Brimstone Prince

by Barbara J. Hancock

“There’s a reason these wings don’t sit well on my shoulders,” Michael guessed.

  “You already have wings bequeathed to you by your true father,” Ezekiel said. “It’s time for you to claim them. His sword has also been waiting for you. Beside the throne. You need to retrieve it before you go to her. It’s yours. Your legacy.”

  Michael reached to take Lucifer’s wings from his shoulders, but Ezekiel stayed his hand.

  “No. Take them with you. She’ll need them to save us all,” his grandfather said. “I’ll follow with our people, but an army won’t be enough. Rogues and their human slaves are converging. They’ve been coming together for months. The ones you both fought were only the leading edge of a vast movement. Retrieve the sword. Take Lucifer’s wings to her. And follow your heart. Your heritage will show you what to do,” Ezekiel continued.

  Michael hoped it was true. The night before, his heritage had united in his veins. He’d followed its guidance and nothing had felt more right. But the idea of Lily out in the world open to attack with no one by her side hollowed out his bones. Nothing was enough to fight that. Not Lucifer’s wings or a tiny kachina doll. Or the dusty old broadsword he’d tried and failed to brandish as a teen.

  Ezekiel finally released Grim, and his loyal hellhound came to press against his side as if he was apologizing for being tricked by the daemon king.

  “I will die to protect her,” Michael said. The words came up hotly from the churning depths of his gut. Grim knew he was ready to go almost before he did. The hellhound disappeared beneath his fingers and he felt his material form follow along. First to the throne room and then to Lily. To Lily’s side. She never had to fight alone as long as there was breath left in his body.

  “I never doubted it or you,” Ezekiel said to the empty room. He’d manipulated everything, including time itself, to give Lily the Guardian she deserved as queen of the hell dimension. He only hoped all his efforts hadn’t been for naught as he turned to gather the Loyalist daemons who would help Lily return to her throne.

  * * *

  The throne room was cold and dimly lit. He and Grim materialized midstride and Michael continued without a break in his step. Grim ran by his side. Michael took the steps to the dais with one leap and landed in a kneel before the dusty suit of armor he’d once thought so large.

  Slowly, he rose and reached for the sword.

  He’d known the display was meant as a memorial. He’d just never known it was a memorial to his father and a placeholder for his own destiny. But hadn’t he been drawn to the sword over the throne all those years ago? He narrowed his eyes as his hands closed over the hilt of the sword as if it had been forged for his grip. He looked up and measured the breadth of the hammered shoulder plates with a glance and found, to his surprise, that they might not fit him now because they were smaller than his.

  He had grown.

  His Brimstone still burned uneasily in his veins, bubbling up like lava he didn’t quite trust, but he was easily able to brandish the broadsword with the muscles fueled by hell’s fire.

  There was no reluctance in him when it came to using this sword to protect Lily.

  Grim whined and paced, stirred by the coming battle and Michael’s growing fury.

  When his Brimstone seemed to ignite the blade in a shimmering crimson heat wave, Michael didn’t resist. He raised the blade aloft and pointed its tip at the sky. For Lily. He would burn for Lily with no reservations.

  He’d been cautious for too long. He carried the scars of his near-death experience with him always as a constant reminder of how his inability to control his first Burn had almost killed him as a child. He’d burned in his nightmares and fought the burn during every waking moment. It hadn’t been death he’d feared. It had been the idea that he might harm the weaker beings in his life. Humans. Loved ones. His family. His friends. That had been the Guardian nature he’d inherited from his father driving him with a passionate instinct to protect.

  But it was time to put caution aside.

  His fire was required to help Lily. He’d had twenty-one years to learn to control it and now it was time to use the control he’d honed. He would loose his Brimstone fire through his sword as a Guardian to the throne. He would risk immolation to save her. He no longer feared his burn would hurt the woman he loved.

  Chapter 26

  Lily had taken one of Ezekiel’s pathways. It had been a strategic risk. If she had summoned her kachinas to use a sipapu portal, she might have alerted Michael. This way she only risked running into the former daemon king, and though it felt like Russian roulette she hoped he would be too busy feeling triumphant to be traveling at 3:00 a.m. the first morning of his retirement.

