The cemetery isn’t huge, but it’s almost maze-like with dozens of tombs crammed together without any rhyme or reason, making it a feat to navigate without getting turned around. Add in the fact that there’s not a star in the sky and the moon seems to be entrenched in a wall of dark clouds, and I’ve been rendered nearly blind. But I don’t need my sense of sight to know that Legion is close. I can feel him. I can taste him. I can hear his hummingbird heart thrumming inside me as if it’s my own.
We round a corner, and that flutter in my chest ceases. My blood runs cold. And whatever spark of determination I felt just seconds ago is snuffed out by immense sorrow.
Standing in a clearing in front of the very tomb that Lucifer pressed his palm against to summon the most powerful Voodoo witch in New Orleans is Legion. He is just as I remember him: angled jaw dusted with stubble, his hair a stylish mess of dark waves, and his massive, chiseled body draped in black from head to toe. He is and always has been a beautiful beast of a man. And even though I know he is not the man I love—not really—I can’t help the tug of familiarity and fondness that twists my insides.
Gabriella stands to his right, her clothes ripped to shreds and her face and hair soiled with dirt and dried blood. The very second her eyes lock with Dorian’s she whimpers, prompting him to rush towards her. But he only gets three feet from his beloved before his body slams into an invisible wall of iridescent magic that shimmers and sparks before propelling him backward. He slams into an adjacent tomb, causing it to fracture with a resounding clap of thunder, but he’s on his feet instantly, rushing back towards that translucent wall with his wife and unborn child trapped on the other side of it. But before he can reach it, Niko and Alexander pull him back, expending all their strength as Dorian thrashes against their hold.
Legion laughs, but it’s not the warm, encompassing timbre that had both shocked and comforted me the first time I heard it. It doesn’t match the deep dimples that I had kissed goodnight before laying my head on his chest. It doesn’t meet the starlit silver eyes that saw past my rough edges and made me feel like the most desirable woman in the world.
Legion’s laugh is no longer what I had once thought was mine. He’s no longer mine. He belongs to The Many.
“So nice of you to join us. We’ve been expecting you,” they hiss in that multi-layered, fragmented voice. Icy prickles crawl up my spine like a dozen frozen spiders.
“Then why don’t you come a little closer?” Dorian hollers back, still struggling against his brother and father-in-law’s hold. “Release my wife, and I may consider letting you keep your head before I extract your heart from your chest, demon.”
The Many grin sinisterly, the threat of violence both amusing and enticing them. “Why would we do that? She’s exactly where she needs to be. Reunited with her sisters.”
I look over at Lilith at the same time she peers over at me. Reunited with her sisters? So this wasn’t the work of Legion. He didn’t conjure The Four Horsemen so that we could stop him. The Many did. But for what cause?
Lucifer steps forward, palms raised in faux surrender. “What is it that you seek, Legion of Lost Souls? What business do you have with the Horsemen?”
The Many regard Lucifer intensely for a long beat, as they contemplate showing their hand. “They are the First Women—the beginning. And they will be the end. Your brother has foolishly fought this fate with his life and, in turn, we may not survive this body. However, we plan to take this world with us.”
“What do you mean he has fought with his life?” Cain pipes up. “What have you done to him?”
The Many release a raspy chortle as they turn their beady black eyes to Cain. “We do not answer to you, Demon of Murder.”
Cain snarls, but before he can bite out something vulgar, Lucifer counters, “Then answer to me. What have you done to Legion?”
The Many smirk. “No more than he has done to himself.”
“And that means?”
“He thought killing himself would save all of you.” They turn that black, lifeless stare on me, causing me to flinch. “That it would save her. He was wrong.”
“Are you saying…” I begin, my voice so meek and shaky, it’s barely a whisper. “Are you saying he’s dead?”
The Many smiles at me as if they’d been waiting for me to join the conversation. As if the very sight and sound of my trepidation is a gift.
