Chapter 11
I had no reason to linger, but still I clung to Hell as if I was afraid to say goodbye. I found Abaddon in the Armoury, with Lucifer at the workbench. The Devil’s face was hidden by his long sheet of hair, as he hunched over and gripped the silver daggers between his palms. Blood dripped down his closed fists. The blades ran clear as Lucifer’s magic wrapped around them; his blood absorbed by the metal. He handed them to Abaddon, who placed them in their own designated places on the wall. Luc did not greet me. His head was down as he worked. Abaddon handed him another weapon, an ornate push dagger that looked sleek and modern compared to the medieval variety of weapons on the wall.
I did not have to ask what they were doing. They were preparing weapons for battle, if it came to that.
“You need to create more hounds.” I said, eying the thin katana at the edge of the array of blades.
Lucifer’s brow furrowed. “What happened to the ones we had?” He asked.
I rolled my eyes but Abe answered for me. “Levi has been picking them off one by one.”
I walked over to the workbench and dipped my finger into a rouge droplet of blood. I raised it to my face and rubbed it between my thumb and forefinger to spread the liquid between them.
Luc grabbed another blade and proceeded to slash his newly healed palm with a ferocity that bordered on animalistic.
“Are you okay?” Abe put his hand on Lucifer’s shoulder.
A pang of guilt hit me. I should have been the one to ask him. Lucifer clearly hadn’t in his right mind if he had thought that I was a God sent to spy on him.
Regardless of his inner turmoil, and whatever madness still lurked under the surface like a shadow, Lucifer nodded and grabbed another weapon. He infused it with his magic without a word and handed it back to Abe to put back into its correct place.
“Abe, could you leave us a minute?” I asked in a whisper.
The red-eyed demon bowed and walked to the door without a word. I waited a long beat until I was certain that he would not be able to hear our conversation without some effort.
I stepped in front of the Devil and gripped his hand. The wound on his palm sealed immediately, leaving only a smudge of blood behind.
“What happened to you?” I whispered.
Lucifer’s smile was tight and so full of pain that it was hard not to wince at the sight. “I watched you die.” He said without emotion. “It is taking all of my strength not to hold you so tightly that it would break all of your bones. I missed every facet of you.”
I fiddled with my hands; I could not think of a response.
“Something had tainted me. Wormed it’s way inside of my mind and played visions of you over and over. I could not believe that it was you, that you’d finally come back to me.”
Lucifer stood; our chests touched. He invaded my personal space to the point that it was uncomfortable because I couldn’t find the words that he wanted me to say and I couldn’t escape.
“I missed your silence. I listened for the click of your heels on the floor. I yearned for your smell. I even wished for the way that you would berate me as punishment for all of those years that I was too foolish to see what was right in front of me.” Luc pushed my hair over my shoulder and placed his forehead against mine. His breaths were deep; his entire presence relaxed the more that we touched. I was his sedative; the balm to whatever torment had settled inside his bones.
“It feels like it has only been a few days.” I admitted on a breath.
“It has been one thousand, eight hundred and thirty-five days.” His eyes burned more fervently than I had ever seen before.
“We’ve been apart before, for longer than that.” My lips twitched in a playful attempt at a smile.
“But I knew that you were alive and well then, even if you were not by my side.” He closed his eyes. Our noses were touching.
We hovered on the edge as if unsure. I reached up and allowed my hands to trace Luc's taut biceps. My fingers skimmed over his shoulder and pushed his hair away from his face. I licked my bottom lip, having found that my mouth had gone dry. I wanted him to crawl inside of me. He was my drink of water in the desert. He meant more than anything in the world to me, even when I hated him and loved him too.
The urge to reach down and grasp him in my hand was maddening. My fingers twitched. I did not want to be the one to give in first. My gaze rested on Lucifer's plump rosebud lips and his angular nose. He burned with lust.
I was unable to blink.
“Forgive me.” Luc whispered. He gripped my cheeks and held my head in place so I had no choice but to look directly into his eyes. I said nothing.
“Forgive me.” His voice grew stronger; his grip was punishing.
My throat sucked closed. Unable to reply.
“FORGIVE ME!” He roared.
The space between us and the awkward distance was broken. His lips slammed against mine, forcing my mouth open with a kind of pressure that could only be a punishment.
His hand reached into the waistband of my underwear and he used it to pull me even closer, until there was no space between us. Ba’el sceptre clattered to the ground.
