Daystar (67 page)

“Okay, Andes!”
 
Belial kissed him on the cheek and dove into a knot of angels.
 
Her hands and feet became a blur and nothing was left behind but pieces.
 
She looked to her metal angels and grinned.
 
“You heard Andes, rip and retreat!”
 
Her angels saluted and spread out, cutting them a clear path in the angels that were thick like flies on a corpse.
 
Her metal angels took on her appearance, growing spikes, and blades across their bodies.

Belial leapt between Heaven’s angels.
 
“Rowr!
 
Rowr!”
 
She shook blood from her hands and blades grew up the outsides of her upper arms and thighs.
 
Foot long spikes stuck out of her knees as she drove angels into them.
 
Her halos became barbed.
 
Spines grew up through her hair like a crown of thorns.
 
None could touch her and remain whole.
 
Belial laughed and stuck her tongue out at Andy as she cartwheeled through angels.
 
“Andes, watch me!”

Andy sighed with longing.
 
“Epically
hot
.”
 
A whistle caught his attention.
 
He turned.
 

Apple waved, surrounded by a swooping flock of red angels.
 
“Yo, Andy!
 
Holy fuck!
 
Belial?”
 
Apple gaped.

Andy grinned.
 
“Told you she would be fine.”

“She’s a beast!
 
Belial!”
 
Apple dove for her.
 
“Belial!”

Belial twirled and came to a stop; her metal painted red with blood.
 
“Apple, look at me!”

Berith came to rest by Andy.
 
He had Azrael in his arms; the boy was asleep.
 
“Lucifer is losing control of the sun.
 
I believe an explosion is inevitable.”

Andy made a face.
 
“Great.
 
Who is that?”
 
He looked at Azrael and saw his face.
 
He recoiled.
 
“What the fuck!”

Berith held his free hand up.
 
“Calm down.
 
It is not Uriel reborn, his name is Azrael.”

“Where the fuck did he come from?”
 
Andy looked to Belial.
 
“Is he—”

“Damaged?
 
Yes, but not like Uriel.”
 
Berith tilted Azrael’s head back and showed Andy the brand above his heart.
 
“Something’s wrong with him, but he’s a nice kid.
 
Gabriel dumped him off on me with some message about brothers shouldn’t fight one another.
 
The kid turned on the others as if we were playing tag, so I figure he’s on our side.”

Andy frowned.
 
“Funny, Samuel said he had a gift from Gabriel and then tried to kill me with it.”

“Where is Samuel now?”

“In bits and pieces probably mostly still stuck on Belial’s body.
 
She did not appreciate his behavior.”

Berith looked at Belial and grinned.
 
“Oh.
 
Well then Gabriel’s gift did not have bad consequences did it?”
 
Behind them, the sun flashed brighter.
 
Berith repositioned Azrael.
 
“Shall we?”

Andy smiled.
 
“Get a head start, slowpoke.”
 
He spun and snapped, blasting the angels that grew between them and the sun.
 
“I’ll make sure we have some space behind us.”

Belial surfed over their heads.
 
“Berith!”
 
She swept down and flashed her blades in his face.
 
“Look what I did!
 
Oh!”
 
Belial hung upside down and looked at Azrael.
 
She smiled sweetly.
 
“Hi.”

Azrael opened his glowing eyes.
 
He saw Belial and blushed.
 
“I am Azrael you are pretty nice to meet you!”
 
He buried his head against Berith and kept his eyes averted.

Andy and Berith gauged his reaction.
 
Andy shrugged.
 
“Belial, we’re clearing out.”

Belial saluted and gouged herself in the head.
 
She extricated a blade from her forehead.
 
“Not going to do that again.”

“Berith, have you seen Belial’s angels?
 
They’re freaking metal!”
 
Apple swept by.

Belial smiled.
 
“Yours are pretty too, Apple.
 
Are you doing okay?
 
How is your tummy bean?”

Apple jolted and sped away, putting distance between herself and Berith.
 
Her angels reacted and spiraled around her.

Berith frowned.
 
“How is your tummy bean?
 
What does that mean?”
 
He rubbed his chin and his expression darkened.
 
His eyes went wide.
 
“Appleadris, get back here!”

Apple stopped midflight.
 
“Sorry can’t hear you, what?”

The sun flashed.

Andy pushed Berith.
 
“Discuss on the way, we have got to go!
 
Belial, grab Apple and take her on your surfboard.
 
Berith, I hope you do not mind.”

Berith ignored him.
 
“Appleadris, you answer me now!”

Apple reached out and held on to Belial’s metal free waist.
 
She stuck her feet into the liquid metal that pooled on the surfboard.
 
“Get me the fuck away from him!
 
I told you not to say anything!”

Belial kicked her surfboard and took off.
 
“I am sorry!
 
I forgot!”

***

Dahlia caught the first of the sun flashes as she hardened and changed the composition of her sunshade.
 
Colors swirled and shifted beneath her feet, growing white and reflective.
 
She took in the condition of the sun.
 
She grimaced and looked to Gaea.
 
“I need your mind on monitoring those in Eden.”

Gaea nodded.
 
“Okay.”
 
She let her hands drop and the unfinished angels around her went back to being shapeless dark matter.
 
