by Abbie Payne
Phoenix was the most different in appearance out of the four. I always thought it was potentially because she was their half-sister (they all had the same mother, but Phoenix had a different father than the one that the three brothers did), but then I saw all four of them together and the differences became more obvious and less easy to explain away.
Phoenix was often described as being wolfish in appearance. Like Zavian, she had tan skin and distinct facial features (including cheekbones that Athena was known for being jealous of and a slightly hooked nose that I always knew Phoenix hated). She was significantly taller than her three brothers and was much more lean than them, though she by far had the most ferocious appetite.
Her long, black hair cascaded down to the middle of her back (mostly because she hated haircuts and only got them when she was forced to by Calvin), and never took to dyeing very well no matter how many times she tried. There were still some remnants of teal on the tips of her hair from her last attempt, but they were quickly fading. Phoenix had deep brown eyes that anyone and everyone could easily get lost in, especially when she was staring at them for any amount of time.
I loved Phoenix dearly, but there was really only one way to describe her and that was the word “intimidating”. If she wasn’t my best friend, I probably would’ve been more scared of her, but I also knew most of what she survived through under her mother’s roof back in Germany, so I wasn’t not afraid of her either.
Phoenix watched as Dante finally put her down and returned to the kitchen island where he sat back down next to Zavian, saving the two barstools next to him for Phoenix and I. I followed Phoenix over, watching Calvin as he was still busy at work in the kitchen cooking up something that was undoubtedly going to be delicious.
“You two are just in time for lunch,” Calvin hummed, “How’s Prince Griffin?”
“About the same,” Phoenix sighed, “He was in a lot more pain this morning than he was last night, but the doc is still hopeful to discharge him either tomorrow or Sunday.”
Calvin nodded, “That makes sense - if he’s not in danger of dying, there isn’t much else that the hospital can do for him. It’s not like they can give him anything to help that pain.”
Phoenix twirled a strand of hair around her finger as she brought her knees up to her chest. “Any updates on that Freddie guy and his case?” She asked.
Calvin shook his head, “No, but I think we should probably bump up his hearing on the agenda. He might have some information about the war that could be useful to us pretty soon here.”
Phoenix nodded slowly and got up to go around to the other side of the island and help her brother with lunch.
“What did he do, anyway?” Dante asked, “I don’t think I ever got that part.”
“He was allegedly caught feeding important pieces of information about us to Ga- sorry, Eddie - the Big Man Upstairs and his archangels. It’s said that he had a buddy from His side that was killed and so he wanted revenge on King Victor,” Calvin explained, “It’s a much longer story than that, but that’s the gist of it.”
I sat in silence, listening to the Bauer siblings talk amongst themselves. I often completely forgot that the Bauers made up the Head Council, though that was probably just because I knew all four of them personally and I often forgot that they were anything more than close friends of mine and Victor’s. That didn’t make the work that they did any less important, though. Actually, they played a massive role in the politics of Hell.
The original premise of the Head Council was proposed around thirteen years ago - about a week or so after the Bauer siblings moved from their childhood home in Germany to Las Vegas in search of a change of scenery as well as more safety than they ever could have gotten if they stayed where they were. Their mother, Evelyn Bauer, had just killed herself following the decision that granted Calvin full custody of all three of his siblings.
Once in Las Vegas, Calvin began attending law school. Victor met Calvin one day and was so moved by the Bauers’ survival story that the two continued to interact until Victor finally decided that Calvin was who he was looking for to be the first member of the Head Council.
Not wanting anything to do with deciding what punishments were dealt to his subjects, Victor had been looking for someone patient and fair enough to take over that role for him for years. Calvin was, apparently, the perfect fit and so it was decided.
Calvin would join the Head Council first and in the future, if they chose to do so, his siblings would attend law school and later join him on the Council.
Zavian did after he decided that he was done with his modelling career and Dante followed close behind Zavian, never doing much without Zavian doing it first or straying away from the precedence that his older brothers set.
Being the youngest of the four (and also having been inducted in just a few months ago), Phoenix was the newest member of the Head Council, but she never wanted anything else. She’d graduated from highschool two years early (Athena and I still weren’t sure how she did that) and started attending law school directly following that.
I supposed Phoenix was something to admire in that regard. She always had an idea of what she was going to do in her life and she always seemed to be so confident in that knowledge, too. I supposed that, despite everything that she had been put through by her mother, she had had enough willpower to get through it and do just about anything she wanted. She never seemed to have much problem with accepting who she was either.
I’d always thought that, but little did I realize then that I would later find out that all of that was nothing but a facade. At the end of the day, people only got to see what others wanted them to see.
Twenty-Two
Griffin Palmer
Prince of Gluttony
Las Vegas Demon Hospital
I’M SORRY, BUT HOSPITALS HAVE got to be the most boring places in the world. Okay, I already knew that, but now I was getting to see that first hand.
It wasn’t as bad when my brothers and everyone were here, but now that they weren’t, there wasn’t much to do other than stare at the ceiling and hope that I became numb to the pain in my side before I went insane. I was really wishing that Lucifer was with me, too. Even if he didn’t seem to, I knew that he really did care. He was just trying to put up his usual front.
