“Paranormal history,” he says begrudgingly.
“Want to get into that?”
“Not really,” Lucifer snaps.
Okay… What's got his tail all knotted up? Not that he's in his demon form, so he doesn't currently have a tail. He could easily pass as a human, a good-looking one at that. His dark hair is styled in a pompadour, and the fire in his eyes is dimmed, so his eyes appear black.
Demonfang stays by my side, but Shadechomp has always been a little more adventurous of the two, and he starts toward my father.
Lucifer glances over and holds up a hand. A glowing ball of fire appears.
“If you zap my dog with that,” I threaten.
Lucifer laughs and laughs. “Did you really just threaten me?”
I cross my arms and tap my long, manicured nails against my armbands. I always wear three above my elbows and three above my wrists on both arms. They're blood-red in color, with small gold bands lining the top and bottom. They're the only bits of jewelry I ever wear. No rings, no necklaces, no earrings even.
“Did you really just threaten my hellhounds?” I counter crossly.
“A bit of fire wouldn’t hurt them any!” He laughs.
“Like I could hurt you,” I say tartly, “so I guess we’re both a bit ignorant then because you weren’t going to hurt them, and I wasn’t going to hurt you either.”
Lucifer eyes me with a cunning little grin that makes me extremely nervous.
“You called me. Why?”
“I thought you could improve my mood,” he explains.
“You laughed,” I point out.
“Yes, but a bit of laughter does not mean that my mood has changed entirely.”
“Oh, so I have to help you. Sorry. I’m not exactly the one you should’ve called.”
“If you’re talking about Lance, his nose is so brown—”
“I get the picture,” I say quickly. “What about Lucas? You two could go off on some conquest—”
“I’m not in the mood.”
“Leo? War more up to your speed today?”
Lucifer shakes his head. “I want something…”
“What?” I ask flatly. I’m not one who is big on being used as a demon-equivalent of Prozac. “What do you want?”
“What does any demon want?” he whines.
“Souls.”
“No.”
“World domination?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Not the entire world.”
“Bethlehem.” I roll my eyes. “So just go there and take over the place and be done with it.”
“I can’t,” he grumbles.
“Then send Lance there to dominate the place for you.”
“I can’t do that either.”
“Then find another place to dominate.”
“Any other place would be too easy.”
“Yes, yes.” I roll my eyes. “I guess life must have been a bit boring for you, considering how old you are and all.”
“Do you mind?” he snaps.
“Seriously? Comments about your age bother you?”
“And how old are you?” he asks.
“What’s the matter?” I tease. “Old Timer’s getting to ya?”
“It’s Alzheimer's,” he corrects. “Don’t be ignorant.”
“It’s called a joke,” I mumble.
“Your age?”
“Twenty,” I grumble.
“What’s wrong with that age?” he demands.
“Do you even remember when you were twenty?” I ask.
“When you are an angel, things are a bit… different.”
Great. He’s going to go on and on about the fallen angel bit and how he became the first ever demon, how he’s not just a demon but the devil—excuse me, the devil.
And he does go on and on, and even Shadechomp seems a bit bored, barking his heads at Lucifer.
“If you don’t shut them up,” he warns.
“You just want to talk,” I say. “My hellhounds—”
“I never should’ve given them to you. You’re too… nurturing.”
I tilt my head to the side. “You don’t like nurturing women, do you? Did Lilith ever do anything maternal toward all of the kiddos you two had?”
“Why? You thinking about becoming a mother already when you haven’t even been to Earth yet? Depending on where you would go, you wouldn’t even be allowed to drink alcohol.”
I snort. “Like that would stop me.”
He slants his head, eyeing me critically. “Would you?”
“Would I what?”
“Drink.”
“Why are you asking me about this?” I ask.
“Because I’m curious. Maybe a conversation with my youngest daughter will appease me.”
“And if it doesn’t, you’ll just go and have another kid.”
He smirks. “You don’t like being the baby?”
I shrug and flip my blond hair over my shoulder. “It’s not like it has any perks.”
“Come now, Bright One,” he chides somewhat gently for him. “Answer my question.”
“I might.”
“Might is a cop-out,” he grumbles.
“What do you think?”
“I think you won’t. You don’t like to be out of control.”
I smirk. “Actually, I probably would have one. I have control, unlike some people.”
Lucifer throws back his head and roars with laughter. “This! This is why I summoned you.”
“Not literally. Ah… What do you use when you summon me?” I ask curiously.
My father chuckles a bit more. “I never tell that.”
“Why not?”
“Let’s just say that you won’t be too happy about that. No one will be happy with what I use to summon them.”
I nod slowly, wondering why I’m here, if he’ll ever get to it. Honestly, being around my father makes me nervous. He is Lucifer, after all.
“So if you’re feeling better…”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I already did,” I protest.
"No, you didn't. The one about not going to Earth. Have you found a demon to love? I thought you would probably prefer a human."
“A human?”
“Yes,” he says frankly. “A human. Not a witch or vampire or anything like that. A regular human with no magic or knowledge of the paranormal world at all.”
“Hmm. Would you want me to marry a human? You really going to walk me down the aisle at a wedding with half of the guests human?”
