Chapter 16
“Well, this says the Devil’s seven children spread their dark influence when needed or when imbalanced. One guess as to which of the seven deadly sins I am,” I state blandly.
“Wrath,” Ezekiel pipes up, staring over at me like he expects a treat.
“You don’t get to be my favorite by answering rhetorical questions,” I immediately fire back.
He rolls his eyes and mutters something petulant, and I grin because I think I just embarrassed Mr. War.
“Found the origins book,” Gage says around a mouthful as he walks into the kitchen with a burrito in one hand and an ancient, possibly priceless book in the other.
The two look very odd paired together.
He tosses it to Jude, who catches it midair and starts reading from beside me.
“Read it aloud, jackass,” I tell him as I eat one of my ten burritos.
Told you I was starving.
Kai snorts. Jude glares at me.
“Please,” I add with faux sweetness as I bat my lashes.
He rolls his eyes, working to hide his smile that he really doesn’t want to give me.
Some things never change.
He gave Lake that smile, but I don’t bring her up. The house is still in disarray because of my death—which is highly empowering—but clearly they’ve only started to heal from her betrayal.
I’m just happy she’s dead and that Jude killed her for me.
That’s better than any smile. I’m the Devil’s daughter, so it’s okay to be insane like that.
It’s the universal excuse to all my issues now. That’s the upside.
Jude blows out a breath. “It says we’re four parts of one balanced compass, and essentially the metaphorical needle shifts toward whoever is needed the most for the compass holder.”
“I’m guessing that’s me,” I say with a frown. “I forced you all to be my balance or whatever after giving you that piece of my balance?”
Suddenly, the seven remaining burritos don’t look as tempting because my stomach starts to sour.
“I don’t think so,” Jude says distractedly as his eyes scan the next page, apparently reading ahead silently.
“Aloud,” the other three all snap at him.
“For fuck’s sake, you read it,” Jude growls, shoving it at me.
Pushing my unwanted plate back, I take the book, go back to the first page and start reading it where he left off.
“Lucifer needed four soldiers to divide four treacherous, dangerous powers between. Power that, if seduced by greed, could lead to the world’s ultimate demise,” I read aloud.
The words on the next page take a moment to rapidly shift through fifty or more languages before finally settling in English.
“Since greed was not one of her impurities and she was bored, Apocalypse decided to remove this burden from him and tasked it to herself. As the world grew, she became in need of more power without disturbing her balance, and four soldiers that strong could provide that balance infinitely through time.”
I look up, confused. “I thought Lamar said I was balanced and you four weren’t.”
“Yeah, all the children are—apparently not as well as you, but still balanced. However, they still have to maintain that balance. Needing more power means needing a counter balance,” Ezekiel tells me. “Hence the reason Lilith offers a gift with a curse. Cain has his methods, along with the rest. This is saying you found a way to grow stronger and balance yourself with little maintenance.”
I push the book away, not wanting to read more, and Gage picks it up to start scanning its contents.
“So I stole you and somehow tethered you to me to help me keep this balance,” I say quietly.
This morning’s incredible rendezvous now seems…cheapened. And wrong. Even with my new universal excuse for the wrong things I usually enjoy.
“No,” Gage says, smirking as he starts reading aloud. “Apocalypse wanted four strong, fiercely loyal men in her harem who couldn’t be recycled during one of her brothers’ tantrums or stolen when one of her sisters decided to take new lovers.”
“Not helping,” I say with a tight smile.
“But she chose four of the most damaged men in the underworld who could no longer exist inside a mind without madness,” he goes on. “To keep balance.”
“That makes no sense,” I point out.
“They were already too imbalanced. In other words, you were able to give a gift with no strings attached, because of that imbalance. You were the only one who had to sacrifice anything, because they’d—we’d—already suffered too much,” Gage patiently tells me.
“I still don’t get it, and it’s starting to make me feel like an idiot,” I say on a sigh while running a hand through my hair.
Kai starts explaining. “When you’re a resident of hell, you can’t repent. You can hold only a certain amount of impurities—usually it’s a very high threshold. But if those impurities tip the scales, you’ll start going mad. Much like humans, only on a much more volatile and dangerous level.”
“Once you start going mad, there is no turning back,” Jude goes on, frowning. “At least not that I’ve heard of. It’s why we try to keep balance. If you preserve balance, you maintain balance within yourself. Affecting the balance of the universe without consideration for the balance will drive you mad.”
