Page 36 of Wicked Believer (Original Sinner #2)

Chapter Thirty-One

Charlotte

When Lust and I blink back into existence only a few milliseconds later, we’re standing in the middle of an art gallery, the show floor noticeably empty. My hand falls from his arm, and I step forward. “Where are we?”

“Transmitter. It’s a midsize gallery in Brooklyn.”

I spin in a slow circle, taking in the stark, open show floor. The all-white walls. The wooden panels. The recessed lighting. The mounted ceiling spotlights directed toward the paintings.

“Your idea of fun is an art gallery?” My forehead pinches in confusion.

Azmodeus tilts his head like I’m being ridiculous. “Yours isn’t?”

I can’t help but gape at him. “I guess from you I just expected something more—”

“Vacuous?” He quirks a brow.

I blush, the whole exchange reminding me a little too much of those early days with Lucifer. “I didn’t mean—”

But Az takes my response in stride, exactly like his older brother would. “Come,” he says, holding out a hand toward me.

Reluctantly, I take it, and he leads me from the room where we landed, which showcases a wide array of bright, multicolored pop art, to a different part of the gallery.

One that’s clearly meant for private exhibitions.

He keeps a gentle hold of my hand the whole time, the soft warmth of his palm and the glow of the gallery lights feeling oddly . .. comforting. Familiar even.

Like I’m less alone in the gravity of everything I know I’m about to face.

Even though I still don’t know exactly what it is Azmodeus wants from me.

But this is my wheelhouse, my unexpected trade. Appealing to the rich and powerful. Being a subservient little pet to whichever immortal happens to be beside me.

When it comes down to it, Azmodeus is no different than Lucifer.

And if I can change the hearts and minds of even one of the other Originals ...

I know exactly how to play this role, how to get both what I want and what humanity needs.

That’s all PR is anyway. Networking. Making friends.

Connections. To help influence and control a narrative.

I’m so practiced at it that it feels almost effortless now.

My father taught me this game backward and forward, but it was Lucifer who made me a true master at it.

Only this time, I have to do it all on purpose.

Convince Lucifer’s siblings to help me save humanity.

It isn’t until we reach a smooth velvet rope meant to block off the exhibit from the general public that Azmodeus releases me. He unhooks the rope latch and steps to the side, gesturing for me to enter like I’m his soon-to-be queen. Or his brother’s, in any case.

I glance over my shoulder. “Shouldn’t we ...?”

But the gallery is empty. Save for the two of us. There’s no one here to stop us.

“It’s my private exhibit, Charlotte.” Azmodeus lowers the rope, clipping it to the other side of the stand. “I had it curated just for you.”

The words still me.

I swallow.

What is it you want from me?

But if I’m going to convince Lucifer’s siblings to help me, or at the very least allow me to control a small part of their power by doing their PR—their public personas are a major part of how humanity makes offerings to them—I can’t go into it half-heartedly.

I better be down for whatever, or whoever, Azmodeus throws at me. Anything he asks.

Can I do that?

I can’t afford to make any mistakes.

Humanity’s counting on me.

Me and my PR proposal.

Who would have guessed it’d come down to this?

I tuck my arms in at my sides innocently, shuffling my feet as I fully commit to the role. “Don’t you think that’s a little—”

Azmodeus watches me, waiting for me to finish. Apparently, he’s going to make me say it.

He’s that much like Lucifer.

I wet my lips. “You know, a little intimate?”

Az smirks deviously, keeping his hands in his pockets as he crowds my space so that I have no choice but to gaze up at him. At how gorgeous and tall he is.

He really is just as beautiful as his brother.

He ducks his head toward me.

And my breath hitches.

That part I don’t have to fake.

But he reroutes at the last second, his lips landing right next to my ear instead of on mine, like I was anticipating.

“My brother may have invented sin, but I’m the one who invented foreplay,” he whispers against me, the brush of his mouth sending a very real, very sudden jolt of lust through me, enough that I shiver.

He pulls back a moment later, the amused look in his expression clear.

If he meant it that way, I’d know it, but that’s not what he wants from me, after all.

He’s simply toying with me.

I blush furiously, the thought of how easily he flipped that switch inside me the other day making me curious. Azmodeus is dangerous. Very, very dangerous.

In more ways than I think I can imagine.

But if not that, what does he want from me?

What can I give him that he can’t already get from Lucifer?

“Come, Charlotte.” He beckons me again.

The innuendo is intentional, I think.

This time, I don’t hesitate as I allow him to lead me into the next section of the gallery, but when I step into the other room, my breath stops short, and my whole perception of Azmodeus shifts.

Azmodeus isn’t just the city’s favorite playboy.

“I thought you might want to know a little of our family history, considering you’re going to be one of us now,” he says, smiling almost ruefully.

But I’m too stunned to speak.

The walls of the gallery are lined with the works of old masters.

Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Rubens, and more.

It’s stunning.

I walk to the first frame. A small three-paneled triptych oil painting on loan from the Museo del Prado. Hieronymus Bosch , the placard reads.

The Garden of Earthly Delights.

This is what Azmodeus wants, I realize.

The one thing Lucifer can’t give him.

To be taken seriously.

To be seen as something other than what a master he is between the bedsheets.

