Page 68 of Dragon Her Heels

“Very well. We will go check on your alligators. But so help me, if Darlene cries, you will pay for millennia for your sins against my wife.”

“Sacrifice your body for her happiness, then. It’s not like it’ll matter if there are even more people engaging in debauchery in my house tonight. If she cries, distract her.”

“I resent your willingness to use my body to do your bidding.”

I wondered if I could inflict suffering on the asshole despite knowing I’d be challenged actually killing him. “Go ahead, push my buttons, Lucifer. Try me. I’ll tell her you’re the reason baby alligators are dying.”

The Devil’s eyes widened. “I see you are frighteningly like my wife, and this is actually a cause for concern.”

I needed to have a talk with an archangel about Lucifer sooner than later. “What do you mean?”

“My darling’s capacity for good is only matched by her capacity for evil. That is why we fit so well together. She is both extremes, for better and for worse. And it is my nature to temper her every step of the way. Sometimes, I take comfort in that there are evils not even we will do—and we hunt for those sinners and deal with them harshly.”

That did a good job of subduing me, and I wondered what I might be capable of if I had been a little less inclined to care for others. “What would happen if I were a little less willing to help and a little more willing to harm?”

“The End of Days,” the Devil replied with quiet regret. “What fate will you weave for this and all worlds, Crystal? The game has begun, and life itself is the board upon which you play, and every life, no matter how great or small, is a piece that you can catch in your weave should you choose. And today, you played your first piece. Upon learning you were the cause of this storm, and that horrible old lady down the street would have been the one to pay the price for your actions, you grabbed the threads of fate, you cast them into a net, and you forced them to do your bidding. But where do you go from here?”

“I’m not the Fates, though. They are gone, aren’t they?”

“They are gone, and with them the tapestries they had woven and unraveled through thousands of years when fledgling humans breathed life into them through the power of belief.” Lucifer turned to stare out the window to stare upon the tiny dragon still throwing a fit on the highest spire of the castle. “That is where you are different—and you are special. Nobody needs to believe in you for you to endure throughout the ages. But in every future where my father’s precious daughter survives, there is one commonality. That commonality is you. The only futures where my darling persists through the ages have one commonality: the Christ survives. So, heed my words, Crystal. I use you, but I use you for the most important person to me in any existence. I won’t ask your forgiveness in this. I won’t mean it, because I will do everything in my power to cherish and protect her. I meant every word of my vow to her. Together we remain until death do us part, and I will tear up every stone on this world—and every world—to delay her death for all eternity. My hell is a life without her in it.”

I could accept that—and I admired the Devil’s devotion, the depth of his love, and his willingness to bare his soul to me. More importantly, I appreciated his stance and wished for the same for myself, a partner who turned my paradise into a true heaven but brought with him the price of existence becoming the true definition of hell without him in it. “That is what I want in life,” I confessed. “A love that deep, a love that pure—a love worth preserving the world for just so that he had a place to stand with me. But that’s not so easily found, is it?”

“It’s not. The only reason I have her is because of my father. He knows every crack in my soul, and he made her to fill them in and make me whole.”

“Yes, I did,” a still and quiet voice whispered from the air itself. “I have waited from your first breath for this moment. But first, another matter. Crystal, your precious babies are safe. I have seen to them myself. There were a few fated to perish this day, and I escorted them through the valley myself, where their seeds have been replanted and will grow in the garden you tend. But the little lives you worried for, imperiled from the storm you feel is of your making, will sleep well this night and wake refreshed and ready to live their lives as nature intended. They are of great importance, but so is this moment and this discussion, so I did as I needed for all to be well.”

“Father,” Lucifer greeted. “I see you are meddling again.”

“I am. We both wish for the same thing. He who stood in my place made a mistake, and should I correct that mistake, the End of Days will not come to pass. I am a loving god, and no loving god wishes the end for his children. No loving god wishes an eternity of suffering beyond the end of time. I am a loving god.”

The pain in His voice astonished me, as did the tendrils of guilt that shimmered around a presence, one I couldn’t quite make out. I tilted my head to the side. I closed my eyes, and once again, the sensation of power manifested around me. He reminded me of a star in the sky, burning in the night. I recognized the truth of the matter: that light could destroy as readily as it could illuminate.

The guilt, however, slithered through the air and left dark marks. I seized the strand and began the tedious process of pulling it free until I found the connection point. Countless severed threads frayed where the taint lingered. When I concentrated, the impression of roaring water filled my head, destroying all in its wake and leaving the world in ruin.

Humanity had recovered, as had life, but the moment had left its mark on His soul.

I could understand, then, why the stories used the rainbow as the symbol of His promise to never punish humanity for its sins again.

The spray of rushing water in the light of the sun created the beautiful and shimmering colors.

The promise had been made, but His doubt remained.

With that insight, I understood how the End of Days might come. For as long as that doubt remained, for as long as that darkness lurked near His radiance, He might be the hand that ended everything—and ushered in Lucifer’s living hell.

But what could I do?

I toyed with the shadowed thread, and I wondered what the Fates would have done. A sinking feeling began deep in my gut. “Lucifer, did the Fates ever do anything other than exist? Did they actually weave those tapestries, or did they allow the tapestries to weave themselves?”

“Every rare now and again, they weaved, but it was only in moments of greed or revenge. They cared nothing for the tapestries they tended, not really. They existed because humanity forced them to exist,” the Devil replied. “They had no love for humanity, for in their view, their tapestries should have been woven and unraveled in the natural order of life and death. They… were the very thing they were brought to life to prevent. They were paradoxical in nature, and this wore away at their very souls. And now they rest. They tried to rest as they could even when they still lived.”

I pondered his words, taking care to keep my eyes closed so I would not lose track of the shadowed tendril I held, the thinnest thread of future destruction that could corrupt His shining radiance into becoming the deepest darkness. In some ways, it reminded me of the node before I had begun untangling it and keeping it from strangling itself.

As I hadn’t been eradicated from existence for being informal with Lucifer’s father, I asked, “What is your name?”

“Before I woke up as God, my name was Hugh. Then I became Yahweh, but souls tend to view me as Him. It makes the burden of my presence easier to bear. Humanity decided speaking my name is a sin. It is not.”

A sparkle, deep within the shining radiance, captured my attention. I kept the dark thread in my left hand, and I seized the sparkling thread, gossamer in its thinnest yet strong like the finest of silk. I expected it could, with the wrong blow, shatter.