Lucifer steps back, looking more satisfied with himself than usual. Even in tragedy, he’s a cocky motherfucker. I don’t even know why he’s here when he’s done nothing but deceive and manipulate us from day one. He’s the reason why Legion succumbed to The Many. And now he wants to help?
“Goodbye, Eden. Pray for me,” he says before turning away.
My frown deepens, and I want to ask him what the hell he means, but then I realize that he isn’t fleeing. He isn’t abandoning the Se7en and the Dark to save his own skin, like I assumed. He’s walking straight towards Legion—towards The Many. Striding through a hurricane and a barrage of gunfire to confront the brother he betrayed. To meet his fate.
An odd sense of panic grips my chest, and I call out to him. I hate him for what he’s done to me, to my sister, and to Legion. But I don’t want this. I don’t want him to sacrifice himself, even if he is the most evil being on the face of the earth.
I watch as Lucifer comes to stand before Legion, leaving only feet between them. He speaks to him—to The Many—but I can’t hear what’s being said over the roar of wind and rain. A new fear sets in. What if he was playing us all along, just as we suspected? What if he orchestrated all this and he wants to kill Legion for good?
Every part of my body is screaming in pain, but I slowly limp closer. I have to stop this—whatever it is. I won’t let Lucifer hurt him. And as much as I despise him, I don’t want The Many to hurt Lucifer either. Legion would never forgive himself. Even after all he’s done, Lucifer is still his brother.
Halfway to the clearing beside Marie Laveau’s tomb, my knees give out and I fall to the ground, too weak to stay upright. I can only watch in horror as Legion’s hand is manipulated to strike out and grip Lucifer by the neck with enough force to crush his throat like a piece of crumpled paper. I scream out, only for the sound to be choked off by my own bile. Lucifer’s head is barely hanging by a thread of tendon, but The Many are still not satisfied. With Legion’s hand still squeezing the space where Lucifer’s neck used to be, what’s left of the Devil’s corpse is ignited in violent flames. The smell of his burning flesh is so noxious that I vomit again, heaving my guts into the dirt. The ground beneath my leaden body trembles and cracks, birthing deep fissures that open up into Hell and I struggle to hang on to something—anything—to keep from sinking into fiery oblivion. The sky splits apart, casting down bolts of lightning that skewer the earth all around us, followed by claps of thunder so loud that I’m rendered temporarily deaf. Cain gestures for everyone to fall back and they all run to safety, dancing around the falling electric daggers that set the ground aflame upon landing. I force my body to crawl to shelter and painfully move towards the nearest tomb as quickly as I can. Rubble and debris pelt the top of my head.
Even with my hands protecting my face, I’m forced to witness Lucifer’s charred remains disintegrate into ash. But they don’t fall into a distinct pile like I’d seen happen before. They writhe and twist, carried by a mystical wind that suspends them upward. Not to Heaven. Not even to Hell. Into Legion’s wide, greedy mouth.
The Many have another soul to collect. And it’s the darkest, deadliest of all.
I open my mouth to scream, but I’m not certain a sound escapes my cracked lips. The Many will be unstoppable now. The Devil is dead. And judging by the smirk lashed across Legion’s lips, we’ll all soon meet an equally gruesome demise.
The Legion of Lost Souls takes a step forward into the electric storm, setting their deadened sights on where I am huddled under a crumbling tomb.
And then they crumple to the ground.
Oily, black blood spews from Legion’s lips and splatters onto the dirt, sizzling the soil. Over and over, he retches his insides, trembling uncontrollably with the effort. His skin turns ghostly white with each cough and mouthful of murky spittle. The stench of his bile is so putrid that I can smell it from yards away. And it smells like death.
Legion is dying.
He’s dying.
Lucifer wasn’t just sacrificing himself to stop The Many. He was taking his brother with him.
“No!” I screech, using every last ounce of my strength to heave myself up and limp over to him. I know it’s stupid. I know he could strike me down before I even get within five feet of him. But my heart leads my legs and not even my head can intervene.
“Eden! Stop!” Cain roars out.
Then I’m being hoisted off my feet and flashed away, banded in the familiar scent of ocean water and white sands.
“No, baby girl,” Niko coos. “I can’t let you do that.”
“Let me go!” I cry, thrashing in his arms. “Please! Let me go. I have to help him.”
“There’s nothing we can do for him now. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Eden, but he’s gone.”
I fight and I cry and I curse so hard that I don’t even realize that it’s stopped storming. The ground no longer quakes, lightning no longer slices through the sky and the winds have ceased.
And Legion no longer breathes.
