by Abbie Payne
I used my entire body weight to keep it closed as I begged the “Little Lucifers” in my mind to figure out something to do before it was too late. It was beginning to be too late, though, as I continued to feel the advisor push against the door again. He called out for a few guards to come and help him, too, and immediately my brain started to go numb.
Then, just as I was about to give up, one of the “Little Lucifers” shoved something into my memory. I had voice mimicry. It was a rare ability that only King Victor, Gavin, a handful of others, and I had. I’d only used the power on a few occasions, but I did have it.
I felt a surge run through my veins and I gripped the door knob behind me tighter as I felt a unique type of strength come right along with that surge. I was slightly surprised to feel it since this only happened when I used a new power, but I supposed that my body just wasn’t that used to the power yet.
“I’m very sick,” I called through the door, a little bit startled by the voice that came out of my mouth - it was much deeper than I was used to, but that was because it wasn’t my voice, “I’d prefer it if you don’t come in here.”
“King Victor... I don’t understand,” the advisor (who I still couldn’t remember the name of) began, “You don’t sound sick.”
I thought for a moment. Shockingly, I was not good at thinking on the spot.
I let out a hacking cough, hoping that that would be convincing enough.
“I guess it’s just one of those sicknesses where you don’t really show symptoms,” I replied rapidly, “Still, I think you and everyone else should stay far, far away. Like, six feet away... yeah, that should be a good start.”
“But Your Majesty...” the advisor began.
“Oh come on!” I thought to myself, “How much longer are we going to be doing this dance?”
“What?” I snapped, “Didn’t you hear me? I’m sick. I just want to be left alone so I can get what little work I can get done today and then get some rest.”
“That’s fine,” the advisor mused, “But still. We need to figure out what the next move is with the military. That unfortunately can’t wait out this sickness that you might have. If it’s alright with you, I’m going to sit outside the door and speak with you that way.”
I paused for a moment. Could I do this? Could I impersonate King Victor and make those kinds of decisions? I mean, I thought I knew the decisions that King Victor would make, but I was still not King Victor. He was a much better ruler than I could dream of being. The other question, though, was if I really had a choice.
“Okay,” I replied meekly.
I listened to the advisor let out a loud moan as he sank down on the floor and I immediately remembered who he was - well, I remembered what he looked like.
The war advisor was a super old, crusty guy with gray hair and a long, gray beard that was always frizzy and unkempt. He never seemed to take very good care of his appearance - which drove me crazy and I knew it did the same to King Victor, though he would never admit that fact - except for the fact that he always wore the most expensive, designer suits. Sometimes, he wore more expensive suits than King Victor, any of my brothers, or I wore, but it didn’t surprise me.
The war advisor, though he was the war advisor because he was the most experienced and decorated soldier of his time, didn’t have many other redeeming qualities. In fact, the first three terms that came to mind when I thought of the war advisor were selfish, manipulative, and narcissistic.
I still couldn’t quite remember his name, though. It was now on the tip of my tongue, but that was about it.
“So, how did your visit to the White City on Thursday go?” The advisor asked, “Did you get a chance to talk to Gavin?”
My heart felt heavy when he asked that. It felt like everyone - regardless of whether or not it was intentional - was constantly reminding me of my mistake, but that was probably because they were. I looked down at the floor, studying the lines in the black marble tile.
“No,” I replied softly.
I wasn’t sure if I recalled that King Victor spoke to the war advisor about his trip before talking to me about it. Usually, King Victor told me everything that he talked about with the advisor. Perhaps that memory just slipped my mind - perhaps I decided it wasn’t that important to remember.
“I wish I could say I was surprised,” he sighed, “You put too much faith into people, King Victor. You know demons and angels will never mix - your daughter is barely an exception to that rule.”
I furrowed my eyebrows at that. If King Victor was here, he probably would’ve sprung through the door and ripped the advisor to shreds for daring to even think that about Eddie. However, I chose to keep my mouth shut and just listen to him... for now.
“What did I tell you all those years ago? I told you to not bring her down here - that there would be problems in the future,” he continued, “I still remember what you told me. You told me ‘Casimir, I don’t care. I want her down in Hell with me - I’ll keep her safe no matter what happens’. Lucifer agreed with you and helped you get her down here. Well, now look at the mess you’ve got yourself in. Do you regret it? Is the Devil even capable of feeling regret?”
“No, I don’t regret it,” I replied without hesitation. I couldn’t tell if I was answering for myself or for King Victor.
Casimir huffed at me, “Fine. King Victor, I’m going to start the next draft until you’re well enough to tell me what to do - you clearly aren’t in the right place to do it right now. Is that alright?”
I hesitated, continuing to stare at the ground. I could feel the room closing in on me as I tried to formulate an answer. I didn’t want to say yes to drafting more troops - drafting more lost souls. I couldn’t say yes. I wouldn’t say yes.
I listened as Casimir got up from the floor. “I’ll take your silence as a yes,” he mused, “Good day, Your Majesty.”
