"I don't know who I am anymore," Lucifer whispered. "The Emperor … ever since he came back, he hasn't been the same. I just think … I think I would feel better if I knew the truth."
"Have you not looked?" Pravuil asked.
"Several times," Lucifer rolled his eyes. "You know Zepar. He tells me not to fill my head with such nonsense and reassigns the aides to do something more practical."
"I don't think knowing who your family is impractical!" Pravuil said. "I may have been raised in the training academy, but my half-brother and my father always make sure to call me at least once per month. We get together once per year for a family reunion."
Most hybrids only sporadically visited their offspring, if at all. A deliberate casualty of the anti-fraternization laws, which had been amended over the millennia to not only discourage mated pairs, but also to encourage Hashem's armies to look to him to be their father-figure instead of the parents who had given them life. Policies Lucifer had whole-heartedly embraced in his father's absence, driven by anger at his mother's suicide and egged on by Zepar.
Lucifer handed her the photograph. "I'm not even sure where you would begin. All I know is that she died in the eleventh month of 152,098 and that, several months prior to that, my biological father initiated some sort of legal action. And then all of a sudden, he died, my mother died, and the Emperor just disappeared."
"I'll research the media reports from that time period, Sir." Pravuil forgot to call him Lucifer. "And then I'll sift through the court records. If it was a contested adoption, the records would be sealed, but you can unseal them if you know what you're doing."
The image Lucifer received from her mind as she spoke was of a bold investigative journalist, digging for the truth, an archetype Pravuil idealized. Her wings were still mousy-beige, her hair still too thin and stringy, and her features as plain as dirt, but when her eyes met his, she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. She'd seen him. And she would help him. Just because…
The smile he gave her was genuine and heartfelt. A smile few people ever saw. The smile she gave him in return was just as genuine. It made him feel … warm. As though she'd reached into his empty heart and made a little place for herself there. A friend.
"Thank you," Lucifer said. "I'll tell Zepar I have sent you on some bogus mission so he doesn't complain you're out of the office. Let's just keep this between you and me? Okay?"
Pravuil rose and shook his hand. Her handshake was not sweaty and unsure, but firm. For him, she would be bold. His touch lingered far longer than the practiced two-and-a-half second handshake he'd spent the past 225 years perfecting, relishing the warm tingle which flowed from her hand into his. Her wings fluttered with determination as she walked out the door to complete the mission he'd just given to her.
Yes. He'd finally made a friend. He made up his mind right then and there that he wouldn't mate with her when she came into her next heat cycle, either, because then Zepar would make her go away. Zepar was too tightly intertwined in his affairs to risk pissing off. The man had been his advisor ever since his mother had died, but beginning right now, he would start taking more control; starting with knowing the truth about his family! If the Emperor didn't want to be his father, then perhaps it was time he found out who his real father had been?
What the hell are you doing? that small nasty voice hissed inside his mind.
He told it to shut up!
Chapter 48
May - 3,390 BC
Earth: Village of Assur
Ninsianna
He intercepted her carrying home a basket of early spring vegetables. Standing in the middle of the open field, arms laden with the bounty of the soil, there was no alley to duck into to avoid him or house to pretend to be visiting on a mission of healing. She had no choice but to stand her ground.
“Ninsianna,” Jamin jogged to catch up with her. “We need to talk. Please!”
“What do you want?” Ninsianna eyed him with distrust. Yalda and Zhila looked up from the adjacent plot. At least there were witnesses if he tried to drag her anyplace or duck her head into the water again.
He towered over her, two hands-breadths taller than the top of her head. He would have been beautiful but for the sneer which marred his handsome features. Brown skin. Black hair. A straight nose, unusual in a people whose facial features tended to be more like a hawk than a lion. And eyes so dark it was hard to tell where his irises ended and his pupils began. Physical attraction had never been the problem between her and the son of the village chief, but temperament. Every time he tried to boss her around, it roused her temper.
“Lose your pet rooster?”