I wrapped my arms around the back of his head and pressed him to me. Lucifer's hands were greedy. Grasping the flesh of my ass and lifting me up onto my tiptoes.
I felt his hard length against my stomach, and I tingled when I remembered how he felt inside of me. Rough. Hard. Pushing against my inner walls as if he was trying thrust past the barrier at the beginning of my womb.
I felt the brush of his magic against the edge of my mind and I knew that Luc was pulling the memories of our bodies writhing together to the forefront of my brain. My chest heaved; the skin on the top of my breasts was red and flushed with arousal.
His eyes were hooded when we broke away gasping. It was as if he had not expected the sudden burst of need that had overcome us both. I felt the bulge of his cock. A thick line that raised the material of his trouser leg. I bit my lip and reached down, tugging the edges of my underwear down to expose my naked body.
Lucifer dove forward and onto his knees, as if my actions had given him permission. He took the edges of the lacy fabric and ripped it down the middle. His fingers, positioned in a V, rubbed my outer lips and spread me for his viewing pleasure. I lifted my leg and balanced it on the workbench as he thrust his tongue inside of me and moaned in pleasure at my taste.
I found myself rocking, riding his face and gripping the back of his head. He chuckled and the vibrations made me shudder. His tongue drew a lazy path around my clit but never quite touched the sensitive nub.
I gripped the strands of Luc’s hair in my hands as I found myself rocking against him as he thrust his finger into my channel.
He curved the digit until he hit the delicious spot inside of me. It felt like the pressure was building inside of my pussy; a tidal wave that threatened to blow away everything in its path.
As I rode the cusp of orgasm but never reaching my goal, Luc placed a kiss directly on my clit and I roared in frustration. Pulling away from my exposed centre, Lucifer freed his cock and took it in one hand. He stroked his length lazily as he stood between my thighs and kissed my mouth. Our tongues fought for supremacy; the taste of my own juices was a heady drug. His hands gripped my thighs, hard enough to leave fingerprint shaped bruises as he thrust inside of my body. Right to the hilt.
“What have you done to me?” Luc growled against my lips. “You’re so fucking tight.”
The grip on my thighs prevented any thoughts of escape as Lucifer rocked his hips and my hole clamped around him as if I didn’t want him to let go.
Fevered. Half mad. The pace of which he thrust inside of me was punishing. Lucifer held the back of my neck and forced my stillness. The other hand leveraged the back of my knee higher, until he had reached a new position that was as deep as he could possibly go. My nipples ached, still trapped in the confines of my shirt. Each thrust jerked my body up. I felt the edge of pain, the waves of pleasure, the cusp of my orgasm and the build-up of his.
“Luc…” I pleaded.
My clit felt heavy, aching, needy. Short harsh breaths puffed through my lips as I watched Luc's exposed teeth as he snarled. His expression was fierce. My orgasm was a shuddering spring that coiled tighter and tighter every time I felt the edge of his tip rub against my inner walls.
His pace did not relent when my orgasm began. Lucifer hammered into me as my vision went white with pleasure. My limbs became jelly, as his hand reached between the wet slapping of our bodies. His thumb traced my aching bud and without warning, another orgasm tore through my body and left no prisoners. The sound that ripped from my mouth was a war cry.
Lucifer impaled me and held his cock at the highest possible point as I contracted around him. Milking him for all he had to give. His teeth grazed my shoulder as he came. Biting down fiercely enough to draw blood. His eyes closed. He cupped my cheek as his eyes rolled back in pleasure.
Our bodies were one.
We stayed in the same position for a long time after that. His body still slotted inside of mine, but it was no longer sexual. We were connected. One soul. Our differences and our problems were forgotten as we held each other in our most intimate and vulnerable state.
Lucifer opened his mouth to say something. I did not need to reach his mind to know that it was either a proclamation of love or a muttered apology and anger that he had allowed our bodies to overcome our minds, for however brief a time.
“Where did you go?” I asked in a tiny voice. “When the castle was under attack, and you left the First Circle. Where?”
Lucifer’s face crumpled and his eyes avoided mine. My stomach solidified as a heavy jealousy settled into my gut like a sickness.
I did not want to have the awkward conversation about how to 'fix' us. So instead, I chose to steer the subject elsewhere.
“Come on.” I nudged his shoulder to defuse the situation. His expression held a bone-deep sadness that threatened to swallow him whole. I did not fully understand why he wore such sorrow. We separated and I stood up, leaving Luc sat on the edge of the bed.
