Evenstar (69 page)

“Ask what?”

“Can you get women pregnant?”

Lucifer shrugged.
 
“I would not know.”
 
He looked at her abdomen.
 
“But I doubt it.
 
I do not believe you can get pregnant by anyone now.”
 
He tugged on her hand.
 
“Come on.”

She blushed and followed him.
 
“Seriously?
 
You never in all that time?
 
Not even once?”
    

“No.”
 
Lucifer eyed her.
 
“Who would it have been with?
 
All of the Lilliam are our children and the humans were our enemy.”

Dahlia mulled it over.
 
“You do have a point there.”

“Besides, I desire no one but you.
 
You however seemed to have had boyfriends if I recall your stories and pictures accurately.”

Dahlia rolled her eyes.
 
“Oh come on!
 
I was thinking of
you
.”
 
She blushed darker at his expression.
 
“Yeah, okay, I am a big slut and you are just the greatest thing since sliced bread.”

He smiled.
 
“Sliced bread is the greatest thing since me.”

She threw him into a wall.
 
“You are so full of yourself!”

Lucifer grinned.
 
“Quite.
 
More to the point I think, is that if I had had any girlfriends they might have had a problem with my obsessions.”

“Your obsessions?”

He broke the lock on a metal door and shoved the door inwards.
 
He snapped and lights around the room flamed on.
 
He gestured her in.
 
Dahlia stepped beside him and stopped in her tracks.
 
The room was a huge gallery; the paintings and statues were of her.

Lucifer watched her expression.
 
“Some of the first I made.”

“They are beautiful!”

“Thank you.”

She looked back at the door.
 
“What was the lock for?”

“I tried to destroy them once.”

“But the lock did not stop you now.”

Hephaestus appeared in the doorway.
 
“I felt the lock break, oh, never mind.”
 
He bowed to them both and stepped out.
 

Lucifer smiled.
 
“Magic.”

“Destroy things much?”

“Oh yes.
 
I was very destructive.”

“I am surprised our children did not have you tagged and monitored.”

“They tried, it failed.”

She came to a statue of her without wings.
 
“Where did the wings go?”

Lucifer stared at the statue.
 
“I had hoped you would fall and join us wingless, I searched for you.
 
I was not right in the head during that time.”

“What time?”

Lucifer thought back.
 
“I cannot clearly remember, some of the pyramids had not yet been built.
 
I wrecked one.
 
I flooded somewhere else.”
 
He rubbed his temples.
 
“I do not like thinking back to that time.
 
I was trapped in a cycle, I searched, I grew angry and destroyed, then I would try to destroy myself.
 
I tried to kill myself many times.”
 
He looked at her seriously.
 
“You and I cannot die by our own hand.
 
There is nothing on this planet that can do that, only the spear.”

Dahlia sighed.
 
“Just in case I wondered?”

“Yes.”

She slapped him.
 
“Do not be that stupid again!”

He shrugged off the blow.
 
“I have no reason to now.”

Dahlia gripped his shoulders.
 
“Even if I were dead I would not want you to die!
 
Got it?
 
I want you to live and be strong, I mean it!”

Ceres appeared in the doorway.
 
“I do not wish to interrupt, but we have been waiting to lay Sani to rest.”

Lucifer nodded.
 
“We will be there shortly.”

Ceres bowed her head and backed out.
 
Dahlia looked up at Lucifer.
 
“Sani, Apple’s brother?”

“He perished before the Archangels came.
 
They are to see him off in the royal tombs.
 
I have been present for all of the burials.”

“Have there been many?”

“More than there should.”
 
He looked grim.
 
“Come, they have a private ceremony, but we should be there for the entombing.”

Dahlia nodded.
 
She let Lucifer pick her up.
 
He warped the palace to take him outside to the Grand Promenade.
 
Lilliam clogged the streets.
 
They gaped and dropped to their knees at the sight of Lucifer and Dahlia.
 
Dahlia remembered she was naked, the Primangel in her did not care, but the human part did.
 

Ra and Nix manifested in front of them.
 
Nix pulled out a sari of night and draped it over Dahlia.
 
Ra tied a similar cloth of light around Lucifer’s waist.
 
Ra looked at her handiwork.
 
“Presentable.”

They fell in behind the princes and princess.
 
The Fallen, and the second and first generation Lilliam followed behind them.
 
Berith walked with Andrealphus and Belial, leaving Apple to grieve with her brothers.
 
Lilliam stood with heads bent on either side of the Promenade.
 

At the head of the procession, Morgan and Daphne stood by their son’s body as Aita and Persephone carried it on a slab of rock.
 
They broke off from the Promenade and moved towards the dimly lit Quartier of Thanatos.
 
Normally empty of Lilliam, the area thrived with the newly undead.
 

Pale blue and green glow lamps lit the City streets.
 
Wraiths and banshees let off their own pale white light to add to that of green and blue.
 
Thick white mist hung between buildings.
 
The ceilings dipped.
 
The buildings reflected their images on mirror smooth obsidian and opal.
 
