. He could have been something great, something so strong and unstoppable, if he would have just let his sister go. It’s not hard. He never should have let himself start to care for her.
I wonder if he knows w
hen it began—if it was something that started in Heaven or that happened later. He didn’t seem to miss her too terribly when we were traveling the globe, infecting Lilim. Then again, he knew she was waiting for him.
He was free then. Does he not remember that feeling? Without the burden of his sister, without having to carry the weight of her judgment or having to care about her safety, he could do what he wanted. Be who he wanted. During those days I spent with him, I saw his potential. He was someone I wouldn’t mind serving beside me. And that’s how it would have to be—he would sit next to me, not me beside him. I wouldn’t let it happen any other way. It might have taken time, but he would have come around to the idea. I can inspire followers in a way he can’t even imagine. He doesn’t know everything I’m capable of.
But he will. Soon.
A lesson Azael should have learned long ago is to not let anyone in. Don’t let anyone touch you, affect you. Be who you are because that’s the way you decided to be, not because others around you influenced the content of your character.
There were so many who tried to decide who I would be. They pressed their wishes into me. Branded me with their demands and expectations. I pretended to be that girl, letting them see who they wanted to see—because that picture was so much prettier than the lethal thing that waited below my skin, ready to strike. There was always rage in me, and they were the heat that allowed it to boil.
If I had allowed them to influence who I was, my fate would be very different. I wouldn’t be sitting on the most powerful throne in the universe right now. I wouldn’t be able to feel the fire of the stars that were pressed and forged in this golden seat. Lucifer would be here, alive, and everyone would still be serving an incompetent leader with daddy issues.
I have much grander things planned for Hell—for all of those who will serve me—than Lucifer ever did. Killing Michael is not my priority. He poses no threat to me that I can see. And I couldn’t care less about whether Pen lives or dies, though I would be excited to see Azael freed of that weight. I’d want to see what he could become. Still, I hold no invested interest either way.
For now, I will let Azael carry on as he is. It will keep him occupied and out of my way. Jeremy will make sure he keeps his sights set on his sister. I have more important things to do up here than care about what Azael does down on Earth. I have to secure my position of power in Hell. If he doesn’t see me as Queen, then I’ll get everyone else to. Whether he lives or dies, as Gus believes he will, he won’t ever get the chance to sit as King of Hell. It was never meant for him anyway. The throne calls out for me.
The fates Gus reads out every day for me are proof enough that now is not the time for the world to end. Lucifer was hasty, impatient, and stupid. I’ll return when the world is ready to collapse, and when that time comes, I will make sure it’s done right.
No, I don’t think I will be staying in Heaven for too much longer—it doesn’t suit me quite as Hell does. There’s more power from below. The demons just need someone to show them what Hell can do, what strength we have in the ice.
I’ll be a spectacular queen.
Azael
“LUCIFER WAS GOING TO PUT you down,” Pen says.
The chapel bounces her words back at me, echoes them a thousand times. Put down, put down, put down. Such callous phrasing she chose. “Put down.” Like I am some damn animal.
“If I did not obey him,” she says, “if I did not follow orders and become the obedient little soldier he so desired, he was going to kill you.”
“He wouldn’t have done that.” I still don’t turn to her, and she doesn’t make a move to come any closer. Good. I don’t want her to see my face when I react to her lies. To her continued betrayal.
“He would have,” she says, and I’m shaking my head, but she goes on. “You were expendable.”
“Were being the optimal word.” I kick out at a pew next to me, breaking it in half. Pieces of information try to fit together in my mind.
Lucifer always valued me, even after everything had fallen around us at Eden. At the very least, he prized me over Pen. My sister was an annoyance to him; I was his loyal servant. The choice between us would have been easy, obvious. He would have killed her over me. I was useful to him and she was not. It’s as simple as that.
Even though she sees me falling apart, trying to collect myself, Pen keeps going, keeps talking. She won’t stop—not until she destroys me completely. I’ll have to be splintered apart at her feet for her to be satisfied and decide she’s finished with me. With that realization, I understand what I have to do tonight.
Why have I been protecting her for so long when she has done nothing but lie to me? When she belittles me and manipulates me at every given opportunity? I have to stop giving her second chances. She cannot redeem what she’s done. But still, a small voice in the back of my head asks, Or can she?
“Why do you think I went to Eden so willingly?” She takes a step closer to me.
