The Devil's Daughter

by Abbie Payne

  “No, no, no! Oh, come on!” I yelled at the tv screen.

  I groaned as the red “game over” screen flashed at me mockingly and sat up. I snatched the bowl of popcorn away from Griffin before looking over at the others.

  “This is pointless, you know,” I huffed, “Edelweiss being here, I mean.”

  Pierce rolled his eyes and closed his book before turning in his chair to look at me, “It’s not pointless. You know why she has to be here.”

  “Yeah, yeah, the Empyrean War and all that junk. Does she need to be here, though? Who would threaten the princess?” I asked.

  “It’s not about who here would threaten her,” a masculine voice called, “It’s about the things on the surface and in Heaven that King Victor knows he’s powerless to protect her from.”

  The seven of us all perked up and looked towards the entrance of the living room as Roscoe appeared.

  Roscoe was huge - that was the long and short version of describing his appearance. He was a fallen angel - I knew that much about him from what Lucifer told us about him before they all arrived - with dark skin and massive muscles. One thing was for sure: this man wasn’t someone to be messed with.

  “Um... Sir?” I asked, my voice squeaking so much that even I barely understood what I said.

  All of my brothers looked up at me, smirking darkly. Yep, Pierce and Wyatt were definitely going to be mocking me for that for the next millennia. It wasn’t my fault! Even Pierce had to admit that Roscoe was pretty intense - that was probably why he became the princess’s guard.

  Then again, I wasn’t sure how he became her guard. I’d heard a few of the residents of Hell say that the story was “so sweet” and “so unique”, but I could never figure out what that meant and Lucifer never told us either. He never told us anything about the princess other than the fact that she was an angel.

  We didn’t even know how she came to live in Hell.

  It wasn’t fair! Pierce, Griffin, Elton, Gus, Wyatt, Lachlan, and I were all royalty, too. We deserved to know about Princess Edelweiss just as much as Lucifer did. Sure, we could easily talk to her about all of that now that she was going to be living with us, but that was so much work that it almost wasn’t worth it to even try.

  “The princess wasn’t safe living with King Victor,” Roscoe mused, “King Victor is no match for the king of Heaven, as much as he wishes he was. If Princess Edelweiss stays here, she at least has a minuscule chance of survival.”

  I looked down at the floor. Well, now I felt like a horrible demon being...

  “Why does Gavin want her so much, anyway?” Elton asked, “She’s been here for years, right?”

  Roscoe raised an eyebrow at him, “Prince Elton, have you not yet realized that the princess is not your typical angel? She was pushed out of Heaven by King Gavin when she was a child after-”

  I was so sucked into what Roscoe was saying that I almost didn’t realize when a scream broke through the house, met with a loud crashing sound, and, finally, dead silence. A horrified look painted Roscoe’s face as he turned, and ran up the stairs.

  After a few exchanged glances, the others got up and went to follow her, so I decided to attempt to turn back to my game, figuring that they wouldn’t need me.

  I was too lazy to help them, anyway, so I would’ve been more trouble and in the way than anything else. Still, Pierce couldn’t just let sleeping demons lie and came up behind me before snatching the controller and my popcorn out of my hands before punching me in the back of the head.

  “Sylas, for once, try to look alive and pretend as if you care! Depending on what this is, we’re going to need all the help that we can get.”

  Nine

  Roscoe Azria

  Her Highness’s Guard

  Palace of Sins

  NONE OF THE PRINCES EXCEPT Lucifer knew any of the history behind the princess and her time in Heaven, nor did they know her relationship with the archangels or Gavin himself. I didn’t know that much about it either. The princess never cared for speak about it (although it was clear that she didn’t remember much because of how young she was at the time anyhow) and King Victor never wanted to bring it up either for fear of bringing those painful memories back for his daughter.

