Page 44 of Wicked Believer (Original Sinner #2)

I will destroy them all .

Every. Last. One of them.

A murmur ripples through the crowd as I slowly lift myself onto my knees. Already my tendons are beginning to repair themselves, knit back together—one of the many pleasures of being divine—but the reaction among the crowd is mixed. Everything from hatred to disgust to trepidation to pleasure.

They are used to my Father meting out punishment.

But they’re not accustomed to Michael’s open display of cruelty.

Bloodthirsty as they may be.

“Ah, so this is what it comes to, eh? The almighty serpent knelt before Heaven’s most obedient lapdog?” I give an exaggerated bow to my audience. “How quaint. You must think you’ve won something, right, brother? Look at you, playing the hero.”

Michael’s lips pull thin. “I seek no glory. Only Father’s mercy.”

“Don’t we all?” The edge of my mouth curls viciously.

“But no matter how many times you force me to kneel, it’ll never erase the truth, will it, Mikey?

You’re the real prisoner here. Trapped in this endless cycle of Father’s divine will.

” I flash a cold smile. “You’ll die a slave while I will always be free. ”

A few uneasy murmurs whisper through the crowd, signaling my siblings’ uncertainty.

In the absence of our Father’s leadership, they cannot begin to know how to think for themselves, how to choose freely.

They are nothing more than the well-trained sheep He made them.

Michael silences them with the lift of his hand as he finally holds out the first scroll, unceremoniously popping open the first seal like it’s little more than a pesky soda-can tab.

His eyes scan back and forth as he reads the glowing angelic inscription.

“So what’ll it be, humph? What gladiator-style feat of bravery or bit of hocus-pocus does Father expect me to perform to unlock His first trial for humanity? Kill a firstborn son? Build an ark with my bare hands? Walk on water? You tell me.”

Michael’s smirk widens as his gaze falls to me like he couldn’t be more pleased. “Oh, this is rich.”

The crowd laughs nervously as Michael begins to circle.

“Do you see what he’s become?”

I sit back on my knees, casting my arms out in a crazed pantomime of Christ as I allow Michael to have this one pathetic victory.

I’m losing blood fast, and while my wounds are healing, angelic weaponry does more damage than any human-forged blade. It may not be enough to kill me, but he’s weakened me.

And I cannot fight, cannot defend myself without starting a war the likes of which I am unprepared for.

Yet, anyway.

“Look at what his pride has wrought,” Michael calls to the crowd. “Once the shining star of Heaven, and now?” He glares down at me. “Bleeding in the dirt on his knees. And for the love of a human, no less.”

My siblings laugh.

My skin tightens, my Adam’s apple bobbing.

But I pay them no mind, don’t dare to respond as I allow my thoughts to drift to another place.

To the hunger in Charlotte’s eyes when she first kissed me.

To the unshed emotion, the longing in her gaze when I first cast my light over the city.

The look of betrayal she gave me the other night when I chose to let her believe the worst of me.

Nothing they do to me could ever compare.

The worst has already been done.

Already I have been brought low, humbled completely.

My jaw clamps tight as I fixate on Michael. “Are you going to tell me what I need to do, or are you going to keep playing childish games?”

“Careful, Lucy. There’s only one of us still in Father’s good graces here, and it isn’t you.”

He jabs the Flame of Death at me unexpectedly, the tip of his blade stabbing shallow and fast through my middle, making it difficult to breathe.

I sputter, coughing up a bit of blood as I snarl at him through crimson-coated teeth.

“You were the Morning Star, the greatest of us all. Now look at you. Reduced to a beggar.” He tsks. “And now I get the privilege of finishing what Father started when He cast you out.” He grins. “Stripping you of your power.”

My eyes widen. “What?”

This is more than even I bargained for.

I stagger to my feet. “You can’t do that, brother. Not when you still need me to open the rest of your precious seals.”

“You think I don’t know that the other Originals are just as capable of opening them? You’re not the only one who’s three steps ahead, Lucy.”

I sway slightly, my muscles tensing as a sudden feeling of cold grips me.

“Hold him.”

Raphael and Uriel step forward.

But like fuck would I ever make it that easy.

I should have known better than to underestimate what kind of punishment I’d need to endure in order to open the first seal, what act of penance my Father might expect of me in exchange for His permission to burn the precious world He created.

He’s the God of the Old Testament, after all.

Known for His cruelty.

