Hellfire Saga

by Third Cousins

  “I will,” he said quickly, before he turned and walked back out of the room.

  He left me with stillness. I could feel the thoughts in my mind starting to slow down as the exhaustion started to really sink in. I knew there was nothing I could do at that moment. I knew that everything was relying on Lucy and whether she could fall in love with me. I let my eyes drift closed, so that I could fall into an uneasy sleep that would carry me through the night.

  CHAPTER 5

  Lucy

  I sat and watched the clouds floating passed me. I didn’t know what else to do. Lucifer had left me in the room and hadn’t told me whether I could leave or not. I didn’t even dare walk up to where the walls should have been just in case there really weren’t any windows and I fell right through. I was fine though. The clouds had a calming effect on the deeply wrong feeling that I was carrying in my heart and it was nice to have that eased, even if it was by only a small amount.

  I’m not sure how long Lucifer left me in the room. The sky hadn’t changed from the inky black it had been when I’d entered the room, but I couldn’t assume that ever would. I heard a noise disturb the silence around me. I jumped a little. The sound became clearer the closer to me it got and I realized that it was footsteps. They stopped outside of the double doors that led into the room and then the door started to glide open.

  “I hope you’re hungry,” Lucifer said, as he walked in with a tray in each of his hands.

  I hadn’t had a single thought about food, until I saw it getting closer to me. He’d brought in two huge bowls of pasta that were leaving steam hanging in the air, as he placed them down on a small table, which had appeared beside the fire pit. My stomach grumbled as the delicious smell of freshly made pasta reached my nose and tormented the emptiness that I felt inside.

  “I think I am,” I said, as I walked forward and took a seat beside the table. “Thank you for bringing me this,” I said quickly, as I lifted up a fork and started to stab away at the pasta in the dish.

  “You’re welcome,” Lucifer said with a small smile. “I’ve heard that being created can make you quiet hungry,” he said, as he watched me put an overly stuffed fork of pasta into my mouth. “Have you been enjoying the view in here?” He asked me when he noticed that I’d finished chewing.

  “I think the view in this room is beautiful,” I said. “Is it real?”

  “Is it real?” He asked me in surprise. “What would make you think that it isn’t real?”

  “I don’t know,” I said with a small shake of my head. I wasn’t sure what it was that made me believe that it wasn’t real, but I had a strong feeling that said that it wasn’t. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t help, but feel as though we were deep underground.

  “It isn’t real,” Lucifer said with shock still rippling through his eyes. “It’s a memory I like to display in here.”

  “It’s a memory?” I asked him.

  “Yes, from the place where I was born,” he said, as he took a fork full of pasta and started to chew on it slowly.

  “It must be very difficult to know that you cannot go back there, when it was clearly so beautiful,” I said as I thought back to the story he had told me earlier.

  “It can be very painful sometimes,” Lucifer said with a small nod as he quickly swallowed his mouthful of food. “I am hoping that I might return at some point, though,” he added.

  “I thought you said that you would never be able to return?” I said, because that was what he had said to me.

  “It’s a bit complicated,” he said with a smile.

  I couldn’t help but push him for answers. I could tell from the way that his smile held a slight slyness to it that there was more to the story that he was telling me. “Well, if it’s complicated you better explain it really well,” I countered him.

  “How do I know that I can trust you with the secret?” He asked me with a playful look.

  “So, there is a secret to be trusted with?” I asked him quickly.

  “There are always secrets Lucy,” he said in a wise kind of way.

  “Are you going to tell me yours?” I asked him, as I leaned over the table.

  “Perhaps you will learn all of them in time,” he said in a distant kind of way. “I can tell you this now, though, when I was expelled from my home, I was told that my brother that I could never come back. It’s my understanding that without him, I’d be able to return without any questions being asked.”

  “May I ask you something?” I said to him thoughtfully.

  “If your plan works and you can return to your home,” I said and then I paused, as I thought about how I should word the next part of my question. “What happens to me?”

  He looked at me for a minute with a frown pulling its way across his forehead. I could tell from his expression alone that he hadn’t thought about it before. I could tell from the way that worry was settling in his eyes that it wouldn’t be a simple case of him being able to take me with him. “I don’t know,” he answered me and I could tell that he was being honest.

  “You don’t know?” I asked him a little in surprise. “So, are you saying that if I were to fall in love with you then you would have to choose between your home and me? What have you done to yourself?” I asked him and I felt for him, I really did. I’d seed the beauty that his home had to offer. He’d shown it to me through his memories and that wasn’t something I could ever compare to, even if it wanted to.

  “Perhaps, it is a good thing, then, that you are so content on the idea of never feeling love towards me,” he said, as he tried to joke the situation away.

  CHAPTER 6

  Daniel

  What had I done? I’d worked out a way to get both of the things I desperately wanted, but I hadn’t realized that I couldn’t have both of them at the same time. Lucy had made me see that. There was no way that my brothers would allow me to bring her home. There was no way that they would allow a hybrid demon to live among them.

