The food court atrium was huge, filled with a hundred ugly tables identical to his. It was impossible to tell where it began and where it ended. A long skylight spanned the ceiling, but it was so dirty, Cam could see nothing beyond the gray grime coating its glass. The floor was strewn with trash—empty plates, greasy napkins, crushed to-go cups and their chewed-on plastic straws. A stale odor hung in the air.
Around him were typical vendors—Chinese food, pizza, wings—but the stores were all run-down: the burger place was shuttered, the lights of the sandwich shop were burned out, and the glass case at the yogurt stop was smashed. Only one vendor’s lights were on. Its awning was black with the word Aevum spelled out in bold gold letters.
A youthful figure with wavy auburn hair stood behind its counter, wearing a white T-shirt, jeans, and a flat white chef’s hat. He was cooking something Cam couldn’t see.
The devil’s post-Fall guise could be anything, but Cam always recognized Lucifer by the searing heat that emanated from him. Though twenty feet separated them, it felt like Cam was standing right over a hot grill.
“Where are we?” Cam called.
Lucifer glanced over and gave Cam a strange, alluring smile. He had the face of a handsome, charismatic twenty-two-year-old, a dusting of freckles on his nose.
“This is Aevum—sometimes referred to as Limbo,” the devil said, picking up a large spatula. “It is a state of being between time and eternity, and I’m running a special for first-time customers.”
“I’m not hungry,” Cam said.
Lucifer’s wild eyes sparkled as he used the spatula to flip something sizzling onto a brown cafeteria tray. Then he moved behind a beige cash register and raised the plastic divider separating the little kitchen from the food court.
He rolled his shoulders and released his wings, which were huge and stiff and greenish-gold, like ancient, tarnished jewelry. Cam held his breath against their repulsive, musty smell and the tiny black damned critters that scuttled and nested in the folds.
With the cafeteria tray held high, Lucifer approached Cam. He narrowed his eyes at Cam’s wings, where the fissure of white still glowed against the gold. “White’s not a good color on you. Something you want to tell me?”
“What’s she doing in Hell, Lucifer?”
Lilith had been one of the most virtuous people Cam had ever known. He couldn’t fathom how she could ever have become one of Lucifer’s subjects.
“You know I can’t betray a confidence.” Lucifer smiled and set the plastic tray down in front of Cam. On it was a tiny snow globe with a golden base.
“What is this?” he asked. Dark gray ash filled the snow globe. It fell ceaselessly, magically, nearly obscuring the tiny lyre floating inside.
“See for yourself,” Lucifer said. “Turn it over.”
He turned the globe upside down and found a little golden knob at its base. He wound it and let the lyre’s music wash over him. It was the same melody he’d been humming since he flew away from Troy: Lilith’s song. That was how he thought of it.
He closed his eyes and was back on the riverbank in Canaan, three millennia ago, listening to her play.
This cheap music-box version was more piercing than Cam could have anticipated. His fingers tensed around the globe. Then—
Pop.
The snow globe shattered. The music dwindled as blood trickled down Cam’s palm.
Lucifer tossed him a reeking gray dishrag and gestured for him to clean up the mess. “Lucky for you I have so many.” He nodded at the table behind Cam. “Go ahead, try another. Each one’s a little different!”
Cam set down the shards of the first snow globe, wiped his hands, and watched the cuts in his palms heal. Then he turned and looked again at the food court: in the center of each of the once-empty orange tables was a snow globe atop a brown plastic tray. The number of tables in the food court had grown—there was now a sea of them, stretching into the dim distance.
Cam reached for the globe on the table behind him.
“Gently,” Lucifer said.
Inside this globe was a tiny violin. Cam turned the knob and heard a different version of the same bittersweet song.
The third globe contained a miniature cello.
Lucifer sat down and kicked his feet up as Cam moved around the food court, winding each snow globe into music. There were sitars, harps, violas. Lap steel guitars, balalaikas, mandolins—each one playing an ode to Lilith’s broken heart. “These globes…,” Cam said slowly. “They represent all the different Hells you’ve trapped her in.”
“And every time she dies in one of them,” Lucifer said, “she ends up back here, where she is reminded anew of your betrayal.” He stood and paced the aisles between tables, taking in his creations with pride. “And then, to keep things interesting, I banish her to a new Hell crafted especially for her.” Lucifer grinned, exposing rows of razor-sharp teeth. “I really can’t say what’s worse—the endless Hells I subject her to again and again, or having to come back here and remember how much she hates you. But that’s what keeps her going—her anger and her hatred.”