“They will be ready in the courtyard in two hours. How does that sound?”
Shadechomp reaches me first. Demonfang isn’t far behind, and I grin.
“Yes, that will do,” I say coolly.
I hope she doesn’t mind that I plan on bringing my hellhounds with me.
Demonfang tries to jump up on me, maybe to make up for being late, and I rub his necks. “Hey, boy. How are you?”
He barks his heads at me.
“Any idea what I should talk to the students about?” I ask. “Because I have nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero ideas.”
Neither of the hellhounds offers any suggestions. They start to chase each other’s tails, and I laugh, watching them. It takes so very little to please them.
But what would please me?
It takes me a long moment, but finally, I decide to talk on the subject of demons and love. A bit ironic, yes, because I haven’t found love, but I do think I love my siblings. My father? Not so much.
Oh, and I definitely love my hellhounds.
Demons and love… it’s not a concept many people would think about, and it’s probably just as well that the students don’t know the topic ahead of time.
Right at the two-hour mark, I arrive at the front of Smoke and Shadow Academy. I don’t want to be early, but I don’t want to be late either.
My hellhounds nip at my heels as I stroll around the academy to the courtyard.
Only there’s no one there. No students, no headmaster, no master at all. No one.
My hellhounds relish the empty area, and they frolic in the flowers and weeds, setting mini fires and rolling and putting those fires out.
At first, I assume the students are tardy because being late and even skipping is probably encouraged at a school for demons, but then I hear the echo of my father's laughter in my mind just before I'm summoned before him in his grand stone castle as he sits on his stupid throne.
“I don’t know if I should be amused with your antics or infuriated,” he comments wryly.
“I don’t know why you care what I do or don’t,” I return idly. “After all, don’t you have more souls to steal or something like that?”
“How about you stop acting like a child—”
“I’m not acting like a child, Father,” I spit out. “You told me to stay in Hell, so I’m staying in Hell.”
“You deliberately reached out to the academy to aggravate me.”
Yes, I totally did, but I just smile widely at him.
“My, my, my! So that’s where Logan gets it from! You’re so very proud! Yes, everything I do is because I think to myself, what will Father want? What will make him happy? So that I can do the opposite.”
“Silence!” he roars, and he pinches his fingers together and strikes a hard line through the air.
It’s as if my lips have been zipped. I can’t part them.
This isn’t the first time Lucifer has done this to me. I had been maybe three at the time, still a toddler, still trying to figure everything out yet. Something upset me. I don’t recall what, but I cried and wailed and would not stop, and Lucifer had enough of it.
So he shut me right up.
Trying to talk, to make any sound, to open my lips… All of that failing only set me on edge so much that I couldn’t breathe through my nose. I eventually passed out.
Honestly, why Father didn’t just abandon me to my wailing when I threw the temper tantrum in the first place, I’ll never know.
But I’m older now, and Lucifer wants to have his say. Fine. I’ll deal with this, but what he’s saying will just go in one ear and out the other.
In the blink of an eye, Lucifer stands beside me. I don’t turn to face him but continue to stare straight ahead at his vacant throne.
He brushes my blond hair back over my shoulder. “You have too much of your mother in you,” he hisses.
I swallow hard but otherwise don’t react. What does that mean? My mother was a descendant of Lilith’s. I’m acting out, yes, but by doing good, not evil.
“You see the world in terms of varying shades of gray, but that’s not the case. The world is black and white, evil or good. There is no in-between, and that you think you, as a demon, as a daughter of Lucifer, can operate in some kind of gray haze… No. I won’t allow it.”
I turn just my neck so I can look at him, and if I could move my lips, I would give him the coyest smile in the world.
Honestly, until recently, I ignored my father, and he ignored me. I did what I wanted and played with my hellhounds. It's not until now, when he's been all bent out of shape about Bethlehem, that he started to pay any attention to me, and how did I respond? By wanting to do what I want.
And he can’t stand that.
Which makes me want to act out all the more.
I’ve heard that humans have rebellious states, that it’s usually during their teenage years. I’m beyond that now, but considering demons live so much longer than humans do, I’m practically still a baby in my father’s eyes.
"Either you are a daughter of Lucifer with all of the protections and liberties that affords—"
I roll my eyes. I can’t help myself.
He touches a claw to my temple, and I will my thoughts to be empty, to be devoid of all images and feelings and notions.
“Speak,” he demands, and my lips loosen again, once more under my control.
I smile at him. “What protections have you afforded me?”
“No demons have ever—”
“I am your daughter, but even if I weren’t, if a demon came after me, I would put him in his place. I do know how to kill a demon permanently.” I shrug one shoulder. “And as for liberties, a girl and her hellhounds head up to Earth one time, and now, she’s banned from it? What liberties are you talking about? Because honestly, I’m a bit clueless.”
His backhand has my lip splitting, and I lick the blood.
“I did not raise a fool,” he snaps. “You aren’t clueless. You do know exactly what I speak.”
