Dancing With the Devil (11 page)

The horn ripped through my
ribcage, pierced my heart, and tore through the muscles of my back.

The horn did not stop until it
lodged itself in the Tree.

Everywhere I looked, I saw red.
Red eyes, red scales. Blood. Flames.

Purgatory had morphed into Hell.
My own personal Hell.

A loud cry split the air…my
voice, screaming in pain. The pain, not so much physical as emotional.

My magic cried, too, and in my
ears, I heard singing. The singing of angels.

My
angels.

Through the haze of pain, I glanced
at the forest. Had the angels broken free from their marble prisons?

No. There was no one, angel or
otherwise, here. Just me and Lucifer.

His second horn had grazed the
right side of my neck and was also wedged in the bark of the Tree. He pulled
back, found he was stuck, and surged forward again, driving both horns deeper.

I didn’t think the pain could get
worse.

A loud rumble issued from his
throat and his eyes rolled in their sockets. He arched both wings, sending
flames into the already torched wasteland of the forest. The embers caught and
flared to life, creating a circle of fire around us.

The left side of my body went
numb. Images flashed through my head. They didn’t make sense, but I knew they
were coming from the Tree of Knowledge.

Luc and I were connected to each
other and to the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, so although everything in
me insisted I fight for my life, I reached out with my right hand and stroked
his forehead.

I trailed my fingers over his
ridged jaw to calm him.

Stroked his neck and opened my
mind and my magic wide.

Listen. Watch. Remember.

He stopped fighting, stopped
growling. Rested his massive forehead against my chest. His scales scratched my
neck at the base of my throat and puffs of hot breath rolled down my arms,
waist and hips.

As the images came, Luc bore down
harder as if trying to see them all.

My magic sang, but my heart
clenched and burned from the pain. Sticky warm blood trickled from the
scratches on my neck. More pumped from the wound in my heart where the dragon’s
horn nailed me to the Tree.

A low-grade fever consuming my
chest, burning in time with my heart and the ring of fire surrounding us.

My hips ached. No strength left
in my thighs. Knees, shot. The only thing holding me up was Luc.

Vaguely I noticed shapes outside
the ring of fire. Heard muffled voices. The singing had stopped and I missed
it. Where had the angels gone?

Images of Heaven, the War and my
love affair with the Devil swept through my mind. I pushed them through to his.
Minutes, hours, went by. Several times he tried to pull away. I sunk my nails
into the scales of his neck, forcing him to stay where he was.

He breathed faster, the exhalations
wrapping me in a soft, warm blanket. My vision fuzzed at the edges, the flames around
us doing little to keep the shadows at bay. I reached for my magic, hoping to
jolt my body to keep from passing out, but everything felt sluggish. I wanted to
give in and close my eyes. Sleep for a little while.

The image of me stepping off the
edge of Heaven and falling to Earth flashed from the Tree into my mind and then
on to Luc’s. A shiver started in his massive shoulders and worked its way down
his elongated spine. Then another and another, until he was shaking from horns
to wingtips.

The flames soared higher. I heard
shouts. Overhead, a crack of lightning and rolling thunder, rising and falling,
swooping low and dangerous over the valley, through the ruined forest and into
my ears.

Rain fell. Slowly at first, then picking
up speed until a torrential barrage of it hammered against us.

The mental picture in my mind
switched to more recent memories. Human memories of me and Lucifer. His smile,
his touch. Our latest round of lovemaking in my bedroom before Keisha’s party.
Suddenly, I was there again, in the room. On the bed with him, but also
floating above, watching us.

There he was, all love and heat
and desire, totally consumed with me.
Me
. Can you imagine? The sin that
had condemned us and so many other angels was a tangible thing.

A
good
thing.

As evidenced by the hair-raising,
top-of-my-lungs-screaming orgasm toward the end, it was an
incredibly
good thing.

The dragon thought so too.

I felt his mind push back. Push
an image into mine. The view through Lucifer’s eyes as I came apart in his
arms.

Love
, his voice whispered
in my head.
Amo.

