King of Hell

by Melody Rose

  When I walked back in, she was sitting there, both hands wrapped around her coffee mug, eyes closed against the steam radiating from her mug. As I walked in to sit back down, she opened her eyes and saw me, a sad and subdued look on her face.

  “You’re back,” she said simply.

  “Yes,” I replied, my voice low. I picked up the carafe and started making my own cup of coffee. “I felt like this would be a good opportunity to talk.”

  “I’d like that,” Evelyn responded as she put some bacon and eggs on her plate. “I’m sure you have a lot to process today, and I also know that we have a lot to talk about.”

  “Well, first of all, how are you feeling?” I knew I was a mess, but I couldn’t imagine what all of this must look like from her point of view.

  Evelyn laughed suddenly, almost spitting out her eggs. “Oh, great!” she exclaimed. “Couldn’t be better!” She continued to laugh, and the laughter was contagious. I chuckled along until her voice caught in her throat. She suddenly sounded like she was about to cry.

  “What happened to my blanket?” she asked, her voice hushed.

  I suddenly remembered last night’s anger, and how I had left her blanket in a pile on the floor. That was dumb. As distraught and, well, drunk as I was, I probably could have decided not to do that, or I could have picked it up and gotten it cleaned, at least. I hoped Cerberus hadn’t destroyed it further.

  “Evelyn, I am so sorry,” I said, trying to sound as honest as I felt. At the sound of her name, she looked up at me. “I was so completely wrapped up in, well, everything last night. It finally overflowed, and I started chucking things around the room, and then something got caught on your blanket, and well, your blanket ended up getting thrown, too.”

  “It’s not just the blanket.” She was looking down at her plate again. She hadn’t touched her food again since we started talking. “It really bothered me that you knew everything about my family history, and why I have these strange powers, yet you didn’t tell me. Not to mention that I’m supposed to be down here until you found your answers. You’ve had your answers. Why am I still here?”

  I paused for a moment. I had wanted to discuss yesterday’s events, but I hadn’t realized she had other concerns, which I really should have.

  “I… well, I hadn’t looked at it from your point of view,” I replied. The only way I could salvage this was to stay completely truthful, so that’s what I did. “The short answer is that I did all of that to keep you safe. I did not want to handle the information the wrong way, and I did not want to send you back home without protection. That may sound like a lame excuse, but it’s true.” I sighed. “I obviously couldn’t keep you here forever, but I wanted to have a plan first. That’s all. I was going to tell you.”

  Evelyn took her time moving her food around her plate before putting her fork down and looking up at me.

  “I’m sorry!” she said suddenly, looking up at me. “This is a great discussion to have, obviously, but in light of everything that happened yesterday with your brother, I’m sure my feelings aren’t the top priority.”

  Her statement struck me. Honestly, her feelings had been at the forefront of my mind for a while now. She had become my top priority without me even realizing it, and yet, here she was, thinking she wasn’t.

  I stood up, moved my chair closer to hers, and sat back down, facing her. Leaning forward, I took her hands in mine and looked her in the eyes. “Evelyn, your feelings are everything to me right now. A lot happened yesterday, I know. I also know that things between us won’t be simple, but I care about you. My intentions are genuine, even though the way I went about things might be a bit flawed. Just… don’t give up on me, on us, just yet.”

  Evelyn looked back at me in silence for a few moments before she spoke. “Okay,” she said, her voice resuming its hushed tones. “Okay, I won’t. I’m here.” She squeezed my hands. “Are you okay, though?”

  That was a loaded question. I was far from okay, and I still did not have a grasp on my emotions at the moment.

  “I’m okay,” I responded before correcting myself. “No, better to say that I will be okay. Michael and I… Well, if it were easy for us to kill each other, one of us would have been dead a long time ago. This was the last straw, so to speak.” I thought back to the image I had when I first walked into the gun range yesterday, of Michael’s hand clutching Evelyn’s neck, and rage began to bubble back up inside me. “I know he was not a fan of what you and I have together, and my worry about what might happen to you just added fuel to the fire.” I took a deep breath, exhaling slowly to force myself to relax. Getting angry again now wouldn’t help our conversation. “When I saw his hand around your neck… well, that was the catalyst.”

