The Devil is in my house.

The fucking Devil is in my house.

For all the bizarre, terrifying turns my life had taken in the last twenty-four hours, it’s safe to say that the absolute last way I expected was to end my day with Lucifer sitting at my kitchen table, watching me with a look that can only be described as apprehension.

The instant the words "I'm the Last" leave my mouth, Lucifer's entire demeanor changes. Gone is the casually inquisitive and slightly lecherous gaze. He goes still next to me, tension coiling in his muscles as his eyes dart around the room.

"We should get out of here." False levity colors his low voice, and his lips pull in a tight smile that’s dangerously close to a grimace. If my words managed to make the Devil this nervous, I’m guessing that I’m pretty well screwed.

Once we exit the cool interior of the bar, Lucifer wastes no time in flagging down a cab, scrutinizing the driver for an instant before tugging me into the battered yellow car.

“Don’t you have wings?” I ask, only half joking.

One side of Lucifer’s mouth quirks into a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I never bring out the wings on a first date. You have to leave some mystery.”

I rattle off my address to the driver and lean back onto the worn leather seat, trying to reconcile the fact that this seemingly normal, if devastatingly sexy, man next to me is the actual Devil.

The cabbie drives with the same level of reckless abandon everyone in this city adopts after a few months. Lucifer stares out the window through the drive, seeming to scan the face of everyone we pass while darting quick glances back at me as though he expects something to reach through the cab window and snatch me.

We pull to the curb in front of my house. Before I touch the door handle, Lucifer is out and opening it for me and ushering me up the steps. He calls over his shoulder at the cabbie, "Consider this as penance for overcharging that poor couple from Nebraska last night!"

Gabriel is sunning himself at the top of the steps. Lucifer pauses, cocking his head as the cat fixes him with a bored gaze before standing up and twining himself through my legs.

“I’m glad you don’t have a dog,” Lucifer says, bending down to scratch the top of Gabriel’s head. “Dogs don’t care for my kind much. Cats though? Their no fucks philosophy meshes quite well with my own.”

My hands are steady as I unlock my front door. Lucifer stands at my back, so close that I can feel his body heat and smell the scent of his skin, smoke and some unnamed spice.

I ease open my door, and Gabriel runs inside, his paws nearly silent on the wood floors. Lucifer follows at my heels, pushing the door closed behind us and clicking the lock and deadbolt. I open my mouth to make a joke about how we could rig up a barricade if he really wants to but the words die in my throat at the look on his face.

Whatever is after me, it’s bad.

Desperate for even the barest semblance of normalcy, I walk into the kitchen where Gabriel sits expectantly by his empty bowl, gazing at me with the level of disdain only a hungry cat can muster. Lucifer sits down on one of my kitchen chairs, watching without comment as I rummage through my cabinets in search of a can of cat food.

I’ve just opened the can, wrinkling my nose at the pungent smell, when Lucifer breaks the silence.

"You're the Last. I know exactly what that means."

I unceremoniously dump the food into Gabriel's bowl and sink down into the chair opposite Lucifer, forcing myself to abandon any more ploys to delay his revelation.

“What you are is not just a girl working at a shitty bar with dead parents and too much student loan debt.” He repeats my own words back to me, his dark eyes boring into mine with a look of complete certainty. He doesn’t need to read my soul to know the truth. “What you are is God’s great-great-great-ad infinitum granddaughter.”

I always considered myself an articulate person. You don’t survive graduate-level journalism classes without a decent grasp of the English language. But all that schooling and every witty comeback I’ve ever prided myself on melts away and all I can think to say is a deeply eloquent, "What?"

“You know the stories. Virgin birth, son of God, blah blah blah,” Lucifer leans back in his chair, a posture that appears relaxed to a casual observer, but I don’t miss the way his eyes track the room, pausing at each window and doorway. “What you don’t know, what no one but the angels knows is that Mary’s virgin birth was twins. Everyone knows what happened to the boy. But the girl? She wasn’t exactly born into a world known for fair treatment of women.

“Mary might have been innocent in some aspects, but she was far from stupid. She knew that whatever role her son might play in history wouldn’t favor her daughter so she gave the sort of sacrifice that only a mother could. She sent the girl away and never saw her again. The girl lived a life. Married, had children, and eventually died. To an outsider, she was shockingly normal, but any angel, Fallen or otherwise, could sense what she was.

“She bore two sons, but they don’t matter. You couldn’t trace lineage accurately through a male until the last few decades. Who they were and what they did is long since lost and forgotten.”

“Then how-”

Lucifer continues as though I haven’t said a word. “She had a daughter. And you are of that bloodline.”

He falls silent, giving me time to absorb his words.

It can’t be true.

I’m not some magical person with holy blood.

I’m just Grace.

This has to be some kind of mistake.

“It’s not a mistake,” Lucifer says, his voice shockingly gentle. He reaches across the kitchen table and presses his hand over my own, stroking the back of my hand as though soothing a skittish animal. “I’m not wrong. You’re not having a psychotic break. This isn’t a dream or a joke.”

His voice grows harder as he returns to his story. He doesn’t take his hand away. "Nephilim were always considered an abomination. Mixing divine blood with human? God got a pass for that one time because. . . God," he says with a shrug. "But any angels who stepped out of line and did the same? It didn't end so well for them or their offspring."

“But if the angels could sense her from the beginning why did they let her survive?” I counter, still trying to wrap my head around this insane theological discussion I’m having at my kitchen table with Lucifer.

Lucifer shakes his head. "Things were different back then. My absentee Father was much more present, and the angels were loathe to step out of line. They didn't dare touch her. As time passed the divinity in that bloodline faded to nothingness in her sons, but it stayed in her daughter and her daughter's daughter and so on. But when God fell silent, the Archangels took it upon themselves to interpret the rules."

I feel the cold creeping into my body, and every part of me wants to scream for him to stop talking. To not ask the words I know are coming next.

“How did your parents die?”

I shake my head. “No,” I beg, not caring how broken my voice sounds. “It was a car accident. It was just a random terrible thing that happened.” I stare at Lucifer’s hand on mine, barely seeing it, and try to ignore the hot tears that slip down my cheeks.

“Someone killed them.”

“Yes.” Flat. Final. Someone had murdered my family, and all he can say is Yes.

"Grace, look at me." Slowly I lift my head, expecting to see pity but instead Lucifer's features twist into a look of pure rage. His face softens after a moment, the hate draining from his features as quickly as it appeared. "Your father was collateral damage. Just something in the way. He was after your mother and you. He wanted to wipe the last traces of your tainted blood from the world. And now he's back to finish the job."

I pull my hand out from under Lucifer's and swipe at my eyes, wiping away the tears and pushing down that small, sad part of me that just wants to curl into a ball and sob.

When I speak again, I barely recognize my own voice.

“Who killed them?”

The smile that crosses Lucifer’s lips has nothing to do with any crumb of happiness. “The same person I’m looking for. The Archangel Michael.”

Lucifer leans forward, sitting in the same chair my mother once did and resting his arms on the table my father built with his own hands. I feel the last bit of fear drain from me, replaced by something harder. Little Gracie who jumps at shadows is gone.

“I’m going to kill him,” Lucifer says, searching my face for any signs of hesitation and finding none.

“Want to help?”