by Cate Corvin
I pushed aside the momentary chill that crept over me. He had eyes everywhere. I'd known for millennia that every move I made was watched and scrutinized.
So he knew about our trip to the City of Sight. I could still lie my way out.
"I do if that's where my rule takes me." I refused to lower my head or cower. "Everything I do, I do for your glory and greatness, Father."
"Ahhh." The Dragon exhaled a cloud of sulfuric steam. "Not everything, my son. Not everything."
"Do you want one of the Seers? Shall I bring you one for your harem?"
A third head came into view, and disappeared again under his titanic writhing coils. "There is nothing they can offer me. I've tasted so many and the flavor has grown bland. But there is one I desire that you refuse to bring me... I wonder why that is."
A mirthless smile spread across my face. I felt like a statue, cracking apart bit by bit. "I've made that clear. With all the work I've done in your name, don't I deserve my own reward?"
The clawed hand ran towards me, tip-tapping on the stone, and wrapped around me. My feathers crumpled under his grip, and the long index finger reared upwards and poised over me like a scorpion's tail, the needle-sharp tip threatening to plunge right through the top of my skull.
I didn't so much as breathe.
"Deserve? What you deserve is to spend a thousand years in the darkness," Satan hissed. The claw descended slowly, the point digging into my scalp. Blood trickled through my hair. "You have freedom to do whatever you please, while I waste away in my prison."
I glared right into his putrid green eye. Several smaller eyes had opened around it, little pitch-black pustules against his scales. They all spastically blinked back at me.
He’d made this fortress for himself, and now he endlessly bitched about it being a prison.
"She's one small desire, Father. She tastes no better than the women from Lust."
At that exact moment, with his claw threatening to puncture my brains and split my spine in half, I came to a decision. I would place my mark on Melisande as soon as possible. I would never see her in this Pit, never subject her to this atrocity of writhing flesh and joints that moved in impossible directions.
If he took her from me, the civil war I'd been banking on would happen, and all the Princes would join me in my crusade. Not even Satan's hunger superseded the power of the marks. They were a divine law of the universe, subject to all of the worlds, not just Hell.
"You brought me only half the sacrifice I deserved," my father rumbled.
I hadn't been the one to herd his last round of Brides, but Belial and Melisande had cut the procession short. Some of the lucky ones had lived to see another sunrise.
"Father." I kept my tone reasonable, a guardian talking to a petulant, greedy child. "You can't glut yourself on sacrifices. If you eat them all, you'll have no more."
"You will find me more. There is always more."
For all his power, his titanic size, his rational brain was a pea hidden in a soup of devouring hunger and a complete lack of impulse control.
It was why he needed his Princes, demons to uphold law and order. Before he'd completely lost himself to the insanity of endless hunger, he'd had enough rationality to realize that.
Once we were in place to run Hell, he'd allowed himself to become this... thing. An overgrown child throwing tantrums in a body that could crush archangels and Princes like flies.
"I will find you more," I murmured in agreement, the lie coating my tongue.
His eye widened, bulging from his skull, and before my next breath he lifted me in the air and slammed me down on the stairs.
Bones crunched. Several of my teeth were ripped loose and my mouth filled with blood.
He did it again and again until my head was reeling and I no longer knew which way was up. Through a haze of pain, I felt the claws recede, leaving his crushed, broken toy on the stairs.
"You will bring me more? You will bring the fucking angel!"
My right hand was the only part of me that still felt whole. I reached up blindly, groping for the next stair and pulling myself up.
"I want to taste her marrow," the Dragon whispered to himself, shivering with delight. I felt the obsidian shiver under me along with him, still pulling myself inch by inch towards the palace. "I want to crack her bones, I want to suck her veins dry..."
Somewhere in my whirling, broken brain, I sensed his tantrum was over. Every painful inch felt like a mile as the Dragon muttered to himself in the abyss, but what felt like years later, I hauled myself onto the broad floor of the palace as my shattered femurs knit themselves together again.
