Chapter 31

CHAPTER31

The day of my visit to Earth with Lilith had arrived.

Somehow, time had just flown by the past week. We’d been busy with regular day-to-day activities, another cringe-worthy demon get-together with an undaunted ally of Azazel’s somewhere in the middle, and before I could think much on it, it was time to fly over to Lucifer’s palace.

Apparently, the hellgate we would use was right on the palace grounds, and I experienced a hot-blooded moment of envy that the demons living in Lucifer’s estate could just easily stroll out into New York whenever they felt like it. Azazel’s own hellgate close to his mansion led to Prague, which was super cool, too, but…it wasn’t New York.

We met Lilith and her retinue in the courtyard around the hellgate. Azazel had instructed me to do the whole levitating-out-of-my-body thing at home in his mansion, because he absolutely didn’t want to leave my physical form behind in Lucifer’s palace, no matter how much Lilith’s favor might protect me. I couldn’t argue with that, so we’d left my body in our quarters, being guarded by a vigilant Vengeance.

Now I stood in the torch-lit courtyard in my ghostly form, watching Lilith approach, also in her spirit form.

It was a weird kind of kinship.

Her retinue today comprised Destatur, Enaia, and two other demons I hadn’t seen before, all armed, same as Azazel. Would she take all of them to Earth as her escort? Wasn’t that a bit of an overkill?

“Zoe,” Lilith said with a smile, taking both of my hands in hers. Since we were both spirits, we could touch and feel each other—and no, my mind still couldn’t process how exactly that worked. “How lovely to see you again. I must admit, I have not been this excited in a long time.”

I couldn’t help smiling at her genuine joy, her childlike anticipation of our trip. It radiated from her in warm waves, transforming her into a younger version of herself.

“Shall we?” she asked.

I nodded, and she let go of my hands and stepped up to Enaia, and the blond demon gracefully lifted her into her arms. Destatur turned to the hellgate, an arch of dark stone inlaid with jewels that glistened in the light of the torches. She activated it with a series of glyphs drawn into the air, much like I’d seen Azazel do plenty of times when we went to Earth.

The hellgate turned on with a shimmer, the space between the arches on either side glowing faintly.

“I will scout ahead, my lady.” Destatur inclined her head and then stepped through the portal.

A minute later, she came back and nodded at Enaia before once again moving through the hellgate to Earth. Enaia went in after her, carrying Lilith. The two other demons in her entourage followed, after which Azazel scooped me up and stepped through the portal as well.

The shimmer of the hellgate morphed to darkness, and pressure pushed against me from all sides. Utter silence reigned, and then Azazel walked out into the light once more.

I gasped as he set me down on the sidewalk in front of a large stone staircase leading up to a building in neoclassical Greek style, with three huge archways flanked by Corinthian columns.

“Your hellgate,” I said to an equally stunned Lilith next to me, “is right in front of the New York public library?”

My hot-blooded envy from earlier rushed back in full force.

“I didn’t know,” Lilith murmured. “It looks impressive.”

“You should see the reading room inside.”

A smile spread over her face like dawn’s first light in winter. “I will.”

Her eyes tracked from the library to the other buildings looming over us from the surrounding streets, and she had to crane her neck to take it all in. It was a splendid, sunny day, New York showing herself from her best side. Sunlight glinted off the windows of the tall buildings standing sentinel on all sides, and the sound of honking and voices raised in arguments filled the air. Pedestrians hurried along on the sidewalks, precariously crossing the street between cars. The throng of people moving down on our sidewalk split around our group as if evading a clear obstacle, but without casting so much as a glance at us.

We truly were invisible to the humans bustling to and fro. But they didn’t walk into or through us, instead simply skirting around the spot where we stood without even batting an eye.

“One thing,” I said to Lilith as my gaze fell on an overflowing trash can nearby, “that’s an advantage about visiting New York as a ghost is that you can’t smell anything.”

She wrinkled her nose as she followed my gaze. “I imagine it’s an olfactory assault.”

“It’s worst in the heat of summer. Believe me, you don’t want to know what baked trash smells like. Or human body odor that has been marinating in the same clothes without a shower for three days.”

Lilith’s face was the closest to a grimace I’d ever seen.

Okay, I wasn’t really selling the human experience here. Gotta do better.