“Okay…” I draw the word out, looking around at them.
Gage continues reading. “These four were deranged, scarred from hell’s black heart where they were kept when they couldn’t be recycled.”
Kai groans, pushing his own food away. “We were in hell’s black heart?” he asks incredulously. “No one leaves there.”
“Hell’s black heart?” I ask, lifting a finger as though I’m asking a question in class.
I suppose I’ve never really attended class.
“It’s a place where they send the ones they can’t recycle. Madness keeps that from happening, because there’s no mad monster Lucifer wishes to create. There’s a chance the imbalance would just force them to cease to exist, but they seem leery of that option. So hell’s heart is where you’re left chained, alone, and forgotten for all eternity.”
“That sounds terrible,” I say as a chill slithers up my spine.
“Hell is not supposed to sound like an inviting kingdom,” Jude reminds me. “Unless you’re royalty or upper level, it’s actually quite the fucking opposite. Some spend centuries being brutally ripped apart as their soul takes a new form. That alone can drive one mad in a different way.”
Gage keeps reading, and I try not to interrupt this time.
“The four had been lost to hysteria, left alone, and chained in the dark chambers where the only sounds were their own screams or those of the souls who just wanted to die, but couldn’t. Because they were eternal now.”
He swallows thickly.
“The nightmares,” Ezekiel says quietly.
“We thought they were a vision of the future, when really it was just an echo of the past,” Kai says on a groan. “We’ve been chasing away a fate we’ve already endured. All that paranoia for nothing.”
“What?” I ask, but they ignore me as Gage continues reading.
“Apocalypse found the most damaged men she could. The ones who needed this relief with desperation. The only way to save them was to give them the power that could tear apart the world and shatter the balance completely if anything went wrong.”
“That doesn’t sound smart,” Ezekiel says with a grin, looking over at me. “We were mad.”
“Well, apparently I was too. The point is, did I make you slaves as my payment?” I ask, seriously worried just how horrible I truly was.
“No,” Jude says like he knows the answer. “It was a truly free gift. Besides, that would have been too easy and you secretly hate easy.”
“He’s right,” Gage says, drawing my attention back to him. “You healed their bodily wounds. You released them from the chains. And you pushed the power into their bodies one at a time. Then you hovered over them, caring for them for almost a century, as their minds and bodies continued to grow stronger. They slept under your watchful eye for the first time since the madness crept in. And they made up for the many centuries that sleep had evaded them. That version of you was enchanted by the effect you—and only you—seemed to have on them—on us.”
Ezekiel’s hands slide around my waist, almost as though he’s drawing some of that peace out of me. Rather ironic that I provide peace, given the obvious.
“The end of the world offers the four of you peaceful dreams. I’m starting to wonder just how mad you must have been,” I state dryly.
Jude’s lips twitch as he leans over to my ear. “That means we were really fucking terrible before you.”
Suppressing a shiver, I stare at Gage as he grins enigmatically.
“After a century of peaceful rest in her chambers, the four awoke ready to destroy the entire world so it would only be the five of them,” he says conversationally.
“Geez, you psychos,” I say on a breath. “You even scared the Devil’s daughter.”
Gage chuckles, handing the book off to Kai as though he’s amused. Kai grins broadly.
“Apocalypse, being ever so vain, refused to admit failure. Besides, she’d gotten so attached to the four after watching over them for a solid century that she couldn’t bear to hand them over to Lucifer to drain the power from and toss back into hell’s black heart.”
Kai pauses his reading, meeting my eyes.
“So she gave all four of them a piece of her sacred balance, disrupting her own stability in an effort to save them from themselves,” he adds, holding my gaze. “She tied herself to them, leaving her less than whole. When their bond suffered, she suffered twice as much.”
I swallow thickly.
I enjoyed killing an insignificant mortal man. I also left a fiery trail behind, burning the world around me uncontrollably. All because their bond to each other was hurting so much in the wake of my death.
“Simply put, you gave up bits of your much more powerful balance and infused it with ours in an effort to restore our stability by stealing from your own,” Jude says, brushing a piece of my hair away from my shoulder as he stares at me differently.
