Last Rite (31 page)

I lay on the ground, struggling for air, and look up into the face of an angel. A weak laugh, no more than a puff of air, leaves my chest at the image of Aaron plummeting into the depths of Hell at the same instant I, the ex-demon, am being lifted to Heaven.

But as I look closer, I realize it’s not an angel I’m seeing. It’s Frannie. She’s more than an angel. She’s shrouded in white light, with the flicker of Hellfire dancing over her luminescent skin. But her astonishing sapphire eyes are all hers as they gaze down into mine, golden tears streaking her iridescent face.

“Luc,” she sobs.

I try to lift my hand and wipe her tears away. I try to tell her it’s okay. But my body will not heed my mind’s commands. I can feel my heart struggle to keep a rhythm, and I hold on to the image of her for as long as I can. My vision grays around the edges and goes blurry.

Frannie lays her head on my chest. “I love you, Luc.”

I feel her words reverberate through my unresponsive body. I feel her touch, warm, soft, as my heart pounds out the message I can’t make my mouth form. I feel her lips on mine for one excruciating moment.

Then nothing.

24

Armageddon

FRANNIE

I don’t know what just happened, but I
do
know it’s my fault. I felt something burst out of me, and when I called it back, I killed Luc. He lays lifeless and pale next to Gabe on the ground, and a fist clenches my heart and squeezes as I realize I’ve killed them both.

Then I see Dad, crumpled on the ground next to Matt, my whole family hovering over him.

“Daddy,” I whisper as my heart collapses under the pressure. “Oh, God. No.”

There’s a crackle of lightning and a girl materializes next to Gabe. She lays a hand on him, her copper hair swirling around her fair face in a gust of cool air. She looks at me with amber eyes and a golden tear slips over her lashes onto her cheek. She bows her head, and in that instant I realize it’s the girl who protected the plane the night we left Haden. Celine.

She scoops Gabe into her arms, stretches her wings, and her long white gown flutters behind her as she takes flight, lifting Gabe off the ground and disappearing into the roiling black sky a minute later.

I look up at Lucifer, my heart in my stomach.

How did everything go so wrong?

“Come to me, my queen,” he beckons with an outstretched hand.

Something burns into my chest, scorching me with demonic heat.

I look down and Lucifer’s metal pendant lies over my shirt, glowing red. I pull it up by the strap and stand mesmerized as it spins in front of my face, the gray light refracting through it as if it was the reddest of blood rubies. Its power—His power—throbs from it, drawing me to Him.

I gain my feet and move toward my green-eyed angel as if in a dream.

“No!” Maggie’s cry rips me from the trance. She lunges for me and grabs for the pendant. But before she can get it away from me, a burst of crimson explodes from it and the air is tinged with the smell of singed skin and sulfur as she pulls her burnt hand back.

Maggie looks at me, her eyes pleading with me through her terror and pain, and with the sense that I’ve been punched in the gut, I suddenly see clearly. I can’t breathe as I turn to Lucifer. “You never meant to return to Heaven,” I say, finally understanding that I’ve been wrong—about everything.

“But, you’re mistaken, my queen,” He answers. “I do intend to return.” A tiny burst of Hellfire explodes out from the pendant, drawing my attention back to it. It’s so beautiful.

I feel myself moving toward Him again, the visceral tug too insistent to ignore. It’s as if I have no will of my own.

The thought rolls around lazily in the back of my head.

No will of my own.

No free will
.

I don’t know where she came from, but Kate is at my side. She grasps the pendant and it goes suddenly dead.

“No!” Lucifer bellows, as if in pain, and I hear Grace, mumbling behind me—something about the shield of righteousness. I grind my teeth tight, setting my nerve, then rip the leather strap from my neck and heave the pendant as hard as I can toward the Abyss.

Lucifer’s bestial roar tears through my head, mingling with my own. I look at Him and, even though He is still in the form of the beautiful green-eyed angel, I suddenly see Him through Grace’s eyes. It’s as though a veil has been pulled back, showing me what I couldn’t see before. I see His true essence.

Black.

Nothing but black.

I have to fight to block Him from my head. Because, what I know now, looking at the thing I thought was my angel, is that whatever He was before He fell, that part of Him is gone. He’s never going to change.

