A Letter to Lucifer
May contain spoilers for Unsainted 1-4.
A Letter from Lamia
Lucifer,
There are so many things I wish I could say to you and yet I know none of them will be what you need. Answers to questions you will grow up with heavy upon your shoulders, a crown of knives pressed tight to your head. You were born to wear it, no one can take it from you, and yet that doesn’t make the pain bearable. If anything, it might cut deeper when you become old enough to understand there is no escape from this life of darkness.
What kind of mother lets her child endure such neverending night? A terrible one, of course. I accept all of that blame. Any anger or grief or bone deep hatred raging inside your heart, you can direct all of it at me. There is no more tender, absorbing, deserved place for it to go. Your loathing is mine to bear and I imagine even in hell, across years and worlds, it will reach me still.
Despite that, I will likely write many of these letters, and the chances of you reading them are very small. This life we inhabit seems large, at first. Money most people only dream of, every material need met within days, if that long. Superficial aches and pains and longing are instantly soothed and if there is a question, an expert will answer it, as long as it isn’t something buried too deep for you to pry into, and I think these words written to you with love will incinerate into ash because they are part of those secrets.
Travel, language, education, all of it can be yours. You will have fun as you grow up, and in a brutal sort of way, you will be protected. Those are the two hopes I cling to anyway, the only things which make the thought of life without you bearable. At least it’s what I tell myself. If I didn’t, I would take you with me, as horrible as it sounds.
But it’s a mercy, in my mind, not a murder. Ending your life with my own, because on the opposite side of the coin of luxury and met needs are secrets so horrific, they seem unreal. Crimes you will know of, be a part of—willingly or not—so unspeakable, you will wonder if humanity ever existed inside humans at all or if we are simply lower than animals, worms in the dirt. After what I have witnessed, I believe God should take a torch to everything they have created, cast the ashes from the universe, and maybe never start again.
Until that happens, you will be forced to bear it, to witness it, with eyes wide open, lids pried apart until, eventually, the shock of darkness begins to wear off. You become numb to atrocities, your body will grow limp with fading resistance, and you will wonder when you ever believed “good” and “evil” were separated with a line. What line? You will think to yourself. And you will peer over your shoulder, searching for it, but it will be so far off from your unsainted heart, there will be not even a whisper of morality to hear in your hell.
So when this life seems large, when you are a teenager and you revel in the tainted magnificence you have access to, do not forget everything forbidden comes at a price, and that is your very soul, Lucifer.
Again, why? Why would I leave you to this? How cruel can I be? Well, the evil has spread to me, too. When I saw the signs of what Lazar really was, the glimmers of night within his larger-than-life spirit, I could have run. There was a brief window when I could have slipped through and escaped. But I did not and immorality is highly contagious, I have learned.
Something, though, is even stronger than that, and I do not mean it in a romanticized version of the concept of this: Love.
By the time you read this, I will have left you behind, it’s true, and I already feel self-hatred clawing at my bones for it. I cannot bear to envision your future and yet I hold onto some star of hope that you are so incredibly intelligent, so viciously curious—even now, as a boy—and so passionate in your fervor that you will make things… different. And maybe love will creep upon you, too, and when it does, it will be a holier version of what I have found with your father.
Because there are three things I want you to know, sweet son of mine.
The first is that I do love him. Your dad. He was not always what you will remember him as. I do not ask for sympathy for him because he is so far from the nineteen-year-old version of him I met, there is nothing left of that young man anymore. But back then, he was polite, eloquent, as handsome as the most vile devil (be careful: beautiful creatures are often the wickedest), and he would have died for me. He nearly did, to keep me in his sticky web. His family did not like that I came from next to nothing and his organization liked it even less. But he endured physical and psychological pain to keep me by his side, and at eighteen myself, that was the truest form of love. So if you ever wonder if there was any real affection between the two people who created you, rest assured, it was there in heaps. I was obsessed with him then and he would often capture me in his arms and pull me close, whispering how he could not live without me. How we would change everything.
