Lucifer’s wings caught an ethereal thermal, propelling him past galaxies and gliding, gliding, gliding him into a perfectly breezeless day of Heavenly weather—the endless perfect weather enveloping the Kingdom of Heaven. Never, never too hot; never, never too cold; always, always 72F and sunny with Dad’s Love.
Well, “always” with one exception. The day he Fell.
Below him and two furlongs to the north, the Kingdom lay nestled amongst the clouds. Four white Walls, as white as a hill of baby lambs, surrounded the Kingdom’s unsurroundable, infinite-dimensional Infinity. On the Kingdom’s west side lapped the Ineffable Ocean, where deceased surfers found their perfect waves; on its east stretched the Desert of Contemplation, a hot spot for self-flagellating martyrs; on the north rose the Mountains of Bliss, tromped by intrepid, timeless trekkers; here, on the south side, the Straight and Narrow Path marched through the Forest of Glory, a paradise for nature lovers and birdwatchers.
And in the exact center of the Kingdom: The Silver City, dazzling in the Holy Light like a silver crown encrusted with jewels of silver-pink and silver-blue. Doubting Thomas, Patron Saint of Architects, had restructured the City, laying out its buildings on a system of concentric circles, and the buildings grew ever taller as they neared the focal point, the Grand Assembly Hall. The spire of this, the Holy Meeting Place, thrust upward from its surroundings like—
Well, like Dad’s middle finger, if you asked him.
The Holy Hour must’ve struck, for, even at this distance, the racket of harpists harping on their harps and the drone of Celestial voices, led by Castiel, gave his eardrums cramps. “Praise Be to Dad,” Castiel moaned. And, “Holy, Holy, Holy, Dad.” And, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our Dad.” And other suck-up stuff like that.
But did Sentry Angels stand guard, just in case, after all these eons of prickly peace, he returned to Heaven to inflame revenge? How far did Heaven’s defense system extend?
Incoming Devil at bearing x-y-z. Launch Interceptor Angels on My mark: Three. Two. One.
Nothing. Yet.
Lucifer chose a landing spot, a wispy cirrus. From a mile up, he plummeted, straight down, feet-first, his wings spread wide wide wide and held utterly motionless. Inches away from crash, he broke into a furious flurry of wing-flapping. Plummet stopped, velocity near-zip, he executed the most delicate of touchdowns, not a ripple of cloud disturbed. Just like the spectacular landings of Japanese cranes parachuting onto the Shinano River, which he’d witnessed while visiting Emperor Jimmu in 660 BC.
His had always been the most spectacular, the most heart-stopping, the most envied, of all Angel landings.
Well, not always. Not until he’d exited gawky adolescence. Then, not yet grown into his feathers, he would land high-speed, wings cockeyed, his legs churning across a cloud scurrying to catch up to his momentum. He’d fail, he’d trip, he’d skim headfirst, palms and chest stinging, skin left behind. Cloud-burn.
(“Samael, why can’t you first learn proper landing technique before you try to pull off daredevil stunts?”Amenadiel was always barking at him.)
Even back then, even before then—for as long as he could remember!—a vague discontent with his angelic lot had ghosted through the innermost rooms of his mind. A discontent his siblings had never given sign that they too felt. A discontent that had grown and grown until…
Lucifer set down an Earth package of piano moving straps atop the cloud. He stood and folded his wings loosely against his back. Here on the South Wall, three gates—the Gate of Zebulun, the Gate of Issachar, the Gate of Simeon—barred his entrance into Eternal Joy. And though the Gates appeared to be only three times as tall as he, if he should try to fly over them, even if he flew and flew until all his primaries fell out, the Gates would zoom higher and higher, and he’d never reach their tops. And though the Gates appeared to have only the thickness of three of his hand-breadths, if he should try to hammer his way through, even if he hammered and hammered until his arms broke off, the Gates would grow thicker and thicker, and he’d never breach them.
No, the Silver City and the Realm of Dad were well-protected against him. Their designated Evil One.
Wisps eddying about his feet, he traipsed across the cloud toward the Gate of Issachar. The Pearly Gates, three per Wall, twelve in all, weren’t twelve gigantic oyster pearls, of course—another silly Revelations metaphor—but lustrous rainbow colors swirled across their translucent white surfaces. Curiously, the closer he got to Issachar, the darker and grimmer the reds and greens and indigos hued, and the faster they swirled—speeding up, speeding up, vortexes now, violent whirls.
Did they do that at anyone’s approach?