  However, I did know that Princess Edelweiss was terrified of the archangels, especially the two most prominent ones, Gabriel and Michael. I didn’t blame her. Gabriel and Michael had broken into the Palace of Darkness through her bedroom window several years ago and stole her from her bed in the dead of the night.

  She never told me or King Victor what all was done to her, but considering the injuries she had and the tests that King Victor later told me that the royal physician wanted to have done, I had my theories.

  The only problem was that I also knew that I was no match for the archangels back then and I had no hope of changing that fact. Now, it was just me and the seven younger princes and they were no competition either. If we had Lucifer, things may have been different, but he wasn’t here and wouldn’t be for a while.

  I led the way to Edelweiss’s bedroom and pushed open the door to see her on the ground with two men with massive white wings standing over her. The brothers weren’t far behind me and all seven of them were in their full forms from what I saw out of the corner of my eye.

  “Gabriel? Michael?” I heard one of the princes (I guessed it was Lachlan) mumble.

  “Just what do you think you’re doing here?” Another asked in a much more audible tone.

  I always forgot how much deeper a male demon’s voice could get when they were in their full form and it would never cease to send chills down my spine when I heard it.

  “Taking back what’s ours,” Gabriel replied, his voice eerily calm as he sent a Lux (essentially a ball of pure white light) in our direction.

  My heart began to race as I told the princes to dodge the Lux, hoping that they would do so in time. There were very few things in this world that could kill a demon, but a Lux - if it struck just the right place - was one of those things that most certainly could.

  Ten

  Lucifer Palmer

  Prince of Death

  The White City

  “REMIND ME AGAIN. WHY ARE WE here?”

  As King Victor and I walked the golden streets that led through the White City, I wished we could teleport straight to the Celestial Palace so that we didn’t have to spend more time here than was necessary. However, the White City had a teleportation barrier around it and the closet to it that we were able to get was already about an hour’s walk from the front gates of the City. I also wished that we were able to have that kind of security in Hell. It would’ve made everything so much easier, but Gavin had restrictions over Hell that prohibited us from doing anything like that.

  He didn’t like Hell, but that didn’t mean that He didn’t want to control everything He could and that King Victor often went along with it so as not to start fights where it could be avoided.

  “We’re trying to talk Gavin into giving up the war,” King Victor replied. He didn’t look at me as he spoke, keeping his eyes to the road below us.

  “You can’t convince me that you believe that’s going to work.”

  “I do!”

  When I looked at him, King Victor sighed.

  “I need to try, Lucifer. This can’t keep going like this and you know that just as well as I do.”

  I didn’t want to admit it, but I knew he was telling the truth. We were losing more lives than we could keep up with and soon, we wouldn’t be able to resupply at all unless we pulled a Gavin move and started forcing those that had no business going battle into the military. There was no chance of King Victor doing that.

  If we didn’t make a deal with the angels, the entirety of Hell would likely be wiped out. I was just worried what kind of deal Gavin would want to make in exchange for ending the war - I doubted He was going to just say that Edelweiss couldn’t become the queen of the Middleworld.

  “I can’t help but wond
er,” I mused, “Why aren’t you just letting this go? It’s not like she wanted to be queen anyway.”

  I knew that he had dreams - huge dreams - about unifying the three realms and the species together, but I didn’t see the point in holding onto those dreams any longer.

  King Victor ran a hand through his hair.

  “Because I think Eddie has more power than anyone else to make a real difference in this world - I saw that power in her when I first saw her in the nursery here and I still see it now. If anyone is going to become ruler of the Middleworld and make a difference in the way we all see each other, I’m convinced it’s going to be her.”

  I shrugged a little, “You can have her become the queen of Hell if you ever retire. You don’t have to make her do something as dangerous as that.”

  King Victor shook his head, “See, I feel like if I did that, it would be a waste of her potential.”

  I couldn’t believe that this man was still thinking about going through with this.

