by Rex Jameson
Chapter 8
The Making of Enemies
Lucifer shuffled along the rubble of his prison cell and past the doorway. He had no trouble moving of his own volition, but the two executioners in dark frock coats lassoed his neck with leather strips reinforced with zinanbar, nonetheless. He was so tired from his late night rampage against the cell walls that he didn’t even protest the way they roughly handled him. What was the point?
They shackled his hands and feet, and the looped leashes reminded him of the first time his father had taught him how to tie his shoe laces.
“Hold it like this,” Lucifer mouthed as the executioners pulled him down the prison corridor like an old mule being hauled out back after a lifetime of faithful service.
His father’s words were interrupted by saliva on his face. Apparently, Telal was conscious again and spitting from the safety of cell 510. Lucifer’s feet skidded to a stop. He pulled against the leashes, but the executioners were well rested and bulky greater demons. They won the tug-of-war, and Telal took the opportunity to cackle madly through the bars on his door. Lucifer rolled his head to his shoulder and smiled back at him.
“Be sure to come back for us vermin!” Telal called after him.
Lucifer measured the distance to cell 510 and readied his wings under his ruined shirt. Then, like a lightning bolt loosed from a cloudless sky, his red tendrils struck Telal in the face and shattered the already mangled frame of the door. Lucifer didn’t have to look back at his target to know that he had struck true. If he hadn’t, Telal would still be hurling insults. But Lucifer’s attack didn’t go unnoticed.
“Wings back in, or I’ll start cutting off body parts,” an executioner in front of him yelled.
Lucifer obliged, but he hadn’t answered the previous request put to him by Telal. He leaned into the leash and cupped his hand toward the direction he had just come from. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back.”
“Just keep moving,” the other executioner said.
“What time is it?” Lucifer mumbled.
“Around eight o’clock.”
“I was told that …” he struggled to form the words. “I thought I didn’t have to be at the public market until noon.”
“We’re supposed to take you there early,” the one to the left said. “The new king wants you to be part of the spectacle.”
The executioner looked at him for an extended period of time. Because of the mask, Lucifer couldn’t distinguish any facial features, but the eyes looked really familiar. They squinted from a smile beneath his mask.
“Just call me Ahu.”
“What are you doing?” the other executioner said. “You can’t tell him your name. That kind of crap can get you killed. Don’t leave anything for the punished to remember you by. Remember your training.”
“It’s not my real name, Adaru.”
The other executioner stamped his feet into the ground and huffed angrily.
“That’s not my real name, either,” Adaru said, looking at Lucifer out of the openings in his mask.
“Yeah, it is,” Ahu said. “You even showed me your identification card. Adaru. South side of Alurabum.”
Lucifer chuckled. Brother. Ahu meant brother in the old language.
“Nice to meet you, Ahu.”
He nodded back to Lucifer but kept his head forward.
“How about you take these cuffs off?”
“Not a chance,” Adaru said.
Lucifer tried to get closer to Ahu, but Adaru kept him at bay.
“Are you really going to let this happen?”
“We don’t have much choice,” Ahu said. “Not yet.”
“Hold your tongue, idiot!”
“When that blade falls down, my service is up,” Ahu said as he gazed back at Lucifer. “My father’s signature entered me into my uncle’s profession, and that contract is null and void after today. I will be unbound from my obligations.”
“Well, if you don’t want to be here, take me somewhere else. I don’t want to watch this.”
Adaru tugged hard on his leash, sending Lucifer into the stone floor. Ahu grabbed him under the arms and stood Lucifer up.
“We all have to watch this. Otherwise, we might forget what happened and who is responsible.”
The other executioner shook his head. “You know I can report you for this, right?”
Ahu stopped and nodded before walking alongside the demon again. “You’re right. Of course, you are right. These are trying times, but it’s no reason to lose my head. I’m out of line. You have every right …”
Adaru put a free arm around Ahu’s shoulder, but then stiffened as Ahu forced two blades into his chest and drove him into a nearby unoccupied cell. Lucifer, still leashed, was pulled into the room as well and fell on top of the eviscerated demon. Ahu rolled free of the entanglement and circled the room, breathing heavily and twirling his daggers.
“Was that really necessary, Sariel?” Lucifer said as he dusted the front of his shirt with his shackled hands and struggled to roll off the dying demon.
“I may not be able to stop my parents’ murder because of a direct order from Rabishu, but I can sure kill this ugly bastard.” Sariel lifted the black cloth that draped across the gurgling man and spat in his face. “Good riddance.”
Lucifer laughed.
“I’m so very angry,” Sariel said.
“Me too. I could slaughter the whole capital right now.”
Sariel nodded in agreement. “We may get that chance. I just hate that it has to wait until after I watch that filthy Agalal bastard gloat over my mother’s dismembered corpse.”
“Get these chains off me, and let’s get out of here. Maybe we can even grab mother and father.”
Sariel let out a low grumble that built into a terrible scream. He doubled over and panted before putting his hand on Lucifer to steady himself. “Can’t … under direct magical orders … completely bound to my directives … Have to lead you to the execution and watch right beside you and Batarel … Let the new regime exert itself and take it like a good little subject …”
Lucifer kicked at the wall and howled furiously. “I’m going to rip that royal imposter limb from limb! He’s mine, Sariel. Promise me.”
“Yeah, alright. Eranos is yours.”
Sariel’s shoulders jerked involuntarily, and he grabbed the leash and resumed pulling. “Sorry, brother. Orders are kicking in again. Can’t resist them.”
“It’s OK,” Lucifer said. “I’m glad you’ll be with me.”
Sariel nodded but grumbled as he rearranged his black hood and brushed dirt from his coat. “This next part is going to be difficult brother. We have a long walk ahead of us.”
“The market is just outside the front gates.”
“The reason we’re up so early is for you to be paraded around the town.”
Lucifer muttered angrily as they marched up a spiral staircase into the main floor of the Courts. He looked toward the throne, and there was the man with the irritating smirk. He was standing in front of the throne and surrounded by dozens of courtiers who were primping his blond hair, spreading powder across his face and straightening his seams and long, flowing robe.
Lucifer set his feet into the ground as his wings burst from his back and coiled like a nest of snakes preparing to feast on a succulent deer. But no matter how hard he tried to unleash his fury, his wings held back. He looked up and saw them bound together inside purple loops. His shoulders slumped as he traced them back to the end of the leash, where his brother was hunched and shaking.
“Orders … brother … can’t fight them …”
Behind Lucifer, Eranos’s laugh echoed against the walls of the throne room. Lucifer fought his brother’s leash all the way out the double doors leading to the market and the doom of his father and mother.