by J. L. Myers
“Lies!” Lucifer screamed as he launched in the air. His whip flung out at the same time, snaking around Lord Bathory’s neck. He kicked the young man down to the ground, landing on his chest. Heaving with the need to restrain himself, Lucifer was losing. The vampire gasped with wide eyes, his hands burning as he tried to unravel the coil of lava around his throat. In minutes the weapon would burn straight through his neck, severing his spine. But the intent in Lucifer was hungry for an end. One he couldn’t stop.
Zachias appeared from inside the castle then. Standing right behind Thanatos, he whispered words that were swept away on the frigid air. Thanatos’s bronzed face hardened and he twisted his head to look directly into the red eyes of the auburn-haired man Lucifer had foolishly trusted his and Gabriel’s lives to.
Lucifer’s hope for Thanatos to listen was dead—as dead as Bathory would soon be.
The curved end of the double-ended dagger flared with blue light. Lucifer pointed it downward, aiming at the vampire’s racing heart. Ready to plunge it straight down, he screamed out with desperation, knowing only that if a miracle happened, his offspring could overpower that damned traitor, “Demand the truth from me, and you will know I speak it.”
The blade drove down.
Lord Bathory’s eyes snapped shut.
An ear-piercing whistle halted the blade mid-air as it kissed the vampire’s flesh. Lucifer’s eyes snapped up, captured by Thanatos’s compelling gaze. He’d moved away from Zachias at the speed of light, leaping down from the wide platform and crossing the arena in less than a second. The only hint of his superior speed, aside from his changed location, was the swirling dust left in his wake. His eyes raged with intensity, demanding compliance. “Why are you on Earth? Tell me the truth.”
Frozen like a statue, Lucifer saw his spawn watching closely from the platform, none of them showing any concern for Zachias as he waited back under the draping vines with arms crossed over his chest. Lucifer’s mouth moved, forming words that hurt as they rasped from his healing throat. “To retrieve the souls of Hell and return them to where they belong.”
Thanatos’s chest rose and fell with measured breaths. Palm up, he curled his fingers, forcing Lucifer to stand straight and withdraw the weapon from his target. Lord Bathory scampered out from between Lucifer’s legs. The whip unraveled from his neck, and he gasped a horrid wet sound as Thanatos demanded, “Why?”
“A bargain made with God—to save the woman I love. To save my Gabriel.”
The others from up on the platform gathered closer, sprinting down to create a semi-circle around Lucifer and ignoring the vampire who attempted to scale the tall, smooth walls to escape. Zachias said and did nothing, a sly smile playing across his lips.
“And to end us?” Thanatos questioned.
Lucifer shook his head, some free motion returning to his limbs. “I was not even aware any of you existed until you captured me.”
“Prove it.” Holding his hand out, Thanatos waited, not using the power in his eyes to force Lucifer into submission.
With the others waiting, their own daggers, swords, and spears were held up and ready to retaliate if needed. But their worry was for nothing. Lucifer had meant what he said. Even despite their actions against him, he meant his own flesh and blood no harm. Willing the whip to return to its hardened shape of a curving blade, the blue light from the opposing side went out with a hiss. He handed his only weapon over, laying it atop his eldest son’s upturned palm.
Thanatos breathed out as his broad hand curled around the central hilt. His eyes shifted side to side, his mind clearly racing. “Darius’s father is trapped in Hell?” Lucifer confirmed the fact with a nod. “Then his goal is to free him.”
“So he can control Hell, Earth, and eventually Heaven too.” Lucifer came closer to his son that appeared even older than he did, ignoring the tensing of his other offspring as they pointed their weapons toward him. He eyed Zachias, who hadn’t moved or spoken, and dropped his voice to a whisper. “So that evil can reign and all that is innocent and of light can wither and die. Is that what you want?”
“We only ever wanted to live,” one of his daughters called out, lowering her spear as she brushed the dark hair back from her bronzed face.
Murmurs of agreement echoed around the tight group, and even Lord Bathory gave up his attempt to scale the walls, sliding back to the dusty ground to watch.
