Days of New: The Complete Collection (Serials 1-5) (61 page)

The little demon looked up at her, his expression heartbroken. “Irin and Emim are outside with them. They’re happy.”

“How many?”

“Nearly a thousand. A good enough army with the twins on their side.”

Maya sagged onto the top step. Dante sat beside her. “He told me that he loved me tonight.”

Dante leaned against her, his tiny hand taking hers. “I don’t think all the love in the world could compete with all those fallen angels out there.”

“So I’ve lost then? I haven’t saved him at all, have I? All I’ve managed to do is break my own heart.”

“You saved him for a short while. That’s better than none.”

“It’s silly. I thought of us like Hades and Persephone. Like the medallion in his bedroom.”

“Oh, Miss.” Dante lowered his head, his voice thick. “Master has medallions like that all over the house. Many of them depict the different versions of him the world has conceived. That one just happens to be of Hades, and I believe it’s a reminder that he can never have true happiness. And any happiness he can get will have to be stolen, like Persephone. You would be surprised at how the humans have chosen to depict Lucifer and at how widely. He collects them. They are his reminders of who he is.”

“The devil,” Maya said quietly, understanding.

“Yes, Miss. The devil.”

Of course, Maya had identified with Persephone. She’d rambled on about it all day with Lucifer. All the while, she’d just been reminding him that his happiness with her was stolen and temporary. She hadn’t been forging a deeper bond with him at all. Just ensuring her end. She stood.

“I’m going out there. Maybe I can talk to him.”

Dante surged to his feet with the help us his whirring bat wings. “That’s not a good idea, Miss! Irin and Emim will be out there with him. They’ll do anything to keep you from him during this time. This is exactly what they’ve been waiting for.”

“I can’t let them win this easily. I can’t just give up.”

Finally, the little demon nodded. “I’ll be the lookout.”

“Okay.” Squaring her shoulders, Maya set off down the stairs with Dante flying down beside her. As soon as her feet hit the foyer’s slick hardwood, she heard the voices outside. She sensed the amount of bodies on the other side of the door like an electrical surge running up her spine. The voices were a low, vibrating hum through her bones. Her instincts told her not to go outside, but she opened the front door anyway.

It was later than she’d thought. The night was very dark, the moon hanging high in the sky. The front lawn was an army barracks, with fallen angels standing or kneeling, taking up every inch of room. She heard Lucifer’s voice, but it seemed to echo around her, and she couldn’t tell where he was. Standing on her tiptoes, she tried to peer around all the bodies, but she couldn’t make out a thing. Frustrated, she turned to ask Dante if he could fly around and find Lucifer for her, but he wasn’t there.

Maya blinked, confused. “Dante?” she whispered. A few fallen turned around and looked at her, but their interest was fleeting. She was just a tiny thing, easily ignored and overlooked. She gritted her teeth and started to shove through the crowd. If she couldn’t find Lucifer, she would just go to the very center of the crowd and yell for him until he found her.

Just as she started to step forward, a great wind hit her square in the face. With a halting gasp that the air seemed to steal right out of her mouth, Maya staggered backward. She reached for her throat, choking. The air had gone down her open mouth during her alarmed reaction. She felt it, like a hand, reaching down her windpipe and siphoning out the air in her lungs. She tried to suck wind into her mouth, but there seemed to be a wall in front of her face, keeping out any oxygen. Crumpling to her knees, Maya fell, the rough grit of the front porch digging into her skin.

The front door of the house was open behind her, warm air trickling out and hitting her back. Feeling herself suffocating, Maya flailed, banging her hand on the porch to get someone’s attention. But a great roar went up from the crowd, and her pleas for help were lost in the cacophony. If she could just crawl back a little more, she thought, she could get inside and away from the deadly air causing her lungs to riot.

Digging her nails into the wood until they bent back and broke off, she hauled herself back, inch by inch. Her body shuddered and convulsed, saliva leaking out of her mouth. Her eyes bulged in her sockets; veins thumped wildly along her temples so that she heard the pounded echoing of every stuttering heartbeat.

