Second Fall

by Rachel Green

The lighthouse at the end of the world was bathed in the ruddy sunlight of evening. Lucifer sat on the steps, his fingers drumming a tattoo on the warm brickwork and paying no attention to the flakes of mortar that fell like the sand of an hourglass. The apocalypse had been and gone, a thousand angels dying every second that his people fought and taking five hundred of his own troops with them. Even so, it had been seven hours until the last one had died with Lucifer's spear through his soul. There had been no kingdom after that, no power and no glory, just the image of the smoking vault of Heaven sliding into the sea. He took a last look at the ruin of the mortal world, then a step forward into oblivion, his tattered wings streaming behind.

6S

Rachel Green, whose full catalog is here, is an English woman who spends far too much time writing about demons.