“But look,” I hastened to say. “This here is 5th Avenue, one of the most famous streets in New York, and it runs all the way to Central Park, which we’ll have to visit, too. It’s a huge park right there in the city, and when you’re in the middle of it, you wouldn’t believe you’re in one of the biggest cities of the world, because it’s so quiet and seems like another realm. And just down that way is Times Square, with these enormous billboard screens, but the best time to go there is at night when it’s all lit up. And around the corner is Grand Central Station, which is, like, featured in so many movies and shows, partly because it’s so damn pretty. And if we go down that way, we’ll get to the Empire State Building, which has been around like forever, and you’ll have an amazing view of the city from the top, although I guess for us it’s not as crucial to be on top of a high building to get that view—I mean, we could just have our demons fly us around…”

Lilith hung on my every word as I morphed into a passionate amateur tour guide and underscored my explanations with lots of hand waving and arm movements to the point I resembled someone trying to tell the story of New York in interpretive dance. She studied the people rushing around us with such intense focus and fascination, as if she tried to memorize it all in order to write a paper on it later.

Her face was alight with joy, her lips parted on a smile, such life in her eyes. It truly did her good, being here. Seeing human life in all its facets. Feeling the vibrancy of modern civilization.

“All right,” I concluded my preliminary exposition on nearby New York sights, “which one would you like to check out first?”

“Hmm.” Lilith tilted her head. “Let us walk down this avenue. I would gaze upon the sights along the way.”

“Okay-dokay.”

I grinned and was about to turn to lead the way when a whisper of power disturbed the air. Not demon power—but very, very similar.

Next to me, Azazel tensed in the same moment that a shadow flashed—right before a blade slashed through the neck of one of the demons in Lilith’s entourage. His head rolled from his body, and the next second, he burst into sparks that dissolved on the breeze.

Behind him stood a specter of light, gleaming silver-colored armor speckled with blood, red-smeared sword still raised from the killing strike, wings extended behind him.

White wings, pure as snow.

An angel.

What the everloving f—

Azazel pushed me behind him, the remaining demons escorting Lilith crowded around her, blocking the angel’s next strike.

Wings blotted out the sun for a second as more angels descended from somewhere high up, slamming down onto the sidewalk in a rustle of white feathers and clinking weapons.

Quick as lightning, the angels joined their vanguard and engaged our group, their numbers about the same as ours. Sunlight glinted off their blades and the polished silver-colored metal of their armor, the air brimming with their power, as they advanced with single-minded focus. They slashed and hacked and swung their way toward Lilith.

Azazel spun and blocked an angel launching herself in our direction, and I half ducked behind one of the two big stone lions guarding the steps to the library, trying to get out of sight. I didn’t have a weapon, but even if I did—this was a fight I could never win.

While Azazel kept holding off the angel, my eyes flicked to Lilith’s group. They were fighting with both physical weapons and their magic, lashing out at each other with blows of power, shadows and flame against lightning and silver fire. Unperturbed by the supernatural battle raging in their midst, the humans in the area kept going on about their day, simply giving the battleground a wide berth without seeming to wonder why.

One of the demons dispatched one of the angels, decapitating him with a powerful strike, and the angel’s body burst into sparks of light, which then dissolved in the air. But the demon didn’t see the sword coming for his unguarded back. He jerked and fell to his knees, skewered by the angel attacker’s blade. The angel pulled his sword out and then swung it at the demon’s neck, severing his head. A moment later, the demon’s body dissolved into particles of light that got swept away on a breeze, just like the angel’s body had done moments earlier.

That left only Destatur and Enaia to defend Lilith—against three angels. Lilith was faintly glowing with some power of her own, but her face was terror-stricken, her ghostly body seemingly paralyzed with fear.

Right that moment, Azazel rushed toward the group, having apparently defeated the angel he’d been battling with. One of the angels advancing on Lilith’s entourage saw him coming and split from the group to engage him. Their swords clanged as they met in the air, both using their wings to elevate the fight to another level—quite literally.

Darkness and light clashed in the air, the sky flickering with powers beyond human capacity or notice.

But Azazel’s intervention had evened the numbers a bit—only two angels were directly threatening Lilith now. She had a chance.

The largest of the angels, a male with shoulders as wide as 5th Avenue, jumped forward, his sword raised high, his white wings flaring behind him…but instead of closing ranks to block him, both Destatur and Enaia stepped aside at the last moment, moving out of the way.

Too fast for my eyes to track, the angel’s sword came down on Lilith, who stood frozen in shock. Everything hushed, the world standing still as the blade sliced clean through her neck, cutting her head off her body.

Her ghost form behaved just like a physical body would. Her faintly translucent skin split, muscles and tendons separated, as if she wasn’t made of spirit, but of flesh and bone. The blade was able to touch her—like someone or something from Hell.

But that would mean…

My racing thoughts stumbled over one another as I watched in horror, in uncomprehending shock, how Lilith’s head didn’t roll from her ghostly body, but instead burst into a shower of light sparks that dissolved on the breeze, just like the rest of her spirit body.

She was gone.

Just like that.

One moment she stood there, the next there was no trace of her left.

I watched it all as if through some weird lens, like I was seeing a movie. I didn’t really feel like I was present. There was no way to make sense of it all.

