Page 63 of Wicked Believer

Chapter Twenty-Two

Lucifer

It takes a little more than twenty-four hours to extract every relevant detail from my siblings about how all the events of late are connected and another several for me to finally wheedle an answer about the rebellion in my realm out of Astaroth, but the satisfaction I feel at his inevitable admission is worth it.

“For fuck’s sake would you turn that ruddy song off?” he screams, writhing as he covers his now-bleeding ears.

Toto’s “Africa” plays on a never-ending repeat throughout the empty shopping mall, the ghastly, terrible noise echoing off the faded pink ceramic tile. A fake potted palm tree sits nearby, its gauche and faded fronds feeble and wilting, and he makes the unfortunate mistake of reaching for it, though he no longer has the strength nor the will to truly use it against me.

I step onto his outstretched hand, using the vintage remote control in my grasp to increase the volume as he moans.

“Fine. You win!” he shrieks. “I did it for you, you miserable, sodding jackass! Once Michael and the Righteous had her, I thought ... the spell she has over you would be broken.”

I press my foot down harder, his bones crunching. “And?”

When he doesn’t immediately answer, I bend back his outreached arm, the audible pop as it’s removed from its socket and twisted oddly satisfying.

He snarls, bending and arching beneath me. “I knew Lilith had created her for you from the start, but I ... I thought you wouldn’t want to be undermined. You were about to abandon the plan all for the love of her. Everything we’d worked for.”

I twist harder. “You misread me.”

“I ... didn’t know you’d still see it through.”

“And Mother? What’s her play in all this?”

He keens, writhing at the continued pressure. “There are ... whispers among the demons, among the Nephilim. We ... hear things,” he pants. “She wants you to open the seals. Play Michael’s apocalypse game. She means for you to challenge God. Take His place.”

“Does she now?” I drop his now-useless arm before I move to his leg. I’ll tear him limb from limb for my own bloody amusement, if that’s what it takes. “Too bad you staked your life on those claims.”

“I meant toprotectyou,” he howls. “She changed you. I don’t know anything about the spear. But Abaddon and the legions ... they grow restless. If you don’t appease them, they—”

“And do you think I need protectingnow?” I force him to roll over, kicking him hard enough that he groans. He coughs up a bit of blood onto the tile nearest me. “Your true death will come swiftly. Consider it a mercy for yourloyalty,” I sneer, licking my thumb and using the bit of my spit like Christ’s ashes as I begin to make my mark on his head.

“No. No, Lucifer. I—”

Hellfire crackles beneath his skin, scorching him from the inside out as he crumbles into dust on the empty Florida mall floor. Nothing more than the matter that I used to make him. A subtle rush of wind billows through the corridor, causing his ashes to blow away quickly. The leaves on the fake palm tree shake. I’m no longer alone.

I sense the other presence behind me before I see him.

“You summoned me?”

The graveled voice that speaks is one of cold Death, the sudden chill of his primordial powers making him one of the few beings still capable of affecting me.

And one of the few celestials whoisn’tone of my siblings.

I turn to find his all-too-familiar face. One I know intimately.

“Yes, actually.” I straighten, brushing myself off.

Azrael’s expression is one of masked indifference as he looks at me.

“I need a favor.”

At first, Azrael doesn’t respond. He simply glares at me, his dark, narrowed gaze filled with a cruel and infinite knowing.

“You attempted to steal her from me. I can’t allow that now, can I?”

Azrael appears unmoved. “It wasn’t personal, Lucifer.”