Lucifer found their words hard to believe when they were so choked with the smells of death.
Another of his sons seemed to read his mind. “We did not kill a soul. Not one.”
A man that was a good ten years younger added, “But we did not stop the killing either. We led the raids.”
Honest and regretful? These were not the traits of the hybrid race his monsters had created during their time on Earth. These half-breeds were different. Lucifer couldn’t deny they were ruthless and could do much harm, but seeing them now, many with their eyes that wanted to lower in self-loathing but remained high to keep watch over him, painted their motives as clear as their words. Lucifer held out his hand between his body and his son. Thanatos hiked the double-tipped dagger up to his father’s throat, but Lucifer smiled. “Then perhaps we are better off as allies than enemies.”
Thanatos narrowed his eyes, cautious. Then he grasped Lucifer’s hand, the dangerous weapon now clamped between their joined palms. “I have no need to rule the realms. No desire to. Betray us and I will end you myself. I won’t hesitate. I won’t falter.”
Lucifer’s smile grew. “I would not have it any other way.”
As their hands broke away, Zachias was beside them without warning. The black forking veins up Lucifer’s arms hummed with the need to release the darkness inside and throw it all away to seek his vengeance. He growled, “I will enjoy killing you with my bare hands.”
“Now-now. Such violence is unnecessary.” Zachias stood tall, his chin hiking with an air of arrogance. “I am on your side, Lucifer.”
“Lies!”
“It is true,” Thanatos barked, returning the double-tipped dagger to Lucifer’s jugular as Lucifer caught Zachias by his throat. “He told us to hear you out.”
Zachias’s crimson eyes pulsed as he winced, gulping in-between sucking air. But he made no move to fight back.
Lucifer bared his teeth. “Why?”
Zachias’s face burned red with lacking air and his mouth gaped, but no more than a strangled sound escaped. Thanatos lowered the dagger from Lucifer’s throat and hiked his brows as if threatening to force Lucifer to stand down.
With a huff, Lucifer relinquished his strangling hold. “Fine.”
Zachias wheezed in air, bending at the waist to suck more in as he braced on his knees. “To make up”—he coughed—“for my mistake…of…betraying you.”
Distant sounds filled the putrid air, bringing everyone to attention. Lord Bathory fell to his knees, his eyes glowing white as he tipped forward to catch himself on all fours. Head snapping up, his white eyes shifted as if seeing an event at light speed. The silver-blue bled back in suddenly, and his words rushed. “They are coming,” he rasped, blood spitting from his throat that was ringed raw. “All of them. He and his hybrids have all fed. We are outnumbered and outclassed. If we fight today, we die.”
Lucifer burned to release his pent-up rage on Darius and all of the hellions and hybrids. He burned to finally finish this and return to Gabriel for the last time. To save her before it was too late. But he had to be smart. If Lucifer lost today, it was all over. Gabriel would be damned forever.
The sounds grew louder. Hybrids were flooding the outer streets while scampering announced the climbing of hellions from below the castle.
“I know a way out.” To Lucifer’s surprise, Zachias moved to the nearby wall of the arena and pushed with a grunt. A panel shifted inward on one side, revealing a doorway to an underground tunnel. “This leads out below the city.”
Talking rose up from the surrounding castle and a shriek cut the
air. The hellions were out.
Lucifer waved his offspring into the dark tunnel. “This better not be a trap.” He grabbed Zachias by his throat and hauled him toward the opening.
“I must stay,” Zachias rasped out, strong palms smacking into Lucifer’s chest to break the chokehold. Lucifer spun and snarled, and Zachias’s hands waved him closer. “You must beat me.”
“What?” Lucifer stalled, eyes flicking up to see distant firelight glowing from inside the castle.
“They will follow right behind if I go with you, and then we are all dead. Use me instead. Beat me senseless and I will lead them away from you. I will remain your mole in the lion’s den.”
Lucifer still didn’t trust Zachias fully, but that glow inside was growing brighter. Darius would reappear any moment to check on his captives. They had to be gone.
