Her gaze turns to me, devouring me with her eyes with an almost l.u.s.tful quality.

"But you my dear," she croons, slinking around the bench towards me. "You are a creature worthy of my attention."

"Are you h.e.l.l?" I ask her, having no other conclusion to draw from her words and actions.

She walks around me, looking me up and down in such an appraising way that I'm not sure if she wants to eat me or kiss me.

"Yes," she answers, coming to a stop barely a foot away from me. "I thought it might be easier for me to speak with you in this form."

"What do you hope to gain from this conversation?"

"Nothing," she says with a shrug. "I simply wanted to meet you, Anna. I suspect you and I will be spending quite a lot of time with one another in the future."

"Why would you think that?"

The physical manifestation of h.e.l.l smiles at me.

"Oh, don't you feel it, dear one? The power of the seals has already taken root inside your soul. It's only a matter of time before it consumes you all together. When it does, I'll be waiting for you with open arms. Just think of all the chaos we can cause if we pool our resources together. We could bring down both Earth and Heaven in one fell swoop."

"I have no intention of helping you do anything," I tell her.

"Oh, but you won't have much say in the matter after you collect all the seals. The person you are now won't exist anymore. Pity that," she says, looking me up and down again, "I do like you the way you are now. But, I can't have it both ways, can I? Plus, the creature you will become will be the closest thing to a G.o.d I've ever had the pleasure of serving."

"That won't happen to me," I tell her, though my statement doesn't sound very convincing even to myself.

The woman laughs. "Oh, Anna, you are quite amusing in your naivete. You actually seem to think you'll have a choice in the matter. You won't in the end, you know. There will be so little of you left by that time that this righteous conscience you possess now won't even exist anymore. And when that time comes, I'll be waiting here for you."

"You'll have a long wait," I tell her.

The manifestation of h.e.l.l smiles at me.

"Since we will soon be so close, you can call me Helena, Anna. It might be easier for you accept me if I have a human name. And if you ever have need of me, simply say my name, and I will come to you."

"You can leave this place?"

She shakes her head. "No, that I can't do. But when you come back here, I can be by your side at a moment's notice."

"How do you know I'll come back?"

"Oh, you won't have much choice. You'll feel the draw to me like a child to its mother. In time, you won't want leave the warmth of my bosom, Anna. I will never judge you or tell you that you have to be something you aren't. You can be as terrible as you want to be here and receive my undying loyalty. The more powerful you become the more turmoil you'll cause. All of it will make me stronger."

Helena looks over at Lucifer again.

"He has given me all he can, but you," she says, looking back at me with a wicked possessiveness, "you, my dear, are untapped power. In a very short while, you will become master of this domain, master of me. Don't you want that?"

Helena reaches one of her pale white hands out like she's about to touch me, but I back away before she can. My soul is sending out a blaring warning that if I allow her to touch me I will be lost forever.

Helena smiles and drops her hand back to her side.

"Until we meet again, Anna. I have to confess. I'm very much looking forward to it."

Helena lays her hand on the h.e.l.lhound at her side and vanishes in a wisp of black smoke.

"Anna?"

I look at Lucifer and see that he's no longer frozen.

"What are you doing here?"

"I came to see you," I tell him. "I needed to know you were all right."

Lucifer looks confused by my concern. "Why? What made you think I wasn't?"

"My mother said you were in a great deal of pain. I came to see if I could help you."

"You saw Amalie?" Lucifer says in a whisper.

"Yes, I just came from her." I walk over to Lucifer and kneel down on one knee in front of him. "Lucifer you have to know that the connection between your souls is still there."

"Of course I know that," Lucifer says. "I just thought she wouldn't be able to feel me while I was in h.e.l.l."

"She can feel it wherever you are," I tell him. "Wouldn't you rather be with her again instead of simply reliving these old memories?"

"I would give anything to be with her again."

"Then you know what you have to do."

"You make it sound so simple, Anna. But to receive true forgiveness, you have to mean it. You can't exactly fool G.o.d."

"Why is asking for forgiveness so hard for you to do? Why do you continue to hold a grudge against G.o.d?"

"Because I still think humans are just little monkeys he loves more than his angels. Even if I told him otherwise, he would know it was a lie."

"After all this time, you still hate humanity?"

"Yes."

"G.o.d doesn't love humans more than angels," I tell him. "He loves us all equally. Why can't you see that?"

"Because it's not true. Why can't you see that?" Lucifer counters.

"You're smart, but completely blind," I tell him. "Why do you think he sent my mother to you?"

"So I would have to live the rest of my days in this torture."

"And why do you think he sent me here?"

"To rub salt in an already open wound and make me pay for the things that I've done."

"You're so wrong on so many levels," I say. "Can't you see that everything he's done has been to bring you back to Him? My mother was meant to show you the beauty in humanity. You can't sit there and tell me she didn't mean the world to you. Would you call her a monkey? Does she deserve to be called an animal? Do you think of me as a monkey too?"

"You're different," he defends. "You're my daughter and a descendant of Michael. You're not completely human, Anna. Neither was your mother."

