King of Hell

by Melody Rose

  This was one of those moments.

  With Michael’s hand still wrapped around my throat, I saw Lucifer round the corner into the room. His reaction was immediate. His muscles tensed, and his shoulders spread, revealing his glossy black wings, which were trembling. His eyes glowed orange as if they were on fire, his fists were clenched, and it was clear he was pissed off. I was simultaneously grateful that he was here to rescue me and incredibly turned on by his aggressive demeanor as he stood there.

  I felt my neck get warm, and Michael loosened his grip an instant before Lucifer flung him across the room. He smashed into the wall, throwing up a cloud of dust and debris. This brought me back to the broken tile in the hallway. I was now seeing firsthand how something like that could happen.

  When Michael got back up, I noticed a chunk of tile wedged under his skin. When he pulled it out and saw a gush of blood, he hesitated and looked confused as to why this was happening. It occurred to me then that just the fact that I was in the room changed the rules. Especially considering the power these two had, someone could get seriously hurt… or worse.

  Then Lucifer took a deep breath and, with just a flick of his wrist, launched Michael downrange. Michael flew through the air, crashed into the back wall, and fell to the floor. He lost some feathers on that one, and the way he stood up told me that hit really hurt him. His eyes grew dark, and he bared his teeth.

  “Come here to protect your little girlfriend?” I heard him taunt. “Finder’s keepers!”

  He proceeded to fling Lucifer against the wall, and he landed on a pile of spent brass. Lucifer stood up and shook loose debris off of him before turning back to Michael.

  “Is this what we are doing?” Lucifer called.

  “A tale as old as time,” retorted Michael before flinging Lucifer again. Lucifer smashed into the wall next to me. I saw my gun on the table beside him as he struggled to stand back up. I was calculating how to get my hands on it when Lucifer noticed what I was looking at.

  I sensed his hesitation. He paused and just looked at it for a moment. I was hoping he’d find a way for me to either get my hands on it or run out of the room. Instead, he dove sideways as Michael barrelled toward him. Lucifer’s hand wrapped around my gun as they collided and slid across the floor toward Lilith, sending a shower of broken tile toward her feet. Michael stood back up and grabbed a table, but Lucifer flipped over and aimed the Hudson right at his brother. I held my breath.

  “You’re joking, right?” Michael was laughing now. “After all this time, you’re going to end this all by shooting me. Go ahead. Shoot me if it’ll make you feel better. Wish I had a gun, it’d be much more fun that way!”

  A moment passed, and I heard the gunshot, followed by silence. I gathered I hadn’t been the only one holding my breath.

  Michael was bleeding profusely from his stomach. His white skin told me he was losing a lot of blood, fast. “What…? How did this happen?” He sounded weak.

  Lucifer looked crushed as Michael collapsed, shedding feathers as he shook violently. “Looks like you win, brother. You get the girl. You get to access Heaven. You get to get away with breaking the rules.” Michael winked at me.

  That was the last thing he did before he died. Before I could finish processing everything that had just happened, Lucifer got up and ran from the room, leaving Lilith and me to stare at Michael’s body and the now battle-torn gun range.

  After a few moments of us both standing there in shock, Lilith grabbed the broom that lived in the corner to collect the spent rounds and started sweeping up the broken tile. For a moment, all I could hear was the sound of ceramic pieces dragging against the concrete as she swept. Her hands were trembling, and she looked a bit pale, as well. Her eyes looked resolute, though, and I could tell that the task of cleaning up would help her to cope with what had just happened. I went into the cleaning closet and pulled out what I needed to help.

  “You okay?” Lilith asked faintly.

  “Physically?” I clarified. “Yeah. Mentally, I’m not sure. I don’t understand what just happened. Why did Michael come at me that way? How did we get here? What happens now? I mean, Lucifer killed an Archangel. Isn’t that, I don’t know… bad?” I cut my rambling short.