I just wanted him to be here with me - he had a way of making things more interesting whenever he was around and for some reason, he was also really good at distracting people from their pain. Maybe that had something to do with the fact that he was the prince of Death.
I started humming a song to myself when I heard the sound of footsteps leading into the room. I couldn’t help but groan because it was just about lunch time and the food at the hospital was nothing compared to what I was used to (both in taste and its ability to be... I don’t know, actual food?), but I was surprised when I looked up to see Lucifer standing there, holding a bag of food from one of the fast food restaurants nearby. I perked up immediately and started to sit up when I was swiftly reminded about my injury.
Lucifer walked over and put the food down on the rolling tray by the bed. He carefully began to unpack it as he looked over at me.
“How are you doing today, Griff?” He asked me, “About the same?”
No one ever called me “Griff” anymore, but I welcomed the fact that Lucifer was calling me that now.
“Hungry,” I replied, “And lonely... and glad that you’re actually here. You left so quickly last night that I didn’t even get to say bye.”
Lucifer smiled sadly, “Yeah... I had things I needed to do. Sorry about that.”
I looked at him, “Lucifer, can you tell me something? Like, honestly tell me something?”
Lucifer nodded.
“Why do you always think that you have to protect us? We all know that you care, but you always put up this front because you think it’s helping, right?”
Lucifer took a little while to answer me, but he did eventually start talking.
“I just don’t want you guys to feel like you have to do something because of me again - I don’t even want to think that you feel a certain way because I feel that way. I’ve already gotten you all into this mess and I can’t bear the idea of getting you into even more of a mess.”
I smiled a little at him, “You realize we left because we wanted to be with you, right? We didn’t feel like we had to go with you at all.”
Lucifer looked at me and raised his eyebrow, “What?”
“Yeah. After your fall, we all decided that we would rather be demons with you than angels with God and the other brothers.”
I paused and smirked at him, “You know how much we hated the other brothers.”
That was the truth, too. Elton was always the least tolerant one out of all of us - especially when it came to our training. He was being trained by Gabriel at the time, but Gabriel could never figure him out and got so frustrated that he convinced Father to remove Gabriel from his role and put Lucifer in his place.
Elton always worshipped the ground Lucifer walked on, but when he became Lucifer’s student it only got worse and Elton was constantly following Lucifer around like a little puppy. Lucifer put up with Elton’s antics more than anyone else’s. Not even Gus got the mercy from Lucifer that Elton did.
Lucifer chuckled and ruffled my hair as he pushed the tray over so that I could eat. “Get some food down you, okay? The nurse told me that you haven’t been eating like you should be,” he mused.
I smiled a little and began to eat the food that he brought me. It was Middleworld food, so it still wasn’t my favorite, but at least it was better than the hospital food.
Lucifer and I continued to talk when we heard Lachlan, Wyatt, Elton, Gus, Sylas, and Pierce coming down the hall.
Lucifer sighed softly, “There goes our peace,” he complained.
The others walked in and Lachlan grinned roguishly at our eldest brother. “Come on, Luci,” he teased, “You know you love us.”
Lucifer shook his head, “I certainly don’t when you call me that - I’ve told you before how I feel about being called Luci.”
“Would you prefer Samael?” Sylas yawned.
“Oh, or Princess Lucifer?” Wyatt added, obviously just trying to get Lucifer to yell at him.
Wyatt was truly a masochist at heart, but he wouldn’t have been Wyatt if he wasn’t.
“Boys!” Lucifer protested.
He sounded upset, but he still had a broad grin on his face that the rest of us couldn’t help but laugh at.
Lucifer rolled his eyes a little and sat down in one of the chairs. “You all may as well sit if I’m not going to be able to convince you to give Griffin and I some space,” he mused.
The others promptly took their seats. Elton sat on one side of Lucifer and Gus sat on the other side of his twin while the others randomly chose their seats. Lachlan originally sat down by Wyatt, but Wyatt moved away to sit by Pierce instead. Lucifer and I both rolled our eyes at Wyatt’s behavior. We were used to Wyatt acting this way, but he somehow seemed to be even more irritated than usually today.
“How did your trip to the White City go?” I asked Lucifer, “Surely better than our night went.”
Lucifer bit his lip and looked down at the floor. “Well...” he mumbled.
“Well?” Sylas prompted slowly.
I studied Sylas’s face, noticing that he looked even more tired than usual.
“It could’ve gone better,” Lucifer lamented, “Much better.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Lucifer glared at me, but a nudge in the ribs from Pierce seemed to bring him over the edge without us having to do too much extra work. Man, Lucifer really was awful at telling us things, but I guessed it made a little bit more sense now that I knew why. It was still annoying, though.
“King Victor is... well, let’s just call it what it is - he was captured by the Corps of White Nightmares. I believe I’ve told you all about them before?”
We shook our heads. We all looked at each other, but none of us spoke.
Lucifer sighed softly and continued.