“Let’s make some Hellhounds.” I suggested.
“Perhaps it would be best to focus on the impending threat.” Lucifer nodded slowly. “I appear to have been asleep through the beginnings of war.”
“You know that the Leviathan has been aching for more territory. Everyone knows that he has taken Ba’el, but no one will say a word against Envy.”
I brushed my hands down the tunic that I had borrowed from Abaddon.
“The Leviathan does not have the motive to be behind something of this scale.” Lucifer’s brow furrowed. “He is a beast at his core. He looks to others before he jumps. I can’t grasp his end game.” Luc stood up and held out the crook of his elbow for me to take. I could not stop the giddy emotions that made my heart jump and run a mile a minute. I took his arm and allowed him to escort me through the castle.
I smelt like sex and blood. Lucifer was swathed in my scent, and he wore it with pride.
The dining room had shifted into a throne room at some point between our meeting with the Regency the night before and that morning. I knew that (because of the lack of Hounds) Lucifer was using his magic to manipulate the castle. I found myself in awe of him. If I attempted to pull and manipulate the level of magic required to keep the First Circle from collapsing, my eyeballs would rupture and my brain would leak out of my ears.
Lucifer pulled my chair out before he sat on his own warped metallic throne. The dining table had vanished and both of our chairs stood proudly on a platform to the right.
I had never been allowed to watch Lucifer create Hellhounds before. It was an innate ability that all First Circle demons that had sworn fealty to Lucifer had.
Hounds could only be created with Lucifer’s permission, and he could terminate them at any time that he wished with only a thought.
Many Hounds could not stand the idea of the looming notion of their own death at the hands of another. Even though Lucifer rarely killed any of the Hounds.
The smartest and most skilled of the Hellhounds had swarmed to the Human Realities, where Lucifer could not reach them unless he could touch them. The connection between Demon and Hound was broken the second that they left Hell. Still, all Hounds possessed an innate submission to the First Circle. It was in their breeding and their loyalty was almost impossible to break with any form of magic.
I did not allow my excitement to show on my face as I clasped my hands together in front of me. I waited with bated breath for the process to begin. An inaudible chime sounded in the back of my mind as Luc summoned the other First Circle Purebloods to the Canis Festum, also known as the Feast of Dogs. It was a sporadic occasion but an exciting one.
I had never been witness to it before. I watched as each of the Demons that lived in the castle folded into existence in front of our thrones. Some of the residents hid away in the castle and never left their rooms; others that hunted the lands. It was a unique sight to see so many in one room.
Miriam sidled up to the platform and bowed gracefully. When she smiled, every single one of her pearlescent teeth was visible. “This is your first Dog Day.” She nodded towards my hands as they tore threads from the hemline of my tunic. “Don’t be nervous.”
“I’m not.” I said. “I’m excited,”
Miriam nodded and slunk away. Abe replaced her and then took his place by Lucifer’s side, standing to the right-hand side of his throne. Abe’s red eyes glowed and his elbow rested on the hilt of his sword with an unsaid threat. Not that anyone would attack, for it would have been suicide.
Pascal, the scribe, grunted and found a spot in the corner so that he wouldn’t have to speak to anyone. The elderly hermit’s eyes shifted from side to side as if it physically pained him to be away from his masses of books.
I watched the other Demons leak in. Some I knew and others I had seen in passing over the centuries. I remembered every face and name. Their information took pride of place in a vault inside of my mind; thanks to what humans had termed as an eidetic memory. It was as if I had never left, but then again, time passed differently in Hell. Five years was nothing. A drop in the bucket.
I was willing to bet my collection of vintage Chanel handbags that Lucifer had not spoken to any person in the room apart from Abaddon whilst he had been recovering from his grief.
A few of the newer arrivals eyed my wings dubiously but wisely did not approach. I could not help but bristle at the open hostility. To my knowledge, I had not gained any angelic magic with my wings; only an understanding of Enochian on sight.
From what I had gleaned from my limited interactions with angels was that they fed on negative emotions and turned them into something positive. I wished that I could twist my internal conflicts into something more productive.
My presence in Hell felt like a thousand insects against my skin the longer that I stayed in the dimension. Unfortunately, I could not tell if the feeling because of the anger I felt towards Lucifer. The same rage that I pushed back to the corner of my mind, only to have it pop up again over and over.
Or maybe the feeling was because of my wings.
