Forgiven (Book 3, The Watchers Trilogy; Young Adult Paranormal Romance) (33 page)

“Horace told us where it was,” I said, not having any control over what I was saying.  It was like whatever Lucifer commanded, I did automatically.
He must have seen the confusion I felt in my expression because he began to laugh.

“You have no idea what’s going on do you?”

“No,” I answered.

“Who do you think made that ring, Lilly?”

“I don’t know.”

“I made
it
to control the
angels
under my command.  I lost it in battle and assumed it had been destroyed by Michael or one of the other arch angels after I was banished from
Heaven
. 
By that time
I didn’t really care though, the fallen who came to
E
arth with me were completely under my control anyway.  I didn’t need the ring anymore.  Imagine my surprise when it was given to King Solom
o
n to
use against
the angels
and jinn
under my command.  I ordered everyone to stay away from Solom
o
n while he had possession of the ring but in truth it was my way to weed out the weak.  Those who thought they knew better than me and wanted to
take possession of
the ring for themselves went after it only to find themselves trapped with Solom
o
n for all eternity.  Only someone with a pure soul could have taken the ring from them. I guess I really shouldn’t have been surprised you were the one who was able to get it.
  Lucky for me you
kept wearing the ring which made you
controllable by me
, its original owner
.
”

He smiled and I died a little inside.

“I would never forge a ring I
couldn’t
call to me if
I wanted
it
.  I simply didn’t need
to call it to me
until now.”
 

Lucifer cocked his head
to the side as he looked at me
.  “You look like you want to ask
me
something.  Go ahead
and ask
, I’ll
answer anything you want to know.  We have a couple of minutes until the end of the universe.
”

“Why are you doing this?”

“So I can win.  I thought that would be obvious.”

“But you’ll die too.  Why would you want to?”

“Death is better than living on this God forsaken planet with you little monkeys.  You can’t imagine what its like to have the one person you love the most
order
you to bow down to creature
s
completely beneath you in every possible aspect.  I’m finally going to do what he
should have
done
a long time ago
.  If I have to sacrifice myself in the process, so be it.  Think of it as giving the universe a chance to start over.  He’ll have a clean slate to begin again.”

“Why are you so jealous of us?”

“I’m not jealous!”  Lucifer became livid, his face
turning red.  “It’s hatred I feel.  Not jealousy.  Now shut up so I can do what needs to be done.”

I tried to make my body do something, anything
,
but I couldn’t even twitch my little finger much less phase myself somewhere safe.  In the back of my mind I could hear
Tara
tell me, “I told you so, girl.”  If I had let her come into the bathroom with me she probably would have ripped the ring off my finger
when it began to glow
saving me from being under Lucifer’s control.

Even though I knew
the circumstances I found myself in
looked hopeless, I didn’t loose faith
everyt
hing would work out in the end. 
A vision
of my daughter floated in the ether of my memories. 
Her face was crystal clear in my mind like she was standing right in front of me
.
  I knew I would survive this day somehow because I had too much to live for.

Something which looked like a circular rainbow formed in the sky overhead.  I heard Lucifer laugh and the body of Lucas Hunter collapsed
t
o the ground.  Lucifer stood before me in his true form looking much like Uriel had, completely translucent only casting a slight shimmer against the white snow, but I could feel his presence now, no longer hidden by the skin of a human
body
.

I stood helpless as he floated closer to me
, intent on possessing my body to tear the universe apart.
  The world around me faded to black like it was a
scene in a
movie and all I could hear was silence.

I watched as Lilly closed the door.  Her soft lips moved in a silent ‘Thank you’
to me
.  I couldn’t repress my smile or miss an opportunity to wink at her secretly.  I stood there, staring at the door, marveling at how the meaning of my life had changed in such a short period of time.

My wife.  My love.  My life.  Lilly had become all those things to me, and I couldn’t imagine trying to live in a world where she didn’t exist.
  It was a concept I refused to even consider
as
a possibility.

“You two are too cute sometimes,”
Tara
said to me.  “I swear I’ve never seen Lilly so happy.”

“I will always strive to keep her happy,” I
promised
Tara
.  “I hope you know that.”

“Yeah,”
Tara
said, a slow smile spreading her lips.  “I know that Prince Charming.”

“Brand!”

I turned to the voice of Will calling me from the front of my home instantly knowing what he was going to tell me.
  I could sense the presence of the others just as well as he.

I grabbed
Tara
and phased her to my home in
Lakewood
.

“What the…” 

“Stay here,” I told her.  “It’s not safe for you back there.  I’ll send Malik as soon as I can.”

She looked at me stunned, only one word issuing from her lips, “Lilly…”

“We’ll protect her,” I promised, before phasing back to
the outside of my
London
home
’
s front door
.
 