“He will be. Soon, sweet girl. Very soon.”
I’m going to be sick, but I swallow down the bile rising in my throat and try to still my trembling. “What do you want?” I manage to choke out.
“What do we want? We have everything we want. We have the Horsemen. We have the demons. And soon, we will have this world.”
“But you don’t have the Horsemen,” I challenge. “You want to destroy everything in this realm? Then you’ll need the four of us.”
The Many grins again before snapping their fingers. There is movement from behind Marie Laveau’s tomb and the sounds of a scuffle that end with a loud slap. And then we all let out a collective gasp. A red-eyed demon drags out the petite figure by her black hair. She hasn’t faired as well as Gabriella, and it looks as if she’s been tortured for days. But Saskia doesn’t give up. She struggles against the demon’s hold, and when he yanks her up to her feet, she spits a mouthful of blood into his face.
It’s over. There’s nothing else left to fight for.
Legion is barely alive. We’re trapped and outnumbered. And every piece of the puzzle that will destroy us all is aligned.
The Many have already won.
I look to Lucifer for a plan, an explanation, anything, but he refuses to meet my eyes. He just continues to stare forward at The Many. He’s not even blinking.
“You don’t have everything you need,” I call out, hoping to buy us some time. They may have all of the players, but two of us aren’t in the game. Especially their MVP.
“What are you talking about, girl?”
“You don’t need the other Horsemen. Sure, they’ll do a good amount of damage on their own, but if you want to destroy this world, all you truly need is me. Why waste time with a plague or a war or starvation?”
“Eden, don’t do this.”
“What are you doing?”
“Are you insane?”
“What the fuck? He’ll kill you.”
I hear the sharp whispers, but I ignore them all. Because I need every ounce of my focus to stretch myself towards each one of the Horsemen’s minds and penetrate their frontal lobes without the barest of clues as to what I’m doing. I can’t flinch. I can’t even wince. I need to keep The Many talking so I can connect myself to their consciousness and try to save their lives.
Connecting myself to Lilith is simple, being that she’s less than a yard away from me. However, I wasn’t positive that it could be done, considering the first time I tried to infiltrate her will, I nearly suffered an aneurism that made me pass out. But this time, I slink in easily and rake a warm, comforting hand down her awareness to let her know it’s me.
Don’t react, I tell her. I have a plan.
Reaching Gabriella and Saskia is a much greater feat, especially since I’m not sure I can break past whatever barrier The Many have put up around them. But in the place where Dorian tried to break through, I find there are tiny, paper-thin fissures. I fold myself as small and thin as I can, conjuring the essence of wind and water. I need to be a speck of dust carried by a whisper. I need to be nothing.
“Go on,” The Many urge, their black beady eyes widening with curious glee.
“Take me. I’ll be everything you need. Together we can wipe humanity from history as if it never existed.”
On the outside, I’m cool, impassive, just as Niko taught me. But inside, my mental strength is being stretched as far as it’s ever gone as I strain to slip through those invisible cracks and piece myself back together again. I smell blood in my nose, but I quickly swipe it away before a single drop can roll down my lip. I feel the wet, sticky substance in my ears, and I pray that it’s concealed by rogue wisps of hair. I just need a few more minutes to reach them. Then I can bleed.
“And what do you request in return?” The Many question, their interest obviously piqued.
“Let them go. They’ll just slow us down.” I step forward on trembling, weak knees, working to keep my mind lassoed around Lilith’s while also pushing towards Gabriella and Saskia. “You don’t need them. All you need is me.”
Lucifer and Niko try to pull me back, but I brusquely push them away. “Stay away from me,” I snap. “This is what I want. This is what I’ve always wanted. Humanity has done nothing for me but give me pain and poverty. You all chose people over power. I won’t make that same mistake.”
