The thoughts leave me feeling more than a little uncomfortable, and I’m happy when I realize the older demon is waving to me, and he teleports away.
Chapter 12
The next morning, I’m more than willing and ready to try to figure out what I need for myself, what I need to be happy. I mean, happiness should be more than just hellhounds, right? Everyone else seems to think hellhounds aren’t enough, and honestly, I think they’re just jealous because my hellhounds are the best.
But in case there is another reason behind my being born, I should try to figure it out, right? I owe myself to at least look and see.
There’s no huge gathering for breakfast, and I only cook enough steak for myself and my hellhounds with a bit of basilisk eggs. Delish. No ketchup, though. Steaks shouldn’t need any kind of condiments. Get better quality meat if you think it needs that filth.
Why, yes, I am very opinionated on certain things. Why do you ask?
Demonfang is a bit standoffish with me this morning. I think he’s not too pleased about my leaving him behind, but I hadn’t exactly been myself then. Plus, Father had once again summoned me and only me to his throne room.
Shadechomp is loyal, though, but I urge him to return to his brother. They aren’t flesh and blood brothers, but they sure act like it, and that warms my heart.
I’m sure it won’t take all that long for Demonfang to realize he still loves me. Until then, Shadechomp will be better equipped to raising Demonfang’s spirits than I ever could, although I won’t be too happy at all if Demonfang does a repeat of what he did two years ago when he had last been pissed at me.
He burned down my bed.
Yeah, there are times when hellhounds can be real hellions.
My goal for today… Yeah, I didn’t really have one, but I head outside of the girls’ mansion and notice most of my brothers are standing in front of theirs when a demon materializes and loudly proclaims, “All of you are to go see Lucifer at once.”
I smirk. I wonder what the lot of them did to infuriate our father. Maybe now Lucifer will get off my back.
But the demon turns and eyes me. “You and your sisters as well.”
And he disappears in a puff of black smoke.
I exhale loudly through my nose. I’m not even sure if Larissa is awake yet, and if she’s not, she can be a real bear to stir.
“Any chance—” I start, but the guys are already gone. “Of course not.”
Grumbling to myself, I reenter the mansion. It's no small feat for me to wake Larissa, but the moment she realizes it's because of Lucifer, she's more alert than normal.
“What for?” she mumbles as she rushes to get changed, putting on the first thing she yanks out of her stone wardrobe, a black dress.
“No idea, but he wants all of us. Head on over once you’re ready. I haven’t even told the others yet.”
Some of the other sisters are noisy, already overheard, and left, the brats. Going to make me look bad, but within three minutes, we’re all in Lucifer’s throne room.
Lucifer eyes the latecomers with a scowl. “You need to learn that tardiness is not appreciated.”
“It’s my fault,” Larissa says, stepping forward. “I was asleep—”
“All you do is sleep.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t do enough,” he growls. “None of you do. You’re all so lazy that it makes me sick.”
I lean over to Lucas, who stands next to me. “You would’ve thought angels would be the ones people should expect to be punctual.”
“Lydia!”
“Yes, sir.” I can’t hide my smirk.
“You’re right, Father,” Lance says. He probably is green with envy that the attention isn’t on him but his sisters. “We have been far too lazy. I feel like because I am your eldest son that I should set a better, stronger example for my younger siblings. They are so influenced by others and—”
“Influenced maybe but not by you,” Lucas mutters.
I cover my mouth to try to not snort, but I fail. Thankfully, a few others also laugh.
Lucifer looks downright furious. “You should have been doing something far more productive with your time all along, Lance,” he spits out.
“I’m just glad he’s not yelling at me personally,” I whisper to Lucas.
"Shut up, or else he'll start," he warns back, hardly moving his lips. "It's not often he calls us all like this."
“Has he ever before?” I wonder.
“Maybe when you were four. It’s been a hot minute.”
“It’s always a hot minute here in Hell.”
“Then head to Earth more often.” Lucas grins.