Anger caused Ninsianna's eyes to flash fiery gold like the sun. Mikhail was at his ship, a journey he made once a week to try to get the engine oars working. Recovered except for his wing, he no longer needed her to protect him, but she wouldn't tell Jamin where he was.
“Mikhail is his own person." She tossed her hair and attempted to continue on her way. “What he does is none of your business.”
“You're making a big mistake,” Jamin blocked her escape. “He has no family. No money. No position. Gods! He's not even human.”
“You just don't get it,” she sighed. “None of that matters. It never did. If it’s not him, and I'm not saying it is him, then it would be somebody else. Why can’t you just accept the fact I don't love you and go find somebody who does?”
“Why, dammit?!!” Jamin cried out. “I'm the best warrior in the village. Why am I not good enough for you?"
She opened her mouth to cut him down into the dirt. More than a few of the females he'd bedded over the years had congratulated her for finally giving him a taste of his own medicine. After all the grief he'd caused her, she wanted nothing more than to watch him bleed!
'Ninsianna … be kind! There is no benefit to being cruel…'
Ninsianna's eyes were drawn to Jamin's spirit light, the hole in his heart that she had made. It was not anger or arrogance the chief’s son spoke with now, but hurt. A twinge of guilt twisted in her gut. She'd led him to believe her depth of feeling was greater than it really was, thinking it was the goddess' will. Although, in her defense, she had intended to marry him at the time.
“Jamin …" She put her hand on his cheek. “Sometimes people just are not right for one another. You're handsome, strong, and smart. There are plenty of women who would love you if you just gave them a chance.”
“But it's you that I love." His voice warbled like a teenage boy. “You told me that you loved me, and then all of a sudden you just didn’t anymore. I don't understand what I did wrong! I can't eat. I can't sleep. You're all I that I can think about!”
Why couldn't he go away and find somebody else? Jamin was not the first male she'd spurned, but he was definitely the most persistent. Until Mikhail fixed his sky canoe and carried her off into the stars, it didn't behoove her to antagonize the son of the village chief. Like it or not, until she could leave, she had to be nice to him.
“It’s not you,” she said. “It's me. I love you, but I'm just not in love with you. You deserve somebody who will love you more than life itself. Like in the legends. I'm just not that person.”
Turning to where Yalda waved for her attention, she excused herself and moved towards her elderly neighbors.
“You looked like you needed to be rescued." Yalda pretended to look into Ninsianna’s basket, her ancient skin crinkled into a smile.
“Ohmigods, yes!” Ninsianna said. “Thank you.”
* * * * *
Nobody noticed Mikhail standing in the distance. The last thing he expected was to see her standing in the family field, speaking to her former betrothed. She'd placed her hand on Jamin’s cheek in the same intimate gesture he'd come to regard as reserved only for him. The contact had been brief, but he'd seen it. An emotion he couldn't even begin to name stabbed through his heart and made it difficult to breath.
Chapter 49
Galactic Standard Date: 1
52,323.05
Orbit - Haven-3
Prime Minister Lucifer
Lucifer
“Master … can you hear me?”
“Mmmmmffff,” Lucifer groaned. His head hurt. Another migraine? He vaguely recalled taking a transport to the royal palace to be refused an audience by his father, but not what he'd done afterward. “Where am I?”
“On Lucifer’s diplomatic carrier, Master,” Zepar said in a reassuring voice. “Don't worry. I'll dispose of the evidence.”
He felt as though he were buried alive, the heavy black dirt pressing down upon his body. He fought the sensation, trying to make his body move. The dirt pressed harder, trying to suffocate him.
It felt as though a small, bright light had just been extinguished in his heart, a tiny echo of a feeling he hadn't felt since the day his mother had died. A name came into his mind and was buried forever by the dirt. Loss. He fought the heaviness, struggling towards Zepar's voice, trying to reassemble the jumbled, nightmarish fragments that danced through his brain and didn't make any sense.