Even though my mind is racing, I can start to see what I need to do. I’m not supposed to get Lucifer to come back to Heaven. I’m supposed to broker a truce between Heaven and Hell.

Without Him.

As if He read my mind, He unleashes a roar that shakes the ground under my feet. At the same instant, all around me, an electrical storm erupts, the smell of ozone overpowering the brimstone wafting up from the gorge. All my hair stands on end as the air lights up in tiny licks of static electricity. Suddenly I’m surrounded by hundreds of fluffy white wings—and the angels they’re attached to. I stumble back and gawk, openmouthed. They’re so beautiful. All of them.

A silver-haired girl who looks younger than me smiles in my direction. She gives her wings one flap. Her long white gown flutters behind her as she’s lifted into the air. Above us, others hover all around.

I stare in disbelief.

This can’t be real.

But even as I stare, my pounding heart starts to slow and my gasping breath calms as their angelic peace dulls my panic, helping me to think.

Three angels swoop in and scoop the lifeless forms of Luc, Matt, and Dad into their arms. My heart wrenches and tears leak over my lashes as I watch them take flight and disappear.

Other angels sweep in on the black mass surrounding Lucifer and all Hell breaks loose.

Adrenaline makes my senses hum as I take in the scene—the battle raging all around. Streaks of white lightning and flashes of red Hellfire light up the darkness; shouts erupt in a thunderous echo; singed angels; smoldering demons.

“No!” Lucifer snarls. He spins and stares black death at me. “You will be mine.
Heaven will be mine!
”

The ground under us shakes with His rage. Grandpa steps in front of me, making himself as wide as possible to block me from Lucifer’s line of sight. “Git back to where ya come from,” he shouts.

I hear a scream from behind me and turn to see Rhen pulling Maggie away from me. I spin and kick, connecting with his arm and breaking his grasp on Maggie. But before she can skitter away, he grabs a handful of her hair.

“Let her go, Rhen,” I say.

“Sorry,” he replies, and his eyes flick to Lucifer. “Protecting His interests.”

My eyes flick to Lucifer and He gives me a sad smile, then He locks eyes with Grandpa. Instantly, Grandpa falls to the ground with a strangled cry.

“No!” I drop to my knees next to Grandpa but am pushed back as I try to touch him. The air around him ripples with some sort of electric field as he cries out again and convulses on the ground. “Grandpa,” I sob. I press my hand to the field around him. “No…”

“I will spare him,” Lucifer says, His voice close behind me. “It’s up to you, my queen.”

I’m shivering violently as I turn to Him, shards of ice running through my veins. “What do you want?”

His voice is low but potent. “It’s not so much what I want, as what I’m
due
. I have waited patiently for you, and now you’re here.”

Without the pendant, thinking for myself is easier. I don’t feel the same visceral draw to Him as I did when I was wearing it. I chance a glance toward Rhen as Maggie struggles against him. Her field shimmers around her, opalescent, but it doesn’t seem to do anything to slow Rhen down.

Desperation grabs my gut and won’t let go. I turn back to Lucifer. “I’ll do anything. What do you want?”

Grandpa groans and rolls into a ball when the assault on him stops. Lucifer cuts a cold smile at me. “I only want what’s rightfully mine. You will give me Heaven.” The heat radiates off Him, burning me with its intensity.

“I can’t do that.” The words catch in my throat as I choke back a sob.

He steps closer, His voice low in my ear, seductive in its promises. “But you can, my queen. You will give me what I want and you will rule at my side, or your family dies.”

I want to crumple into a ball and hide. All I can think is how stupid I’ve been. So many are dead ’cause of me. Luc, Dad, Taylor, Faith. Panic grips my heart as my gaze shifts between Grandpa, lying on the ground, his breathing labored, and Maggie, in Rhen’s grip. I have to save them.

Rhen’s expression is despondent, and his eyes plead with me.

He doesn’t want this. He wants out from under Lucifer.

“I’m not your queen!” I yell. “Let them go!”

He peers down at me with raised eyebrows, His green eyes piercing mine, as if searching for my soul. “I’ve waited an eternity for you. You have the power to give me what I desire.”