I can’t worry myself with their looks of betrayal and hurt. Instead, I couple my manufactured fury with the last drops of my strength, and by the grace of God, penetrate Gabriella’s and Saskia’s minds simultaneously. I’m too weak to waste time with niceties like I did with Lilith, but I tell them not to make a sound or movement. And with the four of us connected, I show them my plan as quickly as I can before I collapse to the ground.
“So…do we have a deal?” I ask, pretending that the quaver in my voice is from annoyance and not exhaustion.
The Many tip their head to the side, contemplating my offer. “Possibly. Are you willing to leave all your loved ones behind? Are you prepared to watch them all die?”
Although it’s agonizing, I force myself to look back at the group of demons and warlocks I had grown to love and admire. The Se7en became my family. After being bounced around my entire life, always feeling unwanted and unloved, the months I’d spent with them had given me a sense of home. Each one of them had left a mark on my heart, even Cain. And when I think about the girl I was when they found me versus the woman I am now, I see that I could not have survived as much as I have without them.
When I found Niko in Hell—or better yet, when he found me—I was ready to give up. I was more than willing to say fuck it and let Lucifer have his way with me. But the young warlock prince gave me hope. He’s been my friend, my companion, my rock when the world seemed too bleak to carry on. He reminded me that there was still beauty out there waiting for me, and most importantly, he made me recognize the strength in myself. His family welcomed me and showed me compassion, even as an outsider to their kind, and never once made me feel beneath them.
And Lucifer.
Lucifer, Lucifer, Lucifer.
Hating him was so much easier when I didn’t truly know him. And while he may pretend that he cares about nothing but himself, these past few days, he has shown me different. Not when he was being crass or trying to seduce me with his pretty face and pretty words. It was those times when he wouldn’t say anything at all. When he would watch me enthusiastically stuff my face or laugh at silly romantic comedies. And the night we spent together…that wasn’t just sex. That wasn’t a bathroom orgy or a mile-high romp in the back cabin. That was immense passion, reverence, ecstasy. And maybe if this was a different time and I was a different girl and he was a different man, it could have been even more.
I turn back to The Many, morphing my expression into stone. And I utter a lie so painful that I can barely choke it from my throat.
“I don’t have any loved ones. I have nothing to leave behind.”
The shit-eating grin on their face tells me that they’ve bought the façade. It takes everything in me to keep my hard expression intact when all I want to do is turn back to my friends and apologize. But, through our mental connection, I can feel Lilith, Gabriella, and Saskia’s sorrow and their tiny nudges of encouragement. I know hurting the people I love is necessary, and if my plan works, they’ll soon understand.
“As you wish, child,” The Many croon.
They step forward, right to the border of the invisible wall, and press a palm flat against it. It begins to vibrate, shimmering the air around it in iridescent waves. And just like a pane of glass, it crashes to ground in a thousand unseen shards.
I only have a fraction of a second to think. And if we’re going to be successful, I have to pull my focus from the other three women and channel it all on Legion.
“Now!” I shout, before aiming my gun over his shoulder.
I let off a round that goes sailing through the air and slices through the skull of Saskia’s captor. She darts left while I go right so that we’re facing each other. Lilith moves opposite of me so that she is stationed right across from Gabriella. And right in the center of our rectangle of doom is Legion, trapped in our snare.
We stretch our hands towards each other, creating a force field that links our powers from fingertip to fingertip. Pestilence, the White Rider emits a bright, brilliant bolt of mystic energy that ebbs into the blood red current flowing from Gabriella’s hands. War collides with Famine, the Black Rider’s flow of magic as dark as her hair. And on the other end of that glittering blackness is me, the Pale Rider, and my silver stream of Death.
The four of us were born into a destiny we did not ask for, bonded by brutality and strife. But I refuse to stand by and let others control our fate while we’re manipulated as weapons in a war that isn’t ours. So if this is the hand we are dealt, then we’ll use it to our advantage. It’s time to take back our power.
We are the First Women, and now the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. And we won’t be reduced to pawns in a losing game. We shall reign.
