by Leigh Kelsey
“I’ll get my brothers,” Bernard grunted, turning on his heal at Lucifer’s nod. He’d figure out what to do with Lili later. For now, this was more important. If Lucifer could deal with those stirring up trouble between angels and demons, he’d consider it a good day. And if he happened to track down those rogue spirits while he was at it, well, all the better.
“Get me a map,” he told the commander. “I want to know exactly where the breach opened.”
Lili’s heart beat a panicked tattoo in her chest as the siren continued to blare through the dining room. Russ had tensed immediately, shoving his seat back and transforming from a cute, awkward man into someone with purpose. It happened so suddenly that Lili shrunk back and stumbled from her chair, retreating until her back hit the wall and wallpaper slid beneath her hands. The room blurred, the mahogany dining table with its colourful fruits and bread and fish becoming a smear of colours as her chest hitched and she spluttered sobs.
“H-he’s come for me. He’s here—”
“No, Lili, it’s not him. It’s not him” Russ said quickly, talking to her even though he still faced the doorway. “Gabriel can’t get in here.”
“Then what—” She shook her head, her chest so tight she couldn’t form the words. She wanted—she wanted Lucifer. She wanted to feel safe again, the way she had for a few precious hours last night. She should have known it wouldn’t last. How could she be so stupid—
“Hey.” Russ reached her, his arm sliding across her shoulders and tucking her into his side. His warmth soaked into her, a slight comfort, and his woodsy scent filled Lili’s lungs in quick, panicked breaths she couldn’t control. “It’s alright, he’s not gonna get to you here. We won’t let him, Lili.”
A snort had her head lifting, her breath skittering as she blinked to clear her vision. What she saw had her shrinking against Russ’s side. He was the biggest man she’d ever seen, muscles upon muscles stretching across his chest, his arms, his thick neck, but it was the mean glare on his face that had her lightheaded with panic. “Russ,” he growled. “We’re up.”
Russ squeezed Lili into a hug but his grip relaxed; she grabbed him in panic as he let go. “Don’t leave me alone.”
He looked from her to what was clearly his brother—a third, bigger, more powerful brother who was nothing like Cerny’s compact muscle and steadfast calm or Russ’s quiet strength and bumbling friendliness.
“Leave her,” the burly brother ordered, giving Lili a once over and making her tremble even harder. “She’ll be fine in the palace. It’s not like anyone can get in, and especially not that archangel bastard.”
The palace—Lucifer’s palace, where she’d discovered mere minutes ago she’d been given a room.
Russ sighed, hugging Lili tightly before—again—letting go. This time he pried her hands off him, his thumbs rubbing her knuckles. “I’m sorry, Lili. I have to go. But Bernard’s right—you’ll be okay here. I promise.”
To her surprise, Russ held out his pinky finger.
With a soft laugh that made the knot in her chest ease, just slightly, Lili wrapped her pinky around his.
“I swear you’ll be safe,” Russ murmured, his eyes sparkling, a smile twitching his mouth. “And I’ll see you soon.”
“I’ll hold you to it,” she whispered back.
“Touching,” Bernard drawled. “Now come on. Luc’s waiting.”
“You,” Lili snapped, spinning to face the behemoth, “are a mean man.” She didn’t know where the words or the anger came from, except she felt better with fire in her belly, more equipped to deal with being left alone in an unfamiliar palace.
“And you,” Bernard returned, an eyebrow lifting on his rough, scowling face, “are wasting our time, Angel.”
Lili returned his scowl, demon magic thumping through her in fiery waves. “It wouldn’t kill you to be nicer.”
“It might,” Russ countered with a laugh, grabbing his brother and shoving him out the dining room door. He pushed his thick-framed glasses up his nose and gave Lili a last lopsided smile. “I’ll see you later, Lili.”
“Yeah,” Lili agreed, but they’d already gone, bickering as they walked down the pale stone hallway outside.
Alone, Lili’s shoulders slumped. She stared at the opulent mahogany table and the half-eaten breakfast spread out on its top with a sinking heart, the dining hall both intimidating and welcoming with the same expensive curtains and same Parisian decor as the rest of the palace. She came so close to just sinking into her chair and attempting to finish her breakfast but no. She wouldn’t let them treat her like that.