“Well, the Corps of White Nightmares is kind of like the Angel Hunters, but they actually hunt and kill King Victor’s followers without a real reason,” he explained, “The organization was started before Pierce was created and I guess Gavin continued to back it after He became king.”
The whole Gavin getting to be king thing was really dumb, by the way. He wasn’t even the oldest of the sixteen sons of God - that title belonged to Gabriel - but because he was Father’s favorite, he got all of the special privileges. I guess there really was something to be said about never doing anything that you were directly ordered to do.
“Either way, though, their leader now is Edelweiss’s biological father and he apparently wants to see us all suffer as badly as Gavin and the archangels do.”
“I don’t get it,” Gus huffed, “Why do they want her so badly?”
Lucifer shrugged, “King Victor and I have been trying to figure that out for years. The only thing we ever came up with was that they were told ‘no’ and so now they want to take her just to say they have her.”
I thought for a moment and looked at him, “Are you sure it’s not because they want her destroyed somehow? You know, because she’s so attached to all of us - especially the king - and knows the truth behind both sides.”
Lachlan perked up at that, “Hey, that actually kind of makes sense. If she was deemed “wrong” at birth, there’s no reason that they don’t see her as even more “wrong” now. Especially because they’re so into that repenting thing and she hasn’t done any such thing.”
“And they could also be afraid that, if she has children, she’ll produce more people that are at a risk of revealing the truth,” Pierce added.
Lucifer was silent for a few moments as he stared up at the ceiling. I looked up at the ceiling and pouted a little.
“There’s nothing interesting up there, Luci,” I complained, “I’ve already counted all the dots on the ceiling, too... there’s four-hundred of them, by way.”
A smirk appeared on Lucifer’s lips as he sat up properly and threw his arm around Elton’s shoulders. “I’ve sorely doubted you boys, you know that?” He asked.
Wyatt rolled his eyes a little, “We’ve been trying to tell you that for years. You just never listened to us.”
Lucifer had a proper smile now. “Don’t push it, Wyatt,” he warned, “I’m still your older brother and I can still hang you upside down from the stairs when we get home.”
“I ain’t scared,” Wyatt replied flatly, “It’s not like you haven’t done it a thousand times before. You really should start trying to figure out some new punishments.”
Lucifer raised an eyebrow at him, “That can be arranged, Wyatt,” he mused.
Wyatt got quiet then, sitting back in his chair. A soft whimper came from Lachlan, though, as he thought.
“What’s going to happen?” Lachlan asked, “You know... to us?”
Lucifer furrowed his eyebrows at him, “What do you expect to happen?”
“Don’t play that game, Lucifer,” Sylas yawned, “You know it’s only going to be a matter of time before the Empyrean war explodes more than it already has, then we’ll have to go to Heaven to get King Victor back before everything really falls through.”
Elton sat up straighter at that, “I am not going back to Heaven. There’s way too many memories there that I don’t want.”
Lachlan shook his head, “I’m not either - not if I have to see those angels again.”
“Heaven food sucks,” I added.
Lucifer sighed.
“Boys, relax, no one’s going to have to go back to Heaven. If it comes to that, I’ll just go by myself and-”
“Going by yourself is what started this mess,” Pierce pointed out.
Lachlan curled up into a tight ball, leaning back against the wall behind him to brace himself. “Why do I feel like so
mething bad is going to happen? Like, worse than what’s already happened?” He asked.
“Nothing’s going to happen. I won’t let it happen,” Lucifer repeated.
“And what if it’s not in your control?”
Lucifer looked down at the floor and bit his lip again.
“Let’s just hope it doesn’t get to that, okay?”
“I can’t help it,” Lachlan protested.
“I know you can’t,” Lucifer nodded, “But we’re going to be fine, okay? Nothing can be that bad to keep us down for that long.”
Twenty-Three
Kekoa “Koa” Waialiki
Angel Hunter
Minion Village
THE OTHER HUNTERS WERE ALL almost ready to leave that night, but I had something that I needed to do before I could go back to the Palace of Sins for dinner and get fully prepared to leave after the sun went down and everyone was already asleep. It wasn’t something I was particularly excited to do, but I knew I had to do it.
If I didn’t go and talk to Kai about this before I left, he was bound to be upset with me when I came back home... if I came back home. Honestly, the possibility of not getting to come back home scared me more than him just being upset with me for not telling him in the first place. We were all we had left after our parents abandoned us when Kai was a baby. Kai depended on me.
I walked through the minion village, trying to remember which house Kai lived in. I knew he lived with Oliver and Will - two other minions - now that I no longer lived in the village, but the houses all looked so similar to each other (except for the Bauer siblings’ mansion) and I’d only actually been to their house two or three times since Kai moved there.
I was still surprised that Kai lived here as a minion at all. I got that my brother and the others were called minions because that was what King Gavin and the name sort of stuck, but still. After the Hunters and the guards, the minions were the next line of defense for Hell and they also “served” the princes, acting as their defenders if it ever came to the point where they needed it as well as simply acting as their companions.