"If that's the way you want to justify your feelings for us, I guess there's really nothing else I can say that will change your mind, but I'm more human than you might want to believe. I have human frailties and insecurities. I might be more powerful than most because of who my ancestors were, but my humanity is what gives me the strength to carry on. It's what makes me special."

I stand up.

"I'm marrying Malcolm today," I tell him. "I would like for you to come to the wedding."

Lucifer's head jerks up as he looks at me in surprise. "Why would you want me there? You know I don't approve of you marrying that mongrel."

"Because you're my father," I tell him, calling him by his true position in my life. "And you should be there on the most important day of my life to wish me luck despite your misguided opinion."

"And what if I just come to try and talk some sense into you?"

"There's nothing you could say that would change my mind about marrying Malcolm. It's what we are meant to do. It's the one thing in the mess that my life has become that makes sense."

Lucifer stands up. "And what if I can prove to you that this wedding shouldn't happen?"

"There's nothing you can say or do that will stop it."

"Nothing I can say..." Lucifer says, mulling my words over in his mind. "Fine. Then I'll just have to figure out a way to make you see reason."

Lucifer phases and I see his phase trail leads directly to the palace in Cirrus.

His choice of destination worries me. Why would he go there? What proof does he hope to find that will make me call off the wedding?

Chapter 7.

I phase back to Heaven, hoping no one noticed that I left.

Of course, someone did...

Jess is leaned up against the porch railing with her head bowed slightly as if she's deep in thought. When I appear, she looks up at me and slowly begins to shake her head in disappointment.

"Why would you go there, Anna?" She asks, clearly thinking I won't give her a good enough explanation for my trip to h.e.l.l.

"How do you know where I went?" I ask.

"There's only one phase trail that looks completely black. Now answer my question."

"I needed to see Lucifer," I tell her, suddenly feeling guilty for my little trip given Jess' obvious disapproval. "He was remembering the day he married my mother, and it was causing them both a lot of pain. I wanted to try and talk some sense into him."

"Lucifer is as stubborn as Heaven is infinite," Jess tells me with a heavy sigh. "I think one of the only reasons Amalie was able to make him admit his feelings for her was because she was even more stubborn than he was."

"Jess, Malcolm told me that you tried to help Lucifer ask for forgiveness once. Why do you think he didn't? What stopped him?"

"Lucifer doesn't like to admit his faults; no one does really, but him least of all. He thinks that if he admits he's been wrong all this time, everything he's done, everything he's given up will have been for nothing. His legacy would mark him as a failure, and for Lucifer, I think he would rather die than do that."

"You were the only true human he ever felt connected to. Do you think it was just because you were Michael's vessel?"

"I've always believed that it was me he cared for," Jess says. "Having Michael's spirit inside me might have drawn him to me in the beginning, but it was Jess he always came to talk to. I think I was the only human he ever tried to get to know. After we got close, I think he began to doubt what he's always believed about humans. Realizing that you were wrong is hard for anybody. But, for Lucifer, I think it made him begin to doubt himself in a way that he never had before."

"He just tried to justify what he feels for me and my mother by saying we weren't completely human."

"He'll do and say anything to make sure he doesn't have to admit he was wrong. My best advice to you is...don't push him. He has to go to G.o.d of his own free will or it means nothing."

"That's pretty much what he told me," I say. "But how can I make him want to do that willingly?"

"You can't," Jess says sympathetically. "I know how much you want to help your parents, Anna, but, all you can do is be there for Lucifer if he decides to go to his father. He's the only one who can change his fate."

"Not if Helena has anything to say about it," I grumble.

"Helena?" Jess asks. "Oh my G.o.d... has h.e.l.l given itself a name?"

"And a body," I tell her. "A beautiful one but still really creepy."

"h.e.l.l, Helena, whatever the b.i.t.c.h wants to call herself, I don't care. You stay away from it. You need to stop thinking these little trips to h.e.l.l are like going down to the store or something. It's not. That place wants to consume you, Anna. It's hungry for power, and you are becoming extremely powerful. We all feel it."

"You feel it?" I ask, puzzled by this revelation. "What do you feel?"

"There's an energy surrounding you that none of us have experienced before," Jess tells me, looking me up and down. "And your aura is becoming...darker. We used to be able to see you on Earth because your light was so bright. We still can to an extent but ... it's like you're pulling away from us somehow. It's kind of hard for me to explain."

"I think I sort of understand," I say. "I think it's one reason why Will had such a hard time reviving me the last time I died."

"It could be," Jess agrees. "Normally, the soul of the descendant comes to Heaven for a short period of time when they die on Earth."

"Really?" I ask. "I guess that makes sense. I just never thought about it before. So, the last time I died my soul didn't make it up here?"

Jess shakes her head. "No, it didn't."

"Where did I go?"

"I don't know, sweetie," Jess says, sounding completely baffled. "Will wasn't even sure. He said it was like you were being hidden from him. That's why it took so long for him to finally pull you back."

"That's kind of scary, actually," I say, my heart racing after learning this new information.

"Well, why don't you just try to stay alive down there, ok?"

I nod. "Yes, ma'am, I will do my best."