by Abbie Payne
❀
I tried several times to get myself to wake up from the nightmare that I was having, but every time I got close, I saw His face or heard that music again. I couldn’t shake free.
Gavin’s curse - the one that made it where I couldn’t hear His name, hear the name of His realm or hear any of the music about Him or His father without forcing me into as close to a seizure-like state than an angel could be in and making my blood begin to literally boil - was making sure of that.
Fifteen
Phoenix Bauer
Head Council Member
Las Vegas Demon Hospital
AS SOON AS THE NEWS OF WHAT went down at the Palace of Sins, I went to see Eddie. Needless to say, when I went to the palace and found the Hunters and Roscoe lounging around helplessly, I knew something else was going on.
I was grateful that Athena agreed to go with me to the hospital for more reasons than one.
I wasn’t scared of many things - at least, that was how I tried to make it seem - but I was never much of a fan of hospitals. It was another one of those childhood trauma things, if I had to guess the reason why that was a thing in the first place. As Athena and I walked into the hospital, I looked back at her.
“How do you know they’re going to let us see him? You realize it’s one o’clock in the morning, right?” I asked her.
I wanted to see Eddie, but I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t already trying to back out of this whole situation. Hospitals were not my favorite thing. They never would be.
“Demon hospitals don’t have curfews, Phe,” Athena mused, “You should know that by now - it has been thirteen years since you and your brothers moved here.”
I pouted a little and began to pick at the skin on my arms. I could hear my oldest brother - Calvin, or Cal as I and pretty much everyone else called him - getting onto me for it even though he was still at home in Hell with our other two brothers, Zavian and Dante.
I couldn’t help it, though. This was a habit of mine that I’d picked up when I was little and just couldn’t break no matter how hard I tried.
Then again, it was something that I picked up when we were still in Germany with our mother and a lot of the things that I picked up there seemed to be almost impossible for me to drop. That was a whole other thing that I wasn’t willing to explore for the time being - one of the many things that I wanted to bury for all eternity instead of actually trying to face it head on. In my not-so-humble opinion, burying things was much easier than trying to cope with them in more “healthy” ways.
“You know how I feel about hospitals,” I complained, watching as Athena walked up to the front desk in the lobby. The woman sitting there looked up at us with a blank expression, just smacking her gum.
I wasn’t going to comment on it out loud, but I could hear everything.
I could hear the air conditioning running through the hospital, the other visitor and employees’ conversations, and the receptionist’s teeth clacking and tongue moving around in her mouth as she chewed on her gum.
I didn’t say anything, but that didn’t stop me from silently begging Athena to hurry up and figure out where Griffin was so we could hopefully figure out where Eddie was. Frankly, I didn’t care about Griffin that much - I just wanted to know that Eddie was okay. Then, I could rest easy.
“Can you tell us where Griffin Palmer is?” Athena asked the receptionist.
The receptionist continued to stare up at us for a moment and took one glance at Athena’s wings before raising both of her eyebrows and slowly looking down at her computer. She clicked on the keyboard, using the tips of her obnoxiously long fake nails (I seriously couldn’t understand the purpose of fake nails in the first place, but maybe that was just me) to do so.
After a few more typing sessions, a bunch more smacks and teeth clacks, and a few mouse button clicks, she looked up at us again.
“Room 304. He’s in the ICU, so don’t be surprised if they don’t let you in - plus, I don’t know if he would be particularly interested in someone like... you,” the receptionist mused, looking primarily at Athena as she talked, “Coming to see him at this hour.”
I stepped forward and began to open my mouth to protest. How dare the receptionist speak to either of us that way? Just who did she think she was talking to a Head Council member and an Angel Hunter that way? Did she realize how easy it would’ve been for me and Athena to ruin her life?
“Just who are you speaking to? I know you aren’t talking to us that way,” I growled, my voice becoming much more animalistic than I intended or hoped. I couldn’t do anything but hope that Athena didn’t notice.
The receptionist looked at me, “I am,” she mused.
At that moment, I would’ve lost all of my marbles and I wanted to leap over the desk and give the receptionist a piece of my mind and my fist, but Athena put a hand on my shoulder.
“It’s not worth it, Phoenix,” she said, “Come on. We have more important things to worry about.”
I looked between her and the receptionist a few times before reluctantly following her to the elevators in the distance.
“I wanted to beat her up,” I complained, “You could’ve at least let me punch her once - and you know you wanted to do it, too, by the way.”
Athena had even more of a temper than I did. That was part of the reason why we got along so well and why I always called on her first to come help me fight someone.
Athena nodded, “I’m aware and I did, but you’re also as aware as I am that it wasn’t worth it. We would’ve gotten kicked out of here before we even got to try to find Eddie.”
I followed Athena into the elevator and blew a strand of hair out of my face as I stood in the corner of the elevator. Even if she was right, I still stood behind the notion that she could’ve at least let me punch her once... one little punch wasn’t going to hurt her that much and she had enough ego that it wasn’t going to hurt that very much either.