I move the decoy vial she believes is Michael’s soul in front of me so she won’t be able to grab it from my hand and run. What kind of idiot does she take me for, that I would show her my hand so early? I wouldn’t risk giving her such easy access to Michael’s soul. She’ll never find it in the crypts; she doesn’t have any reason to believe I’m not holding the real thing in my hand.
“I had to live with the regret of all that I did, and you have no idea what that is like.” She circles around me, meets my eyes. “Do you know why you could never understand who I am?” She waits as if I’d answer. As if I’d give her the satisfaction. “Because you loved every minute of it. You reveled in every bloody task we were given. You thrived in Hell.”
“Because I am not weak,” I throw back at her.
“Am I weak?” She cocks her head.
Her eyes are so big and sad, and I have the desperate urge to claw them out of her skull. I close my hands into fists.
“There’s strength in a conscience.”
I step away from her and grab my sword. If I’m going to use it, I need it close. I need to know that I can make my mind up and act without a moment of hesitation. Instinct and action, no pause. No chance to change my mind, because I can’t allow myself time to second-guess what I do. Pen makes me unstable, makes me question everything I believe in. It costs me my head, my logic.
If I take a moment—even just the fraction of a second—to question killing her… I don’t know if I can go through with it. But I’ll have to, won’t I? There’s no way around it.
When I look back at her, armed in one hand with the vial, the other with my sword, her face doesn’t change. She doesn’t look afraid. Why doesn’t she look afraid? Why isn’t she lifting her weapons to meet mine? I nearly scream at her, but she cuts me off.
“I tried to kill myself,” she says, sheathing her daggers and looking at my sword. She watches me with pity, and it incenses me. “All of those days you left me alone in Hell, right after the war… When you were with Lucifer, I tried to kill myself. I failed every time. He wouldn’t let me die.”
A rock settles in my stomach, a heavy sickness. Those first days in Hell, I kept her locked in our dormitory because she couldn’t stop running her mouth. She spoke ill of Lucifer, of the entire mission of Hell. She had nothing but slander to say, and she was going to cost me my position with Lucifer—or some demon was going to snap at her words and put their fist through her face—so I quarantined her somewhere she’d cause the least amount of damage. I had never considered that she’d be dangerous to herself.
What if she had succeeded? Would I have walked in one day and found her lying on her bed, her wrists open and her eyes lifeless? Or would she have stuck a blade through her heart, hung herself with her bedsheets?
I want to demand for her to explain what that would have accomplished. What her big plan was. But asking would mean that I care, and I don’t. That was so long ago now, and besides, her life is no concern of mine anymore. Not unless I’m taking it. That’s why we a
re both here tonight. To kill one another. To write an end to our story.
Isn’t it?
“You had such potential,” I say under my breath. “This regime change was not something only I would have benefitted from!”
Then I’m walking toward her again, my sword dragging behind me. The blade scrapes over the stones, leaving a scar. A pendulum swings in my mind, and her pendant at my throat vibrates once, like it’s reaching back to its owner. Like it knows she’s near and wishes to return to her.
A sudden need to convince her overwhelms me. She has to know—“I am King of Hell. You and I could lead together. If you wanted change…”
She could put some of her ideas into action. There would still be some things I turn her down for—like the whole middle ground and gray area she’s always talking about considering—but on the whole, she could make a difference. She could be happy. With me.
“I don’t want to lead Hell,” she says. “I don’t want to lead anything.”
“Yet you have an army at your back.”
“Azael,” she says, and she looks at me like I’m a child. Like I’m an old memory from another time and she’s too tired to remember me properly. “I just want to live.”
“You could live in Hell. As Queen. We are royalty now!” I sway on my feet, dizzy. She’s not listening. She’s not hearing what I’m saying. “We shouldn’t be fighting each other,” I tell her. “We should be fighting next to each other like we always have. You need me!”
She shakes her head. “I always thought I needed you,” she says.
I take a step back. Pull my sword in front of me again to keep her at bay, to keep her from saying the things she’s saying. But she goes on. Pen doesn’t care. She doesn’t care!
She never did.
“That’s why I followed you to Hell, because I thought I wouldn’t be anything, or anyone, without you. You were my identity, the only one keeping me from losing myself.” She brings her daggers out again and raises them against my sword. So it’s come to this. “But now, I know that’s not true. You were holding me back from who I could be.”