Page 92 of When Monsters Fight

“There is time,” Lucifer said. “There is hope. There is power in the connection between you all. You must maintain it. You must work together. This is my task for you.”

She wanted us to leave heaven. To go to another world and help it from being destroyed. Panic filled me.

“I don’t know if I can do this. I can’t even get my wings to hide.”

She smiled gently. “But you will learn. You will grow, and when the time comes for you to take my place, you will be ready.”

Her words were filled with conviction enough for the both of us.

“Are you all ready for the next chapter in your existences?”

The guys gathered close around me, lending me their support and assent.

It was time to turn the page. “We’re ready.”

LUCIFER

There are truths, there are lies, and then there are the stories we tell ourselves. The tales we weave in the dead of night to consolidate the past and pave the way for a desirable future.

“Mama? Are you listening?” Adiana says, looking up from her painting. “Do you like pink flowers or yellow flowers?”

“I like them both.” I stroke her fiery tresses, hair typical of her kind. “But I like blue flowers the best. The same sapphire shade as your eyes.”

She smiles up at me with adoration. “Me too, Mama.”

She mixes paints together to get the correct shade of blue. She’s so small, but she will grow in power. Her kind mature slowly; at least another decade will pass until she is an adult, maybe more—after all, she is a new breed. An abomination.

But I’ve claimed her as mine.

“Mama, tell me a story.”

“Once upon a time, there was a powerful woman whose father locked her away in a nightmare.”

“Why?”

“Because he was afraid of her power and what she would become.” I curb a sneer. “Some prophecy, some terrible thing on the horizon…and so he took part of her power from her before she was strong enough to protect it, and he locked her away.”

“What did she do?”

“She waited, and she grew stronger, and then she discovered an amazing thing: she could walk the dream realm. Her body was trapped, but her mind was not, and with that power, she reached out of her prison to whisperinto the minds of those that might help her. Powerful beings whose greed and ambition would eventually set her free.”

“And did she? Did she go free?”

The Dominion did their part in fracturing the relic to weaken the fabric of Gehenna, and Shemyaza, he never knew how I drove his actions, his conviction that the relic pieces must be found. And even Father’s backup plan to keep me contained ended up working in my favor. They ended themselves when they should have ended me…together. That was the story Father wrote.

But I plan to write a different one.

“Mama?” Adiana tugs on my sleeve. “Did she escape?”

My lips curve in a smile. “With cunning, and wiles, and a story of her own. Yes, she did. Yes, she did.”