Chapter 13
I whirl around, tempted to go to him, but not emotionally capable of dealing with rejection at this very trying moment.
“Yes,” I say with a bitter smile. “Apparently I’m too stubborn for Death to deal with properly.”
I give him a pointed look, hoping he gets the little pun.
I expect a snappy comeback or some hostile suspicion. What I don’t expect is for him to be across the room in a blur of motion.
His lips crash against mine for the first time, and it’s like a storm pulses in my body. All the pain is gone at last, and warmth travels up through me, as though he finally just sealed the last piece of something into place and made me truly whole.
I moan into his mouth as he grips me closer, his hands moving all over me like he doesn’t know what he wants to touch the most.
I’m beyond drugged and unable to pull back, as I clutch him closer, kissing him so hard that my lips start to hurt. I knew it’d be violent with him. Just as it is with all of them.
It makes the times they’re soft so much more special.
When he breaks the kiss, he’s panting, his entire body shaking against me as his breaths rattle in his chest.
“Now that is how you welcome a girl back from the dead,” I say on a shuddering breath. “Congratulations. You’re finally my favorite again.”
They all look torn between laughing and murdering someone.
Jude forces himself to release me and take a few steps back, his body visibly straining with the effort it takes. I’m a little lightheaded, if I’m being honest.
It really does feel like the final piece has clicked into place. I feel so much stronger now.
I go phantom with ease and zap around the house several times before landing back in front of them with a grin on my lips.
“Much better. Apparently the four of you still make me stronger.”
They don’t look quite as amused as I do.
“Great,” I groan. “What now? What have I missed in the month I’ve been dead that has put all of you in such a terrible mood?” I ask on an exasperated sigh.
Given the condition of the house, I’ve missed a lot.
“Not much,” Ezekiel says, clearing his throat. “No one has tried to kill us since Jude killed Lake. Only the Devil’s highest appointed generals should have been able to kill an escort. It seemed to send a message.”
I look around the house, seeing all of it torn to pieces. Hell, even the chandeliers look like they’re warped.
“Then why does it look like a war raged on in here?” I ask, bringing my gaze back down.
“You were fucking dead,” Gage says again, coming closer as though he has to touch me after saying those words. “We broke laws, hijacked royal escorts, and broke into hell numerous times to find out what happened to you. Not recycled. Not in hell’s throat. Simply fucking dead.”
His hand moves to my cheek, cupping it.
Kai moves forward, reaching his hand out for me. I take it and let him pull me away from Gage and into his arms.
“But what happened to the house?” I ask him, since Gage didn’t answer.
“You fucking died,” Kai says, and this time…I get it.
With a more educated eye, I look around again, seeing the distress and anger that went into destroying this room. Beyond us is the kitchen in the same disarray, but I notice the dents in the walls and pans, the fury that went into all that destruction.
This wasn’t a struggle to survive. This was a grieving tantrum.
They grieved me?
“Oh,” I say on a quiet breath. “Didn’t realize you four liked me quite that much,” I add even quieter, rather shocked, really.
Kai’s finger slips under my chin as he glares down at me. Leave it to Kai to act like it’s my fault they buried me so far away.
“I might have healed faster if you’d left me in my damn room instead of tossing me out like yesterday’s virgin girlfriend,” I state primly.
He grips my shoulders as his eyes harden. I don’t tell him it actually kind of hurts. My entire body is actually a little achy, if I’m being honest.
One type of soul-burning pain has been replaced with an achy, uncomfortable, and certainly untimely sort of pain.
“You. Were. Fucking. Dead,” he says, punctuating each word very unnecessarily loud.
I’m not sure why he’s insisting on saying that. I said I get it.
“That doesn’t explain why you buried me instead of leaving me in my room,” I point out, ignoring the growing ache spreading out from my stomach. “It’s not like any of you ever used my room before I took it, so it’s not putting you out.”
Kai gives me the neck-wringing look before his lips are on mine again, almost punishing me for trying to make sense of their rambles.
As much as I want to keep kissing him, I can’t. My head drops to stare at the subtly expanding bruise on my waist, and I slightly curse. I might finally get my virginity taken if I wasn’t in too much physical duress to do it.
“Shit,” Kai says, almost as though he’s just noticing the fact the stab wound isn’t there, but it’s still leaving a mark.
In the next breath, he’s lifting me and cradling me to him, and I give him an incredulous look. “I’m not quite that helpless. I can still stand. Just maybe don’t grip me so hard,” I tell him, expecting a grimace and an apology. Not an exasperated eye roll. Which is what I get.