“Az, would you like to plan mine and Lucifer’s engagement party?

” The question is out and hanging in the gallery like the paintings between us before I can stop it.

“The real one, the private one we’re going to have now that we’re really engaged.

You said you deal in secrets. I think you’re the only one who could handle a celebrity party of that caliber discreetly. ”

Az grins from ear to ear like he’s feeling smug that I asked him, but also, a little surprised.

“I’d be honored, Charlotte.” He makes an exaggerated court-jester bow before he pinches his lips together as if he’s considering how he could possibly make that statement into an innuendo, but then gives up.

He begins to explain the exhibit, launching into a tale about when he and Lucifer and the other Originals were first made. The paintings on the wall help curate the story.

Apparently, it started with nothingness—the blank infinite canvas before an explosion of chaos created everything, God included—and then there was light, and water, and stardust, then ...

God’s pride at what He had made.

His own emotion bleeding out from His pores while He made love to Lilith—which Azmodeus takes care to narrate in very explicit detail—resulting in the birth of God and Lilith’s first and eldest son.

Lucifer. Sammael. The Lightbringer.

God’s own pride in His creation embodied.

According to Azmodeus, each one of the Originals played a key role in God’s own genesis and creation story.

The pride He felt at what He’d created. How slothfully He rested when it was all said and done.

His envy at man’s innocence. The gluttony and greed He felt hoarding the Tree of Life and its knowledge for only Himself, and the wrath that was ignited in Him when Eve betrayed His first and only command.

When Lucifer tempted her into seizing her own freedom, into gaining knowledge of everything.

I hang on Azmodeus’s every word, listening in a total rapturous awe that I don’t have to fake, the temperature in my body rising at each unexpected turn of the story.

Azmodeus’s descriptions of the Garden of Eden, in particular, are so specific , so detailed and vivid, that all at once I find myself feeling homesick again.

For a place I’ve never been.

But my heart seems to know it intimately.

Its truths. Its secrets. Its histories.

I glance at my hands like I might be able to see some of God’s redemption inside me, or maybe even Eve’s apple in my palm, but all I feel there is Lucifer’s darkness, the powers he accidentally transferred to me stirring inside me, and yet ...

I know this is the right choice. The right path.

I can feel it thrumming inside me.

Faith.

In God and His plan for me.

When Azmodeus and I have finally made our way through the full exhibit, nearly two hours have passed. It flew by in a blink, but my impression of Azmodeus, of the exhibition, of the story he curated for me, is a lasting one.

Like all the Originals, Azmodeus is more than the sin humanity gives him credit for.

He’s God’s desire for Lilith embodied.

When we reach the last painting, Azmodeus falls quiet, the painting’s narrative taking a dark and menacing turn. A two-paneled diptych. A Van Eyck.

The Last Judgment , the placard reads.

How the story ends.

I swallow thickly, the reminder of everything that’s at stake rushing back to me. “Do you ... do you think that’s why He let you all out?” I ask. “You and the other Originals?”

Azmodeus seems to get the subtext of what I’m actually asking, and his expression darkens, making him look more serious than I’ve ever seen him. “I don’t know, lovey,” he admits. “None of us do.”

I turn back to the painting. Death. Destruction.

A dropping sensation churns my stomach, and I feel temporarily nauseated, my palms turning cold. I have to do whatever it takes to make certain that doesn’t happen.

No price is too high to pay.

Whatever it is, Lucifer has the kind of cash to pay it tenfold.

But I need to have the strength.

For both our sakes.

“There’s something else I want to show you.” Azmodeus takes my hand again, but this time it feels intimate in a different way.

Like he’s ... treating me more like a friend.

An equal.

Unlike Lucifer.

Maybe he does really want some sibling-bonding time with me.

Or maybe he and the other Originals are just as uncertain about all this as I am.

Az leads me out of the exhibit and toward a back door that looks like it might open into an alley. Emergency Exit , the large red letters graffitied across its surface in all caps read. Azmodeus pushes open the door, but instead of an empty alleyway, a dark staircase greets me.

Az nods for me to go ahead, but I ... hesitate.

“Do you trust me, Charlotte?” he asks.

I feel suddenly dizzy.

When we first arrived here this evening, the answer to that would have been an absolute and complete “hell no!” but now?

Now, I’ve seen a whole other side to Azmodeus, and I realize that within the past few hours, he’s been more open about his family with me than Lucifer ever has.

Something in my stomach sours.

I glance between Az and the darkened staircase, the steps seeming to descend forever, though I don’t say anything.

I have to do this.

For myself. For humanity.

Whatever consequence it brings.

My apprehension must be painted across my face, because Azmodeus says, “We can end the evening here, if you want.”

Those words echo through me.

If you want.

What true celestial choice has ever been given to me?

What decision that wasn’t wrapped up in someone else’s divine plans for my destiny?

And it’s right then and there I decide that I won’t ever allow anyone else to make my choices for me again. Consequences be damned.

For once, I’m going to put my trust in me .

“I trust you,” I say, leaning into my instincts and taking Azmodeus’s hand as I give it a warm, sisterly squeeze. “I don’t know why, but I do.”

Azmodeus grins at me. “Then after you, Charlotte.”