“The power did bond the four of us, uniting us in a way that helped stave off some of the madness, but it didn’t restore the balance like you’d assumed,” Gage goes on, also staring at me a little differently. “You had no idea just how unsalvageable we truly were when you came to care about us.”
“And you refused to send us back to our place in the black heart, and instead gave away something you didn’t even know if you could afford to give away. And to four men who were still unpredictable and could hurt you at their leisure by simply abandoning you and sending you on to live the fate we’d just managed to escape after the madness took you,” Kai continues.
I need a drink.
“Which is really freaking dangerous, considering I’m The Apocalypse,” I say on a breath. “Not to mention, the four of you are notably ungrateful, so it’s doubtful you felt immense gratitude for such an incredible self-sacrifice of my own.”
Jude chokes back a laugh of surprise, shaking his head. Clearly they must have been grateful if the world isn’t in ashes all these years later.
“The Apocalypse, as she often referred to herself, took the most selfishly selfless risk in doing so. Instead of betraying her, as she’d feared, they proved to be the most loyal harem she’d ever invited into her bed. And she was their first taste of pleasure in centuries,” Kai reads on.
His eyes flick back over me, raking down my face and to my body.
“It’s a wonder we settled for less even without our memories,” he murmurs to himself.
I sit a little taller, if I do say so myself.
Ezekiel moves and takes the book away, reading it for us now.
“Lucifer trusted her when she said they were ready, and he granted them protection, power, prestige, and various other things Apocalypse asked for, in an effort to help keep them safe, since she broke the law and gave them bits of her. Lucifer would never kill them now. He simply couldn’t. His daughter would suffer a fate he couldn’t spare her from if he did, for she’d shared too much, and only she could take it back.”
“Guess that means I’m too stubborn to do so, since you all clearly still have a piece of me wedged in you. That’s why I can’t be away from you for too long. Even in whole form, I have limits it seems. But how were you reborn with the same piece if we were all killed?” I ask, looking at Ezekiel. “Does it say?”
He shakes his head. “This is just the origins. The rest is a series of equations that make no sense to me to explain proper balance, execution of power, and various other things. If I could understand the equations, I might could understand our powers better.”
“Well, what can kill us? Clearly the Devil’s poison couldn’t truly kill me. What about you?” I ask.
“We’ve been out of hell this entire time, not getting our power boosts and such,” Jude says on a breath. “It makes us more vulnerable than we apparently were in that life. In that life, it would have been impossible to kill us.”
“Evidently that’s not true,” I point out.
“According to some of the notations in the margins, only the Devil himself could have killed us in hell,” Ezekiel says absently, still studying those equations.
Daintily, I dab the corners of my mouth with my napkin, then go phantom and put on clothes. No need to be naked right now. We’ll not be going for round two just yet.
They’re all just in jogging pants that they put on while I was cooking. It’s actually a very domestic image of us. Or at least it was.
“Why are you wearing your badass clothes?” Gage asks warily.
“So you finally admit this outfit is badass,” I state, becoming whole to see how the weapons fare.
“They’re plastic,” Jude says as he picks up a knife from my hip, rumbles of laughter following that with more carefree abandon than I’ve ever heard from them.
I’m almost distracted by the way all of them are laughing, and I don’t even mind that they’re laughing at me and the fact I apparently suck at making my weapons as real as I am.
“Glad we didn’t have to rely on these in the trials,” Ezekiel says through his guffaws as he throws a plastic ninja star.
It bounces off the wall.
This renews their laughter.
A smile creeps across my face as I take it in, all of them snickering around the brunch table like I’ve never once—during all my years stalking them like their unseen guardian—seen them do before.
It’s not dark laughter. It’s not amused laughter. It’s surprised, real, hardy laughter that goes on and on, everyone keeping it rolling by lifting another weapon and making a joke.
“Could you imagine if we’d stabbed one of the blind tribesmen with this?” Gage asks, barely choking the words out through his chuckles as he stabs Ezekiel.
It breaks on impact, and it sets them all off again.
I take it all in, unwilling to break up this rare, never witnessed moment between the four of them.
They look…human. For just this brief glimpse in time.
No wonder the old me wanted as many mortal lives as possible with them. It let me see them like this. I can only imagine how’d they’d be now if they hadn’t died and come back with cleansed souls that expelled the madness altogether.
