“Looks like I never had to break the gate, Morningstar,” I yelled. “Just needed her close enough to it, and the first thing you did was make a deal to bring her here. She’sperfect, isn’t she?”
The thing that used to be Galilee was a storm now, and Lucifer was begging it. “You made a deal with me,” he said to her. “Galilee, please.”
I scoffed. “What is a deal when you are this strong, Galilee Kincaid?” I was a curved cut of glee, a mouth, a throat. “What honor is there among monsters? I want you unleashed, blood of my blood. The Morningstar wants you collared.”
“Shut the fuck up.”Lucifer looked like he wanted to tear me apart.
“Ask him what his plan was,” I continued, ignoring him for the incandescent horror that was my offspring, my angel spawn. “Ask him how he intended to stop his demons from executing you.”
From inside the storm of light, Galilee looked out at Lucifer just in time for both of us to see the slackening in his face, the guilt already chased by desperate apology. I took a step forward.
“He was going to seduce you into a bargain for yoursoul,” I told her,my voice soft and sympathetic. “It would mean that you could never move against him or his demons. It would neutralize you, and in return, they would allow you to live.” My voice took on an edge. “But you are my daughter, andno onegives you leave to draw breath.”
Galilee wasn’t even looking at me; she kept her eyes on the Devil.
“A collar fashioned by Hell,” I whispered. “That’s what he had planned for you, Galilee, in all your brilliance. What is a deal when the broker wishes to enslave you?”
Past Lucifer, the demons were throwing up desperate wards in an effort to keep the hellgate intact. “Lucifer, we need you!” the snaked one screamed. “It will not hold!”
The yellow-eyed demon was beside her, the muscles in his arms straining as he corralled screams and closed rips in the air. His sword was cast to one side, useless in this battle. Galilee glanced at him, and I followed her eyes. That was the demon who’d spoken to her with affection, and when he looked back at her, a guilt matching the Devil’s filled his yellow eyes. “Galilee,” he said.
“In the garden...” Her voice echoed on itself. “... you said Lucifer had a scheme, where my power wouldn’t be a threat.”
The demon winced but didn’t look away. “We needed to keep him safe, Galilee.”
“You see?” I whispered. “They all knew your soul was up for grabs, and none of them cared. You are too strong, and they are afraid. Like the humans, they want to destroy or control what they fear.”
“Galilee,” Lucifer interrupted, “don’t listen to her. She understandsnothing. Michael is going to destroy her, and no matter what happens here,he is going to come for you. What they did is forbidden by Heaven.” He was frantic, speaking fast as if he could outrun her judgment. “You’re a loose end, evidence of his sins. I wanted toprotectyou. He can’t touch you if you belong to Hell.”
Galilee gave him an unforgiving stare. “If I belong toyou.”
Lucifer fell silent. We could all hear how it sounded, how it made hera thing, a weapon to be passed around. I reached into the storm of light whipping around Galilee and stroked her hair. It could not burn me. It was of Heaven.
“How can you trust anything he says?” I asked. “He shared none of this with you. Let me tell you what it took me too long to learn, daughter. If you let him, Lucifer Morningstar will be your downfall.”
Galilee jerked her head away from me and screamed, devolving even further into light. I pulled back, satisfied.
“That should do it,” I said, almost to myself, and then I glanced over at Lucifer. He was staring at Galilee, devastation and regret carving through his face as she slipped irretrievably away from him. He thought I didn’t understand his loss or the wake of it, but I did. I had lost so much when he Fell. I had losthim. And just as he had changed over time, I had to believe that so had Michael, that the archangel who had given me a child would not punish me for an old slight. Working with Michael had been the first time I didn’t feel so lonely in Heaven since the war. I wasn’t willing to sacrifice it on the word of the Devil.
I gazed at Lucifer one last time, at his pain and his beauty, and the hellgate wrenching behind him. I did not expect I would ever see the Devil again; God’s work was done here.
“Good luck, Morningstar,” I whispered.
The Devil turned to me, but I was already gone, leaving my daughter behind to destroy his world.
22.
Galilee
Her mother was a demented angel. Her father was an archangel, or a gutted fisherman, or both. There was a high-pitched whine ringing in Gali’s ears, the thunder of blood thudding underfoot, the rivers pounding frantically through her flesh. Lucifer’s eyes were a black galaxy burning, and Deziel—hermother—was a quiet smirk that vanished into nothing. Words floated around Galilee, pinching and pricking at her skin.Sleeper agent. Weapon.
Nana Darling’s memoryscape had shown the baby covered in blood, in too much blood from just a birth. None of the Kincaids had smelled the human she’d been washed in—how could they? Gifty Williams had simply been rinsed off in a creek as Deziel had walked away, and then the Kincaids had taken Galilee home, while Gifty became nothing more than a swirl of discolored water rushing past a heave of rocks. The poor man—possessed by an angel and used for his seed, a man who’d had so much love to give even afterward. That was the point, wasn’t it? Love, not blood. That was why the Kincaids had taken her in, and if Galilee couldn’t grieve for this fisherman, then what kind of Kincaid was she?
Galilee couldn’t feel her body anymore. She wasn’t sure she had one.She was just power and light, rage and hurt. That’s how this game was played, right? If you had the power, you could do whatever you wanted to whoever you wanted. You could trick a naive girl and plan to take her soul, fuck her until she handed it right over. You could kill a man, take an old woman’s most precious memories, cast glamours left and right like people didn’t matter. Galilee no longer cared about the hellgate or the Devil or his princes. They wanted to kill her. They wanted to steal her soul.They were her enemies.
She was not like them. She was becoming a pillar of light, and it purged her of feelings, of the human stickiness; it made her into something pure, something beyond any glory she’d ever touched. It was the most seductive thing she’d ever experienced, and all it wanted was everything, which right then was easy to give. The Devil had betrayed her, and an angel was whispering in her ear.
Galilee Kincaid screamed and stopped existing.