“You, all of you, are so lazy it’s disgusting!” Lucifer shouts. “You pretend to want wars and famines, to conquest, to this or that, but none of you actually have done anything of note. None of you have lived up to what it means to have my blood coursing through your veins. You each are weak and pathetic, and just looking at you churns my stomach.”
“Yes, you’re absolutely right,” Lance says.
“If he doesn’t shut up,” Lucas mutters out of the corner of his mouth, “I’m going to conquest him!”
“How would that work?” I ask innocently.
Lucas glowers at me, and he shifts to stand between some of our brothers.
I’m not sure why he didn’t care for my asking that, but seriously? You can’t really conquest a person, can you? You conquest a place, take it over, become its ruler…
“How can we best serve you?” Lance asks, lowering his head, almost bowing to his father.
I hate that. I hate all of this. Yes, Lucifer is our father. Yes, that should maybe give us a reason to respect him, but we shouldn’t worship him. We shouldn’t have to power down to him. We’re his children, not his slaves.
Then again, that’s exactly what he wants, isn’t it? That’s why he’s fighting another for souls. He wants the souls to worship him. He wants the power he can draw from the souls. I’m not sure how I didn’t realize this before.
Does he draw powers from demons too? Most likely, which makes it all the more curious that he’s gone so very long without fathering another child after me.
Unless he has, and he’s keeping the younger ones away from us…
But why would he do that? I’ve known my brothers and sisters since I was first born. It seems almost cruel to think that I might have a number of half-siblings wandering about. Where, though? Not down here in Hell surely, and there’s no way Lucifer would be able to swallow his pride long enough for him to allow someone else to raise his offspring. No way, no how. Doesn’t matter who the mother is. That would never happen.
Okay, so no hidden progeny somewhere. Why the big delay?
“How can you best serve me?” Lucifer asks, his voice a perfect mocking mimicry of Lance’s. “Do you have a brain, Lance?”
“Of course.”
“Well, then, how do you think you can best serve me?” Lucifer asks, his tone still mocking and sharp.
Yeah, I’m glad Lance is the one opening his big mouth because Lucifer is in a mood.
Lance's smile only grows. Bless him. He's about to get roasted over the coals, and he doesn't even realize it. How can he be so old and so naïve yet? I think it has to do with having Lucifer for a father. He keeps us under his thumb for so long that we're all basically children still. We just serve to do whatever he bids of us.
Only now, he wants us to be oracles, to just know what he wants from us, for us to be witches who can read minds.
I might be able to read emotions and have a lot of empathy for a demon, but even that does not allow me to be able to directly read minds.
But the wave of anger rolling from Father, well, let’s just say that he puts Lani to shame.
“Whichever way that you want us to serve you, of course.” Lance’s smile somehow grows even wider. Seriously. It’s disgusting how wide his smile is, practically splitting his face apart.
It’s not a good look for him to be so
happy. Demons aren’t supposed to be happy.
And maybe they aren’t really supposed to love either. I guess it really is a good thing that I never gave that lecture. I mean, who was I kidding? I’m not demonic enough to give a talk to a bunch of teenage demons. And to talk about love? The only love I have is for siblings.
Which is curious. I mean, I think just about everyone would understand that I don’t love my father. Come on. He’s Lucifer. Who can love him?
Probably not even the women who birthed his children… Although there are some crazy women out there, I’m sure… I mean, when I took a peek into that guy’s head and saw flashes from the serial killer documentaries he watched, apparently more than a few killers get married while serving life sentences or some nonsense like that. That can’t be love, though, right? I mean, the ladies had to have just been going after the notoriety, right?
“And how exactly will you go about doing ‘whichever way that I want you to serve me,’ hmm?” Lucifer asks.
Oh, he’s really not letting Lance off the hook.
Lance glances around at us, but none of us are willing to throw him a bone. Nope. He’s on his own, and he’s about to sink.
