Ten minutes after Lucifer sent him spinning back through reality, Cain was driving. He gripped the steering wheel tightly, his knuckles white. The road was clogged with sluggish afternoon traffic, a mundane frustration that now felt surreal. His eyes kept flicking to the rearview mirror, not checking for cops, but half-expecting to see a flash of golden light or the silhouette of a trench coat in the back seat. His face was set in a deep, melancholic stare, the adrenaline crash leaving him hollow and numb.
After twenty minutes of stop-and-go crawling, he finally pulled into the short driveway of his quiet house. He killed the engine and sat for a moment in the sudden silence, the only sound the ticking of the cooling metal. He sighed, a long, weary exhale, before opening the car door.
Stepping out, he instinctively looked up at the sky. It was a pale, cloudy blue, utterly ordinary. Would she come back? The doubt crept in, cold and logical. For a being like her, centuries-old and impossibly powerful, he was a mayfly. A curious, temporary distraction. She'd probably find someone more interesting, more capable, to guide her through this world.
He gathered the grocery bags from the backseat, their mundane weight a stark contrast to the morning's events. As he pushed his front door open with his shoulder, he let out a short, self-deprecating chuckle. I must have lost my mind, he thought. Getting attached? They'd just met. It was ridiculous.
But deep down, he knew it wasn't about time. It was about the echo. Lucifer's blunt wonder, her social clumsiness, the strange loneliness that peeked through her confidence—it all mirrored the ghost of a friend whose absence was a constant ache.
He dropped the bags on the kitchen counter with a dull thud. Without even putting the perishables away, he went straight to the fridge. From the back, behind a half-empty carton of milk, he pulled out a bottle of spirytus. He took a small shot glass from the cupboard, the glass clinking softly against the bottle's neck.
He sat heavily at the table, poured a measure of the clear liquid, and downed it in one practiced motion. It hit like a liquid fuse, a searing line of fire from his throat straight to his gut.
"Woah," he exhaled sharply, a hiss of air through his teeth. "That's the punch."
He leaned his head back against the chair, staring up at the familiar cracks in the ceiling plaster. His thoughts circled back, stubborn as flies. Will she come back? The entire day felt like a hallucination. Fired for being a drunk, and then meeting an actual angel. A beautiful, terrifying, confusing angel who ate scrambled eggs and turned people to stone.
He poured another shot, the liquid shimmering in the dim kitchen light. He drank it. This time, the burn was accompanied by a warm, fuzzy encroachment at the edges of his mind. The sharp fear and confusion began to blur, softened by the alcohol's false courage.
He pulled his phone from his pocket, the screen bright in the dim room. He swiped past messages and opened his photo gallery. He scrolled, the images a blur of old parties and sunsets, until he stopped. It was a picture of him and Amelia, three years younger, their cheeks flushed, holding up bottles of cheap beer in someone's messy backyard. They were both laughing, her head tilted back, her dark hair spilling over her shoulder.
He took another shot, the glass clicking softly on the table. He sighed, the sound heavy in the quiet house, and let himself fall into the memory, scrolling through picture after picture of her.
Another shot. He closed his eyes, trying to force the memory beyond the static image, to hear her voice again.
And then, he did.
"Hey, idiot. Who said you could pass out before me, huh?"
The voice was sharp, playful, and deeply familiar. It was Amelia, sounding mockingly pissed, just like she used to.
His drunk, dreaming mind conjured her perfectly. He slowly opened his eyes, the real world spinning gently. He was back in that cramped bar booth, three years ago.
"I can't drink anymore, Ame," he heard himself complain in the memory, his voice younger, slurred. He wiped at his eyes. "My head is splitting. I wanna go home."
Sitting across from him in the booth was Amelia. Not a photograph, but a memory given flesh and sound in his dream. Her straight, black hair was shiny under the bar lights. Her warm brown eyes were fixed on him, sparkling with amusement. Her smile was beautiful and just a little sad. She took a defiant swig from her own bottle. "You're so weak. I'm just getting started."
Cain, in the memory, chuckled. "I admit it. I'm a lightweight. But come on, we've been here for seven hours. I have work tomorrow."
But then Amelia's expression shifted. The playful teasing melted away, leaving a melancholic smile that didn't reach her eyes. She looked at him with an intensity that had always haunted him.
"Well," she said softly, her voice cutting through the bar noise. "I'm just savoring my time. It's not like we can be together at all times."
The real Cain, asleep at his kitchen table, felt a pang in his chest even in his dream. The memory froze on her face, that bittersweet smile, and then dissolved into darkness.
Cain's head was pillowed on his arms on the kitchen table. An empty shot glass sat near his slack hand. The bottle of spirytus was half-empty.
And across from him, where the ghost of Amelia had just been, someone else was now sitting.
Lucifer watched him sleep, her golden eyes soft in the dim light. She had returned without a sound. A faint smile touched her lips as she observed the peaceful, untroubled expression on his face, so different from the terror she'd last seen in the field.
He's longing again, she thought, the concept still fascinating to her.
I should have returned much faster, a flicker of something like remorse passed through her. Sorry for making you wait, Cain.
She stood up quietly and moved to sit in the chair beside him, closer. She studied the lines of his face, the stubble on his jaw, the way his eyelashes rested against his skin. Gently, almost experimentally, she reached out and brushed her fingertips against his cheek.
As she savored this quiet, stolen moment, a slow, thick drip of liquid hit her elbow.
She glanced down, her expression unperturbed.
On the floor in the corner of the kitchen, neatly bisected at the waist, lay Zephon. His upper torso was propped awkwardly against the cabinet, his lower half a few feet away. The glowing light in his eyes was extinguished. A dark, shimmering fluid, unlike human blood, seeped slowly across the linoleum tiles, one drop finding its way to the table leg and then to her arm.
Lucifer looked from the dead angel to the sleeping man beside her. Her smirk returned, small and fierce.
Don't worry, she thought, her gaze resting on Cain's sleeping form. I won't let them touch a single strand of your hair.
Not even Michael.