Oblivion (The Watcher Chronicles #3) (24 page)

An image of Lucifer standing in the middle of a circle of five of the princes of Hell with his arms raised to the sky appears on the holographic display.  Lucifer spreads his hands wide of each other and then brings them together matching the opening and closing of the Tear.

As I look at the five princes of Hell, I breathe a sigh of relief.  He doesn’t have all of them yet.  He needs one more just like us.  However, I notice something oddly different about two of the princes.

“Why do Mammon and Asmodeus look like they just crawled out of a grave?” I ask.

The once cruelly handsome face of Asmodeus and the craggy face of Mammon are ashen white with small red pock looking marks dotting both their faces.

“Didn’t Lucifer tell you how he punished them for trying to kill you?”  Mason asks.

“No,” I say, realizing Lucifer and I never even talked about them after I told him about their assassination attempt.  “What did he do?”

“He trapped their souls in the bodies they inhabit and then killed them.”

“So they’re dead?”

“Just the bodies they’re in.  They can’t jump to a new body until he releases them.”

“What’s the point of making them stay in dead bodies?”

“They have to feel the pain of a decaying corpse.  I’m sure the smell isn’t very pleasant either.”

I shiver at the thought.  It’s the first physical evidence I’ve seen of Lucifer’s cruelty to those who cross him.  I suppose I knew he wouldn’t let them off easily but to make them live in rotting corpses seemed beyond any punishment I could have imagined.

“Is what Lucifer’s doing dangerous?” I ask.  “To open and close a wormhole so many times in a row must be damaging something, right?”

It makes me wonder if doing such a thing with a wormhole is analogous to phasing a human too many times.  The night Asmodeous phased me so much he almost killed me made my body feel like a bowl of jelly afterwards.  Could Lucifer be doing the same thing to the universe?

“I’m not completely sure what the effects will be,” Mason admits.  “I would have to consult with some of the Watchers who are more adept in the field of astrophysics to give you an answer.  But, it’s not good.  I know that much.”

I watch as Lucifer opens and closes the Tear two more times and decide something needs to be done.

“Take me there,” I tell Mason.

Mason looks at me, his eyebrows lowered.  “I don’t think there’s anything you can do.”

“Take me there,” I say more stridently, “unless you have a better idea on how to stop him?”

“There are six of them there, Jess.  I am not going to take you somewhere where everyone present wants to kill you!”

“Lucifer won’t let them hurt me,” I say, fully confident about my security.  “Plus, all of our lives might be in danger.  We should at least try to do something to stop him!  It’s what we were sent here to do, Mason.  Put your feelings for me aside for now and let’s do our job.”

Mason’s eyes tell me he knows I’m right but that he still doesn’t want me in harms way.

“I can go myself,” Mason says.  “I’ll try to stop them.”

“You know that won’t work,” I tell him, trying to be patient because I know his feelings for me are clouding his judgment.  “He won’t listen to you.  Hell, he probably won’t listen to me but I have a better chance with him than you do.”

Mason’s mouth tenses and I can tell he’s frustrated because he knows I’m right.

I hold out my hand to him.  “Take me there.”

“Wait here for a moment,” he grumbles at me before he phases.  He reappears a minute later with a dark blue parka and my baldric and sword in his hands.

“You’re not going anywhere near those things without your sword,” he stridently informs me.

Mason helps me into the coat he brought which seems to be one of his since it’s so big.  He then helps me readjust the baldric to fit around the added bulk of the coat.  He flips the fur lined hood over my head and tightens the snap closure.

“Be careful,” he tells me, leaning down and kissing me firmly on the lips.  “I’m getting us out of there if even one of them takes a step towards you.  Do you understand?”

I nod.  “Ok.”

I’m not going to argue with him.  If I do, I know he won’t take me.  Besides, I trust his judgment.  He may be worried about my safety but he knows me going to talk with Lucifer is the only real option we have.

Mason takes one of my hands and we phase to Antarctica.

The wind is so cold and biting. I feel like it might blister the skin off my face.  I look up at the sky and see that the sun is out again making me wonder if it’s ever night time here in Antarctica.