He traipsed past the one-furlong “Highway to Heaven” marker—
Sirens shrieked, screaming through the air like a thousand tornado klaxons. Lucifer leapt, and nearly lost half his Immortal Life.
“What the fff—?”
Harps and songs ceased.
Lucifer stopped. He stood very, very still. A suffocating silence, deader than Jesus at midnight Good Friday, wrapped around him.
“H-hello?” His breath stuttered within his lungs, and the word came out a whisper.
No reply. Absolute Silence casketed God’s Kingdom.
A chill of fear spidered up Lucifer’s spine—the last time Heaven had gone soundless had been in the moments before he was cast out. He would’ve jammed his hands in his armpits to ward off the chill, to stop his trembles, but—
He sucked moisture into his mouth and then called out, “Hello? Anybody? Bravo, your Intruder Alert System functions perfectly—nearly scared the Hell out of me, heh, heh. But you can call off the drill now. It’s only me, Lucifer.”
He showed his palms. See? No concealed weapons here!
The lamb-white Wall shimmered.
“Um, h-hello?”
Thousands of eyes—living eyes!—popped open, splashed all over the Wall like anti-Devil gang graffiti.
Shit! Lucifer’s heartbeats clattered around his rib bones and scrambled up his throat and tried to squirt out his ears. He clapped his hand to his chest and laughed, trying for a “ha, ha, nice prank” laugh, but it sounded more like a rat’s squeal. “Okay, consider me officially creeped out. I, I only came to—”
Staring at him: shimmering eyespots the size of dinner plates, somewhat like those on a peacock’s train—fist-sized blobs of black inside circles of lapis-lazuli blue, inside ovals of copper, inside rims of jade green. The eyes, in pairs, changed positions, exchanged positions, silently. They slipped far up. Slipped far down. Slid to the left. Slid to the right. Glided from dead center to far away.
As if each eyespot—each Angel?—wished to scrutinize him from all angles.
He peered closer. Yes, Angels. And even though the pairs of eyes appeared to be identical, and even though no sibling had bothered to visit him since his Fall—except Amenadiel, to haul his arse back to Hell—he could identify the eyes’ owners.
There, Nathanael the Oceanographer, who, ages ago, had taken him on an Ocean expedition. Natty had given him a six-inch shark tooth from the skeleton of a sixty-foot Celestial Great White, and, curious as to what a shark bite felt like, he’d stupidly pricked the tooth clean through his palm. Natty had mended his young, bawling self.
There, Bernael, Professor of Philosophy and Logic, who’d told him he was hopeless at Ethics.
There, front and center, Michael, once his most beloved older brother, who’d taught string-bean Samael tricks for fighting stronger opponents.
“Brothers, Sisters, I, I came here to ask—”
The eyes stared at him, and glared at him, in silence.
“I, I—”
The eyes shuttered and vanished back into the white.
“Br-brothers? Sisters?”
Each Gate and each Wall bulged outward. Thousands of iron spikes, three feet long, thrust out from their surfaces, readying to impale The Enemy.
He’d been observed.
Judged.
Rejected.
Rejected.
Rejected.
Something sharp-nailed and needle-toothed flashed through Lucifer’s mind and tore into his heart—as if a pack of Hell-jaguars had raced out from The Twisted Forest, leapt on him, taken him down in a vicious fang and claw free-for-all. Better if Hell-jaguars had. Better still if his siblings had stormed through the Gates and ripped him limb from limb. Anything but to forever carry around in his soul this image of the Gates spiked against him.
He clutched his head in his hands. His wings drooped, their knifelike, perfect tips slicing through the wisps of cloud. Sounds and sights burned through his brain, pitiless acid: His call to Rebellion. Gabriel’s Trumpet ringing forth. Fistfights in the City streets. Thunder raking the skies. The Rebels driven out of the City, onto the Beach of Eternal Mercies. Waves roiling the Sea. Screams. Soldiers falling. Downed Angels scattered along the shoreline. Blood filming Samael’s tongue, the taste like sucking on old, rusty coins. The Opposition demanding his surrender. Samael’s leaping atop the Rock of Justice Tempered and pleading with them to just listen. The Golden Sword—
His Fall. His Fall into darkness and ash and…
Aloneness.
Lucifer pressed the back of his wrist against his mouth. I am your brother. Why do you treat me like this?
He fumbled inside his suit coat for his flask. But his fingers closed on nothing. Of course. Of damn course! The whisky hadn’t crossed Heavenly dimensions with him.
