I was foolish, of course, to think for one moment that Lucifer might not be here and my journey to his library might be a wasted one.

In my head, I'd imagined an intricate puzzle of trip wires and alarms to rival that of the Royal Mint, which I'd no doubt triggered as soon as I'd appeared outside the door to the library and maybe that wasn't far off the mark, although possibly on some kind of spiritual, nether-world level as opposed to an actual alarm system. But never-the-less, here Lucifer was, reclined on the sumptuous chaise-lounge by the fireplace with a book open on his lap. He wore a collarless white linen shirt, unbuttoned at the throat to reveal an expanse of smooth pale skin, around which a thin silver chain rested. Slim-fitting back pinstripe trousers were decorated with monochrome braces and he'd finished off the outfit with black lace-up ankle boots, perfecting that doesn't-need-to-try-too-hard indie rock god look that most wannabe indie rock gods would give their entire vinyl collection to achieve.

A peculiar wave of deja-vu sweep over me as I watched him sitting there, almost as if I'd seen him sitting there many times before and I was momentarily rocked by the familiarity of this scene even though this was only my second visit to Lucifer's library. Everything was as it had been before. The fireplace. The never-ending bookshelves. The mirror. I wasn't going to forget about the mirror this time, that was for certain, and it hung there like the proverbial elephant in the room, only this elephant wasn't for admiring. This elephant could tempt and lie. This elephant could devour hearts and crush souls. I could feel it mocking me from here, but chose to ignore its challenge and focus on the man – or beast, however you cared to look at it – himself.

Without waiting for an invitation, and getting none anyway seeing as Lucifer had not yet even acknowledged my presence, I crossed the room and sat in the chair opposite him, casting my gaze over the fireplace, studying the detail of the carved marbled mantelpiece.

"Megan, what a surprise," Lucifer said finally, as he looked up from his book and fixed me with a mock-pout. "You have neglected me terribly of late, you know."

"Oh, I'm sure you've coped perfectly fine without me," I said, raising a brow. "And besides, I wasn't entirely sure you'd want me to come back, considering how unhappy you were the last time I was here."

He stared at me for a moment, unblinking, his eyes darkening as if the pupils were fighting to take control of the irises. Flicking his tawny fringe off his forehead, he dismissed my comment with a wave of his hand.

"Last time was .... regrettable, to say the least."

"Regrettable because I didn't fall for your demon's trickery?"

Lucifer shook his head and tutted in admonishment. "Always so quick to point that finger of blame, aren't we? I was going to say, regrettable that you had to endure such cruelty. I certainly did not condone what happened. Unfortunately, Asbeel doesn't like being rejected. Never has. Personally I think he has abandonment issues. He's never quite recovered from darling daddy casting him out."

The laughter peeled from my lips before I could stop it. "Wait, you're not suggesting that Asbeel, or whatever his name is, is an archangel?"

"Certainly not," Lucifer said, looking genuinely offended. "He's just an angel. Or a Grigori to be more precise. You might be more familiar with the term Watcher angel, at least that's what he was before his rather spectacular tumble from grace. Although it's fair to say he does still like to watch. Quite the voyeur, that one." He sighed wistfully. "But no matter, it has been dealt with and he shan't commit such an affront upon you again."

"You dealt with it? What's the standard disciplinary procedure in Purgatory these days? Verbal warning, written warning and then you're out on your ear?"

Lucifer grinned. "Well, that would be far too kind, wouldn't it? Let's not forget, I am the Devil, after all. I tend to find something of a more corporeal nature is far more effective, although one does have to be mindful of the fact that some of them have more ... extreme tastes, shall we say. One man's torture is another man's pleasure and all that."

"Right," I said, before gesturing to the book in his lap. "So this is what you do, is it? When you're not dishing out corporeal punishment to rogue angels. Sit around here, reading all day? If this didn't look so staged, I would say maybe you need a job, Lucifer. Something to occupy your time."

