The Angel's Fall (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 6) (10 page)

She struggled, shaking and gritting teeth, but then uttered, slowly, “I free you, Marid, of your bond.” She spat on the ground and pushed Lucifer away from her.

The old man stumbled away and collapsed to the ground. Merlin ran forward and sank to Lucifer’s side. He put his hand on his father’s shoulders. The man was half-skeleton. I did not see how he could still be alive. And yet, he patted Merlin’s hand.

“No,” Maria roared, regaining her voice. “You are mine, Lila. You are always mine.”

“Um, I’m really not,” Lila said and picked at the rope of magic that circled her wrist. It crashed to the ground, hissing and sparking on the smooth marble floor as it died away.

“No,” Maria cried out. “I'm the Queen. I'm the highest power in the land and you are
—
” She looked down at the shriveled man on the floor. “You are… I have no idea who you are.” Her voice held a fluttering panic inside of it.

“I’m no one, really,” he said with a quavery voice. “No one and nothing, for so long, though I still have a bit of the old beast in me, and were I you, I would run, small Queen. Little ruler. I would flee far and fast and not look back.” Lucifer looked up at the Queen and smiled.

Maria turned and ran, fleet-footed and fast. Just behind her sprinted the Spaniard and all of the myriad palace guards, making a swift exit from the grand room.

Lucifer laughed where he lay. “Such a good day to be alive. It almost makes me wish to stick around and see what comes next. Though it all fades to nothing. It finally fades.”

“To nothing,” Lila whispered. Her skin had paled. She looked taller and thinner. She swayed back and forth, and then collapsed to the ground not far from where Lucifer lay.

Dust began to swirl all around us in a slow circle.

13

Dust to Dust

Merlin gathered Lucifer in his arms as the dust grew all around us.

“Have you come to a decision yet, son?” Lucifer asked. “It is difficult, I know. You know, I kept the door to Hell closed to keep you out, to stave off this moment, this passing of my torch.” His words came out slow and cracked.

Merlin looked past his father at the dust that circled us. “I don’t know yet, Father. There's no good choice. One choice leads to eternal misery, trapped here like you were, and the other? Hell on Earth. I—”

“Do what you will,” Lucifer said. “Today, on my last day, son, it has been good getting to know you. You are a bright light in the darkness. Choose freely.” Lucifer coughed and his skin turned paper-thin. The blue veins that danced beneath it stood out in sharp contrast. The old man coughed harder and dust, like the dust that swirled around us, fell from his mouth.

I knelt and gathered the fallen Lila in my arms. I stood and held her propped against me, feeling the reassurance of her pulse and shallow breath. This was a passing weakness due to her link with Maria being severed. Nothing else was wrong with her, I thought. I hoped.

Merlin stared at the circling dust and then looked to his father. “You have done a job that no one should have had to do, and yet you were steadfast. Loyal. Rest now, Father. Well done.” He carefully put his arms around the old man and hugged him.

Lucifer coughed harder and more dust fell from his mouth.

Merlin stood and held him tightly to his chest, just as I held Lila. We stepped close to each other so that we wouldn’t lose each other within the growing dust storm.

The walls around us began to dissolve. So did the old man. I blinked and stared, not believing at first what I saw. But his feet fell apart into dust, and then the nothingness crept up his calves and thighs.

Everything was shifting and changing, but into what, I did not know.

In any case, we could leave, and it was high time to. I shifted Lila to my right side so I could reach into my pocket for the smooth topaz Lila’s father had given me. I found it, and held it tightly in my hand.

The dust around us billowed, eating deeper into the dissolving palace walls. I glanced at Merlin, and saw that while he still held his arms around the shape of his father, there was nothing left of Lucifer.

I held the topaz stone in my palm and readied to activate it.

Merlin glanced at me and frowned when he saw the gem. He stood beside me in two swift steps and grabbed the stone. He held it up to his eyes.

“I see,” he murmured. “A way around the door. A clever way out.” He paused, blinked, and his mouth dropped open into an ‘o’. “Around the door. Two sides of a door,” he said and his brow knit together. Then he made his hand into a fist, and when he opened it, blue dust fell to the ground. “We won't be needing that.” He still wore a surprised look on his face. “It seems I have found a third way. And I have made a decision. Of sorts.”

The dusty wind groaned and pushed at us from all sides.

“Wizard, tell me you have another way out of here,” I yelled into the storm as my arms clenched Lila tighter. Beneath her closed lids her eyes moved raggedly back and forth.

“A way out?” Merlin turned and studied the dust. The walls of the palace's room fell away, and beyond it, so too did the running forms of the palace guards who dissolved as they tried to flee. As I squinted and peered into the dust, I saw the King and Queen, their arms raised against the maelstrom. They threw spells and curses at the dust. It swirled faster around them and when it moved on, it left nothing behind.

Lila stirred in my arms.

“Help me,” she whispered.

“You're okay, you're okay now,” I told her.

“Help.”

Her hair whipped about in the wind and turned brittle and thin. She grew lighter in my arms and the dust that destroyed everything in this realm? It could not have her.

I turned to Merlin, to ask what we must do now, but he stood facing away and open mouthed. His arms stretched wide and he laughed into the dust. Inhaling it.

More and more of the world dissolved and fell apart, quicker and faster now. Houses and buildings, fields and farmlands. They crumbled into the storm. Beneath us and above us, the dust moved in a circular cocoon, holding us within the growing nothingness as it ate everything. Lila grew thinner and lighter.

I closed my eyes. Think. Think, I thought as wind tore at my clothes and sought to pull Lila from me.

“Are you ready?” I heard Merlin say. “I believe this will work. I hope so.”