Destatur nodded at Enaia, who took off toward the spot where the hellgate had spat us out earlier.

When one of the angels made as if to pursue her, Destatur barked, “No! She needs to tell him. How else is he supposed to know?”

The leader of the group, the one who’d killed Lilith, jerked his head at the angel who’d wanted to run after Enaia. “She’s right. Stand down.”

Enaia activated the hellgate and disappeared inside.

The angel leader swung his gaze to his angel comrade, and one side of his mouth quirked up. “But if you want to spill some more demon blood, feel free to assist me in killing her.” He indicated Destatur with a nod.

“What?” Destatur took a step back, her eyes furious. “That wasn’t part of the deal.”

“The deal,” the angel in charge drawled, “was for you to deliver us Lilith and allow us to kill her. We were to leave one of you alive in order to tell Lucifer, so he’d know she was killed by angels. No one said anything about leaving more than one demon alive. You”—he pointed his sword at her—“are bloody scum and should be wiped off the face of the Earth and all the other realms.”

“You will regret this.” Destatur bared her teeth and raised her sword.

“You pronounced enjoy wrong,” the angel shot back and lunged at her.

The other remaining angel launched herself at Destatur as well, rendering the fight profoundly unfair. With a yell of rage, Destatur engaged them, spinning and twisting while she blocked their strikes. Impressively, she managed to take one of them down with a quick swing of her sword that decapitated the angel—the method of choice for killing either an angel or demon, apparently.

Now it was only Destatur against the angel leader, Lilith’s murderer. And the unholy glint in his eye spoke to how confident he was that he’d best her, too. Destatur was wounded, bleeding from several injuries that obviously didn’t heal well, while the angel leader seemed largely unimpaired.

He advanced on her with a mighty launch, pushing her back precariously—but he didn’t see what I saw. Didn’t notice how Azazel had taken out the angel with whom he’d been fighting, and how he now sped through the air on silent wings, sword raised for the kill.

The angel leader turned his head in the very last second. His eyes widened, his arm jerking back as if to ward off the new attack. But he never got the chance. Azazel’s sword slashed through his neck with cobra-like speed, and then the angel’s severed head and body dissolved in that sparkly way.

Azazel slammed to the ground next to Destatur, who turned to him.

“Thank you for that,” she said with a smile—and rammed her sword into his chest.

“No!” I yelled and ran out from my hiding place behind the stone lion, stumbling over my ghostly feet in the process.

Azazel fell to his knees with a grunt, one hand spasming around his own sword while the other weakly groped for the handle of the blade sticking out of his chest. His movements were sluggish, though, and then halted altogether as he simply keeled over and crumbled onto his side.

“Splendid,” Destatur murmured and pulled her sword out of his chest. “Makes it all the easier to take your head.”

“No!” I screamed again and slid between her and him.

I didn’t know what I was trying to do. I couldn’t possibly hope to defend him.

But I wasn’t thinking clearly. In fact, my brain wasn’t quite there, half my attention focused on the bleeding body of the man I loved lying on the ground behind me, the other fastened on the traitorous demon in front of me.

The one who’d engineered Lilith’s murder.

The heat of tears pricked my ghostly eyes. I glared at Destatur, who regarded me with something akin to amusement.

“Has your little human mind given up, dearie? Is this all too much for you? Never to worry. I’ll relieve you of your suffering in a minute.” Her smile was bloody. “Can’t leave any witnesses, after all.”

My thoughts whirled, scrambling to find a way out. Maybe I could stall her? She’d incapacitated Azazel with a blade to his heart, but demons woke up from that after a few minutes. If I could get her to talk, get her distracted, maybe, just maybe it would be enough time for Azazel to come to and fight her. Perhaps I could coax her into a villain monologue? Was she arrogant and vainglorious enough to want to boast about her clever machinations in front of a nearly defeated enemy?

It was worth a try.

“Why?” I choked out, pinning Destatur with a hot glare. “You were her friend. She trusted you.”

“Friend.” Destatur sneered. “Lilith didn’t have friends. She was far too special for that. Special and a fucking affliction for the whole of Hell.” She spat to the side. “If it weren’t for her, we would have won.”

The gears in my mind turned in overwhelmed hyperdrive. “The war against Heaven?”

“Of course.” Her eyes glittered hard. “If not for her, he never would have taken that deal. He’d have taken Heaven.” She bared her teeth.

Oh, goody. She’d indeed fully launched her self-aggrandizing justifications of her nefarious actions.