I smiled through the haze of
tears.
Yes. Love. You and me, Devil. You and me.

In our shared mental reflection
of our time together, a tiny light, as small as the end of a wand, appeared. It
flitted and hovered above us as we slept, finally settling on my abdomen and
disappearing where it landed on my skin.

I sucked in a breath. Another
hard shudder ran through Luc’s body. Rain sluiced down, washing away my blood.

Physically, I was too weak to
even keep my eyes open any longer, but my heart was full.

I didn’t need to slay the dragon.

I only needed to
love
him.

With a terrible howl of pain, the
dragon stumbled back, jerking his horns from the Tree as well as my body.

My weak legs couldn’t support me
even as my magic locked onto Lucifer and refused to let go. I fell, lifeless,
to the ground.

The rain fell hard, creating a
flood in the forest and rising around my body. My vision went black and I heard
the sound of the angels’ voices singing to me once more. I sank into it,
reveling in the peace it promised.

And then rough hands gripped me,
lifted me out of the rising water. “Oh, no, you don’t.” The hands shook me. “Wake
up, dammit. You have to
slay the dragon
.”

Zayfeer. How had he broken
through the ring of fire?

Didn’t really care. I was so
tired. And too weak to fight off his manhandling. Even my magic was down for
the count…I’d given all of it to Luc. “Leave me be,” I sputtered through the
sheeting rain. “Let me die.”

“You’re an angel, dummy. You
can’t die.”

Damn. “That’s too bad, cuz I’d
really like to right now.”

“Yeah, well, tough feathers. I
wanted to die a million times in my purgatory and I’m still here, so pull on
your big girl wings and do your job. If you don’t slay the flippin’ dragon, I’m
stuck here with you. Those bastard archangels left us.”

A fluttering sensation tickled my
abdomen. At the same time, the ground—flood and all—trembled underneath me. I
opened my eyes, craned my neck to see Luc.

Several yards away, he was
morphing from the dragon back into himself. All beautiful, sinful, complicated
Lucifer. Heaven’s Light Bearer. The Devil. Archangel and love of my life.

Love, in fact, of my entire
existence. “I’ve already done my job.”

Z glanced over his shoulder,
turned back to frown at me. “The beast still lives in him. If you don’t slay it,
and the fears it symbolizes, you’ll never gain redemption. Never see Heaven
again. We’ll all be stuck here in this poor excuse for purgatory.”

Poor Zayfeer. He would never
understand. “No one can slay the dragon, traitor.” He flinched at the term. “But
if you love it and accept it, rather than fighting against it, the beast will
be soothed.”

“Soothed? That’s the best you
got?
Soothed
?” He released me and sat back on his heels. “God bless us
all to Hell. I’m stuck in purgatory with a bleeding-heart witch.”

“No redemption for either of us,
I’m afraid, ‘cuz there’s no way I’m slaying the dragon and there’s no way
you’re taking me to Heaven.”

He smirked and shrugged. “Hey,
you can’t blame a Fallen for trying.”

Lucifer was in human form again.
He lifted his head from the muddy water surrounding us and our eyes locked. The
circle of fire flared high.

Rising to hands and knees, he
crawled to me. His pupils were their normal black and magic oozed out of his
pores, rushing toward me faster than he could crawl.

Shoving Zayfeer out of the way,
Luc lifted me and helped me sit with my back to the Tree. His gaze never left
mine as he covered the wound over my heart with his hand. Raw, undiluted power
zapped my wound. My body arched and froze for a moment as his magic raced
through me.

The hole in my heart shrunk and
disappeared. The torn tendons and muscles knitted themselves back together. Bones
repaired and the ragged skin smoothed over.

Luc started to say something,
stopped. His eyes burned with sorrow. A hint of desperation.

I patted his hand where it rested
over my heart. “It’s okay.”

He wiped water from his face,
glanced at the sky and swore at God. “It is
not
okay.”

I tested my magic…it was weak, but
it was there. I touched the Tree.

Shelter us.