What spells did he have left? None that could help, that I knew of. And me? I’d prepared for so much, but this? I didn’t understand this. I clenched Lila tighter, whispering into her ear an old blessing my Mother had told me, many a time. “May you always be loved,” I whispered, again and again.

And then, everything went still.

14

Free

We stood in an ill-lit alley and though we could have been anywhere on Earth, there was something about the particular urine-scent mixed with the smell of peanut fry-oil that told me we weren’t far from where we had started: Pike Place Market. In some alley or another. I stood with my feet firmly planted on uneven cobblestones. All day long, reality had been shifting around me. Was I here, really and truly?

I felt Lila twist and whimper in my arms. She was so light, it took hardly any effort to hold her up.

Her face shone a white-blue pallor that looked more marble than flesh. But she was alive, and we had made it out of Hell. We were all here and whole. Somehow, within the dust and dissolving, my wizard had found a way out.

“That was stranger than I could have possibly imagined,” Merlin said with a puzzled scowl. He put a hand over his chest and breathed.

I gently placed Lila down on the ground and crouched beside her. “Lila, wake up. Look at me,” I ordered.

She didn’t respond.

I hit her face. Gently and then not so gently, until her eyes slitted open.

She watched me, dull-eyed and breathing shallowly.

“Lila, I wish that you would never call anyone master again. I wish you would ever and always be your own master. I wish—”

Lila started shrieking. She flung herself backward, banging her head hard against the alley’s wall. Bright magic pulsed off her in wild arcs.

“Take it back,” Merlin snapped. “Right now, say ‘I take it back,’” he yelled.

“But I—”

“If you value her life—”

“I take it back,” I said quickly.

Lila stopped thrashing and went slack. I felt, and she still had a pulse, but barely.

“What was that?” I whispered. “I don’t understand. What can I…?”

“Do? You must become her master,” Merlin said.

“No. Never. I can’t—”

“She’ll die without a master of some kind. Why do you think her father keeps that poor witch Agnes Stonehouse around? A Marid needs a master. I could do it as well, but I have my hands full and really, Morgan, if she has to have one it should be you. Are you willing to sacrifice her life for your ideals of freedom and—”

“Shut up.” My voice, shaking but determined, cut him off. I turned to Lila and took her limp hand in mine. “I wish you would serve me.” Each word stung like poison on my tongue.

“Your wish is granted,” Lila murmured and took a deep breath. Her color turned better. She smiled and stared at me with her big eyes. “You’ll be a good master, Morgan.”

The very idea turned my stomach. I would have to be so careful not to abuse her. “It will be my honor,” I said. I faced Merlin. “You are sure she needs a master?”

“Yes,” he said. “I have recently gained certain… knowledge. Today is a day for taking on unwanted burdens. She is yours.”

I watched Lila close her eyes. I watched her breath for a while. Sleeping and content.

I turned back to Merlin. “About those burdens,” I said. There was little light in the alley, but every particle of light surrounded him. “What happened with you inside the dust and dissolution of Hell?”

“I chose the lesser of two evils. I think.”

“Did Lucifer do something to you?” I asked.

“In his own way.” Merlin spoke slowly. “It’s complicated, lass.”

“Answer plainly, wizard.” I was long done with the complications of this day, but it seemed they were not yet done with me.

“To start, my father's vast life was ending. It had been, ever since Lila entered Hell. Her arrival meant that I would inevitably follow. Lucifer kept the Hell door closed against that happening. He tried, for many years in many ways, to protect me from coming to Hell and claiming my destiny.”

Destiny. Fate. I hated those words.

“But he couldn't keep the door closed forever: Hell was made to have a portal to Earth, and Lucifer's power was waning as his natural life began to end. With his ending, so too, the entirety of Hell was falling apart. Hence the strange gray sky. It was always known that when Lucifer died, Hell would disintegrate with him. So long ago, he brought an heir into this world, knowing this day would come and that there must be another who could take on his duties. Who would become…” Merlin frowned and gave me a searching look. “Would become the gatekeeper. The door to Hell. One good soul, and his dog, to watch over the border. And before you say another word, Morgan: it couldn’t be anyone but me, else the door would be too weak. For Lucifer’s blood line is inextricably linked to Hell so that he might never be free of the burden.”

I swallowed. I stepped away from him. “Hell was falling apart: decohering and dissolving because of Lucifer's impending death,” I said. “Because he and Hell were of the same essence. But you did not stay in Hell like your Father did. Is it gone now?”

“If Hell had ended, all its myriad monsters would be set free on Earth,” Merlin said. “Would you have counseled me to choose that?”

I gave him a long stare.

Merlin placed his hand on his chest. “I could not do that to this world I love. Nor could I commit to damning myself to Hell forever, always alone as my father was.” He looked at me, and then away. He didn't say that he couldn't choose that fate because he couldn't bear to be apart from me. But we both knew his why.

“Your choice?” I prompted.

“If I must be the door to Hell, Hell’s warden, then there are two sides to every door, aren’t there? So I chose to stand on the other side of it.”

“And yet you are inextricably linked to Hell,” I whispered, feeling faint. “The link is the same as Lucifer’s, though profoundly different as well, I expect.”

He nodded. “Aye, lass. You have ever been a quick one for catching on.”

What would it do to him? All the powers. All the horrors. I wanted to believe my wizard would stay the same, but the man I loved? He was the King of Hell, regardless of whether he called himself a door or a warden.

I felt like screaming, or crying.

Instead, I helped Lila up to her feet. She yawned and leaned against me as we began to walk out of the alley. We would go to Merlin's penthouse where there were enough beds and the glorious marble tub that had an endless supply of hot water.

“You took your time coming back,” said a deep and slithering voice.