He sits down, still holding me like I’m glass, and cradles me to him like I’m precious. To be honest, it’s freaking me out.
“Who are you and where is Kai?” I ask him, moving my hand up his chest a little hesitantly.
The really angry glare he gives me can’t be duplicated by anyone other than Jude. So I realize it’s actually him. And he’s being nice. It’s still freaking me out.
“I can’t be satisfied,” I say on a sigh, annoyed with my own self.
Nobody even bothers to ask what that means. It’s as though they know it’s a private conversation with myself. It’s like they get me. Finally.
Sort of.
They’re still completely disregarding my list of expectancies.
Ezekiel crouches in front of me, his finger tracing over the bruise, and I wince while painfully swallowing back the weak little cry I almost give up from such a little touch that shouldn’t hurt so badly.
“Lucifer’s poison did this to you,” Ezekiel says while grinding his jaw. “Lake was armed with it either by him, or by her father. She was part of a group preparing to overthrow hell, though the facts on that are still murky,” he adds.
“But she was also a royal escort—”
“No, royal escorts wear bags over their heads. I’ve seen what they look like without them,” I point out, then smile bitterly. “She definitely didn’t have to wear a bag.”
“In hell, she’s hideous. Topside…you saw. The balance was grotesque in one place, exquisite in another,” Gage goes on, cracking his neck.
“Wait, you mean those scarred, charred, and half human guards…she looked like one of them? They made them bag their heads because the Devil thought they were too stomach-curdling for him to have to see so often.”
Frowning, I try to remember exactly how I know that last part. Did Lucifer say something about it?
“The point is,” Gage goes on, drawing me out of my reverie, “she worked for both. She might have done it for the rebellion because Lucifer needs us. She might have done it for Lucifer to spare herself from the culling going on. So we don’t know which one wants us dead, and which one wants us on their side. But in the past month since Jude killed her, everyone has gone silent. Not even Harold has called me until today. We’ve not even been charged with bringing in souls.”
“But why would—” My words cut off when I feel something coming, and I go phantom in the next instant.
I also put on the first outfit that comes to mind, like I’m shielding my naked form before someone sees me and pisses off the guys. They like me, so that means they’ll be jealous, right?
Seems important they be jealous, though I’m not sure why.
I shake my head, blaming the fact I’m still a little poisoned for my even more random-than-usual thought process. I feel so clean now at least.
“She’s back, isn’t she?” a familiar voice asks from behind me somewhere.
Kai leaps up, and I end up on the chair alone as he passes through me and turns around, taking a defensive stance.
I poke my head through the chair, seeing Lamar standing there and looking overly excited. Jude swirls a sword in his hand, coming to stand a little in front of my head like he’s protecting me.
“I thought so,” Lamar says as he takes them in. “We heard of a botched attack on one of you in New Orleans last month. Then I lost the feel of her,” he goes on, stepping closer. “Then I felt her again, and knew this time without a doubt it was her. She feels weakened, though.”
Jude takes a step toward him, and Lamar frowns at him like he’s offended for some reason.
“I’m not sure what’s going on right now,” he says, sounding genuinely frustrated. “I understand she somehow resurrected you as mortals and gifted you a chance to live with a balance that defies all laws. She never was much of one for the rules, and she broke them quite frequently. But why keep up the charade now that you’ve clearly been outed?”
“Is he talking about me? I think he’s confused,” I tell the guys, moving closer to Kai, even though the wound is starting to drain me now that the adrenaline is wearing off.
“She’ll heal faster in hell,” Lamar goes on. “You know it. They’ll never know I gave you passage, and you can continue to keep your secret. I won’t tell them, if she really doesn’t want them to know. But why keep it a secret from me?” Lamar asks, actually sounding a little hurt. “Especially when she’s spent over a month healing from whatever it is she could have healed immediately from with my help.”
“Anyone have a clue why he sounds betrayed?” I stage-whisper.
“No,” Kai says from beside me, confusion written all over his face.
Lamar looks between the four of them, who are all staring at him like he’s just tipped over the edge of the weirdo cliff.
Lamar has a moment of confusion cross his features when he sees it written all over theirs. I’m not sure if he’s mimicking subconsciously, or if he’s genuinely confused by their confusion.
It’s all really confusing, if you want my opinion.
Then his eyes widen as though he’s just realized something as he takes a shaky step back.