"Oh, yes." I nod a few times. "I'm at liberty to do whatever it is that you want me to do and nothing else. I'm not allowed to make my own choices. I'm just a demon, and all demons serve you. Free will is nothing at all. It's not real, and it's not something that demons have. Angels don't either, I suppose, but vampires, do they? They're part demon, aren't they? But they can do what they want. You don't dictate their every move, their every action. They can fall in love if they choose. They can date who they want and bite who they want and—"
“Do you want to be a vampire?” Lucifer asks me darkly. “Do you want to be so easily killed? Because I can arrange that. I can change you from being one of my daughters to being a slave to the moon, to your thirst.”
“Oh, I’m fine as I am now,” I say coolly. “You’re my father, and you still would be even if you altered me into a vampire.”
Lucifer flares his nostrils, and he holds up his hand and then flicks his wrist as he closes his fingers into a fist.
I can’t breathe. My chest is being squeezed by a vise, and I can hardly get any air into my lungs. My heart is pounding so furiously and then slowly and slowly.
“I am in charge of you,” Lucifer says, his tone as frigid as Hell is boiling. “Do not ever forget that.”
I’m seconds away from dying, my heart nearly ripped out of my chest when he shoves me away, magically teleporting me to the point in Hell where new souls are brought. I can hear the newest lost souls wailing and gnashing their teeth, and I grit mine.
I will not be bested.
I will not go quietly into the long night.
I will have free will.
And my father will not dictate what I can and cannot do.
I am his daughter, yes, but I'm the daughter of flames, and if he isn't careful, he'll end up burned.
Chapter 11
Fury has me understanding Lani and her wrath in a way I never did before. She’s only a year older than I am, and maybe Lucifer’s tried this crap with her t
oo. Maybe that’s why she’s so angry all the time. Honestly, I understand that entirely.
But I don’t seek her out. I don’t seek out anyone, not even my hellhounds. Right now, I just want to be alone.
I start to stalk off from this point of Hell, from this lava-infested cave, when I realize I'm not walking.
I’m flying.
Without even meaning to, I’ve shifted over to my demoness form. My skin is all blood-red, my wings are out, and I even have mini horns near my temples. My wings are beautiful, if you ask me, black on the far side, a purplish color closer to my body. My feet have changed into hooves, and my tail is sharp and pointed, my tongue too.
My face has shifted some, more animalistic, more fierce, more dangerous.
I shudder, embracing this darkness that is always a part of me even when I try to suppress it, and I zoom through the air, flying swiftly, doing a few flips and loops.
There are hardly any demons here except for the ones who are tormentors of the lost souls, the enforcers, and I ignore them. They ignore me too.
Eventually, I reach an area of Hell that has more and more demons, but I ignore them, too, heading for… I don't know where I want to go. I just want to try to be free, to have some freedom or at least an illusion of it.
At some point, I realize I’m nearing the Howling Crag. No demons live nearby, but there’s always an echo of a howl as if there are wolves and other kinds of animals about even though no one comes here ever.
I land at the top of Howling Crag, listening to the howls, breathing in the sharp, pungent stench of sulfur.
A footstep behind me—no, a hoofstep—alerts me to the notion that I’m not alone after all, but I’m not worried, and I don’t turn around either.
“Lydia, ain’t ya?”
The voice belongs to an old demon, a male, his tone raspy, his word coming out slowly, deliberately.
I glance over as he walks over to me. The demon doesn’t look at me, staring out into the darkness.
“Ya are Lydia, ain’t ya?” he asks.
My nostrils flare. “Why do you want to know?” I demand.
“Oh, I don’t have to know,” he says with a bitter laugh. “I don’t know much of anything nowadays. I mean, Lucifer has so many kids, and then they…”
“Then they what?” I ask curiously.
He just shakes his head. His hair is such a deep black that it looks blue. His eyes are a dark brown color, but they aren't black. He's not as dark as the rest of my family is.
“How did you know who I am?” I ask. What was the point of him coming over to talk to me if he’s not going to answer any of my questions?
“There’s a darkness unlike any other that only Lucifer and his progeny have.”
I tilt my head to the side and consider this. I can’t really say that I’ve noticed that, but I haven’t made a habit of being around regular demons either.
I'm not a regular demon. I'm caged. Maybe I'm starting to come into my power, and Lucifer wants to beat me down, to force me into some kind of box, but I want to be me. I don't want to live in his shadow, and I hold up my hand. A blast shoots out of it and hits a red boulder far away. Pebbles rain down, all that's left of the boulder.
“You’re upset,” the demon remarks.
“You might not want to be around me right now,” I say. “I’m… I’m not exactly in control of my emotions right now.”
“Your father getting to you, huh?”
I glare at him. “It’s none of your business.”
He holds up his hands defenselessly. “Of course it isn’t. I’m not trying to pry. It’s just… This has played out so many times before. Honestly, that the eldest… Larissa?”
“Lance.”
“How old is he now?”
“Thirty-five.”
The demon lets out a low whistle. “Yeah, that’s old for one of Lucifer’s progeny.”
“Why? What do you mean?”
"Normally, y'all are an explosive bunch. Each and every single one of Lucifer's children has had enough of him. Without fail, every single one of you has plotted against him."
“But he can’t die,” I blurt out.