Lucifer moved like raining strikes of lightning, fists and elbows driving, he pummeled Zachias’s face and body without retaliation. Blood spurted, bones cracked, and in less than a minute he fell like a stone, sending a cloud of dust up and around his twisted body.
Revenge had never felt so good and yet so empty. The darkness in Lucifer wanted a worthy opponent, not a volunteering one. He fell over Zachias’s concaved ribs, ready to beat his skull to a bloody pulp.
A hand caught Lucifer’s wrist. “Stop. He helped us. Now we must leave. They are coming.”
Lucifer heard it over the rushing blood in his ears and the chorus of screams that welcomed the night. Darius’s voice. He staggered up, sending one last glance at Zachias who waved a weak hand. “Go,” he rasped.
Snatching his weapon from Thanatos, Lucifer nodded. “Today we live to fight another day. Thank you.”
And then Lucifer was gone, darting through the door and sliding the passageway shut behind him and his offspring.
Chapter Fourteen
Lucifer and his grown offspring moved like the night itself, stealth and light as air. A sense of purpose and anticipation swirled through him as they gathered atop a high ridge and looked down over the city of Babylon. Only two days later, Lucifer was back with his new allies, ready to finally finish what he had started so many years ago. After today all would be set right. Hell’s souls would be returned, and Gabriel would finally be freed of the hell Lucifer had abandoned her to. She would be saved, accepted back into Heaven’s light. And Lucifer would return to the only place he belonged, locked away as Hell’s lonely prince.
A guard was stationed at every corner of the castle, a living hybrid that was immune to the mid-afternoon light unlike their monstrous fathers had been when alive. Each of them was armed with swords, daggers, and spears, their bodies plated in crafted metal to protect their vital organs.
They knew what was coming. Darius was no fool.
And yet they would soon be at a disadvantage.
Fresh human bodies littered the streets, the human cattle Darius had returned with. Some were still as death and missing flesh from their arms and legs and faces, while more than a few had their chests torn open to reveal their devoured insides. Others lay twitching with the last gasps of life as they slowly bled out. But the deformed hellions that stalked the labyrinth streets and chased prey were long gone. Daylight had long since driven them from dwellings that burned hot with fire and billowed black smoke and sent them back to the castle.
Lucifer looked to Bathory as he stared down at the city. His lips were pinned tight and curved downward. Disgust loomed in his eyes at the view of all the fallen humans below. Guilt shone there too. Before accepting God’s terms, he had been one of the deadly monsters. He’d killed at will and with greed.
Now he was here. Backed by almost fifty men and a few women he’d turned through his own bite and his vampiric blood.
“Ready, Bathory?”
The royal vampire gave a stiff nod, and his followers murmured their eagerness too.
It had been two days since Lucifer’s escape, enough time to make a plan and gather their resources while still maintaining an air of surprise. Lucifer turned his head the other way, meeting Thanatos’s determined silvery gaze. It was still hard to believe that this replica of him with his golden hair and bronze skin that looked a number of years his senior was actually his son. The group that backed him was equally as astonishing, all of Lucifer’s seed, his spawn. And they were on the Dark Prince’s side—at least for now.
A deep sorrow burrowed its way into Lucifer’s chest. All these men and women he’d spawned without even knowing had come into the world without his love or intention—when his child, his daughter, with Gabriel had perished. Another punishment for loving what had never been his to love? Another reminder of all his sins?
Falling sunlight warmed their backs and cast their long shadows down the rocky descent. Thanatos withdrew his gleaming sword from the golden rays. “Let us end this once and for all.”
Lucifer nodded, smiling at the fierce look in his son’s eyes. And then they were off, traversing the steep ridge to get to the city below. Continuing as stealthily as they could, Thanatos led the way through narrow avenues and streets, stepping over quiet twisted bodies as they weaved left and right, gaining on the towering castle by the minute. He waved a few of his siblings off to take out the guarding hybrids before they could notice the intruders.
A hand struck out suddenly, stalling Lucifer mid-stride. He glanced down. The grasp on his ankle came away easily, the battered woman too weak to have much strength as she gasped dying breaths. She was human. A victim. Kneeling on one knee, Lucifer’s dagger, dull and not lit by blue light, aimed down at the woman’s heart. “Eternal peace awaits you.”
