by J. E. Taylor
I stumbled into the dusty street, trying to hide myself from the view of the townspeople, but it was impossible. The single statement of my father created a frenzy out of the quiet town. This was what I had warned Lucifer of.
The first rock hit me on the shoulder blade, ripping a gasp from my chest as the chants of “whore” broke out. More rocks pelted my skin. I covered my face and tried to run, but the crowd pushed me back into the center of the ring of people. A rock hit my temple, and I fell to my knee in a wave of dizziness.
I blinked and reached for the dagger that Lucifer gave me. The sheath was empty, and my chest lurched.
“Looking for this, missy?” One of the older men in the crowd waved it at me.
My vision blurred and I struggled to rise, but the blow from the rock had left me disoriented. Heat flowed down my face, and I wiped at it. My palm came back into view covered in blood. If I didn’t get up...
The crack of a belt bit into my back and I screamed. It was cut off a second later when the leather wrapped around my throat. Horror washed through me as the younger men stepped forward to do what they were bound to do to the village whores.
“Lucifer,” I whispered to the sky with a voice constricted by the tight belt. At this moment, I did not care if the angel leveled the entire village.
A roar rumbled from the blackening sky. The sight of Lucifer descending with wings that spanned the width of the street and lightning rolling off his entire form was enough to make a majority of the crowd back away. All except the stupid one who was focused on violating me. He didn’t take any notice until Lucifer landed in front of me.
Lucifer slammed his fist into the ground, and the wave of destruction spiraled out from the spot right under my face. I felt the heat, but it did not hurt. It was like a light from heaven had encompassed me in a safe bubble as Lucifer’s wrath burned the rest of the village.
The stench of burnt flesh hung on the air, and I flinched when Lucifer reached for me.
He brushed his hand over my cheek and into my hair, studying the cut on my temple. He shook his head and pressed a healing kiss to my forehead.
The sharp pain where each and every rock had collided with my skin dulled.
“Why did you not use the knife I gave you?” he asked as he jerked my chin up.
“First, the knife can’t stop a thrown rock, and second, someone relieved me of it while I was trying to run away.” I wiped my face and blinked back the sheen of tears that blurred my vision.
“You lost the knife?” His voice was sharp enough for me to shrink back.
I glanced at the destruction around me and the ash swirling on the breeze. “It’s somewhere in the ash, assuming it survived.” I waved at the remains of my village. I wasn’t even sure which side that scoundrel had ended up on before Lucifer’s wrath decimated everything.
He wiped his face and glanced around us. Annoyed creases appeared at the edges of his lips. “Perhaps if you had clothing on, you wouldn’t have lost it.”
“My father tore the fabric off my back and shoved me out to be dealt with by the village. I told you, you damned me.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I told you I was as good as dead, but you led me back home anyway and now look at my village.” Anger seeped into my tone. If I let the rest of the tumult inside reach the surface, I would have fallen to the ground in a puddle of tears.
While I did not mourn my father’s death, my mother’s was a different story. And there were others in the town who were kind and did not deserve to be smited by an angel of the Lord.
I shook with anguish.
“Why are you lashing out at me?” he asked, clearly perplexed by my actions. “I saved you.”
“I have no clothes, no home, and nowhere to go. While I am thankful that I did not die here today, I can’t say I won’t die tonight from exposure or some wild animals on the prowl.” The wind picked up, and I coughed as a swirl of grey dust assaulted us.
I turned away from him and headed towards the river. I needed to feel clean, and then I needed to figure out what the hell I was going to do. Lucifer accompanied me but kept quiet, and when I continued walking into the water, he matched me step for step.
When I dunked under, he did the same. When we both stood, his wings were once again pristine white. They fluttered on his back as he pulled me close while droplets rained down around us.
“You will not be harmed.”
I yanked out of his grip. “That is what you promised when you left me at my father’s mercy!” I waved towards where our hut used to be. “And how did that turn out?”
Lucifer crossed his arms. “I am sorry I did not intervene sooner. I was in the middle of an argument with MY father.”
I turned and marched to the shore, wrapping my arms around my naked form, even though there were no eyes for miles. I wanted to be covered, because if Lucifer left me and I crossed by someone who decided they could have me, I was helpless to stop them. At least with clothing, I would be less vulnerable.
I spun back to Lucifer with wicked words on my tongue, and he held out a garment for me. I stared at the red fabric in awe. I had never seen cloth so soft-looking and I reached to touch the dress.
He helped slide it over my head. “Now, that is what a lady should look like.”
The soft dress hugged my curves and fell to just below my knees in pleated waves. It was as red as fresh blood and made my exposed shoulders look like cream against the dark, decadent color. I had never seen anything like it, especially something on a woman that revealed so much. Yet it felt so good against my skin, like it was made just for me.
I ran my hands down the front and glanced up at Lucifer. “What is this made of?”
He just smiled and scanned me. Heat radiated from him. Being this close felt like being stranded in the desert on a hot summer day. Despite my aggravation for him razing my village, I couldn’t help but be thankful for his skill to pull things out of nowhere, but there was a nagging deep inside me that told me to run fast and run far.
