Chapter 633: Old Brothers

"Your cause is noble, Arthur Blackwynd." said Michael.

The words were quiet, and entirely sincere.

"You protect your family and your world. You have done more good in the past year than most beings do in an age. I do not doubt it for a moment. But the thing you mean to do next..." He shook his head. "True Darkseid is not the creature you struck on Warworld. He is a power of the Great Darkness, and the Great Darkness is older than the stars. If you meet him in his own domain, the clash between the two of you may not stay in his domain. It may not stay in this universe. I have seen what stands behind him. A war between you and him could unmake the multiverse. And every living thing within it."

Arthur set down his cup.

He did it slowly, and placed it precisely in the center of its saucer, and when he looked up, there was no anger in his face. There was only a deep, level, absolute calm.

"I understand what you’re telling me," he said.

"I believe you do."

"And I still won’t back down."

Michael was quiet.

"He threatened my family," Arthur went on. "He told me, to my face, in his own voice and through his dying avatar, that he would build realities where they were crushed and remade for his amusement. And he will do it if I don’t do anything about it, I don’t doubt him. I’ve seen what he’s already done to a thousand worlds." His eyes flickered violet. "Darkseid should never live while I live. That isn’t pride, Michael. It’s arithmetic. One of us goes first."

"There may be another way."

"If there is, I’ll find it." Arthur’s voice was soft. "But I won’t wait for it. Not while he’s out there."

Didi had stopped smiling. She was watching Arthur, and there was something in her eyes that was very tender, and not entirely at peace.

Michael studied him for a long moment.

"A simple human," he said at last. "Not so very long ago." He shook his head, and the shadow of a smile crossed his face. "I have watched a great many mortals rise. I have seen kings and conquerors and prophets and monsters. I have never seen one rise like you. You have grown into something I did not know could be grown to such extent." He lifted his cup, and found it empty, and put it down with a rueful sort of grace. "I am impressed, Arthur Blackwynd. And I am worried. I suspect both of those things will be true for a very long time."

"I’d take that," said Arthur, "as a compliment."

"It was meant as one."

"You’d be the first to deliver a warning and a compliment in the same breath."

"I have had a great deal of practice," Michael said, "at saying difficult things kindly to gods and mortals."

Somewhere in the kitchen, a plate rattled, and a muffled voice said something that sounded very much like oh dear.

They talked for a long time after that, quietly, in the lengthening light. About Ashborn, and the Rulers and Monarchs, and the thing Arthur carried inside him that was still, faintly, growling. About Lucifer, a name that made Didi smile and Michael sigh. About what a daughter was, and what a world was, and what it might mean to love both of them enough to burn the sky. The tea went cold and George came and went with fresh pots, saying nothing, and the sun slid lower through the oaks.

And somewhere in the middle of it, Arthur realized that he was not really wary of the archangel. He was not sure when that had happened. He was only certain that it had, and that it was a strange and quiet kind of gift.

He was about to say so when the air changed.

It was a small thing. The fountain stopped murmuring. The breeze died on the leaves. The birds, all at once, fell silent, as though a hand had been laid over the garden. Didi’s head came up, and the color drained slightly from her face and she sighed.

Arthur did too, as a figure was walking across the lawn toward them, quite calmly, through the golden light, as if he had been there all along and had simply stepped out from behind a thought.

George appeared in the kitchen doorway, the silver tray in his hands, and stopped dead.

The stranger crossed the grass without hurry and halted at the edge of the table. He looked at the three of them in turn, at the archangel and the Death and the Shadow Monarch, with a face that betrayed nothing at all.

"I do apologize," he said pleasantly, "for arriving unannounced like this." He paused. "I simply had to intrude."

The man standing at the edge of the table was, by any reasonable measure, overdressed.

He wore an immaculate white linen shirt open at the collar, sleeves rolled to the elbow, with a pair of expensive sunglasses pushed up into his blonde hair. He was handsome, and smiling the particular smile of a man who had never once in his existence been uninvited anywhere he truly wished to be. A faint dusting of sand still clung to his loafers. He smelled, very slightly, of salt water and very good cologne.

Michael closed his eyes.

"Of course you are here," he said.

"Brother!" The stranger spread his arms. "How lovely to see you. You look dreadful, by the way. All that light and not a single hint of color. Have you considered a holiday?"