  It wasn’t until she dematerialized that she took out her flute. She’d known where to enter from observing the daemon king’s comings and goings, but she would need her affinity to guide her. She’d never tried to direct her travel, but she knew it was possible because of Grim. Regardless of where he dematerialized, he followed the paths to where he or his master needed to go. Lily had left her kachinas unwrapped in her bag. She played to call them in the same way that she “walked” between worlds. The idea of her flute and the idea of her hands and lips responded to the idea of playing even though she had no physical form.

  She walked when she was sure she was being led in the direction she needed to go. It seemed a long time of wandering before her materializing feet finally met firm ground. She stepped into the gloaming light of an Arizona sunset with her silver flute in her hand and the last notes of a Hopi lullaby fading into the coming night.

  But something was wrong.

  She had expected to begin as she’d begun months before. Slipping into the desert to run and hide and run some more. She’d planned to continue her work to close the old sipapu portals until no more could be found. Then she’d planned to wander the world to escape detection.

  She hadn’t expected to be met with a wall of Brimstone heat so fierce that it dried her eyes and stung her skin. It was as if she’d stepped into the glaring noonday sun instead of desert twilight. Lily griped her flute tightly. It was her only weapon. She didn’t have Grim or Michael by her side. She was no longer buffered by Ezekiel or his immense Gothic palace.

  On the horizon, she sensed a stirring. She squinted and strained to see into the distance in spite of the waning light. Suddenly, the silhouettes clarified. One after another after another. She’d materialized in a canyon. Near her feet was what appeared to be a natural drought-caused crack in an ancient riverbed. Ezekiel’s portals often showed themselves in ways that mortal eyes wouldn’t understand. Disguised in plain sight.

  But using this one had placed her at strategic disadvantage.

  She was surrounded by an army of Rogues. She could sense their Brimstone and their hunger from a great distance. Time in the hell dimension was liquid and its anomalies often bled over into this world. They had known she was coming. Just as Ezekiel had built the palace for her before she was born. Mortals called it fate. Some religions called it predestination. Ezekiel was adept at reading the whispers that foretold the future as they came back through the pathways between worlds, but some whispers became shouts that anyone could sense and hear. Her affinity had radiated from this portal before she’d even known she would use it.

  Lily was here. She was always going to be here. To face an army alone.

  She knelt and shrugged out of her backpack. Her dolls rattled together without their wrappings. She took them out, looking at each one as if she might never have another chance. Her mother had carved each doll—Fire, Wind, Earth, Water. They held her mother’s love as well as her beliefs and her artistic heart.

  Lily had never been alone.

  She placed them carefully in a sacred circle. She missed her warrior angel. He should be here, too. To help her take a final stand against the darkness. A la
rge full moon had begun to rise. The Rogues on the rim of the canyon were thrown into stark relief by its light. They knew she had come. She could feel their excitement as they were each alerted to her presence by her affinity.

  Her song was back, full force. Whatever interference she’d experienced when she’d been resisting Lucifer’s wings had disappeared. A cool wash of adrenaline chilled and stiffened her spine. She crossed her legs, straightened her back and lifted her flute to her lips. This time she didn’t play a lullaby. She played a battle song. It wasn’t one she had played before. Knowledge of it rose from the kachina dolls as she played each note. And with it rode an energy she’d never experienced before. It was the aura of affinity in a loop. From her to the dolls and back again. From her to her ancestors and back again. From her to the elements and back again.

  She didn’t understand the increased power until Michael and Grim materialized out of the shadows across from her glow. Grim’s hackles were already up and his legs were splayed wide. His intimidating maw was open and she’d never seen his teeth so large and jagged. He lifted his nose to the sky and howled. The noise rent the still night air into a million jagged pieces that seemed to stab her ears. But she continued to play. She rose to her feet as she played. Michael commanded the move by his presence. He didn’t howl at the moon or bare his teeth, but he was as ferocious as his hellhound. His eyes were flame and his fists were clenched around a sword she recognized. The empty suit of armor in the throne room stood without a weapon now.