“You truly have no fucking clue who I am, do you?”
“Yes…” Gage’s drawl is exaggerated, as though he’s talking to a crazy person. “Your Manella’s boyfriend.”
“Only because the royals don’t believe in marriage of any kind,” he feels the need to defend. “But at least you said boyfriend instead of lover,” he goes on.
Noted.
“That’s all you know me as? You’re not just playing some game?” Lamar asks as though this is a very crucial question.
The quad exchanges a look of confusion, and Lamar takes a step back. “Son of a bitch. How the hell did she do that?”
“He’s not making a damn bit of sense,” Ezekiel points out.
“Thank you,” I groan. “I was worried that I’m just stupid.”
“Is that how you have a balance now?” Lamar says as though he just thought of something that makes him a genius.
“I’m about to go whole and shake him down for answers that make sense if someone else doesn’t do it for me,” I say on a sigh.
Ezekiel is grabbing Lamar in the next instant, but Lamar simply winks, and we’re suddenly in a windowless room full of elegant décor.
“And we’re in hell,” I say on a sigh. “Again.”
But the pain vanishes, and I make the phantom shirt disappear to reveal the bruise is finally gone.
“She’s better, isn’t she?” Lamar asks, and I quickly make my shirt reappear and dart a gaze up at him.
He’s not looking at me. Whew. Thought he could see me.
His eyes are on the four guys who are all slowly looking away as though they were studying the healed injury as well.
“Feeling much, much better,” I tell them. “Don’t kill him yet,” I add to Ezekiel, whose lips twitch as he takes a step back and releases Lamar.
“She just told you not to kill me yet, didn’t she?” Lamar asks with an excited grin.
“You heard her?” Jude growls, as though Lamar has committed a grave offense.
In the next instant, Kai is behind him, a sword pressed to the base of his neck.
“Either you’re being very cruel right now, Paca, or they’re not the only ones who lost their memories. Which means everything I just think I figured out will be null and void, and you might very damn well let them kill me. Which means I’m an idiot for bringing you all here without alerting anyone.”
He clears his throat.
“A big, dumb idiot,” he says nervously as he looks around, waiting for someone to crack a grin and tell him we’re all kidding.
No grins are cracked.
“I can’t hear her. I just know that’s something she’d say if she was toying with me. But I’m starting to think she genuinely has no clue who I am. But why would she save me in that damn prison if she didn’t know me? She knows my role with spirits and—”
“She doesn’t know your role with spirits, but I’m really intrigued, because I’d also like to know,” Jude tells him, smiling wickedly as Kai steps a little closer with that sword, bearing in a bit, just barely not breaking the skin.
“You should sharpen your blades some time,” I tell him. “Apparently you’ve all gotten volatile and lazy this past month when I wasn’t around to make you awesome.”
Ezekiel blows out a harsh breath, as though he’s silently imploring me to shut the hell up.
“I think it’s time I explain a little better,” Lamar says a little less confidently, keeping his hands raised to show he’s no threat. But I’ve seen a lot of power roll out of him.
He could easily knock them away long enough to disappear. Or possibly kill one.
That has me on high alert as I cross my arms over my chest and pay attention to his every movement. Lake taught me to never be caught off guard again.
No wonder the guys are so paranoid. Now I finally get it. You just can’t trust people associated with hell. Who knew?
I never trusted her, of course, but they spent centuries trusting her—even caring for her.
I’m so glad she’s dead.
“You see, we worked really hard to keep you out of the trials, because—”
“It was you?” Kai growls, at the same time I say, “That’s a terribly stupid way for him to start this explanation.”
Jude snorts, then looks really angry when he has to fight a grin while he’s trying to be really pissed off. It results in him glaring at me as he finally straightens his face.
“For a reason!” Lamar shouts.
Kai barely eases back.
“For a reason,” Lamar says again, swallowing thickly.
Then he disappears, and we whirl around as he lands on his desk, sitting comfortably.
“I’m afraid I’ll need some distance from you four until Paca remembers me.”
“Paca is so not the badass name I was looking for,” I tell them. “I’m a Xena, or Phoenix…something like that.”
Kai groans as he glares over at me.
“She’s consistently saying inappropriate things at the worst possible times, which debunks the very serious nature of the situations around. Am I right?” Lamar asks them. “Is she the same?”
“I think he can hear her,” Ezekiel decides.