"Lucifer," said Michael. He opened his eyes again, and there was something in his face that Arthur had not seen there in all the hours they had spent speaking, a look of a man who had been dealing with the same irritation for thousand years and had never once found it less annoying. "I do not recall inviting you."

"No, you didn’t," said Lucifer cheerfully. "That’s the best part."

Across the table, Didi had put down her cup, and her whole face had softened. "Lucifer. You’re tan."

"Didi!" He turned to her with a grin like a lamp being lit. "Radiant as ever. Retirement suits you. Or perhaps it’s the company." He bent, took her hand, and kissed it with theatrical flourish. "Say what you like about the Shadow Monarch, he has marvelous taste in women."

"You haven’t changed at all."

"Heaven forbid."

"I would like it noted," said Arthur, "that I don’t appreciate people appearing out of nowhere in my home."

He hadn’t moved. He sat with his arms folded and his chair tilted slightly back, and there was no anger in his voice, his eyes went to Michael, and then to Lucifer. "Either of you."

"I knocked," said Michael, in his own defense, "in a manner of speaking."

"He kicked a hole through your consciousness, Arthur," said Lucifer, "so I’d say the least he could have done was send a card."

"And you?"

"Oh, I simply asked your wards if they minded." Lucifer waved a hand airily. "They were quite agreeable, your shadows are rather nice. They’ve excellent taste. A touch crude on the eastern edge, but one can hardly expect perfection."

Arthur’s eyebrow rose by a very precise quarter inch.

It was at that moment that George emerged from the garden doorway, tray in hand. He had clearly been listening. He crossed the lawn in a dignified, and halted at a respectful distance, and surveyed the new arrival from his shoes to his sunglasses with a long, unreadable look.

"And who," he said, "might this be, Master Arthur?"

"The devil," said Arthur.

George did not blink. He took the news the way he took the weather, with a very slight inclination of the head. "Oh," he said. "So it truly is the end of the world today."

"Oh no," said Lucifer, delighted. "If it were, I’d be the first to know. Worry not, kind butler." He turned, looked George up and down, and tilted his head. "That’s a lovely waistcoat, by the way. Very understated. Almost makes up for the sheer lack of drama in this entire household."

"Thank you, sir," said George. "I regret I cannot say the same for the shirt."

Lucifer put a hand over his heart. "Wounded, though I did come from a beach directly.."

"It is a touch... resort, sir."

"It’s linen."

"I did not say it was a crime."

Didi had her hand over her mouth. Michael had picked up his cup and was looking into it very seriously.

"Might I offer the gentleman a seat?" George asked, perfectly composed. "I am afraid we have not prepared for a fourth."

"Oh, no need." Lucifer snapped his fingers.

The air shimmered. A chair unfolded out of nothing at all, a high-backed throne of black leather and curling iron, cushioned in red velvet and trimmed with a faint, discreet shimmer of something that could have been gold or hellfire. It settled onto the grass beside Michael with a soft thud. Lucifer lowered himself into it with a sigh of profound satisfaction, crossed one ankle over his knee, and surveyed the table like a man inspecting his kingdom.

"A fine piece, sir," said George. "A trifle ostentatious for the garden."

"Ostentation," said Lucifer, "is a virtue."

For a moment nobody said anything, they simply looked at each other in confusion.

"You said you had to intrude," Arthur said. "Why?"

Lucifer’s grin faded.

"I’m here," he said, "because I don’t want Heaven influencing your decisions, Arthur." He glanced at Michael, and then back. "Listening to them never yields the results you actually want. I’ve had some small experience with that."

"Samael..." said Michael.

It was very quiet. It was one word, and it fell across the table.

Lucifer’s eyes narrowed fractionally. Something old and tired and not at all amused flickered across his face.

"I know what you’re going to say, brother," he said, softly. "I’ve heard it, in every tongue there is, for thousands of years. ’It is not what you think. You misunderstand. We act only for the good of all." His smile came back, thinner than before. "Your words never worked on me. They won’t work on him, either."

"Oh dear..."

"Have you told him?" Lucifer asked.

"Told him what?"

"About the Rulers." He leaned back in the black throne and turned his head, slowly, toward Michael. "About who let them do exactly as they pleased down here, while the worlds below burned for it."

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