by J. L. Myers
The young king’s cheeks reddened as he glanced down to the bed he sat on. A scowl creased his face as he looked up. “You have no right to spy—”
“I can help you with them, too,” Lucifer interrupted, his voice gentle and alluring. “I can change your life in ways you can only imagine. I can give you the world.”
“I do not want the world.” The king’s fierce rebuttal died on a sigh. “I only want my family and my kingdom safe.”
Lucifer frowned, studying the boy who’d too easily refused his offer. Was he losing the power of his stare now that his wings were gone? Regardless of the answer, he wouldn’t stop now. Ignoring his dwindling ability and the discouragement of this naive boy, he had, at the very least, years to mold him into the driving weapon he needed him to be. “Then that is what I shall deliver to you when you accept my help.”
The king stared vacantly for a few long moments, thoughts spinning behind his distant eyes as Lucifer fought to hold his gaze. Eventually, the boy shook off the daze and stood with a smile, striding forward to hold out his hand. “I am Cyrus. King Cyrus.”
The fallen angel accepted the palm outstretched to him with a grin, and let the king hoist him to his feet. “And I am Lucifer.”
CHAPTER THREE
Lucifer gathered up his robe from the animal skins that covered the floor. Having been beside the large, round fire pit that centered his room, the fine material was warm. A deep breath delivered the smell of dirty humans and brewing food that mingled on the open air with the perfume of this chamber. Walking naked and with purpose past the hissing and crackling flames, he peered out over the City of Babylon that hummed with excitement. Another war won. Another spike in body count—in those killed and those now under King Cyrus’s rule. Anticipation fueled him. He was through with waiting, through with acting through someone else.
The new plan he’d decided on was taking place today.
Lucifer drew his long robe gently over his back, cringing as he fastened the pale material in place. The last two decades had passed like days. Still those tiny jagged stumps below the skin on his back were as raw as the day Michael had destroyed his wings in God’s name. His jaw clenched at the memory. Like the day he’d fallen, his stumps remained a constant reminder of the unpunished humans allowed to run wild while he was banished to live out eternity alone in this hell on Earth.
Each day since then, he’d spent his time wisely, whispering in the King’s ear to influence his decisions to follow Lucifer’s plan. Although the king remained resistant to Lucifer’s almost faded power, wars had been fought and thousands upon thousands had died to keep his kingdom safe. And still, God refused to step in. Refused to take away his humans’ right to choose. Refused to confront Lucifer for acting against him.
Thinking back over all the bloodshed made Lucifer smile. It was human nature to ruin one another. To kill without care and take what you wanted. Yet, without retaliation, it was never enough. God’s lack of action and the king’s resistance made him want more. It was clear the king wouldn’t cave completely. Even clearer was the fact that God was not coming. But he would soon enough. After today there would be a change, one that would ruin humans as irrevocably as God had ruined him.
Now Lucifer was ready to take the next step, ready to take exactly what he wanted. With his lack of aging, humans believed he was a deity. Since that first day, he had become and remained the king’s main advisor. He was a God among men. But he craved more than the power and bloodshed that came from his status. Craved more than the destruction of God’s beloved and sinful humans. And here on Earth, as he watched the busy streets where humans moved like rats in a brown maze between buildings and huts, he could have it all. He could rule over all…if he too was a king.
The sound of the door opening and then closing, followed by the footfalls of only one, had Lucifer smiling. He turned away from the view and bowed down onto one knee. For the last time. “My king.”
Washed feet in sandals stepped in front of his lowered eyesight. The king’s armor was cleaned of blood and his gold-hilted sword hung in easy range at his side. “You sought my audience, my trusted advisor. I pray it is not with word of a new threat.” Now a true man, his voice was deep, the depth of his upset at the war they’d won like a stain on his tone. “So many perished this time. Too many to consider our triumph a clean win.”