“No!” Lamar shouts when they start to advance on him. He holds his hands up defensively, then adds, “I can kill you, since you’re lacking a lot of information about your power, it seems, but you can’t kill me. However, I can swear I won’t touch you at all. She’d kill me if I did.”
“That last part actually made sense to me, so that’s improvement,” I tell them.
“She loves hard,” he goes on. “Very hard,” he adds, smiling like he’s proud of that. “She’s the most jealous person you’ll ever find.”
That makes a few of them smirk.
“I’m not that bad,” I remind them.
“She’ll go to the ends of the earth to save you four. And she’ll always be serious when it counts. Because while she distracts you from the intensity of the situation, she’s cataloguing each new piece of information, filing it away, recording it for later, then she puts it all together with the most reasonable way to approach a situation. Though to us, we often find it maddening or just crazy. But we don’t have the same ability to reason as she does.”
“He was doing good until the end,” I say, convinced he’s kissing my ass because he thinks I’m running this show. It’s rather empowering, if I do say so myself.
“Let him live. I’m healed, so take me home and give me many orgasms,” I state like I’m the queen and they must do my bidding.
Kai snorts, reminding me that’s not really the way this relationship works.
Lamar groans, probably because he has no idea what their seemingly random facial tics and amused or disgruntled sounds are in response to.
“The point is, I know her. She’s actually my best friend,” Lamar adds.
I perk right up at that confession. I’ve never been someone’s best friend before. The novelty of it is quite intriguing in itself.
The others aren’t quite as impressed as I am.
“Fine, let’s start with the basics. You four don’t even know who you are, do you?” Lamar asks.
“The Four Horsemen,” I state automatically, acting as though I’ll win a prize if I say it first, even though I can’t be heard by him.
“No,” Ezekiel says, rolling his eyes at me.
Kai presses himself against my back, giving me those tingles I can feel again now that all the pain is gone.
“I figured it’d be obvious by now, but you’re the Four Horsemen,” Lamar tells them.
I fist pump the air, and my outfit turns into the sexy Devil Halloween costume just to bring some rather insensitive humor to the moment, as I start pointing at them one by one.
“See? I knew it! And I was right. It’s actually a little anticlimactic because of how glaringly obvious it’s been all this time,” I say, feeling a little deflated by the end.
The quick burst of adrenaline burns out from the lack of suspense that led into it.
“But they died during a collision of the two kingdoms or something,” Gage states as though he’s reminding him of that.
“Of course they died,” Lamar agrees. “But I’m not cleared for the true details as to how you were killed.”
“They couldn’t be recycled because they were too imbalanced or something,” Gage goes on, dealing with the partial bits of information they’ve collected about hell over the years.
“Recycling doesn’t work this way. We would have been spit out into hell’s throat again for a new form. Not reborn topside,” Ezekiel is quick to add.
“They were imbalanced, and it made sense to believe that death was permanent. Recycling certainly does not end up with a new birth. Yet here you are,” Lamar goes on, gesturing at them. “New bodies. New faces. No doubt hand-selected by her. I’m almost positive that’s why you’re built with bodies and faces that perfect.”
I grin, liking Lamar a little more now, as I wink at the guys.
“He’s saying you’re pretty because I’m shallow.” I rock backwards on my heels, clasping my hands in front of me. “You’re welcome,” I add.
I even sit down in a chair like a dainty little girl in my devilish attire.
“You’re saying we died, but she brought us back as mortals, handpicked how we’d come back, and somehow managed to offer us immortality without us having to turn our souls over to hell and risk a harsher internal balance,” Kai states like Lamar has just crossed a line of nonsense.
I understand none of this, but I keep listening in, weaving together what I can, and quietly threading my own conclusion one piece at a time.
“She kept history from repeating itself. Made you mentally stronger this way. But I don’t know how she did it. It’s as though your souls were stolen, swiped clean, restrung with the first breath of life, and now you’re all back together again. I’m not even sure how you found each other if you didn’t know all this,” Lamar goes on.
“The bond drew us together,” Jude tells him, frowning. “Like all quads.”
“Certainly not like all quads. You’re the first. The rest are all poor-man’s copies—a cosmic echo of sorts. There’s never been a bond as strong as yours. Trust me. They’ve been hoping to find your replacements for centuries. Manella hid you, because we both saw the enigmas you were—no deaths, yet pure immortals? Impossible. And only Paca aimed for the impossible.”