  Sure, I wanted to see the relationships between all of the species, and the three realms change just as much as the next person (mostly for King Victor and my brothers), but I knew that wasn’t going to happen. Some things couldn’t be changed. Just like how I couldn’t be turned back into an angel even if I wanted to be, the relationship between us and Gavin was too far gone to ever be mended.

  Everyone knew that demons and angels could never mix. I tried to tell King Victor that when he insisted on taking Edelweiss to the demon hospital in Las Vegas (the city that was above the “capital” of Hell and the Palace of Darkness) and later when he decided to adopt her as his own, but he didn’t want to listen to anything I had to say.

  “You put too much faith in people, King Victor,” I mused, “Remember who you are - people aren’t going to be as nice to you as you think they’re going to be because of who you are. That’s just the way life goes.”

  I thought he knew that, but I was wrong.

  “Lucifer, I thought I told you before that you can just call me Victor,” King Victor chuckled warmly before speeding up when he finally saw the Celestial Palace in the distance.

  “Hey, did you just ignore everything I said?” I protested, having to quicken my pace so that I could catch up with him again.

  King Victor laughed again and shook his head, “No, but I do think that-”

  I put my hand on his shoulder to stop him when I heard a familiar voice coming from somewhere nearby. I looked around, trying to track it down and groaned when I still wasn’t able to.

  It was Uriel. He, like the other archangels and Gavin, was a massive pain and my and the other boys’ biological brother. To be honest, I would’ve preferred to deal with all of my brothers hyped up on sugar for eternity than deal with Uriel.

  “Uriel, I know you’re here. Show yourself,” I called.

  After my prompt, Uriel allowed himself to be revealed to us, but he wasn’t the only one. In an instant, King Victor and I were surrounded by angels of varying ranks. Most of the “big name” angels were there except for, of course, Gavin and some of their companions were Seraphim and Dominions, and I even spotted some Cherubim in the mix. Most of them, though, I recognized from the Corps of White Nightmares.

  The Corps of White Nightmares (what a stupid name that was) was a program previously started by God when He was still king, but Gavin (unsurprisingly) continued to endorse it even after the beginning of His reign and His father’s dormancy.

  Their sole purpose was to do what they all assumed that the Angel Hunters were for - hunt and kill all of King Victor’s followers, though only after taking them to Heaven and torturing all of the information that they could out of them.

  Coming from a fallen angel - the original fallen angel who was originally cast down to Hell to be a torturer - the CWN was a sick and twisted group of monsters. I hated them when I was meant to be on their side and I still hated them. Their leader was the worst of all of them. That was Brayden Parker, a Seraphim and one of Gavin’s favorites other than Gabriel.

  I looked up as a man broke through the crowd. I knew as soon as I saw his massive wings who he was. I only knew one other angel that had the wingspan that he did and that was his biological daughter, Princess Edelweiss Sullivan.

  He was holding his hand up to display the Lux he had, but I wasn’t scared. Those things couldn’t hurt me and there was no way in Hell that I was going to let them harm Victor. I moved in front of the king, ignoring his protests as I began to talk to Brayden.

  “We want to talk to the King,” I told him, “That’s all. Once we do that, we will get out of here.”

  Uriel chuckled darkly, “You won’t do any such thing, Dear Brother. You see-”

  “I am not your brother,” I hissed, “We might be blood-related, but you’re nothing to me.”

  Pierce, Sylas, Griffin, Gus, Elton, Wyatt, and Lachlan were my brothers - they were annoying, but they were my brothers nonetheless. Those seven were the only ones that I would ever claim as my family. I didn’t care what any of those pathetic angels had to say for themselves. The time where blood meant nothing had arrived long before this and wasn’t going to pass any time soon.

  “Oh, come on, Samael,” Uriel began, but I didn’t let him continue before I interrupted him again.

  My heart stopped as I stared into Uriel’s eyes. For a single instance, I was back in Heaven as an angel. My brothers were angels, too, and we were all happy. I knew it was false - even we were in Heaven and angels, we were never happy. Every day was but a miserable broken record and I could count the number of times that had seen them smile on one hand without using all of the fingers.

