LOGINLucifer's hands clamped down on his, anchoring, but never commanding. And it was his mania, his driving insanity, that was the only thing that stood between the hunger of the Book and the crimson flames in Allistair's eyes, and the whispers of annihilation trying to bleed into being. And Allistair, shaking, leaning, nearly dissolving into him, knew he would not and could not let go. Because Lucifer would not allow it. And the Book, the chaos, the blood none of it could sever what had been forged in obsession, love, and the dangerous intimacy of survival. Allistair's trembling slowed imperceptibly, his breath still ragged, his mind still a maelstrom of blood and fire and the pulsing pull of the Book. But Lucifer's presence was a tether he couldn't and didn't want to break. Every brush of lips and every heartbeat pressed together, every obsessive murmur, grounded him in a reality far more dangerous than the chaos flooding his senses. Lucifer's eyes, wild, possessed, mad with lov
“Chaos is alive. Did not you feel it, Lucifer?” Olgana's voice was even, but before he could ask her what she'd meant, the air around them changed.Allistair's body convulsed. His chest heaved with lungs straining for air, as if the room itself was resisting his wake-up call. Then his eyes snapped open.They were no longer his human colored eyes nor the black ones, but burned crimson, the veins threading across the irises black as living shadows. The pulse of the dream, the battlefield, the blood, the Book of Chaos, had awakened within him.In his hands, it appeared. The Book of Chaos hovered above his palms, pages slick with shadowy blood, pulsing, alive, reacting to his every heartbeat. His lips parted, voice rasping with a hunger that set even angels on edge. “Everything… blood… death… I want it all…”Raine stumbled backward into Alexander's arms, Lilith gasped, and even the Archangels froze under the weight of a primordial power filling the room. Especially Zadkiel, Michael and Ga
In that gesture impossibly intimate, the horror of the world became understandable. Or maybe, no, none at all. Time expanded to infinity as Allistair felt the ground turn, the sky undulate, the bodies move as if dancing to some macabre ballet. There would be no opening of the book. No sound, no knowledge, only the existence of the weight of the book and the existence of their entwined bodies. The battle swelled again. The man with the book passed through this maelstrom, killing, unraveling, building, tearing down. Lucifer moved through it, uninvolved, sword singing, presence constant, leading, holding, loving him. He tried to shout out, to intercede, to make waves in the impossibility of it all, but he was mired in observation, beyond all power to change but utterly engaged with every sensation, every heartbeat, every drop of blood. Time lost all meaning. Hours turned into years. Moments turned into eternities. Suffering and love entwined. The battlefield was a theater, while the
Allistair awoke gasping for air, his body smothered underneath the pull of sleep, while his mind splintered like broken glass. His chest rose and fell, his breathing ragged, as images burned before his closed eyes. The images in his dream didn't dissipate, they intensified. He was in the midst of a war zone that defied any particular dimension. The sky was a shattered canvas, smeared with blood and ash, as if the clouds themselves were arguing over the merits of their own existence. The earth beneath his feet was a muddied mess. But it was not mud or shadow but blood, old and new, impossible to tell which was which. The bodies on the horizon were of angels, of demons, and things which had never before been categorized. Limbs twisted in impossible directions, wings shredded, mouths open in silent screams. Allistair struggled forward, his heart racing, his mind spinning. His hands were clean but for a moment. Confused, he looked down, half-expecting to see wounds, half-expecting t
When Zadkiel stopped speaking, there was silence, but it was a different kind of silence. This one breathed. It expanded in the space between them, not consuming, not erasing but only waiting. The book stood its ground, unmoving, its presence no different from before against the weight now weighing upon the room. Lucifer did not take his eyes off it. Neither did Michael. It was Gabriel who moved first, yet even that was cautious, restrained, as if the floor itself might object. “You’re saying,” Gabriel began, then stopped. He exhaled and tried again. “You’re saying even he couldn’t—” “Yes.” Zadkiel inserted quietly. “I’m saying there is no record of anyone ever doing so after him. No success for we were the only ones who knew this book exist. Not even the Levites in the Levite Garden." Lucifer's eyes narrowed, not in anger, but in focus. "A closed system," he muttered. "Perfectly inert. Perfectly present." Michael folded his arms, the wings shifting subtly behind him.
It was unbound, but complete. Its pages didn't flutter, despite the current that was in the room. The cover was dark, not black but thick, with layers of shadows that overlapped but never coalesced into a single form. There was no title.Lucifer halted in mid-air. Michael felt it then, a tightening, a recoil that he hadn’t felt since before the Fall. “That isn’t from Heaven,” he said softly. “No,” Lucifer agreed. “It never was.”Gabriel lurched forward, but an invisible force pushed against his chest. “I can’t read it.” “Maybe we're not meant to,”Lucifer replied. Michael walked slowly around the pedestal. “Is it sealed?” Lucifer tried to open it and nod his head. 'Yes.'Lucifer made a tentative gesture with his hand. The tips of his fingers trailed along the border of the book’s cover. The book reacted. This was no reaction of light. This was no reaction of power. The silence was absolute. The silence consumed the world around him. His hand was arrested. Michael swallowed h