I half-crawled, half-dragged myself into the shadows of a tower, gazing at the thin window with the Bride inside.
Wondering how many more times I could take this until everything broke and never came back together again.
If I could just get up... I could mark Melisande. Keep her safe.
She would never see the bottom of the Abyss if I could just make it through one more time.
6
Melisande
I woke up tangled between Tascius and Belial.
As soon as my eyes opened and I realized who I’d flung my arm over, my heart picked up into a racing beat.
We’d gone the whole night through and he was still here. The previous night hadn’t just been a dream.
I took a deep breath of Belial’s spicy scent and closed my eyes again for a minute, feeling at peace with the world for the first time in ages. Every worry piled up on my shoulders melted away, leaving nothing but a deep happiness that I had finally had everything I’d never dared to dream of.
We’d even been able to sleep in my room together, since the Chainlings had utterly destroyed the garden out back and installed shutters on my windows to hide the view. I’d slept the whole night through in peace.
Then my stomach twisted again and black spots swam behind my eyelids.
I carefully extricated myself from Tascius’s grip and managed to slide down to the end of the bed without waking either of them up. They didn’t stir as I dashed to the bathroom on tiptoes.
I hovered over the toilet for almost five minutes, my stomach cramping and churning the whole time, but nothing happened. I ended up bracing myself against the wall and sliding down to sit on the floor, wiping a sheen of cold sweat off my forehead with the back of my arm.
The last thing I needed was to be getting sick when we still had so much work to do. Was it possible that guilt was really eating me up from the inside this badly? How could I even feel that guilty when I was so happy with Tascius’s new life?
I waited another ten minutes before I got to my feet again and silently crept towards the door. Belial had rolled over in his sleep and was hugging my pillow to his chest.
My snort went unheeded by the sleeping men, and I quietly closed the door behind me, only to come face to face with Vyra.
The succubus took one look at my face and stopped dead in her tracks. “You’re sick.”
“I’m not sick. How would you even know?” I asked, rubbing my fingers over the purple circles under my eyes. I’d slept the whole night through, but I still felt exhausted, and that was without the stomachaches and dizziness.
Vyra gave me a look. “Come on. We need to call a healer. You’re sweating and you look like Hell.”
There was no way I was going to sit there while a healer poked and prodded at me. As soon as I’d made amends with Lucifer and Azazel, I’d feel fine. This was all just psychosomatic guilt over feeling like I’d gone ahead without the team.
Despite my protests, she dragged me down the corridor to a small infirmary I wasn’t even aware we had, and began flipping through a book after pressing the back of her hand to my forehead.
“You’re clammy but sweating. Anything else?”
“Um… dizziness, and my stomach has been cramping.” I glanced out the window at the Nightside street while she flipped a few more pages, muttering to herself.
/> A dark spot against the brightening sky caught my eye. I knew that silhouette anywhere, the way Lucifer’s oil-spill wings looked limned against the sky. There was something wrong with him, a hesitancy to his wingbeats that set off my internal alarms.
Vyra was still flipping pages frantically. “Oh my Antichrist, what if you picked up some disease in Elysium? Or from Acheron? I’ve heard the Nephilim there have experimented with biological disease vectors before… did you eat anything weird? Drink from any roadside puddles?”
I wasn’t listening. I was already halfway through the window, watching Lucifer fly towards Blackchapel.
“I don’t need a healer, Vyra, I’ll be fine. Promise!”
She squawked in protest and grabbed for me, but I was already swooping over the street and beating my wings, letting the wind dry the sweat on my face and taking deep gulps of air.
Several dark spots bloomed threateningly across my vision, but I pushed them aside. Lucifer was hurt, and regardless of my own feelings, I needed him to understand that I’d done what I did for love, the same as I would have done for him.
He was already climbing over the Fourth Circle when I finally caught up to him. “Lucifer!”