He placed the ribbon marker into the join between the pages and closed the book, caressing the front cover with his long fingers. "A job? Well now there's a thought. Although, to be fair, I could think of many things to do right now that would occupy my time."

From anyone else, the look he gave me would have bordered on a leer, something that would have made my skin crawl and my nose wrinkle in disgust, but from Lucifer it seemed almost mischievous – a rather boyish attempt at seduction that I didn't know whether to take seriously or just brush off as playful banter. Instead, I chose to dismiss it with a wave of my own hand.

"So is this is how it's going to be? Distracting ourselves with verbal foreplay?"

Placing the book beside him, Lucifer leant forward, cocking his head to one side. "My, my, aren't we forward tonight? I like this new strategy very much. Bravo, dear Megan. As much as I enjoy the distraction, I'm more than happy to just get straight down to it, if that's what you desire."

"I see no need to pretend anymore, do you?" I said. "I know you sent your dogs to the convent. I know that you tried to prevent Sister Agnes and I from ever meeting so that I wouldn't know that you have Michael."

"And there I was thinking getting straight down to it meant something entirely different. Pity." He smiled and rested back in the chair, locking his hands together behind his head and crossing his legs at the ankles. "Very well, though I have to say that I don't know that I have ever played the pretend game with you. You know what I want and I wouldn't insult your intelligence by claiming otherwise. Did I try to dissuade the nun? Of course I did. She's an agent of Michael and has only ever sought to keep me bound in chains. Did I send the hounds to the hallowed grounds of Tyburn? Yes, but to prevent you from entering the convent in the first place so that you would not be swayed by a woman who sees me as nothing more than a monster, yet refuses to believe that the man she works for is more than capable of living up to that title himself."

"So you're saying that she was lying and you don't have Michael?"

"I'm saying that you should not put blind faith into people of the cloth, Megan. Making so-called religious vows does not make you righteous. Donning the garb does not rid you of your prejudices, your misguided principles or your sins. It just makes you believe you are more worthy than others. There is much arrogance to be found in piety. There is much power to be found in self-proclaimed devoutness but the problem with desiring power is that it comes hand in hand with the fear of losing that power. Some of our earliest church leaders are our best examples of that. There they were, quite content in their power over a God-fearing community and along comes a man claiming that he is the one with the power, that he is somehow more worthy and more devout than they are, because, low and behold, he is in fact – ta da! – the Son of God himself. Can you believe it? What arrogance! What impudence! How dare he, a lowly carpenter from Nazareth of all places - which by all accounts was nothing but a piss-stinking village that nobody had ever heard of until the Boy Wonder made it famous – claim to be more powerful than the church leaders themselves? How dare he question their authority! And so, what did they do to the one that threatened their power? Why, they branded him a liar, of course! They made the people believe that he was nothing but a charlatan and a trickster and well, we all know what happened next, don't we?"

He held out his arms rigidly on both sides and pretended to roll his eyes back in his sockets.

"Believing you are right, does not mean that you are. Dearest Sister Agnes is a prime example of the sublime arrogance of faith. I have been chosen, she says, I must carry out His work, I must do His bidding and that means, in the great scheme of His Almighty Plan, I am important. And all the while, she pretends she is anything but and continues to peddle the lies of her employers, refusing to accept that they would be willing to go to any extremes to retain their power. Do you not ever think it funny that those who claim to be the most humble, are the ones who run your churches and temples? Confess, they demand of you. Tell us why you are not worthy. Tell us why you have failed. Tell us why you are not fit to anoint the feet of our Lord Boy Wonder and in doing so, they keep you exactly where they want you. Fearfully devout. Eternally shameful and subjugated. Utterly, utterly powerless."

I frowned. "You're asking me to doubt the word of a woman who has devoted her whole life to doing good."