She wouldn’t treat herself like that.
Lili grabbed a piece of fruit and half a buttered roll of bread and raced after the brothers. “Wait!” she shouted, her voice echoing off the magnolia wood panelling of the hallway, her footsteps amplified by the lacquered floor. Bernard and Russ paused up ahead, Lucifer and Cerny a few steps away, all of them turning to watch her rush towards them. Her heart beat fast and she didn’t know where the courage was coming from but she said, “Wherever you’re going, I’m coming too.”
Bernard laughed, a mean bark, but a smooth voice cut him off.
“Good idea,” Lucifer agreed, a fond glint in his eye as he watched Lili race down the hall towards them. “But you follow my instructions—I can’t keep you safe if you don’t.”
“Okay,” Lili agreed breathlessly. It didn’t register that she was running into danger. She just couldn’t bear to be left alone right now. “Where are we going?”
Lucifer smiled as she finally reached him, skimming the edge of her jaw with a knuckle, his face so devastatingly handsome when he smiled. “Have you ever seen a breach, Liliana?”
Lili shook her head, her eyes widening. “No, but Ga—he told me all about them.” She made herself a new rule: she wouldn’t give that archangel the honour of saying his name. “That’s where we’re going? To a rift?”
Lucifer nodded, a grim slant to his mouth now. “And before you ask, I’m not the one creating them.”
Lili’s mouth popped open, the apple nearly falling out of her slack fingers. “Then who is?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out.”
Bernard, as unfriendly as he was, turned out to be helpful to have around as Lili, Lucifer, and his brothers held onto his bare arms and the world swirled into light and shadow around her. Lili’s stomach pitched, dizziness twisting through her like she’d plummeted in a too-fast wing spin, and she dug her fingers into the hard, corded muscle of Bernard’s arm as wind tugged at her ponytail, batting her this way and that.
When the wind tunnel released her and the world reformed around her, Lili crashed to her knees and retched. The bread roll and apple she’d just eaten hit the dry path beneath her and bile seared her throat. Embarrassed, she wiped her mouth on the back of her hand and got back to her feet, not meeting the eyes of any of the men until a jade coloured handkerchief entered her line of sight. Lili accepted it from Russ with a flush a gratitude, cleaning her face.
She only saw what happened because she was glancing at him from the corner of her eye; he turned his empty hand over and it was suddenly holding a bottle of water. Lili gave it a discreet sniff when he twisted the cap off and handed it to her. “How did you…”
“Demon magic,” Russ replied, ducking his head to hide a smile. “I can fabricate things.”
“Oh,” Lili said, and threw caution to the wind by drinking half the bottle in one go. It tasted ordinary, and washed the vomit from her mouth, so she couldn’t complain. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Russ said, lifting his head so Lili caught a glimpse of that smile lighting his chocolate eyes. It took her off guard, how suddenly handsome he was, with his short blonde curls, glasses, quirky T-shirts, and luminous eyes.
“Are you done?” Bernard barked at his brother, his big arms crossed over his equally mammoth chest. He seemed to encourage people to look at his size and balk; he wore a sleeveless T-sh
irt that clung to every predatory muscle. Lili should have been intimidated but instead annoyance flared.
“Don’t,” Cerny answered instead of Russ, his square jaw clenched and his topaz eyes giving each of his brothers a hard look. “We don’t have time for arguments.”
“Whatever,” Bernard growled. With a huff, he stuck out his hand, and Lili frowned until Russ did the same with a long-suffering sigh, laying his palm on top of his brother’s. Cerny hesitated, turning a worried look on Lili until she smiled, not sure why he needed reassuring but happy to offer it after all he’d given her. She had her wings, her back was bound in salves and bandages, and she was safely away from Gabriel because of him. With a nod at her and a glance at Lucifer, Cerny thrust his hand out and laid it atop both his brother’s.
