If anything were to rattle Luce – shake the very foundation upon which their small brotherhood was built on - any progress they’ve made of being a pack would go up in flames.
And so would the rest of the world.
Fuuuuck.
Chapter 5
Eve left to get some necessities. After that, she decided to explore her new digs in the town wiped off the map of America. Walking down the graffitied road in bumfuck USA, she let the Mad Max vibes roll down her spine. This place was wild. Abandoned years ago, the old highway was splattered in spray paint that stretched for miles. Four wheelers, small bon fires, dirt bikes, random people partying and hooting - this place felt lawless.
She liked it.
Maybe once everyone left for the night, she could bring Anam down here for a while. Let him run through the trails in the woods. Play fetch on the spray-painted highway. Shit, what time was it now? Three in the morning. She needed to get her ass in gear and get back to her wolf.
Eve took a trail that dumped out in front of another old house. A porch light was on, but there were no cars in the driveway. Beyond that was a stable and fenced area. She hung a left and decided to make one more lap around the nothing-here-town. She'd worn the pavement out today. It was a strange habit, but it worked for her.
Every time Eve was someplace new, she would memorize the layout. On rare occasions, Eve would visit cemeteries to chase down death, one ghost at a time, and trick or convince them to go to the light. She had no clue why it mattered to her anymore. No one was worth saving.
Yet obligation and some fucked up piece of her - she'd swear it was morals - compelled her to always try and help the spirits stuck here. Annnnd every time she watched them go, another piece of her grew bitter.
Holy Water helped. Never doubt the power of some good, premium, freshly blessed Holy Water. That was the true nectar of the Gods.
Sadly, this town was empty of everything. Life. Death. Groceries.
A half mile down, Eve hung a left and saw a small white building. I’ll be damned, it was a church. Ignoring the no trespassing signs, Eve pushed the lovely mahogany door open, ignored the candles flickering, the cross, and the stained-glass windows. Her sights were set on the basin of Holy Water glistening in the low light. Reaching into her purse, she pulled out her reusable straw and shoved that fucker right in.
The first gulp lit her up. The second gulp thrilled her. The third calmed her. And the rest was a steady ride to Numbville. A priest watched, stunned, from the altar. She winked at him while she drained that basin dry.
After slurping loudly and obnoxiously with an I-just-drank-all-this-and-still-want-more noise, she flexed her wings all the way out. He'd either think she was a miraculous wonder of divine proportions, or he'd fantasize about her later as some cosplay chick with an Angel fetish.
The priest dropped down on his knees and started praying. Poor guy probably thought she'd been sent to him as some kind of Divine apparition. Saddest part of it was, Angels were already among the humans, they were just better at hiding their wings than her.
Fuck, her wings. She abhorred the damned things.
Eve bumped the church door with her ass and waved too-da-loo to the poor guy thinking he was witnessing some kind of miracle.
Woooo, that was some strong water. Her fingers were tingly already.
Eve hiccupped while hobbling down the steps. With this much Holy Water in her system, she was all kinds of loosey-goosey. Her feathers draped like satin down her back.
Staggering down the sidewalk, it took her a hot minute to remember she’d pinned her new house on her phone. Took three tries to open the app. Ten minutes of stumble-walking and taking a short cut, Eve was back at the house Lazarus insisted she stay in for now.
Anam was outside waiting for her, like he always preferred. "Come on, boy." She opened the front door and headed in.
It was dark and empty inside. Feels like home, she thought dimly.
“You hungry?” Eve grabbed a fresh cut of meat from the fridge and tossed it to her wolf. Eve also added some extra ice to his water bowl.
“I feel like shit,” she grumbled.
A bath would do her good. She smacked her shoulder on the corner of the doorway when she left the kitchen to go upstairs. There was a good-sized dent in the drywall. Oops.
Once upstairs, Eve grabbed her trusty bottle of sleeping pills and dumped them into her mouth like candy. Anam growled disapprovingly before resting his big ass body against the tub and smacked his jaws, licking the remnants of his late-night snack away.
Eve stripped out of her clothes, climbed into the hot as hell water, and sighed.
"You've got to be more careful, Flower."
Startled, Eve slipped and dunked into the water. Popping her head back out, as sloppily drunk and dazed as she was, water sloshed out of the tub and all over Anam.
"Damnit, Lazarus!" She didn't cover herself up. "You shouldn't sneak up on a woman in a bath like that."
"You shouldn't be eating sleeping pills like that."
"You should mind your own business."
"You are my fucking business." He calmly walked into the bathroom and sat on the edge of the tub. Leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, he sighed. "You need to sober up, Eve."