Lucifer chuckles. “And how many weddings have I been to?”
“Invited? Or crashed?” I smirk before turning thoughtful. “None of my siblings have been in any relationships.”
“That so?” He rolls his eyes. “I can think of—”
“Lily hasn’t been in a serious relationship,” I argue.
“How many want to date a daughter or son of moi?”
I hadn’t thought of that before, but it makes sense.
One topic I’ve thought of but haven’t mentioned ever because I’m not entirely sure I want to know the answer…
I know Lance isn’t the first child of Lucifer. He’s not the first son, just like Larissa isn’t the first daughter.
So whatever happened to them?
“Your first son… your first daughter… Whatever happened to them?” I ask.
“Not all demons live forever,” Lucifer states.
“I know, but… You mean they’re…”
“If they aren’t alive…”
“They could be cursed,” I say just to be difficult.
Lucifer grumbles a bit. “They’re dead, and Bethlehem is dead to me too.”
Daddy Dearest's right. I've never been to Earth. I'm happy enough down here, so why should I bother to go up there?
But maybe I'll go up one day and see this Bethlehem. Lucifer's all tied up in knots about it, and he hasn't been there for almost a decade. There has to b
e a reason behind it, but maybe I'm too much like Larissa and sloth-like because I don't feel like heading topside just to check out some city.
Since Father's annoyed again, I hold up my right hand and conjure an orb of energy that I control almost like a yoyo to drive the hellhounds absolutely crazy, and Lucifer gets in on the act, and soon, he seems genuinely happy. When he's like this, which isn't all that often, mind you, I can almost forget that he's killed probably millions of people over the years.
Chapter 3
I head back to my den with my hellhounds. They're getting a bit tired, so their heads are snapping at each other and at each other—as in Demonfang's heads are fighting each other and Shadechomp's, and Shadechomp's are fighting each other and Demonfang's back too.
They do that when they’ve missed naptime, and I sit down and let them curl by my feet.
"I'll never understand why Father allows you to have those," Lance says. He's the only one to have eyes like I do. His hair is as dark as everyone else's. I look like a freak compared to them, but honestly, I like how I look. Brown hair and eyes are, frankly, a bit boring.
“I never understood how you can get your nose so clean,” I mock.
Leo smirks. “Fight, fight, fight!”
“Warmonger,” I grumble.
“You just spoke with Father, didn’t you?” Logan asks.
Lance is the brown-noser. Envy’s his stick. Leo prefers war. Logan? He has more pride than anyone I know, which has me eyeing him curiously. Why does he know about my talk with Father, and why does he care?
“Father was in a mood,” I murmur.
“When isn’t he?” Landon grumbles. “Did you see anything at all?’
“See anything?” I furrow my brow, wondering what he’s talking about.
Lucas bursts out laughing and holds up a hand, willing his fingers. “He hasn’t used his five-finger discount in a while.”
That's Landon, all right. Greedy to the core. When he sees something, he wants it.
“You want to steal from Lucifer?” I ask Landon.
Logan scowls. “You’re going to call him that to his face?”
"Oh?" I ask, faking innocence.
“Lucifer.” Logan puffs out his chest.
“You still have the burns from the last time you dared to be brave enough to call him that to his face?” I retort.
Logan scowls. “You’re pathetic, Lydia.”
“Am I?” I ask, not unnerved at all by his opinion of me. I don’t care what any of them think of me. “Why do you say that?”
“You just play with hellhounds all day,” Lucas comments, ganging up on me.
I glance from one brother to the other. Outside of Lance having eyes like me, they all look like miniature versions of our father. Most of them are wearing suits, just like Lucifer favors, and only Lucas has his tail out, for whatever reason. It’s a bit bizarre when he does that, have his demon tail out when he’s looking like a human. Despite living in Hell and being offspring of Lucifer, for the most part, we don’t remain in our demoness and demon forms all the time.
Lucifer doesn't tell us much at all about our mothers, but I think most of us have demonesses for our mothers. Lucifer could probably get with just about any woman he wants to—be it a witch, a dryad, a fairy, a werewolf, a shifter of any kind, even a human. Maybe an angel. I could see Lucifer wanting to have that notch. Now, not every coupling would result in a child, though, but I'm back to wondering about his previous children, and I turn to Lance.
“You aren’t Lucifer’s first son.”
Lance narrows his eyes, the yellow almost turning green, although that might just be because I’m too focused on his tendency to envy anything and everything. “I’m the only son that matters,” he hisses.
“Try again,” Leo interjects. “I take exception to that. Want to go to war over it?”
“You can’t have a war with only two people involved,” I interject.
“Can’t you?” Leo gives me a lopsided grin.
“That’s more a conquest. I agree with Lydia,” Lucas states.
“I’m glad you do, but let’s get back on track. Lance, what happened—”
“The past is in the past,” Lance says, his eyes flashing.
I blink a few times and turn to Logan. He’s proud enough that he’ll brag about what he knows.
“Who was a son before Lance? Before Larissa?” I murmur to Logan. “You’re the smartest of my brothers. You have to know, don’t you?”
