Days of New: The Complete Collection (Serials 1-5) (54 page)

Maya. Maya. Maya.

Dead
, Clark thought.
Dead like Z.

“Just tell me!” Lucifer shouted. He slumped in Michaela’s hold. She struggled to hold him upright. No one came forward to help her. No one wanted to be close to Lucifer when he heard the truth. Everyone knew what would happen.

War.

Lucifer would kill them all for Maya. For her death.

“Tell me,” Lucifer said again, his voice quieter this time and thick with tears. “Is she dead? Just tell me. Please, Clark. Is she dead?”

Clark looked up, meeting Lucifer’s eyes. Clark didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t think of a single word. But his face said enough, apparently. Lucifer roared, his voice rattling the trees around them. The sound threatened to rip apart the sky and the earth. Rip out their very hearts.

Maya was dead.

A war would start today.

Chapter Two

Three Days Before

T
he problem with the angels was that people expect too much from them. They were assigned this grandiose ideal for some reason. Because they had wings?
These holy winged creatures will save us
, the people think.
The angels will deliver us. The angels are holy creatures, and they should know best.

But the angels didn’t save the people. The angels didn’t deliver them. And they certainly don’t know best, especially the holy ones.

“Here’s the thing,” Maya said, as Lucifer eased her onto the ground. She shoved a handful of windswept hair out of her eyes. He tucked away his wings, cheeks flush from the flight in the cool evening air, tuxedo slightly askew from the flight, and if Maya looked close enough, she could see flecks of gold blood on the starched white shirt—Camille’s blood. She swallowed, looked away, and continued. “I’m not an atheist because I don’t believe in God. I’m an atheist because I don’t believe in
you
.”

“The devil?” Lucifer asked, cocking an eyebrow, but his smile was the casual kind, like he didn’t even know he was doing it. Maya liked those smiles the best on him, and she didn’t act like she noticed when he threaded his fingers through hers.

“Humph,” Maya scoffed. “The notion of a devil is even more preposterous. But I meant I don’t believe in angels.”

Lucifer pulled her to a stop in the driveway outside of his large Alabama plantation house. After leaving the cave, Lucifer had flown with her tightly gripped in his arms. Maya didn’t tell him that he was nearly suffocating her by clutching her so tightly. She didn’t mention it because he’d been smiling in that casual, unknown way of his, and she knew it made him happy—even if he didn’t realize he was indeed happy—to know that he was keeping her safe in his arms. Together, they flew all over the sky, chasing the sun as it slipped away into the horizon. The sunset’s colors had been Maya; Lucifer had flown her so close to the sun that she’d been its oranges and pinks. Together, they’d tucked the sun into bed. It’d been magical.

“But I’m standing right here. How can you not believe in me?”

“I believe in you,” Maya said, her gaze boring into Lucifer’s dark eyes so that he understood just how much she really did believe in him. More than anyone else had. “I believe in you enough to think that you matter no more than me or any other human in the grand scheme of things. The angels are just a different version, a creature destined with a fate separate and unknown to humans. They aren’t any holier or any more fallen than me. They aren’t divine. They just drew a different straw than a human did. And if you ask me, I say they drew the short straw.”

Lucifer was quiet for so long that Maya wondered if she’d said too much. He had a way of making her feel comfortable, possibly too comfortable. She knew his effect on her was special. No one else felt this way around Lucifer, the great devil. But she did. She opened her mouth to explain her radical notion of angels some more, but Lucifer leaned over her, blocking the moon’s light, and pressed a light, gentle kiss to her lips.

“Thank you,” he whispered when he was done caressing the sensitive skin around her mouth. He dipped his forehead against hers. The look in his eyes, as if the dark pit inside of him was seeing the first bit of light in eternity, broke her heart. She hated that no one had made this broken man feel safe. Or feel like he was anything more than a devil. She loathed every single person and angel who had beat him down so hard that he’d lost this much faith in himself.