With each of our powers conjoined, we are able to concentrate and mold it into a cell that traps The Many. They’re rendered incapacitated, unable to fling out any power to counter our attack. Over and over, they’re battered with each condensed plague—Pestilence, War, Famine, Death—weakening their hold on Legion. They roar against our restraints, their host form growing more susceptible with each blow. It kills me to see Legion’s body deteriorating, but this is the only way. His mortal flesh will heal. But his soul will not, unless we save him.
“Move in!” I shout, prompting us all to step forward. The Many need to feel the wrath of our vengeance. They’ve taken something from each of us, but they will not take our will.
We keep shuffling closer and closer until only a few feet stand between them and us. They’ve fallen to their knees, spitting up blood and bile. Black wisps of smoke writhe at their lips as the lost souls are exorcised from Legion’s body. It’s working. Without a host, the souls cannot survive. And without Legion, they have nowhere else to go but down to the fiery Hell they should have been imprisoned in from the start.
I can feel our collective power waning, but we can’t let go now. We’ll never get this chance again. So I push out everything I’ve got, channeling every bit of rage and frustration and pain that I’ve ever felt in my short lifetime. I pour out all the fear I harbored when the Se7en first took me and told me what I was. I hit them with all the hurt inflicted on me when I learned that my father was a murderous angel. And I surrender all the feelings of confusion and guilt that I’ve been holding in over the past days for Lucifer.
Lucifer. The Devil who sparked a fire inside me.
That’s who I focus the remnants of my resolve on. That’s who makes me grit my teeth and unleash the darkest parts of my psyche. Because at my weakest, he encouraged me. Now at my strongest, he is the one who inspires me. After all he’s done and all he is, it is his beautiful face and those swirling violet eyes and that elegant swagger that motivates me to keep going.
There’s no doubt in my mind that Legion still has my heart, but Lucifer may very well be the captor of my soul. And for one night, he was the ruler of my body. So if it takes me concentrating on him to save his brother, then I’ll be selfish. I’ll split myself in two in hopes that we’ll all make it through it this…together. I don’t understand what that means, but I know, if I leave here, I will forever be changed.
The Many are down, coughing up the black smoke remains of lost souls. The four of us step in closer so that we’re practically hovering over them, watching those wayward demons fizzle and die on the pavement. I want to exhale. The end is close…so close I can taste it. But I know the moment I let my guard down, they’ll prove us all wrong and strike with so much ferocity that we may not be able to take hold of them again.
I’ve never hated being right as much as I do now.
I should have known when they looked up at me with those beady black eyes and smiles, revealing blood-stained teeth. I would have been able to anticipate the blow. But in my haze of exhaustion, I totally miss what could have spared us all.
With a deafening roar, The Many fling out a nuclear blast of power, catapulting all four of us back. I don’t even know that I’m airborne until I crash into a hunk of cement yards away. My body sags to the ground, broken and battered and bleeding. The air is stolen from my lungs, and for several long seconds, I can’t hear anything but a high-pitched ring and muffled approaching footfalls. Through blurry eyes, I see Lucifer come into view, crouching down in front of me before picking me up to lean me against a neighboring tomb. In the distance, I catch a glimpse of Dorian, Alexander, and Lars rushing to Gabriella’s aid, while Niko goes to help Saskia. The remaining Se7en dart to where Lilith landed.
I thought…I thought we could do it. I thought, finally, there was a bright spot in this utterly fucked up fate. That we could channel the evil that festered inside us and turn it into something good.
“Eden. Eden, can you hear me? Eden, look at me. Tell me where you’re hurt.”
With great effort, I slowly turn my stiff, aching neck to look at Lucifer. He looks frantic, and there’s an odd expression on his face. Worry? Fear? I don’t know. I’ve never seen it before. I don’t know this version of Lucifer.
“Can you hear me? Please, baby. Say something.”