A near constant drip kept the walkways slick and covered in small luminescent mushrooms.
 

At the end of the borough of the dead, the tomb rose out of the rock face.
 
Giant doors were sealed.
 
Thanatos stepped aside at the doorway and let his father Chronos open the doors.
 
They opened silently; the inside cast an orange glow into the dark streets of the undead.

The family proceeded inside.
 

The area within was warm, lit with orange fires; it smelled of the sea and summer air.
 
Dahlia felt revitalized, almost dizzy.
 
She saw shadows move out of the corner of her eye, creatures that were unseen when she turned her head.
 
Lucifer squeezed her hand to keep her grounded.
 

They passed by empty rooms, yet unused.
 
The hallway split off and Dahlia knew without being told that each split belonged to the descendant line of one of her eight first-born Lilliam.
 
They passed by Titan’s and Leviathan’s.
 
Dahlia could feel the presence of the dead, her family.
 
She clung to Lucifer until they came to the last, Gaea’s children.
 
Chronos opened the door and they passed into the next hall.

The rooms here began to be occupied.
 
The procession walked down a branch and stopped at two rooms, old tombs.
 
There were no doorways to block the views, only simple crafted archways.
 
Inside the first room, lay three beautifully carved tombs made from marble.
 
Two had sealed lids and were wrapped in ever-blooming orange flowers; one remained open, not yet filled.
 
Apple left the group and walked inside.
 
She rested her hands on the tombs of her sisters.
 
Berith broke off and followed her.

The rest of the party gathered outside of the other room.
 
This room had two tombs, but only one was sealed.
 
Dahlia looked over the archway; a simple fish had been carved into the stone.
 
She looked back as Sani was placed inside the casket next to his twin brother.
 
He looked peaceful, his body showing none of the injuries he had taken at Genon’s sword.

The King and Queen spoke quietly to their two deceased sons, their eldest two.
 
They stepped aside and let the princes come in one by one or in pairs.
 
Apple came last, her eyes red.
 
She held on to Berith’s hand.
 
The Fallen went in next, each to pay their respects.
 

Lucifer led Dahlia inside after Andrealphus left.
 
The other Fallen stepped back giving them the room.
 
Lucifer touched Sani’s cheek.
 
“Another fallen, Sani is but one of our great, great grandchildren.
 
Very old, he was wise.”

Dahlia shook her head.
 
“I did not know him well, but he was kind to me.”

Lucifer nodded.
 
“I knew him for a very long time, and he was that and brave, as was his brother.”
  

She looked at the other tomb.
 
“Did his brother die in battle as well?”

He thought it over.
 
“Of a sort.”

Dahlia touched the stone tombs.
 
She stepped in between them and ran her fingers along the stone.
 
“Lucifer?”

“Yes?”

Dahlia felt a thrumming that had only increased as she went deeper into the tombs.
 
“What happens to them when they die?”

He frowned.
 
“Their energy goes to the planet, replenishing the ground, the sky, and the shield.”

She nodded and looked at the older tomb.
 
“No one gets a Heaven, not even us.”

Lucifer looked over Sani’s body to her.
 
“Heaven was never meant as a resting place for the dead.
 
Heaven is life, it was the beginning.”

“And Hell is the end.”

His eyes burned blue.
 
“Can you go there?”

She shook her head.
 
“I cannot, not without my wings.
 
I cannot feel the link anymore.”
 
She ran her hands over the fish that embellished the tomb of Sani’s brother.
 
Her fingers stopped over the writing at the foot and she read it aloud, “
For we walk by faith, not by sight
.”
 
Her eyes widened.
 
“That is from the Bible, yes?
 
But…” her voice trailed off.
 
“Lucifer, who is in this tomb?”

Lucifer took her hand.
 
“Come.”

“But—”

“Come.”

“Lucifer!”
 
She hissed and pointed back at the tomb.
 
“That does not make sense!”

Lucifer leaned in close to her ear.
 
“What you may or may not have learned in your time as a human child, what you may think you know about religion, please, forget it.”
 
He swept her up and pulled her out of the room, past the grieving family.
 

Lucifer set her down in an empty room.
 
Dahlia stared at her hands, troubled.
 
“The message does not make sense.”

Lucifer spoke quietly, “We tried, Dahlia, tried to teach humans the truth.
 
Again and again they killed us and our messengers.
 
They warped the message until it became their message.
 
Especially his.”
 
He looked at the Fallen that waited out in the hall.
 
“Please forget what you have learned as a human.
 
You know far more than any human would about the truth.”

Dahlia nodded and rubbed her temples.
 
“I know.
 
The dissonance gives me a headache.”

Lucifer kissed her forehead.
 
“I forget you have two histories to contend with.”

She shot him a wry grin.
 
“How many more surprises do you have for me?”

“Many.
 
Let me show you, we have stories to share and time I think to tell them.”

***

Belial jumped Dahlia outside the tomb doors where the City began.
 
She covered Dahlia’s eyes.
 
“Come on!”