“You shouldn’t thank me for the truth.”

“I’m thanking you for believing that’s the truth.”

Maya frowned as Lucifer stepped away. Of course she couldn’t know with absolute certainty that her belief in angels was the truth, but she’d argue that anyone else, even the angels themselves, didn’t know it
wasn’t
. Lucifer walked away, but Maya didn’t follow. Instead, she put a hand on her hip and said, “I’ll make you believe it too. One day, you’ll agree with me.”

Lucifer paused and turned to glance back at her, the moon grinning over his shoulder, illuminating his dark hair and lean, pantherlike figure. The sight took Maya’s breath away; he was beautiful in every way. Nothing would change her mind on that. “I imagine,” Lucifer said, his voice a low purr, “that I will agree with anything you say.”

The sisters at her Nephilim convent, Sisters of the Merciful Light, had constantly scolded her for being too argumentative, for questioning their doctrines. Teachers had loathed seeing her enter their classrooms, and their fear of her was a badge of honor that Maya wore proudly. So she didn’t bother hiding her grin at Lucifer. “You’re such a charmer,” she said, joining him on the steps to the sweeping front porch of his mansion.

For the first time since they’d arrived, she looked up at the plantation’s manor. The sweeping antebellum house was all white clapboards and staggeringly thick columns that stretched up to the second floor’s ceiling. The columns lined the front porch, making the house feel more like a fortress than a home. Chimneys poked up from the roofline, puffing smoke into the sky. While the structure was formidable and painstakingly Southern, the front porch was welcoming, with heaps of blooming flowers and boxwood landscaping along the front walk.

“How did you get flowers in winter?” Maya asked, laughing.

“I thought you might like them. I sent the demons back to fix things up for you while we flew around. The house suffered after the plagues with the riots in this area.”

Maya’s brows rose. “But we only left the cave a few hours ago. How did you manage all this in that time?”

“I have a lot of demons,” Lucifer said. “So, do you like it?”

Maya would have said she did just to soothe the nervous anxiety she heard in Lucifer’s voice. Luckily, she didn’t have to lie. “It’s beautiful, Lucifer.”

His unknown smile was back. The tension in his shoulders eased. “It’s my home.”

Maya took his hand again and pretended not to notice his surprise at her willing touch. If he was taken aback by her forwardness, he shook it off quickly and led her across the porch. A gorgeous set of inviting wicker chairs and couches with plush cushions filled the wide-planked porch. Side tables held vases and pots of white flowers that brimmed over the edges and tumbled down onto the floor in a cascade of sweet-smelling blooms. “I love the smell of jasmine,” she said, squeezing his hand.

“I know.”

Their silence stretched out as Maya enjoyed the jasmine and cool night’s breeze. She brushed her fingertips across the smooth wicker edges of a nearby glider. But eventually, the quiet stretched on for too long, and she wanted to hear Lucifer’s voice again. She asked the first question that popped into her head. “Did you not spend a lot of time in Hell?”

“I didn’t like it. Beliar, my second in command, stayed there. He was more suited for the tasks.”

Maya recognized Beliar’s name from the bits of Nephilim gossip she’d heard. “He was the one Gabriel killed?”

Lucifer nodded, focusing on a bit of dirt on his shirt. He picked it off with absolute care. “Beliar was going to kill Michaela. Gabriel was protecting her.” He looked up then, meeting her eyes in the candle and moonlight. “I didn’t send Beliar after her. Half the time I didn’t even know what he was doing, and that was the way I liked it. He was a demon who I’d created long ago when I fell from Heaven. I was…” Lucifer paused. Deep lines formed between his perfectly sculpted dark brows. He didn’t meet her eyes again. “I was lonely. So I made him like I made all my demons. But I created him with extra care. Then I unleashed him.”

“He was your friend? Your brother?”

“No,” Lucifer said the word slowly. “He wasn’t. And I was careful to never make another like him again.”