  Lucifer’s wings seemed to shriek in her senses.

  “I’m sorry, Lily. I can’t let you run away again. Not without following you wherever you feel you have to go,” Michael said.

  She wanted to step into his arms. She didn’t. Instead she played even louder. Using her affinity and the power she absorbed from Lucifer’s wings to amplify her sound. The Rogues on the horizon had begun charging down the ragged incline to attack. But her elemental spirits responded to her call.

  Wind whipped her hair into her eyes.

  Rain began to pour.

  Before long the damp strands of hair were like stinging lashes against her skin.

  And still she played.

  Grim had rushed to meet the Rogues and their human slaves. Screams began to rip through the night as lightning flashed. Michael moved toward her instead of going to join Grim in his fight. Her song stuttered as her breath grew light. The wings were too close. Their power joined her aura. She couldn’t resist. The magnet was too strong.

  “Stop resisting your heritage, Lily. Haven’t you learned anything from my mistakes?” Michael said. He came to her and looked down at her as she played her flute. He touched the side of her face. “Ezekiel sent me. We misunderstood all along. The throne was never meant for me.”

  He stepped around her, being careful not to disturb her playing. But his firm, warm hands on her shoulders made her tremble, as did his breath against her ear when he leaned down to speak from behind her.

  “Brace yourself. This is going to burn,” he warned.

  She didn’t know what he intended to do until the fire settled heavily on her shoulders. She expressed her scream through her flute. And the Rogues began to burn. Only then did Michael join Grim. At first she thought that her warrior angel had somehow materialized from the walls of the palace because there were great shadowy wings outspread on either side of Michael’s tall, muscular form, but it was him, all him, as she’d known him to be all along.

  He wielded a sword she’d only ever seen displayed on a suit of armor by the throne. But it was her song amplified by Lucifer’s wings that had set the sword into flames. Every Rogue he met with the blade disintegrated into ash, but there were so many. As she continued to play, she realized that Michael and Grim protected her in a determined circle just as they had before. Her guardians. Her protectors. While she waged war.

  They would lose.

  There were too many pressing down from the canyon walls against them. As Rogues and human slaves poured into the canyon, more replaced them in wave after wave. Lily played. Her elemental Fire spirit consumed Rogue after Rogue. Michael fought. Grim savaged. But they would lose. The numbers were against them even with the power in Lucifer’s wings magnifying her affinity.

  Or was it? Her affinity was love. The wings had magnified her fire and her fury and, yes, those things were rooted in her heart, but she had yet to truly tap into the possibility that the power of her affinity could be increased.

  She loved Michael. But long before she’d allowed herself to love him, she’d loved her mother, her warrior angel...and Ezekiel.

  Lily continued to play, but she changed her intention. She infused her song with the ache of her emptiness—for the ones she’d lost, for the one she’d never had. She called. With all the affinity that Samuel Santiago had bequeathed his daughter. She called. Lucifer’s wings burned through the leather jacket she wore. They turned it to ash and it fell away in a sudden cloud of gray particles carried on the wind. Her T-shirt remained, but she could feel it scorch and she could smell burned cotton and flesh. She didn’t scream. Not even when the base of each wing fused with her naked skin.

  She fell to her knees with the pain. She didn’t notice that the wings that had become a part of her were no longer bronze. They were bare and black as raven’s wings, but they were malleable. They folded behind her and draped on the ground. She didn’t scream because she continued to play. To an observer, she might have seemed a pied piper calling the Rogues to their doom as they poured over and down the cliff’s edge to the death of Michael’s sword or Grim’s teeth. But in reality, she called others. She called them with all her heart.

  And they came.

  The crack in the earth in front of her widened. It yawned wide and belched smoke like a wakening volcano, but from its depths, instead of lava came the Loyalist Army materializing out of the shadows in full battle regalia. Ezekiel led them. He wore his old armor like a second skin as scarred and hardened and strangely beautiful as his first. He rode forth on a pale horse that was second only to a hellhound in hideousness. Reaper. He was a mighty destrier more bone than flesh with flaming eyes and a mouth full of razor teeth. She’d fed him apples in his retirement, but now he looked more than ready to fight. Reaper shrieked and more of his fellows poured from the crack in the earth with Loyalists on their backs.