I sighed softly as I listened to his footsteps walking away from the door and sank down onto the floor, succumbing to the wave of exhaustion that washed over me. I couldn’t tell if it was the power usage alone or if it was the emotions that I was feeling, but I suddenly felt like I could replace Sylas as the prince of Sloth and take a one-hundred year nap right about then.
“What have you gotten yourself into, Lucifer? What are you going to do to fix it?” I asked myself.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get an answer.
I just hoped that I would be able to figure out how to fix this mess before I was no longer the only one losing myself in the chaos. After all, I had seven brothers and they were worse than me when it came to situations like this.
Twenty-Nine
Roscoe Azria
Her Highness’s Guard
Palace of Sins
“ROSCOE, YOUR SERVICE IS BEING requested for the Empyrean War. It’s in your best interest to not refuse - I don’t want to have to force you to go.”
Like he wasn’t forcing me to already?
Casimir was standing at the door, peering up at me with a void expression. Eddie was upstairs, fortunately, but I didn’t know how to respond to this news. I flinched as Casimir reached up and waved his hand in front of my eyes.
“Hello? Anyone in there?” He asked lazily.
“I don’t understand, Casimir. King Victor always said that I wouldn’t be called on for the war no matter how bad it got.”
Casimir shrugged.
“Things change. Sorry about that.”
“Casimir, the princess needs-”
“The princess needs nothing,” Casimir snapped, “She has the princes, right? She doesn’t need you to protect her - seriously, Azria, are you entirely unable to think for yourself?”
I looked down at the ground and gripped the sides of the doorframe. I obviously could think for myself, but Eddie... I couldn’t bear the idea of leaving her. Not now, not ever.
“I’m sorry, Casimir,” I told him as I moved back to close the door on him, “But you’ll have to get the king to come talk to me and t
ell me I have to leave myself. Until then, I will not leave my other duties here at the Palace of Sins.”
Casimir started to protest, but I closed the door in his face before he got a chance to argue. I then walked into the living room where Prince Lucifer was sitting on the couch reading a book. Beside him was Prince Sylas who was busy playing some game on the television. He’d been at that game for hours, though, and I was beginning to wonder if he would ever stop and get any actual work done today.
“Prince Lucifer?” I mumbled as I moved into the room, being sure to stand somewhere that would make it easy enough for him to see me without trying too hard.
Prince Lucifer looked up from his book, but Prince Sylas kept his eyes fixated on his video game. He never even glanced our way. I only remembered seeing Prince Sylas like that a handful of times and that was usually when he was so stressed about something that he was reverting back to his old ways when he and his brothers first came down to Hell.
“What do you need, Roscoe?”
“I was just letting you know that I’m going to go talk to King Victor,” I replied, noting the way that Lucifer looked at me as those words left my mouth, “I’ll be back soon, but I’d appreciate it if you kept an eye on the princess while I was gone.”
“Roscoe-” Prince Lucifer began only to be cut off by his younger brother.
“King Victor isn’t here - he’s in the White City,” Prince Sylas mused.
I raised an eyebrow and looked at Lucifer. Lucifer didn’t respond or even look at me at first, too busy glaring at his brother for letting something slip that he obviously had no intention of telling me on his own.
“What?” I managed to ask.
“King Victor’s missing - well, actually, he’s been captured,” Lucifer clarified with a heavy sigh, “He was captured during our trip to the White City on Thursday, but I was trying not to tell anyone.”
“Why not?” I demanded.
“Because I don’t want to tell Eddie about this.”
“Why not?”
Lucifer glared at me, “Because you know what she’ll do if she finds out.”
I looked down. I knew he was right - even if I really didn’t want to admit that he was right.
“So, we’re just not going to tell her and not do anything about it?” I questioned.
“No, we’re doing something about it - that’s why the Hunters left last night. We just have to hold down the fort until they’re able to track him down.”
I sighed softly and leaned back against the wall. “I hate lying to Edelweiss.”
“I wasn’t aware that anyone enjoyed it - well, other than Gavin and the angels, that is,” Lucifer replied coolly, “But there’s nothing else we can do - we have to keep Eddie from going back to Heaven at all costs. You know that as well as I do, Roscoe.”
Thirty
Athena Forte
Angel Hunter
Los Angeles, California
ALTHOUGH I NEVER MET MY biological mother and had no desire to, I was no stranger to having nightmares about her. Most of the time, it was when my mind was wandering around before I went to sleep, but this time, I didn’t know what brought it on. I just knew we had stopped our search and returned to our original warehouse to regroup for a moment or two since Nine and I both had roaring migraines forming. I laid down to try to sleep it off for a little while and the next thing I knew, I saw her face again.
❀
My mother - at least, the woman that imagined to be my mother - looked quite a bit like me with the red hair, green eyes, and freckles galore. She was tall and lean, but she had much stronger features that I could only dream of having. She didn’t look anything like my Uncle Newt did, though she was his older sister by eight years. Her arms were covered with needle tracks and her features were eternally marred with reminders of the things that she chose to use in her free time... which was all the time, as far as she was concerned.