Too bad I didn’t heed that internal alarm.
Chapter 5
“What do you mean I need to stop trying to cheat death?” I slammed my fist on the table in front of me. My various containers laid out on the wood rattled.
He had been asking me to stop for a while now, and it irritated me to no end. I was getting closer to a cure for death, and he was pulling this now?
I spun and glared at Lucifer. “I am almost there!”
Lucifer wiped his hand down his face. “Haven’t you failed enough?” he asked softly. “You are turning people into things that cannot be controlled.”
“They aren’t dying, are they?” I crossed my arms.
“No. But they aren’t truly alive anymore. They are monsters that only crave the slaughter.”
“You’ve contained them?” I had asked him to put the subjects somewhere where they couldn’t hurt anyone.
“Yes. But it still is not right.”
“I am so close!” I didn’t want to give this up. Not after so many years of near success. Lucifer had helped me get to where I was now, but there was something missing. Something significant that eluded me, and it left me frustrated and more determined than ever. So much so that I didn’t care if Lucifer got tired of this mental tug-of-war that we seemed to be doing daily.
He wanted children, but I wasn’t going to bring a child into this difficult world. Not when failure meant death. I wanted them to experience everlasting joy without the worry of mortality.
He had set me up in this magnificent hut with an area to practice my herbal concoctions separate from my regular quarters. He provided me with whatever I requested and was good to me in every way, but I was not reliant on him in the same way he seemed to be reliant on me.
Our arguments increased as our lovemaking decreased. I didn’t need the physical attention, but I enjoyed it when it occurred. Lucifer was a giving lover, but it was not enough to satiate my need for knowledge.
“You do not r
ealize the ramifications...” His eyes blazed and his face turned red. He turned away from me and ran his hand through his hair.
“Of what, trying to find a way to eliminate death? Eliminate disease?” Anger bloomed in my chest in a suffocating heat that must have equaled his frustration.
“You are killing innocents,” he yelled and spun back to me. His wings flared on his back, and I stared at the blackened feathers. “I beg of you, please stop. Please let me start a family with you. I want to make love to you night after night and find that bliss we used to have again.”
“What happened?” I asked, still focused on his burnt wings and not on whatever he was blathering on about.
His lips pressed together, and his glare startled me. “This was my punishment for loving you.”
His words burned. “I did not ask you to love me. That was your choice.” I crossed my arms and jutted my chin. “You were the one who swooped down and decided to save me from my life when I didn’t need saving. You were the one who put me in danger and then destroyed everything I had ever known.”
“I gave up heaven for you!” he yelled.
I blinked at him as frustration boiled in my blood at the unsaid accusations in his tone. “I never asked you to give up heaven. I never asked for anything from you.”
He growled and crossed the distance to stand over me. “I gave you everything you ever desired.”
I laughed at him. I had traded one overbearing control monger for another. The only difference between Lucifer and my father was that Lucifer never lifted a hand in anger the way my father so easily had. While he had initially helped me get to this point with my potions, I was feeling very stifled.
“Everything I ever desired?” I stepped back, distancing myself. “You took my virginity and then nearly let me die at the hands of the village.”
“Are you ever going to let me live that down?” he growled.
“This was NOT my choice. It was yours. I had as much say in this as I had with doing my family’s laundry when they were alive.”
“I helped you with your strive for immortality,” he said, blinking rapidly.
“I would have gotten to this point eventually,” I argued, but I knew it would have taken at least twice as long without his help. I was grateful, but that didn’t mean the man owned me. “I am not a piece of property to be claimed.”
The flash in his eyes frightened me. I tried to take another step away, but he grabbed me by the arms and slammed me into the wall behind me.
“You will stop this!” he bellowed in my face.
Anger boiled to the surface. I would not live the rest of my life in fear of his retribution.
“No,” I yelled back. “And you can get out of my hut and never return!”
His eyes widened, and he slowly put me down. “I’m sorry.”
“Get out!” I pointed.
“Lilith, please...” he whispered and reached for my face.
I knocked his hand away. “You touched me in anger. Get out!” I was nearly as frenzied as he had been. But I could not go back to the life where beatings were the normal everyday occurrence. I would not live like that ever again.
He dropped to a knee in front of me. “I’m begging you,” he said, his voice choked with emotion.
“No. Get out and don’t ever return.” My voice echoed in the small room, and Lucifer winced.
“Please,” he said, climbing to his feet. Tears glazed his eyes.
I shook my head and pointed. “Never again.” I said through clenched teeth.
For a moment, I wished I still had that obsidian knife that I’d hunted for over and over again, but never found, because that would ensure I would never be harmed again.
His lips thinned, and his cheeks turned red, and then he turned and stalked out the door.
Chapter 6
It had been a year almost to the day since our falling out. I hadn’t seen Lucifer since he walked out my door. Not a peep. Not even a feeling of him watching me. Until this evening, and it was stifling.
