Hellfire Saga

by Third Cousins

  I reached out towards his voice and felt my hand touch something warm and soft. I felt him wrap his fingers around mine, as he slowly came into vision. “Who are you?” I asked him, as I examined the man that was standing in front of me.

  He was beautiful. His bluish gray eyes seemed alive with the silky movement of smoke. His long, dark eyelashes framed them perfectly. His cheekbones were sharp, but his face softened when your eyes sank down to his smile and slight dimple in his chin.

  “They call me Lucifer,” he said gently with his hand still holding on to mine. “I created you.”

  “Why did you do that?” I asked him. “Why would you do this to me?” I demanded to know because I could feel that something wasn’t right. I could feel a deep hatred simmering in my heart that was only being kept at bay by a sense of calm that was already feeling stretched to its limits.

  “Because I needed you,” Lucifer said to sadly.

  I looked at him. I’d never seen sadness before, but I knew instantly what it was. My stomach grew a little heavier. I didn’t like seeing him look like that, especially when it was because of me. “Why do you need me?” I asked him, as the room finally came into focus for me.

  “Lucy, I have so much to explain to you. I don’t wish to overwhelm you though. Are you feeling okay?” He asked me.

  “No,” I answered him honestly. “I feel like everything is wrong. I feel it in the way that my blood seems to cool in my chest, but yet burns through my veins everywhere else. What did you do to me?” I asked him, because I knew in my gut that he was the reason I felt like this.

  “As I said, we have much to discuss. Would you like to talk somewhere more comfortable?” He asked me as he glanced around the room.

  I followed his line of sight. The room was pretty bare. There was a table, a chair and a blanket on the floor, which is what I was sure I’d woke up on. “Somewhere more comfortable,” I said, as I nodded.

  “You know, you really are the most perfect thing I’ve ever made,” Lucifer said, as he led the way down a long and dark hallway.

  “Do you make many creatures?” I asked him curiously, as I struggled to keep up.

  “I’ve made many in the past, yes, but nothing like you. You are the first of your kind. You are a special rarity, which I do not intend to share,” he said, as he turned back to look at me.

  I could tell from the look in his eyes that he was happy. I could tell from the way that his stare seemed fixed on me that it was me that he was happy about. I wanted to join in with his joy. I wanted to find some appreciation for the fact that he’d brought me to life. After all, without him I would be nothing. I couldn’t do it though. The very life force surging around my body felt wrong. It felt as though I’d stolen it and it was fighting to get back to its real owner. I couldn’t be happy. I didn’t deserve it, not when I was pretty sure that I shouldn’t even exist.

  CHAPTER 2

  Daniel

  I’d never made anything like her before. It wasn’t just her beauty that was incomparable, but her mind. I’d created many demons before, but they never asked questions. They were born from hellfire to serve me. They were born to destroy everything that my father had built. I hadn’t made them to be my friends. I’d made them to be my servants and that’s just what they were.

  Lucy was special though. I’d given Lucy something that I’d never given to any of my other creations. I’d ripped out a part of my soul, so that she might have one. I hadn’t been sure whether it would work. I hadn’t been sure whether half a soul was enough to combat the demon’s natural destructive urges, but I’d been lonely for too long to not try at all.

  It had been painful. My father had not designed my soul to leave my body. I’d tried to slash it with the silver blade that we’d all been equipped with in the early days, but the blade snapped. It took me months of dedicated experiments to work out how I was going to split my soul. In the end, I found that I had to rip it from my body with my bare hands.

  I’d never experienced pain like it. I could feel my fingers wriggling about in my ribcage, as I forcefully pulled at my soul. I felt it tearing away from my insides. I pulled it out in a cool, bluish pool of liquid smoke. I let it sit within my hands for a while. I couldn’t help but notice the numbness that was falling over my body. It wasn’t a numbness of the body, as such. I could still feel the hard chair beneath me, but I no longer cared that it was hard. It was like every emotion that drove me forward was gone. I was a shell of the person I had been.

  I forced myself to pull apart the liquid in my hands, so that it was in two pretty equal portions and then I pushed my half back into my chest. The liquid smoke of my soul seemed to seep into the place that I’d ripped it from. I could feel it growing back into my body, as though it was trying to repair the damage I had caused.

  The other half was still in my hands. Lucy’s sleeping body was on the floor. I’d created her in hellfire just as I had every other of my demons, but I hadn’t woken her up yet. I knew if she woke up before I placed her soul into the body, then it probably wouldn’t work. I’d never left a newborn demon to sleep so long after their birth.

  I’d been told by some of the demons that I asked that the birthing process was painful. They described it as an eternity of their body’s combusting into flames. I’d found it hard to believe at first that they thought it felt like an eternity. I only ever left demons to sleep for a few seconds normally after their creation, but after I kept getting told the same thing I found myself more inclined to believe them.