The beat of his wings slowed, and he finally crawled to a halt, doing the bare minimum to keep himself aloft.
I swooped in front of him and held back a gasp of dismay.
Of course he’d been injured. I’d seen it in the lines of his body, I’d known that every time he went to see Satan he came out far worse than when he’d entered, but seeing him this ruined was awful.
“You should’ve come straight to me,” I said quietly, taking in the bruises swelling his face, the blood and unhealed cuts.
Lucifer’s golden eyes were distant. “I wasn’t sure if you’d want to see me, after…”
“After we argued? Like all couples eventually do? I’ve been dying to apologize to you.” I tried my hardest to keep my tone from being too sharp. He needed my magic more than ever now. “Please come back down with me and let me help you.”
After a long moment of hesitation, he held out his hand to me, and I darted forward to take it before he could change his mind.
I practically dragged him back down to the Seventh Circle, but instead of letting me bring him inside, he landed heavily on the roof. Only then did I see that the set of one of his arms seemed all wrong, like it’d been broken and had healed crooked.
Lucifer leaned against the wall as I ran my hands over his arms, pushing back an inconvenient wave of dizziness to summon the white magic inside me. It leaped forward to pass into him, and the swelling of his face began to recede before my eyes.
“You went to see Satan again.” That was the only way this could’ve happened, and after what Satan had done to my garden… there was no way Lucifer would’ve walked out of his domain in one piece. Not without taking his wrath first.
“I had to. You see, these tattoos…” He gestured to his bare chest with his good arm. “He was the one who put them on me. It’s how he summons me and keeps me bound to his side.”
I stroked one of the thick black lines that criss-crossed his throat as Lucifer groaned. My magic was healing his arm, awful creaking noises filling the air as the white fire forced his bones to straighten out and re-heal. “What did he want from you?”
Lucifer grimaced as the white fire left his arm and spiraled down into his abdomen.
He raised his golden gaze to meet mine. “You.”
A chill crept over my body that had nothing to do with the strange sickness I’d been experiencing, even though I knew perfectly well Satan was gunning for me like his life depended on it. It seemed I couldn’t go a day without a reminder of how deeply the King of Hell wanted me dead by his hand.
“He’ll never take you,” Lucifer promised, his voice rough. He reached out and wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling me in against the warmth of his chest. I rested my face on him, trying my hardest not to lean against any of his injuries while trying to be as close as humanly possible. “Over my dead body.”
I released a sigh, feeling for my magic inside him. It was now healing the minor injuries, knitting torn skin and repairing the remaining bruises. “I know you won’t let him have me, Lucifer, but this looks like it came a little too close to your dead body for comfort. I trust all of you to keep me safe from him. But speaking of trust… I made a mistake.”
He shook his head. I looked up and saw color coming back into his face.
Even though I was pleased he was healing, I scowled. “I did. Don’t shake your head at me. I should’ve told you what I was going to do.”
“A little forewarning would’ve been nice,” Lucifer said with a faint smile. “But I understand.”
“I know all of our plans are now ruined because of me, but I truly believe in what the Visionary told me. Somehow, this has to be the way. Maybe the Sword of Mourning was never meant to be.” I nibbled my lip as I spoke, giving voice to the thoughts that had been swirling through my head. “Maybe the Sword of Light is still the only way.”
“You know you can’t touch it,” Lucifer said sharply, but I patted his chest and flipped my palm, showing the scars.
“Please, Lucifer. I know I’m asking a lot, especially after the rash things I’ve done, but the Sword has already recognized me. I think it’s worth a try at the very least.”
He was still shaking his head, his jaw set, looking mutinous. “It’s not me you have to go through. It’s Azazel.”
What a lie. Even if Azazel gave me an official stamp of approval to pick up the Sword of Light, Lucifer would chain me in Blackchapel before he’d let me attempt it.