  “I hate the thought that I may have brought this on,” she replied, looking down at our still-clasped hands. “It’s not a good feeling.”

  “You didn’t bring it on, Evelyn.” I tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and cupped her face in my hand. “You just gave me a good enough reason to finally fight back.”

  And with that, I kissed her.

  31

  Evelyn

  My skin was tingling. When I woke up this morning and contemplated my bedroom ceiling, I did not expect a morning like this. The kiss made the dining room fade away around us and made me feel like I was floating on air. I felt it vibrate through every cell in my body.

  When he pulled away, we simply looked each other in the eyes for a moment.

  “I like being your reason,” I quipped with a chuckle. Lucifer laughed with me, his hand still cupped on the side of my face. He swept it back through my hair, tucking the same rogue strand behind my ear again, and then slowly withdrew his hand. He was still smiling, and I realized I was, too.

  “You know, I met your great-great-grandmother,” he stated matter-of-factly as if that were a normal thing to say. After all, she’d been dead since… forever? No one ever meets anyone’s great-great-grandmother. Except for Lucifer, apparently. “She’s a sweetheart.”

  “I’ll be honest,” I replied, a bit taken aback. “I don’t know a thing about her. How did you meet her? Where is she?”

  “Lilith did the recon,” he responded, shifting back into his seat and allowing me to regain my personal space. “Filomena is in Heaven. She is the one who told me all about the whole Nephilim thing. She also made me promise not to let you get hurt. So, here I am, keeping that promise.”

  “Well, I think you might have gone a little overboard on that!” I chuckled and then stopped suddenly. “Sorry. Too soon?” I thought back to my bedroom ceiling again and my memories of awkwardness in situations like these.

  Despite that, Lucifer laughed. “Yeah, I guess I did. It was worth it, though.” He looked into my eyes, and I felt another shiver through my spine. “We won’t have to worry about Michael accosting you ever again.” He shrugged, though his eyes were still filled with some sadness. “So, pluses and minuses.”

  There was an appreciative silence, and I took advantage of it to look down at my breakfast plate. My stomach was calling me names, and it was time to dive in. Lucifer seemed to understand, or maybe my stomach was growling so loud that he heard it too. Either way, he let me eat in peace.

  I was halfway through my eggs when something dawned on me.

  “Hey,” I spat out, looking up at Lucifer, who was calmly sipping his coffee. He glanced up at me. “You found my great-great-grandmother. Could you find my dad?”

  His eyes widened and then softened. “I’m sure I could. I know he is in Heaven. The thing is, I’m not sure exactly where, Heaven is a big place after all, and I’m also not sure what kind of reception I will get there. I did just kill my brother. It… complicates things. Still, I could try to track him down for you.”

  “That’d be amazing,” I responded, not wanting to get my hopes up quite yet. “He died before I could really get to know him. I always wished as a kid to be able to have just one more conversation with him. I’ve wished i
t every year on his birthday. It’d be nice to have that closure.”

  “I can completely understand that. It’s tough wanting to talk to your father and not have him around to listen.” He took a slow sip of his coffee before continuing. “I’ll see what I can do. I can’t promise anything, though.”

  “Thank you,” I replied appreciatively. “It really would mean the world to me!”

  Lucifer smiled at me over his cup of coffee. “Of course,” he responded.

  I smiled back and continued to eat my breakfast. This morning had gone way better than I had anticipated, and without the weight of so many heightened emotions dragging me down, I was fully able to appreciate how hungry I really was.

  “Well, I only came back to check on you,” Lucifer said after I had helped myself to a few more forkfuls. “I’m going to head out and raise a little Hell. Talk to you later.” He stood up and winked at me.

  “Are we still on for Friday night?” I asked. I couldn’t believe our date was only the day after tomorrow. It was coming so fast… but it also felt so right.