Lucifer held his hands up in frustration. "And that sums up my point entirely! The woman puts on the habit and immediately you assume that everything she says is gospel. Do you know how many people have suffered because they see a habit, or a dog collar or a kippah and believe that the person wearing them must be obeyed at all costs? The cassock can defile the innocence of childhood. The habit can rob unmarried mothers of their children. The mitre can start wars. And all this in the name of religion. Religion is power, Megan, nothing more, nothing less. Good and evil is null and void, because, let's face it, we are all capable of blurring the lines between the two to get what we want, so don't talk to me of the good that Sister Agnes does. Quite frankly, she has absolutely no concept of what she does or has done in her efforts to do her important work."

"But what about you, Lucifer?" I replied. "You admonish our religious figures and holy men for desiring power but isn't that essentially what you want too? I don't see how you can condemn them for wanting the one thing that you seek above everything else, particularly when you would do whatever it took to obtain that power."

He laughed then, clapping his hands together with mirth and throwing back his head, emitting a warm bubble of sound that resounded up to the star-glittered indigo skies above. Studying me with amiable amusement, he raked his fingers through his hair, mussing it up slightly. "Oh Megan, Megan, you see, this is why I hate it when you stay away so long. What fun we have! What debate! You know, being me often comes at a price and it's an incredibly tedious one, as often the only ones who will dare to debate with me are the ones whom I don't care to talk with. Discussion with rabbis and priests leaves me feeling .... well, bored half to death I must say. They insist on sucking the joy out of the whole thing and commanding that I be gone in the name of the Apostles, The Holy Ghost and even the dear boy's mother of all people, as if that's meant to make me quake in my hooved feet, tuck my forked tail between my legs and go scampering back to my apparent bottomless fiery pit. I used to enjoy teasing them so, but very rarely these days do I find anyone remotely interesting to talk to."

"Well I'm glad you find me so entertaining."

"Entertaining, interesting, intriguing," he smiled. "I would go on, but you're an archangel and alas, our egos eternally hunger for flattery. I'd hate to create a monster out of you, after all."

He winked and a flicker of alarm ignited in the base of my stomach. I don't know how I ever thought I could hide it from him. There was a knowing look in his eyes, a mocking awareness that told me he knew only too well that I'd discovered how to harness Michael's powers and that I was fully appreciative of exactly what those powers were capable of unleashing on the world. And what's worse, there was a connection there, an unbreakable understanding between us that laid out the truth as it really was – ugly and naked and real, because if Lucifer was a monster, then so was I.

Denial was futile, of course. He knew it, I knew it and I'd never hated the truth more than I did right then.

"You never answered my question," I said.

"Hmm?" he replied with a frown, before his eyes widened in recollection. "Ah yes, my apparent quest for power. I won't try to pretend I don't want that, that would be ridiculous of me, but this is so much more than a battle for supremacy, Megan. At the beginning, it was merely about my right to question, to be allowed debate, to have an opinion, to have a voice that counted for something as opposed to one that just said yes, sir as I dutifully clicked my heels together and pulled the trigger without thought or feeling. When I was refused, without the right to appeal I might add, because you do not appeal to our Almighty Father, you accept, you bow, you prostrate yourself and accept the pat on the head and the there, there, be a good boy Lucifer and do as you're told, well I began to debate instead with others like me, hoping with all my heart that if I could gather enough of us together it would be enough. If I did that, then He would understand that I wasn't just a troublemaker and that I wasn't alone in my unhappiness. Surely He would have to listen if he knew how many of us held the same questions, the same concerns?"

A sad smile adorned his handsome face as he stared into the flames in the hearth and he chewed on his lower lip almost self-consciously, scratching at the gilded frame of the chaise-lounge.

"Naturally, I was wrong about that. I was accused of dissent, of encouraging others to question His rule and creating tension amongst the ranks. As punishment, we were tasked with watching the humans – a temporary measure for me, you understand, but I knew the stain would never leave me. I was an archangel of all things and by pitting me with the lower ranks of angels, He had humiliated me for all to see. How could I ever rejoin my brothers and hold my head high again? In that one act, I knew exactly why He had done what He had done. I was to subjugate, obey, banish all free will in place of His and all because He feared it might be possible to weaken His power. He knew that where one would question, others would follow and oh no, He couldn't possibly have that, could He?"

