Lucifer grew very quiet as we sat around the dining table on our mismatched chairs. A swinging pendulum of two gagged humans hung from the arched ceiling. Lucifer magic slammed their limp forms into each other, strung up by their feet like a pendulum of sinners.
My Hell wine begun to boil as Lucifer’s magic raged in the air. Whilst I could withstand the heat of the red-hot glass, the temperature had started to burn off the alcohol that I desperately needed. I slugged back what was essentially grape juice and held up my empty glass until a Hell Hound swooped in and took it from me.
“The Leviathan must be stopped.” I snarled, power-infused my words and the chandelier tinkled as if a shockwave racked the castle.
“War room.” Lucifer replied brusquely and the dining room dissolved into a part of the castle that I had never seen before. A map grew on the table, and the coloured wisps hovered over the boundary lines of the circles.
Wrath’s lines had been almost entirely obscured, which made sense as the Leviathan had taken the circle for himself.
“We could have prevented this when the Valkyries’ demanded help to reinforce the borders.” Abaddon eyed the shimmering expanse of the Jake Lake, complete with its own figurine of the serpentine body of the King of Envy.
“Hell lore requires that you must be powerful enough to hold your own territory.” I explained. “You know this.”
“And yet the Leviathan hasn’t come for the Third Circle. One would think that he would have taken Sloth first.” Abe replied.
Lucifer was silent as his stare appeared to burn a hole in the table. I wanted him to rear up like a beast and take control of the situation, but he had been confusingly absent even though it was his daughter that had been taken. The only sign of his rage was the leaking magic that had begun to twist the physics of the room. Abaddon and I ignored the boiling drinks and the pulsing walls.
“Belphegor would have been able to fend off an attack.” I said. “The Leviathan has an agenda that makes no sense. Why would he come for the First Circle? We will rip him apart. Why would he start a war with the Summerland? He is a beast of the Jade Lake; he has never seen an Angel in his life.”
“Perhaps he has taken umbrage against those of us that are Fallen?” Abe clicked his fingers and reached inside of his holster for his dagger. He slammed it directly in the centre of Envy. “Whatever the reason, an attack against the First Circle is beyond the pale.”
The table groaned under the weight of an unknown force. Abe straightened his back and bowed, leaving Luc and me alone without a word.
I opened my mouth to speak but was unable to find words.
“He took my daughter.” Lucifer whispered, darkness begun to leak from his nostrils like a black fog. “If you give him the sceptre, the Leviathan is not only taking my daughter, but my Consort as well.”
I stepped to his side; my hand flinched back when I reached out to place it on his shoulder. I wanted to touch him, but he still occupied a pedestal in my mind that made our relationship difficult to comprehend. His silver eyes rotated to meet mine. His hands rested on the armrests of his throne, and his knuckles were clenched tightly enough that I could see every tendon under his pale skin.
I hung my head and found my shoulders had begun to shake.
“People keep taking things from me.” Lucifer’s voice was a lick, a whisper.
“And from me.” I replied.
“You need to go to the Fourth Circle and retrieve her.” Lucifer told me. I agreed, but the only thought the wracked through my brain was that he wasn’t coming with me.
“And you?”
“I need to remain here, to protect the First Circle.” Lucifer said. “Abe will go with you. Bring my daughter home to me."
His hands gripped my waist as he tugged my body in front of him. He bent me over the edge of the ancient wood and the swirls of the magic across the map encased my body.
Lucifer stood up; he gripped the edge of my thighs and tugged my body until I was flush against him. I felt the hardness of his erection against the small of my back.
“I need you.” He growled. “I need to feel your body and know that you are here with me.” I hummed and tried to twist to face him. He did not allow me to do so.
His grip was firm enough to leave bruises as he tugged down my yoga pants. His fingers were rough as they plunged inside of me and scissored from side-to-side to test my wetness. I reared back and gasped in pleasure as I felt his hand deep inside of me. He was a force. He took his cock in his hand and rubbed the creamy flesh of my buttock. My eyes rolled back in my head as thrust inside of me, shallow, in and out at first but then building to harsh and claiming strokes. My belly pressed tightly against the table as I took the pounding that he gave me.
