Page 29 of Eternal Mate

“Lucifer happened,” he said, a weird glint in his eyes. “He broke him, extended his own mind into the vacant space, and has been ruining things—and siring his own army of Archdemons—in his name ever since.”

Shocked silence rang throughout the meeting room. I felt my mouth hang open in disgust and horror.

Barimuz grinned at my reaction. “Oh, yes, young Ambrose. The ‘Azazel’ you knew was actually just an empty shell, an extension of Lucifer himself. Your hatred of him is still well and truly deserved, but you should probably hate the real perpetrator.”

“Is… is that why Lucifer is way too interested in us?” I asked. My mouth was moving on its own, even though my mind was having trouble keeping up. “Is that why he keeps fucking with us?”

“Of course. It makes sense for him to be interested in what his children are doing, isn’t it?”

I was going to be fucking sick.

My vision started to go blurry. I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

A sudden jolt going down the bond snapped me out of my incoming panic attack. My eyes refocused to see everyone giving me worried looks, and I turned to see Aria with an even worse one.

Sariel? Are you okay?

I shook my head to clear it. I’ll be fine, I just… this is a lot to take in. Especially so suddenly.

Which was the understatement of the damn century. How was I supposed to even process this?

I shot a look at Auren. He didn’t seem to be that ruffled by the news—more contemplative, actually—and Ashe seemed more concerned about me than him. Maybe it didn’t matter to him whether Azazel was himself or actually Lucifer, because either way, he was a bastard that had been dead to him for years.

Barimuz was watching me so impassively, it kind of pissed me off. I tamped down my urge to snap at him.

“Where does Michael fit in all of this?” Auren suddenly asked. “He’s clearly involved in some way.”

“Michael’s mind and personal life are a mystery to me, but I wouldn’t be surprised if angels in general are ignorant to the state of things, too arrogant to believe anything would happen, or simply do not care what happens to Earth.” Barimuz clucked his tongue. “Perhaps it’s all of the above. It wouldn’t surprise me.”

Auren’s lips turned down at that answer.

“Wouldn’t God notice that things are changing, though?” Aria murmured. “Especially if they’ve been happening for thousands of years? He would, right?”

Barimuz scoffed. “He’s older than time itself. What do a few millennia mean to him, other than a blip in his existence? He likely won’t even notice anything’s wrong for more millennia yet.”

Aria visibly paled.

I’d already had an inkling that we were on our own in this cosmic battle, but hearing it confirmed was still discouraging. We were going to have to go up against a force of nature itself.

“In any case,” Barimuz picked back up, “Lucifer does know this base’s location already. He’s too busy to pay too much mind to it, but I would expect an attack very soon. Likely from Azazel, as we’ve established.”

The atmosphere tensed. My arm hairs prickled with both anger and fear.

We couldn’t deal with another attack right now when the last one had been so devastating. Considering what had happened then, I wasn’t confident that we would be able to flee from the demonic Azazel a second time.

Barimuz held up a hand. “In the interest of you all not dying horribly, I have a contingency plan to deal with the puppet once and for all, and presumably without casualties. I can hardly predict the future, however.”

He proceeded to outline a method of attack that involved setting up watches, intercepting Azazel’s initial attack, making a magic circle in a nearby cavern to contain him, transporting him there in the first place, and killing him altogether. He gave each of us assignments to complete and posts to take up.

Considering we were at least partially non-fallen angels, Aria and I were chosen to help Barimuz distract Azazel, as was Atlan on account of his age and power. Zuzanna was going to help set up the circle. Elias, Johnny, and Auren would head evacuation and interception plans because they were quick, and Reese and Marilyn would lead the watch for Azazel. A lot of other people were going to help with the last two efforts, of course.

Right as I noticed he’d explicitly skipped over Ashe, the Archdemon turned to him. “You there. Demon whelp.”

Ashe sat up from his relaxed posture, looking offended. “Um, yeah?”

“You will have to be the one to warp Azazel away when the time comes. For complicated reasons related to my orders, I won’t be able to help with that, and I doubt that the fae wolf will do a good enough job.”

Atlan growled at the jab, but Barimuz ignored him.

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