He clears his throat, his eyes seeming a little misty. “However, we didn’t wholly believe you were them, if I’m being honest. It’s painful to get one’s hopes up. But we liked the hope it offered, so we hid you, pretending as though we were playing Paca’s or your game. Lucifer isn’t aware of that, of course. But we knew if you wanted in, you’d eventually let us know…but we thought you had your memories.”
No one seems to know what to believe. This time, standing on their side of things as someone you aren’t sure if you can trust, even though they’re begging you to follow them out onto a treacherous ledge as they twist everything you thought you knew into something impossibly possible…I suddenly get it.
I just finally proved myself to them. It took dying to get all four, but at least I didn’t stay dead. Again. I doubt Lamar would be willing to go to the same extremes I have.
“Lucifer knows it’s you now, though. Surely you realize that,” Lamar tells them. “He’s waiting on you to come explain yourselves. He all but called you out before the trials. He designed that course to be identical to the course Paca gave Nicholai on the last birthday she got to celebrate with him,” he goes on.
I look around at the four of them. “Which one of you is Nicholai?”
“Nicholai?” Jude asks him, sounding as annoyed with him as he sometimes gets with me.
“I…uh…Famine,” Lamar says uneasily.
“Gage,” I whisper softly, remembering the way his eyes lit up when I accused him of actually enjoying the danger and unpredictability that course played with life and death.
Everyone in the room stills.
“I’ve said something that has finally jarred a memory?” Lamar asks hopefully.
“Not one from the life you’re saying we had,” Kai tells him vaguely.
“Look, there’s no way you could have survived that course without remembering those riddles and having a great deal of prior knowledge of hell. Paca was there telling you the riddles and offering hints to the answers when you struggled the first time,” he tells them.
My stomach coils with dread.
I started giving hints by the end…
Ezekiel’s eyes meet mine as though the same thing pops into his mind.
“And the very last riddle alone is enough to squash any remaining doubts,” Lamar continues, not realizing he’s finally gotten us all to take him a little seriously.
I’m not even making jokes right now.
“How do you defeat a never-ending army of hell’s most vicious predators, cast to the belly straight from the throat, when there’s not enough power to kill them all?” Ezekiel says, echoing the question he once asked me.
He actually asked two of the riddles while we were down there like he’d figured the right questions out on his own. His nightmares also happen to be the worst.
“No,” Lamar says, shaking his head. “How would Paca face a never-ending army of hell’s most vicious predators, to the belly straight from the throat, when there’s not enough power to kill them all?” he corrects. “She’s rather vain that way.”
To this, a few snorts sneak out, and I flip them off as they regain their composure quickly.
Lamar grins knowingly. “But the answer is true regardless. She’d set her mind on a solution and faced it as she did absolutely everything in life. Fearlessly.”
A little chill slithers up my spine, and I lose my ability to be inappropriately humorous, and allow for a moment of dread to settle in.
As he warned, I’ve been cataloguing every bit of information, adding it to all of this I’ve just learned. I don’t like the riddle before me, because I hate the answer I’ve concluded.
It simply sounds crazy, and I can’t even bring myself to actually think it.
“Tell him I’m terrified of mountainsides, firefalls, and now most definitely swords,” I say on a rasp whisper, causing Jude to noticeably flinch with that newest addition. “Which means he’s wrong. Tell him that. Now. Or I’ll turn whole and tell him myself.”
Ezekiel gives me a puzzled look, but it’s because he can’t hear the thoughts hovering in my mind. The ones I’m forcing to stay back.
“She’s terrified of hanging from mountainsides and firefalls,” Gage says, moving closer to my side.
Lamar gives him a watery grin.
“She actually has some of the most random, irrational fears. It’s the things that actually require bravery that make her serious and fearless. And it’s good she’s not always that way. The intensity of those moments…the pure, determined, fearless, selfless way she makes the impossible happen…those are the times she made all of you fall in love with her over and over and over again. If she was that way all the time, Hera would lose her title as the world’s best seductress, because Paca would be the only one considered irresistible.”
“Sounds like I need to be more serious on occasion then,” I say too quickly, trying too hard to lighten this moment, and finding it to fall flat because I can’t even pretend that I’m not terrified of where he’s going with this.
“How could she do all this?” Gage asks obliviously. “What do you mean over and over?”
“In all your mortal lives,” he says, smiling grimly. “I’m just realizing she would have taken that gift from you. It was a game to see if you could fall in love in every life, and you always did. All of you fell in love with her, and she fell in love with all of you. It should have been impossible.”
I swallow thickly.