My eldest brother swallows audibly. “Ah, well, if you won’t be telling me…”
Lucifer merely tilts his head to the side, clearly not going to say a word, and I start to feel bad for Lance. He’s sweating bullets, and considering we’re all accustomed to the high heat of Hell, that’s saying something.
“Ah… I… I would…”
“You honestly have no idea, do you?” In a flash, Lucifer is in his demon form, and trust me. His demon form is massive. Muscles on muscles, a huge hulk of a demon body, spiraled horns, hooves, red fur on the lower parts of his legs right above the hooves, a long tail…
He’s intimidating beyond all get out in this form.
“What’s more is that none of you do! But you, Lance, you’re the oldest. You have no excuse. None. All you are is a simple yes man. You have no brains of your own, no ambition of your own. You never think for yourself, so, fine. I’ll give you this much of a hint.”
Lucifer snaps his fingers, and just like that, Lance is gone.
“Where did you send him?” I blurt out, unable to stop myself.
Lucas shifts even farther away from me as if he thinks Lucifer is going to gun for me next, but honestly, it’s a simple enough question.
“If you must know, you’re infuriating brother frustrated me for the last time, so I sent him to Earth. I don’t want him here in my domain anymore. Honestly, I don’t even want to see the rest of you. You’re all pathetic, and I don’t know how you’re my children.”
It’s stupid. It’s pathetic, and I really don’t want to admit it even to myself, but Lucifer’s words hurt. They cut through me like a knife. It’s not that I want his approval because, seriously, who knows what dark madness it would take for him to be happy with us? But this raw anger… right on the heels of my learning that he either killed or had his children killed…
Father doesn’t want to see me, and I don’t want to run the risk of infuriating an already irate Lucifer, so I teleport out of there.
Hopefully, that act in and of itself won’t anger him all over again.
Chapter 13
I don’t return to my hellhounds, not to the mansion, not to anywhere in Hell either.
No.
Honestly, this is probably not the smartest of ideas, but what can I say? I prefer to walk on the wild side a bit sometimes. Or maybe I’m just a rebel.
Hmm. Wasn’t that the name of the bounty hunter who went after Cain? Rebel. Yes. And I’m pretty sure she was a human, but she had a whole host of people who came up and stood beside her, fought beside her, died for her cause even.
That’s power. That’s real power. I wonder if my father, as terrible and wicked and depraved as he is, knows anything about that.
But I haven’t heard about Rebel in recent years. My guess is that she probably hung it up. Let go of that moniker. Maybe has settled down even with one of those people who fought alongside her.
Maybe she has a kid by now.
Do I want a kid? I don’t even know, but maybe one day…
No. I bet Lucifer doesn’t want grandchildren. If he did, he wouldn’t have killed off all of his kids.
Just what is he waiting for with all of us? Is he waiting for us to rise against him? At this point, he might just have to get fed up with us enough to go after us instead of waiting for us to try to take him down. Lance is too much of a brownnoser to ever go up against him, and Larissa is far too lazy for it. You would think that if anyone would go first, it would be Leo and his warmonger ways, but honestly, as much as he boasts about wars and all of that, he’s been a little lazy too. Same with Lucas and his conquests. He has dominion over a small island, I think, but that’s about it, and the humans don’t even know about that island because it’s out in the middle of nowhere, I guess.
So, yeah, we’re all a bunch of disappointment to the demon phenom, lover of vice and sin.
We’re all living, doing our own thing until eventually, Lucifer has decided that he doesn’t want us around anymore. Not one of his children has he allowed to have a child. There’s no lasting legacy for him.
Not that Lucifer needs to have a legacy. He is his own legacy. He won’t die until after the apocalypse, when the other has his way with the world.
We're all on borrowed time, all of us, whether we have Lucifer's blood within us or not, only those with his blood will one day die forevermore. We'll be dead and gone, no trace of us eventually, once there's a new Heaven and a new Earth, and Hell is wiped away from existence.