"You make it sound like a dictatorship."

"And what is God if not a dictator?" he snapped. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me! Of course, that's the edited version. The full, unabridged version has a tendency to stick in the craw a little and is often overlooked by those who wish to hide the fact that your God is tainted with the green-eyed monster just like the rest of us. Do not follow other gods, the gods of the people around you; for Yahweh your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and His anger will burn against you, and He will destroy you from the face of the land. He will destroy you from the face of the land! Now isn't that just delightful? And they say I'm a beast?"

Standing up, he crossed over towards where the mirror hung on the wall, gazing into the glass as he run his palm over the oil-slick frame. I shivered involuntarily at the thought of touching it, feeling nauseous as I imagined how it would feel, like smoothing my hand over the body of some giant serpent.

"It's difficult to not let your heart harden, Megan. An archangel I might be, but that doesn't make me devoid of emotion. It doesn't stop the burn of rejection nor does it prevent the hurt from invading your every waking moment. I felt wronged, I was wronged, as we all were, only some were too blinded by adoration to see it. I knew then that all I had to do was wait, until the timing was right and continue to gather those about me that understood, those that felt as wronged as I did." He laughed bitterly. "Of course that didn't work out too well for me either, did it?"

He smiled then, a wide brash smile as if he was smiling at his own reflection in the mirror and he reached out to touch his reflected face, running his fingertips up to his reflected forehead which he then tapped three times.

"Falsehood and myth, fiction and lies," he said, almost to himself. Turning abruptly, he walked towards me, holding out his hands. "I never sought to topple him, Megan. I never wanted to stand in his shoes. He was my Father and I adored him, but He became something that I found I could no longer love. I wanted democracy, not power, not then anyway."

"And what happens if you get what you want, Lucifer? Will we have a democracy? Or just another dictator?"

He pointed, brandishing his finger up to the metaphorical Heavens. "We will have a world free from the justice of a jealous God. A God that would flood the earth to rid it of those he deems unworthy. A God that would split the land in two to wipe out the stain of humanity - the creatures that He created. A God that bars the Gates of Heaven and condemns all those unfit to an eternity of pain as they wander in the darkness."

"And what of those who say it's you that condemns them? That it's you that tempts them into sin because you detest His love for them?"

He chuckled, clasping his hands over his chest, in mock-pain "Ah yes, I forgot. The evil of mankind is the work of the Devil himself, for the serpent was there at the beginning, force-feeding the apple of knowledge down Eve's throat as she gagged and fought against him. Well I hate to break it to you but that wasn't me. From my understanding, naughty little Eve and her equally naughty husband Adam - because let's not condone this theory that woman was the reason mankind suddenly realised it wasn't quite the done thing to walk about with his genitals on show - ate the apple because they wanted to. They saw a tree bearing fruit they were implicitly told not to eat, and one day they thought the curiosity is simply killing us! We must have what we are not allowed to have! It looked good and quite frankly, they wanted to know what it tasted like."

He sat down on the sofa – close, too close – and playfully walked his fingers along the back of the chair until they were in reach of my hair, which he touched, gently winding a lock of it around his finger before watching it tumble back down onto my shoulder.

"Isn't that just the way of things?" he murmured, wetting his lips with his tongue. "We see something that looks good and we want a taste of it, and the more we know we shouldn't taste it, the more we desire it. That, alas, was Adam and Eve's undoing: curiosity. Nothing more. No cheeky serpent. No big bad Devil lurking in the shadows. Man just can't help himself, you see. It's in the DNA. An eternal curiosity that will either ultimately destroy him, or lift him above the stars. Personally, I find it rather delightful. My Father, on the other hand, is threatened by their need to know, their need to question. Knowledge is power, after all. Power is .... almighty."

I shifted slightly so I could look at him, casting my eyes over this creature that would open the Gates and unleash his version of democracy upon the world. He was beautiful, touching on perfection even, from the cut of his cheekbones, to the subtle muscle tone in his arms, from the smoothness of his skin that tempted you to touch, to the angelic smile that invited you to fall with him. Everything about him convinced you that the fall would be blissful and that falling with him for eternity was a far better option than ascending to Heaven and bowing to the will of a dictator.