She ignored him and poked the faucet with her big toe.
"Flower."
She hated how it always sounded like he cared when he called her Flower. If Laz cared, he'd have made everything different. Or showed her how to do it herself. But nooooo. Lazarus, the Golden-Winged Know-It-All Asshole Motherfucker never helped her get what she wanted. Instead, he uprooted her from her perfectly wonderful safe space and forced her to come to this dumbass town and for what? Eve wasn't buying that bullshit about staying on Holy Ground being a hazard. She was spitting distance from a church now!
Nothing Lazarus ever did was helpful. Yet, she followed him here and trusted him just like always.
Eve hadn't changed at all. She was still a fool for the Angels from her past - Lazarus most especially. Even after she saw the arsenal of weapons he’d stashed in the spare empty bedroom and told her nothing about.
"If Michael is truly back," she said in the quiet, "does that mean he'll have a second chance to kill him?" She couldn't even say the Devil's true name.
"I've said it a thousand times, you can't kill an Angel like Michael."
"And it seems he can't be locked up, either." He'd only break out again somehow.
Her grey wings filled the oversized tub and made the water look dark and dirty. The feathers that had turned bright red reminded her of spilled blood. God, she hated this.
"What's going to happen?" she whispered.
Lazarus pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't understand anything I see anymore. The future is not there."
"Well then," Eve cleared her throat and did the most sensible thing she could think of with her drunk self - she grabbed her cell phone and pulled up a song on her playlist. "Let's ride this storm until I finally find my peace and they find theirs."
They listened to the music and avoided making eye contact.
"They will find peace, right, Laz?"
"Oh Flower," he rubbed his face with both hands and his wings dimmed to dark. "No. They won't."
Chapter 6
"I want to set up a few places in each country for my Hounds to continue their training," Luce said with both hands on the wheel. "They should probably stay out of Hell until we figure out the best schedule for all of us down there."
Ruling Hell was not for the faint of heart. It was a constant juggling act of energy control between Divine, Damned, Hell Hound, and Gatekeeper powers. It took some getting used to.
Lucifer exchanged a proper amount of power to Gabriel to get him started, but the brother would need more if he was going to stay longer. This was, in essence, a trial run both for Gabriel in Hell and for Lucifer up here. They were playing this by ear and Lucifer needed to be ready to return at a moment's notice if
Gabriel tapped out early.
Regardless of how much Lucifer wanted to, there would be no fighting Michael today or even tomorrow.
First, they needed to hunt the motherfucker down. And since Lucifer was still trying to gain his bearings, hunting Angels would be a challenge right now. Second, Luce needed to make sure he was one hundred percent prepared for the ultimate sacrifice: Death.
Lucifer had thought long and hard about it. Do unto others and all that shit only worked with those trying to live kind lives. Angels and other magical beings lived by another set of rules - What you do, will come back to you.
Lesson fucking learned.
Knowing that's how it would most likely be, Lucifer had a decision to make: End Michael at the risk of ending himself. Or, well, there really wasn't a fucking or. When the time came for Lucy to sacrifice himself for the greater good of mankind, he'd do it with no regrets. Until then, he kept that doom and gloom to himself and focused on making sure his brothers could handle Hell without him. That was going to take a while and time was not on the Devil’s side.
Speeding down the road, he didn't dare look up at the sky. Call him paranoid or delusional, but it felt like the evening star kept staring at him. Following him. Mocking him.
It was total bullshit. And no, he didn't really think a star was glaring at him. But the thought of Eve always made his insides twist and head play tricks on him. He spent the better part of his existence trying to forget her. Only to reunite with her memory in dreams and nightmares.
Really, it was stupid. Carrying the memory of a female who'd been a part of his life for such a short amount of time was a weight he should have lifted from his shoulders long ago. But Eve was like his wings – a part of him he missed.
But just like his massive wings, Eve no longer existed. She’d vanished. Winked out of life. Was annihilated.
So he carried her memory and worshipped it.
Lobbing the heads off the Angels who beat her, Lucifer waited for satisfaction to come. It never did. That closure didn't exist for him. So Lucifer, in an effort to survive his unbearable heartbreak, did the next best thing: He tried to move on.
His ladies were sent to him during a time Lucifer was his weakest. Getting locked in Hell took a toll on him. After a while, he turned animalistic, starved... savage.
Gabriel, with the encouragement of Uriel and Constantine, sent women down to Hell to ease his suffering. Lucifer was ruthless with his fucking. Like he could burn out his energy and frustration with their bodies as therapy, Lucifer fucked them for his survival. Once he managed to gain back rational thinking, he did something even worse: Lucifer tried to fuck Eve’s memory and his grief out of his system.