According to Uncle Newt, when she went into the hospital after going into labor with me, she first tried to give the doctors and nurses false information so that she wouldn’t get into trouble for all of the substances that she had in her system (Uncle Newt always said that she had at least five in there, but it was likely that she had more than he remembered), but he showed up at the hospital and made sure to clarify everything with the doctors.
Before my mother gave birth to me, she’d already begun to sign away her rights to me away to Uncle Newt, who was still quite young for a demon at the time and had no business raising a baby with no sustainable job or permanent living arrangement.
She refused to hold me and Uncle Newt wasn’t allowed to as I was rushed away to the NICU where I began to go under a rigorous detox. Given that I survived from the mixture of genes that I had, the doctors were almost certain that I would have some other consequences from the choices that my birth mother made. Somehow, I managed to survive without any lasting complications, and Uncle Newt and King Victor were convinced that I had my being a demon-angel hybrid to thank for that.
For once (and, essentially, the only time in my life), being a hybrid wasn’t such a bad thing.
One of the nurses there - a fallen angel by the name of Constance - was particularly interested in my story and she quickly began to focus on me more than any of the other babies... much to the dismay of basically everyone else involved. When she met my Uncle Newt, the two of them fell in love - though they would never say it out loud - and it was Constance that first suggested my name to Uncle Newt.
He told me that her reason was that Athena was her favorite Greek goddess and that she believed that the goddess, in a way, had given me her strength before I was born. I was skeptical of the actual occurrence of that conversation, but regardless Uncle Newt fell in love with the name, and from that moment forward, I became known as Athena Constance Marie Forte (Marie being after my grandmother - another person I never got to meet since she died before I was born).
Even after Uncle Newt took me home, Constance (whom I began to call Auntie Constance) would come by the house quite a bit when she wasn’t working, trying the best she could to teach Uncle Newt how to be a father when he was barely a functioning adult himself. Our life wasn’t perfect, but I wouldn’t have traded it for anything.
I remembered the first time I had the nightmare of what my life would have been like if my mother decided to keep me. It was the same day that Auntie Constance came by to tell Uncle Newt that she’d been diagnosed with breast cancer. I don’t think she meant for me to hear the conversation, but I did and I was devastated. I was only seven years old at the time and I was afraid that, if she died, Uncle Newt wouldn’t want me anymore and would send me away like I’d seen so many parents do to their children - or worse - back to my birth mother.
That night, I got to thinking about my potential life with my birth mother. Using what little knowledge I had of her at the time (collected from the many conversations between Auntie Constance and Uncle Newt), I was able to come to some conclusions.
I knew that she was now in Louisiana - wherever that was, because I surely didn’t know (Baby Athena was... geographically challenged and Adult Athena wasn’t much better) - and she was still addicted to drugs, having already skipped out on rehab three times if those conversations were to be believed. What was the most terrifying to me, though, was the fact that Uncle Newt admitted to the nurse on many occasions that, if he didn’t take me in, she either would have killed me herself or gotten me killed by someone else and - if not on purpose - solely due to her own carelessness. That night, I dreamt about all the ways that my little brain could imagine getting killed by my mother.
Back then, death was the most terrifying thing in the world.
Now, the nightmares weren’t quite as dramatic as they used to be, but they still terrified me and - when I had them - they were relentless until I managed to all but force myself to open my eyes. Sometimes, though, that simple act could take me hours to do.
❀
As I pulle
d free from the chains of my nightmare and sat up, I found myself immediately looking for my uncle. That was a habit that I had had since I was a young child and I was never able to shake it, no matter how many times I desperately tried to do so.
Uncle Newt was sitting right beside me, waiting for me to wake up. I moved close to him, wrapping my arms around him as I fought back the tears in my eyes. He hugged me back.
“You’re safe,” he whispered, “Did you have that nightmare again?”
I nodded. I tried to speak, but nothing came out. He sighed and pulled me closer to him. My Uncle Newt was the only person I ever allowed to see me in the kind of vulnerable state that I was in and I had no intentions of letting anyone else have that privilege any time soon.
After a few minutes, I pulled away from him and studied his face. “Thank you,” I said finally.
Uncle Newt seemed surprised to hear those words come out of my mouth, but I wasn’t sure it was just because I didn’t say them nearly enough - especially not to him.
“For what?”
“For taking me in,” I replied and moved around, curling up and bringing my knees up to my chest as I thought, “And for raising me all those years... you had no idea what you were getting into when you let my mom give me to you. You weren’t even really an adult yourself yet and you had no obligation to take me in, but you somehow managed.”
Uncle Newt smiled a little, “I think we both have Constance to thank for that, Athie. You probably wouldn’t have survived - actually, scratch that. Neither one of us would have survived if it wasn’t for her,” he chuckled.
I laughed a little, too, but shook my head and looked back at him. Uncle Newt was always so busy taking care of other people and making sure other people knew how much they were appreciated that he never stopped to listen to other people thank him without insisting that he wouldn’t have been able to do it if it wasn’t for someone else. Sure, Auntie Constance helped a lot, but he still had no obligation to take me in in the first place and he had no obligation to keep me under his roof. He could have just as easily stuck me in a foster home somewhere and no one would have really batted an eye.