Dozens of leaves burst forth from
the highest branches, forming a canopy and cutting off the rain. “You were
under a spell, Luc. You didn’t know what you were doing.”

“That’s just it.” He sighed
heavily and sat so he faced me. “I knew exactly what my beast was doing. I just
couldn’t stop him.”

Under the shelter of the Tree,
the rain ceased and the flood vanished.

Everything was so clear to me,
but neither male angel seemed to get it. “That’s why you have me. Because I can
control him. I can help
you
control him. He’s not a beast any more than
you are, or the angels who followed us into battle, or the humans who sin and
do terrible things to each other. Sin is not a dragon living inside us,
separate from our essence. The dragon is simply part of our nature. The duality
of good and evil, faith and doubt, love and fear.”

As I spoke, the fire-scorched,
rain-soaked earth sprouted green shoots of grass. New saplings sprang out of
fallen trees. The Tree of Knowledge burgeoned with more leaves and ivy wound
its way around the trunk, tickling my backside.

The circle of fire quieted to a
slow burn. In the distance I heard a song. Not angels…birdsong. I took Luc’s
hand and squeezed. “One cannot exist without the other and we must embrace
that. We must love ourselves, the good
and
the bad, if we’re ever to
find true redemption. True peace.”

Zayfeer sat a few feet away. He
snorted. “Kill me now.”

I snatched up his sword, lying
next to me, and launched it at his heart. It struck home and he flew back and
hit the dirt, finally speechless. “That,” I said, “can be arranged.”

From his spot on the ground, he
sputtered and raised a hand to the heavens. “She tried to kill me. Did you see
that?”

Pushing to my feet, I walked
over, grabbed the sword and yanked it out. “You’re an angel, and as you just
told me, you can’t die. Unfortunately.”

He clapped his hands over his
wound, which was already healing, and sat up. “Consider yourself excommunicated
from my Christmas card list.”

Bending down in front of him, I
shoved the point of the sword under his chin. “I may not be able to kill you,
but if you try to kidnap me again and take me to Heaven, I’ll cut off your
balls. We clear?”

“This is my new purgatory, isn’t
it? To be stuck here with you and lover boy for eternity.”

“Luc and I aren’t stuck here.” I
jammed his sword in the ground. “Only you.”

He glanced at Luc, who shrugged,
and looked back at me. “What are you talking about?”

“Luc has his magic back. And…” I
rubbed my lower belly and smiled. “The sacred union has been achieved.”

Luc and Zayfeer both looked
confused.

“The sacred union.” I pointed at
Luc and the Tree. “You, me, the Tree of Knowledge. Good and evil and all
knowledge of both, merged into one being.”

Again, the men looked at me with
blank faces.

Rolling my eyes, I huffed a
little. Then I walked over to Luc and put his hand on my stomach. “I’m
pregnant. With your baby. And if this all goes according to plan, she’s going
to bring Heaven to Earth.”

I’d never seen Lucifer
speechless.

His mouth opened, shut. Opened
again. “You…I…” He wiggled a finger back and forth between us. “We, uh…huh. I
see.”

But apparently he didn’t. He
shook his head. “How is that possible?”

“Anything’s possible with love.”
Yeesh, I sounded like Keisha. “The Tree showed me the truth about everything,
Luc. I’m afraid Zayfeer was right about this one. Our baby is quite possibly
the one entity in the entire universe that can reunite the Fallen with Heaven,
if
they wish to be redeemed.”

Me, I was digging my life on
Earth. I hoped Lucifer was digging it with me.

He looked away, blinked a couple
times. When his gaze returned to mine, it was filled with trepidation.

My heart fell. I turned sharply
and put my back to him so he wouldn’t see the tears welling in my eyes.

This was a shock, obviously, but
I’d been sure he’d be happy about it. I forced my voice to sound normal. “Hell
will continue to exist, as will purgatory. Balance must be maintained, blah,
blah, blah, so you’ll be free to stay where you are, if that’s what you want.”

As the silence stretched, I
looked toward the City of Lost Angels. The last of the clouds had left,
revealing a beautiful full moon in purgatory. What once was sand separating the
forest from the city, was now a lush meadow. 

