“Questioning Heaven is defiance, and youknowMichael takes that shit personally.”
“You weren’t there, Morningstar.”
“It doesn’t matter. But now he sees it your way? He forgave you for defying him?”
“He did.” I stared triumphantly at the Devil. “Michael agrees with me on what is needed.”
“Yes, yes, my new judgment and annihilation if the gate breaks.” Lucifer flapped a hand dismissively and leaned toward me. “I want you to really think about this for a second, Dez.Michael forgave you?”
Ice wrapped its fingers around my heart. Eons ago, Lucifer and I used to joke that Michael never forgot, never forgave, just always made sure he got his pound of flesh for every slight he decided to punish. But that was for other people. That wasn’t for me. No one had worked with Michael the way I had.
“I’m not you,” I shot back. “I let it go when he told me to.”
“Dez.”For a heart-shattering moment, Lucifer’s expression was terribly familiar—that old, frustrated concern. “You didn’t let shit go, and neither did Michael. Don’t you see what’s happening?Heaven did not sign off on this.Michael’s setting you up.”
I hissed at him, my tongue unspooling with anger at his lies. “You havenoidea the things Michael has done!” I shouted, and the cavern shook from my voice. “I am not alone in this!”
Lucifer spread out his palms, trying to placate me. “I know this is personal—” he began, but I narrowed my eyes at him.
“You do notmatterenough for this to be personal, Lucifer,” I said, and it was barely a lie, not if I wanted to believe it enough. “You’re a mistake that needs to be remedied, a tool for a lesson, that’s all.”
“And what’s the lesson?” the yellow-eyed demon asked, with an unacceptable level of contempt in his voice.
I snapped my head toward him and shrieked in response, a sharp, piercing sound filled with my revulsion. Galilee clapped her hands over her ears.
“Do not address me directly, fiend.”He was a thing of Hell; he had no right to look upon one of God’s soldiers, let alone speak to me in that tone. My voice was slippery with disgust, and in the warped reality of the vault, maggots fell out of the air and onto the floor, sliding over and under one another in yellow loops. The demon’s face tightened, and Galilee looked like she was about to vomit, but Lucifer remained unmoved.
“We’re not in Heaven,” he said. “You’re inourterritory, Deziel.”
Ah, his voice! All ash and prophecy, how I’d missed it.
“I won’t believe your lies about Michael,” I answered. “You don’t know the truth.”
The Devil cocked his head and smiled sadly. “You know I don’t lie, Dez.”
That shocked me into silence momentarily, because it was true. But just because he believed something, that didn’t make it true either. “Why would Michael set me up?”
“Why wouldyouset me up with the hellgate?” Lucifer retorted.“You’re both playing the same fucked game.” He almost looked hurt, like I had betrayed him, like he hadn’t done it first.
“You really don’t know why this is happening to you?” I asked, and my question made the Devil laugh emptily.
“Because you hate me? Even after all this time, Deziel. Even after everything I’ve already lost.”
“Lost?”He couldn’t be serious. “You think we don’t know what you’ve been doing down in Hell? You really don’t get it, Morningstar.”
Lucifer simply looked confused. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Youlive,” I spat out. He was so close, so beautiful. “Youexist. You draw breath like no traitor has any right to. You turned a sentence into a throne and surrounded yourself with princes, you made themloveyou, when all you deserve is to befucking annihilated!”
A cold wind lifted my hair off my neck, wafting it around my face. The walls of the cavern groaned and creaked, and Galilee clutched the arm of the yellow-eyed creature in alarm.
“Did you think we would forget?” I continued bitterly. “You have no idea how deep this runs, Lucifer, for both myself and Michael. I have waitedeonsto see your destruction, and when Heaven sentences you after all this, I will stand witness with the greatest of pleasure as Michael wipes you out of existence.”
I couldn’t detect emotion on Lucifer’s face anymore, but it didn’t matter. It was enough to see him in the flesh, looking at me as he stood there with Hell straining at his back, beautiful and unmoving. He was being sentenced, and it was truly God’s justice that I was the one who got to do it.
“So that’s what this is about,” he said slowly. “You’re mad because I moved on? Because I no longer raged against Heaven, because Iacceptedmy place?” Lucifer let out a shaky laugh and ran his hands through his hair, turning away from me. “Of course. That’s what Michael wants, all this pain, all this abandoned love, radiated in his direction, like he’s thefucking sun.” He threw me a glance over his shoulder. “That’s what you want too, isn’t it? My attention, for eternity, while I suffer in the Hellyou all cast me into.”
I folded my arms, not liking the accusation in his words. “I want you gone, Morningstar.”