Lord Bathory’s hand on Lucifer’s arm halted his act of mercy. The vampire’s face pinched with emotion none of his fallen monsters had ever felt. “I could turn her. She may survive then.”
Lucifer sighed, lungs filling with looming smoke. Other torn and broken bodies littered the paths between buildings all around them like forgotten food spoils. The dying gasps and wheezing coughs of nearby victims reached him on the thick air. “That is not why we are here.” He smiled down at the woman—and slid the sword in to pierce her failing heart. “Rest in peace.”
Grunts and thuds redirected Lucifer’s gaze from the lifeless woman and the disappointment Bathory and a few of his surrounding offspring pinned him with. Unlike him, they had not seen Heaven. They could not understand that what awaited this woman was so much better than any life she could have on Earth.
More of his offspring gathered around, having fanned out to eliminate the threat of any hybrid guard that was nearby.
A familiar face appeared through the shadows beyond the opening. “Ah, very good.” Zachias’s red eyes danced with glee. “I did not expect your return so soon. Neither has Darius.” With his face still mottled by fading bruises, his smile became a wince as if his cheeks still had underlying fractures.
Thanatos was by the imposing structure of the base of the castle—peering into the darkness of an unmanned entry. Floored and now in bloody puddles were four men, all hybrids with their throats slit as they bled out at the feet of his spawn that had delivered their quick deaths. “They’re in here, down in the catacombs under the castle.”
The same place Cyrus had retired to with their army after many long nights of killing.
Lucifer stalked forward, but his gaze was wary. Four easy kills, and quite a few others without any commotion to alert their hybrid leader? They’d cleared the city so easily. Too easily. Something didn’t feel right. But as Lucifer reached the entry, he knew there was no turning back. They had the numbers, and they had the intent. Today was the day to end this all. The day he saved Gabriel.
“Take away their fight and render them useless.” Lucifer eyed Thanatos and then Bathory before panning over the waiting crowd of vampires and his own spawn. “I will do the rest.” To Zachias he said, “Time to prove yourself.”
Shortly later, they were deep down in the tunnels under the castle. Thanatos and his siblings took to
the left with Zachias, and Bathory veered to the right with their backup, leaving Lucifer to the stairs right in front of him. Lucifer waited and listened, hearing the wet and raspy breaths of the hellions asleep below, and then he descended too. Double-tipped dagger ready in his hand, mounted saucers burning bright with oils offered minimal light, bouncing off the glimmering metal he held.
Six more steps…
Red ignited from one end of Lucifer’s dagger, dripping down into a long live wire ready for action.
Three more steps…
Blue blazed from the opposite end, the curved metal delivering an eerie glow to the darkness. Sleeping intertwined and on top of each other like worms underground, a sea of monsters were squeezed into the cramped space.
“Pleasant dreams, Hell’s souls.” Lucifer cracked the burning whip out into the air, and every one of the hellions roused at once. Their soulless black eyes settled on Lucifer as hisses and squeals of interest escaped their mouths. Not a single one of them was a hellion-hybrid. “Dammit.” Which meant that prevailing here was only one step closer to success. “Time to die. Now!”
The hellions were up like lightning, rushing for Lucifer and looking only at him. But they didn’t get far.
Surrounded from the entering stairs to the left and right, Lucifer’s offspring and the vampires sprang into action to join the fray. Swords and daggers flashed in the minimal light, cutting into ligaments and muscles to take out the hellions’ legs first and then their clawing arms. Bodies fell one by one from the outside in, creating a barrier to trap the unharmed hellions from lashing out or escaping. Their plan was working.
And now it was Lucifer’s turn to act.
Striking out with the glowing dagger, Lucifer buried the blue length into one heart, then another, and another. In a handful of heartbeats, twenty hellions were lifeless around him as the vampires and his offspring fought the others back. In another few sawing breaths, more than forty clogged up the ground. Then fifty. Sixty.