“No, he can’t. Not by you. When the apocalypse happens, when all the dust settles, when there’s a new Earth and new Heaven… There won’t be a Hell anymore. We’ll be gone. There won’t be any room or place for us in that new world.”
I inhale sharply. “Well, then, my siblings… Are you saying he killed them all?”
“Killed them… Had them killed… Amounts to the same thing, don’t it?”
“And all because they ganged up on him?”
The demon begins to laugh. “No, girlie. No. They all went up at him one at a time. Normally well before they hit twenty… oh… twenty-three or so. Most go up against him before they even hit twenty, though. Right when they start to really come into their power, but I guess… I don’t know.”
“You guess what?” I ask suspiciously.
“He doesn’t normally go such a long haul between having kids, now, does he? The brood he has now, what’s the largest age gap there is?”
Lance is thirty-five. Larissa’s a year younger, and Leo’s two years younger than she is. Lucas’s a year younger at thirty-one, and Logan’s thirty. Lara’s two years younger, and Lena’s two years younger than her. Lola is twenty-five, Lily two years younger. Landon’s twenty-two, Lani twenty-one, and then there’s me at twenty.
“Two years,” I murmur. “Usually just a year, but…”
“For him to not have a kid in all of that span…”
My mother. Had there been something there, something between her and my father that turned him away from having children?
Maybe I’m the one to blame. He’s that disappointed in me.
You know how some babies in the family insist that if they had been born first, they would’ve been an only child because their parents would’ve had a perfect child already? Why bother to have more, right?
Well, if a child is that disappointing, you’ll never want another one.
Why, though? What have I done that's all that terrible? I mean, yes, I hadn't shown an interest in heading to Earth like the others. Lani used to beg a thousand times a day, getting angrier and angrier every time she had been told no. Eventually, she was allowed up when she was five. Lance had been nineteen at the time, and he'd taken her up, and Lani threw some kind of hysterical fit of anger at the other kids at the playground that the other kids all left crying. Even their parents had been crying. Apparently, it had been epic. Every so often, Lani would mention it.
I have no stories like that to tell anyone.
For a demon, I really am a failure.
Honestly, though, that doesn’t bother me. I mean, aren’t there vampires out there who want to be known as who they are outside of their thirst for blood? And witches who aren’t known for their magical abilities? And shifters who are viewed as more than which animals they turn into?
“Maybe it’s because you’re special,” the old demon says. At least I get the impression that he’s old even though he doesn’t look old like a human would.
“Nice recovery,” I say sarcastically.
“I don’t know you all that well,” he starts.
“How do you know about Lucifer and his children so much?” I ask, unnerved and wary.
But not scared. He doesn’t scare me. For one thing, he might be in his demon form, but he’s not as physically brawny as most, and I’m feeling more than fiery enough that I can handle his flames and more.
“I’ve been around for a long time,” the demon says.
“What’s your name?” I can’t help my suspicious tone.
“Jozan.”
"Jozan," I repeat. It's an older-style demon name. He really is an old demon. "How old are you?"
"Well over a millennium," he murmurs. "If you press for an exact age… Honestly, I couldn't tell you that. Once you live past three hundred, you stop paying attention."
“I
guess I can understand that,” I mutter. “But you had to have known… What’s the largest gap Lucifer’s ever had before?”
“Maybe… I don’t think more than five years at the most. I’m not sure why he’s taking his sweet time about it this time, but maybe you really are special.”
I shake my head. “No, I’m sure that’s not it.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I…”
“You aren’t like your siblings.”
I shake my head. “Not really.”
“How so?”
“They’re all so… They’re perfectly demonic.”
“And you… You aren’t?”
“I’m not,” I say flatly.
He cants his head and then shrugs. “I don’t know. You look perfectly demonic to me.”
“Well, yes, of course I look the part, but I… The others all…” I scowl at him.
Jozan chuckles. "Oh, my, shadows and darkness! I'm not tryin' to learn your weakness! I'm too old for tryin' to one-up Lucifer. That's up for you to do… if ya have the skin for it."
“Why would I want to bother with that when you said he’s killed all of his precious kids who rose up against him?”
Jozan shrugs and huffs a sigh.
“I mean, do you want me to die?” I ask. “How do I know that you didn’t offer advice to other kids of Lucifer’s, trying to convince them to rise up against him so that he could then take them out once he deemed them, shall we say… problematic?”
The demon rolls his eyes and holds his lower back like it’s causing him some pain. “Do you really think I would do that? I mean, come now, girlie. I just told you that he killed them all! If my goal was to try to get you all jazzed up and rarin’ to fight him, then why would I tell you that?”
I swallow hard. The idea of going up against Lucifer… Why had each and every one of his children done that before? All solo at that…
And why hasn’t Lance? Probably because he’s too much of a brownnoser. And Larissa? She’s too lazy to.
But Leo prefers war. Is a war against one too small scale for him? And Lucas and his conquests… Wouldn't he want to take over Hell as the ultimate conquest?
Daughter of Flames: A Mayhem of Magic World Story (A Girl and Her Hellhounds Book 1) Page 7