  “I don’t know what happens now,” Lilith replied, her voice wavering. She stopped sweeping and propped herself up on the broom handle. She was staring out at nothing, deep in thought. “This was definitely a long time coming. And I do mean a long time. I… I don’t know what the repercussions would be, though. As much of an asshole Michael may have been, he was an Archangel. I’m surprised lightning didn’t strike down Lucifer immediately.”

  “I hope it doesn’t!” I gasped. “I already feel horrible, since this all started because Lucifer saw I needed help. If I weren’t down here, they wouldn’t have even been able to get hurt. I know I can’t control these powers, but I never thought they would be so much of a burden.”

  “Listen,” Lilith sighed, resuming her sweeping. She was sweeping the same spot over and over again, and I got the impression she just wanted a distraction. “This would have happened, eventually. It was just a matter of time. I am sure that whatever feelings you and Lucifer share, they definitely amplified the emotions in here, but I don’t think we could have avoided this. It definitely feels weird, though, knowing Michael is gone.”

  I stood there watching her sweep, unable to convince myself to move. She looked up after a few minutes, and upon seeing me staring at the floor, she realized that she hadn’t been accomplishing anything.

  “I guess I’m pretty useless.” Lilith looked around at the floor and sighed. “I just feel like I have to keep busy. I don’t know what else to do.”

  I couldn’t stay still any longer. “This whole jump-into-action thing might work for you, but I can’t do this right now. I have to go.” Lilith nodded, and I walked out, heading back to my room as quickly as I could.

  28

  Lucifer

  My back pressed firmly against my locked throne room door, I finally felt safe enough to mentally process what had just happened. It was finally over, millennia of hatred and fighting and threats had culminated in this. I found it amazing that after all of the misery we had put each other through, Michael had been killed by something as mundane as a bullet.

  I felt empty, as though a part of me was missing. A combination of sorrow and relief washed over me, and I did not know which feeling to give way to.

  I walked up to my throne, deep in thought. Michael was my brother, first and foremost. We were supposed to support and lean on each other, but we had seemed incapable of doing that. He never did let go of the decisions I’d made. He caused me to be cast out of Heaven and continued to track me to ensure I could never come back.

  On top of all that, our final battle, which I always assumed would be this big end-of-the-world drama, ended with a mortal bullet wound in a fight over a woman. I had done this to protect Evelyn. While I was perfectly okay with that, it angered me that he pushed me to that point, to begin with.

  If only he had chosen to mind his own business, like Gabriel and the others…

  I went to sit down on my throne, and one of the skulls fell onto the blanket covering the seat. My frustration hit its limit. How long had I been messing with this chair? I went to move it, and two more fell. I blew my top, and I chucked the first skull clear across the room. It cracked against the far wall and then hit the ground, the sound of bone meeting porcelain echoing off the walls. That was satisfying enough that I grabbed the second skull, then the third, and chucked them as well. The fourth one I grabbed got snagged on the white blanket, pulling a strand of yarn, and getting dirt into the fibers. I ripped the entire blanket off and threw it clear across the room into the corner. It slid down the wall and puddled there, discarded and dirty, and I sunk to the ground in tears, defeated and grief-stricken.

  Cerberus came up to me then. He must have been so confused, seeing me in this state. He nudged me with one head, and
then walked in a circle to lay down next to me, his heads close enough to pet. I gave him an absentminded pet on the head closest to me. While I couldn’t muster up the energy to do much more at that moment, I was glad to have him by my side.

  I thought back to the way I had left Lilith and Evelyn.

  “Lilith is probably cleaning it all up right now,” I mumbled to Cerberus. His head stayed on the floor, but his eyes peered up at me when he heard my voice. “She’s good at that. Always puts the task at hand before her emotions. I feel bad. She shouldn’t have to do that. Not for this.”

  “There’s no hiding this, though,” I continued, talking it out for my own benefit, my hand running over his silky soft head almost on autopilot. “I killed an Archangel. That is going to rattle Heaven and set off all kinds of alarms. They will be summoning all of the angels back through the Gates now, issuing a lockdown, and all of the angels up in Heaven will know Michael is gone soon. They will trace his steps and come down here to inquire. Whatever good grace I have had up in Heaven will be gone for sure.” I scratched Cerberus behind the ear. I wondered if Gabriel would still turn the other cheek after this news came out.

