The demon looked away, deflecting my gaze.
“The story isn’t finished,” I said.
“Ah, the story,” he said coldly. He tapped his chin in a mockery of thinking and sat back, regarding me over his slightly hooked nose. “How about this. I had a dream—if demons truly dream—the other night. I dreamed I stood before a great mirror—one that distorted all the things I once thought beautiful, recasting them in ghoulish images, casting me into an ugly mold I have known only in my own mind. And it threw Lucifer into such grotesque state that I barely recognized him except by his eyes and that presence I know to be his. And when I shook free of it, my strange waking dream, it occurred to me that I was not looking at a mirror at all but into the reflection of all things as they are, for all things must be seen in their true light when held up to the mirror of Truth.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” My anger, my grief, my outrage bubbled up all at once.
His mouth formed a tight line. “I saw Lucifer the other day. Still brilliant, my Prince. Still beautiful. Perhaps not quite as stunning as before—it may be that the millennia are finally working their wear upon him, as the shining cloth wears at last upon the finish of an antique, as even kisses wear down the gold leaf of an icon. But he’s lovely yet.” His eyes shone with terrible light. “It’s almost more than I can stand, remembering him in the long idyll of first Eden, before, though I have long since come to terms with all that has happened since. To look upon him now is still amazing, though he is not—will never again be—the perfect creature he once was. But then, none of us are what we were. Even you, Clay.” He looked at me, clearly expectant.
“Do you feel better saying that? Ruminating about your life, though your future is set and there’s nothing you can do about it—living in the past, as we say? I don’t care that you saw Lucifer! How does it finish? The story isn’t finished!”
The dark smile changed, transformed itself into a terrible glare. “But mine is. And that is all I am concerned about. I’m tired, Clay. I came back to you, not because I wanted to, but because I was compelled to. I played a game with you, and for the game to end I must finish it. So here I am. And this is all I have for you and all you will get from me, for I know very well how my own story shall end. Oh, there’s more for you, a bit more, but this is the end as it pertains to you and me. My tale has given way to yours. Don’t you see it, or are you still blind, you idiotic human? In the end, as I have said, it has always been about you.”
“No.” I said, my emotions heating to a roiling rage. “I don’t see at all what this has to do with me. And without that, it has no ending. And without an ending, it can’t ever be published. So there’s some truth for you!”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“What do you mean it doesn’t matter? That was your aim all along!”
“No.” His mouth curved, revealing white teeth. “It wasn’t. I told you I needed to tell you my story. Yes, I knew you would write it. I knew your ego would find the opportunity irresistible. But my goal all along has been to tell you my story.”
“Just to be heard? Just to ruin my life?” I was shaking now.
“How long do you expect to live, Clay?”
“What?”
“I hope not very long.”
My heart was beating erratically. He glanced at my chest, as though he could see it through my flesh.
“That heart of yours has outgrown its casing. It happened a long time ago. You’ll go to the doctor in a couple of days, and he probably won’t even properly diagnose it. But here, what’s a trifle to me? I give you a parting gift: restrictive cardiomyopathy.”
I blanched. “What? What is that?”
“Look it up. You’re handy that way. Be sure to inform your doctor, or he might well miss it or, more likely, dismiss it as an anxiety disorder. It doesn’t really matter if he does. The only thing that could possibly save you by now is a transplant.”
Sweat trickled down my sides inside my sweater. “Why? Why did you do this?”
“Because this is your life, Clay: fleeting, ephemeral, and insignificant except for one thing, that El loved you. And you have missed it. Missed it all, completely. And now, look at you. Sweating, worried about your life, your story. Did you expect to live forever? Did you think this day would not come? It had to, if not in this way then in some other. I’ve done you a favor!”
“What favor?”
“Still blind!” His eyes flashed with an evil I found both horrible and horribly mesmerizing. “Look around you! Open your eyes! In telling you the truth about yourself more clearly than anyone ever hears it, I have shown you a choice that was before you all along. But no, even now you cannot see it.”
“What choice?”
In the sandwich shop the demon had been incensed, but here before me now, I knew the purest hate in the universe was leveled, in this moment, at me.
“The truth, Clay! In the end I have told you the truth—a truth that, having heard, you are now doubly accountable for. Yes, if you become one of them, those shining souls, what can I do about it? But reject the truth even by refusing to decide, and reap the consequence you rightfully deserve. Do you hear that? That is accountability. It is the sound of hell, calling for you! Having had such an extravagant gift offered you, your rejection can only result in damnation far greater than that of those to whom it was never offered.”
His lips pulled back from his teeth. “This then, shall be my singular consolation, my bitter solace: that when you die—and the time will be soon—there will be at least one of El’s precious clay humans more damned to hell than I!”
I gaped as he got up. This time it was I who grabbed his wrist. But he shook me off as though I were an insect.
I fell back. “Where are you going?”
“I have an appointment,” he growled. And he strode out into the black night, the light of the moon blue in his hair.
I STAGGERED HOME, HEARTSICK—literally—knowing he was right. But knowing, also, what I needed to do.
I had come to the end of the story only to find that it was no story at all. That my childhood training in the stuff of myth was a living and breathing reality.
That indeed, there was a monster.
Just not the one I thought.
EPILOGUE
Kat,
Here it is, in its entirety. I need you to believe me when I tell you this story is true—true, and double-edged. As you read these pages, do so knowing they will force a decision from you, one that was in front of you even before you held them in your hands.
I want to talk when you are done. If, by chance, something has happened to me by then, bury the pages, burn them, publish them—it doesn’t matter. As I said, the choice is there whether the others read it or not.
In the end I don’t know what was more poisonous—his story and my obsession with it, my vacillating belief, or Lucian himself.
He’s gone. He’s accomplished what he came for. As for me, I need time to think and to make my own decision. Unfortunately for me, time is the one thing I do not have.
Take care, Kat. I would have liked to have known you better.
Clay
AUTHOR’S NOTES
I have based Lucian’s account of prefall bliss on a widely but by no means universally held understanding of Ezekiel 28:11–19. Some commentators view this passage as a literal lament or prophecy against the ruler of Tyre, a wealthy Phoenician city in what is now Lebanon. Others believe the prophet addresses the power energizing the throne of Tyre—Lucifer himself. Advocates of this second interpretation cite the fact that the king is referred to as having dwelt in Eden, been an anointed cherub, been created (rather than propagated), and been blameless since his creation. This is the interpretation I chose to underpin my fictional imagining of Lucifer’s prefall existence.