And the divine monster who created me.

He’s nearly as vicious as I am.

I unleash my wrath, summoning the whole of my shadows and absorbing all my light into my body as my siblings charge me.

All hell breaks loose inside the courtyard seconds before it plunges into darkness, my power blacking out the night sky and the stars overhead, until the world around us is an infinite nothing, a lightless void.

Someone screams.

The courtyard erupts in chaos as I release my hellish fury upon my siblings, but Uriel manages to locate and tackle me, sending us sprawling to the ground.

The starlight illuminating the courtyard rushes back, revealing where Jophiel and Barachiel, along with several others, now lie dead, their severed, bleeding heads rolling at Michael’s feet.

From where I used my shadows like a blade to gut them.

I make a show of licking their blood from my hands as a manic, fiendish laugh escapes me. I will pull out their entrails and feast on them. Gladly.

But my other siblings, the more experienced among us, the Archangels, have far more practice guarding themselves against me.

And I’m not the only one who came prepared, it seems.

Raphael conjures his Golden Staff out of the ether, wielding it in a mighty arc above his head. A protective force field pulses outward, nearly knocking me off my feet. I stagger, unsteady and bleeding, as Uriel summons the licking flames of his Holy Fire into each of his hands.

The blast comes hot and quick.

I hit the ground hard, rolling to try and avoid it, but some of it catches on the edge of my dress shirt, singeing me. A furious snarl tears from my lips, the sound of an animal, not a man, as the smell of my own burning flesh causes me to falter.

Mulberry silk may be the height of luxury, but it is not the best choice when it comes to flammability, apparently.

But Uriel’s pathetic char is nothing compared to my hellfire.

“You want to play with fire, Uriel?” I spit blood onto the pavement beside me, steam pouring from my nose. “I’ll show you how infernal true fire can be.”

My shadows swirl around me as they bend to my will and transform me.

My limbs and bones instantly rearrange themselves as I grow ten times my human size and become the very serpent they expect of me.

I unhinge my jaw, flashing poisonous fangs, my forked tongue hissing, and a stream of hellfire pours from my open maw.

Uriel tries to fight fire with fire but fails as I whip him aside with my tail, sending him flying.

A large crack forms where he lands at the center of the courtyard.

The nun screams in terror.

Flames ignite across the garden, forcing my siblings to either take to the skies or risk burning.

I shift into my usual form as I throw back my head and let out a deranged cackle. “Is that all you’ve got?” I call out, taunting them. “Why don’t you—”

But it is at that exact moment I realize I have made a foolish error.

And taken my eyes off Michael.

He plunges his sword through my back as I sputter, the blade protruding from my middle, so that when I look down, I recognize the sight of my blood on its tip.

Blood rushes from my face as I sway slightly. “I should’ve expected such a cheap shot from you, brother,” I rasp, “but then again, you learned your dirty tricks from the best, didn’t you?”

Michael withdraws his sword, a furious war cry tearing from his lips as I crumple onto the stones before him.

It can’t be helped, really.

I feel Azrael beside me in an instant, though I’m not conscious enough to know if he reveals himself to the others.

“Not yet, Lightbringer,” he whispers to me. “He still has plans for you yet.”

Abruptly, I feel myself hauled up and lifted.

Not by Azrael, but by Raphael.

As he uses his powers to heal me.

I thrash, crying out with the agony of it.

But to me and my siblings, this is nothing more than a bit of celestial horseplay.

I black out and come to seconds later, Michael once again standing over me. “The only thing worse than killing you, Lucy,” he says, “is to make you into one of the humans you used to loathe so thoroughly.”

The temperature inside my body drops, then rises on a swell of fury until my skin starts to steam, searing where my siblings grip me.

A guttural rumbling growl that seems to echo from the depths of Hell bursts from my throat, vibrating with a sinister, demonic resonance.

“I will make Heaven tremble when I break you, Michael. Your wings will be nothing but dust in my wrath. I will tear the light from your soul, so that you will know what it means to be nothing.”

It takes Raphael’s and Uriel’s full strength, plus several others, to hold me as I fight and thrash, snarling and biting like a venomous viper unleashed from the pits of Hell, my shadows bolloxed due to the protective shield Raphael cast and Seraph is now reinforcing.

This was Michael’s true purpose in threatening Charlotte, in manipulating the Righteous to carry out his means. To use my love for her against me.