  She didn’t see Victoria and Elizabeth, but she felt them. Somewhere Michael’s mother sang and her sister played her cello. Their affinity wasn’t as strong as Lily’s but it was persistent. Their husbands rode with the army. She glimpsed them flanking Ezekiel on either side. They were buoyed by their wives’ music. It strengthened the hint of Brimstone they both still had in their blood.

  They were mortal. Coming to her aid was a horrible risk. Their courage sent a thrill of admiration through Lily’s veins.

  But it was a giant icy shadow that followed the army that finally stilled her song. This time the winged shadow had manifested as if it, too, rode a horse, one made of smoke instead of bone. Her warrior angel had responded to her call. Her stillness interrupted his charge. He “rode” over to her kneeling form and folded his shadow wings at his side. The giant bowed to her tiny form and she shivered beneath the press of his chilling presence.

  But then she found her breath and began to play again. And Michael’s father joined the fray. He leaped over her. The frigid air of his passing stiffened her fingers to the bone. There was only one who hadn’t responded. It was too soon for her mother to return. When her ceremonies called ancestors, it was ancient ancestors who responded to guide her with their wisdom. Yet her frozen fingers warmed more quickly than they should have and she didn’t feel alone. She suddenly had the sense that her mother had never left her.

  * * *

  His scars glowed with the light of a thousand suns and he allowed the fire to consume him. Once his body burned, every
cell ignited and the flames channeled out through his father’s sword to cut down every Rogue in its path. The Brimstone was his heritage as much as the sword and they were both tools he used to protect his loved ones. He harmed no one, but those that deserved it. His scars weren’t a warning or a reminder of a time when he had no control. They were badges of honor. Crimson streaks on his skin that proclaimed him as the living embodiment of the flame that would protect the throne and the woman destined to sit upon it.

  If he survived the conflagration.

  The heat was agony as well as triumph and he was every bit as consumed as he’d been during his first Burn all those years ago. His battle cries were also cries of pain, but he didn’t pause. He would face annihilation to save the ones he loved. He’d always known it. Now, he lived it. They fought all around him—Grim, Adam, Severne, Ezekiel—and Lily. He wasn’t worried that his fire would harm them. He contained it except for the controlled bursts of power from his sword. He would die for them if he had to, turned to ash by the Brimstone he channeled to save them.

  * * *

  The carnage was complete.

  The canyon floor was no longer sand and desert scrub. It was a field of ashes that shifted beneath the feet of the Loyalists in drifts they couldn’t avoid. Eventually it would blow away or simply settle and become a part of the dirt that had absorbed millennia of detritus—from dinosaurs to daemons.

  The fighting was over. Loyalists returned the way they’d come. Ezekiel led the way. She blinked back emotion when she noted that he had survived. She searched but didn’t see Michael. The air was thick with ash and smoke. If he was hurt or worse, she was certain she’d feel the loss to her bones. She forced herself to kneel and pack her kachinas into her backpack. They had served her well. Her fingers shook when she placed her flute back into its velvet pouch.

  “He’s alive. He’s alive. He’s alive,” she muttered the words aloud in a mantra of hopeful determination.

  Grim had been by his side the last she’d seen. Severne and Turov would have risked their lives to help him. And the powerful spirit of his father would surely have prevented any harm coming to his son. Lily held her pack in front of her, curling her arms around it protectively, when she got back to her feet. Her shoulders were too tender to wear it the usual way even if the wings weren’t in the way. She was surrounded by soldiers and their mounts. There was no way to see above or around the crowd to search for Michael. And there was no staying in place against the mass of movement. She had to move as well or risk being crushed beneath mighty hooves. Visibility was so poor that she would be nearly invisible if she stayed. She hissed when the first step jarred her back. But then she took another and another, ignoring the pain.