She was just inches away from being inside the house and safe. She felt the warmth on her back, saw the foyer’s light from the corner of her eyes. But blackness crept up through her vision, and she faltered. She wasn’t going to make it. She was going to die right here on Lucifer’s front porch, while he held a fallen angel rally to end the world.

Irin and Emim did this
, she thought. And the anger she felt was just enough to push her inside the house.

The invisible hand clapped over her mouth lessened slightly, but not enough for Maya to breathe. When she was ready to pass out, a hand reached down and ripped her backward, flinging her farther into the foyer. With a loud gasp, Maya hit the base of the stairs, her spine thwacking against the wood hard enough to make her teeth snap shut and bite her tongue. The front door slammed shut, and an angel stepped out from behind it.

The hand was gone, and Maya breathed fully again. With her first breath, she said, “Camille!”

“Having fun, Maya?”

Gripping her chest, Maya fought to control her desperate gulps of air. Just then, Dante fell from the ceiling and landed with a moist plop on the ground beside her. He too struggled for breath. At Camille’s disgusted look, Maya said, “He’s a friend.”

Camille rolled her eyes. “Of course you’ve made friends with a demon.”

“He’s a good demon. He was helping me. Are you okay, Dante?” Maya helped the little demon stand and dust off the dirt from the rafters that clung to his uniform. He sniffed and nodded.

“What was happening to you?” Camille asked. “I walked in from the back and saw you lying in the foyer, choking on something.”

“Irin and Emim,” Maya said, hissing the names. “They didn’t want me to get close to Lucifer out there. The fallen are here.”

“I know.”

Maya frowned. “How did you know?”

“Because Gabriel opened Hell and let them all loose. He needed an army to hunt down the Loyalists.”

“The group that hurt Grace,” Maya said. She pushed a trembling hand through her disheveled hair. A dark look passed over Camille’s face that turned Maya’s blood to ice. “What is it, Camille?” Maya asked quietly.

“Grace was a traitor,” Camille said through gritted teeth. Only then did Maya notice how the angel’s face was pale and tired. Her fists were clenched but trembling, like she was unable to lift them anymore; her wings draped weakly along the ground.

“Was?”

“Clark shot her.”

“What happened?”

“Maya,” Camille said, her voice softening. She crossed the foyer and pulled Maya back down to the stairs, where Camille took a seat beside her. Maya knew something horrible had happened when Camille wrapped her arm around Maya’s shoulders.

“Is it Clark?” Maya asked, her voice barely a whisper.

Another roar went up from outside that made Dante cringe. He had turned away, clearly trying to give Maya and Camille privacy.

“No.” Camille’s voice trembled. And before she’d even said it, Maya started crying. In her heart, she already knew. “Zarachiel is dead.”

For a second, Maya thought the twins were inside the house, stealing her breath again. She couldn’t breathe. Camille rubbed her back in soothing circles, but it didn’t help. A sob tore free from Maya’s body, and together, she and Camille cried, clinging to each other in Lucifer’s foyer.

“How?” Maya finally managed to ask. Camille was just a blur in front of her, lost behind the endless tears.

“Grace was a plant all along, and she shot Zarachiel. He died earlier tonight.”

Maya sobbed, tucking her head against Camille and crying some more. Zarachiel shouldn’t have died. He was the best of them. His goodness had actually made Maya trust the angels again after all her kind had been through. That he was dead meant that there was nothing left to save in this world.

Like she had read Maya’s thoughts, Camille asked, “How’s it going here? With Lucifer?”

Maya shook her head, flinging a hand toward the front door to encompass all that was happening beyond it. “I’ve lost him. Those damn twins have him under their thumb. And now this army has arrived.”

Camille sighed. “Maybe it’s for the best.”

“Why?”