"Tell me something, Lucifer. Can it all be a lie? Can all the scholars and scribes be wrong? Can the teachings of the Church have become so twisted and deformed over the years that the Devil himself is nothing more than a fighter for democracy? Good and evil is null and void and you are entirely blameless for man's wrongdoings? You have a whole world of evil out there swimming in the darkness. Your demons whisper in the ears of those they wish to keep here, tempting more and more not to seek ascension, tempting more and more to choose the fall and give in to their basest of desires. And yet, that is not your doing?"

He shrugged. "I have to make the best of a bad lot. A man is nothing without his tools and they are mine. You cannot whittle away at the wood with your bare hands, even the Boy Wonder would tell you that if he wasn't so busy being so blasted sanctimonious. But seek not to blame me for man's curiosities. I am merely the caretaker, eternally damned to look after the ones that do not interest our Father. Being cast out is one thing, but being forced to do His bidding after the fact, well that's just a slap in the face, isn't it? Take them, Lucifer, He says, take the sick of mind, the twisted, the deranged. Take the child killers and the rapists and the murderers. Take the thieves and the gluttonous – He does so hate the gluttonous – take the adulterers and all the ones who have trouble keeping it in their pants. Take every single miserable last one of them and keep them from my door. And I have no choice but to let them in and they're swarming like a tide, wave upon wave of all those that He decides are not worthy, all those that He has rejected because it's too much like hard work to decide what He should do with them. My Father has grown fat and lazy in his dotage and yet all the time, everyone looks to me and says, this is your doing, Lucifer, you have made these people commit sin. I did not make these creatures! Does the Bible say and then Lucifer made man in His own image? No, it does not. And yet here I am, blamed for every damn failing of the human race. A tad unfair, don't you think?"

I smiled. "Well, now, I almost feel sorry for you."

"Hmm," he murmured, brushing his fingers over my shoulder. "If I didn't think you were teasing me, I'd tell you to spare me your sympathy. It's not sympathy that I need."

"And what do you need?"

His eyes found mine and they were green, a startling emerald that sparkled and made me catch my breath to see them.

"I need you to see the truth, Megan. I need you to understand before we continue down a path from which there can be only one outcome. I won't lie to you; I have no wish to meet you on the battlefield. I have no desire to fight you. As hard as it may be to believe- and I can scarcely believe I'm saying this myself – I would rather have you standing by my side than kneeling at my feet. You know, I find it interesting that Michael would choose someone so like him, so full of the capacity to question, to listen, to be aware. It almost makes me wonder about his agenda here, whether maybe he seeks a conclusion for which he can be blameless. The bowels of the earth could open up and the Heavens could fall into the flames and he would shrug his shoulders and say, well, you just can't get the staff, these days, can you? But of course, this is Michael we're talking about and he is as predictably boring as he is bound to his servitude. All you need to do is ask the question, Megan. That's all. And all this .... unpleasantness, can be done with."

Twisting on the plump cushion, I hung my arm on the back of the chair and rested my head on my hand and Lucifer mimicked my action so that we looked like two lovers so comfortable in each other's company that they mirrored each other's position without barely realizing it – like two halves of the same coin.

"Oh Lucifer," I chided gently. "As if it were really that simple."

"But it can be," he insisted. "I sometimes find it better to focus on the simple, rather than let oneself get bogged down by the complexities of one's decisions. Sometimes it's better to just feel something, instead of thinking. Thinking gives rise to consequence, consequence gives rise to conscience, conscience begets guilt, guilt means .... well, no tasty apple. And an apple, as they say, is good for the health and keeps those pesky doctors away. Eat the apple, I say. Take a bite. Have a taste. To Hell with consequence."

