I had consoled Samael all night after we had laid flowers in remembrance on Jophiel's grave.
He reached for me at the witching hour, eyes hungered. "Shannon… do you think I'm evil?"
I balked. "Aren't we all sinners?"
"Yes."
He shifts into Lucifer, a righteous Predator:
"I will eat you now, my girl."
"Oh, you're hungry?"
"Pain and whining stir my appetite."
"Well then, I'm all yours."
Lucifer spreads his wings, and I am his caryatid, pillar of promise holding his amphora. In eternity, time moves like molasses - if it could even be called time at all, and the mysteries of the cosmos are unspooling in his golden hands as he caresses my scalp with fingers combing peace into golden brow.