I lift my head from Niko’s chest to find him lying in a pool of tar-like blood, his body still and pale. My gaze instantly goes to Cain who is frozen in disbelief as he stares at his friend, his leader, his brother’s lifeless corpse. This time when I push away from Niko, there is no resistance, because there is no more threat. It’s over. And we won. And we lost…everything.
Through sore muscles and cracked bone, I walk over to him. There is no pain greater than the one carving up my chest. There is no level of despair deeper than what I feel right now. I can’t cry. I can’t feel. I can’t breathe. There isn’t a word for this emotion yet, no way to describe the endless agony that snakes through my broken body. If I could guess, it would be comparable to being sawed in half alive, forced to watch your innards spill out in a bloody heap. But even that would be second to this…to this anguish. I would choose that death over and over again if I had the chance.
I’m standing in the sticky, black blood, still steaming against the pavement. Then I’m kneeling in it, sullying my hands and knees with the dead souls. My fingertips brush the hair from his brow so I can see his eyes. Even with them closed, I imagine that there is peace within those silver, sparkling depths. I imagine that he somehow found the paradise he had been searching for. He spent centuries fighting this world’s evils, yet I wasn’t strong enough to fight for him.
I hear footsteps approaching, but I don’t turn around. I can feel the others looking down at him with grief, looking down at me with pity.
“We have to move him,” Toyol says, his voice rasped with sorrow. “The city is waking up. I hear sirens in the distance.”
“No.”
“The Se7en have rituals,” Cain interjects with a trembling tone. “We have to…we have to burn the body.”
“No! Don’t touch him.”
“Eden, please.”
Cain grasps my shoulder to pull me away, but I slap his hand away and throw myself over Legion’s still-warm corpse. “No! Please! Just…just please. I need more time. We need more time.”
I don’t know if I’m able to produce actual tears through my soundless sobs, but each heave is a stab to my heart. Maybe if I cry hard enough, I’ll pass out from exhaustion. Maybe I’ll sleep and dream and Legion will still be alive behind my eyelids. Holding me tight against his chest as he tells me all about Heaven, describing its splendor in such vivid detail that I can almost see it for myself. Or in his car, as he laughs at my terrible singing and playfully chastises me for eating junk food. Or on the rooftop of my old building, surrounded by hundreds of stunning, black birds.
Please, God, I pray silently, cashing in all my foolish hopes and dreams and wants. Please don’t take him. But if you must…let him come home. Let his soul find the peace of paradise that he spent lifetimes searching for. Take him home where he belongs.
My frame rocks so violently through my sobs I imagine that I feel his heart thrumming under my cheek. And…hummingbirds. Fast and dizzy and vital. I must have already passed out and traveled to that merciful dream state. Or maybe my mind has bestowed this illusion upon me to protect itself from cruel reality.
“Do you hear…?”
Cain drops to his knees beside me, prompting me to raise my head. Lilith and Toyol, and Andras do the same.
“Give him space,” Cain demands. With hands caked with mud and dried blood, he gently cradles Legion’s head as if handling a newborn.
And then the most precious, most beautiful sound that my ears have ever heard echoes in the dead quiet cemetery.
Legion inhales.
“He’s alive!” Lilith cries, wiping the oozing black substance from Legion’s lips as he struggles to suck in oxygen. “Help me clear his airway.”
Andras quickly shrugs out of his jacket, letting his weapons clatter to the ground without care. He whips off his shirt to use it to swipe away the remains of dead souls on Legion’s chin while Lilith pries open his mouth. Legion coughs, but it isn’t followed by putrid black blood. It’s trailed by a gulp of fresh, cleansing air that expands his chest, revitalizing his tortured, mangled parts.
I sit there, gripping his torn, stained shirt, unable to form coherent words, as I watch the color return to Legion’s cheeks. I feel that familiar, sweltering heat flood back into his body under my fingertips. And I cry as I witness the silver stars speckle his fluttering eyes. I thought I’d never see them again. I was prepared to spend the rest of my days in perpetual night, surrounded by bone-chilling, overwhelming obscurity. And now they’ve returned to me, brilliantly lighting my night sky with hopes and dreams and wants. Restoring a faith I believed never existed up until this very moment.
I lean over him, aligning my face with his as his gaze finds focus. I’m afraid that he isn’t who he once was. The Many’s influence was rooted so deep in him that I wouldn’t be surprised if they stole fragments of his soul. But the second he blinks away the fog of possession, he smiles softly, fitting those dimples back where they belong. I weep even harder, tears streaming over my trembling lips.
“My firecracker,” he rasps, his throat torn raw. He slowly lifts a hand and cradles my cheek. “My warrior.”
“You scared me,” I croak through a sob. “I thought I had lost you.”
“Never. You cannot kill what can never die. And like I told you, my love for you is immortal.”