“Quit pouting - you’re reminding me too much of Finn and I have to spend enough time with him as it is,” Athena told me as the doors to the elevator opened again on the right floor.
We both walked out and began to follow the signs that pointed the way to the ICU.
“At least you don’t have Oliver who’s constantly bouncing off the walls and Will whose best talent is brooding day in and day out,” I argued.
Athena smirked a little, “You know, for a lot of demons, we sure do hang out with a lot of boys that don’t act anything like a demon should. Well, I guess except Will - there’s no denying that guy’s a demon.”
I smiled as we walked into the ICU room that Griffin was supposedly in judging from the sign next to the door (unless there was another Griffin Palmer, we were in the right place, but then again, it wouldn’t have been the first time where we walked into a stranger’s room unannounced).
“Oh my Satan,” Athena muttered under her breath as our sights fell on the scene playing out within the four walls of the room.
Right there in front of us, the princes - except for Griffin who was asleep (or unconscious, I couldn’t tell which) - were crowded around the chair that Eddie was sitting in, but Eddie wasn’t responding. We both knew what was happening and we had a good idea to help, but... well, it would’ve been a lot better if King Victor and Lucifer were here. Much better.
Still, we both sprung into action.
I knelt down in front of Eddie and took her hands into mine. They were hot to the touch - not just warm, hot. For lack of a better term, they were almost hotter than Hell itself. I began to use my ice powers to try to start to cool her body down as Athena ordered one of the princes to go and get some water - as cold as they could get it - from somewhere.
“What’s happening?” Elton asked us as he got up, starting to leave the room to go find what Athena asked for.
I looked up at him, “Just go. If we wait any longer, we won’t have Eddie to explain either way.”
Sixteen
Elton
Palmer
Prince of Envy
Las Vegas Demon Hospital
NOT-SO-FUN FACT: I HAVE NEVER been good at handling stressful situations, but especially not the ones where I didn’t know what I was meant to be stressed about.
We were all asleep when I heard Edelweiss stir (I was a pretty light sleeper anyway, but the uncomfortable hospital chairs only seemed to make that truth even more evident) and I woke up to see what was going on.
She seemed to be asleep, but the sounds she was making and the way that she was staring at one place on the floor told a different story. Her expression was blank, but I could tell she was in pain - though I couldn’t tell what the pain was - judging from the way she was gripping the sides of the chair and the way her knuckles were turning white from how tightly she was gripping it. I woke up my brothers, hoping that at least Pierce or Gus could help.
Pierce was easily the most book-smart of all of us, but Gus wasn’t too far behind him. I was hoping that - from all the books that they read - they would have at least some semblance of an idea of what was going on. Unfortunately, I was also known by many for getting my hopes up far too high.
I was relieved that Athena and Phoenix showed up when they did. Edelweiss was getting worse and my brothers and I were growing more hopeless by the second. Athena and Phoenix at least knew Edelweiss - my brothers and I knew her name and not much else. Granted, none of us had made much of an effort to change that fact in the few hours that we’d already known her, so that was kind of our fault.
I wandered around the third floor of the hospital for what felt like forever trying to find somewhere that I could get some water for the princess. I couldn’t tell if it was just because my mind was swarming with a million and one things or if it was really taking me that long to find something, but I knew that I was wasting time. There wasn’t much I could do, though - the cafeteria was already closed at this hour and there wasn’t a single vending machine in sight.
It would never cease to amaze me how things were everywhere until it came to a point like this where you actually needed the thing.
Finally, though, I found a vending machine and grabbed a couple bottles of water before teleporting back to Griffin’s room. I handled the bottles over to Athena and watched as the hybrid softly spoke to the princess, guiding her to drink and guiding her to breathe. My brothers and I sat around, silently watching and taking mental notes of what was happening.
Something told me that this wasn’t going to be the last time we would see Princess Edelweiss in this state.
Seventeen
Edelweiss “Eddie” Sullivan
Princess of Hell
Las Vegas Demon Hospital
ALL AT ONCE, MY MIND SWARMED about everything and nothing at all. I could hear everything and nothing. I was thinking about everything and nothing. I could feel every emotion coursing through my nerves and couldn’t feel anything at all.
This was what happened every time I got the “privilege” of being reminded of Gavin’s curse, but every time it got that much worse. Or maybe it didn’t get worse. Maybe I just forgot how bad it really was until I was in the middle of it.
Although I could catch a few words coming from the others in the room, the voices were too muffled for me to fully understand what they were saying or make out who I was trying to listen to anyway. I flinched as someone grabbed my hands and I felt something ice-cold wrap around them before taking over my entire being and I flinched again when I felt a plastic ring pressing against my lips.
Someone tilted my head back slightly and I felt the cool, smooth taste of water run into my mouth and down my throat. My insides were still burning as though a wildfire was raging from within.
I tried to focus on imagining that firefighter and on the cooling sensations all around me in the external world, but I couldn’t help but keep slipping back into the memories. The memories were the worst part.