  Lucifer smiled again, and his eyes softened. “Of course,” he replied, and he walked out the door.

  I was glad to have all of my questions answered, and now I felt that I could truly focus. The only thing I had left to do was figure out what to wear!

  32

  Lucifer

  I wasn’t looking forward to this initial conversation with Heaven, but it had to happen sooner or later, so I decided I may as well rip off the Band-Aid. I was standing outside the Pearly Gates, waiting for it to open.

  It did not. That told me all I needed to know.

  I wasn’t standing there long before I saw a familiar crop of messy brown hair come over the horizon of Heaven’s rolling meadows. His usually mischievous blue eyes were darker now, bringing a sense of foreboding with it.

  “Hi, Gabriel,” I said calmly. “I was hoping we could talk.”

  Gabriel walked wordlessly up to the Gates and touched them, allowing them to swing open for me. I stepped through onto the cushy grass, but he didn’t say a word. He only looked at me solemnly and waved his arm, gesturing for me to follow him. Gabriel was always the one with the jokes and the one-liners, so his silence and somber demeanor did not give me the warm and fuzzies. I began to wonder, not for the first time, if this was a good idea… but it was for Evelyn, so I pressed on.

  I followed him down the path and up the front steps through the double doors, a journey that suddenly seemed much longer than it had during previous visits, and straight through the front foyer into the main room. As I passed the arching set of staircases into the room, I noticed that it looked to be set up for a major event. All the tables were fully dressed with those ugly candelabras placed as centerpieces. I remembered the first time I saw the candelabras. The silver finish glistened in the sunlight that beamed through the windows. The curvature of the candelabra beamed that light right into my eyes, every time. My disdain for these trips upstairs grew even more as I averted my eyes on my trip through the room.

  Before I could wonder what the special occasion was that demanded such extravagance, we continued through, into the hallway behind the room. The hallway looked to be a forgotten section amid the rest of the opulence. It was in desperate need of remodeling, and it didn’t fit with the ambiance of the rest of the building. In the middle of the hallway, Gabriel came to a halt and spun around to face me.

  “What the hell are you doing here, man?” Gabriel snapped, his eyes wide in shock and still reflecting the gravity of the situation. “Just testing the waters to see if we know? Trust me, we know.”

  “Should I be worried about anything?” I asked.

  “Worried? You should be worried about everything,” Gabriel responded. “A lot of angels are furious right now. Some are scared. Most just don’t want to see you. You’re an idiot coming up here right now.”

  “I probably am,” I chuckled, “but I need a favor and decided this was worth the risk.”

  “What could possibly be worth this risk?” Gabriel asked. His tone was serious, but his eyes softened slightly.

  “You’d think I was crazy if I told you,” I said, suddenly getting nervous. This whole sweaty-palms thing was new to me, and I had to say, I wasn’t a fan. I shoved my hands in my pants pocket and studied the ground, trying to find the best way to phrase this.

  “Does this have anything to do with the woman you’ve got hanging out down there?” Gabriel asked.

  Surprised, I looked up. That mischievous look was back on my friend and brother’s face.

  “Umm,” I said oh-so-smoothly. “How did you find out about that?”

  Gabriel grinned, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Michael made it a habit to come back up here after every visit downstairs and try to air out your dirty laundry. Most of the angels really don’t give a crap, so he didn’t bother them, but I had made the mistake a long time ago of trying to convince him that maybe what you had done could be forgiven over time. So, he made it a personal mission of his to convince me I was wrong. Honestly, I really couldn’t care less about what you have going on down there, as long as it doesn’t impact us up here.” He cocked his head to one side, studying me. “Will it impact us up here?”

  “No,” I replied, as casually as I could. “I have no interest in messing with anything up here. You guys keep doing what you do. Honestly, all I’ve wanted was to be left alone.” I sighed. “I know it was a long time coming, me and Michael. I’m experiencing a mixed bag of emotions right now, to be honest.”

