Devil's Advocate (The X-Files: Origins #2)(54)

“Here, eat this.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Psychic experiences take a toll on the physical body. Pears have water, vitamins C and K, copper, and fiber. It’ll help you settle back in.” He smiled. “It’s a very old trick.”

Dana took the fruit and ate it. The pear was delicious, and it erased a metallic taste in her mouth that she had only been mildly aware of. Sunlight also ate his piece.

“Do you know who Lucifer is?” he asked.

“He was the Morning Star,” she said, chewing. “He was an important angel who rebelled against God.”

He nodded. “He was the shining one, the light-bearer. It is a mistake to confuse Lucifer with Satan, Dana, for they are not the same being. Satan is the soul of evil, the infinite exemplar of corruption and sin. Lucifer is an angel, and an angel has perfect knowledge of God, of the universal All. A being with such an awareness could not, by definition, be evil. That is an impossibility, because perfect knowledge and perfect love are two sides of the same coin.”

“But in church they told us that Satan was Lucifer.”

“Of course they did,” said Sunlight, “because they don’t understand. Lucifer was the bringer of light—he was a liberator, a guardian of the enlightened and a guiding light that brings people to true understanding. The misinformed connection of Lucifer to Satan is mostly the work of poets and writers. Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, Joost van den Vondel’s Lucifer, and John Milton’s Paradise Lost collectively polluted the name of the angel whose gift is knowledge and understanding.”

She took a step back from him. “What are you saying? That it’s okay that this angel is killing people at my school?”

Sunlight looked genuinely surprised. “What? No, of course not. I’m sorry, Dana. I’m still a little rattled, too. What I meant is that if you truly saw Lucifer, then you were not seeing the creature responsible for these tragic murders.”

“Then…?”

“That’s why I want you to try to remember the face you saw behind the mask of the angel. I suspect that someone is projecting the image of Lucifer in order to both confuse you and disguise his true face.”

“Project? How?”

Sunlight raised his arms to indicate the Chrysalis Room. “In the same way that we flew into outer space, Dana. Whoever is doing this is like us. He is a powerful psychic.”

It stunned her for a full five seconds, but then she began to nod. It made sense, though in a crooked, awkward way. The floor beneath her feet still seemed ready to tilt, and even though the pear had helped a little, her brain felt like it was filled with cotton candy, angry bees, and sharp thorns. She imagined this was what being drunk must feel like, and she decided right there and then that she wanted no part of any real disorientation. Meditative freakiness was plenty, thank you very much.

“Look, there’s something I haven’t told you,” said Dana, “but I think I know something about the killings that even the sheriff’s department doesn’t know.”

Sunlight narrowed his eyes. “How?”

“Doesn’t matter,” she said, “but I think Maisie Bell was killed in a way that was supposed to reproduce the wounds of Jesus.” She explained about the wrists, feet, and other injuries. Sunlight looked grave.

“I … don’t know what to say about that,” he said.

“What could it mean, though?” she asked. “Why would someone want to do something like that?”

Sunlight shook his head slowly. “It’s hard to say. Maybe he doesn’t understand what he’s doing.”

“No,” insisted Dana. “I think he knows exactly what he’s doing, but I don’t know why. What does he get out of imitating the way Jesus died? Is it some kind of blasphemy thing?”

“No,” said Sunlight firmly. “No, more likely it is because this … person … feels that he has a connection of great importance to Jesus Christ. That, perhaps, he is like him in some way. Who knows, he might even believe he is honoring his victims by giving them the same wounds as Christ.”

“That’s sick.”

“Probably not according to the world as he sees it. Can you remember his face?” asked Sunlight. “Can you still see it?”

She closed her eyes and almost immediately lost her balance. She stumbled, and Sunlight caught her with a slender but surprisingly strong hand. The floor gradually, reluctantly steadied beneath her.

“Almost,” she said. “I can almost see him.…”

“Try,” he urged.

She did try. Dana let Sunlight steady her balance as she once more closed her eyes and willed herself to reopen that page of her recent memory. She could see the beautiful face of the angel, and despite everything Sunlight had said, the creature still terrified her, but she endured it because she had to know what face was hidden by the image of Lucifer.

She tried and tried.

But the harder she grabbed at the memory, the more surely and completely it drifted backward into darkness.

She opened her eyes and sighed. And for a moment she leaned her head against Sunlight’s chest. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Sunlight stroked her hair the way her father sometimes used to when Dana woke from a nightmare. It made her feel safe, protected. She could not imagine Sunlight allowing anyone or anything to hurt her.