Someone called to him, whispered regret. Forgiveness. Goodbye. He tried to follow, but the dirt held him there. Trapping him. Buried him alive. All of a sudden, he found a slender pathway, leaving him weak and nauseous. Voice? What voice? The voice he'd struggled so hard to follow was gone, leaving nothing but emptiness in his heart.
Was he hung over?
Zepar's words began to register in his mind. Evidence? What evidence?
The stab of pain that greeted him the moment he tried to move his eyelids made him shut them again. His hand registered the squishiness of a comforter and a body lying next to his. He was in his bed with a female. Had he blacked out during one of his mating appointments?
“She was unimportant,” Zepar said. “Ki's watchmen usually are. Nobody will come looking for her.”
It felt as though he were fighting his way through a painful green fog. Try as he might, he just couldn't get his brain to work. A coppery scent assailed his nostrils. He couldn't get his wings to move in unison with the rest of his body, as though all of a sudden he'd forgotten how to use them. He grabbed at the female lying next to him. She didn't protest his awkward grasping or move to get out of his way. Her skin felt … cold.
“Zepar? What are you talking about?"
“Oh. It's you.”
“Zepar?”
“Don't worry, Sire." Zepar's tone of voice changed. “You've had another migraine. I'll give you something for the pain. Go back to sleep and when you wake up, everything will be back to normal.”
Lucifer felt the prick of a needle in his neck as Zepar gave him whatever concoction he always used to alleviate these horrific migraines.
'Trust Zepar. He is your most trusted advisor…'
Yes. He trusted Zepar. Zepar had picked up the broken pieces after his mother had died and Hashem had abandoned him … and the Alliance … to fend for themselves.
Lucifer slid back into unconsciousness.
Chapter 50
And it came to pass
When the children of men had multiplied
That in those days were born unto them
Beautiful and comely daughters.
And the angels, the children of heaven,
Saw and lusted after them,
And said to one another: '
Come, let us choose us wives
From among the children of men
And beget us children.'
Book of Enoch, Book 1 – Watchers
Galactic Standard Date: 152,323.06 AE
Neutral Zone: Sata’an/Alliance Border
S.R.N. Tsalmaveth
Prime Minister Lucifer
Lucifer
His two Angelic guards glowered at the 'honor' guard of a half-dozen Sata'anic soldiers who met them in the launch bay of the S.R.N. Tsalmaveth, royal flagship of Sata'an Royal Navy. Shay'tan, of course, would never lower himself to travel in such mortal squalor. Why twiddle your claws for days on end traveling from one end of the Empire to another when you could break down the molecules in your physical form into pure energy, teleport the whole shebang to your destination with a mere thought, and then reassemble yourself any way you liked, right down to what color scales you wished to manifest that day? Shay'tan had long ago relegated the ostentatious flagship to his number two henchman, Ba'al Zebub.
Any other escort would have oogled the gold-tiled hallways, inlaid with rubies and other precious stones, but not Furcas and Pruflas. The two goons Zepar saddled him with glowered at the Sata'anic lizard soldiers with sullen expressions. Their icy stares turned to disgust as they entered the bejeweled royal conference room where Ba'al Zebub sat waiting on an ornate chair that had been permanently placed next to an even larger one. The six lizard soldiers genuflected to the empty throne and murmured whispers of 'Shay'tan be praised' even though the old dragon wasn't even on the ship. Lucifer wondered if Shay'tan had ever even sat on the empty chair, or if it had merely been built for show? The latter, he suspected.
“Prime Minister Lucifer,” Ba'al Zebub exhaled with a hissing voice, the best approximation of the Angelic language the Sata’anic races could mimic. “It's a pleasure to meet with you again."
Sata'anic lizard people tended towards portliness, especially the ones in the upper echelons of their society. An unconscious desire to emulate their emperor and god, Lucifer suspected. Shay'tan, of course, could assume any shape he wanted, but he preferred to manifest his form to mortals as large as could possibly sit in whatever room he graced without sitting down upon one of his subjects. If portliness was a sign of godliness in the Sata'anic Empire, than Ba'al Zebub was a titan, for Shay'tan's mouthpiece was so obese that his scales had long ago worn off the soft, pale underside of his chins and the rolls of fat which overhung his bejeweled, pointy-toed slippers.