I look to where Lucifer is standing in the middle of his five princes.  The vortex of power emanating from their combined energies seems to be physically swirling the air around them, something I wasn’t expecting to encounter. 

“Lucifer!” I yell over the howling of the wind between us.

“Go away, Jessica,” Lucifer yells back like he’s scolding a child for being somewhere she shouldn’t be.  Lucifer brings his hands together and immediately separates them again as he continues to open and close the Tear.  “I’m a little busy right now.  I can’t stop to have one of our conversations.”

“Stop what you’re doing!” I plead.

“Your pet human seems to think she can boss you around, Lucifer,” one of the two newest members of the group says as he leers at me.  He’s slim with short brown hair, a high forehead and sharp angular bone structure which lend his face a sinister look.  His hooded eyes stare at me in unadulterated disgust.

“You might want to think about shutting your mouth, Levi,” Asmodeus advises, gazing at me with so much hatred I feel like I might melt through the ice from the heat of it, “unless you want to end up like me and Mammon that is.”

“Not really,” Levi says with open revulsion for his two brothers’ current condition.  He scrunches up his nose at his fellow princes like their stench is overwhelming.  “Though, I still can’t believe you took a human’s side against two of your own, Lucifer.”

Levi’s statement does what I could not.

Lucifer lowers his arms and the Tear closes.  Without even looking in Levi’s direction, Lucifer holds a hand out towards the outspoken prince.  Levi’s body lifts into the air a few inches off the icy artic floor and floats to Lucifer’s outstretched hand.  As Lucifer’s fingers wrap perfectly around Levi’s throat, I hear the prince gasp desperately for air.  Finally, Lucifer looks over at his minion and a cruel smile plays at the corners of his mouth.

“Would you like to say that to my face this time, Levi?” Lucifer asks, the promise of uncompromising pain in the question.

“You shouldn’t care for her more than you do us,” Levi squeaks out, clawing at Lucifer’s hand trying to pry it loose from his neck.

Lucifer simply tightens his grip.  “I realize your gift is envy but really, shouldn’t you be above such a petty emotion by now?”

“She’s nothing,” Levi gasps.  “She’s an ant who should be put out of her misery just like any other human.”

Through Levi’s threats, my attention remains focused on Lucifer, but out of the corner of my eyes, I see the other princes shaking their heads.  I don’t know if it’s because they agree that Lucifer cares more for me than them or if they are thinking what I’m thinking:  Levi should really shut the hell up.  But I fear it’s too late.

“You shouldn’t talk about things you know nothing about!” Lucifer roars, squeezing Levi’s throat even more firmly, getting ready to break the other man’s neck.

I walk closer to the edge of the circle with Mason by my side.

“Lucifer,” I call to him, “don’t do it.  Don’t do to him what you did to Asmodeus and Mammon.”

Lucifer looks directly at me for the first time since Mason phased us here.

“What do you care what I do to him?” He asks.

“I don’t care about him,” I say, staring straight into Lucifer’s eyes.  “I care about what doing something to him will do to you.”

“Do to me?” Lucifer questions, obviously not understanding my true meaning.  “I can tell you what it will do to me: bring me satisfaction that I can put him in his place so easily.”

“But your soul will suffer the consequences,” I try to reason.  I take another step forward, inside the circle.  I know I’m taking a chance but Mason is right behind me, refusing to let me go in alone. 

“And what would you know about my soul?” Lucifer scoffs, eyeing me warily.

“I know you have one.  You just don’t use it very often.” 

Lucifer stares at me coldly.  I can’t tell what he’s thinking.

“You need to leave,” he says to me in a controlled voice.  “I’m about to do something you won’t like.”

“Don’t,” I beg.  “Don’t give up on yourself.  If you do this…if you punish him, you’re only letting yourself sink deeper into the black abyss you seem to think is the only place you belong.  You can do better, Lucifer!  You don’t have to be what everyone expects you to be.  There’s still good in you!”

Lucifer’s eyes widen in surprise at my statement and I see a look of confusion pass fleetingly across his face.  Then he stares at me like I’ve completely lost my mind.

“Good and bad is a concept you humans seem fixated on,” he says scathingly.  “I’m beyond either of them.  I do what needs to be done and right now Levi needs to understand his place in the order of things.”  Lucifer looks over my shoulder at Mason.  “You need to take her away now.”

