Noah
Screw the press conference. Screw Lucifer for trying to distract me by keeping me busy with this media circuit. Media circus is more like it. His plan may be working, but I’ve also realized something. I thought I still wanted to rule, but that isn’t what’s important anymore. Not if I can’t protect the people I love. And I don’t want to be anything like Lucifer.
It’s all pomp and circumstance with him. Illusion and fear. Manipulation to gain control.
Why?
If you have ultimate power like that, why mess with people’s heads? Why not just pull out the fire and brimstone and take over?
It’s clear Lucifer doesn’t care about righting wrongs by punishing people in Hell. No—he’s doing it all for some ulterior purpose. And whatever that purpose is, one thing is for sure: he hates humans. And anyone who was once human.
He believes he’s better than the rest of us.
He’s wrong.
I wanted to clear the air with my sister before I had it out with Lucifer, but it looks like she’s busy with her own little drama. Not that I want to think about my sister and what she’s planning on doing. Yuck.
The important thing is to find Lucifer before he finds Keira and tries to punish her again. It isn’t her fault I took the dagger.
When I get to the lobby, I’m surprised to find it empty. My first thought is that I’m late for my own press conference and that everyone is in the ballroom waiting for a guy who isn’t coming. But when I check my watch, I see that I still have fifteen minutes.
Wait—I had fifteen minutes three minutes ago, when I left Grace and the James Dean-wannabe, and this watch is precise to the second. Lucifer made sure of that. I tap it. Nothing. The second hand’s not even moving.
This has Lucifer written all over it.
I race forward from the elevator, searching for a clue as to what’s happening. It doesn’t take long to find it.
In the lobby, Lucifer and some tall black dude with a bald head are facing off, circling each other like two guys in a street fight. Lucifer’s eyes flash with blue lightning, and his lips are curled in a snarl. The other man appears calm—even kind—but intense. Keira stands behind Lucifer, looking lost and afraid. No one else is around, not even the people who work here.
Who is this guy facing off with Lucifer? I’m jogging toward them when the ground buckles beneath me. The entire structure rumbles and shakes like a giant earthquake just hit, but I doubt this is a natural disaster based on Lucifer’s face, which is scrunched up with intense loathing.
I dodge and roll to the left to avoid a fissure that cracks right through the marble flooring. When the shaking pauses, I jump up and dash forward. I have to find out who this dude is and how he’s impacting my plans for Lucifer. “Hey!” I shout. If I get their attention, maybe they’ll stop destroying the place long enough for me to reach them.
“Hey! What’s going on here? Who are you?” I ask the bald guy, coming to a stop next to Lucifer and strategically blocking Keira from view. Maybe she’ll be able to sneak away.
“Good evening, Noah. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.” The guy’s voice is deep and echoes in the open space. There’s something pleasant about it that makes me want to smile.
I resist the urge. I’m still trying to assess whether this guy is a helpful distraction or a bigger threat than Lucifer to the rest of us.
“My name is Michael Griffith, and I’m here to chat with my old friend.”
Chat? That didn’t feel like a chat.
I glance at Lucifer, searching for a hint, but he keeps his gaze fixed and deadly on this Griffith guy, who directs his attention to Lucifer again.
“All I want is to reclaim what’s mine. Give me Grace. If you cast her from Hell, I can take her back to where she belongs,” Griffith says.
“You cast her out of Heaven. She’s mine now. And if she does her job, Josh will be, too.” Lucifer ignores me and continues to circle. He throws out a hand and the earth shakes again. Griffith mirrors him, and thunder cracks above, so close that it sounds as though the ceiling might split.
“You’re going to destroy the hotel. Let’s all take a step back and be reasonable,” I say, hoping one of them will listen. This is clearly about more than my sister.
“Yes, Lucifer. Be reasonable,” Griffith says.
More violent shaking ensues. Keira squeals, and I turn to find her backed into the wall, fissures opening all around her until she’s standing on a tiny island of marble.
“Stop it!” I scream, turning back at them.
The bald man drops his hand. “This should stop,” he agrees.
“You cannot stop what’s already set in motion, Michael,” Lucifer snaps.
“I’m simply trying to right some wrongs that I made, starting with Grace,” Michael says in a reasonable voice.
“I take it you’re from upstairs,” I say, trying to distract them and diffuse the situation before they accidentally hurt Keira. Or worse.
Michael smiles at me. “Yes. You could say that.”
“He’s not supposed to be down here,” Lucifer says just as Grace and Josh race over to join us from the stairwell. Guess the shaking interrupted their private time.
“No. I am not. And I accept the consequences.”