I’m sleepy. So, so sleepy. I can’t remember ever being this tired before. I just want to lie down for a little while. I want to lay my head on Legion’s chest and let his heart sing me lullaby while Lucifer presses his cheek against my stomach so I can play with his hair. I’m so awful. I don’t deserve either one of them. I know I’m already going to Hell, but I’m the biggest sinner of all for wanting them both.
“Talk to me. Please, Eden. Don’t…don’t leave me.” He turns his anguished face up to the blackened sky. “You win. You wanted my attention? You wanted me to suffer for my transgressions? You win.”
I cough, and a metallic taste coats my tongue, prompting him to draw me into his chest and carelessly smear his jacket with my blood. I could go to sleep right here. I could close my eyes and the pain would be gone. And maybe I would dream… I would dream about the night he told me how long he had wanted me, and how he made me feel so good that I nearly wept with pleasure. And when he looked at me, unburdened by the reality of what and who he is and revealed the real him, maybe I would see only that behind my eyelids.
“I remember,” I rasp, my throat raw.
Lucifer pulls away only enough to assess my face. “What did you say?”
I cough again then wipe my lips with the back of my hand, smearing it with blood.
“I said, I remember. You wanted me to touch you…to play with your hair. Because nobody ever gets to touch you like that. Except for me.”
His tone is flat, but his gaze warms into liquid. “You remember.”
“I remember.”
Lucifer swallows and his lips part, but his whispered words are drowned out by the sounds of gunfire and screams.
The Many have not only regained their strength, but it seems as if they’ve grown even stronger and more bloodthirsty. Cain, Toyol, and Andras attack with everything they’ve got, but they’re not even able to morph into their demon forms to make this somewhat of a fair fight before they’re tossed like rag dolls with a swipe of a hand. Niko advances with Alexander and Lars, but their magic is useless against them, and they, too, go flying. If I didn’t know any better, the Horsemen only revitalized them, fueling their malice.
Dorian is the first to recover, and he lifts his arms to the heavens, conjuring his Dark majestic magic. The clouds begin to churn overhead. The smell of rain is so strong that I can taste the precipitation. And the winds pick up to the point that I have to grip the lapels of Lucifer’s jacket in order to keep my feet on the ground.
A storm is coming, and while the immortals may survive it, I can’t say New Orleans can afford yet another natural disaster of this magnitude.
“We have to stop him,” I try to yell over the howling winds, ignoring the aching in my head and neck. “We have to do something.”
Hail begins to pelt us like little frozen bullets and while it’s a feat to shield my eyes from the onslaught, I can’t tear my wide stare from Legion. The way The Many manipulate his body is unholy, one part beast and one part apparition. The Se7en keep advancing, hitting him with enough firepower to level an entire village, The Many appear to be indestructible. Nothing seems to penetrate, and they’re not slowing down. If anything, they are absorbing the energy and hurling it back ten times harder.
“I have to help them,” I say, pushing off from the stone tomb.
“No,” Lucifer counters, roughly grasping my shoulders. “You’re injured and too weak. What were you thinking, Eden? What if your plan didn’t work? He would have killed you without a second thought.”
I try to shrug out of his hold, but he’s right. I can barely lift my arms. “I know. But I had to try. I couldn’t just stand there and do nothing.”
“And you’re not doing nothing. This is what The Many want. They want your violence, your rage. They want you to lose all sense of humanity. And I won’t let them have you.”
I shake my head frantically, frustrated at my body’s inability to heal fast enough. Frustrated that even if it does, I am no match for The Many. None of us are. And the longer I stand by and watch as my friends are brutalized, the closer I am to giving in to Death’s promise of oblivion. It would have to be better than this. Anything is better than seeing the people I care about be torn to bits.
“He won’t stop,” I whisper. “He’s never going to stop.”
He cups my sore cheek, tilting my face up to his. I turn into his touch to breathe in his exotic scent of deadly belladonna blooms.
“I know.”