  I looked over at her. Her eyes seemed fixed to my face, as though she was carefully watching every expression that I could feel roll over me. I tried to keep the inner conflict I was feeling hidden away from her sight, but I could tell that I was failing.

  “What are you thinking about?” She asked me.

  I frowned at her. “I’m wondering what I would do if you were to fall in love with me,” I told her honestly, because I felt conflicted.

  “I think that you would choose to go home,” she said to me frankly.

  “What makes you think that?” I asked her.

  “If you were to pick love above anything else, then you wouldn’t have to think about it. No choice born from love has ever been made from the mind.” She didn’t look upset when she spoke. She didn’t look as though she was disappointed, but there was something in her tone that led me to believe that she’d hoped I might pick her.

  “I can’t say that you are wrong, but don’t often the mind and the heart find themselves in heated battle?”

  “I suppose so,” she said thoughtfully. “I think perhaps though you are forgetting that the heart still plays a vital role in that battle. I could not see your heart mulling over anything.”

  She was right. I hadn’t been thinking about her. I’d been thinking about my home. I’d been thinking about whether I’d really be able to give it up. “So, you assume that if both of my plans come to pass then I will pick going home over staying here with you?”

  “It isn’t an assumption, it’s a certainty,” she said to me with her eyes burning brightly.

  “Does this mean that I can assume that you will refuse to fall in love with me?” I asked her in frustration.

  “It is not a choice I can make either way. I will feel as my heart wishes me to feel, but I will not act upon anything that it might whisper to me.”

  “So, even if you fall in love with me, you will not tell me?” I asked her.

  “I think that is the only fair way for us both to keep our dignity,” she said with
a small nod.

  I thought about what she had said. She was right in a way. If she fell in love with me and I left her for my home, then I would have taken everything from her and she would have walked into it knowingly. No sensible creature would agree to those terms. At least, if she did not tell me then my leaving her would be less apparent to the world.

  “What if I promised to choose you, if your heart chose me?” I asked her.

  She looked at me in surprise for a moment, before her eyes returned to a calming stillness. “I think you should be careful about the promises you make. Do not forget that a promise is much like a secret, you must keep them if you wish them to mean anything.”

  “Do you not think that I would keep my promise?” I asked her. I was a little hurt at the accusation. I’d lived a long life and I’d never gone back on my word.

  “I think that the temptation would be too great for you,” she said.

  I could feel myself losing her. She really didn’t believe that I would choose her over my home. I suppose to some degree I understood, but that didn’t matter. I’d got this far. I’d created her and I was going to make her love me no matter what. I’d been expelled from my home in the pursuit of love and it was that pursuit that I knew I needed to follow. “What would you do if I removed the temptation?” I asked her.

  “How could you remove such a temptation?” She asked me curiously.

  “To get home, I’ve had to grow a great army of demons. I intended to storm my home and kill my brother, so that I might take my rightful place back in the clouds, but what if I didn’t? What if I stopped building the army?”

  “You would do that for me?” She asked in slight surprise.

  “When I left this room you told me to come back as a man more worthy of your love. I am doing only as you asked,” I said with a nod of my head.

  “How close were you to getting home?” She asked me curiously.

  “About ten years,” I said to her.

  “And, you would really call of the attack, so that you could be with me?” She asked me for confirmation.

  “Yes,” I lied to her. I felt bad. I felt awful for doing it, but I had no other choice. I couldn’t really stop my pursuit of returning home and I had another ten years to work out how I would get Lucy to come with me. All she had to think was that I’d stopped trying. The problem would be resolved, before she ever learned the truth.

  “I think, if you were willing to stop building your army, then perhaps you might be a man I could love, after all,” she said with a small smile pulling across her plump, red lips.

  “Then that’s what I’ll do,” I said to her quickly and I stood up, so that I could go and speak with Johnathan about the changes to the plan, or at least the changes that would seem to be happening to the plan.

  CHAPTER 7

  Lucy

  I believed him. I really believed that he’d meant it. I really believed that he would stop the army, before it was large enough for temptation to sway him. I shouldn’t have done that. I should have stuck to what I’d thought was best. I shouldn’t have allowed myself to fall for him. I should have walked away whilst I still had dignity to take with me.

  We’d spent the last nine years together and I’d believed him all of that time. I hadn’t even bothered to look into it. I’d just trusted his word, as though it was somehow bonded to the truth. It wasn’t until I’d gone to visit him in his office and I’d overheard his conversation with Johnathan that I’d known anything. If I hadn’t heard the conversation then perhaps he would have never have told me. Perhaps, he would have left for his home and left me behind without even the slightest of warning.

  I’d waited until Johnathan had left, before I went into his office. He smiled at me in the warm way that he so often did and I tried to mirror it back to him. “We need to talk,” I said seriously, as I took a seat close to his desk.

  “What’s the matter?” He quickly asked me, because he could sense that all was not well.