“You expect diamonds and lush gifts, when these were the gifts you offered in a land of every form of death?” Gage asks through his own hysteria.
“I gave you a course of monsters and blind cannibals filled with death riddles in hell’s belly for your birthday. The fact I’m a terrible gift-giver is quite apparent. Side note, none of you should be encouraged to ever tell me your birthdays.”
Because the laughter momentum is already fierce, they finally laugh at one of my jokes the way my joke deserves to be laughed at. I quite literally pat myself on the back.
“So, seriously, why are you dressed like that right now?” Kai asks as their laughter tapers off.
“Because now I realize who killed us, so I’m going to nip the problem in the bud before history repeats itself.”
The lingering laughter dissipates with that.
Ezekiel moves toward me.
“What do you mean?”
“It means I’m going to go kill the Devil, of course,” I say with a shrug before going phantom and focusing really hard on the underworld.
On Lamar.
On Manella.
On Lucifer himself.
“Shit,” Jude shouts, breaking up the silence.
I feel tingles pass through me from four directions just as my eyes open to see I most definitely just siphoned myself to hell.
Looking around at four angry glares, I realize I also brought along some stowaways. How is that possible? I can’t siphon them!
“You four can’t be here,” I hiss, shoving them away from me.
I flick my wrist, expecting them to go back home, but apparently the Devil’s daughter doesn’t know how to use all her power. Doesn’t matter. I know how to use the killing ones.
“You can’t be serious,” Gage growls as I stay in phantom form.
“Actually, I am. I just need to find a book that tells me how to navigate the illusions the hallways present to keep you walking in circles.”
I go whole, walking toward the massive bookcase filled with little details of hell, I’m sure. Seems I landed us in the last spot we left when we visited hell.
Two arms immediately grab me, but I go phantom and roll my eyes, walking on undeterred.
“You can’t kill the fucking Devil,” Jude growls, getting in front of me.
I pass through him and start looking for the appropriate book. One catches my eye, because the word PACA appears on the binding for a split second before disappearing.
“I think I can. After all, I apparently have the power to destroy the world. I’m sure the Devil made me for that reason because he couldn’t do it himself. By the way, if the Devil made me, you were wrong about him not being capable of such, back when we had this discussion before the trials.”
“Stop talking in circles. Damn it, Paca, Don’t fucking do this,” Kai snaps, trying to grab me as well.
“I’m phantom,” I remind them. “Will one of you be a dear and collect that for me? I think it’s mine.”
Gage grabs the book and holds it up like it’s leverage as he smirks. “If you want it, come and get it.”
I put my hands on my hips as I level him with an unimpressed glare.
“If I don’t kill him, he’ll come to kill us,” I point out.
“That makes no sense. He could have killed us in the trials if he wanted—”
“He’s waiting for me to appear so he can kill me too,” I say, interrupting Ezekiel. “Reasonably speaking, if he’s the only one who could kill us, then clearly he’s the one who did kill us. I’m not overly concerned with his motives. I just want to stop him before he succeeds twice and steals all these memories as well.”
Gage hesitates, like he’s considering opening the book for me instead of leveraging it against me.
“That’s insane. You don’t even fucking know if you can kill him,” Jude barks, refusing to let this lie. Figures. He’s always the last to come around, it seems.
Gage is immediately back on his side.
The more things change, the more they stay the same…
“Lamar stated I have the best reasoning even when it doesn’t make sense to anyone else,” I primly remind them, shoulders back and head held high.
Four incredulous glares meet me.
“So now we’re trusting Lamar because it’s convenient to your argument?” Kai asks me dryly.
“He’s not wrong. I’m undeniably reasonable about everything but the four of you. The heart gets a little too involved there,” I state absently, turning back around and looking for more of my books. “The Devil needs to die, and I’ll either kill him today or wait until you’re asleep to return and kill him later. Your interference only hinders me in this moment.”
“What the hell makes you think you can kill Lucifer?” Jude snaps.
“What makes you think The Apocalypse isn’t stronger than the Devil himself?” I volley.
I grin over my shoulder at them, and they all glare back at me.
“Worst case scenario, I still can’t kill him, despite my level-ups, and I scoot out of there before he kills me. He won’t come topside, and we’ll continue to thwart attacks,” I go on.
“I knew you were here.” Lamar’s voice cuts through the room like a shock to the system. “I assume she is too.”