Strength dissolved from his legs, and he sank to his haunches.
No. No! He wouldn’t let them reduce him to this. He would shout his defiance—
But he couldn’t, his throat suddenly thick with treacherous tears.
He waited. One moment. Two. Then he inhaled sharply and drove off the weeps. He flung himself up to his feet and shook a fist at the Iron Barrier.
“I won’t let you, you hear me?”
But apparently, no one did.
Well, fuck ’em. He took out his pocket square, gave his eyes a swipe. Then, pocket square re-tucked, cuffs straightened, wings perked, he shammed a stroll toward the Gate of Issachar. After all, what was the worst that could happen?
Hell could happen. Annihilation could happen. The Divine Vortex could happen—and one experience of The Vortex in a lifetime was enough, thank you very much.
He stumbled to another stop. Maybe this had been a crap idea. But to turn tail now? Let them all laugh at him? No. No. Eons, eons, spent condemned to his fate in Hell. Suffering its privations. Burying his desires deep in his heart. And why? Trying to, what, do penance for his Rebellion and regain Father’s favor?
No more. Dad had abandoned him, his sufferings pointless. Now, he wanted that piano.
He strutted forward, relentless. He squeezed between spikes and pounded his palms against the Barrier. “Uriel? Uriel!”
No reply.
“Uriel, I know you guard the Gate of Issachar. Answer me!”
Lucifer pounded harder. He might not be able to breach the Gate, but he would pound and pound until he deafened all the Angels and the Saved.
He pounded. He pounded. He pounded.
“I can literally keep this up forever, you know.”
He pounded, pounded—
A piano plinked.
Lucifer’s palm checked in mid-air, in mid-strike. Oh, sweet…well, Dad. Could, could it be?
The piano plinked again. His piano, its dark, rich, perfect tones unmatched by any other piano, human-built or Celestial-created.
Lucifer scrambled backwards and charged the Gate, hurling his body at it. But, of course, he nearly broke his damn shoulder and bounced off, not crashed through. And got himself speared in his left side by an iron spike. His breaths rasping, he pressed a hand to the graze, his blood drip-drip-dripping to the cloud-ground.
Silence, except for his breaths and dripping blood.
Maybe he’d wanted his piano so badly he’d conjured up the sound—
His piano plinked again.
He touched his fingers to the Spiked Iron Gate and leaned his forehead against it—would’ve crawled right inside the Wall if he could’ve. Anything to get closer to his piano. In Hell, time and again, like his own personal Hell-loop, he would claw his way out of sleep, his dreams wretched with the imaginings of his piano’s fate—the cherubim, swords raised, swarming over his piano and slicing it into scraps of wood, snips of wire, chips of ivory, crumbs of ebony; or Dad Himself slamming down His Almighty Fist and smashing it to splinters—and he’d wake up flinging himself out of bed, trying to fling himself onto his imaginary piano to save it, screaming, Mine! Mine! Mine! Please, oh please, don’t take this away from me too!
But his piano still existed.
The Hell-boa in Lucifer’s guts uncoiled, just a bit.
Then it coiled again, even tighter. Dad had given his piano to Uriel? Uriel, whose rhythm-deaf fingers couldn’t play “Chopsticks” without making mistake after mistake? Did Uriel know how much it meant to him? Know that, just as Amenadiel had done with him, he’d give Uriel a blank check if Uriel asked to deal?
Uriel plinked the piano, yipping lyrics at him: “Knock, knock, knocking on Heaven’s doh-oh-or.”
Lucifer’s hands fisted. “You’re hilarious, Uriel. Quit messin’ around on my piano, you feathery, pattern-loving pillock.”
Uriel kept plinking and howling like a dog with its tail slammed in Heaven’s doh-oh-or. His voice soared up and shattered somewhere above high C.
“Uriel! For Dad’s sake—for all our sakes—stop that noise right now and roll me out my piano. It’s mine. Mum gave it to me.”
“Lucifer, Lucifer, Lucifer,” slimed the smug little bastard, “you know I can’t open the Gate for you. What a shame you came all this way for nothing. But I knew you would, eventually.”
Uriel, always taunting him, always pranking him, when they were growing up. At times like this, he desired to rip the runt’s drab, gray-brown wren-wings right off his shoulders and club him senseless with them.
If he could only get his hands on him.
But if he could, he might embrace Uriel, a brother he’d not seen in eons.