  I felt bad that I’d had to leave Lucy so long in her slumber. If it had felt like an eternity the demons that I’d woke almost instantly, then I couldn’t imagine how Lucy must have been feeling. I walked over to her sleeping body and crouched down. I could still feel the pooling liquid smoke in my hand and I brought it over her chest, before I pushed it deep down into her.

  Her body shifted as the soul took its grip inside of her. I could see a flicker of emotions starting to play across her sleeping face. I knew that I would need to wake her soon. I knew that the soul would make the pain much worse for her than it had already been. I gently shook her shoulder and started to call to her in her sleep.

  It took a little while to wake her up. I thought perhaps I’d waited too long. I thought perhaps, that all my efforts had gone to waste and I’d messed up. Her eyes started to shift underneath her eyelids though, and I knew she was coming around.

  I straightened myself up and took a step back. I didn’t want her to feel crowded when she opened her eyes for the first time. She managed to open her eyes, but I could tell from the wild look within them that she couldn’t see yet. It took her some time, before her senses calmed down and she was able to talk.

  I could hardly wait for her to speak. I knew that it wouldn’t be until her first words that I’d know for sure whether my plan had worked or not. She spoke. She asked me who I was. I told her. She asked what I’d created her and I told her the truth. I needed her.

  I kept my body, calm, so that I wouldn’t startle her, but my brain was going wild. I couldn’t believe it had worked. It had to work because I’d never known a demon question their existence before. She wanted to know everything. I could tell that the soul inside of her was driving her curiosity and I was all too happy to share with her everything that she wanted to know.

  I took her out of the uncomfortable room and started to lead her to the dining hall. I wanted her to be comfortable when we spoke. I wanted her to know that everything that her heart desired would be given to her without any question. I stopped outside of the beautiful ornate doors that I’d had carved especially for the dining room. “We’re here,” I said, as I pulled on the handle and then pushed the door open, so that she could see the room that lay hidden on the other side.

  Her eyes opened widely in surprise. She looked for a moment, almost happy and that was what I wanted. I wanted to see happiness on her face. I hadn’t created her to serve me. I’d created her, so that my heart could h
ave someone to serve.

  CHAPTER 3

  Lucy

  I walked into the room that Lucifer had opened up to me. It was beautiful. I looked around at the place where the walls should have been, but there didn’t seem to be any. Instead, I could see only an unbroken view of the clouds, as though we were sitting among them. The sky above us was dark, but it glistened with the light of a thousand stars that seemed to have been sprinkled across the universe.

  I walked into the room that seemed endlessly large. Two overstuffed chairs had been pushed close to the center of the room, where a small fire pit was burning. I looked at Lucifer, who nodded, as though he knew what I was asking without me having to speak. I walked over to the seats and sat down in one. “Are you going to tell me everything now?” I asked him, as my eyes stayed fixed on the floating clouds behind him.

  “What is it that you would like to know?” He asked me.

  “Why did you make me?”

  “I told you. I made you, because I need you.”

  “But, why do you need me? I mean, you said that you have many other creations, what makes me so special?”

  “The very fact that you question why you are makes you special,” Lucifer said with a soft smile playing across his lips. He seemed happy that I was questioning so much.

  “That isn’t what I meant,” I said as my forehead pulled into a frown. “You said that you’d never made anything like me before. What does that mean?”

  “It means that I gave you a special ingredient,” Lucifer said with his eyes sparkling. “I gave you a little bit of something extra.”

  “What did you give me?”

  “I gave you a part of myself,” Lucifer said, as his eyes met with mine. “Lucy, can I tell you a story?” He asked me.

  “Of course,” I said.

  “I was born into a big family. I had many brothers and sisters and one father who was the creator of everything. One day, our father got bored with my siblings and I. So, he decided to create something new, something better, something that could make its own choices. He created the humans and he loved them. He loved them so much more than he ever loved my siblings and I. There was no jealousy, though. We were happy that our father had found the love he had always sought. That was, until I decided to seek my own.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked him.

  “I saw what our father had and I wanted it for myself. I wanted to know what love felt like. I wanted to know what it felt like to be willing to give your life for something that you cared about. My father wasn’t happy though. He thought that all his children should only love him. I fought against his word and he expelled me from my home. I fell. I fell, so far that I will never be able to climb back up to where I came from, but none of that matters, any more.”

  “Why doesn’t it matter?”

  “Because, I have you now and so, even if I’m a million miles from home it doesn’t matter. My father thought that by sending me away that he’d stop my chance of love forever, but he was wrong. It’s taken me many years, but I’ve created you.”

  “You created me to love you?” I asked him.

  “I created you, so that we can love each other,” he corrected me, as though there was any real difference.

  “And what if I don’t love you?” I asked him.

  “You will love me,” he said quickly and confidently. “You have everything you need to love. You are the most capable creature of loving that I’ve ever created.”

  “I don’t doubt that you’ve created me with the ability to love,” I said to him. “I only doubt your certainty that it will be you that I fall in love with.” My words sounded brutal as I spoke them, but I didn’t want to sugar coat the truth. Love wasn’t something that could be decided like that. It was something that crept into the very molecules of your being and changed you.

