Kill the Dead

I pull the monitor glass from my arm and toss it so that it bounces off his forehead before smashing against the wall. I grab Lucifer’s feet and drag him out of cigarette ashes and blood and pull the silver dagger from between his ribs. There’s a sudden intake of air as he gasps and coughs, like pulling out the knife kick-started his lungs. When he looks awake enough to sit up, I help him onto the office chair. He picks up the athame from where I set it on the control console. “Thank you,” he says. “That was getting uncomfortable.” He sets the knife delicately back onto the console. “What was this? Was he waiting for Aelita to come and finish you off?” “Yes. But she never appeared.” “How the hell did you let this prick do this to you?” “We were having a nice chat about the movie at the Chateau and he caught me off guard. It’s my fault for taking his fear for compliance. Aelita gave Ritchie the athame. It’s not exactly an ordinary knife. It’s straight from Michael’s own armory. She could have killed me with it. Truly killed me. Not just this body. But she missed their appointment and poor Ritchie had been getting steadily more and more panicked.” “Ritchie doesn’t strike me as the type to help an angel out of the kindness of his heart.” “Aelita promised him his soul back if he incapacitated me.” I nod, pick up one of Ritchie’s cigarette butts from the floor, sniff, and drop it again. It smells like hot tar and cancer. A little echo of Stark’s compulsions. Lucifer cocks his head and gives me a sidelong look. “What’s wrong with you? You sound different, James.” “James isn’t here. It’s just me now.” Lucifer rolls his eyes. “I was wondering when this was going to happen. Nephilim are so unstable. Now it’s time for you to have a little psychotic break and imagine you’re a true angel. How sweet. Sad, but sweet.” “You knew that something awful was going to happen, didn’t you?” I sit down on the console near Lucifer. “You knew about the Geistwalds. And maybe even that Aelita would use the chaos to pull something, didn’t you?” Lucifer nods. “You never intended for Light Bringer to get made. The movie was just an excuse to hang around and see it play out. Tell me that you didn’t know it was going to be a Drifter shit storm.” He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a pack of Maledictions, finds one that isn’t broken, and lights it. “Are you interrogating me? Remember who it is you’re talking to.” “A half-dead old man who hides his seeping wounds and bloody bandages under dark shirts.” “Playing angel is fun, isn’t it? You feel powerful. Omnipotent. Don’t let it go to your head. Even if the Stark part of you is gone, it doesn’t make you an angel. At best it makes you half. You’re a novelty toy like a talking doll or sea monkeys.” I pick up the athame and shove it back between Lucifer’s ribs. He doubles over and collapses onto the floor. I leave him there and go to Ritchie’s gun cabinet to look for bullets. I find the right ones on the top shelf and reload the Smith & Wesson. Take that box and another box of shells and put them in my pocket. “You knew all about it. You knew about Koralin and Aki and how they were going to murder the city.” From the floor he says, “What if I did?” “Why? You own half the place. Why would you let that happen?” Lucifer tries to sit up. It gets annoying watching him flail around, so I pull out the knife. He breathes deeply, leaning on one elbow on the floor. “Remember when I came to your room after you stopped the angel sacrifice at Avila? I joked that you were my science project.” “Yes.” “You still are.” “You sent Spencer Church into the bar the other night.” “I had to. You’d missed so much in your drunken self-pity these last months. You didn’t notice people disappearing or sense the presence of golems in the aether. I sent Spencer to nudge you in the right direction.” “Why me? Why am I your damned project?” He draws on the Malediction and coughs. Smoke leaks from the wound in his side. “Weren’t you a Boy Scout when you were young? I’m helping you earn a very special merit badge.” “Explain.” Lucifer shakes his head and laughs. “There’s that tone again. You’re beginning to sound like Aelita. I don’t like you towering over me. Help me into the chair.” “I think you look good right where you are.” “Have your fun, then. However, I might point out that if you don’t help me, Mason is going to win and you’re going to die and that if you think that tonight is Hell on earth, kiddo, you ain’t seen nothing yet.” I