Beyond the Veil by Tim Marquitz Read Free Book Online Page A

ground not
stepping any closer.
    “Triggaltheron,” he said, his eyes
narrowing. “You smell like death.”
    How pleasant; and you smell like
elderberries. I followed his example and stayed where I was, no pretense of
familiarity to ruin the frigid standoff. “Nice to see you, too… father .”
    A crooked smile colored his lips. “Baalth
had said he’d told you the truth of your bloodline. I’m sorry that was how you
had to find out. I had intended another way.”
    “You mean by not telling me at all?” The
words were out of my mouth before I’d realized they were gone, but I found I
didn’t regret them.
    The smile slipped from his lips. “I had my
reasons.”
    “Disappointment chief among them, I’m
sure.”
    Lucifer sighed. “There was some of that,
for certain, Frank, but only at the waste of your potential. You could have
been a force to be reckoned with, the Anti-Christ. You could have been—”
    “You?” I asked and shook my head. “I never
wanted that, and you can’t lie and say it’s what you wanted either.”
    He shrugged. “What I wanted never mattered
to you before, so why should it now?”
    “Maybe it was because you forced it on me.”
I could feel my cheeks warming as memories and old grievances rose to the
surface. “I’ve never made a decision that wasn’t directed by you, wasn’t
overseen by your plans and clandestine machinations…at least not until I
decided it was time to stop bothering being anything. It wasn’t until you
realized I would make a poor Devil that you stopped overtly shaping my life.
I’m just pissed you didn’t care enough to notice I’d given up sooner. Maybe my
life would have turned out better.”
    “Life is what you allow it to be, boy, what
you make it. That was the message I tried to impart.”
    I laughed. “And how’d that work out for
Mom, huh? Do you think she chose to be a victim? That she made a conscious
decision to be hacked up into a million pieces and strewn about a barn?”
    “Your mother—”
    “Is but one part of all this. You’ve
manipulated everything— everyone —and
then you have the plums to stand here and say it was our fault? We chose to be
fucked up? You slaughtered Longinus and chased his daughter out of Hell so you
could satisfy your fucking sense of revenge over being butt hurt,   all while lying to me so you didn’t have to soil
your outfit with any of the blame.”
    Lucifer exhaled hard. “Is this about a
woman, Frank?”
    I took a step forward, planting my feet and
posting right in front of him. “Yeah, maybe in some roundabout way it is,” I answered.
“You had feelings once, feelings that led you to think of my mother as more
than a piece of meat, just another conquest. You went to war for that feeling,
for that love, against your own brother, even. That’s where I stand now, in
those exact same shoes where I’m forced to choose sides and you’re making it
easy. Hundreds of years later, I’ve found the happiness you stole from me when
I was just a kid and didn’t know any better. I won’t let you, or God for that
matter, take it from me ever again.”
    If I were capable of believing he still had
feelings, I could have imagined the look I saw on his face as hurt, as the
understanding he’d made a mistake and wanted to atone for it, but I knew
better. Lucifer gave me exactly the expression he thought I wanted to see
because pacification was the quicker way to shut me up. He reached out to put a
hand on my shoulder, and I batted it away. I didn’t want him touching me.
    “I’ve been nothing but a pawn from the day
I was born, and probably even before then, so don’t get sentimental and pretend
I’m more than that now.” I drew in a deep breath and let it out slow. “You’re
the reason my mother was murdered…it was your fault. I’ll be damned if I let
you kill Karra, too.” Before he could say anything in response, I stomped past
him and strode through the wall into the waiting grayness beyond. I