Lucifer moved with the power he still possessed from heaven, going from kneeling before the king to the door in the blink of an eye. He dropped a thick wooden plank over the door to lock it from the inside. Then he was face to face with the king who’d spun at the noise. “Too long you have resisted and I bore of waiting. Your time to rule is finished. I am the next king.”
The guards’ panic-rising voices called through the door as the king groped for his sword. But his war-hardened hands didn’t find his weapon. Taken from Cyrus, Lucifer held the blade to the king’s throat. The king stood his ground, his face hardening. “After taking you at your word, after trusting you and raising you to the stature of royalty, you dare to challenge me in this way?” He spat in Lucifer’s face. “Like a snake in the grass, you are a coward.”
Lucifer spared no emotion for the king. This had been a long time coming. “You chose this end when you went against my battle strategies time and time again. You are no more a ruler now than you were that night I came to you. But, please, prove me wrong…” He withdrew the sword, holding it hilt up in offering to the king. Killing was better with an active opponent, even if not a worthy one. A look of challenge passed between them.
Cyrus snatched his weapon and swung—
Lucifer was suddenly beside his bed, slicing his sword free of his blankets. The metal gleamed, looking red as it caught the light from the fire’s crackling flames. “I had planned to make your death quick, though God forbid I refuse you a fair fight…”
King Cyrus came closer, arching his sword in challenge. “No one takes my kingdom from me. Not even you.”
The king lunged first, weapon driving down, aim perfect to lop off his advisor’s head. He hit Lucifer’s sword instead, the clang loud as a clap of thunder. Banging started up from behind the door, the guards’ calls turning to shouts. Lucifer shoved the king back and threw the hilt of his sword into the ruler’s face. The king teetered as blood spurted from his forehead. He caught himself on the fire pit’s edge as he went down to one knee.
“You need to do better than that, my king. I’m going easy on you.” Lucifer lunged when the king didn’t retaliate, sword point ready to take the man’s heart—
Cyrus stabbed his sword into the fire and flung a spray of hot coals. The larger pieces hit Lucifer, burning through his robe and searing his skin. The fallen angel fell in shock of the pain, weapon clattering and then kicked out of reach. The burn was too much like having his wings seared off, and as memories of that agony invaded his mind, he became paralyzed. As he grappled to think beyond that torturous event, more fire bombs landed atop of him, keeping him down.
“In spite of your cowardice and betrayal, this brings me no pleasure.”
“That makes one—” Lucifer quit speaking as the king’s sword pierced his back—right above his heart. He froze dead still. Would it kill him? He’d survived so much since his fall. He healed extraordinarily. Though he couldn’t imagine living through the removal of his heart, and the fire his body would no doubt be burned with thereafter by the king’s order.
“Now roll over so I can kill you with honor. I won’t fall to your level by stabbing you in the back.”
The burn started to recede even as warmth bloomed around the sword tip in his back. Lucifer smiled once more. “Then that is your downfall.” He twisted, a chunk of skin flinging from his back as the sword came free and he shot upright. But the king was ready and drove the sword right through Lucifer’s gut. Silvery-black blood welled at the site, and a cough brought more up to his mouth and lips. And yet Lucifer didn’t go down to his knees. Instead, he grabbed the blade up near the hilt and
walked forward, driving the sword further into himself until it came out through his back.
The king’s eyes widened and his skin turned gray. “What in the name of the Gods are you?”
“The Morning Star. The disgraced of heaven.” Lucifer head-butted the king and shoved him back. The sword came free as the king stumbled, tripping on coals and falling. The king's head smacked the fire pit’s edge, flipping him onto his back and to the ground. Lucifer was on top of him in an instant, his leaking blood covering the king’s armored chest as more dripped from his mouth onto the king’s lips. “Face to face. Now your time is—”
The king convulsed beneath him, shaking so hard that Lucifer moved aside in confusion. That hit had caused a split in the king’s forehead that continued to bleed and was already swelling. But aside from that, he’d barely been injured. He hadn’t been run through like Lucifer had. And yet the shaking continued, knocking bones joining the sound of the guards that continued to scream and bash on the door. When the shaking finally stopped moments later, the banging continued, but Lucifer couldn’t take his eyes off the king. He was still as death, growing paler by the second, but his heart was strong as a horse’s. Leaning closer, Lucifer reached out, palm open and fingers curling around his opponent’s neck.