“Assuming Azazel ever wants to speak to me again,” I muttered, and Lucifer squeezed me tighter.
“Of course he does, don’t be ridiculous. We’ll figure out something. He’s probably lurking in a library somewhere right now, doing his woo-woo psychedelic demon thing.”
I laughed despite myself, wondering how Azazel would react to his ancient magic being called a ‘woo-woo demon thing’. Probably not well.
Then sadness set in again. Everything felt like it was slowly coming back together, but I knew I’d need to be the one to go find him. Azazel would expect me to take ownership of my decisions and explain to him why I’d chosen this path.
“Do you forgive me, then? I’ve already sworn to Tascius and Belial that from now on, we’re a team.” I reached up and traced the line of Lucifer’s jaw. He’d relaxed as soon as we’d backed off from talk of me trying to wield the Sword. “No matter what we do, we’ll do it together.”
“You don’t need to ask,” Lucifer said, wrapping both arms around me as the last of my white fire swam out of his body and flung itself back inside me. He ran a hand over my hair, from the crown of my head to the small of my back, and pressed his lips against my forehead. “None of us are perfect. Far from it. Making one mistake doesn’t mean I’m leaving you, especially with him out there. You need all the protection you can get until he’s dead and gone.”
I nodded, my stomach fluttering again.
No matter how perfectly peaceful I’d felt when I first woke up, that feeling would never last as long as Satan lived.
“I should go to Blackchapel and find Azazel,” I said against Lucifer’s shoulder. “Prevent him from getting high on mushrooms and trading his eyeballs for a new Sword.”
Lucifer let out a low chuckle, but he didn’t release me. “Now that we’ve gotten all that out of the way, I’m finding it hard to let go of you. You should just stay here with me. Azazel will be here when he’s here, whether he has eyeballs left or not.”
“I’m rather fond of his eyes as they are,” I muttered, but Lucifer was already tipping back off the roof with me in his arms. His black wings snapped out wide and caught the air, slowing our descent until we landed in front of my arena’s doors.
Lucifer paused before he released me, examining every inch of my face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked nervous
ly.
His gaze was so intent, the opposite of the distant glaze he’d possessed earlier. I felt a little like a mouse must feel under a hawk’s gaze.
“Nothing,” he said abruptly. “I just like looking at you.”
I managed a smile. “Good, because I like looking at you, too.”
I could’ve stayed outside with Lucifer all day, just eating him up with my eyes, but the arena doors swung open only inches away from us.
Lucifer and I both looked up at the sight of Vyra, Tascius, Belial, and Haru crowding the doorway.
“There she is,” Vyra said with a scowl, her hands on her hips. “Grab her and don’t let her go!”
7
Melisande
Lucifer’s arms tightened around me. “Grab her? Why?”
Neither Tascius nor Belial hesitated. One moment I was safe in the Morningstar’s grasp, and the next moment there was a Nephilim wedged between us while the Prince of Wrath picked me up, pinning my wings against my back.
I kicked and struggled, but my feet were a solid foot off the ground and Belial’s grip, while gentle, was unbreakable.
“Settle down, angry angel,” he murmured in my ear, making goosebumps rise on my skin. “Why didn’t you tell us you were ill?”
“I’m not ill.” I gritted my teeth. The last thing I needed was some demon poking and prodding at me when I still needed to find Azazel. “I’m just experiencing psychological guilt manifesting as stomachaches.”
Everyone looked at me, even Haru, who was between Lucifer and Tascius and had his arms extended to keep them apart.
“That’s the worst excuse I’ve ever heard.” Vyra crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at me balefully. “You’re going to see a healer and you’re going to like it. Actually, I don’t care if you don’t like it. You’re doing it either way.”
“I most certainly am not,” I snapped, finally managing to wriggle downwards and out of Belial’s grip. Tascius immediately lunged for me, and the Prince of Wrath laughed when I just managed to duck out of his grip.