by Dante King
“Queen Titania!?” I did a double-take. “Please don’t tell me Lucifer is allied with the leader of the Unseelie Fae!”
Oni shook his massive head back and forth. “No, Master. Lucifer commanded me to be captured. He told me Queen Titania would put me and the item in the Castle of Days, and he was correct. He did not mention the Headmistress of the Celestial Academy next door, but I believe he would have made the same decisions even if he had.”
“Me too,” I said with a smile. So this had been Lucifer’s plan from the beginning? It didn’t make sense—or, rather, it made a kind of circular sense that made my head hurt. What was clear was this: Eiko’s prophecies, Oni’s disappearance, they were all connected. There was something here intended to push me to the final level, to turn me into the man I needed to become in order to succeed Lucifer’s throne.
My gaze traveled to the item in Oni’s hands. Was that the missing piece of the puzzle?
“Put that down!” Judyth snapped as I took the bag from Oni. Whatever was inside was surprisingly light. “You don’t have time for this, Luke. You need to get me out of this cell, then get us out of here before Queen Titania comes back…”
“I’m getting to you,” I said, holding up a hand to silence Judyth. Ooh, she didn’t like that one bit. The Headmistress of the Celestial Academy fumed in her cell, giving me a look that could peel paint. “Give me a few minutes, okay? I’m a little busy saving the world here.”
Judyth snickered at that. “Saving the world,” she repeated, a mocking lilt to her tone. “Oh, you don’t have the slightest idea, do you, Luke? Titania has already conquered the world!”
My hand froze at the ribbon holding the bag closed. “Explain,” I commanded, my head snapping to Judyth.
The Headmistress of the Celestial Academy looked as if she’d swallowed a lemon. “Just get me out of here,” she whispered, trying and failing to use her sex appeal to win me over. “Please, Luke, I’m so desperate! Get me out of this cell, and I’ll do anything you want—”
The realization blazed in my brain. “You’re working with her, aren’t you? Fuck, I was worried Lucifer had made an alliance with the Unseelie Fae. But it’s you, isn’t it? What, did Titania agree to arrange Holofernes’s death in exchange for your loyalty!?”
“Holofernes is not dead,” Judyth said through grit teeth. “Titania’s transformed him into something even more dangerous than he was before. Which is why I need to get back to the Celestial Academy immediately…”
“Master,” Oni said, cutting the angel off. “I’ve heard the shouting this one does in her cell. She’s been very loud, and annoying. She frequently demands to speak with Queen Titania herself, and says something about ‘going back on the deal’…”
Judyth’s face paled to the hue of milk. “You lie,” the angel whispered, though her voice shook like a trampoline. “You’re lying!”
“Oni is incapable of lying to me,” I said, giving Judyth my best shame on you tone. “You should know better than that. But I guess if you didn’t, you’d be smart enough not to hitch your wagon to Queen fucking Titania!”
Judyth hung her head. For a moment, real regret showed on the angel’s face, and I thought once more about the possibility of adding her to my harem. But even that slender thread of redemption was snipped a moment later as her supernaturally perfect features filled with rage.
“You idiot,” Judyth snarled, laughing contemptuously as she shook her head back and forth. “You don’t understand a thing about the way the Infernal and Celestial Realms work. Compared to me and Lilith, you’ve been on the scene for hardly a minute—and you’ve spent most of it getting your dick wet with those stupid little sluts you call harem girls. Pathetic!”
“What’s pathetic is trusting the Queen of the Unseelie Fae,” I shot back. “Seems to me you belong behind those bars, Judyth.”
The Headmistress of the Celestial Academy didn’t like that one bit. “You don’t get it,” Judyth said. “Titania is going to win. There’s nothing anyone can do about it! Not you, not that whore Lilith, not even Lucifer himself can stop her now!”
Anger flared through me. “So that’s why you let Holofernes die? It’s your fault that he’s become that red-eyed thing, just as much as it’s Queen Titania’s. You don’t belong in the world among civilized people, Judyth.”