  My grief and anguish overpowered my relief, but I did consider the upside to this. Evelyn was safe from any threats to her existence, and I was finally free to live my life the way I wanted to live it, without my big brother breathing down my neck. Perhaps I would ultimately be cut off from Heaven, but that could be a good thing, something which would set me free from judgment and scrutiny. I would be okay with that. I found that worrying about myself had me less concerned than before when I was worrying about Evelyn.

  I looked down at Cerberus. “What do you think, Cerbs? You think we’ll be alright?”

  Cerberus lifted one head, panting in my general direction.

  “You’re right,” I muttered, giving him a final pat on the head. “As long as I’ve got you, we will be just fine.

  I slowly stood up, aware of the pain still lingering in my lower back, and made my way to the bar, Cerberus glued to my side. As I went behind the bar and looked up at the liquor bottles, the lights from overhead shone through the glass, throwing a kaleidoscope of browns and ambers across the mirrored surface of the wall. I grabbed the nearest bottle, a dusty bottle of Glenlivet, and brought it down to the bar top. After I blew the dust off it, I cracked it open and raised the bottle to my lips.

  I don’t get drunk, not really, but I was getting drunk tonight.

  29

  Evelyn

  After spending most of last night sitting in my dark living room, frozen in shock, I finally went to bed, still fully dressed, feeling numb and void of emotions. When I opened my eyes this morning, it took a moment for all of the events of yesterday to come flooding back.

  I laid in bed, staring at the ceiling. I had never given it much notice or thought before. It was a dark stone ceiling and gave the impression that we were in a large cave, and the walls had been constructed up to the top. I guessed that no one had cared enough to worry about constructing ceilings. At that moment, I felt a bit like a rat in a maze, and claustrophobia welled up inside me. I suddenly found it hard to breathe, so I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths, recentering myself and feeling my heartbeat slow back down.

  When I opened my eyes again, I studied the ceiling. I focused on the sharp edges, the soft slopes, the hills and valleys, and the shadows cast across the ceiling by the lamp by my bedside. Anything to distract me from thinking about what had happened yesterday.

  I had never been good at this emotional stuff. I remembered when my childhood friend, Lisa, had lost her cat when he got hit by a passing pickup truck. She was crying, and I didn’t know what to do. I was allergic to cats, so I was never a fan of the thing. Lisa had obviously been distraught, but I knew nothing I said would have been genuine, so I just kept my mouth shut. I felt incredibly awkward.

  It was the same now. I understood that Michael and Lucifer had eons of history that built up to this event, which meant that Lucifer should be distraught on some level. However, I didn’t know their relationship well enough to predict how he would react, and I certainly was no fan of Michael’s. On top of that, it seemed that I was the match in the powder barrel, the trigger that set off this final confrontation, which didn’t make me feel any more confident about how to handle this.

  Maybe I could stay here in my warm, comfortable bed, hide under my thick blankets, and stare at the ceiling all day. Yeah, that would be for the best. But before too long, my body betrayed me, and my stomach growled with hunger. That’s when I realized that I had never eaten dinner.

  Succumbing to my stomach’s ideas, I dragged myself out of bed and into the bathroom. I took a long shower, much longer than necessary. I washed my hair and shaved my legs and then hopped out and spent extra time on my hair and makeup. Once I was done with that, I went to my closet and stood there for a long time, trying to decide on a perfect outfit. All of this was simply to avoid going out there and facing reality.

  I knew I had to get out there eventually, though. I took my time selecting my outfit, which seemed silly to me, as I ended up pairing my jean shorts with a plain black tank. I took a cue from my mom and pulled out my white gold necklace. I usually wore it all the time, but lately, I had been taking it off before my security gigs, and, well, I’d been a bit distracted since the last one.