Whitney’s stone and coral angels, Raphael’s eye-popping vivid ice and oil angels, and Helion’s pitch-black dark matter and translucent antimatter angels flew around aimlessly.

Dahlia nodded at them.
 
“Helion’s remain here, half stay around us, half circle the planet.
 
Raphael’s and Whitney’s, go to Hell.”
 
The angels split.

Dahlia looked at the sun as it flashed.
 
“RA AND IFRIT, LIGHT UP!”
 

She wrenched her sunshade and placed it between Earth and the sun.
 
Planet Earth went dark as all external light cut off.
 
Only the dim forms of Ra and Ifrit and Eden’s watch fires gave any light on the surface below.

Ra and Ifrit snaked their light around one another and formed the equivalent of a tiny sun over the planet.
 
Dahlia looked to Gaea.
 
“Status?”

Gaea nodded.
 
“It is as day down there.
 
Titan keeps Eden warm with churning rock from beneath.
 
Ouroboros maintains the air temperature by moving the winds from the south.
 
Leviathan has done the same with the ocean currents.
 
Everyone is comfortable for now.”

Dahlia nodded.
 
“Good.
 
Keep watch on your siblings as well.
 
If they flag I need to know immediately.”

“Understood.”
 
Gaea sat on the surface of the sunshield and closed her eyes, focusing on the myriad living things on the surface of the planet.

Dahlia turned from her and focused on maintaining the positioning of Earth and the sunshade, forcing her will over gravity.
 
She glared at the moon, hoping Lucifer could keep everything together.
 
She took a deep breath.
 
“Raphy?”

Raphael appeared.
 
“Thanks for the presents!”
 
She looked to the sun.
 
“About time?”

“Near bouts.”

“Why don’t we go now?”

Dahlia smiled without mirth.
 
“I do not know how long I can maintain us in Hell.
 
I need to know that we will have a replacement sun to return to otherwise I might as well just mercy kill the whole fucking lot of people down there.”

“Want me to get Paimon now?”

“No point.
 
Paimon cannot do the job by himself.”

Raphael frowned.
 
“I thought Lucifer would do it with him, which was the plan if the fucking sun goes boom right?
 
Lucifer pulls back and helps Paimon while we keep them alive in Hell.”

“Lucifer is stuck
in
that fucking sun.”
 
Dahlia rubbed her temples.
 
“I can feel His fire from here.
 
This has gone from being a simple intercept payload delivery into the sun, to combating His goddamnness.
 
Lucifer must stay there or the sun explodes, and not just that I imagine.
 
He would not stop with just that, Lucifer will not leave knowing what will happen.
 
If the sun goes that can only mean that Lucifer has sustained damage enough to render him unconscious, but if I go to help him I leave our planet helpless.”
 
Dahlia scowled.
 
“I should have known He would get involved directly, no wonder Gabriel told us about it.”

Raphael scratched her head.
 
“So we need someone else.”

“Yeah.”

Raphael hummed.
 
“How are Ra and Ifrit doing?”

“Sufficient, but they cannot keep it up indefinitely, nor I suspect can Selaphiel once we jump.”

“Quite.”

Dahlia stomped on the moon.
 
“Fuck!
 
Fuck!”
 
She bit her knuckles, her mind on the stars.
 
“Gabriel, Gabriel.”

“What about him?”

“He and Paimon can do it together.
 
A big enough bomb and you have a sun.”

“Gabriel’s playing for the other team.”

“Gabriel plays for himself.”
 
Dahlia folded her arms.
 
“He wants something, Raphy.
 
We figure it out and he is ours.”

Raphael frowned.
 
“He has never wanted anything.
 
He does not want, feel, or emote.
 
He might as well be a rock or a tree.”

“Well obviously
something
has caught his attention.
 
Why else is he being like his brother?”

“You think he is being sneaky?”

“I think he is being himself finally.”
 
Dahlia shaded her eyes as the sun flashed again.
 
She pointed to her feet.
 
“Go back to Hell, I need to think.
 
The next time I call expect it to be for the portal.”

“Roger roger!”
 
Raphael disappeared.

“Fuck!”
 
Dahlia glared at the sun.
 
“Lucifer, I need time to think.
 
Give me time to think.
 
Please hold on.”

***

Lucifer was losing himself.
 
His personality slipped as he hovered between waking and a dazed stupor.
 
It would be all too easy to slide into the stream of fire and join with it instead of controlling it.

He shook his head and bared his teeth.
 
He had to hold on.
 
He had sent messages to Dahlia, to the others, warning them that he was failing under the pressure.
 
Dahlia had planned for this.
 
He had to trust that she had planned for everything.
 
She always planned for everything.

The fire continued unrelenting, pouring energy and elements through the portal, straight into his body.
 
The pain overwhelmed him.
 
Lucifer passed out.
 
His consciousness faded, blending into the whole.
 
His form merged with the light around it.

The sun pulsed and grew in mass.

“
Lucifer!
”

Lucifer’s eyes snapped open; he regained control, his body reformed.
 
He shook his head, his vision blurred.
 
He felt a tug on his hand and looked down.
 
A blue-eyed boy looked up at him.
 
“You must remain yourself.”