In the distance, the church
glowed. Moonlight illuminated the figurehead of Lucifer, the statue casting its
arms wide over the trapped angels. Beyond the city, a sea rose and the faint
smell of salt water carried on the air. The air held the faint color of pink.

My heart hurt, my stomach hurt.
My skin felt as rough and raw as my nerves. This was all on me, now. Saving the
lost angels, bringing the child of Heaven and Hell into the world, restoring a
new kind of balance.

I could do it on my own.
Would
do it on my own. But it would have been so much better to do it with the man I
loved.

How old-fashioned of me, right?

Underneath the hurt, a sliver of
anger flared. In that moment, if I hadn’t loved Lucifer so damn much, I would
have hated him.

And then his arms encircled my
waist. He pulled me back against his body, all heat and solid protection. “No
matter what our child does or doesn’t do, he will be the luckiest kid on the
planet…um, make that the entire universe…because he’ll have you for a mother.”

The tension in my shoulders left.
A slow slide down my body and out. Peace once again set up shop.

I smiled into the night. “
She
.”

“The Tree told you it was a girl?”

The Tree hadn’t designated the
baby’s sex. Only the intention of the baby’s soul to redeem those who were lost.
“I think we should name her Arial, after my mother.”

Luc’s chuckle at my obstinacy
vibrated across my skin. He hugged me tight. “And should we raise her here in
your purgatory or get out of here and back to Earth?”

In a weird way, I hated to leave
this place. “Earth, of course. But what about them?” I pointed at the city. “How
am I going to free the lost angels trapped here?”

Luc pressed his cheek against
mine as we stood in silence for a moment, watching the deserted church and its
grounds. “Maybe Arial will have the answer.”

“Did you hear that?” Zayfeer said
from behind us.

Luc and I looked back at him. He
was staring over his shoulder at a part of the forest where the trees were so
thick, the moon’s light couldn’t touch the forest floor. “I swear I heard
something.”

“Time to go,” Luc murmured in my
ear.

Goosebumps ran down my spine as
my ears strained to pick up the sounds of a horror monster. “Definitely.”

Zayfeer hustled over. “About
returning to Earth, Amo. You’re going to need help protecting your sister from
that lousy vampire, Latimer, and hunting down those other demons that escaped
from
my
purgatory.”

“My sister? You mean Mikayla?”

“I thought the Tree showed you
everything.”

I thought so too. Taking a deep
breath, I poked around inside my brain.

O-
kay
. There it was. The
memory of Mikayla with her hair down, sitting next to Emilia at the party, and
me thinking then, even before the IV hookup of knowledge, that we shared the
same mother.

It had been a simple inkling of
the truth. One I hadn’t given my full attention to. Now it seemed so obvious, I
almost smacked my forehead with my palm. “But Mikayla’s mother died on the
steps of Immaculate Con..cep…tion... oh, my God.”

Even as I said the words, one of the
purgatory scenes played out in my mind. “The woman with the red cape, running
up the stairs…”

Z nodded. “That was your mother.
Yours, Emilia’s
and
Mikayla’s.”

“She was alive and living in Eden
all these years and neither Emilia nor I knew it? Why didn’t she come for us?
Why didn’t she…”

One of Luc’s hands cupped my shoulder
and squeezed. “She was protecting you. All of you. She made a pact with God
before you were born, Amy. Because of her knowledge and her contact with Him,
she wasn’t allowed to stay with you and Emilia once you were born. She stayed
near you and started another family. When she realized Mikayla had powers, too,
she tried to protect her, keep her powers from coming into their full potential
and hide her from both Heaven and Hell. She knew it wasn’t going to work. That
her plans were falling apart and you were going to be exposed if they did, so
she went to God, to ask His favor. She was killed on the steps of IC before she
could do so.”

“Why?”

He shook his head, sad. “Michael
was jealous. Jealous of the favoritism God had already shown her.”

That familiar warm rushing
sensation filled my mind. I turned wide eyes on Luc. “Michael was in love with
her.”