“You’d just finished a mortal life—the five of you always died together.” He clears his throat, smiling tightly. “I’ll tell her more when she shows herself to me.”
“To go back and live mortal lives, you have to be royalty or blessed by royalty,” Jude argues.
Kai glances down at me, almost as though he’s searching my eyes for something.
“To create an obstacle course in hell’s belly just for her current favorite’s birthday would also imply royalty,” Lamar states, causing me to freeze.
“What did you just say?” Gage asks, looking at Lamar. “Her current favorite?”
“Her favorite constantly changed. It was a game you five played. It kept things from going stale. But you were always her favorite on your respective birthdays. After all, she was reasonable, as I said.”
Kai’s lips tug in a grin.
“This is not a grinning time. You have terrible timing for humor,” I tell him, looking back at Lamar.
“She could send you back for mortal lives because she gave you each a piece of her balance and broke every law when she did it. But as I said, she never cared much for rules. In doing so, she made all of you stronger. And she saved your lives back then. Dragged you all from imbalance’s insanity and did what had never been done before in accomplishing it. She saved your lives the first time she met you, and you all saved each other over and over. But this last time, she truly died. Or so we all thought. I’m wondering if it was just the bond that managed to pull her together and allow her to defy the impossible once again.”
They all just stare at him until they look right at me like they finally understand what’s going on.
“He’s trying to say I’m the Devil’s daughter, isn’t he?” I ask them, shaking my head. “But there are only six,” I remind them. “Only two of them are girls.”
“Yeah, but the twins could count as one,” Kai says, as though he’s considering it.
“I know they can count as one, but they don’t because five would be an imbalance so they have to count as two,” I argue, then frown at knowing that since I don’t know how I know it, and since it sort of confuses me. Shaking my head, I go on. “Four boys and three girls would still be an imbalance, because there would be seven heirs instead of six, and the gender would then have to be the balance.”
“She’s right. That would be four boys and three girls even if the twins did count as one,” Ezekiel agrees.
Good job.
Though now I’m simply more confused.
“He’s my favorite now just because he’s got my back,” I whisper almost silently. “Like baby got back kind of back.”
He just shakes his head, cursing as he leans up.
“Did I use it wrong?”
My question goes unanswered as Jude once again huffs. “No one has ever considered the sexes to be a part of the balance before. It’s been four boys and two girls for a very long time. Pretty sure they’re men and women by now,” Jude says in his overly sarcastic tone.
“The sexes and numbers are even. Three females and three males,” Lamar says conversationally, as though he’s simply reminding us of something. “When all heirs are in hell, the twins count as one person—one male—with their yin and yang balance. They only count as two when influencing, since they have two separate dark influences. All the heirs have their own dark influence—hence the seven deadly sins.”
“What?” Jude asks on a breath.
Lamar’s eyes widen, and he tightens his lips. “Only the royal family and closest lovers are to know some of that. There’s a vow of death. You make a deal with the Devil to be allowed so close to the royals and inner knowledge of their balances.”
It’s like he’s reminding us of an oath we took that still binds today, even though we don’t remember taking it.
“He’s all gibberish and nonsense,” I argue, shaking my head emphatically. “I want to go.”
“We can’t go until we find out if he’s lying or not,” Ezekiel states quietly.
“You’re having to convince her she’s Lucifer’s youngest daughter, aren’t you?” Lamar asks, grinning like he’s amused. “I can’t help but wonder what she was thinking when she did all of this. Clearly she planned for a true death to have made this happen. The bond alone couldn’t have accomplished quite this much. You’re the only ones who can see or hear her.”
“Can’t he see I’m trying to talk myself off a ledge here?” I ask them incredulously. “I can’t be Lucifer’s daughter. That would make me way older than the nineties, first off, and the nineties is the main source of my ingrained information. Not hell politics. You guys are centuries old, which means we would have had to die long before the nineties. He’s wrong.”
“Why would she be rambling about the nineties if what you’re saying is true?” Kai finally asks him.
Lamar’s eyes water as though Kai’s just asked him something very personal that has made him emotional.
“We can see a lot of the future. The human future, that is. We spent centuries perfecting our nineties slang,” the watery-eyed man says very quietly.
“Not quite perfected even after all that,” Jude says as he looks back at me, smirking. Then gives his serious face back to Lamar.
“She and I made a pact that we’d go mortal in the nineties. She wanted to be a dancing pop singer, and knew you four would end up her backup dancers or a boy band.”
I’m so stunned that I can even recycle my One Erection joke.