holster the gun, take him by the shoulders, and set him on the chair. I can’t tell if he’s smaller than I remembered or if I’m getting stronger. Maybe both. Lucifer has to lean on his arm to stay upright. He sets the Malediction on the console and lets it burn into the plastic top. “I’m not the angel I used to be. I showed you my dirty little secret back at the hotel for a reason. The truth is that my wounds are getting worse, not better.” “And you don’t want Mason or your generals to see you getting weak. I get that.” “When Father threw us out of Heaven, all he gave us was a hole in the ground. I built Hell out of my sheer will, the same way he created Heaven. But now I’m falling apart.” “And so is Hell.” “The king is the land. The land is the king. The dying king is the death of the land. It’s an old story.” “If you want a damned doctor, why don’t you go to Kinski? He has God’s divine-light punch-bowl glass. Wouldn’t that help?” He laughs. “Uriel is just sentimental enough to help me. That’s why he fell for you people in the first place. But the truth is, I’m not looking for that kind of help. What I want is to go home. But I can’t simply abandon Hell. The fallen are my responsibility. I can’t leave them to Mason and chaos and self-destruction. When I’m gone, Hell will need a new Lucifer.” “If this is going where I think it’s going, then fuck you and every other blackhearted angel in the universe.” “Careful with those curses. Don’t forget. You’re one of us now.” He laughs at his own joke and stubs out the Malediction. He says, “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not going home to fall on my knees and beg Daddy for forgiveness. I still believe in the argument. Angels shouldn’t be slaves to God or man. But I regret how I made the argument before. All the slaughter. I won’t ever be one of Father’s sycophants like Michael. I’ll be the thorn in Heaven’s side as much as I ever was. But I’m not a child anymore and I don’t want to burn the house down.” “The way Aelita does?” “You know about that?” “She told me. She was practically bragging about it. She said I set her on the right path when I manifested a Gladius.” He raises his eyebrows. “That I hadn’t expected.” “So, you want to go home and help out dear old Dad. Who’s the sentimental one now?” Lucifer’s lips curl into a weak smile. “Whatever else happens, I don’t want Aelita and the Sisters of Perpetual Smugness taking over. She’s such a bore. My war with Heaven had some style to it. You should have seen my golden armor. It was brighter and more beautiful than the sun. So bright that even after Father blasted the golden metal with a thunderbolt, driving us rebels into the dark, I still shone like the morning star. I was the light that the other fallen followed as we plunged from Heaven to the bottom of the abyss. “Aelita’s war, on the other hand, will be drab and vicious, and Heaven will be worse than Hell if she wins. If Mason wins down below, then there will be all-out war between Hell and Heaven, and when it’s over there won’t be enough of either left to matter. Do you think this fragile world of yours can survive that? Can Alice and all those other helpless souls up there strumming their harps?” “Thanks for the offer, Dad, but I’m not really interested in going into the family business.” He looks at me, his eyebrows creasing. “Good lord, boy. Do you seriously think I’m your father?” “It’s obvious. My father is an angel. You’ve helped me over and over, when I was Downtown and now that I’m here. Now you come back to L.A. and invent some lame excuse that you need a bodyguard just to keep me around. And you’ve never for one minute stopped messing with my head. That sounds like a father to me.” “First of all, considering that you just pulled a knife from my side, your ‘not needing a bodyguard’ argument falls spectacularly short. And second, if I helped you it was just to occasionally nudge you in the right direction. You did the rest yourself. If I ‘messed with your head,’ it was to challenge you to get past any obstacle in your way. You’ve seen Hell, so you should understand that ruling and surviving there takes cunning, insight, creativity, a little bit of luck, and a fair amount of ruthlessness. You had the kernel of all those qualities, but you lacked focus. You needed training.” “You’re my Mr. Miyagi.” “I’ve been called worse.” “I’m not through with Mason, but I’m not interested in being you.” “Too bad. It’s a package deal. Whatever you decide, I’m going home. None of my generals is