Page 111 of Wicked Believer

“A virgin? Really?” I catch sight of where the woman continues to rotate.

“A joke, I suppose? The human gods of old alwaysdidhave a thing for sacrificing them, or so the stories say.” Michael snaps his fingers, and the woman topples to the dirt.

For the first time all evening, I gift her my full attention.

She means nothing to me,isnothing.

Not if Charlotte will finally be safe.

The woman remains bound, her arms restrained behind her back, but she squirms feverishly, her endless cries muffled by my brother’s power that gags her.

I reach out, using a bit of my shadows like a hand to remove it. “Lucifer! Lucifer, please!”

She latches on to my familiar face. Like I am the one and only hope she has ever known.

Though I am not, nor will I ever be, anyone’s savior but Charlotte’s.

I am their tormentor. Their torturer.

It’s the image I’m banking on, quite frankly.

“Please,” she sobs. “Please, I helped her. I ...”

I meet the young nun’s gaze, a taunting smile across my lips. “And for that, there’ll be a special place in Hell for you.”

My siblings’ amused laughter echoes through the parterre. They are no different, no better than me.

They loathe humanity as much as I do.

I was simply the only one among us who ever had the balls to act like it in front of Dad.

The shadows at the edges of the room start to move, vibrating as I gather my power, but Michael lifts a hand. “Ah, ah, ah, Lucy.” He wags a finger at me. “Not so fast.”

I scowl at the nickname.

He lunges forward, wielding his blade in a wide arc, but I’m prepared for it. I catch it in my fist, using a bit of my light as reinforcement to keep him from severing the limb completely. Pain sears through my palm, sharp and biting as blood runs down my arm, but I cannot counterattack. I am outnumbered. Severely.

But I knew that when I came here.

“Mmm,” I taunt, purring as I make a spectacle of cracking my neck before I lick some of the dripping blood from my wrist. “Punish me like you mean it, brother.”

Michael steps closer, putting the whole of his strength against the blade until I have to fight not to wince as it cuts deeper.

But I do not move. Do not yield.

An animalistic growl tears from his throat, his face red with hatred, until the hiss of his voice in my ear is a cheap mimic of my own. “You didn’t think it was going to be that easy, did you?”

Abruptly, he slices the blade down, and I swear loudly as he cuts through my hand’s tendons.

“Fucking hell, Michael!” I roar as I use my other hand to cradle my bloodied palm to my chest, chuffing like a dragon while hellish steam pours from my nostrils. “What the fuck was that for?”

Michael wields his sword in another swift arc, this time using it to point toward the ground in front of me. “On your knees.”

For a moment, the whole of the courtyard seems to hold its collective breath. Not one among the crowd moving. In anticipation of what I will do next.

Michael never could stand how they look to me.

I throw back my head and laugh, the sound entirely psychotic and deranged. “You think this is victory? Humiliating me while you play the role of Father’s obedient servant?” I scoff, my nose wrinkled with disdain. “You’re only His pawn. WhileIremain a true architect of fate.”