I jumped when I felt his fingers reach around and grip my clit. He twisted and pulled the delicate nub until tears ran down my face and I was unable to take any more.
Lucifer’s sex was bruising. All consuming. He marked my body and I took every harsh thrust and painful twist. Every action screamed that I was his. Like an ant being burnt by a microscope, having even a fraction of Lucifer’s attention was blinding. Still, he said nothing as his hips rocked against mine possessively and he pulled an orgasm from my pulsating core.
His final thrust hit the end of my channel; his cock throbbed against my cervix as he flooded me with his pleasure. His mind echoed through my own and I caught the scraps of his orgasm. It pushed me over the edge. His hands gripped my shoulders and turned me around to face him. My trousers were still down by my knees and Lucifer placed a feather light kiss on my lips.
I don’t know what he had seen when he looked into my eyes, but I was too raw.
Lucifer was the father of my child. He was my Master. My first love.
I reached up and laid my palm on the side of his face.
“You are mine.” Lucifer said fervently.
I said nothing.
“When I ran from you. You appeared in front of me when I had thought you were dead. You wanted to know where I ran to?” Lucifer asked, as he brushed my lip with his thumb. “I went to see our daughter. I watch her from a distance. I protect her. I never left her. Just as I will never leave you, Dahlia.”
The circle of Pride readied for war whilst the skyscrapers on the edges of the First Circle glittered against the grey sky.
It was not a war of soldiers and battlefields but one that had been fought for years over the antique wood of our dining table as our enemy drank our wine and made scathing comments.
The Leviathan's time had come, but we did not need numbers to take him down.
Abaddon and I Laced to the edge of the Fourth Circle, at the end of the long line of stalls in the City of Dis. The dusty path led straight to Envy. Devoid of other travellers. Abe’s blackened armour caught the dim light as we walked in silence to the edge of the Leviathan’s domain. The tree roots formed cages as they hovered above the black water, almost entirely divorced from the golden glass of the river Styx.
My wings were out but tucked behind my back, as I was unable to do anything else with them. Hell’s atmosphere had somehow hindered my ability to slip them into the Ether, like I had done in the Human Realities.
My heart burned as every step into the swamp echoed Petra’s name back at me. I wished, down to the very depths of my blackened soul, that I could sense her or feel some sort of tether to her but all I felt was love. There was no Hell Magic that could lead me to her.
Abaddon was more familiar with Envy than I was. The three Fallen angels had landed in the lake when Hell had been founded. The shockwaves of their fall caused a rip between the human realities and the dimensions, with sin slowly leaking through. The residue of their power washed into the Jade Lake and turned the Leviathan from a serpent into a King.
Levi lived in a castle to rival Lucifer’s domain, but the walls were made of wet stone and built on the foundation of rotting swamp foliage instead of ice and obsidian. Although still part of the vast Lake, the kidney
bean shaped body of water had somehow hidden the behemoth of a structure when I had passed by on the River Styx before.
“Does he know that we are coming?” I wondered, unable to stomach how silent it was. The was no noise apart from the brush of the water as it lapped against the foundations of the stronghold.
“One would assume so,” Abe said, as he eyed the open iron drawbridge. Iron was notorious for negating magic of all types, and the sight of the dark metal filled me with unease.
We walked in.
It was too easy.
I saw the outline of her curly hair first. The sight of her caused my lips to pull back from my teeth, in a wolf-like snarl. The Hellhound’s fingers glowed orange as her magic licked the air, begging for violence. Abe stepped forward, reaching for his dagger but I put my arm out to stop him. I shook my head. My muscles screamed for her head.
“Meesha Patel.” My voice was venom. “What a pleasure.”
Chapter 18
I had known Meesha since her inception, fifty years prior, when she had arrived at the office of Morgenstern and Clark in a business suit that was too big for her and a scrawled note from Lucifer that she was to be my personal assistant. The souls that had been sourced from the foundations of the castle had combined to make a woman with a head full of unruly curls that stood out as if she had been shocked, but Meesha had never tried to tame them.