  “I’m struggling with something,” I said to him in a steady voice that didn’t give away any of my anger.

  “What is it?” He asked me curiously.

  “You see, I was just standing outside the door, when Johnathan was in here and I could have sworn that I heard you both discussing the army,” I said to him, as though I must have got it wrong somehow.

  I waited for him to correct me, but he didn’t. He wouldn’t even meet my eyes with his own. I could feel my rage starting to take over, as my blood boiled beneath my skin. I wanted to scream at him. I wanted him to feel the hurt that I felt inside.

  “Are you going to say something?” I asked him.

  “I don’t know what you want me to say,” he said.

  “Well, you could start by explaining yourself. You could start by explaining to me why you’ve been lying for all these years. You could explain to me why you thought it was okay to lead me on, when you never had any intentions of staying with me,” I demanded to know.

  “I thought that I could find a way to take you with me,” he said quietly. “I thought there was a way that I could bring us both back to my home. I had ten years when I made that promise to you. I was certain that I would find a way.”

  I could tell from the way that he was speaking that he hadn’t found the way, but I asked him anyway just to be certain. “You never found a way though, did you?”

  “No,” he said with his eyes glued to his desk.

  “You never found a way, but you never called off the army either,” I commented.

  “I’m sorry Lucy; I couldn’t stop the army when it was so close to being completed.”

  “How long do you have, before it will be ready?” I asked him with a shaky voice that could no longer contain the anger that I was feeling.

  “It’ll be ready in a year,” he said as he finally brought his eyes up to meet mine. I could tell from the look in them that he was hurting. I could tell that he hadn’t meant for me to find out like this.

  “What are you going to do in a year then?” I asked him firmly, because I had no interest in the pain that he was feeling.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I didn’t think so,” I said and my voice was as cold as ice. “You let me believe that you’d really pick me. You let me believe that you really wanted to be loved. You let me fall in love with you and it was all just a part of your plan. I mean, was I just some distraction to keep you entertained until the army was finished? Is that why you made me? Is that why I have to fight with the most putrid thoughts every day, because you decided you needed someone around who could feel for a while?”

  “It wasn’t like that. It has never been like that. Lucy, please. You need to calm down. We need to talk about this.”

  “I need to calm down?” I repeated back to him. “You want me to calm down after everything that you’ve done? My existence hurts, Lucifer. Do you know what that feels like? Do you know what it feels like when the very essence of you wants to rip it away from your body? You did this to me. You did this to me, so that I could love you and I have. I have loved you. I kept my end of the deal, why haven’t you kept yours?”

  “Lucy, I’m sorry,” he began. “You have to understand though,” he continued, but I cut him off.

  “I don’t have to understand anything. You’ve betrayed me. You’ve made the only source of happiness in my life cause me pain and I’ll never forgive you. What am I meant to do now? What am I meant to do now that my only purpose has been taken away from me? What have you left me with? Were you planning on leaving me with eternal torment and nothing else?”

  “Lucy, you have to believe me. I would have never have left without you.”

  “Really?” I pushed him. “Because you didn’t even tell me that you were going.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Daniel

  She would never forgive me for lying to her. I could see it the deep betrayal that she was feeling in her eyes and it ran deep. I looked at her lovely face. I examined the delicate e
yelashes and pretty ski jump nose. I tried to make everything stick in my memory. I tried to make sure that there was nothing that I would ever forget about the way that she looked.

  “I don’t know what you want me to do,” I said to her. I wanted to make it better. I wanted her to tell me how I could make it better.

  “There isn’t anything you can do,” she said bitterly.

  “There must be something I can do to make this better. There must be something I can do to stop you from hurting?” I begged her to reveal the secret to me. I begged her to let me in, so that I could make it better.

  “You could have not lied to me. You could have not deceived me for nearly ten years. You could have been honest from the start, so that I could have kept my dignity if nothing else,” she said, as her eyes bore down into mine.

  I shifted uncomfortable under her gaze. It felt as though she was trying to read me and I didn’t like it as I felt her curiosity starting to poke around in my mind. “I shouldn’t have done any of those things,” I agreed with her. “But, there is nothing I can do about them now. Is there nothing I can do to make this up to you? Is there no way for me to prove to you that I wouldn’t have left, until I found a way of taking you with me?” I asked her.

  “You can’t prove a lie,” Lucy said.

  “Lucy, I’m not lying,” I said to her, although I knew she had every right not to believe me. “I was never going to leave you here on your own. I love you in the same way that you love me. How can you doubt that?”

  “Are you trying to make me feel bad?” She asked me as her face screwed up in anger.

  That wasn’t what I’d meant to do, but I could see how she’d taken it that way. “No, I was just trying to explain to you that I love you, Lucy.”

  “That’s not what it sounded like,” she said quickly.

  “I don’t know what to do, Lucy. I don’t know what I can possibly do to make any of this better for you. I don’t know whether you’re going to forgive me for this.”