Daystar (22 page)

Belial raised her hand.
 
“Volunteering.”

The rest of the Fallen followed suit.
 
Behind them, the first and second generation Lilliam nodded their assent as well.

Berith rubbed his beard.
 
“Who goes with you and who stays for a distraction?”

Dahlia looked away.
 
“I go alone.”

The room broke out into shouts.
 
Dahlia jumped on the table and slammed her heel down.
 
“Silence!”
 
She met the gaze of everyone in the room.
 
“I am not going into a battle.
 
I am not planning to fight a single person on my own, got it?
 
This is a nab ‘n’ grab operation only.”

Belial hissed.
 
“Then let one of us go and do it!”

Dahlia shook her head.
 
“So you can be overpowered instantly and used against me as a hostage?
 
No.”

“But you said you would not engage and fight!”

“I do not plan on it, but that does not mean that the opportunity will be missed entirely.”
 
Dahlia stared at the ceiling.
 
“If any of you come with me you will die.”

Andy stood.
 
“You do not know that!”

Dahlia smiled sadly.
 
“The odds I am afraid are against this entire operation.
 
Against me they are great.
 
Against one of you solo they are insurmountable.”

Berith cracked his knuckles.
 
“Why are we not storming together?
 
We have more this time and one of theirs as a hostage.”

Dahlia shook her head.
 
“No one cares about Jegudiel besides Selaphiel, and he is not a hostage anyways.
 
Look, I cannot afford to have the gains we made set back by having us lose our wings again.
 
We are two people down already.”

Andy frowned.
 
“Then why go at all now?”

Dahlia’s eyes went dark.
 
“I have to.”

“Why?”

She looked at her wrists.
 
“I can still feel what they are doing to him.
 
We are linked.”
 
Her halos formed into solid objects.
 
Her wings turned to metal, glass, and blood.
 
Armor formed over her plain clothes.
 
“I have made my children safe and now nothing else keeps me here.”

Whitney stood up.
 
“Dahlia, we want to help you!”

“Then you will help me by being a distraction.
 
In this place you are strong; you have the shield to retreat to if hard pressed or injured.”
 
She flicked her wrist and three black blades formed on the table.
 
“These counter their weapons.
 
Whitney, Belial, and Apple, you have no need of them.
 
You can make your own.”

Apple shook her head.
 
“This is fucking foolish on your part!”

Dahlia nodded.
 
“Foolish perhaps, but as my Archons you three may not disobey.
 
You will stay and distract the Archangels.”

Belial hissed.
 
“Dahlia!”

Andy, Berith, and Helion glared at her.
 
Andy jumped up on the table across from her.
 
“Lucifer would not agree to this, he would not want this!
 
As the eldest among those that are left I make the decision in his stead.
 
We the Archangels of Heaven go with
you
.”

The air around Dahlia grew dark.
 
She looked at him with pitch-black eyes.
 
“You will
obey
, Andrealphus.
 
You will remain
.”

Andy staggered and dropped to his knees.
 
“We are not yours to command.”

“In this place, this union of Heaven and Hell, we share Archangels.
 
In his stead
I
am in charge.”

Andy had to agree.
 
The compulsion she placed on her Archangels was just as valid upon Lucifer’s.
 
He bowed his head.
 
“You have my assent under duress.”

Helion looked between the pair.
 
“Why do you just not order Michael this way?”

The darkness around Dahlia faded.
 
“Michael is tied to Him, not Lucifer.”
 
Her face softened.
 
“I am sorry for this.
 
I do not wish to take your choices away, but I cannot afford for you to throw your lives away either.
 
This fight is mine, it is Lucifer’s, it is not between you and Him.”

Dahlia looked at her Lilliam children.
 
“Bolster their strength.
 
Some of you, but not all are allowed to engage.
 
The choice is up to you.
 
Except Gaea, you may not leave the planet.
 
The living things here are tied to your well-being.
 
If you were to be caught or killed...”

Gaea nodded.
 
“I understand.”

Dahlia helped Andy stand upright.
 
“Andy, know that you are correct.
 
Lucifer would absolutely not agree to this.
 
Your heart is in the right place as it always is.
 
Please continue to speak to its truth.”
 
She hugged him.
 
“I cannot afford to think with my heart right now, but that does not mean that everyone else should stop.”

Dahlia jumped down to the floor and hugged her children and the angels in turn.
 
“Give me half a day after I go to begin your distraction.
 
The more Archangels you can draw in, the better.”

Berith frowned.
 
“Why half a day, what will be occurring then?”

Dahlia folded her arms.
 
“I am entering Heaven by way of Hell and I have not traversed my own realm in eons.
 
I do not yet know where the entrance to Heaven is through it.
 
This may take time for me to find.”

Belial eyed her.
 
“Then you will wait if you find it early, you will know when we begin our distraction?”