We all turn to stare at him in the doorway as his face lights up like hell’s worst aren’t literally standing in his room. Alone. With him. After already being undecided on whether he dies or not.
He’s not a very smart fellow, is he?
His smile disappears. “Oh shit. You still don’t remember.”
“We’re here because you told her she was reasonable,” Gage tells him in accusation.
“It’s the one thing she knows for certain is true,” Jude goes on, quite dramatically sarcastic, if you ask me.
“Okay,” Lamar says, looking confused. “What is wrong with her being reasonable?”
“Because reasonably, it’s safe to assume the Devil killed us,” Ezekiel says, glaring at him.
Lamar pales. “Oh dear. That’s not at all—”
“Don’t bother backtracking,” I say, turning whole and cutting him off as I gesture toward the journal Gage is still holding. “Open it up and tell me how to find the Devil. Or do you already know?”
“I know how to find your father—”
“Don’t try to humanize him or me by calling him my father, when I’m without a conscience,” I point out, interrupting Lamar and reminding him of the knowledge I’ve gathered about my manufactured self.
“You’re not capable of guilt or conscience, so when you feel regret, it is true, unpersuaded, heart-wrenching regret,” he says seriously, causing me to hesitate for a split second. “And you’d certainly regret this.”
“You’re not strong enough to kill your father, but he is strong enough to kill all of us,” Gage says like he’s trying to reason with me. “Let’s think this through.”
“He can’t come topside. That much we know. The longer we delay, the longer he dangles us on his strings whilst he plays the mad puppeteer,” I say on a frustrated sigh. “I’m not opposed to killing, and it seems to be the most logical solution to our current problem. I just got you four. I’m not ready to die without at least a little fight.”
Lamar pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Just remember you convinced her that she’s reasonable,” Ezekiel growls, causing Lamar to groan.
“Well, the old Paca was very reasonable, but also very knowledgeable and not running on snippets of information,” he finally gripes, glaring at Ezekiel before looking back to me. “You need to read your journals.”
“Do they say I’m a daddy’s girl or something? We’re in hell. He’s the Devil. I expect manipulation and tricks. I won’t believe words just because they’re on a page in a book we got from hell.”
“I don’t know what the journals say, to be honest. You blessed them so that only your blood would reveal the words,” Lamar answers.
“You were going to read my journals?” I ask on an octave higher. “Those are private!”
“Someone else reason with her. I’ve forgotten how exhausting she can be,” he groans.
“If Lucifer didn’t want us dead because it would have made his child suffer, I highly doubt he’s responsible for our deaths,” Jude says, reciting the origins journal.
“That was from the beginning, and a lot of centuries have passed since I spiced the four of you up real nice. I was created to be a robotic weapon. What if I decided I never wanted to blow the world to bits and he killed me so he could replace me, because there has to be six, not seven children, even though there are already technically seven children, regardless of the weird loophole rule?”
Everyone flicks a gaze between them, almost as though that hadn’t crossed their minds.
“Oh for heaven’s sake—”
“Really, Lamar? Heaven’s sake? Is that entirely appropriate?” I ask seriously.
He groans and scrubs a hand down his face.
“What on earth are you wearing?” he asks as he shakes his head.
“My ass-kicking, badass attire. Blame Catwoman for making leather bodysuits so fashionable while whooping ass and taking names. Take me to see Lucifer, get me all my journals, and then we’ll be on our way.”
He just studies me, and I study him right back.
“How about a compromise?” Kai bites out, glaring at me. “You pretend you have your memories and just speak with Lucifer. It’ll be you manipulating him to find out the truth about what happened.”
“And what if he kills her on the fucking spot?” Ezekiel snaps, shoving at Kai’s chest.
“So you admit he’s likely the one who wants us dead,” I say to Ezekiel, patting his shoulder and ignoring all the sounds of exasperation.
“Lamar, send them home. I’d like to see my father now,” I tell him with a smirk.
“Lamar, don’t you fucking—”
Jude’s words are cut off when the four of them are suddenly no longer in the room.
“They’re in the graveyard now,” Lamar says, opening his eyes as his jaw tics.
I cock my head, a slow grin forming on my lips. “I just gave you a command, and you totally obeyed.”
His jaw grinds more, and my smile only grows.
“Like an actual command instead of a gently worded request,” I ramble.
