Lucas ✔️

Forty-Nine

Lilith's light body hung limp in my arms, her head lolling backward awkwardly. I watched her for a moment, wondering exactly how it was that she could be so beautiful even in death. My hand found its way into her hair, patting the fiery locks down gently before I placed her on the ground and stood up, my hands clenched tightly.

The only sound I could hear was that of my own heartbeat as it pumped angrily through my ears, the rhythm increasing as my blood boiled. Janie and Cole, Lilith's human friends who had unfortunately been captured by Mephistopheles, were both watching me with horrified eyes. Their moving mouths told me they were saying something, but I couldn't hear them. In a way, I didn't want to hear them. I glanced at Shax and Amy, both of whom looked upset, yet they both sat silently, watching me.

I knew what I had done. I had basically taken the last millennia of their life and made them null and void, all for some underweight human girl with daddy issues. It didn't matter anymore – Uriel would take good care of her, I'm sure, and I would be heading to the place He had always wanted me to. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, feeling the pain flood through my body as my blood turned to lava and my body burned itself. I knew what I would look like; I'd been having nightmares about it ever since my fall.

Burning red irises, completely different to the molten gold I used to have before my fall, and even more intimidating than the black I sported in the human realm. Bright red skin like that of embers, with chunks of it falling away in crisped clumps. My hair, which could never be cut, burned itself off, leaving only a few inches, with the rest falling to the ground in limp piles. I'd always hated that hair – the length and colour which only reminded me of who I was and what I had lost; yet here it was now, falling away in clumps, and I missed it. How silly.

I cracked my neck left to right and sighed as Mephistopheles popped into my head, that smirking grin I knew would be plastered across his face. My breath was hot and steamy, fogged like smoke from burning charcoal. I opened my eyes and watched Mephistopheles carefully, knowing I had to move quickly, before I was dragged to the depths below. I couldn't, wouldn't, let him get away with what he had done – to Lilith and all those other girls. Shax and Amy had done what needed to be done but, if I was going to end up condemning myself anyway, I should have killed the first girl Mephistopheles sent our way. Instead of running away from the inevitable, I should have killed her and taken my rightful place in Hell, just as our Creator planned.

Still, if I did, I would never have met Lilith.

Maybe that would have been better.

"Mephistopheles," I said darkly, my voice cutting through the night as I looked for him.

He didn't take long to spot – Mephistopheles wasn't exactly modest, especially when he thought he had won. He stood smiling at me, his eyes wide with adoration as he took in my new form. The form of Lucifer, the demon, not Lucifer, the archangel.

"You really did it." Mephistopheles looked at me, shocked, and I nodded, turning my head slightly to look at the cold body of Lilith.

"Are you ready?" I asked him, turning to look at him again.

"I was always ready." I nodded my head curtly and darted forward, my body moving faster than it ever had before. I felt light, free, powerful, and I hated it.

Mephistopheles coughed and spluttered, a small dribble of blood pooling from his mouth as he looked up at me. I couldn't blame him for what he had done. His entire life, his entire being, was devoted to making me fall even further than I had. It was, after all, the whole reason he had been created in the first place. The light shunner – my counterpart. Still, even though I understood, it didn't make me hate him any less.