Her eyes widened, and then she started to laugh, a mad witch’s cackle.
“Okay, whatever,” I said, and that was when Ramuell tore out my heart.
I didn’t have any time to feel pain. My soul snapped its tether and floated away from my shell the instant the nephilim’s claws burst through my ribs. I saw my broken body thrown aside. The nephilim screamed in triumph and ate my still-beating heart while I watched. Then he went to Evangeline, scooped her from the ground and bit off her head. I heard her soul fall screaming into his gaping maw.
I floated up and up. I felt so light, so free. No earthly body to bind me. No earthly cares to chain me. No angel wars, no souls to collect, no demons chasing me. No confusing attractions or unwanted fiancés. Just me, a dust mote in the universe.
Ramuell stalked across the cavern and tore Ariell in half with his claws. Apparently not sated by his last little snack, he started to eat her. I felt a little twinge of conscience. I should do something, probably. Ramuell was roaming free and no one knew about it except me. He wouldn’t stay here for long. He would find some way to get to a human population and then he would start eating his way through every man, woman and child he could find.
But what can I do, really? I thought as I drifted. I’m dead. An Agent should be coming for me soon, to take me to the Door.
Just because you’re dead doesn’t mean that your magic is gone.
Yes, but I’m tired. Really tired of being chased around by monsters.
Your magic comes from inside you, from your soul. Your magic is still with you even though your shell is gone.
I just want to rest, to be free.
You have a destiny to fulfill, a monster to destroy.
I couldn’t run away. I wouldn’t run away. I wouldn’t let Ramuell defeat me. I wouldn’t let innocent lives be lost because I was a coward. And whatever the future brought me, I would face it, because I was a child of Lucifer and Evangeline, of Azazel and Katherine, because all their best powers and purposes had aligned in me. I had been raised to understand my duty, and I wouldn’t shirk from it now.
And as I thought this, I felt my magic in a way that I never had before. I felt it flow through me, a part of me, not a thing that I kept locked away in a small corner and took out only when I needed it. It was always there, always alive within me, and it wasn’t a match flame. It blazed like the heart of the sun.
I went to my poor shell, and I slid back inside it, and the sun within me burned hotter and brighter. All my broken bones reknit, and my skin sealed up without a scratch. But my heart . . . Where my heart had been I could feel a dark core, like a stone, and I realized that I was less human than I had been before.
I came to my feet, flexing my fingers, my hands, my wings. I felt shiny and new, and my magic was a gentle thing that skimmed the surface of my blood. Then I smiled.
“Hey,” I called to Ramuell. “You’re going to have to do a lot better than that.”
The nephilim ceased crunching away at Ariell and turned to me, mouth agape. I didn’t wait for it to attack or to banter. I let my magic flow through me and out, and the room was filled with the light of the sun.
Ramuell screamed, throwing his arms over his eyes. I waited serenely, warmed by the light, and watched as Ramuell began to disappear.
It wasn’t like he was melting, precisely, because there was no residue dripping to the floor. It was like bits of him were being burned away, molecule by molecule. First skin, then muscle, then bone and blood. And finally, when there was nothing of Ramuell remaining, there was a burst of light and a pop, and all the souls that had been trapped inside him were before me.
There was my mother, smiling with pride, and Patrick giving me a goofy grin and a thumbs-up. There was the woman who’d been eaten in front of the Starbucks. And there was . . .
“Evangeline.”
The voice filled the cavern, and I turned, and my own light dimmed beside the glory of the one who stood there. His face was perfection, his eyes were like two stars, and his wings were as black and glossy as the deepest part of night. But it was not his beauty that had me choking back sobs. It was the look of love on his face, a look that had always been for her, only for her, his Evangeline.
The Morningstar held his arms out to her and she came to him, and he enfolded her in his wings and murmured words of love.
After a few moments he held her away from him, and his eyes gleamed brighter than before. She nodded, and he opened a portal in front of her. Inside the portal was the Door, and Michael was waiting, beckoning to all the lost souls.
The souls slowly filed through the portal, Patrick waving to me, my mother blowing me a kiss. I didn’t have time to go to her, to tell her all the things that were in my heart. The little girl inside me cried to see my mommy going away again. The Agent in me knew that she had died a long time ago, and this was the best way. The longer she stayed, the harder it would be for her to leave.
Then Lucifer reluctantly released Evangeline, and she turned to go. Just as she was about to enter the portal, she glanced back at me and gave me a small nod. I returned the gesture, and she disappeared, the portal closing behind her.
Then Lucifer turned his starlight eyes on me and said, “Granddaughter,” and held out his arms to me as he had to Evangeline.
I felt compelled to run to him, to embrace him, to feel the warm glow of his approval on me, to kneel to him and call him my lord. This last impulse checked me. I might be his granddaughter, but I was also—as I had told Evangeline—my own self. I was Madeline Black, and I kneeled to no one.