“But through her,” she continued, “he was shackled to Hell, keeping all of us on a leash when we should be the ones ruling Earth. But no more.” She tapped her sword against her thigh, a self-satisfied smirk sitting upon her lips. “Any minute now, he’ll hear the news that Lilith was killed by angels. Not by rogue demons—by agents of Heaven. His raging fury will be so swift, so mighty, he will snap the tethers that kept him in check and unleash the wrath of Hell onto Earth. As he should have done millennia ago. With Lilith gone, the deal with Heaven is null and void. He will be justified in his vengeance, and usher in the last stand that will decide the fate of this world.”

The apocalypse. Good lord, Destatur and her ilk wanted to start the apocalypse.

“But…but why did the angels help you?” I couldn’t make sense of that. They’d been at each other’s throats as much as they’d cooperated.

Destatur sniffed, a haughty sound that underscored her supercilious expression. “There are those on both sides who are not content with the status quo. Not all angels support the truce. Our plans for the ultimate outcome of Armageddon might differ, but it just so happens that our understanding of the means necessary to cancel the truce and initiate the end aligns. The angels who oppose the truce are convinced that they’ll win when the war starts again.” Her lips twisted in a smirk. “The more fool them.”

I’d crouched down at some point, seemingly to lean on Azazel’s prone body, when in reality, I kept checking if he showed signs of waking.

He didn’t.

And time was running out.

Destatur glanced at the spot where Enaia had disappeared through the hellgate, then back at me. “Enough chitchat, now.” She swung her sword in a lazy circle at her side. “He’ll be here soon, and you two need to be gone by then. Can’t very well blame the whole thing on you if you’re still alive to refute my claim, can I?”

“What? That’s ridiculous. Why would anyone believe we had anything to do with this?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Destatur tapped a finger against her mouth. “Maybe because you’ve befriended Lilith, getting her to trust you over the course of many, many months, to the point you could convince her to do something she hasn’t done in centuries—come to Earth. You know, incidentally, the only place where she could feasibly be killed by angels, which makes for the necessary motivation on Lucifer’s part to consider the deal invalid and subsequently unleash Hell on Earth. Has your dear husband not been angling for more power for a while? Isn’t there talk of him shooting up the ranks like a demon on a mission? And are he and Lucifer not alienated to the point they’re trying to hurt each other however possible?” She tilted her head and regarded me out of smug eyes. “Killing Lilith hurts Lucifer more than anything. And destroying the truce and then expanding Hell’s dominion over all of Earth and Heaven opens up infinite possibilities of acquiring more power and maybe, ultimately, challenging Lucifer himself.”

My mouth hung open. Holy shit.

“As you can see,” Destatur purred, “I’ve given this extensive thought. By plausibly pinning the blame on you, I’ll deflect it from myself, and when everything calms down and Lucifer is not completely out of his mind with raging grief anymore, he will not look at me for revenge. The culprits—that’s you—will already be dead.”

Fuck. Out of all the ways I’d imagined my life in Hell cut short, I never would have seen this one coming.

Destatur raised her sword, determination etched into her features. “Say goodbye to your pathetic existence.”

Without taking my eyes off her, I groped for Azazel’s sword behind me, my heart racing a mile a minute. I had to do something, anything. He still wasn’t waking up. He couldn’t help me. It was just me…and I was woefully incapable.

Just when my fingers touched the sword handle, Destatur spun and delivered a kick right to my face. The impact whirled me around and made me crash to the ground next to Azazel. Holyshitfuckdammit. Pain exploded in my head, my spirit body responding to Destatur’s attack just like my physical body would. I couldn’t see, my vision going blurry, pain throbbing in my jaw and nose where her foot had caught me.

“Now that you’re so beautifully aligned,” Destatur said, “how about I try to decapitate both of you at once?”

No!I wanted to scream, but the pain in my jaw wouldn’t let me. Blindly, I reached out for Azazel. My fingers touched his fighting leathers, and I threw myself over him, clinging to him in what would be the final moments of our lives, despair lancing my heart.

We should have had eternity together. Our love should have lasted throughout the ages.

In those milliseconds while Destatur swung, I thought of how Azazel had only just found me, had only just begun to live his life with the person who made him happy beyond anything else. How he’d said I brought out the best parts of him. That with me by his side, he could defy the jaws of time and not fall prey to Hell’s slow erosion of all that was good.

I thought of my own heart, so bruised and battered and slow to believe there was someone who’d love me so truly, so deeply, they’d accept my flaws and put me first. I’d never get a chance to really grow into that belief now, and I’d never get to see where it might take me, take us.

I thought of Lilith, who’d just started to rediscover herself, who’d woken from millennia of numbness only to be stabbed in the back by those whom she trusted, her light now forever extinguished.

Teeth-gritting, sorrow-soaked rage as I’d never known it rushed through me.

Something deep within me pulled tight with glowing force. A storm in the making, a reckoning to come.

The last sound I heard was the whirring of a blade through the air—before everything exploded in light so bright it blinded me.