“And he hates you,” Zayfeer
added.

“His jealousy is legendary.”
Luc’s eyes slid to the left, toward the forest, where a
swishing
noise erupted.
Something large was sliding snake-like through the woods. “Perhaps we should
continue this discussion in your apartment.”

“Michael, you bastard!” I shook a
fist at Heaven. “You had no right. She was just an innocent human.”

The ground shook and I was thrown
off balance, slamming into Lucifer. He grabbed me, helped me right myself. “Be
careful, love. The baby and all.”

Right. The baby. I pointed a
finger at the sky. “This isn’t over, Michael. You and I have unfinished
business. One of these days, I’ll be back.”

A crashing noise came from the
forest. Another creature out to scare me. The adrenaline pumping in my veins
wouldn’t be tamed. I grabbed Zayfeer’s sword and stomped toward the noise. “Show
me what you’ve got, Axeman, or whoever the hell you are.”

“Amy,” Lucifer warned.

I held up a hand to shush him.
Raised the sword as the crashing grew nearer.

I was done running from monsters.
Done running from the past.

A second later, Nikita burst from
the trees, tongue lolling. She stopped short at the sight of the sword and my
fighting stance. Her dark eyes darted around. “You’ve spruced things up while I
was gone.”

Cephiel emerged next, also
looking over my purgatory with a critical eye. “Thought you said this place was
a dump, Nikita.”

“It was. Now it’s…healthier. No wonder
the forest is such a bitch to get through. All that green.” She shivered. “Blech.”

I lowered the sword. “What are
you two doing here?”

Cephiel pointed at the dog. “Nikita
dragged me here.”

She panted. “He’s just mad
because I interrupted him and his girlfriend. Good thing I did, too. Yeesh.
Talk about immaculate conception.”

So
didn’t need that mental image in my head. “Why are
you here?” I repeated.

“Well, duh. To save you.”

Cephiel eyed Lucifer in his naked state, then frowned at me.
“Please tell me you didn’t sell your soul again.”

I looked at Luc. “He doesn’t know, does he?”

“He knows,” Zayfeer said. “He’s just playing dumb.”

My guardian angel’s eyes widened. “You touched the Tree?”

“It was a little more than a touch, but yeah. I know
everything. Most everything. I know the real reason God wants to keep me away
from Lucifer and why you were tasked with the job.”

“And you’re not going to go along with that plan, are you?”

“I’m the one who can control Luc’s dark side. He needs me.”

Ceph took a step forward, determination written on his face.
“
Heaven
needs you.”

“I’m going to find all the lost angels and bring them to
sanctuary. Then, and only then, can we talk about Heaven and my role in it.”

His lips thinned, his jaw worked.

“So.” Zayfeer rubbed his hands
together and stepped between us. “About getting out of here.”

Luc sidled next to me and took my
hand. To Z, he said, “You’re not coming.”

“I kept your lady safe, Lucifer.
You owe me.” Before Luc could answer, Zayfeer turned to me with a pleading
look. “With the baby and all, you’re going to need a nanny.”

Nikita and Cephiel exchanged a
mortified look. “
Baby
?” they said in unison.

A strong wind picked up, lashing
the branches of the trees and kicking up dirt devils at my feet. Waves crashed
along the city’s outer perimeter, rivers forming between the marble
outcroppings and running toward us. A pink light glowed around us.

I felt an urging from the angels
stuck in the marble.
Go. Take Zayfeer. Come back when it’s time
.

With one hand holding Lucifer’s,
I reached out my other and grabbed Zayfeer’s. Low in my abdomen, the baby
fluttered her angel wings. Zayfeer as a nanny. After the day I’d had, it seemed
almost…normal. “Arial approves.”

Luc gave me a
you’ve got be
kidding look
, but shook his head at my shoulder shrug and wrapped us in his
magic.

I love you
, I mentally
told him.

I love you, too
, came his
reply.

A heartbeat later, the three of
us, along with Zayfeer, left Nikita and Cephiel standing in stunned silence.