King Cyrus’s eyelids flung open, his irises blood red.
Lucifer fell back on his butt right as the door plank gave way. Ten guards poured inside and on seeing their king on the ground, they made for Lucifer, ready to take him down—
King Cyrus moved like only an angel could, mouth split wide as he launched at the closest guard. He tore into the man’s jugular, crimson spraying as the rest of the guards froze in horror. But this was only the beginning. Lucifer knew it as he saw the first body fall dead and the red-stained fangs that protruded from the king’s mouth. There was a shout as the king caught his second victim. A few guards tried to flee, but the fallen angel moved and slammed the door shut to block their escape.
As Lucifer watched one body fall after the next, hearing the screams dwindle as fewer mouths were left to cry out, he felt a sense of ownership, of accomplishment. Somehow, he had made this once honorable king into the creature before him, into the blood-drinking, murdering weapon he now was. He had brought the monster that hid inside this human to the surface—with his own blood.
When the king had taken every human life in the room, Lucifer held out his hand. His plan had changed. It was even better than he could have imagined. God’s precious humans turned into monsters. His very own creation. “To the future. Together we can now rule the world.”
The king snarled, his tongue tapping his pointed teeth. “After your treason, you will die with them.”
“After watching you kill your trusting guards in cold blood, I know you hunger for more than that.” Lucifer stood his ground, even as the king stalked closer. “You want an army that can be as ruthless as you now are? That can make men quiver in fear of their total damnation? I made you what you are. Only I can make more. An army of monsters to command. You can be their king, and I will be their God.”
The king’s eyes pulsed vibrant red as he stepped even closer, licking his bloody lips. He caught Lucifer’s hand and yanked him forward, baring his fangs. “Cross me again, and you will be my next meal. Keep to your word, and we will rule over everything.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Blood-curdling screams tore Lucifer from his peaceful sleep, dissipating with the flutter of his eyelids. Still the quiet did nothing to slow his racing heart. Had he been dreaming of the night before? The first of many to come that had been plagued with havoc and mayhem? His sense of achievement resurfaced as he recalled the hours he had spent picking out the best subjects for their army of monsters. All were men who believed in God and who knew how to command a sword. After the hunt he’d bled into them while the king and the few already infected guards held them down.
But the ability to dream had been lost to Lucifer since his fall.
And this, the very first, in all its vividness…could it have been a warning that someone was watching?
Was she?
With his heart finally slowing at the possibility, he stretched out on his bed, his naked skin warm as he grazed against—other warm bodies. He tensed and forced himself not to suck air in as he remembered the rest of the night. The women draped over him shifted too, most in a daze. They had been weakened by the feedings the king and their new men had subjected them to. Despite the bloody mess of it all, the pleasure Lucifer had handed out afterward to each of the king’s fine women had been readily accepted. The king’s order to obey could not be refused. One direct look from their king’s eyes with his spoken words had stripped the terror from their faces and left them malleable. The power he’d lost. A power that would now again be a valuable weapon to order any man, even armies of men, to do their bidding.
The king’s attempt to spell Lucifer’s own actions, much to his anger, had failed.
Now as Lucifer rolled over and fondled the closest warm body, he felt drained. All the sex was only partially to blame. More than exertion was weighing him down.
As a new day rose, the light had long chased away the shadows and screams of Lucifer’s handpicked subjects as well as the women he’d dominated. For the first time in so long now, he felt like he was at the beginning of something epic. He should have felt whole. He should have felt like he belonged. And yet…there was an emptiness to it all that threatened to drown him. An emptiness he struggled to ignore. What was the point of all of this? He suddenly felt tired.