“Gabriel is coming here with an entire holy angel army. He and the Archangels want vengeance for Zarachiel’s death. They say he died because of what Lucifer’s done.”

“But he didn’t do it! Grace did! You said it yourself.”

“I know. But they believe that if it weren’t for Lucifer, none of this would have happened.”

Maya gritted her teeth. “So they’re blaming him for all that’s bad in the world. Because he’s supposed to be their great big representation of evil. The big, bad devil.”

“Basically.”

“So that’s why you’re here? To warn us?”

“And I wanted you to hear about Z from me.”

“Thank you,” Maya said, her anger fading away as quickly as it had come. She was naive to think that the holy angels would be the ones to bring justice to this world. They weren’t any better than the fallen angels outside the front doors. “I appreciate it. It’s brave of you to come here.”

Camille didn’t have to ask what Maya meant. “I thought I was ready. But when I got here, I couldn’t face him. That’s why I came in through the back. I wanted to find you and tell you instead. I can’t talk to him.”

“I understand. You probably think I’m the world’s biggest idiot for coming here.”

“No,” Camille said quietly. “In the beginning, I blamed Clark. I thought he’d sacrificed you to save me, but now I get that you were just doing what you could to help. I think you’re the bravest of us all for doing the hardest thing imaginable. You love him, I can tell.”

“But it’s not enough.”

Camille squeezed Maya tighter and placed a light kiss on her temple. The gesture was so comforting that Maya almost started sobbing again. “It rarely is,” Camille whispered, and Maya’s heart broke because she knew Camille was thinking of Clark.

“He’s a good guy, Camille.”

“The best.” Camille stood, her shoulders slumped in defeat. She looked as heartbroken as Maya felt. “They’re about to come back inside. I have to go. I can’t be here. Tell him about Gabriel’s army though. You two will need to escape tonight. I don’t know how long it will take for Gabriel to take out the Loyalists and come here.”

Maya nodded. “Be careful, Camille,” she said, but the Throne angel was already gone.

The front door opened, and the grinning pair of evil twins stepped in. They smirked at Maya when they saw her sitting on the stairs, having been run back inside like a whipped dog. She glared at them. Lucifer was next through the door, followed by a handful of fallen angels, who Maya assumed were his officers from his time as Hell’s General.

Lucifer looked up and saw her. He didn’t register her tear-stained face or how Dante had skittered across the foyer to hide behind Maya. “Maya, this is—” He started, gesturing toward his fallen angel officers like they were going to have a welcoming party.

“I don’t give a damn who they are,” Maya snarled, standing back up. She held tight to Dante’s hand. “The entire holy angel legion is on their way here. They’re going to kill you all.”

Lucifer recoiled, shock evident on his face. “Who told you this?”

“Camille.”

She didn’t know how he managed it, but Lucifer looked even more surprised. Then instantly guilty. Pain flashed across his eyes. Maya knew it was a headache, and for once, she welcomed Lucifer’s pain—it was the only way he would see reason. “Why would she do that?” he asked quietly.

“Because a good man died tonight. And because she thought I could save you. Because I love you.”

Irin and Emim laughed, their smiles improperly large.

Maya whirled on them, jabbing her finger in their direction. “And if you two ever try to kill me again, I’ll rip every single feather from your wings and make you swallow each one until you choke and die.”

She didn’t stick around to see how Lucifer took the news of her attempted murder. She turned and stomped up the stairs, dragging Dante along with her. “Where are you going?” Lucifer called after her, the anger seething in his voice. She knew it wasn’t directed at her, but she didn’t care. His anger made her angry, and it felt good to get pissed off.

“To my room. To cry for my friend. And to wait for the holy angels to get here and start another war. Is that okay,
Master
?” Maya spat the words over her shoulder, not bothering to slow down, her dress whipping around her legs. Dante fluttered beside her, hopping and flying to keep up with her long strides. She slammed her bedroom door hard enough to rattle the house. From somewhere in the hall, a picture fell off the wall and shattered.