Lamar continues speaking when no one says anything, and the guys just stare at him like he’s lost his damn mind for suggesting such a horrible thing. They’d be an adorable boy band.
“She wanted to read about the scandal later when she had all her memories and her body back, and like always, you’d all sit around basking in how you fell in love again, even though you had no idea who you were in that time. I was going to become a politician, because we both knew Manella would go if I went, and we’d fall in love there. He’d never gone mortal before, but promised me he would in the nineties. It would have been a helluva scandal for us to enjoy upon our return.”
“Did he go?” I ask, feeling my heart hurt a little for no really good reason.
“Why would she—”
“Did he go?” I ask louder, talking over Jude, who looks at me like I’m going crazy.
“Did you go?” Kai asks him on a sigh.
Lamar’s jaw trembles and he clears his throat while blinking and looking away. “It didn’t seem right to go without her.”
Deflated, I sit back.
“I believe him,” I say quietly. “I’m the Devil’s daughter with a horribly non-badass name like Paca. Who names hell spawn something that bubbly? I’m not bubbly at all.”
“What’s she saying that has all of you looking at me like you want to do harm?” Lamar asks, frowning.
“We’re trying to decide if you’re lying or not. She believes you. It’s not going to be good if you’re fucking with us,” Ezekiel drawls, looking at his nails as though he’s bored.
“Touching her seems to amplify our powers,” Jude goes on, his hand slipping through mine. “Supposedly I’m Death.”
Lamar slides off the desk slowly, so as not to make any sudden movements.
“Paca, I know you’re probably overwhelmed if you prevented yourself from remembering all this for whatever reason. But trust me when I say we’ll figure all this out together. You sought me out in hell’s throat. I spent five years convincing myself it was not you I kept feeling, because it was impossible. Then I felt you. Then they said she, and I finally knew we’d been right. They were yours and you were back.”
Just feeling their tingles start to surround me helps. Kai and Gage are also touching me. It’s Ezekiel I’m worried about. He’s not touching me, and he looks much too calm for the embodiment of war who got used to peaceful sleep, only to have it ripped away from him for over a month.
He’s the one who might actually kill Lamar before I can decide how I feel about him.
“Lucifer knows. He knew even before I did. I told you that. The trials were just him throwing it in your face that he knew so you’d stop pretending you all weren’t back. He figured it out months ago as his madness continued to lift the closer to hell she got. Manella told me this just after the night Lucifer exonerated me—the night his lucidity completely returned. You know the Devil’s games…I would have told you sooner, but I thought I was playing your game, even as it hurt my feelings to be left out.”
Looking betrayed makes a little sense, if we really were besties.
“Is that why he tried killing us?” Jude asks, a lethal, hard edge to his tone as he takes a step away. “Because of him, she was killed a month ago.”
Never mind about Ezekiel. Jude’s the one to worry about now. He’s the one who watched me die, and then kissed me for the first time when I came back because I wasn’t dead.
Very hard man to impress, that one.
“And all along he could have healed her? Did he know she wouldn’t really die?” Gage asks with an eerily calm tone.
Shit. Now he’s the one who might kill him.
“Kai, please just stay behind me. I need some tingles, and Lamar has enough of—”
Before I can finish the sentence, Kai is holding a sword under Lamar’s chin, appearing there in less than an instant. Now he really might kill Lamar too. Damn it.
“Move and I’ll do worse than cut you. Answer the questions,” he growls. “Did he kill her just to punish us for not properly playing a game we had no idea we were even playing? A royal fucking escort killed her.”
Lamar glances at him, not moving anything other than his eyes.
“No. There are always rebels in hell. It’s hell, after all. Rebellions spring up like weeds. We’re stifled by the volume in this particular rebellion, since Lucifer has been decommissioned for so long with your dead girlfriend’s father in his ear. At least we assume it’s him, due to her involvement in the botched assassination attempt on your lives. You were just caught in the crosshairs. Apparently we’re not the only ones who’ve noticed Paca back. And the Devil’s youngest daughter back from a true death and back to reign with her four unstoppable horsemen? I thought the five of you were playing a very dangerous game.”
“Rebels. Really? Rebels are trying to kill us and not Lucifer? I don’t know what to believe,” I grumble. “His timing is just terribly suspicious.”
They all give me a look, as though they’re exasperated with me for saying that, considering I heard that from them quite a lot when I first popped up, and I held it against them.