I found Will standing
just inside the house
at
the o
pen door, staring straight ahead of him
to the front lawn.  All of the
Watchers st
ood
behind him
in the foyer
.
  When I turned to look at what was coming, I saw a multitude of fallen rebellion angels like Will staring back at us
with only one thing on their collective minds: war.

“How many?” I asked.

“
All of them,” Will replied.

“Well, I guess he’s playing for keeps this time,” Mason said, as he and Malco
l
m came to stand with us.

“This should be fun
.
” Malcolm s
mile
d.  “I haven’t had a good fight since the last war.”

“But I don’t think Lucifer is here,” Will said.  “I can sense him anywhere when he’s not in a human body, but
even
if he were here in the Lucas form, I should
be able to
sense him
if he were that close
.”

“Could this be a distraction?” Mason questioned.

“Where is Lilly?” Malcolm asked.

I phased to the bathroom.  Lilly was gone but there wasn’t a phase trail. 
I refused to let panic set in.  More than likely she had just stepped out and I just missed her leaving. 
I went back to the others. 

“She’s not where I left her,” I told them.  “But there isn’t a phase trail there either.
She has to be somewhere in the house.
Help me find her.”

We phased all over the house, calling out her name.  When I came across Malik, he began to ask me what was going on
,
but I didn’t have time to tell him.  I phased him to
Lakewood
to be with
Tara
and continued to search for Lilly
back in
London
.

I phased back into my den, knowing how much she loved the couch there.  More often than not she would seek it out and curl up on its soft leather to
nap on
.

I didn’t find Lilly there but I did find Will.

“Any luck?” I asked him.

Will turned to me.  The fear in his eyes told me something was terribly wrong.

“I feel him,” Will whispered, before grabbing my arm and phasing us.

The sun glared off the hard packed snow all around us.  A calm biting wind yawned against the open plain.  In the distance, the jagged
black
edges of a mountain range could be seen.

“No!” Will screamed, falling to his knees in front of me.

I followed his gaze and watched helplessly as Lucifer, in his true angelic form approached Lilly.  Why wasn’t she phasing away?  Why was she just standing there allowing Lucifer to come closer to possess her?  I knew in those split seconds something was wrong but not what.

The body once belonging to Will Kilpatrick crumbled to the snow lifeless.  I watched as the fallen angel who had possessed Will so long ago and who had fallen in love with a human flew across the ice with unimaginable speed propelling himself against Lucifer gifting me with the few seconds I needed to phase to Lilly.

I grabbed her arm and attempted to phase us back to
London
but something counteracted my power.

“Lilly!” I yelled at her, shaking her to wake her of whatever trance Lucifer had placed her under.  “Lilly!”  Still no response.

I looked up
into the far reaches of the sky
and saw Will and Lucifer in a firestorm of battle.

“Do you really think just because you love her it makes you stronger than me?” Lucifer taunted Will.

“Her love for me has given me
something you were never able to after we were exiled here
,” Will
yelled
back, knowing he was in a loosing battle
but doing what he could to buy me time to figure out how to phase Lilly out of harms way.

“And what exactly did her love for you give you?” Lucifer asked
snidely
.

“A reason to die.”

Lucifer laughed menacingly.  “Well
,
far be
it
for me not fulfill your
final
wish.”

I watched as Lucifer used the power all arch angels possess to turn Will into a pile of black ash on
to
the pristine white snow
below
.

As I kept attempting to phase Lilly to safety, to no avail, Lucifer descended to the snow beside me.

I felt him use his power against me to fling me a few yards away, forcing me to my knees and making me lift my head to watch him.

“I want you to watch what your God ha
s made me do,” he said to me.

I tried to break the bonds of his power keeping me where I was, forcing me to
act as a silent observer to
my deepest nightmare as he
enter
ed
the body of the woman I had intended to die with.

Secretly, I had already made the decision to ask Lilly to end my life with her arch angel powers when she was close to death.  Spending an eternity without her would have been my own personal
Hell
on Earth.  I assumed she would resist the idea at first
,
but knew her love for me would make her end my torment before
she left me forever.

The face I loved looked at me now with fire in her eyes and the malicious smile
of Lucifer laugh
ed
at my torment.  I watched as Lilly’s vision of herself came true.  Lucifer raised her arms to the sky, now possessing the combined power of two arch angels.  The air around me crackled with the force of that power as streams of fire shot from L
illy’s
arms tearing through the sky above to harness the added strength from the sun’s solar storm as it passed over the Earth.  A ribbon of
white light appeared in the sky
continuing to grow wider
.
I watched in horror as two planets, one blue and one orange, appeared within the opened tear. 
The first tear to end the
universe
had been made
.