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“But even you don’t know what your foolish, vague prophecies mean. You’re a fate, not a god. You can only see the picture, not the pieces.”
Gran shook her head. “Your pride has always been your biggest problem. You’re too afraid of looking weak to ever find real answers.”
“And you’re always standing in my way,” Lilith shot back. “This time I won’t go easy on you. I did before because Lucifer would have been furious if I’d hurt you, but I don’t care what he thinks anymore. My work is too important. Step aside.”
Gran didn’t move. “No.”
“You’ll risk yourself for some freak of nature that never should have existed?”
Gran spread her arms out, the clearestI am not movingmotion I’d ever seen. “You’re right, Lilith. I can see the puzzle but not the pieces. I saw the chaos you’d bring so long ago, saw the fear in you, but I had no ideathiswould be how you’d do it. I also saw the part Ava had to play, even if I didn’t know exactly how.”
“Well, then you’re more blind than I ever thought, because you dying isn’t going to change a thing.” Lilith lifted both hands and struck, a mixture of fire and smoke flinging toward us. Gran moved, rising her hands to shield us as she had before, but there wasso muchmore this time. The magic reminded me of what the other Older One had used to drive Lilith out of the tent what seemed like a lifetime ago.
She pulled her hands apart, then shot a blast of power at Lilith, knocking her back.
A shout from outside echoed in, a roar I recognized, but the door wouldn’t budge.
Lilith pushed herself away from the wall. “You’re stronger than the last time we did this. Not that it matters.” She went back and forth with Gran, both taking strikes, both tiring, but neither getting an upper hand. I stayed by the door even as they shifted, dodging and blocking each other’s blows.
Though, it seemed clear Gran was tiring quicker.
A hit from Gran sent Lilith tumbling into a table, the furniture shattering beneath her.
Lilith growled, a sound that had no business coming from a body that look like a young beautiful woman, before she shoved herself upright. “Enough!” Her gaze moved from Gran to me, her lips curling. “I don’t need to beat you,” she said. “I just need to take out the thing in my way.”
She lifted her hand, and I knew it was over. She was done playing, done talking, donewaiting.
A blast of that hellfire left her and sailed right for me.
A split second before the fire hit me, something stood in the way.
No,someone.
A cry left Gran’s lips as the hellfire struck her instead of me. She didn’t block it or divert it as she had before, but consumed it. In fact, when it hit her, it seemed as if the entire flame were sucked inside her, taken right from Lilith’s palm.
The door didn’t open but exploded inward, shards raining through the room, leaving tiny cuts on my bare arms.
Lucifer walked through the debris, his eyes a swirling mixture of red and black. He’d never appeared so monstrous before. He lifted a hand and Lilith was pinned to the wall by an invisible force. “You,” he said in avoice I’d never heard.
His smooth, deep voice was replaced by something that echoed, something old and evil and terrifying. It was the voice I’d expected to hear call from the abyss, but it left his lips all the same. “You dare to create this sort of chaos inmyhome?”
Lilith grabbed at her throat as if she could pry off whatever held her in place.
He let out a growl before she dropped to the ground in an unceremonious heap.
“I expected one of my wayward offspring to be behind this, to betray me, but you? The first? My favorite?”
She lifted her gaze to his, the same defiance there I’d seen in his. They were related—there was no doubt about that. “You made me knowing I’d never fit with Adam, that I’d never be what he wanted. Youcreatedme to fail. It’s your own fault.”
Lucifer lifted his hand as if to grab her again, but Lilith reached into a pouch on her thigh and withdrew a small orb. It looked like the one that had transported me before.
She slammed it against the ground, shattering it, and she was gone, disappeared as if she’d ever been there at all.
It left just Lucifer, me and Gran’s unmoving body.