  “You will love me,” Lucifer said and this time his voice was stern. “I have given you everything you need and you will love me.”

  “I hope that it is so, because it clearly means a great deal to you,” I said with a small nod of my head.

  “You will discover just how much it means if you defy me,” he warned me and I could see his confidence being replaced with desperation in his eyes.

  “So, you suggest that I should deny my heart, so that I might not defy you?” I asked him curiously.

  “I’m asking nothing of you,” Lucifer said with a small shake of his head. “I created you to love me and that is what you will do. This is not a request, so please don’t think that you have any choice in the matter.”

  “I have every choice in the matter. You may have created my heart, but it is I that forces it to beat,” I said indignity.

  “You will not speak to me like that,” Lucifer said, as he stood up in a fierce rage.

  “Then perhaps, I shouldn’t speak?” I suggested.

  I could see the tormented look of frustration on his face. The meeting was not going the way that he’d planned. “I suggest that you rethink your stance, before we dine this evening,” he said to me, as he started to walk over to the doors that stuck out against the otherwise unbroken clouds.

  “I suggest then that perhaps, that you present yourself as a person who is much easier to love,” I called out to him, before he slammed the door loudly and left me alone to my thoughts.

  CHAPTER 4

  Daniel

  I had been so busy thinking about whether my plan would work that I’d forgotten to think about what would happen if it actually did. I had been so convinced that I’d be able to create a demon capable of love that I didn’t stop to consider whether she’d actually fall in love with me.

  I walked away from the dining room with anger surging around my body in great waves. I didn’t know what to do. She’d acted as though the idea of falling in love with me was doubtful. She’d acted as though I wasn’t something worthy of loving.

  I stopped when I reached my office and walked inside. The back wall was made out of glass, so that I could look down onto the work floor below. The fires of hell were burning brightly through the window and it was lighting up my office and throwing long shadows against the other walls. I walked over to my desk and sat down in the seat behind it.

  I felt tired. I felt like I was hitting the point of utter exhaustion. I’d put so much into creating Lucy. I’d literally ripped my soul apart for her and yet, I was no closer to making her love me. I reached out for the small intercom system I’d had built into the room. I pressed down on the speaker button until it buzzed and then I started to speak. “Can Johnathan please come to my office,” I said without a trace of emotion, before I let go of the button and waited.

  It didn’t take Johnathan long to get to my office. He knocked loudly, before he pushed open the door without waiting for my instruction to do so. “You called for me,” he said in a gruff voice.

  I looked up from my desk and examined him. He was a big demon. He was perhaps one of the strongest I’d ever made, which had landed him the job as my right hand man. “I’d offer you a seat, but I’m afraid you’ll stain it,” I said, as I took in the blood splattered shirt he was wearing.

  “I’ve been busy on the work floor,” he said as he followed my eyes down to the mess on his clothes.

  “So, I can see,” I said with an approving nod. “I won’t keep you long. I was hoping that I might be able to talk something through with you. It seems that one of my plans hasn’t quite gone the way that I was expecting and I need some advice about how I should proceed forward.”

  “What happened?” Johnathan asked me with a steady voice.

  “It would seem that my plan to create a hybrid demon has worked, but she has not turned out in the way that I had hoped she would. She seems driven to hate me and I’m unsure that I will be able to persuade her to feel anything else.”

  “So, what is it that you’re struggling with?” Johnathan asked me as he went straight to the point.

  “I don’t know what to do with her if she doesn’t ch
ange her mind. She will not fit in on the work floor. She has too much of a conscience to be able to do what would be expected of her. She can’t be left to do nothing though, and I certainly will not want to see my failure around all of the time.”

  “Then it seems to be as though you only have two options,” Johnathan pointed out. “You can either destroy her or expel her.”

  The situation felt impossibly complicated to me, but Johnathan was right. It really was that simple. I only had two options if she refused to love me. I could either expel her from her home or destroy her. Could I really do either of those things to her? Could I really force her to walk among the humans above us when she was carrying a piece of me inside of her? Could I really destroy her completely knowing that I would be destroying a piece of myself in the process?

  “Thank you Johnathan, that will be all,” I said, as I realized that he was still waiting in front of me.

  “I was hoping that I might be able to speak with you about something actually,” he said without making any attempt to move.

  “What is it?” I asked him through the clouds of my own thoughts.

  “We are nearly at the full capacity for the plan to go ahead. I thought you should know that we are preparing to attack,” he said with a dutiful nod.

  “I want you to hold your fire until I’ve given the word,” I said sternly, so that Johnathan knew that I was still in charge of the operation, even if I was distracted.

  “Of course,” he said quickly.

  “How soon do you think we will be ready for the attack?” I asked him.

  “I believe it will be soon. Perhaps another ten years and then we will be ready,” Johnathan said as he quickly did the math in his mind.

  “Let me know if anything changes?” I asked him, before I made a gesture with my hand, so that he knew he’d been dismissed.