But I’m not worried about that right now. I’m not worried at all, even though I fight back the urge to want to have children one day. As much as I love Demonfang and Shadechomp, I don’t just want to be a mom to fur babies. I want to have children of my own.
But I’m willing to bet that Lucifer sabotages the relationships that any of his children has.
He probably can’t stand the idea of our choosing someone. Probably feels a bit envious and is too proud to admit it. He can’t bear to see us happy because of someone other than himself.
Isn’t that sad and pathetic? For a father to not want his children to be happy? Not that Lucifer will ever win Father of the Year, but still, he’s a terrible father.
And he thinks we’re the terrible children.
I’m standing in a field somewhere. No idea where. It’s not as if I could even begin to guess where Lance might be. Where would Father have sent him? Maybe near Bethlehem if it’s still on the devil’s mind.
I close my eyes, and I seek out with my magic any hint of darkness pulsating on Earth. Honestly, it’s a bit overwhelming just how much darkness there is all over the Earth. Not a bad thing, I suppose, and it has to make my father happy, and to tell the truth, anything that upsets my father makes me very pleased right now.
What can I say? I’m a brat.
But there is definitely one spot that shines a bit brighter and yet darker than the others.
Bingo. There’s Lance.
I teleport closer to him, not right beside him. I don’t want him to know that I’m here, so I’m basically spying on him.
He’s not that far from Bethlehem, actually. I’m not sure what this small town is called, but he’s walking down the street, looking this way and that. Hmm. It seems to me that he doesn’t really know what to do, which is somewhat funny to me.
Lucifer had been clear enough to me that he wants us to act more like his sons and daughters. He wants us to act like demons, the best demons there have ever been.
Or maybe the worst demons there have ever been.
Lance huffs and crosses his arms. I can’t tell from this angle, but I think he might be muttering to himself. Why? What about? What is it that he wants?
I try to move even closer to him, hurrying behind him on the sidewalk when he abruptly stops and stands there, still, motio
nless.
Quickly, I turn and grab the door of whatever shop I just walked by, intending to head inside so he won’t spot me.
Too late.
His heavy hand lands on my shoulder. “Hi, Lydia. My favorite sister.”
I blink a few times. “Lance? I didn’t realize you had taken up lying. You might want to work on that because you aren’t believable at all. No poker face.”
“What are you talking about?” He gives me a one-armed hug. “I have to look out for you, you know? Since you’re the youngest.”
“When have you ever looked out for me?” I ask, deadpan.
“All the time!”
“Name one.” I cross my arms.
“Well, first of all…” He nods to the door behind me.
I glance over my shoulder. “What are you going on about?”
“You really want to get your hair cut by a barber?”
“What’s wrong with that?” I ask.
“Barbers only cut guy’s hairs.”
“I’m sure not all barbers do,” I protest.
“I’m sure you’re right.” He grins at me.
Okay, why is he being so weird? He’s being nice to me, and I don’t believe it’s legit for one second.
And then it hits me.
He thinks I'm a spy, so he's trying to sweet-talk me.
Hmm… There has to be a way I can use this to my advantage.
“Maybe you should get a haircut,” I say with a wide grin.
“Me?”
“Why not?” I reach up and ruffle his hair. “Think about it. You could get new hair, some new clothes, a whole new you! And then you could start to tackle your daddy issues.”
Lance has been nodding as I mentioned the hair and clothes, but he just stares at me when I say “new you” and the rest of it? Oh, boy, does he have no poker face at all.
“Daddy issues? I’m not the one with daddy issues.”
“No? Then who?” I ask innocently. “Not Larissa. She’s too lazy. Not Lily. She spends more time on Earth than the rest of us combined, and she spends a lot of that time with other people, so I think it’s safe to say that she can at least move on past everything. Logan—”
Daughter of Flames: A Mayhem of Magic World Story (A Girl and Her Hellhounds Book 1) Page 8