equipped to run Hell on their own. It will fall apart in months if one of them takes my place. There are only two candidates with the power and knowledge to take over: you and Mason. One of you will live and lead. The other will die. I’m on your side, James, but if Mason is better than you, I won’t be able to stop him from taking over.” “If you’re not my father…?” “Uriel is your father, you imbecile. But you always knew that. I know your mind, James. You liked the idea that I might be your father because it fit your image of yourself and would let you continue to cultivate your anger. You have to stop fighting yourself if you’re going to survive what’s coming.” My mind ices over for a second. I shake it off. Now’s not the time to think about any of that. “If I’m not your son, why does this come down to Mason and me? Is Mason your little monster, too?” Lucifer winces and touches his side. There’s blood on his hand when he pulls it back, thick and so dark it’s almost purple. “Hardly. I’ve had a million children over the centuries and they’re all like Mason. Even when I’ve had them with good, smart, kind women, they always came out the same. And no, none of them are nephilim. Not the way you are. Whatever the deformity in my blood that produces such little bastards also makes my progeny human. Powerful humans, but nothing more than mad, cruel little Caligulas. They’re more the way the Church has painted me than I ever was. Isn’t that funny? I wanted to keep this transition in the family, but none of them was ever worthy to take the throne. That was truly humbling. I’d been God’s favorite. More than Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, or even your father. But I couldn’t produce a single heir who wasn’t a miserable piece of scheming human excrement.” “What you’re really asking me to do is clean up your mess.” “No. I’m going home to clean up my mess. I’m giving you a chance to save your world.” “This isn’t my world any more than it’s yours. I’ve changed and everything is different. Nothing is solid. The world is all motes of light. Random nodes vibrating on long strings of existence. Fireflies in a jar. Who could love that?” I almost want a cigarette. Stark screams in my head. I have to concentrate to keep him locked in the dark. “I think about the Mithras more and more. I’d solve everyone’s problem by releasing the first fire and burning down the whole universe.” “I tried that with Heaven, remember? Talk to your father before doing anything rash. Unless you want to be exactly like Mason.” I look over at Ritchie. “What are we going to do with him?” “Nothing. He’s dead.” “And you don’t even have his soul. He’s on his way to the Jackal’s Backbone.” “I’m perfectly happy to let him wander and rot for a while. I’ll have his soul eventually.” “You can’t go back to the Chateau. I’m using your room to finish things with Koralin Geistwald.” He shakes his head and tries to stand. He doesn’t make it. “I wasn’t going back there anyway. I need to return below and ready things for my departure. Do you think you might take me through the Room? It’s the quickest way and I’d like to rest before leaving Pandemonium. The elevator is out of service and it’s a long walk up to Father’s place.” “The Druj Ammun controls the Drifters. Is it true it will control Hellions?” “I expect so.” “That could be a nice weapon if I decided to take you up on your idea.” “It could be, but don’t count on it. Magical weapons have a way of revealing a fatal flaw at exactly the moment you need them the most. The Druj is powerful, but don’t ever get dependent on a single weapon. Who knows? You might not be able to keep it.” “What do you mean?” “You figure it out, nephilim.” “Am I still being trained?” He pushes himself up and manages to stand this time. I put out a hand to steady him. “Consider it a last homework assignment before graduation.” “Hold on to my arm and I’ll take you through the Room.” He pulls me back. “Don’t leave the athame lying there. Just because you shouldn’t rely on weapons doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have as many as possible.” I get the athame and slip it in my coat next to the black blade. “That goes for my armor, too. At some point you’ll need it. If Mason has it, you’ll have to take it from him.” “I’ll only need it if I go back to Hell and I’m not. Ever.” “No. Of course you aren’t.” “Let’s take you home, old man.” “Thank you for this, James.” “I’m not James.” “I know. But I liked James better. I hope I get to see him again someday.”