Still, he says nothing, just narrows his eyes on me.
“Dance for me,” I say with the same authoritative tone.
He immediately springs into action, and music weirdly starts playing inside the room as Lamar river dances and curses.
“This is humiliating and degrading,” he growls.
“Then stop doing it,” I say with an even bigger grin.
He and the music stop at once.
“Next time I ask a question, maybe you should just answer it before I make you do it,” I say as I move closer.
He gives me a hurt look. “You always admired it when I looked out for you and never made it your duty to remind me of my place as the others did. Well, the way they did before you became my friend, and I became your only friend who wasn’t a lover or family.”
I move to pick up my journal that fell from Gage’s hand before the siphoning. I open it and peer down before staring at my hand.
Just the right thought has the tip of my finger opening up and a drop of blood spills out onto the pages.
My breath goes out shakily, because I have no idea how I knew how to do that.
My eyes flit down to the journal, expecting it to be in English, but it’s not. Weirdly enough.
“What language is this?” I ask.
He peers over, studying it. “Romanian,” he says with a sad smile, then starts reading the words to me in translation. “War is the one who will always side with you first, because he thinks like you the most. However, don’t mistake that for him being weak or sweet. He’ll punish you for that. Regardless, his constant championing will keep you from feeling so outnumbered,” he reads aloud to me, frowning. “It’s almost like you wrote this to yourself.”
My lips tense, and my back stiffens. Why would I be writing to myself unless I expected to die?
“The next line is in Egyptian,” he tells me. “Old Egyptian,” he goes on, gesturing to the hieroglyphics. “Death is his opposite, in that he will push you to the last morsel of your sanity by forcing you to listen to all the facts. Without him, you’re too rash.”
He points to the next line.
“This is Russian, and I’m rusty, so bear with me,” he says, then starts reading. “Conquest will never do as you expect. He’s also your best warrior when you need him most. He’ll fight at your back even when he wants to throttle you. You need him to be that unpredictable variable.”
He flicks his gaze to me, but doesn’t bother telling me what the next language is before he starts reading.
“Famine will be your most solid advisor, but he’ll likely side with Death more than you, simply because he likes to annoy you the most. He’s secretly the most viciously protective of the five of you.”
The next words that appear look like gibberish.
“This is your own made-up language for your personal notes. If you wrote this to yourself, then you had no clue your memories would be gone when you returned.”
“But I thought I was going to die before I wrote this, and I clearly planned on coming back,” I say quietly.
“Which is certainly news to me,” he says as he clears his throat. “I thought you were gone forever. But then again, you were always paranoid, so it’s possible this was just a precautionary measure.”
“If I thought I’d have my memories, why write this at all?”
He shrugs a shoulder. “Maybe you planned for the absence of memories, but didn’t expect to lose your knowledge. You coveted your knowledge.”
Now I know a lot about the nineties, movies, current events…and not much else. Lovely.
I close the journal and look at him. “How do I find my father? Answer me this time.”
It’s a command that he follows with sad, kicked-puppy eyes. “You simply stay whole as you walk. Your blood will guide you to whatever location you wish to see.”
He sounds…pitiful. I pat his shoulder.
“If I can command people, I’m sure Lucifer can too. How are rebellions even possible?”
“Commanding the loyal isn’t hard. It’s commanding the disloyal that proves tedious,” he bites out, still miffed.
“You forget I don’t feel guilt, so you can stop trying to make me feel guilty for not trusting you or for questioning your motives,” I say with a bittersweet smile.
Turning, I walk out, moving down the hallway in whole form. The hallways change before me, shifting and moving, and creating a new passage I wouldn’t have seen as a phantom.
That makes this trickier. Phantom keeps me safer.
“Guilt is actually a second-generation purity, one of the very few adopted from the impurities,” he calls to my back, surprising me enough to turn around.
Usually I drift down a random path, and leave jaws unhinged as I strut away in peace.
“It belongs in neither, and should the scales ever tip back into purer times, it will be passed about again,” he says as he moves closer, another of my journals in his hand.
“Guilt is considered a purity for the time, because of the good it does. It forces one to heed their conscious. The guilt forces them to repent, to love unconditionally, to be there for someone who needs them, and to protect. Guilt has been accused of affecting free will on multiple occasions, and it remains one of the biggest debates today. But there’s no way to truly eradicate guilt, so they have to balance things.”