Lucifer freed himself from the arms and legs that tangled around him, gentle groans emerging when he stood. As he crossed the room to the balcony, sunlight bathed his bronzed skin, warming him from the outside in. Down below the town was quieter, only peasants about setting up their stalls of crops to make some silver. Those meager lives didn’t hold his gaze for long. The one thing he still missed after all these years was not down there amongst the filth. It was above…
Face lifting to the heavens, his long golden hair brushed past his shoulders to his back. Lucifer sighed. The only being he’d ever trusted and wanted by his side was not with him. Since that fateful day when he’d been banished to the below, he’d not heard or seen a glimpse of the one and only angel who’d ever meant anything to him. Gabriel.
For the first time in so long, he let his mind drift back. At the start of days, they’d been chained beside each other with the other archangels around the looking glass. Together they had watched the Earth form and change. Together they had created language, and after experiencing kindness and love from the first angel to evolve out of them all, she had taught him how to feel too. How to love…and as a result of the despair of losing that love, how to hate.
As he glanced back at the mess of women cramping his bed, he felt a sense of shame.
It had never been that way with Gabriel. What they’d shared was deeper and so much more powerful. He would have given a thousand women like the ones he’d had last night just to see her face. To hear her voice and its compassion and understanding. Only in his deepest, darkest yearnings had he ever envisioned being with her in that primal sense. Again he thought of his dream. Was she looking down on him now? Had she seen all that he’d done in the past day? In the past two decades?
He would never apologize. He would never change himself for her. And that, apart from God’s interference, had been the problem. Despite her acceptance, he knew he had never been worthy of one like her. Especially now.
Lucifer sighed again, his chest burning as he let himself feel a sliver of what he’d locked deep down inside. “I miss you.”
A clatter and then shouting pulled Lucifer’s head out of the clouds. He spun and raced into the room as the king stumbled into his chamber. Right behind him were four of his six infected guards, all their faces still marred with last night’s bloodshed. “Get out!” the king screamed, frightening the women who instantly awoke. In their nakedness they scurried up, fear in thei
r eyes as they ran to escape Lucifer’s chamber and the fanged monster who used to be their king. When the door slammed on them, any questions on the sudden interruption died on Lucifer’s tongue. He gaped at the sight of the five men.
The king stalked forward, his sword free in an instant and poised at Lucifer’s throat. His skin was covered in reddened and bloody welts, as were his guards who hissed as they created a tightening semicircle around Lucifer. “You have cursed us and now you will die.”
“What ailed you since last eve—” Lucifer leaped back as the sword sliced, any questions stalling on his tongue as their welts shrank and repaired before his very eyes. “You heal as I do.”
The king lunged again and scored a track across Lucifer’s chest. His guards went to pounce as Lucifer stumbled back to the balcony. But as he stood, ready to defend, none of them came closer. The king glared at the naked angel bathed in sunlight. He spat through clenched teeth, “You have condemned us!” His arm lifted, fingers tense like he was imagining how much he’d love to strangle Lucifer, but it was the step forward that made the difference. Bathed in sunlight, Cyrus’s arm bubbled and smoked, continuing to sizzle after he pulled it back out of the light. “Monsters chained to darkness. Two of my guard perished this morn, burned to cinders while they screamed.”
The noise Lucifer had woken to. Not a dream.
After the success of last night, Lucifer could have taken this revelation as a downfall, a setback. Instead, he saw the advantage. Now the king had a weakness, one that gave Lucifer more power than before. “It matters not to our plans. This changes nothing.”
The king bared his fangs, red eyes pulsing. His guards looked equally ready to tear someone’s head off. “This changes everything. We can’t fight wars if we cannot step outside.”
Lucifer shrugged, easing down onto the animal furs on the step down from the balcony. The cut on his chest tingled as it healed. “We fight wars as we have always done. With men willing to kill and lay down their lives for their king. Who care not for whom they kill or why, but who kill solely to follow your rule.”