"But you see, that's where my problem lies. I can't forget about consequence. Motherhood tends to do that to you. Maybe that was Eve's legacy to us all. We have a natural affinity to protect our own, no matter what evil they might be capable of unleashing on this world. I wonder, when she was looking down at the broken body of her son, did she despise the other one? Or did she feel that pang of love only a mother could feel? I can't ask the question, Lucifer, because asking the question means giving up the one thing I would move heaven and earth to protect."

He nodded, a gesture that told me he understood completely. "Ah yes, the boy. A regrettable necessity I'm afraid and not one that you can blame me for. God saw to it that the children of the Nephilim were cursed. Another example of His divine power, deciding who should procreate and who should not. I'm sorry about the boy, I truly am. But some things just are."

"Not everything can be predetermined," I said, shaking my head. After all, we might be destined to meet on the battlefield but who says I would be the one that has to kneel? Not that I'm surprised that you believe that, all dictators wear the same robes of arrogance. Convincing yourself you are unbeatable is your weakness."

"And your compassion is yours," he bit back, the storm in his eyes flashing lightning for the briefest of seconds, before the usual warmth and invitation rushed in to smother it. Taking my hand in his, he turned it over and brushed circles with his thumb very lightly over my palm. "Be careful, Megan. Every man has his thirty pieces of silver. It's just a case of working out what that might be. And when that happens, well, I think you'll find your compassion very unforgiving as it chokes you."

As warm as his smile was, his touch was cold, the chill snaking up my arm and quickly changing the blue veins to black. I watched, almost transfixed by the network of venomous-looking tributaries as they crept under my skin. I snatched back my hand, relieved to see the black veins disappear the moment his hand left mine.

"For what it's worth," I said as I stood up, rubbing my wrist gingerly to ward of the chill that still remained. "I have no desire to meet you on the battlefield either, Lucifer. I think you'll find I'm pretty damn good in a fight."

He raised a brow in amusement. "Now who's the arrogant one?"

"Maybe it's in the DNA?"

"Maybe," he mused, his eyes searching mine, his gaze lingering a little too long on my mouth. For a moment, I saw sadness there, a deep aching sadness that opened up like the blackest of chasms, one that I knew would be suicide to fall into willingly and yet the temptation to step over the edge was at once almost overwhelming. It was time to leave.

"Until then, Lucifer," I said.

He smiled. "Until then, my dearest Megan."

****

Releasing my hold on Lucius' hand, I collapsed on my knees, my body crumpling as the adrenalin coursed through my veins, simultaneously exhausting me and acting as the only thing keeping me upright rather than passed out on the floor. Gasping and feeling the air forcibly push its way into my lungs, my vision quickly swam back into focus, replacing the hazy light of the Moroccan-style lamps with the shadow-inducing flicker of candles, replacing the intense gaze of the Devil, with the alarm-filled eyes of Harper who crouched low in front of me.

"Megan, are you okay? Megan?"

For a moment, I couldn't speak, my vocal chords rendered disabled by the exhilaration that had exploded in my synapses, my mind racing with discovery and understanding.

Knowledge is power, after all. 

"It's fine," I said. "I'm fine."

"But you're trembling. What the hell happened?"

I laughed then, letting my body finally collapse back against the floor as the laughter took hold, feeling like a madness from which I might never recover. It felt good to laugh, so damn good, that once it started, I wasn't sure I could stop. I didn't want it to stop, I wanted it to wash over me, envelop me, fill my veins until I thought I might burst. Of course, my laughter did nothing to iron out the tension in Harper's face and I reached up and touched my fingers to caress his cheek.

"It was there the whole time," I said. "I can't believe I never saw it before, it was so bloody obvious really and yet I never saw it. I never looked."

His brow furrowed into deep valleys of concern. "What was there? What did you see?"

"I found the place where Lucifer is keeping Michael. I found it and it was right there in front of my eyes the whole time."

I let my fingers travel up his face until I reached his forehead, where I tapped gently against the bone three times.

"Sister Agnes was right. He's in the one place where Lucifer would keep him so that he could sit and look at his prize every day. The mirror! He's inside the mirror!"