“I think I’ve finally found someone more random than me,” I tell him honestly.
Now I know what it’s like to be this side of someone who is spewing nonsense.
“But you’re a being with no conscience and no guilt,” he goes on, undeterred as he patiently moves toward me, finally stopping just a few feet away.
“You spent years searching for four boys, exactly four, who could love you and never envy the other. Four boys who could construct a bond like no other since. You searched until you found it, because unlike all the other children, you have patience. You selfishly shirked all your responsibilities until you found them, also, because you knew the world needed them and you wanted them to be yours. And you’re the only one who could have created them as they are.”
My brow furrows, because I’m not sure why he’s kissing my ass and insulting me at once.
“You’re a selfish being designed to be so. You selfishly demand things of life as though you’re entitled to them. You selfishly break the laws of balance and reason with yourself that you can tweak things to even the scales, despite the fact no one else is allowed to do this without a death sentence.” He grins as he says that, though I have no idea why.
“Because you selfishly know that they really can’t kill you because of all the balance you provide. So you do as you please with no regards for empty consequences,” he goes on.
“That sounds very reasonable if I’m not actually upsetting the precious balance,” I feel the need to point out. “But someone did kill me. Likely the Devil.”
He grins so broadly, as though this is familiar for him. Me pointing out the logic after him browbeating their version of the story at me.
“Indeed it is. Which is why they—the ones who take offense—never pretend to notice. I have no idea how you did this without upsetting the balance. It defies every law imaginable, and it worries me of how your fate came to be for this to have even worked. But you were always smart and selfishly selfless. You’re Lucifer’s favorite.”
He’s really trying to force this daddy’s girl thing.
“I don’t know whether to thank you or slap you,” I tell him, genuinely perplexed by the plan of action I need to take before I sneak away from his randomness. It could be catching.
“You had no conscience, no empathy, and no guilt, but you had reason. You didn’t have greed, so your reasoning capabilities kept you from exerting your excess amount of power without justifiable provocation.”
“So I won’t go boom because I’m pissed?” I ask, sincerely interested in this.
It’s not easy to make me mad, I’ve learned. I’m more amused by things or terrified. Not so much of an angry person. Jealous? Hell yes. Angry? Not usually.
But still…
His grin spreads again. “Certainly not. My point to all of this is the fact that you loved so hard, you did the impossible.”
He steps closer, pushing my journal into my hand, but holding onto it even as I grip it. His eyes stay fixed on mine as he speaks.
“You’re selfishly selfless. Which means there’s a reason you started all this. And you prepared to find the boys, but expected to have your memories, or at the very least, your vast amount of knowledge. In those journals, I’m sure you’ll find whatever you need. I’ll help when you let me. I miss feeling that love like only you could provide,” he says, the last part coming out a little quietly.
He releases the journal and takes a step back.
“That is why I will earn my way back into your life. That magnitude of love only comes from you. Despite what everyone says, that is why you are your father’s favorite. Because how could you not be?”
He clears his throat and takes a step back as my eyes water for no apparent reason.
“Kill your father if you must, Paca. But you’re making a grave mistake if you succeed.”
He starts walking off, and I dart out to get in front of him.
“The earth was scorching under my touch. Was it because I was so far away from them, or was it because their bond was shaky.”
“Shaky?” he inquires, sounding confused.
“They weren’t together, and they’ve apparently fought a lot since my latest death. I was in severe physical pain, and—”
“You’re The Apocalypse. Topside, when your balance suffers, so does your control over your very strong, destructive nature. If their bond was severely hurting, then yes, you’d be likely to suffer the repercussions, and the world would pay the price.”
Great. So I can go kaboom by accident, after all. He’s a big fat lying liar.
That’d be a shitty thing to do—destroy the world by accident just because I’m imbalanced. Humans are a lot easier to kill than hell monsters, I’ve noticed.
“Can you tell me how to figure out my language?” I go on, not sharing my inner musings with him.
“The only one who thinks like you is you, Paca. Whatever it is you wanted yourself to know, you’ll figure it out. Just try to do it in time.”
He pats my cheek and walks away.
In time for what?
“I currently hate being touched by anyone who isn’t them,” I call to his back.
“I know,” he says without turning around.
Dick.