Logan grimaces. “Pandora.”
I glower at him. “Pandora was just a myth.”
“Yes, but her box… You don’t want to know everything, baby sister.”
“I’m not a baby,” I scoff.
“You are, and you always will be.”
Lance, Leo, and Lucas are all arguing and fighting with one another. It's actually turning a bit brutish, and it's riling up my hellhounds. They're behaving enough—my hellhounds, that is—so I let them go and focus on Logan, who at least is talking. Landon is trying to get the other three to take bets with him about who is going to come out on top because, for whatever reason, he wants money or gold or whatever he can get his hands on. He's a hoarder, all right, goes along with his greed.
“Why don’t you think Lucifer will have another baby?” I ask curiously. “Am I that much of a disappointment to him?”
“Why do you think he wanted an audience with you?”
“He seemed depressed…”
"There's been plenty of unrest and anarchy and all of that up there." Logan points upward, to the Earth above us. We can't see the earth, of course. Above us is darkness, sometimes more brown, sometimes redder, like dried blood. Depends on the region of Hell you're in. Vast areas are covered in flowing magma, and there are pits here and there filled with condemned souls.
I don’t go there.
“But there hasn’t been a truly massive war in a long while,” Logan says.
“There was that war between the vampires and werewolves,” I point out.
“Too short-lived, and that was about five years ago now.”
“And the whole thing with the Magical Prison and all of the inmates escaping, and that headmaster of Magical Hunters Academy being murdered because he… Why again?”
“Just when I was thinking you finally started to take an interest in the paranormal community on Earth.” Logan shakes his head and tsks his tongue. “The murder happened first before the inmates escaped, and the reason for the murder was because he was trying to do Lucifer’s work.”
My eyes widened. “What was he trying to do?”
“Jaidos was his name. A dragon shifter. He wanted to expose the paranormal world to the humans.”
“Oh,” I breathe.
Even Lucifer hasn’t been certain about that. I think he’s afraid it would cause the true apocalypse, the apocalypse that’s supposed to spell his doom, the one where he’s dead, and there will be a new Heaven and a new Earth.
And no more Hell.
Yeah, as much as Lucifer wants all of the Earth to be his playground and wants war and conquest and all of that like his sons, he also doesn't want to lose it all.
A fine line he walks, a very fine line, and I have no doubt that he’ll do his best to never fall. Lucifer knows how to pull strings like no one else. He’s been alive for how long? He knows all of the tricks, has read all of the books. Lucifer knows what’s what, and he’s not a fool nor will he suffer one.
“The seat of his power is here in Hell,” I murmur.
“Who?” Logan asks, confused.
“Lucifer.”
“Yes, but we were talking about Jaidos.”
“I know.” I shrug. Demonfang has returned to my side, and I bend down to pet one of his heads. “We were talking about wars. After the whole Jaidos and prison thing, there was that bit with Cain.”
"Yes. Lucifer was in a good mood then for a while," Logan agrees, “but once Cain was defeated, Lucifer hadn't been in such a foul mood ever."
> I shudder. “And then the only ever male oracle. Why had there never been a male oracle until only recently?”
Logan’s quiet for a long enough time that I thought he might not know the answer. Finally, he admits, “Do you really think a male can handle knowing what’s going to happen in the future?”
“And females can?”
“Think about it,” he encourages me.
“So you admit that females are more…”
“Equipped,” he says warily. “Females are more equipped to handling knowledge. How many men do you know who can handle knowing birthdays and dates and all of that and useless trivia and knowledge that’s actually important?”
“You do realize that’s completely sexist, right?” I ask dryly.
"It's okay when you're putting down a member of your own sex," he assures me.
“So you don’t know why there wasn’t a male oracle.”
“I think with ancient Greek, there might’ve been a few male oracles. Was it Greek or Roman? I always get them confused. Anyhow, there used to be, but those weren’t paranormal oracles, not the male ones.”
“So human oracles,” I say slowly.
"Like their fortune-tellers." He smirks.
I nod slowly. “But why not a male oracle?”
“If you’re so desperate to know, go back to Father and ask him. He’ll know.”
“He’ll probably yell at me for bothering him,” I mumble.
"Yes, well, if he turns against you, mention what our brothers are up to, and he'll ignore you in favor of a front-row seat to this mess."
Mess is right. Lance has Leo in a chokehold. Leo is trying to reach around to punch Lance in the back near his kidneys. Lucas is trying to hit Lance, too, but Lance keeps moving Leo so that he takes the blows instead. All the while, Shadechomp is nipping at their heels, and Landon is still trying to wage bets.
I glance at Logan and offer him a smile. Normally, he doesn’t give me much time of day. None of my siblings do. I am a lot different from the others, and it’s clear to me I’m cut from a different cloth for whatever reason.
“I could do that, rat them out,” I muse, “but then they’ll make my life terrible.”
Logan laughs. “I’m not going to save you from that Hell they’ll unleash on you.”
“Hmm. Fine. I won’t ask Father, and I’ll just have to be all right with not knowing.”
Daughter of Flames: A Mayhem of Magic World Story (A Girl and Her Hellhounds Book 1) Page 2