  “Well, that makes sense,” Gabriel replied, mussing his hair and looking around to ensure we were still alone. “Listen, there’s no love lost between Michael and myself. It’s been beyond time to let go of that grudge, and we hadn’t gotten along in quite some time. He had his host of angels backing him up at one point, but they’ve all let go, one by one.”

  He sighed deeply and shook his head. “But despite all that… killing your brother? That’s going to take time for most of them to accept. I’d steer clear for a while. So,” Gabriel clapped his hands and rubbed them together vigorously, “what do you need?”

  “I need to find George Hernandez.” I was relieved to hear that he would help me, and I’m sure that relief was plain in my voice. “And it’s not for me. It’s for Evelyn. I promised her I would try to get the two of them together to give her closure. I figured at the very least I could say I came up here and tried.” I shrugged. “I’ll understand if you can’t help.”

  “Well, I, for one, am dying to meet this girl. After all the buzz, I have to know for myself. C’mon, I’ll help you find ol’ George, and we will set it up.” Gabriel spun around and strolled down the hallway, and I followed right after.

  The hall came to an abrupt end against a blank wall, and to the left was a worn, unimpressive wooden door. He swung the door open, holding it for me to walk through before he shut the door behind us both.

  “Welcome to my office, Luci!” he shouted the announcement in jest, side-eyeing me in search of a reaction. The fact that he had reverted back to his pet name for me told me everything would be just fine, at least between the two of us.

  “Cozy,” I muttered, looking around at what appeared to be an oversized janitor’s closet.

  A couple of old mops were propped in the far corner, next to a yellow rolling mop bucket. It smelled like wet rags, and the walls were dark and damp. In the opposite corner was a wooden barstool next to a tall rusted metal file cabinet.

  “I’m taking notes for back home,” I added, raising an eyebrow at the decor.

  Gabriel laughed. “You know what’s great? No one ever questions what’s in here because of the setup. Check it out.” Gabriel opened the large bottom drawer and pulled out a bottle of whiskey and a giant tub of cheese puffs. “Guilty pleasures,” he added with a wink.

  Gabriel reached back into the drawer, pulled out a couple of plastic cups, and started pouring. “You want some?” he asked but handed me the cup witho
ut waiting for an answer.

  I took the cup from him, eyeing the bottle of Johnny Walker Blue. I had never thought to pair Scotch whiskey with cheese puffs, but I decided not to start today.

  “Cheese puff?” Gabriel had unscrewed the cheese puff lid and tilted it toward me. The smell of fake cheese mixed with the odor of wet rags didn’t pair well with the drink in my hand.

  “Uhh, no thanks. That’s all you,” I replied as I sipped my drink gingerly. I was grateful that the smells somehow didn’t overpower my perception of how my drink tasted.

  “Your loss,” Gabriel replied as he popped a few cheese balls in his mouth. He wiped his orange-crusted fingers onto his rumpled khaki pants, slid open the top drawer, and started flipping through the files.

  “Hernandez, Hernandez,” he mumbled around chunks of half-chewed cheese balls. “Here we go!” He slid a folder out of the stack and flipped it open, scanning the front page. “Hmm, same family tree as Filomena. The puzzle pieces are coming together.” He snapped the folder shut.

  “Okay, great news. This guy was in Michael’s section, which I am overseeing at the moment. I’m still learning who is where, but I think I know where Georgey is. Follow me.”

  Gabriel shoved the folder haphazardly into the file cabinet and pushed it shut, the file getting caught on the way back in. I watched as he left the bit of file folder sticking out of the top drawer and walked away. Generations may come and go, but this guy never changed.

  I followed Gabriel out of the back hall and back into the main room. Looking around at the delicate details, I realized what it was all for. They had brought some of the fluffiest clouds in from outside and strung them across the ceiling. There was also a rainbow cutting through the room, and I knew from experience that when Heaven broke this out, it could be seen by the people on Earth. It was a pretty regular celebration. I’m sure the angels just did it so that they had a reason to relax and have a good time, but the official word was that it was a celebration of life. After Dad flooded the Earth, he had promised Noah he’d never do it again, and the rainbow continued to be a reminder of that.