It was like she didn’t hear me. “The Fae have been planning their revolution for centuries,” the angel explained, not giving my words the slightest bit of credence. “You think Lilith’s little plan to boost the Seelie is going to change things? The Dark Queen has been growing in her power for longer than Lilith’s been alive. When she finally gets free of the Fae Realm she’s going to tear the Celestial and Infernal Academies apart! Millions of demons and angels will die, Luke!”
“That’s why we have to stop her,” I said.
Judyth shook her head. “That’s why we have to join her. Haven’t you ever heard that it’s better to be at the right hand of the Devil than to be standing in his path?”
I swallowed hard. “That’s Lucifer, Judyth. And someday soon, it’ll be me.”
Judyth began to chuckle darkly. It started as a low, knowing laugh, with an edge of madness that rose until I thought the Headmistress of the Celestial Academy might start shrieking at the top of her lungs at any moment.
“Lucifer? Why do you think Lucifer’s dying in the first place, Luke? He’s been holding the Fae Realm back for centuries, keeping the Dark Queen from leaving her Realm and conquering both Hell and Heaven. Yes, that’s right—we have Lucifer himself, the Fallen Angel, to thank for Heaven’s safeguarding.”
That knowledge made my head swim. “You have to be joking.”
Judyth was not. “Whoever ends up becoming Lucifer’s successor, it won’t matter. The Unseelie Fae will take advantage of their newness, their lack of experience, and make war with Hell. Once they conquer the Infernal Realm, they’ll kill half the demons and enslave the rest—pressing them into service as shock troops. Then they’ll be hammering at the gates of Heaven itself—unless my alliance with Titania is allowed to stand!”
“You’re mad,” I said, taking a big step backward. “Jesus fucking Christ, Judyth. I can’t believe… I almost had sex with you!”
Judyth’s grin was so unnerving the hair stood up on the back of my neck. “You still could. I can please you better than any of those tramps you bring to bed with you—try me and see! Queen Titania is definitely interested in you, Luke. She’s heard tales about Lucifer’s new protégé who straddles the fence between the Infernal and Celestial Realms. Together, you and I could secure a glorious new future for ourselves, outside of this stupid dichotomy between good and evil!”
“It always is a binary, isn’t it?” I said, glancing over at Oni. “Judyth ran off and allied with the Unseelie Fae, the same way Lilith has been secretly making treaties with the Seelie. You two just never end up on the same side, do you?”
“We’re always on opposite sides of everything,” Judyth said with a shrug. “Why should the end of the world be any different?”
This was all a lot to take in. One thing, however, I’d decided almost from the moment I’d laid eyes on Judyth. I was not freeing her from that cell.
“Oni,” I said, turning away from the defeated angel. My demon snapped to attention, more than ready to fulfil any command I gave him. Honestly, he looked relieved to be back under my control where he belonged. “Did Lucifer tell you anything else about this item? Was there anything he wanted you to tell me, any advice he wanted to give? Anything else you can share about your mission in the Fae Realm?”
Oni just shrugged. “He told me to give you that when you freed me,” he said, nodding at the bag. “He made it sound like you would know what to do with it once you saw it.”
Hopefully I would. I had a pretty good idea of what lay inside that sack, waiting for me.
“Don’t,” Judyth growled, but I ignored her. The black ribbon fell away, and a moment later I’d discarde
d the sack concealing the item, leaving it on the floor.
In my hands, I held Christina Hebert’s router. No markings told me it was the same one specifically, but I just knew. The router loaded with the Morningstar Program, that had started my entire journey down the Path of Darkness.
As I gazed upon it, a door appeared in the far wall. It opened, revealing a square of the Seelie camp. The half-decayed castle stood against the evening sky like a dark finger, pointing up at the moon. Figures moved between the tents, the hustle and bustle of a camp readying for war.
Poppy and Godfrey must already be making their way back, I thought, a faint smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. I wonder what the Prince of Darkness told them to get them out of here.
“Lucifer was right,” I told Oni, giving the big lug a laugh. “I do know exactly what to do with this. Come on—we’ve got a date with destiny.”