I couldn’t even begin to try to make sense of them. I couldn’t remember much of my childhood - frankly, I couldn’t remember anything other than my fall and the songs that were drilled into my head in Angel School - and that frustrated me to no end.
I knew my life in Heaven sucked, and I knew that many of the people that decorated my early years wronged me in some way, but I also knew that there were good memories stored somewhere inside of me. Where were my memories of meeting Victor?
Why was I stuck with just the feelings that I had at the time? Why couldn’t I remember?
At least then it would make more sense as to why I was like this - it would make more sense as to why I felt like this so often, even when the curse wasn’t activated by something.
But I didn’t have that. Apparently, I didn’t have the privilege of having anything to explain away the things that were happening to me and I just had to remain at the mercy of others whenever I inevitably went into a state like this.
It felt like it took forever for the feelings to begin to subside and for my vision and hearing to go back to normal, but when they did, I wished they hadn’t. I sat up in my chair and looked around to realize that Phoenix and Athena were now there and all of the princes were staring at me - including Griffin. I guessed almost immediately that it was my fault that Griffin was awake and I didn’t bother to ask either. I was fairly certain that I was right anyway and I didn’t really want that confirmation.
“You doing okay now, Eddie?” Phoenix asked me.
She was kneeling down in front of me and had my hands in hers. I could still feel her using her ice powers to cool down my hands, so I pulled them away. I didn’t particularly care for the idea of getting frostbite.
I shrugged, “Not really, but I guess I will be eventually.”
“Does that... does that happen a lot?” Wyatt asked me.
Even though he looked like he wanted me dead just a few hours ago, I noticed that Wyatt’s face was now marred with concern. I was surprised to see him looking like that, but I tried not to think too much about it.
“Yeah, kind of,” I nodded, “It’s not usually that bad, though. It usually takes about fifteen minutes or so for me to pull through.”
As I said that, Athena glanced up at the clock that was hanging above the door.
“It’s two in the morning - you were out of it for almost an hour.”
Well, wasn’t that just splendid news? I thought I was getting better, but I obviously wasn’t.
Griffin was watching me from the bed. He grimaced before he asked me the next question, “What was that?”
“A curse,” I replied simply.
Pierce raised an eyebrow at me, “A curse? From who?”
“The Big Man Upstairs.”
Pierce furrowed his eyebrows at me, “Do you mean Ga-”
Phoenix shook her head, leaping over Athena to cover his mouth with her hand. Pierce made a face and pulled away, glaring down at her as if he was silently asking who she thought she was touching him like that.
“Don’t say His name,” Phoenix told him, not bothering to apologize, “That would just make this start all over again and I do not have the brain power or energy to do that again. For all we know, I would have to call King Victor if it happened two times in a row.”
Pierce looked between Athena, Phoenix, and me. All seven of the Palmers were staring at us now. Elton and Lachlan looked more curious than anything, but the others just looked confused and even a little agitated.
“Like I said, it’s a curse,” I told them, “I can’t hear His name, His father’s name, the archangels’ names, their songs, or the name of where they live without going into that kind of state. There are other things, but are the worst of them and, sadly, the most frequently occurring.”
The seven princes all looked down at the floor as I explained what the curse was and not a single one of them spoke for quite a long time. I didn’t understand then why they were so upset, but I got distracted before I was able to ask.
On the inner side of Griffin’s right bicep, peeking out from u
nder the hospital gown he was wearing, there was a black mark. It was a circle with a symbol in the middle - a symbol that I couldn’t quite make out, but thought it looked almost like a fly’s wings. I hadn’t noticed it before, but I’d also never seen Griffin in anything with short-sleeves until now.
“What’s that?” I asked, not thinking anything of asking that kind of questions until Griffin moved his hand up to pull his sleeve down. The gown was now off of his shoulder, but it seemed he preferred it to cover the symbol more than he cared about wearing it properly.
“It’s nothing important,” Griffin replied meekly. He didn’t meet my gaze as he spoke.
I tilted my head slightly and looked over at his brothers. Now that I’d seen the symbol, I wanted to know what it was.
Pierce shook his head with a soft smile, “Forget it, Princess. Let’s just get some more rest.”
Athena nodded in agreement and settled down on the floor by my feet.
Phoenix copied Athena before going to look up at me.
“You better come by the house tomorrow, Eddie,” she said, “I want to spend some time with you - it’s been forever since it’s been just the two of us.”
Eighteen
Victor Sullivan
King of Hell
The White City
DESPITE THE FACT THAT IT HAD been less than twenty-four hours since I was taken prisoner, these angels had already shown me that they were a million times better at the whole “torturer” thing that Lucifer and I could ever be (though we never wanted to be anyway). Still, three torture sesssions within hours of each other was a little much, wasn’t it?
Not to mention, not only was I the prisoner of my child’s biological father and his little henchmen, but I was also having to answer to them and Gavin. I was somewhat willing to do it at first because I knew that was what was keeping them from harming the others still down in Hell, but I was quickly losing that willingness. I obviously wasn’t going to kill anyone (...yet), but there was no reason that I couldn’t try to get on their nerves a little bit.