“You sent Spencer Church into the bar the other night.”
“I had to. You’d missed so much in your drunken self-pity these last months. You didn’t notice people disappearing or sense the presence of golems in the aether. I sent Spencer to nudge you in the right direction.”
“Why me? Why am I your damned project?”
He draws on the Malediction and coughs. Smoke leaks from the wound in his side.
“Weren’t you a Boy Scout when you were young? I’m helping you earn a very special merit badge.”
“Explain.”
Lucifer shakes his head and laughs.
“There’s that tone again. You’re beginning to sound like Aelita. I don’t like you towering over me. Help me into the chair.”
“I think you look good right where you are.”
“Have your fun, then. However, I might point out that if you don’t help me, Mason is going to win and you’re going to die and that if you think that tonight is Hell on earth, kiddo, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
I holster the gun, take him by the shoulders, and set him on the chair. I can’t tell if he’s smaller than I remembered or if I’m getting stronger. Maybe both. Lucifer has to lean on his arm to stay upright. He sets the Malediction on the console and lets it burn into the plastic top.
“I’m not the angel I used to be. I showed you my dirty little secret back at the hotel for a reason. The truth is that my wounds are getting worse, not better.”
“And you don’t want Mason or your generals to see you getting weak. I get that.”
“When Father threw us out of Heaven, all he gave us was a hole in the ground. I built Hell out of my sheer will, the same way he created Heaven. But now I’m falling apart.”
“And so is Hell.”
“The king is the land. The land is the king. The dying king is the death of the land. It’s an old story.”
“If you want a damned doctor, why don’t you go to Kinski? He has God’s divine-light punch-bowl glass. Wouldn’t that help?”
He laughs.
“Uriel is just sentimental enough to help me. That’s why he fell for you people in the first place. But the truth is, I’m not looking for that kind of help. What I want is to go home. But I can’t simply abandon Hell. The fallen are my responsibility. I can’t leave them to Mason and chaos and self-destruction. When I’m gone, Hell will need a new Lucifer.”
“If this is going where I think it’s going, then fuck you and every other blackhearted angel in the universe.”
“Careful with those curses. Don’t forget. You’re one of us now.”
He laughs at his own joke and stubs out the Malediction.
He says, “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not going home to fall on my knees and beg Daddy for forgiveness. I still believe in the argument. Angels shouldn’t be slaves to God or man. But I regret how I made the argument before. All the slaughter. I won’t ever be one of Father’s sycophants like Michael. I’ll be the thorn in Heaven’s side as much as I ever was. But I’m not a child anymore and I don’t want to burn the house down.”
“The way Aelita does?”
“You know about that?”
“She told me. She was practically bragging about it. She said I set her on the right path when I manifested a Gladius.”
He raises his eyebrows.
“That I hadn’t expected.”
“So, you want to go home and help out dear old Dad. Who’s the sentimental one now?”
Lucifer’s lips curl into a weak smile.