I feel Mason put his hand on my shoulder, but I quickly shrug it off and walk directly up to Lucifer not caring that he’s scowling at me now.

“Please,” I beg.  “Don’t do this.  Don’t be this person.  You can be more than what you are.  You’ve shown that with me.  You
are
that person when you’re with me.”

A moment of uncertainty enters Lucifer’s eyes and I see the arm which is holding Levi lower a small degree.  I feel his want to be the person I can see him becoming, but then a new determination clouds his features like a mask and he hides his true self behind it.

“Get her the hell out of here, Mason!” Lucifer screams.

Before I know it, Mason and I are standing in my living room.

Mason whirls me around to face him.

“What were you thinking, Jess?” he asks, his voice simmering with controlled anger.  “He could have killed you!”

“No, he won’t kill me,” I answer, my voice sounding small.

Mason pulls me into his arms.  “Please, for my sanity, don’t do that again.  I can’t lose you.”

I wrap my arms around Mason’s waist.  “You won’t lose me,” I reassure him.

Mason pulls back his head and I do the same.  When our eyes meet, I can see the worry and love he holds for me in the depths of his eyes.

“If I ever lost you,” he says, his voice low, “I think I would lose myself.  I don’t think I would want to go on living.”

“Don’t say that,” I tell him, cupping his face in my hands.  “Don’t ever say that.  We don’t know what will happen in the future and if something does happen to me, I need to know you would be able to go on.  Promise me you would find a way to live a full life.”

“I can’t make that promise to you,” Mason says, the shimmer of tears in his eyes.  “Because I truly believe my heart would stop beating if yours did.”

I feel tears of my own spill down my cheeks and I bring Mason’s face down to mine in a desperate kiss, one filled with a need to let him know how much I love him.  Mason deepens the kiss, ravaging my mouth with his.

We quickly shed our clothes needing to feel the other without any obstructions in our way.  Our love making is filled with a quiet desperation to prove we’re still alive.  The world might be on the brink of disaster but one thing will remain steadfast in the face of everything, our love.

Afterwards as we lay on the couch spent of our energy, Mason cradles me in his arms and plants small, tender kisses filled with love all over my face, making me smile.

He then kisses my lips just as tenderly before bringing my naked body even more firmly against his.

“Can we just stay like this forever?” I ask, nuzzling the inside of his neck planting small kisses of my own against his tender flesh, loving the taste of him.

“I wish we could,” he sighs, rubbing my back with one hand and letting it slide down to my hip to rest possessively there.

  We’re both silent for a moment, basking in each others warmth, reveling in the feel of being utterly and completely loved by someone else.  I can tell Mason wants to ask me something.  He opens and closes his mouth twice before finally spitting it out.

“Did you mean what you said to Lucifer?” He finally asks.

I lift my head off his arm to meet his eyes.  “Which part?”

Mason’s forehead creases as he says, “About there still being good left in him.  Did you mean that?”

“Yes.”

Mason shakes his head and closes his eyes but he doesn’t say anything else.  There’s no need really.

I know he doesn’t understand how I can believe such a thing is possible.  I feel sure he thinks I’m deluding myself by even entertaining such a possibility.  I rest my head back down on his arm and against his chest.  Knowing the history between Mason and Lucifer, I know the love of my life would never be able to completely understand what I see in my strange friend.  I no longer feel that it’s Michael’s influence which makes me have a little faith in Lucifer.  I know it’s me who has the desire to see Lucifer rise above what he’s allowed himself to become.

And I’m willing to risk my life to prove I’m right.

Chapter 19

Mason ends up having to leave early the next morning but not after giving me a completely satisfying goodbye.

“I need to help Joshua and Nick finish moving everything to the new house,” he tells me while I watch him stuff the bottom of his button down shirt into his slacks and buttons them.

I can’t help but sigh.  I much prefer Mason naked and preferably in bed, any bed.

“When will you be back?”

He shrugs.  “I can’t say for sure.”

“Well can you at least come back and take me to Zack after I get dressed?  He and I didn’t get to talk much to one another yesterday.  I feel bad for just leaving him the way we did.”