I closed my eyes and asked quietly, “Why are you here?”
“Because it’s clear your mother never taught you a damn thing. So now I’ve been forced to intervene.”
“I’m almost positive that all of the parenting books say you have to let kids self soothe when they have fits.”
Barb's weathered lips thinned, and the look in her eyes told me she was less than amused. It was a classic Barb response. What followed after it, though…
I’ve never seen before.
“I’ve known that boy longer than he’s known himself.” Her voice was low and solemn, and she rubbed her thumbnail with one anxious finger. “I’ve cheered him for the highest of highs, and with him mourned his greatest low.”
We were both silent for a handful of resounding heartbeats. My breath quickened as my muddled brain tried to rearrange the last thirty years into something that made sense.
That boy.
Not that man. Not that monster. Boy.
“Lucifer was always different from his brothers. He found more whimsy in life than they did. The others stomped around like mechanical brutes incapable of operating outside of their programming. And,” she sighed,” I suppose that was the point. The angels were beings of divinity, placed under God’s rule to live, if you ask me, a purposeless life.”
I said, “That’s kind of harsh, Barb.” When what I really wanted to ask was how the fuck she knew all of this? Was she not just another demon, another Unwanted, like me?
“The truth always is, coullion.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Nothing belongs to them; not their choices, their heavenly home, or even their bodies. Each moment of existence was determined long before birth written in— ”
“Archives,” I interrupted. “I know. Luci told me.”
“You cannot write in an archive, stupid girl. You write in books which are then put into an archive.”
“Ohhh my God save me the lecture,” I groaned. “If you’re trying to make me feel sorry for him, Barb, you can forget it. Setting up an elaborate scheme just to get rid of me was a choice he was definitely allowed to make. And did, mind you.” The pain of this betrayal ached in my abdomen all over again.
Rather than answer, she ignored me and continued. “Lucifer stumbled upon God’s blueprints for the humans and it was the catalyst for his change.”
“Yeah, he was jealous as fuck. Told me that too.”
“You do not understand, Dany,” she scolded. “He should not have been capable of change. The angels were created to serve under God, carrying outhis will down to the last letter of command. Lucifer was an anomaly.” Her voice had become wondrous, like a doctor on the brink of discovery. “His brain chemistry began to mutate. Now when God gave an order, suddenly Lucifer could ask himself ‘why?’ rather than carrying it out mindlessly.” Barb’s eyes lit up as she talked, and it was clear that her mind was no longer in the room with me. “I urged God to see the beauty in what he was becoming, but all he saw was the destruction.”
“Do you mean that God knew Lucifer was going to rebel?”
“Meh, depends on who you ask.” She answered with a dismissive wave. “I don’t know the true power of God, but what I do know is that were he capable of seeing everything, he never would have made Lucifer to start with. Lucifer was a test to his strength and cunning. Why do you think he made a race of mindless idiots?”
“Men? I ask myself that every day.”
“Angels, girl, angels.”
I set up slowly and pushed my palm against my forehead to help the spinning.
“How do you know all of this Barb? Did you and Luci have one too many margaritas? Or was this like a post sex conversation? Ew, actually, scratch that,” I grumbled. “I do not want to imagine you reverse cowgirl ontheHellhound—”
I let out a surprise, muffled scream, as Barb pinched the tip of my tongue and held a blade near my lips. “Interrupt me again, coullion, and I’ll hang your tongue on my Christmas tree.”
“Okay, okay!” I cried out, hands raised in supplication.
Barb let go of me and stabbed the tip of the knife into the wooden floor. The same one I gutted Lucifer with earlier.
After one long, impatient sigh, Barb started again with her most shocking revelation yet. “I was God‘s scribe. I filled millions of books full of history, both what was done and what would come. And, it was I who caught Lucifer gazing upon the blueprints for God‘s newest creatures. He begged me not to tell his father, and I promised that I wouldn’t. I kept a close eye on him after that, though, because it dawned on me that I didn’t remember recording that interaction in any of his books. So on my next trip to the archives, I went to Lucifer‘s section and, as I thought, him stumbling upon God‘s plans wasnot written in his future. Not only that, but I found that his future was no longer written. Thousands of empty books sat on his shelves. Books that I recall writing, but do not remember their words.” Barb caught my attention then, her eyes fixed on me with an intensity that left me with little choice but to lean in and hang on every word. “With one single act, Lucifer had erased his future and began anew. It was marvelous.”