I glance wildly around the cavernous space. The air is charged with electric rage as angels and demons fight all around. Rock showers from the cavern walls with explosive force as flaming streaks of celestial lightning tear through the space. Demons go down, oozing black ichor. Angels rain from the sky, their wings ripped open by Hellfire.

My heart dies a little when I see Celine take a direct hit. She drops to the ground just a few feet away with a resounding thud, and a dark-haired angel with a singed left wing swoops past and scoops her up. But she’s limp in his arms.

I have to stop this.

Think, Frannie.

How do I make this happen?

I wrack my brain frantically for the key. There’s got to be a way.

My Sway?

What do I make Lucifer believe?

Desperate for the answer, I gaze at Him, proud and powerful—so sure of Himself—and suddenly I understand.

Not Lucifer
.

That’s not who I need to Sway.

I look at Rhen as he drags Maggie toward the precipice, and focus. “Don’t do this,” I say softly, pushing the thought.

He shoots a mournful glance at Lucifer but doesn’t respond.

“You can make your own choices.” I fill my heart with my love for Maggie, for my family, and push harder—so hard I feel like my head is gonna implode, making me suddenly nauseous. “You don’t have to follow His orders.”

Grandpa cries out and my gaze snaps to him as he convulses. A cold smile slips across Lucifer’s face, contrasting with the intense heat He exudes. “Tread lightly,” He hisses.

I push toward Grandpa again and am thrown back by Lucifer’s field. “Stop!” I scream, wheeling on Lucifer.

“How far this goes is entirely up to you, my queen.”

Maggie screams and I spin in her direction. Rhen stands at the edge of the gorge, looking as though he’s about to toss her in.

“Rhen! No! You don’t have to do this!”

A sad smile flickers at the corners of his mouth. “I wish that were true,” he mutters so low I barely hear him.

In the back of my mind, I replay what I did to Aaron, trying to remember how I made that work. But even if I knew how it worked and could do it again, I need Rhen. He’s the key to this whole uprising—the one who can bring it together and make it happen.

If I can figure out how to get him past Lucifer’s hardwiring.

I’ve never been good under pressure. My brain is a whir of thoughts, not a single one coherent.

God.

Grandma.

God.

Me
.

God.

God’s gift to humanity.

Free will.

Luc’s voice echoes in my mind.

They don’t need to be human, they just need free will.

Is my Sway enough to give free will to Rhen? To all of them?

For a second, I hesitate at the thought that demons with free will might be a dangerous thing. But then Grandpa cries out again. His breath is coming in wet rasps, as if he’s drowning. The sound sends icy terror pumping through my veins. I have to do something—
now
—and I don’t have a better idea.

I think of Grandma—of God—and focus every ounce of strength I can find on Rhen. My body becomes electric, my synapses firing on overload, and when I look down, I’m actually glowing—like Gabe.

It scares me a little and I feel my resolve waver, but then Maggie screams.

I pull myself from my thoughts in time to see Rhen launch Maggie over the edge of the gorge. My own scream rips through the space as one of Rhen’s security detail, a short, squatty demon with furry legs, a tail, and black horns unleashes a blast of Hellfire at the angel that dives over the precipice after her. The angel reemerges with Maggie in his arms a moment later and lowers her to her feet then retaliates with a crackling bolt of white lightning.

And that’s when I see he’s different from the others—much taller and with three shimmering pairs of white wings.

His bolt sends the demon plummeting over the edge of the gorge. He turns to me then and lowers to a knee, his head bowed and his long platinum waves falling in a face that reminds me so much of Gabe that tears sting my eyes. Then he’s gone, back into battle.

Maggie runs to Grandpa and reaches out. There’s a shower of sparks as her hand contacts the field around him.

“Maggie,” I cry, and try to pull her away, but I can’t budge her. It’s as though she’s bound to the field and it’s pulling her in too. She closes her eyes in concentration, and, as I watch, her hand starts to shake and the skin of her palm takes on a red hue. The hue becomes a full-on glow as she sucks the energy from Lucifer’s field into her hand. Her whole arm glows red for a second, and when she shakes her hand, a shower of sparks spray from her fingertips and wink out before they hit the ground.