She had watched me, in silence, for years. Taking every task that I had given to her and completing it without complaint. Meesha had fucked her way through the repressed humans with a carefree laugh but had never spoken a word to me. Only hanging her head in reverence when I had passed. She would beat my darkness back when I requested it through gritted teeth until one day, she had requested a transfer to the Hound Races on the edge of Purgatory.
I had always wondered why she had done it. We had bitten and clawed at each other when my heartbreak and loneliness had licked at the edges of my mind. The sex had been mundane at best.
Meesha lips twitched into a smug smile. “Surprised that I’m alive, my Queen?”
Abaddon shifted his body weight and palmed his dagger. “Is this the Hound that gutted you?”
“Blade to the heart, actually.” Meesha smirked and cocked her hip. “Do you plan to allow him to fight your battles, Dahlia?”
The swirling darkness of Abe’s magic thickened the air.
“You had to wait until I was weak and unable to fight back to take whatever twisted revenge that you felt entitled to,” I said in a low voice. “Surely, your confidence is misplaced.”
Meesha opened her mouth to no doubt impart a witty comment, but I moved quickly. The world stopped as I stepped into the Ether and behind her. My fingers tangled in the hair at the nape of her neck and I pulled it towards me like a rope. Yanking her head up, until her throat was exposed. I felt my gums prickle as my teeth threatened to burst from my mouth. I could take any form that I wished, and at that moment, I wanted my pound of flesh.
Determined to make it hurt as much as possible, I flattened my teeth back to their blunt human form and bit down at the sensitive flesh where her neck met her shoulder. I felt her skin pop under the pressure of my bite, and I ground my teeth until I felt her bone.
Elongated fangs would have sliced through skin like butter, but I wanted her to hurt. I pushed her body forward as I reared backwards. My bite was still in place as her neck parted with a chunk of flesh. Blood sprayed from her throat as her artery was severed and she clamped down on the gushing wound with her hand. Blood seeped through her fingers as she struggled to put pressure on her wound, holding the flaps of skin together as she urged her body to heal.
I spat the piece of meat onto the floor and watched as it shrivelled like burning paper. I resisted the urge to wipe Meesha’s blood from my lips and instead let my tongue run over my teeth as if I was savouring the taste. It was an act, as she tasted foul. Rotten. But I would be damned if she saw me flinch.
I straightened my clothing as the Hound in front of me panted and swayed, drunk from her blood loss. I severed her connection to the First Circle with the speed of a cobra strike. The blood gurgled in her throat, as her hands pressed down on her wound with a fierce determination that I would have envied if I wasn’t so disgusted by her existence.
Using the threads of magic in the air, I allowed my power to wrap around her feet. Meesha’s teeth gritted, and her expression scrunched as she fought to break my hold. I had seen Lucifer pull the puppet routine before, but it had never interested me until that moment.
Meesha’s steps were haltering, staggered as she walked towards me and I extended her hand to her. Abaddon was by my side in a second, offering a blade made of Devil’s silver. He placed it in her outstretched palm. I pulled my controlling vines taut until Meesha held the dagger to her heart. One of the only ways to kill a Hound.
Her skin rippled like a tumultuous sea, her body willing the change from human form to canine, but I did not allow it. My magic was a cocoon.
“What did the Leviathan want in exchange for his protection?” I asked.
A bead of sweat dripped down her nose and onto the hand that was clasped around the blade. “Information.” Her voice shook. She was telling the truth; I could taste it.
“And?”
“Nothing else.” Lie.
I forced her hand to twist, and the sharp edge of the metal opened a hole in the front of her t-shirt. One layer closer to her heart. “And?” I repeated.
“I told him where to find Petra.” Her voice grew weak as her blood dripped down the front of her blouse. Anger roared through me, demanding violence, blood and death. I pushed it down with a promise. Soon.