“What consequences?” Grace asks, searching Josh, then Keira, then myself for answers. I’m as confused as she is.
“Tell her,” Lucifer says with a sneer.
“I cannot return to Heaven once I’ve descended to Earth. I made a choice, and I do not regret it.”
Everyone gasps—well, everyone except me. I’m still trying to catch up.
“No!” shouts Josh. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I didn’t feel like wasting time arguing with you,” Michael says with a chuckle. “Nothing you could have said would have changed my mind, Josh.”
I motion for Keira while they’re all distracted, and she leaps across the fissure and into my arms, where I steady her against me. She’s frightened, and I’m not sure if it’s because of Lucifer or the presence of this guy from above. Either way, I press her close and bury my lips in her hair, rocking her slowly back and forth. It feels so good to have her in my arms.
“Well, you’ve doomed yourself for no reason because you will never have her back!” Lucifer screams, and rubble begins to fall from the ceiling. Great chunks of plaster and giant crystals from the chandeliers rain down around us. I fall to the ground over Keira, trying to shield her. I see Josh do the same with Grace.
The two are circling again, and Lucifer is paying no attention to anything else. This Griffith guy is the perfect distraction. Now is the time to strike.
I stand, balancing precariously on the shaking ground. The scent of brimstone burns in the air around Lucifer as I creep closer. Waiting until his back is to me, I pull out the dagger and thrust it forward.
The bald man screams, “No!” and thrusts out his hand. Instead of sinking into Lucifer’s back, the blade meets an invisible wall and shatters in an explosion of sparks. I’m thrown back and hit the ground as shards of metal and jewels fly through the air. One jagged piece sinks into my shoulder, and blood pours from the wound as I scream.
“Noah!” Keira cries my name and runs toward me, but Lucifer’s realized what happened and sends her flying back into the wall with a horrible thud.
“No!” I scream, clutching my oozing wound and stumbling to my feet. “Why? Why did you stop me?” I ask, staggering toward the bald man.
“Lucifer may be the Devil, but he is my kin,” he says, sadness in his eyes.
Lucifer walks up behind me as I near the man from Heaven. “You couldn’t kill me with that anyway, Noah,” he says. “There’s only one thing that can, and that’s not it.”
“What can kill you?” I ask, my teeth clenched. The pain in my shoulder is horrible, and I’m feeling dizzy from the loss of blood.
“Tell you what—I’ll show you what can kill my brother here instead.” Lucifer shoves me hard, and I fly into the other man’s arms. He falls back, and I land on top of him. His face is millimeters from mine, and his eyes grow large with fear. As he begins to shudder, I roll away, leaving him covered in blood from my wound. Smoke curls from his shirt and skin wherever it touches him, and he begins to blister, skin shrinking and peeling before my eyes.
“No!” Grace screams. “No!” She and Josh run to his side, and Josh tears off what’s left of the man’s shirt in an attempt to get my blood away from him. His bare chest reveals gray wounds, blistering and spreading out from each point of contact toward his heart.
I wonder why Josh didn’t die this way when we fought. My blood was all over him. The gray’s already taken nearly all of the Angel’s body now, and he’s convulsing on the ground.
Keira’s made her way back to me during all the chaos. She takes one look at my face, and this time it’s she who pulls me into her arms and cradles me, kissing the top of my head. My mind is racing. Why does my blood kill Angels from Heaven? Does that mean I really am evil?
“No, please,” Grace touches the dying man, but screams, falling back on the floor and scooting away. She holds her palms up—they’re blistered and burned.
“You belong to me,” Lucifer says to Grace, eyes sparking. “You cannot touch an Archangel, no matter what his feelings for you.”
I don’t care what Grace is—I know who she is inside. She’s the best of the best of humanity. If she can’t touch him, it isn’t about our true nature. It’s about these fucked up rules of Heaven and Hell.
“You’re my brother…” Michael says, looking past me to Lucifer.
“You should have never come down here.” Lucifer stalks toward him, face twisted. “I can’t let you ruin everything I’ve worked so hard for. And for what? Grace and the rest of these miserable humans?”
He turns his gaze on Josh, who’s on the floor near the dying Angel, concentrating as he presses his palms over the graying skin. “You think you’re powerful enough to heal him? You’re nothing but a pet of my dear brother’s. You were such a miserable human that you were sent to Hell, where you should have remained forever for your sins. You might call yourself an Angel now, but you’ll never be half the being Michael was.”
Lucifer leans down and spits on the floor near Josh. “Go ahead and try to heal him, Joshua. Let’s see what happens, shall we?”