The second their hands met, the air shimmered. Red mist coalesced around them and Lili took a step back, bumping into Lucifer. The devil’s hands settled on her shoulders with a comforting squeeze. Lili couldn’t tear her eyes off the crimson mist, and the figures inside it as they contorted and conjoined until…
“Oh heavens,” Lili breathed, looking at the three headed dog lumbering to its feet, leaving mammoth footprints in the loose dirt path Bernard had transported them onto.
The brothers … were Cerberus. The three-headed dog said to guard Hades’ underworld. Lili had thought the beast was a myth, a scary story made up to frighten misbehaving angels. But now Cerberus stood in front of her, as real as Zeus or Hera. Not that she’d ever been this close to the Gods.
The world swayed as Lili stared at the creature, two of its heads scanning the area around them with sharp eyes while one grunted and growled, its massive nostrils flaring.
“Easy,” Lucifer said as Lili tipped towards a fainting spell. “They won’t hurt you.”
The middle head—the biggest, beefiest, a glossy black canine head with flinty green eyes—snapped his teeth as if to disagree.
“Well,” Lili breathed, recovering from the light headedness the longer she looked at the creature. It’s just an overgrown dog, she told herself. And it was Cerny and Russ, her protector and her newfound friend.
“At least now I know which head is Bernard,” she muttered, ignoring the warning growl the man in question gave her. He was just a big, overgrown meany; Lili didn’t have the time or energy to waste on people like that. Not when there were men like his brothers to admire instead.
Lucifer’s huff of a laugh warmed her spine, his arm snaking around her waist to pull her closer and lay a kiss to the nape of her neck. Lili’s eyes fluttered closed on a sigh.
“As disappointing as it is, we don’t have time to cuddle,” Lucifer murmured against her hair. “You’re a terrible distraction, Little Lilith.”
“Lili,” she corrected.
“Mmm,” he murmured noncommittally. He laid another shiver-inducing kiss against the very top of her spine and released her. “Time to get to work, sweetheart.”
Lili almost pouted but caught herself at the last minute, giving herself a little shake. This was Lucifer. She shouldn’t be disappointed that the devil wouldn’t snuggle with her. Not after everything that had happened with Gabriel.
“Be real, Lili,” she whispered under her breath, turning to finally survey the land around them. The dusty road they stood on cut through an overgrown wheat field the colour of lavender, the sky and sun overhead in the same rich purple hue as everything else in Hell. In Heaven, Lili had pictured this place as red and dingy, fires and suffering everywhere, but … it was nice. And unexpected. Well, it was nice if you overlooked the nasty white rip in the sky above them, the edges frayed like a torn cloak and drifting in the light wind.
“Oh,” Lili said, tipping back her head to see it and squinting into the watery sunlight. “That’s a breach?”
“It is,” Lucifer replied, his tone all business now as he stalked up the road until he stood directly beneath it. As Lili watched, his eyes glowed vermillion and he snapped both hands up into the air, the sleeves of his black jacket rolling down to expose black veins in his wrists. She could almost see the light sucked out of the air as shadows rippled from his palms and surged for the rift. This, at least, was something she’d expected from Lucifer—shadow magic.
So focussed on watching the streams of shadow reach through the air in inky tendrils, the black veins spreading higher on Lucifer’s body and his eyes glowing with an inner light, Lili’s entire body jumped as a wet nose prodded into her hand from behind. With a yelp, she leapt away, but when she met the clear topaz eyes blinking at her—blinking down at her from seven feet high—she expelled a laugh.
“You’re pretty scary, you know that, mister?” Lili said, ignoring the snarling middle head to hold Cerny’s eyes. When his head sunk, a little whine whistling through his nose, Lili added, “For an overgrown puppy.”
Cerny’s head lifted, his tongue lolling out in a doggy smile, and Lili wondered if this was why he spoke so little in his other form—maybe everything he had to say was written in his expression and Lili just hadn’t been paying enough attention.
Daring, Lili slowly reached her hand up—careful to touch only the leftmost head—and brushed her fingers over Cerny’s velvet fur. He was a blue black colour, Bernard more of a deep brown and Russ a greyish blue colour, but their body was a ripple of all three colourings. They were beautiful and Lili couldn’t help smiling. Besides, she’d always loved dogs. “Good boy,” Lili tried, and their tail thumped hard against the ground, sending up a plume of dust before Bernard snapped his jaws at his brother and, Lili assumed, took control of the tail as it went deadly still.