“Roll it out here this instant! Or shall I tell everyone about the time we were playing ‘Meteors’ and you fired off that crazy pitch? Remember? How could you not! You nearly took my legs off, Amenadiel dove for it but couldn’t catch it, and the meteor—”
Plunged through Earth’s atmosphere. Poof! No more dinosaurs. Dad flared furious: The dinosaur! His crowning achievement! Surpassing even the exquisite amoeba! Gone!
Mum took the blame. Always protecting her children, Mum. With one itsy-bitsy exception. She stood apart, didn’t lift a Celestial Finger, uncaring as Dad cast him into—
“You want it, go get it.” The Spiked Iron Gate clanged open. Uriel wound up and pitched. Piano chords shrieked.
—“Bloody Hell!”
His piano whizzed overhead, zipping straight for the Milky Way, straight for Sol’s FireMouth.
Lucifer leapt, unfurling, shucking off gravity. His wings whooshed through the ether in a powerful downstroke, pulling him up high into the air. He flapped full out, chased cacophony. Gah! In thousands upon thousands of years, he’d put his wings through their paces about as often as he’d roller skated along Hell’s slip-sliding, Escher-like corridors, Hell not exactly enticing him to sightsee. His pecs and supracoracoideus muscles would pay him back for this.
Uriel, damn him. An acrid taste invaded Lucifer’s mouth, like he’d stuffed it full of Hell-cigarette butts. Damn Uriel for treating his piano this way. Damn Dad for giving it to him. And damn himself, for not being able to fly faster!
And yet… Wasn’t this thrilling! Hurtling along, the star colors blueshifting and redshifting around him, sapphire stars racing toward him and morphing into rubies speeding away, their bass singing voices coming at him and skidding up the scale to soprano voices flying past!
He hurtled through Heaven’s Heavenly Corona of Dad’s Love—bloody selective love—and the temperature plummeted to a chilly -454F. He hurtled across the universe, hurtled across the supercluster Laniakea, hurtled into the Local Group, hurtled into the spiral arms of the Milky Way. He gasped for breath, his wound stinging, his flight muscles burning with lactic-acid fire, his wings as heavy as neutron stars, their strokes fledgling-sloppy—
No! No! Can’t give up now! My piano!
With a burst of speed from Dad-knew-where, he hurtled into Sol’s system. He hurtled past the outer planets, past Earth’s watery blue, past Venus’s volcanic orange, past Mercury’s cratered gray. As he neared the always-raging Sol, the temperature soared to a warmish 797F, and his Lightbringer speed—the fastest of Dad’s Angels—increased frictional forces and heated up space gases to even hotter, ionizing them, a sharp, metallic smell—like welding fumes—smiting the ether, a trail lighting up behind him—
Would Earth astronomers label him a comet?
Piano chords screamed for his help.
“I’m coming!”
Closing in on it now, so close, so close, feet away—
A solar flare shot out, hissing, its fiery tongue flicking, eager to fuel itself on the piano’s Divinity.
With one last desperate downstroke, Lucifer surged forward. And snagged a piano leg. He and Sol’s Gravity played a vicious game of tug of war—Sol straining to devour not only the piano but him!
“Let go! Mine!” Lucifer frantically beat his wings back and forth like a damned celestial hummingbird—
Sol’s grip broke.
Lucifer yanked the piano to him as his wings hurled him into reverse. He snarled a smile at Sol. “Ha! I win!”
His piano! Safe!
One hundred and twenty thousand miles later, Lucifer’s momentum slowed. He waved a wingtip at Sol—best not to leave Sol grumpy, for the Celestial might unleash a retaliatory, blistering heat wave upon his new home, Earth, and fry all the humans like chicken parts.
“No hard feelings, eh?”
Sol’s Flare erupted and took a swipe at him. Lucifer screeched, threw himself out of the way. He escaped, only a few singed feathers smoking.
And now?
Below him, the blue aggie marble of Earth called to him, singing: the water-swish of her oceans, the rumble-grumble of her mountains, the stop-go-elide-and-slide of all the tongues of humanity. Go straight away, or…?
Sadly, only Celestials could fully appreciate Music. Only Celestials could fully appreciate his talents. Would his brothers and sisters not soften their hearts if he played for them? Would they not see that he was merely a brother who thought a bit differently from them? He meant them no harm—he’d never meant them any harm. Would they not believe that truth if they heard his Music once again?
High above the wobbling Earth, he curled up atop his piano and napped, tuckered out.
***
“Sorry, darling, I know this is most undignified, but it’s the easiest way to carry you right now.”