  “I don’t go by that name anymore.”

  Not even the brothers that I claimed called me that anymore. I wasn’t going to allow an archangel to get away with it.

  “Too bad,” Uriel mused, “Last time I checked, it’s still your middle name, so consider it as I’m calling you by your middle name.”

  He wasn’t wrong. When we left Heaven and changed our names, my brothers and I all kept our angelic names, though we put them in the middle name position instead.

  “Let us go and talk to Gavin,” I sighed, “I’m not interested in this conversation.”

  Brayden inched closer to me, “Are you sure about that? What if we just... oh, I don’t know, killed Satan right here and now?”

  I glanced back at King Victor as Brayden talked. I couldn’t read his features, but I had a good feeling that he was more upset about the name than he was letting on. King Victor worked too hard to make sure that he wasn’t anything like his father to be called Satan by a couple of angels. Especially not one of the angels that contributed to all of the princess’s problems and eventually expulsion from Heaven.

  As I continued to listen to the angels taunting us, I felt a warm sensation begin to grow in my palm as a blade appeared in the hand that I was using to hold King Victor behind me to stop him from doing anything stupid.

  “Now, just come peacefully, hand over the Defect, and this will all be over before you know it,” Brayden mused, “Just a few quick torture sessions and then you’ll be dead. It’ll be easy as-”

  “Never.”

  I didn’t allow Brayden the ability to finish his statement before I launched myself towards him. Make no mistake: King Victor and I would not be going peacefully and we would not be “handing over the Defect”.

  That “Defect” had a name and I would be damned if I let anything happen to her on my watch.

  Eleven

  Victor Sullivan

  King of Hell

  The White City

  “LUCIFER, STOP!”

  It was too late. Ignoring my pleas, Lucifer punched Brayden in the jaw and knocked out one of Brayden’s teeth in the process and it was all over from there.

  Brayden was knocked back by the force of Lucifer’s punch and sent the Lux flying through the air and all of the other angels jumped in to protect Brayden (and also probably just for the excuse
to hit God’s former favorite, too). I barely managed to dodge the Luxes being hurdled at me and had numerous close calls that I didn’t care to relive any time soon.

  Uriel focused mostly on me, not hesitating to lunge at me and try to get a few punches in anywhere that he could. I kept my distance, trying to avoid his fists while also trying to figure out whether or not to fight back. I wanted to, but Lucifer and I would undoubtedly be in more trouble if Gavin came and realized that we were harming His creations.

  Lucifer, on the other hand, seemed to have zero reservations about what he was doing. Left and right, punches and kicks were being thrown and, left and right, Lucifer was more often than not the one that landed them and avoided any of the counter-attacks. He looked at me once and that was all I needed to fight alongside him.

  I couldn’t teleport, but that didn’t mean that I didn’t have other magic on my side and that didn’t mean that I didn’t use that other magic to my advantage.

  Fireballs, conjuring weapons, super agility, and super speed. They were all on my side and I used them all.

  It just wasn’t enough.

  As Lucifer’s strength began to diminish, Brayden came up behind me and grabbed both of my hands. He then pulled them behind my back and forced me to move closer to him. Both of my arms popped as he pulled them and I couldn’t tell if he managed to break them or if everything was just dislocated. Lucifer yelled my name (keeping out the “king” part for once) and tried to make his way over to me, but he was grabbed by a bunch of the other angels who began to usher him towards the gates.

  Lucifer continued to fight and try to protect me. I looked at him and shook my head.

  “It’s not worth it,” I called to him, “Just make sure she’s safe.”

  When I said that, though, Brayden released a deep-throated cackle.

  “Oh, that’s the other thing, Satan,” he mused, “Gabriel and Michael are down in Hell. Don’t worry, though - that just means that you’ll have your daughter to keep you company before you know it.”