I shivered with the sudden certainty he was right there, but the feeling was different, hostile. Like being watched by my father all those years ago. I wrapped my shawl around me tighter and scuttled down the street as I glanced from side to side.
The door to my hut stood ajar. My stomach lurched, and my feet moved faster. I swung the door open and froze. Everything I owned was sprawled out across the place, and every item was smashed or torn or shattered.
My hand flew over my mouth, shutting off my gasp. Before I knew it, I was sprinting across the room, trying to dodge the broken pieces of my life. I slid to a stop at the door of my lab. Nothing remained in one piece.
Cold horror scratched over my skin like a million tiny spiders. My entire collection of herbs, spices, both deadly and beneficial, were smoldering in the center of my lab.
“What have you done?” I cried and ran towards where I’d had my latest batch of magic brewing.
A hand shot out from the darkness and gripped my throat in a vise. He pulled me until my face was near enough for me to feel his hot breath on my skin.
He wore a crazed mask of fury as he growled, “You have been very naughty.”
When life with Lucifer had been normal and blessed, those particular words would have started a heat between my legs that would spread through my entire form, but this time, it left me chilled like I would never be able to warm up again.
I had never seen anyone deranged with anger beyond my own father, and seeing it on Lucifer, an angel of the Lord, frightened me to the point my bladder squeezed.
His wings had a layer of soot and grime, and he smelled like hellfire.
I couldn’t speak with the grip around my throat. I wasn’t sure I would be able to even if he wasn’t choking me. I scratched at his hand as he dragged me towards him. He gripped me tight and bent his knees before launching us through the thatched roof of my hut.
The last thing I saw was the dark entrance of a mountain cave, and then all went dark.
MY EYES OPENED TO A dingy cave with a table strewn with my lab equipment. Lucifer muttered under his breath, and his mangled wings trembled.
“Why?” a woman next to me asked. Her voice sounded as parched as I felt.
Lucifer glared over his shoulder at her and then strode toward me. “Good. You are awake.” He grabbed one of two vials, crossed to the woman, grabbed her jaw, and forced her mouth open before dropping the contents in her mouth.
He tossed the empty vial back on the table and took a seat on the stool. He crossed his arms as the woman began to claw at her throat. A scream filled the cavern. He smiled like he was enjoying what my potion was doing to the human body.
The woman dropped to her knees and screamed so loud and so long, I thought her vocal cords would burst. Then the convulsions started, altering the screams into starts and stops as violent as the fits accosting her.
And then she lay silent, her chest hitching breaths in wheezing intervals, rising and falling in a slow cadence.
I had witnessed the same passing of stages time and time again, with one exception. The woman’s breath still hissed from her chest. My subjects all stopped breathing before they woke with a mouthful of teeth as sharp as a tiger’s.
Lucifer nodded and reached over his shoulder to grab the second vial. He stood and approached me.
“What are you doing?” I asked, my voice carrying the same panic heating every cell in my body. The kind angel whom I had once known was gone, and this crazed being who had bound me to the wall was going to turn me into one of those mindless monsters.
“You wanted immortality?” Lucifer growled and grabbed my jaw, forcing his fingers into my cheek until I had no choice but to open my mouth. He poured the contents of the vial down my throat and held my jaw until I was forced to swallow.
My throat burned like the heart of a fire, and when the liquid hit my stomach, I swore it torched right through my skin. I screamed so loud I thought my neck was going to rupture. Ev
ery inch of my form sang with exquisite torture. My hair even felt as if I had been doused in oil and set aflame.
My chest squeezed as if a mighty oak had fallen on top of me, adding to the pain racking every cell. I understood the sheer suffering of the transformations that my subjects had endured.
“There is a steep price for cheating death. I hope you burn with it for eternity,” Lucifer whispered in my ear. His voice carried wrath and blackness, and his eyes blazed with hatred.
I couldn’t curl up or fall to the floor the way the woman had next to me. She was not bound to the wall the way I was. My body trembled as I tried to pull my arms and legs closer to ease some of this suffering.
“I found your secret ingredient,” he added and held up his wrist. A jagged scar traversed his skin. “Blood,” he hissed. “Divine blood and a curse that you will suffer as I have. If I’m locked out of heaven, you deserve the same fate. Bound to the darkness, until judgement day. And then you will burn in my hell for the rest of eternity.”
My mind wasn’t too far gone to comprehend his words, and the sentiment sent a chill of terror through my already taxed form. Every muscle seized, and all I could do was bellow my fear mingled with agony.
I prayed for death. For a release from this horrifying pain. I prayed for unconsciousness or anything that would relieve the burning. I prayed to a god whom I’d angered enough to cast out his son. I knew my prayers fell on deaf ears, but I couldn’t stop the begging litany that repeated in my head while I wailed wordlessly.
Somewhere between the pain and fear, hunger bloomed in the mix. I snapped at Lucifer, but he danced out of reach. The copper taste of blood filled my mouth.
The woman next to me looked up with red eyes. Saliva dripped from her mouth. I had seen enough of my failed experiments to know she had gone feral. She was on her feet in a flash, straining against the chains to get to me.