Which leads me to the second thing: You will follow in his shadow, in this way, and you will be tempted to falter, as he was. They will throw everything at you. Manipulation, psychological warfare, threats to those you love (and I so hope you find many people to love, because this is the antidote to the organization’s weaponry), physical pain, legal fears, initiations in which you would gasp to give up your soul if only to make the torment stop. As I write this, tears burn my eyes, because what I want to tell you is something I should not dare ask of you: Please do not give in. Please do not become heartless, as they are. Do not allow them to mold you into their hatred. My blood runs through your veins and so does the blood of a man who once had the violent optimism to turn away from everything his father did before him. I know that where he failed, you can succeed. There were many times I thought he would, too. My heart would surge at his desire to be different, to alter the course of history that had been barreling straight to hell before him. It was me they twisted him with. My life, my safety, my soul, until his was entirely tarnished. There is a part of me that loves him for that still, despite my fierce hatred for everything he is now.
Lastly, what I want you to do is something I have not accomplished. Neither has Lazar, and I believe it is a fitting punishment for the both of us. It is a thing you will struggle with your entire life. More than the terrors you will see, the horrors you will hear, the whispered Latin of sins you should never have knowledge of, let alone witness, this is the knife that twists inside my chest: You will hate yourself, more than you hate anything else in this world, and I wish for you to stop. This self-disgust will make it near impossible for you to climb out of the burial plot we have shoveled you into. If you cannot like yourself, how could you ever envision a world of love? The 6 will use this diffidence against you. It will become their greatest ally, the strongest of weapons to wield on your spirit. You will pick yourself apart. You will ravage your body, mind, and soul. You will begin to believe you do not have a heart because you cannot grasp onto a life in which you find goodness in anyone’s. Therefore, you will think, hearts do not exist in people like you.
I want you to remember this is a lie. One of many the 6 will cut you with, razorblades full of self-loathing, poison coating the blade. Stop it from infecting your heart, and remember you do have one. I see it now as you complete a puzzle, only two feet from me. Your curls are darker than the forest at night, your eyes a vivid, striking blue as you focus on the next piece. It’s a puzzle composed of a statue, a relic from an ancient time. And you asked me, moments before this one, the paper and pen splayed on my lap, whether or not this statue was lonely. Such a childish question in the warmest of ways, followed up with a statement from your innocence: Can we keep her company?
We cannot, because soon I will be leaving. There is a place in Virginia I will go, and even as I write this, my fingers tremble because I am not so sure I am coming back from that place. But please remember, when you understand how I have left, that it is best for me this way. Your father is someone I no longer know. I would kill him myself if I could find it in me to do that to you, but I cannot, because in a strange, vicious sort of way, he will protect you. It is not a protection I condone, but it is one I understand he believes in.
And so, the statue will remain lonely. But one day, I hope you will not be. I hope you find someone stronger than me, bolder than Lazar, a person who is unafraid of what they must become to end all of this. They will need to contain a little darkness themselves. Maybe some of the pain of childhood that is needed to create a vicious avenging angel. And I pray the pair of you, alongside your brothers—Maverick, Cain, Ezra, Atlas, and another you will be very confused about, but I pray the two of you battle through your anger—will burn this hell that was formed when you were only a star in the sky.
You will hate me when you read this, if you ever do. You will wonder how I could have forsaken you. But please know, through your bruised and battered heart, through your tears and misery, I love you, Lucifer. I wish I could have stayed to prove it to you, but if I did, they would only use me as a way to cut you. Now, though, when you read this, I am gone, and perhaps in the distant future, maybe as you hold this letter, you have a child to fight for.
Be braver than I am, for them. Be crueler, too, but not to your family. If you wish it, they will rise with you. I know I would have done anything with Lazar to end the corruption of the 6. Do not sink as low as them, do not idolize your father, do not cry for me. I found love and although it soured, it was enough for me to find you, and you are the greatest gift I could ever receive.
You have made me believe that eventually, things will get better. They will change. I pray you will be the one to cause it all. The monstrous chaos, you will ruin what they have created. The Devil, God, whoever is watching, I pray they are on your side.
I am beside you. I am cheering you on. Do not look back. Run forward. Crawl, if you have to. Build a life you can live with and fight for it with every manner of weapon you can claw onto.
You are named Lucifer for a reason. You will bring the light to this corrupted infestation of darkness. You will eradicate it.
I believe in you. Please find the strength to believe in yourself. And remember my third point, Lucifer Malikov.
Love yourself. And when you struggle with that, reach for your brothers. They already adore you. And when you are old enough, fall for someone who will remind you that you deserve good things. Someone who will fight with you, run with you, and burn beside you.
Do not let the 6 win.
I love you.
Love,