“He was your devil,” Maya said.

“Make no mistake, Maya.” Lucifer turned toward her and took both her hands in his. “I
am
the devil. Beliar was created from me. All that was bad and wrong inside him came from me. If he was bad, I was worse.”

He said the words like a confession, like he was spilling out his sins to her. He needed her to know he was bad, that he’d done bad things. He needed her to turn from him and run away, call him the devil and condemn him. He needed all this to understand himself again, or so it seemed to Maya. She knew what he needed; she saw it plainly in his black eyes. But this new world wasn’t about getting what you needed. You got what you got. And he got her.

“Good thing he’s dead then,” Maya said with a shrug. “Because that part of you is dead too.”

“But I created him.”

“And not another one after him.”

Lucifer shook his head at her and let go of her hands. “You’re only hearing what you want.” He raked his hands through his dark black hair, tousling the longer locks on top. She’d never seen him so unkempt, but she guessed his meticulous grooming and clothing were just his carefully constructed facade of control. “Being here with me is dangerous, and you shouldn’t be delusional about it. You need to understand that I could hurt you or kill you—or even worse—at any time.”

“But you won’t.”

“Everyone expects me to. They will think Clark sacrificed you to save Camille, and they believe I’ll do anything to hurt him, even if it means killing you.”

Maya picked a nearby bloom and tucked it behind her ear before grinning up at Lucifer. “If that’s the case and you really want to hurt Clark, we could just hide his pink hair dye.”

“This isn’t a joke, Maya.”

“But isn’t it better to laugh about it than worry?”

“No.”

“When was the last time you laughed about something? You should try it sometime.” Lucifer opened his mouth to argue some more, but Maya continued, “Let’s agree to disagree. For now. Besides, didn’t you say you would agree with everything I said?”

“Not about this.”

“I’ll have to convince you then. That’s why I’m here.”

“If you’re thinking you can save me, you’re wrong, Maya. You’re just here for a week. And then I’m taking you back to Clark and getting my magic. You’re just collateral. There will be no saving anyone.”

“So says the big bad devil who knew my favorite flower without me telling him.”

Maya opened the front door and went inside, leaving Lucifer on the porch. His eyes were hot on her back as he said quietly, “Your perfume smelled of jasmine the first time I saw you.”

“And here I thought you could only smell fire and brimstone. Now, are you going to show me around your house or not?”

Chapter Three

M
aya was bluffing. Truth be told, she was intimated—not by the man the house belonged to, but the house itself. History seemed to leak out from the walls and buffet into her. She felt the wealth and power that had gone into a home—a plantation—like this. In the entry, she looked up and took in the grand chandelier above her. The gleaming crystal had been freshly cleaned, its light nearly blinding. A set of stairs climbed up to the second story; everything wooden shined and smelled of cleaner. She didn’t see a speck of dirt.

“The house was here long before the civil war. Actually, Robert E. Lee and other Confederate officers stayed here numerous times during the war, using the house as a command post.”

Maya turned and looked back at Lucifer, watching as he closed the front door. “You helped the Confederates?”

Lucifer shrugged. “I understood their annoyance with the Union.”

“Their annoyance?” Maya sputtered.

Lucifer crossed to a panel beneath the stairs. Using his hip, he shoved a delicate, narrow table out of the way. A vase of roses rattled along the finely sculpted mahogany top. Maya lifted her hand to her mouth, hoping he didn’t damage the clearly ancient table. With the antique out of his way, Lucifer banged a fist on an exposed panel beneath the stairs. With a small hiss, a short, narrow door swung open, cobwebs spinning off the walls like a thousand strands of finely spun glass. Maya coughed at the wave of dust.

“I also helped a few slaves escape from their masters. This house was a part of the Underground Railroad.”

Maya lowered her hand, brows raised even higher. “You helped the Confederates
and
the slaves?”