I lean forward to softly touch my lips to his, careful not hurt him in his vulnerable state. But all I want to do is hold him and squeeze him and never, ever let go. The only thing that rips me away from him is Niko’s voice, reminding us that humans are approaching, and even then, I grip his hand still touching my face, refusing to break contact.
“We have to go,” Niko reiterates. “They’ll be here soon.”
“Go,” Cain tells him, never once tearing his glassy eyes from his brother. “We’re right behind you.”
Niko nods and turns away, but a loud, startling bang nearby locks him in place. We all turn towards the source of the noise, just in time for it to sound again.
“It’s coming from the Laveau tomb,” Toyol states the obvious.
Another loud bang, and dust and dirt rain down from the crumbling crypt. I grab on tighter to Legion as he forces himself upright and bands a protective arm around my waist, drawing me closer to him.
Niko is the only one brave and reckless enough to approach the tomb, his steps cautious and purposeful. His brother, Dorian, entrusts Alexander with protecting Gabriella, then follows behind, guarding Niko’s back. When the Dark prince reaches the front of the ancient vault, he presses his palm against the concrete placard, his hand engulfed in blue, electric flames. Then the entire wall disintegrates into dust, kicking up a cloud of harsh debris.
I know who she is even before she emerges from that decaying tomb. The brown spirals that brush her slim shoulders, her smooth, tawny beige skin, her stunning amber eyes. I know her as if we’ve met before. As if I’ve seen her through the tortured memories of a friend. Or a lover.
“Amelie,” Niko breathes, his voice choked by the clearing dust and disbelief. “Amelie.”
He falls to her feet, his knees colliding with the concrete with a resounding crack, and wraps his arms around her petite frame, burying his face in the thin white fabric that covers her upper thighs.
With so much love and reverence and overflowing peace in her expression, Amelie rakes her fingers through Niko’s black, mussed locks and smiles.
“Oui, mon amour,” she coos, her voice like sweet, soothing music.
Niko looks up at her with unburdened tears trailing down his face. “How…how can this be? How did you…? You came back to me.”
“I…I’m not sure. The archangel Michael appeared to me, and said I was a gift to you from a friend. A friend who believed that he owed you a happiness that he could not ever covet for himself. He told me this friend wanted you to have the second chance that you deserved. And that with his sacrifice, you would find the freedom that you so bravely fought for.”
Niko spares a moment to glance back at me and the others, who are still too stunned to speak. Lucifer. Lucifer did this. But why? After taunting Niko in purgatory for years and threatening to torment his soul in Hell for eternity, why would he bring back the one who fully and truly still owned his heart?
“He was his only friend,” a small voice says, answering my unspoken question.
I turn to find Saskia, the impish, black-haired creature that bears a striking resemblance to the mother who gave up her only child to the Devil to save the world.
“He was the only one who wouldn’t leave him, because he couldn’t,” she adds, the sound of her unleashed voice still so meek and mild. “Lucifer cared for him.”
Sirens grow louder, drawing nearer, and while we’re anxious to get the hell out of the cemetery that would forever haunt us, we’re afraid to disturb this one rare moment of true and wonderful magic. We all lost something, but tonight we won more than we could ever imagine in a million lifetimes. We were given hope. We were rewarded the chance to dream. And we were blessed with another day to live and love and fight for those who couldn’t fight for themselves.
Cain and Andras help Legion to his feet but I insist on helping him out of the cemetery just so I could touch him to convince myself that he is really here. Dorian scoops his wife into his arms, refusing to let her walk. Niko embraces Amelie and all but carries her out as well. Andras and Lilith intertwine their fingers and maneuver through the wreckage hand in hand. And to my surprise, Toyol goes to Saskia’s side and offers his shoulder for support, while the others pick up discarded weapons and shells, careful not leave behind any trace of what occurred here tonight. However, there is still a puddle of black sludge, a sticky stain of countless dead souls. And feet away, a symbol permanently scorched into the earth. A single star in a swirling violet galaxy. The brilliant morning star that was once the son of the dawn until he was cast out from Heaven to reign over the fallen.
I always believed that Lucifer was a wicked tyrant, completely devoid of a soul. But today, maybe he surrendered what was left of his angel heart. For his brother. For his friend. For the world he both loathed and admired. For a love that he would never have the chance to feel.
I squeeze Legion a little tighter, grateful for Lucifer’s sacrifice. My beautiful demon assassin kisses the top of my head in response.
“Look up,” he says softly.
I do as he requests and gasp at the vivid purples, obsidians, and teals that streak across the dawn sky. And as far as the eye can see, there are twinkling, brilliant stars looking down at us, lighting our path.
I look at the stars and smile up at the heavens. And I say a silent prayer for the Devil.