“This had better be worth the trip." Lucifer's wings twitched with annoyance. He was fending off another migraine and not in the best of moods. “Do you have any idea the risk I take travelling into the neutral zone? That bitch Jophiel has been climbing up my ass with a microscope!”
Lucifer regarded the Sata’an Empire's highest-ranking emissary with distrust. They'd done much business together over the years, but Ba'al Zebub would sell him out in a heartbeat. Excepting Ba'al Zebub, most Sata'anic lizards were remarkably similar to the hybrids in how they moved and fought. Their retractable claws and fangs were built-in weapons, while their tails provided an extra fighting limb. Good at seeing in the dark, their main disadvantage was they were no faster than any of the other naturally evolved species which occupied the galaxy.
Lucifer tossed a pen into the air, caught it, spun it through his fingers, flipped it into the air a second time and caught the point of it with one finger so that the writing implement balanced perfectly upon the sharp point. It was a simple feat of agility even an Angelic infant could accomplish. A reminder to Ba'al Zebub that even though their political positions were similar, Lucifer was a superior being. Ba'al Zebub's gold-green eyes narrowed at the little demonstration, but the lizard-man grinned rather than take the bait.
“I think you will agree it was worth the trip once you see what I have to offer." Ba'al Zebub's forked tongue tasted the air for the pheromones which allowed the Sata’an to pick up on other people's emotions. “Our benevolent Emperor has sent you a little … gift.”
Ba'al Zebub signaled one of the guards. The guard disappeared out of the posh meeting room, painted royal blue to denote his rank with gold leaf stenciling as was Sata'anic custom. Moments later, he came back with two other guards, dragging an ebony-skinned humanoid between them.
“What is this?” Lucifer's wings perked up with curiosity.
“You tell me?" Ba'al Zebub’s fangs bared in a pleased grin as he invited Lucifer to examine the merchandise.
Lucifer walked around the frightened young woman and touched the back of her ornately jeweled dress where wings should have erupted from her back, but didn't. His grip on reality had been a bi
t tenuous lately. His eyes saw, but his brain refused to process the reality of what stood right in front of his eyes. He pinched the bridge of his nose, doing his best to appear disinterested, and tried to signal Zepar that he was having another one of his episodes and needed him to take up the slack.
“Sire,” Zepar's wings shook with excitement. “This is the root stock the Eternal Emperor used to create his hybrid armies!”
Okay … the migraine now included his Chief of Staff. Perhaps it was time he resigned so he could go get his head examined?
“The root stock has been extinct for 74,000 years." Lucifer feigned contempt as he battled that strange feeling he often got before a blackout that everything was far away. “An asteroid hit Nibiru and wiped out all life."
To be certain he wasn’t hallucinating, he pinched himself. The pain came. The pain went. White flesh refilled with pink where he'd squeezed it together. A dark-skinned, wingless Angelic still stood before him. He glanced at Zepar, relying on him to make sure he didn't tip off Shay’tan’s number two henchman that he was going bonkers.
“Their new homeworld lies within the bounds of the Sata’an Empire,” Ba'al Zebub gestured to the dark-skinned female. “Hashem ceded that territory during the war with the Nephilim. At the time, he'd twelve other seed colonies to experiment on.”
Hashem had always blamed the loss of the human homeworld on Shay'tan and the fact the old dragon had lost control of the species who used to make up his armies. Moloch had riled the Nephilim into rebelling and attempting to seize control of the Sata'anic Empire for themselves. The two emperors had been forced to unite and wipe them out, every last Nephilim man, woman and child, but during that time Hashem had been too busy fighting to save his Alliance to put any real effort into helping what few humans had survived the destruction of their homeworld to settle into their new colonies. By the time the dust had settled, humanity had gone extinct while Shay'tan had pulled a new species out of his bag of tricks to act as his minions, the Sata'anic lizards.
Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 25