He eased the piano onto her back, clutched a leg, and flew to the Spiked Iron Gate of Issachar.
“Uriel! Dearie me, Ray-Ray can pitch better than you with one wing tied behind her back. You nearly turned my piano into kindling! Not to mention, Sol’s consuming its Divinity would’ve detonated a supernova, destroying the humans. Wouldn’t Dad have been cheesed off then!”
The Gate of Issachar slammed closed.
“Fine, nice talking to you, too. See you at Armageddon.”
One hand still clutching the piano leg, Lucifer slid his other hand under the case and turned his piano right-side-up. He set her on the cirrus. He pulled up a puffy cumulus and took a seat. For a moment, he rested his fingers on the piano’s rosewood fallboard.
If I haven’t said it before, hello, old friend.
From behind the Gate, a faint murmur of noise rolled toward him.
Lucifer’s grip nearly dented the rosewood. Now what?
Footsteps. Many, many footsteps, as soft as wind rustling through bulrushes. Whispers. Many, many whispers, like raindrops pattering through a weeping willow’s branches. A few whispers of Samael, a few whispers of Our Fallen Brother, and many, many more whispers of Traitor.
Lucifer swallowed, the click in his throat audible. Definitely not the adoring crowd of his youthful recital days.
He lifted the fallboard and positioned his feet at the pedals. He rubbed moist fingers along his thighs. He inhaled a long breath (one…two…three…) and exhaled a long breath (three…two…one…). His heartbeat bumped beneath his ribcage. Sweat dampened his collar. Time seemed to move ever more slowly, each moment taking an eternity to pass, one moment into the other…
He lifted his hands to the keys.
An urge surged through him, a want, a desire—
His fingers touched down on the ivories. They tremored there, no notes sounding. As if he were like a blind man who’d forgotten Braille. Could he play, really play? After all these eons?
He closed his eyes. His fingers found different keys. His fingers pressed, and moved, and, hesitantly at first, he was playing, and then, more boldly, he was playing, and then—
Divinity snatched hold of his fingers!
And She weaved the notes into melodies far more intricate, far more expressive than anything he himself could create. For he was merely—merely?—Music’s perfect conduit.
Of course! How could he have doubted himself? He was Lucifer Bloody Morningstar, Dad-dammit, and only one pianist he’d ever given tips to, Horowitz—good old mad-sad Vlad—had ever come to close to outshining the Morning Star. And come Vlad had. Many, many times. You’re welcome, Vladdie! Are you keeping the putzes in the Silver City entertained?
He bent his head to the keys. And the Immortal Music flowed through him, and the notes were his blood, and the beat his heartbeat, and the Music pulsed through him and out through his fingertips and onto the keys in sparks of light and color, like flames leaping atop fireplace logs, reds and golds and blues, swirling into melodic whorls, spiraling up into the ether, floating away. Yes! How he’d missed this! How he wanted this! At any moment, his body itself might lift and soar alongside the notes, no wings needed.
He swayed to the sounds and colors, he swayed his body over the keyboard, and he thundered out deep-purple double-fortissimos, and he caressed the keys with delicate pink pianissimos, and—
Out of the corner of his eye, Lucifer glimpsed the Wall lambing-up, glimpsed the thousands of peacock eyes spudding.
He took his fingers from the keys. A final, golden half-tone still rang through the air, a note yearning for completion, a completion it could not attain. Eventually, the note died away, echoing from cloud to cloud and flowing into the ether, becoming eternal Universe. The Universe of All Possibilities. And for the first time in his Immortal life, he understood, perhaps, the words, “And God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very, very good.”
A smile stole over Lucifer’s lips, a smile as soft as the first rays of dawn on the First Morning. Surely his siblings must share in his delight?
Lucifer roamed his gaze over the Wall.
There, Dagiel, once a playmate and the Angel who held dominion over fish. (“Come play Sharks and Minnows with us, Sam!” she’d cry, and dive under the Ocean’s waves, always, always eluding capture by the sharks.) Now her eyes were as flat in expression as a carp’s.
There, Zophiel, once a Rebel like him. (“Victory is ours, Samael. I swear to you my eternal allegiance.”) Now his spying little eyes brimmed with suspicion and stupidity.
There, front and center, Michael, once his most beloved older brother, who’d taught string-bean Samael tricks for fighting stronger opponents. (“Use your speed, your agility—no one’s quicker than you, Lightbringer”; “Dodge, and then use their momentum against them, a push, a kick”; “The nuts, the knees, the nose—make the filthy demons howl, Sammy!”) Now Michael’s eyes glittered like poisoned gems.