As I passed her cell, one of Judyth’s hands shot between the bars to clutch at my robe. “You can’t leave me here!” the angel cried, tears of frustration rolling down her beautiful cheeks. “There are preparations to make! I must return to the Celestial Academy at once!”
“You can rot, for all I care,” I said contemptuously, tugging Judyth’s fingers free. “You tied your fate to Queen Titania, Judyth. We’ll see what she has in store for you.”
Judyth’s angry screams followed me through the portal as Oni and I stepped back into the Seelie Fae’s encampment. The people there must not have seen the portal beforehand, as heads jerked at the sight of me and my ten-foot-tall monster pal suddenly in the middle of their headquarters. The portal slammed shut like a guillotine, leaving Judyth stranded on the other side.
Poetic justice, I thought, remembering Holofernes. Let’s see how you like being stranded for a change, bitch.
“Where’s my car?” I asked, pitching my voice over the crowd. Either Godfrey was here, or he’d be arriving very shortly. I needed that damn Humvee—it was the only way we were going to get out of this in one piece. “It’s very important that you let Godfrey into the camp! Even if Poppy is behind the wheel, you let her pass! That pixie belongs to me now—I won’t have any of Siobhan’s people harming her—”
As I said it, the woman herself stepped out of the command tent. Unlike her underlings, Siobhan didn’t look surprised in the slightest to see me. “There you are,” the leader of the Seelie Fae said, smirking at the sight of the hulking brute next to me. “I see you found your demon.”
On cue, the rest of my harem emerged from Siobhan’s tent. Maddie rushed forward and threw herself into my arms, her wings flapping as she squeezed me tight. Christina and Mareth high-fived Oni, welcoming him back to the group.
“I was so worried about you,” Maddie purred, planting a kiss along the hollow of my throat. “Oh, Luke, you have no idea…when you’re gone, it’s like the sun disappearing behind a cloud!”
My hand slid down to her ass. “I’m right here,” I told her, my voice filled with promise. “I can’t wait to show you exactly what that means…”
As I set Maddie down, Eiko stepped up. The raven-haired beauty had her arms crossed beneath her ample breasts, and was keeping one eye on the front gate of the camp as if she expected visitors at any moment. I knew exactly who she was thinking of—I waited for them, too.
“How did it go?” Eiko asked, looking me up and down. “What in the world is that thing?”
“Oh, this?” I held up the router. “It’s the key to everything, Eiko. I’m kind of surprised your Divination didn’t tell you that, already.”
With wide eyes, the fox-tailed woman shook her head. “I can’t see anything that comes from this moment,” she admitted, looking down with a cute sort of blush. “My powers of Divination aren’t powerful enough to show me that. I don’t think anyone could be. Whatever happens now, the future is no longer written in stone, Luke. I can sense something very big is about to happen.”
“It is,” I assured her, glancing at the gate. “Where the hell is my car? It should have been here by now, along with my new girl.”
“New girl?” Maddie’s face lit up. “Did you meet someone at the Castle, Luke?”
“Don’t be daft,” Raquelle said, punching the older angel on the shoulder. “He obviously means that cute little shortstack he took with him to help him find the way. How was she, Luke?”
Wow. The fact that Raquelle didn’t seem put out by me adding a new harem member surprised me—and turned me on more than a little. It made sense that a girl as ambitious as she was thrived on the idea of adding more women to my dominion.
“Wait, what?” Mareth turned away from Oni, a look on her face like she’d just heard the juiciest gossip of her life. “Are you telling me you bound Poppy!?”
“The short girl!?” Christina let out a manic giggle. “Oh, I bet that was fun! Did you even fit all the way inside her, Luke?”
“He’d hit her tonsils before his dick was even all the way in her mouth,” Raquelle said with a lusty chuckle. “Although from the way that naughty little pixie acted, I bet she’d like that…”
If Godfrey hadn’t rolled up to the front gate just then, my women might have speculated about my sex with Poppy all day.
Fortunately for all of us, the Humvee topped the ridge just outside of the Seelie camp a moment later, its rooftop glinting in the evening sun. Cheers sprang from my harem at the sight as the Humvee rolled through the front gates, now fully accepted and cleared by Siobhan and her people.