Fallen angels were still angels but they had no Divinity. I did. It was a glaring beacon of difference between every person in the room and their queen.
Experiencing something for the first time was an uncommon occurrence amongst immortals. I could not wait to watch how the Hounds were created. It was something that I had only ever had a rudimentary understanding of before.
Lucifer stood up and spread his arms, welcoming his subjects. The wave of magic that was released from his body was enough to force every demon to their knee to show their fealty whether they wanted to or not. Chuckles rang out at Lucifer’s little trick as the crowd rose to their feet again.
My hair rose with static electricity. The atmosphere was as thick as soup. Lucifer stepped into the crowd and every person seemed to be following a dance card that I did not understand. They formed a circle without any prompt.
I stayed seated on the platform as I watched like an outsider.
Lucifer reached for his scabbard and drew his blade. Every person in the large circle extended their hands. Palms facing the ceiling.
Lucifer was a tornado of movement, and a swirl of shimmering energy. Each person had a different reaction to the pain. The blood flow was immediate and gratuitous. I thought that he would cut their palms and allow them to drip, in the same way that Lucifer infused weapons with his magic and created Devil’s silver.
Instead, the floor was littered with amputated limbs. Cleaved from their owners.
“Body for Hound. We sacrifice.” Lucifer twirled his bloody sword. I expected him to slice his own body but he didn’t as he walked around the outside of the circle. Each of the demons had already begun to replenish their limbs, but the pain on their faces was apparent.
Hair whipped away from faces and one person staggered back. The room went dark, but it wasn’t from lack of light. Lucifer had opened a gate to somewhere deep inside the foundations of the castle. Where all the darkest souls were kept.
Each of the discarded body parts began to twist and writhe as the darkness thinned enough to allow me to see the outline of the room. The hounds began to grow from almost nothing. Their fur was thick, black and shaggy. Their ears were alert and their canines were bared. Amber eyes watched the circle of demons, glowing as the last of the darkness poured into the creations.
Lucifer clapped and every Hellhound’s attention shifted to him. All hostility drained from their bodies. Each of the hounds lowered themselves onto the floor and exposed their bellies as if they were perfectly trained puppies.
Each canine had their own identity already, based on the heritage and memories of the souls that had created them. The circle of demons parted, and the hounds left the room in a line. The beasts walked through the thick oak doors as if their motion was choreographed. I doubted that anyone else could see the silver wisps of smoke that dispersed when the Hellhounds moved, but I knew that Luc was the puppeteer of the entire routine.
As if a breath has been loosened, the room relaxed and those that had succeeded in replacing their missing limbs in a short amount of time applauded.
I stood up as well. My face beamed pride like sunlight.
Chatter began to filter into the room as the circle became small clusters of friends. A sense of relief washed over me. The castle would be safer with the Hellhounds around. A weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
I found Miriam’s umber eyes in the crowd. As a Gemini, she had one soul split between two bodies. One resided in Dis and the other in Camden. She shared thoughts and feelings with her other half.
Miriam’s smile dimmed as she touched her mouth and saw blood from a split lip. A black eye blossomed purple against her ebony skin. The Gemini hunched over and gripped her middle in pain as her eyes rolled back and she collapsed to the floor.
Her body back in London was damaged.
“You need to go the Human Realities at once.” Abaddon came to my side and lifted Miriam's head. “You need to find out who did this.”
Lucifer opened his mouth to speak; his hand was outstretched but it was too late. I had grasped the sceptre in one hand, and Miriam’s hand in the other as I whisked us both to the Human Realities.
Miriam had to be reunited with her other half to heal. She was too damaged to travel. Her energy leaked out into the air and melted away. Gemini's were extremely rare, but not that difficult to kill if you managed to separate them from their other body when they needed to be healed.
There were no goodbyes as I used Ba'el sceptre to travel back to Camden market. I held Miriam in my arms, her limbs were dead weight.
It was night time in London and the internal part of the market was closed for the night. There was no central heating and my breath fogged in front of me as I navigated to the new age stall where Miriam's other half could be found.
I did not know what to expect, but every book had been ripped from the shelves and the cabinet of healing crystals behind the counter had been smashed to dust. I sighed and rubbed my fingertips together; the residual sensation of the thin slivers of glass clung to my hands like a phantom.
A Birkenstock sandal hung from a foot, peeking out from behind the counter. I laid both halves together and watched Miriam's body meld into one. Her dark eyes blinked and cleared and her wounds knitted together and healed.