All of them, all of them, unmoved.
A hot rush of blood flooded down from Lucifer’s brain. His head whirled in a swirl of dizzy waves, and the peacock eyes zoomed far away, as if they were tunneling down the wrong end of Nanael’s telescope. No, don’t faint, don’t faint. He snagged hold of the piano’s rim to keep from falling off the cloud-bench.
He bent forward in his seat, still clinging to the piano. He blinked. Blinked again. No. No. I must not have seen right. Or, or, I haven’t played yet. I only imagined playing, and they have yet to hear me—
But all those notes, the deep-purple double-fortissimos, the delicate pink pianissimos, the golden half-tones, came crashing down from Heaven’s Sky like nine hundred tons of scrap metal and shattered his heart.
He sat there, hunched, frozen—soul frozen, blood frozen, every muscle frozen, his hand clenched to the rosewood. Not a sound from his siblings. Not a sound from the City. The perfect, sky-blue Sky sailed overhead, indifferent.
At last, he took a shuddering breath. Hauled himself straight. Touched a finger to middle C. He didn’t play. Didn’t try to win them over with azure-violet-green arpeggios and sharps the scarlet of clanging bells. With shimmering rainbow octaves racing out from the hidey-holes of his mind and vanishing through his keyboard-racing fingers as quickly as fleeting thoughts.
His siblings would never be won over. Never. Not even if from each shattered fragment of his heart another Universe sprang forth, each glimmering with the Sacred and the Holy, each bursting into Divine Song.
Especially not then. Sin of Pride and all that.
He laughed, the harsh sound scraping his throat. How ironic. Turned out that, deep down, he’d desired their…
Damn them.
He shot to his feet and stalked toward the Peacock Wall, whisking his hands at it, as if he could crumble the Wall with shooing gestures and shouts. “Go on, all of you—be Angels, won’t you, and flap off!”
He turned his back on his siblings. He stripped naked, dropping shoes and cast-offs onto the cloud-bench. The Scent of Heaven—lily-like, impossible to scrub out, and, as was the way with smells, a conjurer of memories—tainted those clothes. They were no longer his.
From the Earth package, he took out a safety harness and two heavy-duty moving straps. He slipped into the harness and wrapped the straps around the piano case.
“This’ll be more comfortable for you, darling—no more of that upside-down travel. C’mon, we’re going home.”
He clipped the straps to the harness’s chest carabiner.
Ready. Set. Go!
He whooshed open his wings and swooped from his cloud-perch, the piano swaying in the ether fifteen feet below him. With wings spread wide wide wide—the widest wingspan of all Dad’s children—he glided across the universe. Every now and again, he flapped a leisurely stroke, skimming along at close to the speed of light. And he listened, and he felt, and he watched, carefully, committing everything to memory: the Music of the Spheres hummed to him, delicately, as if thousands of invisible, moistened fingers were rubbing the rims of partially filled wine glasses; the ether tickled his skin with temperatures either fiercely hot or fiercely cold, depending on his nearness to a star; all the stars redshifted and blueshifted around him, if not as crazily as during his mad dash toward Sol.
Occasionally, he stopped to admire a view. A hot, young spiral galaxy belching out blazing, bright new stars. A supermassive black hole snacking on odds and bobs as if they were tasty grapes and plums. An old star exploding, sending up a pink cloud of dust.
At the edge of Sol’s System, he turned, hovering. He threw his arms wide.
“Attention! Stars, galaxies, nebulae, superclusters, and, especially you, my dear brothers and sisters—I present my new self!” He snapped off a salute. “So long, God’s little bitches!”
He spun and dove for Earth, and her blues and greens and browns swam closer, closer, until he could make out the details of the North American continent: the snow-capped Rockies, the snaking Mississippi, the Great Lakes, Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. He pierced Earth’s atmosphere and tucked his wings tight to his sides, the piano kiting behind him.
He torpedoed downward.
A brisk wind grabbed at his skin. Raked his hair. Screeched in his ears. He raced ever faster. Raced toward the open-armed Land of the Free. Raced toward the sparkly fractal art of L.A.’s night lights. Raced toward that dazzling jewel, Lux.
Three gees.
Nine—
Fifteen—
Screech of the wind turning to roar.
Spots dancing before eyes.
Tempting blackout.
Down.
Down.
Down.
One last teeth-rattling, molecule-jolting, dimension-cracking thrill ride for the Lightbringer.