“You have committed treason to the First Circle.” Abe spat, circling us both like a rabid dog.
I placed the heel of my palm onto the blade and added pressure until a bead of blood seeped through the cut in between her breasts. As if a dam had broken, Meesha began to tremble, and tears leaked down her chin.
I pushed her away, gripping the hilt of the blade as I did so. Meesha slammed into the closed door at the other end of the room. Bloody and prone on the floor; her limbs were like a baby fawn’s as she struggled to stand.
“Why?” Meesha howled, her hands fisted her curly locks as she tugged at them hard enough to rip them from her scalp. “Why Lucifer? Why wasn’t my love good enough for you?”
“You stabbed me. You threatened to kill my child.” I said without emotion, pacing the words as if they were difficult to understand.
“You discarded me.” Meesha’s cheeks were stained with tears. “I looked up to you. You were my master. All I wanted was to make you happy. I loved you!” Her scream echoed through the entrance hall, shrill and hysterical.
“You don’t hurt the people you love.” My words were carried by my ragged breath.
Meesha pulled herself up to one knee, holding her neck as her chest heaved in exertion as her body healed itself against the wounds I had inflicted. “And yet Lucifer has caused you more pain than a person should ever experience.”
I shook my head and tried to block out her words. I did not need to defend my relationship to a rabid Hound.
Meeshe pulled herself to her feet, and her blood spattered onto the stone floor like raindrops. She staggered forward, and I allowed her to do so.
“I wanted to heal you,” Meesha whispered, her bottom lip quivered as her bloody fingers raised up to cup my cheeks. I stepped back in disgust. “I wanted to be the person that you loved so fiercely.”
“Envy suits you.” I scathed. “You saw something, and you wanted it. You never wanted me.”
“The Leviathan only wanted his freedom,” Meesha whispered cryptically, as she hung her head and sunk to her knees again, unable to stay upright.
Meesha fumbled, pulling an object from her army jacket with bloody fingers. It glinted in the light, and pulsed like a beating heart. The sheer power of the artefact drew my breath from my body.
“I won’t let you kill
me.” Meesha’s voice shook. “My only crime was loving you.”
My hand moved before I realised, throwing the dagger to her heart. It sang through the air and lodged itself in the door where she had been stood not moments before.
The Hellhound had disappeared into thin air, leaving her clothes behind. A wave of power rippled out, like the sound of a gong.
“What did she just do?” Abe joined my side.
“That magic was not Demonic.”
“Nor Angelic.” Abe agreed.
The door that stood behind Meesha’s dirty clothes, left behind after she had dissolved into the air, creaked open and unease set in my bones. I hesitated to step forward and sent my magic out to search out the spark of any hidden enemies. I felt Abe do the same, but we both came up empty. With a shrug, Abaddon’s crimson eyes flared and his muscles bunched as if he expected an immediate attack. He reached down and plucked the dagger from the dusty pile of clothes on the floor.
My flat Adidas trainers and yoga pants were easy to move in, but I felt unused to them. Meesha’s blood clung to the fabric, but I wasted no magic washing it away. I pulled my own connection to Hell around my body like a blanket as we walked past the large doors to the central part of the stone fortress of Envy.
Abaddon’s hand gripped my shoulder, unnecessarily, as I had seen the fuck off massive hole in the floor of the castle, that led down to the murky depths of the swamp below. At first, the thought that we had stumbled into the Leviathan’s chambers crossed my mind, but the cavernous room held no energy signature that I recognised.
“Something is wrong,” Abaddon whispered.
I nodded in agreement, but I couldn’t have put my finger on it.
Something came up behind me without warning, and I was pushed into the darkness of the Jade Lake. I closed my eyes, as if I prepared myself for the cold temperature and the large splash. It did not come. Instead, I slid across the surface of the hole as if it were coated in glass that gave off no reflection. I placed my hand against the thick barrier of air, as I pulled my body to the side and eyed the rippling water below. The sceptre had become dislodged from my waistband and had skittered across the surface of the hole as if it was ice.
The Devil's Lullaby Page 17