“I do believe I’m the Devil’s daughter, though. Oh, and in case this was the only thing still holding you back, it’s become abundantly clear I’m most definitely, without a doubt, unquestionably not a virgin.”
Kai turns and tosses the sword down like he’s frustrated, while Jude just huffs.
“On a related note, my vagina is most decidedly evil, so you win that argument after all,” I add.
“For fuck’s sake, Paca!” Kai gripes, saying the new name with ease like it’s perfectly natural. “Just take this seriously for a damn second. Do you have any idea what he’s saying?!”
I just stare at him, feeling my heart beat a little in my intangible chest. Something about him saying this apparent un-badass name of mine feels like a memory, even though there’s no real memory accompanying it.
He’s breathing heavily, his eyes hooded a little as he stares at me like he’s thinking the same thing. His eyes flick to my lips, and Lamar sighs loudly.
“The more things change, the more they stay the same. The air in here just got considerably warmer. You four were always pissed or serious when you used her nickname. And she always loved it when you did. She loved angry sex,” Lamar says, smirking.
“I’m really curious about seeing if that’s a real thing,” I tell Kai, gesturing toward the door like it’s an invitation.
He groans before turning his back on me and cursing.
“Wait, Paca is a nickname?” I ask, snapping out of my trance as I look back over.
Jude repeats the question aloud to Lamar, and Lamar nods, eyebrows furrowing.
“Yes. And not your nickname for her. Everyone called her Paca. But the rest of the time you all called her various things. Mostly, however, the four of you seemed to call her one phrase over and over in each life. You used it as a caution in every language you ever learned as mortals. Then you used it when you returned home to hell as a term of endearment.”
“What was it?” I ask immediately, curious what they called me back when they apparently loved me.
Me. The daughter of the Devil.
Ezekiel repeats my question so Lamar can hear it.
“The last language was Romanian, I think, because you’d just come back from mortal lives there before…” Lamar lets his words trail off.
“Before we were killed,” Kai supplies.
Lamar nods, the life drifting from his eyes a little as he gets distant. With a more informed eye, I almost see a reluctance in his gaze to revisit this memory. As though it’s painful for him. My death was painful for him.
“Romanian?” Jude asks, stepping closer as he visibly tenses.
“Yes,” Lamar says with a shrug. “Comoara trădătoare,” he says, causing the air to get sucked from the room. “I think that’s roughly the Romanian translation for treacherous treasure. You always called her that in numerous languages.”
Lamar just stares at us as we all remain still and silent. Well, he’s not staring at me.
“You remember?” Lamar asks, once again sounding hopeful when he reads their expressions wrong.
“No,” Ezekiel says shakily.
“Suddenly that headstone sounds much more endearing than it did a few hours ago,” I tell them quietly. “I almost forgive you for its simplicity now. Almost.”
“If you don’t remember, then why is everyone reacting to that odd endearment?” Lamar asks.
“Because we just realized we’re living a rerun from the longest running show in history, and we have no idea what happened in the rest of the countless seasons before,” I say on an exhale.
Lamar doesn’t hear this, obviously.
“You said Paca was her nickname. What’s her real name?” Jude asks for me, cycling back to that question, since he knows I’ll want to know once I get over the bomb Lamar incidentally set loose.
“Oh, I thought that was obvious by now,” Lamar says, frowning in my direction. “Especially after telling you that you’re the Four Horsemen. Everyone knows you’re the Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse.”
“Say what now?” I ask dryly.
“Are you saying she’s the apocalypse?” Gage asks incredulously.
“I’m saying she’s The Apocalypse. Her name is Apocalypse. She puts the in front of it when she wants to remind everyone she’s the only one who can truly level the world. As I said, she’s rather vain that way,” he says jovially as he reuses the one joke that got him a few snickers last time.
No one giggles this time.
It’s not funny anymore.
“My name is Apocalypse?” I ask on a hushed whisper. “As in the end of times for the entire world?”
My four guys look at me, regarding me like they’re waiting to see how to react.
“Now that, I did not see coming at all,” I utter on a shaky breath.
I don’t realize, until Lamar’s eyes widen, water, and clash with mine, that I’ve accidentally turned whole. And apparently I must look exactly the same, since the recognition in his expression is unmistakable.
I guess that explains the horror on most of the people’s faces who could see me in between life and death.
After all, I’m as bad as it fucking gets. I’m sure I have a reputation.
“I take it back,” I say as I swallow hard, my eyes tearing away from Lamar to look at each of my guys individually. “I don’t want a badass name.”