“You,” Lili said, meeting his hard emerald eyes, “are not a good boy.”
Bernard rolled his eyes, tugging on their body with enough force that Cerny huffed and was forced to turn away. Russ, at the opposite end, just gave Lili a long suffering stare.
“You’re supposed to be searching the area.” Lucifer’s voice was a shock as it cut through the silence, and Lili startled, laughing to herself. “Stop mooning over Liliana and do your jobs.”
Bernard gave a triumphant huff, Cerny snapped his jaws at his brother’s head, and Russ nudged Bernard hard enough that Cerny was jostled too, attempting to keep the peace.
“I meant you too, Bernard,” Lucifer added coolly, earning a look of outrage from the green-eyed canine before the three of them—the one of them?—padded off, their noses low to the ground.
“What can I do?” Lili asked, giving them space to do their job without her to distract them and approaching Lucifer. He still sent tendrils of demon magic into the rift over their heads, the shadows as thick as ink but as insubstantial as smoke. Lili didn’t get too close, not wanting to distract him either.
“Keep watch. Make sure no one sneaks up on us. There’s no trace of recent magic here but they could be using a cloak I haven’t yet encountered.”
“I can do that,” Lili agreed, pleased to be put to use. She immediately began a sweep of their surroundings with her eyes, scanning the weaving stalks of prairie grass and wheat, and the long stretch of lilac road that led to two distant cities. One, clearly Iarlon, was made up of high tanzanite-coloured towers, violet trees, and dark purple rooftops, while the other was a more conservative dwelling, most buildings two- and three-storeys with the odd spire.
While Lucifer worked and Cerberus padded around the area, trampling the grasses and nosing at smells of interest, Lili took her job seriously and kept watch. Bernard might have been a meany but she was growing fond of Cerny and Lucifer, and Russ seemed nice too; she didn’t want anything to sneak up on Lili and hurt them. Something like Gabriel, for example.
And even if he was brusque and careless, Bernard was honest; she couldn’t say the same for the archangel. So maybe Lili didn’t want him to suffer a terrible death either.
Movement out in the grass caught her eye and Lili narrowed her gaze, trying to determine if it was just the wind or something suspicious. Her answer came a few seconds later when
she glimpsed a dark head of hair.
“Lucifer, there’s someone out there.” Lili pointed out the area when the devil’s glowing eyes snapped to her, her stomach a roiling mess of nerves. What if it was Gabriel? She’d spied dark hair but … he could have brought reinforcements. “There.”
Between one blink and the next, so much faster than when Bernard had sifted them here, shadows and darkness wrapped around Lucifer and swept him away. By Lili’s next breath, he was across the grassy field, hauling up a woman with ratty hair and dirty clothes. Another breath, and he was beside Lili again, releasing his hold on the woman. She stumbled and fell to her knees on the dusty road with a cry, staring up at Lucifer in horror. Her caramel skin paled as Cerberus came sprinting towards her, all the heads snarling now.
Lili’s breath caught, nausea rising as she waited for those massive fangs to sever the woman’s head or their sharp claws to pry her limbs from her body, but Cerberus just loomed dangerously over her. Guarding her, not brutalising her. It didn’t mean anything, Lili told herself. They might just be waiting for privacy and a jail cell to torture her. It didn’t mean they were better than Gabriel; that seemed a dangerous hope to harbour.
“Explain yourself,” Lucifer demanded, shadows licking at his heels, his shoulders. His glossy black hair, pushed back from his forehead, flickered with darkness too, and shadows even poured from his sinister red eyes. Lili’s heart tripped into a sprint as she looked at him and saw nothing of the man who’d taken care of her. She felt unsafe all of a sudden. She felt stupid for trusting him—because she did. It was painfully clear that even after one night, she trusted him.
There had to be something wrong with her, for Lili to trust so easily. Her vision wavered with tears but she blinked them clear when the woman knelt on the floor spoke. Well—spat.