“Fucking finally,” I said with a laugh.
I didn’t even wait for the Humvee to reach us—with a grunt, I took to the sky, my wings erupting from between my shoulder blades. The rest of my harem cried out in mingled excitement and dismay as I soared over the heads of the assembled Fae, moving like an arrow toward my vehicle.
Godfrey saw me and slowed to a stop just inside the entrance of the camp. “Good evening, sir!” the Humvee said cheerfully. “I’m very glad to see you made it out of the Castle of Days in one piece!”
“Thanks,” I told the enchanted, talking car. My Guardian Angel. “You’re still technically my old IT van, right?”
“I am,” Godfrey said, sounding as bemused as a Humvee could. “Why—what do you need from me, Master?”
I held up the router. “I’ve got some tech that needs a diagnostic. Where’ve you been stashing my old gear, anyway?”
As it turned out, Godfrey had collapsed the entirety of my old van’s storage into a single compartment along the side of the Humvee’s exterior. It slid open with a sleek little noise as I reached in, found my old laptop and started hooking it to the router. A portable power supply gave me everything I needed to get both back up and running.
By this point, a small crowd had gathered around me. Mostly Fae onlookers, though Maddie landed next to me in a flexing of wings, a confused look on her perky face.
“What have you got there?” my angelic girlfriend asked.
“I’m not entirely sure yet,” I admitted, booting up the laptop. A few more connections and everything looked sorted out. “There’s something here that I missed the first time I encountered the Morningstar Program. Something even Lucifer didn’t realize, if the Prince of Darkness is to be believed.”
“Well, he’s also the Prince of Lies, but I think you can trust him where power is concerned,” Maddie said with a shrug. “He seems like he likes you, in any case. Almost acts like a proud papa around you…”
The thought of that made me laugh. The rest of my harem came through the crowd, heading toward Godfrey with intent expressions. Christina’s face lit up when she saw what I held. “Hey! That’s my old router! What are you doing with that—that belongs to me!”
I chuckled as my old rugged laptop whirred through its boot-up routine. “What’s yours is mine,” I said, flashing a knowing smirk at Christina. “And what’s mine is yours, of course.”
She took it literally, giving Mareth’s ass a squeeze beneath her schoolgirl skirt. “Except when you’re not
around,” the blonde demon girl said with a wicked grin. “But it’s totally cool for you to turn Miss Naughty Pixie into one of the harem girls in the front seat of your ride…”
“That’s because I’m the future Lord of Hell,” I shot back, “and you’re just one of my bitches. Remember your place, Christina.”
Not all that long ago, a remark like that would have gotten me slapped. Instead, Christina turned around and slapped her own ass, giggling with glee as she spread her legs. “Yes, Sir!”
It was an open invitation to get even naughtier with her, but I didn’t take it. Figures scrolled down the screen of the laptop in white and green, numbers and phrases in languages I didn’t recognize. My laptop tunnelled into the router, accessing whatever operating system waited inside after activating the Morningstar System for the first time.
Welcome back, LUKE BELL, the laptop informed me. Would you like to activate the Morningstar Program? (y/n)
“Here goes nothing,” I said, pushing the button. A high-pitched whirring noise began to emanate from the router as the program kicked into overdrive. You could cook an egg on that thing, I thought, watching the router go. Normally these pieces of tech never got this hot, but whatever the Morningstar Program did the second time around must have pushed the hardware close to frying.
Then the screen went blank.
YOU MAY SELECT ONE OF TWO PATHS, the screen curtly informed me. They were:
THE ANGEL OF LIGHT
And
THE ANGEL OF DARKNESS
I stared at the screen for a long moment, unsure what to make of it. “But this…this is exactly what I saw the first time,” I muttered, hitting the side of the laptop with the meaty side of my palm. “Lucifer said there was a secret in here—something even he didn’t see coming…”
A claw tapped on my shoulder. “Uh, Master?” It was Mareth, who’s demonic eyes were as wide as saucers. “Take a look around?”