  Once I put my sneakers on, I stood in front of the mirror that hung on the closet door, adjusting the clasp of my necklace behind my neck. It was a simple outfit, but the extra time I spent getting ready this morning made me feel much more like myself. I was ready to face whatever the day had waiting for me.

  As I walked through the hall, the now-familiar flickering lights overhead guiding my way, I felt the urge to walk past Lucifer’s throne room. I was curious to see if he was in there, and also curious to see what he’d done with the blanket I had made him. I hoped it gave him comfort last night after all the dust had settled.

  I turned the corner and headed to his big double doors, noticing that one of them was propped open. When I peered inside, though, Lucifer wasn’t there. I did see evidence that he had been here recently, though. The cracked skulls strewn on the floor, the broken bottle of scotch in the corner, and the lopsided condition of his throne told me he had not been in a pleasant mood after he had run off. I also saw my blanket in a heap on the floor, dirty and snagged. I saw the same three-headed dog lying there, one head resting on a corner of the blanket.

  My heart broke. I knew that it was just a blanket, but I had put a lot of time and energy into it. Seeing it in a crumpled heap on the floor covered in dirt and dog drool crushed me. I turned and kept walking down the hall toward breakfast, thinking back to how Lucifer had kept my family history from me until it was convenient to reveal it.

  Between that and the discarded blanket, I started to wonder if Lucifer had any empathy at all. It seemed like every time we took two steps forward, we took one back. I began to wonder if our impending Friday night date was such a good idea after all.

  On the other hand, he had just killed his brother. That had to have been tough for him, and based on the condition of the rest of the room, it was possible that the blanket simply got caught in the crossfire. I just hoped that the condition of my blanket didn’t reflect any anger he felt toward me about it all.

  I supposed I would find out on Friday. Suddenly, this upcoming date held a lot of weight.

  30

  Lucifer

  I sat at the breakfast table, rolling a grape around on my plate, dodging the remnants of my eggs and the last piece of bacon. My head ached, and my mouth was dry. I had wanted to get drunk last night, and I finally succeeded. Too bad I had to consume half of my bar stock to do it, and that left its mark.

  My conflicting feelings were still rolling around in my head, yet outside of my room, I was trying to keep myself together. As King of Hell, I didn’t really have the option of showing my sensitive side, not to the souls I punished and cert
ainly not to the rank-and-file demons. Discipline was important down here, that much was certain, and if I showed weakness, well, that just wouldn’t go over well.

  Despite all that, I forced myself to eat the last piece of bacon, as I’d made it a rule to never leave bacon untouched.

  I got up, pushed my chair in, and began to walk, or rather stumble, out of the room. It still felt like it was spinning. When I got to the doorway, Evelyn walked in. She looked fresh and well-rested, her skin glowing and her hair in perfect curls around her face. It struck me at that moment how beautiful she was. She had a worried look on her face though, her furrowed brow and the faraway look in her eyes a telltale sign that she was still absorbed in her thoughts on how everything happened yesterday.

  She looked up at me briefly and smiled at me.

  “How are you feeling? Is everything okay?” she asked as she continued into the dining room, took her seat, and immediately busied herself with some coffee. “Would you like some coffee?”

  “No,” I said with a shake of my head. “No coffee, that is. And I’m fine.” I tapped my chest. “I’m the Devil after all.” I tried to smile and wasn’t sure if I succeeded. It didn’t feel like a success, anyway.

  “Well, if you say so…” she mumbled. “If you wanna talk, I’ll be here.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and the weird thing was that I meant it. Only, I wasn’t quite sure what to say to her, so I decided to give her some space and give myself some time to think. I walked out of the dining hall and made it halfway back to my room before stopping mid-stride. So much had happened between us since that rooftop kiss, and as much as I wanted to avoid doing it, I felt we could both benefit from a good conversation. I turned back around a bit too fast, sending the world spinning. I steadied myself on the wall, and headed back to the dining room, making a mental note to drink some water. I needed to combat this hangover.