Still stroking my face, he turns to witness the carnage once more. Toyol is wielding his sword while Cain empties the last of his ammo into what would be Legion’s chest. Then Niko, Lars, and Alexander do their worst, flinging out bolts of electric blue and blinding gold, while Dorian stays by his wife’s side and feeds what feels like a category 5 hurricane. But The Many are protecting their host with some type of shield, much like the one he used before, although this one molded to Legion’s body. Not even The Redeemer can be used to stop them. No one can even get close enough to sink it into Legion’s heart.
We can’t win. Not when they’re able to hurt us, yet we can’t touch them. And even if we could, would we be killing The Many? Or Legion?
“I know what I have to do,” Lucifer murmurs, looking down at me.
“What is it?” There’s desperation in my voice.
“To kill them, a great power must die. One that will rattle the heavens.” He gives me a sad smile. “I know what I have to do.”
“What?” Then the gravity of his words pummels me like a sledgehammer. “No. No, you can’t. Luc, please…”
He silences me with a brush of his thumb across my lower lip. Even with my face skinned raw and the hail assaulting me with icy darts, it’s the only sensation I can feel.
“It’s ok. You’ll be ok.”
“No,” I urge, tears stinging my eyes. “No, I won’t. And neither will you.”
He smiles, and it isn’t etched in malice and deceit. It isn’t a beautiful façade for the evil that festers underneath. It is pure and soulful and so inspiring, that even with the aching in my chest, I cannot help but be amazed by his splendor.
He was God’s favorite. The most beautiful and talented of all the angels. And now I understand how the world could split itself in two for him. Because I have done the same.
“I want you to do something for me,” he begins. The curve of his mouth speaks of content, but his violet eyes are drowning in sorrow. “I know I asked you to remember me, but now…now I need you to forget. I need you to forget that night we shared. I need you to forget my touch and my kiss and my smile. Forget that it physically pained me to watch you mourn your broken heart for Legion and forget how I desperately wanted to mend it, despite how foolish it made me feel. So I’m going to kiss you, because I’m a selfish bastard, and once my lips abandon yours, you won’t remember all the things I will stubbornly cherish even when I’m no more than ash in the wind. So kiss me and forget, my beautiful Eden. And after you do, my face will be that of a sinister stranger as I was before. My voice will be a distant echo in the dark corners of your mind. It will be like what we had never existed, like it was nothing more than a dream, long forgotten before you even wake. You won’t look back. You won’t miss me. You’ll go on to live a long, happy life without any intrusion from me. And your heart will be safe and sound where it belongs—with him.”
My tears fall freely now, each salty trail a tribute to the words I cannot allow myself to utter. Lucifer brushes them away with the pads of his thumbs then rests his forehead against mine.
“Don’t cry for me. I don’t deserve it. Even if I live on for a billion more years, I will never earn your tears.”
“Why?” I manage to croak. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because he needs you more than you need me. And even if I was worthy of redemption, I have no soul to redeem. And you know that’s true. You’re just too gracious to admit it out loud. But if I did…if I did have a soul, it would be you who could save it. You and your smart mouth and your eye rolls and vicious scowls.” He laughs, but it sounds like a sob. “You knew at least one of us wasn’t walking out of here. Twenty-two years ago, you were my new beginning, and tonight, I will succumb to my end…for you.”
Before I can whisper another word, before I can beg him to stay with me, he crushes his lips against mine, stealing my breath and my memories and my heart. Stealing the remembrance of his cheek against my bare stomach and my fingers dancing in his sunlit hair. Erasing the night he made me quiver and come and confront the darkest, most honest parts of me. Banishing the wild and reckless creature I became with him, and leaving behind the woman who is so foolishly in love with a demon that she would risk her entire existence just to save him from himself.
Bit by bit, the pieces of who I was just moments ago are stripped away as his tongue exorcises all traces of him. And when he pulls away, I look up at the maddeningly gorgeous being before me, my eyes wide and bewildered, and my lips burning…
And I frown.