“Of course.”
 
Dahlia nodded.
 
“I will feel you.”

No one looked happy, but they were not so clearly distressed.
 
Dahlia nodded to them.
 
“Good hunting.”
 
She enfolded her body with her wings and disappeared.

***

Dahlia appeared at the lip of the still gaping crater, the entrance to Hell on Greenland.
 
She stared into the dark murk.
 
She spread her wings and they vibrated.
 
The surface substance thinned until it became like water, then gas.
 

Dahlia dove in.
 
She was engulfed in warm darkness as if she had jumped into a hot tub.
 
She listened and heard not a sound.
 
As she expected, her realm was free of His presence.
 
Dahlia smiled.
 
She lit up in the darkness, oriented herself, and hung in the substance.
 
If things had been different she would design her realm, but she left it formless for now.

Light poured into Hell from the entrance behind her.
 
She closed the crater and took back the teleportation abilities she had granted the Archangels.
 
No reason to tempt anyone to follow her.
 
She faced the darkness.
 
Dark matter swirled around her, moving back and forth in waves of red and black.
 
It reacted to her presence.
 
It knew and welcomed her.

Dahlia frowned, guilty.
 
The others were going to be terribly angry with her.
 
She did not need to spend time finding her away around Hell.
 
There was no space, no distance.
 
She could enter into Heaven at any point, but none of them would know she had lied, at least, not for a while.

Dahlia pushed at the warm, velvety substance.
 
She made a hole and enlarged it.
 
She stepped through into Heaven, into the light.
 
The portal closed behind her.

***

Jegudiel covered his eyes with his arm.
 
He pushed at Paimon with his right hand.
 
“Turn it off now!”

Paimon was in tears, laughing at Jegudiel’s plaintive voice.
 
“This one not for you either?
 
It has girls this time!”

“That is
not
love!”

Paimon cupped a hand to his ear and listened to the pants and cries of those onscreen.
 
“Sounds like loving to me.”

“Turn it off!”
 
Jegudiel leapt for the remote and snatched it from Paimon.
 
He turned off the TV and threw the remote across the room.

Paimon grabbed Jegudiel’s ankles and sent him reeling into the wall.
 
He rolled up to a sitting position.
 
“I would think the
lord of love
would want to know about sex.”

“That is an intimate thing between
two people
—”

“Or three or four even.
 
They might even have had five.
 
I couldn’t tell, human voices tend to blend together.”

Jegudiel glared.
 
“Between two people that love each other very much.
 
That
.”
 
He pointed to the dark TV.
 
“Was not love.
 
That was acting.”

Paimon grinned triumphant.
 
“Lesson two passed!”

Jegudiel paused.
 
“What?”

Paimon held out a bottle of wine.
 
“You can tell the difference, hell, you know that there
should
be a difference.
 
Good boy.
 
Sit.
 
Stay.”

Jegudiel took the jug of wine.
 
He drained the bottle and grabbed another one.
 
“I do not desire to watch any more of these…these dirty pictures.”

Paimon shrugged.
 
“Fine.
 
They never did anything for me either.”

Jegudiel stared at him.
 
“Then why did you have them?”

“I think they’re funny.”

“They are disgusting!”

Paimon opened a bottle of wine for himself.
 
“Prude.”

Jegudiel glared at Paimon.
 
“You think stupid things are funny.”

Paimon pointed straight in the air.
 
“You need to drink more.”

Jegudiel drained another bottle of wine and wiped his mouth.
 
“What is the point?”

“Why must there be a point to things?
 
Can’t you just do things because they are there to do?”

Jegudiel fell to his side.
 
“Thing is…the thing is…”
 
He stared at the ceiling.
 
“What?”

Paimon smirked.
 
“I didn’t say anything.”

“Yes.
 
You said, uhm, you said.”
 
Jegudiel rubbed his eyes.
 
“Why are things getting blurry?”

“You’re getting drunk.”

“Oh.”
 
Jegudiel drank more.
 
“Okay.”

Paimon crawled across the floor to find more alcohol.
 
He threw the empties to the side.
 
“Alcohol is a beautiful thing.
 
It really brings people together.”

“If they had this in Heaven people would not fight.”
 
Jegudiel smiled.
 
“No one would be able to see clearly.”

“Exactly.”
 
Paimon found a wine bottle.

“Maybe I should bring it back!”

“Exactly!”

Jegudiel tried to sit up, failed, and fell back down.
 
“I like it here.”
 
He looked terrified, as if he were about to be struck by lightning.
 
Nothing happened.
 
He burst out laughing.
 
“I want more of that
dough
.”

“It is called
bread
, Jegudiel.”

“I love bread.”
 
Jegudiel ran to the table, smashed into it and fell on his ass.
 
He smiled happily as bread fell into his lap.
 
He stuffed a breadstick in his mouth.
 
“These things are huge!”