I waited until she had finished coughing up the thick black sludge of her internal bleeding to ask her who had done it.
“Was it the Leviathan?” I asked, almost certain that she would reply in the affirmative.
She shook her head. “He had red eyes, Dahlia. The Leviathan does not.”
A prickle of doubt had wormed its way into my heart.
Abaddon?
“He wore a mask. He cloaked his energy but I was certain he was looking for something.” Miriam pushed the top half of her body up and rubbed her hand over her forehead as if she was struggling to remember.
“Did your intruder say what?” I looked at the debris of the store and searched for anything that could have disappeared since my previous visit a few days ago. It was difficult to see much of anything in the mountains of ripped pages and splintered wood.
Miriam exhaled a slow breath and shook her head. “He asked about Devil's Silver. That was it. I don’t hold onto it in the Human Realities. It’s too risky. I keep all my artefacts in the City of Dis.”
I nodded in response. The sceptre that was tucked into the waistband of my trousers felt heavier than before. The image of the Leviathan’s expression when he first saw the artefact in my hands flickered across my mind.
Miriam's attack was not random. It was not a move against the First Circle, it was against me. It was personal.
There was another player in the game. A new unknown element. If the upcoming war was a chessboard, it felt like I was playing with only half of the pieces.
Miriam had a studio flat in Camden, above a tattoo studio named InkWitch. The shop window was covered in depictions of various scenes from a standard tarot card deck.
The Gemini remained in her single form to stabilise her energy, but I made sure that her home was free from threats as she would have been unable to protect herself for a short while.
Miriam and I weren't close, per se, but we had known each other for a long enough time to be comfortable around each other. As a purveyor of magical objects in both the City of Dis and the Human Realities, her knowledge was unparalleled.
I held her by the shoulders as she unlocked her door without a key. Her home was crowded with various statues and every wall was covered in piles of books that had no order or reason to them. Miriam tossed a pile of old newspapers to the floor, revealing a purple velvet loveseat. She slumped down and kicked her feet over the armrest.
“Do you have a list of all of the artefacts in your possession?” I crossed my arms over my chest to prevent myself from succumbing to the urge to touch anything.
Miriam tapped her forehead. “It’s all in here. I don’t make my wares known.”
I took the sceptre out of the waistband of my underwear and rolled the warm silver between my fingers. “It’s not a coincidence that you were attacked shortly after Ba’el Sceptre was used for the first time in an age.” I murmured.
“Do you think that was what they were searching for?” Miriam closed her eyes and leant back.
“Perhaps.”
“Who do you think is behind the search?” She asked.
“It can’t have been the Leviathan. He saw the sceptre in my possession. As did Abaddon.” I paced the room slowly, as I verbalised my theory.
Miriam nodded and agreed. “Unless they were looking for something else?” she suggested.
My lip twitched and I cocked my head to the side as I thought about it. I shook my head to dismiss the suggestion. “There is only one artefact that allows anyone to travel between heaven and Hell and I am holding it.”
“Apart from your daughter.” Miriam rested her head against the back of the sofa. The revelation was said with such glibness that it took a second for her words to register.
“Excuse me?” I hissed. “Petra is human.”
“If you say so.” Miriam trilled in a sweet voice.
“If you have enough energy to sass me then I assume that your wounds are healing nicely.” I bit back, snidely.
Miriam rolled her eyes and stood up. The short bald pixie-like woman darted around me and stood on her toes until she successfully pulled a large tome from the top of her bookshelf. She smoothed the dust from the leather cover, and the book fell open at a page without any coaxing.
“More powerful than fallen.” Miriam said. “If the prophecy of your daughter is correct then one would assume that she can transverse the Lord's pesky rules forbidding demonic entry to the Summerland.”
“It works both ways,” I said defensively.
Miriam crooked a brow with attitude. “And yet, you only seem to be able to flap your wings. Despite being locked out of Hell, you don’t have any other Angelic traits.”
I bristled but found myself agreeing with her.
Miriam placed the book back on the shelf and brushed the dust from her hands. Her skin glowed and her voice layered as if two people spoke at once.
“I need to get back my stalls. Both of them.” With a rip and pop, two Miriam’s stood in front of me side by side like identical twins.
“You are welcome to stay and peruse my selection of books if you wish?”
“Whilst the offer is tempting, I should go home.”
“To Hell?”
“To my daughter.” I clarified.