It never worked.
Maybe it wasn't supposed to.
Maybe Eve was the scar he chose to keep.
Soon after, he backed off his ladies and hated what he’d done. Hated how ashamed he felt for his behavior. Hated that his ladies never once found him at fault for his desire or his heartache.
Lucifer stopped touching them, but encouraged each one to satiate their desires however they wished. He taught them to fight and defend. Encouraged good conversations and enabled their freedom because he couldn't have the same for himself. He cherished and spoiled and loved them all in a different way than he had Eve.
Then he lost his ladies too... in a violent way. Killed right under Lucifer’s nose, he wasn’t able to stop their final deaths. And it was all Michael's fault. That piece of shit took all the good things away from Lucifer.
The Devil clutched the steering wheel and damn near strangled the fucking thing.
"You alright?" Uriel asked cautiously.
No, he wasn't alright. "Does it really matter?"
"Yeah."
Lucifer pulled off the side of the road in the middle of wherever the fuck they were. "I need air."
He needed more than that. He needed balance, a good fuck, and a stiff drink. He needed Michael on his knees. He needed his past to get out of his head so there was more room for the future.
Slamming the car door shut, Luce walked on the shoulder of the road. It was dark as a cavern this far out into the country and the stench of farm animal burned his nose.
He had every intention of visiting a few more packs before settling down into a house to start containing the infections malanum kept spreading on Michael’s behalf. He also planned to hunt down those motherfuckers and put them in a heavily guarded area of Hell's prisons, which also meant he needed more Gatekeepers since the majority of his perished.
Holy shit, he was up to his balls in this nightmare.
Lucifer dragged a hand through his thick black hair. How had everything become so fucked?
He knew damn well how. And the truth was so ironic, it hurt. Lucifer had grown too comfortable with his power seat in Hell. That comfort turned to cockiness and that cockiness had landed him in the worst position to climb out of.
Just like Michael with the brotherhood.
Uriel, Constantine and Gabriel were the only allies Lucifer had. The rest of the Angels never said or did anything to help him since the conception of Hell and the perfectly balanced faith-based system. Nope, not a single one of them ever said “Thank you” or “Hey man, you’re pretty alright” or “Wow, Lucifer, that was so generous of you… sorry we always treated you like a savage beast in a cage strapped to enchanted chains and a muzzle and all… man, were we wrong about you.”
Nope. Besides his brothers, no Angel spoke to Lucifer after the fall of the Brotherhood.
But they sure as fuck didn’t mind reaping the benefits of Lucifer’s gracious nature and Constantine’s story weaving since then.
How strong was divinity really? Lucifer shuddered to think of what that could mean for humans. Angels were deceitful. All because he was trustworthy didn’t mean anyone else was. And here, in an effort to make peace, he’d spent all this time making sure all of divinity was strong and cared for. That their jobs were made easy because his was so fucking hard.
It was biting him in the ass now.
“Have we fucked the world, Uriel?” His goddamn throat was too tight to swallow all the saliva building up in it.
“No, we’ve protected them. Always. And we’ll do it until we fucking die.”
Uriel was using the word We. Like he was trying to take part of the blame for everything happening.
“I should have killed him.” Lucifer whispered into the darkness, “Why didn’t I just kill him that day?”
“Because you were trying to not be like him, Lucifer.” Uriel shoved his hands into the pockets of his crisp jeans. “We all try so hard to do the opposite of everything Michael did to us. We give second chances, we show mercy, we don’t hurt to hurt or break people just to see how many pieces they can bust into. We’re better than him, that’s why we didn’t kill him.”
No. They couldn’t kill him. Hadn’t that been what Lazarus said? An Angel like Michael couldn’t be killed.
Still, Lucifer should have tried. “I should have done something more that day.”
“What more could you have done?”
“Fuck if I know, but there had to have been something I missed. Maybe I should have impaled him in a hundred ways.”
Uriel winced. “You’re better than him, Luce. You’d have never done something like that.”
“You’re wrong. I would have and I should have. I’ve done worse to those in Hell who deserved such treatment. And I’m no better than him Uri,” Lucifer slowed down. “I’ve fucked up in a thousand ways. I let death come to my Gatekeepers, my ladies, my Hounds…. I’ve lost control of malanum. Every bit of this is because I’m just like Michael. I got comfortable with the idea that no one would ever try to do something in my world. I let my guard down. Relied on my trust in others. And look what’s come of it.”
“Not the same,” Uriel shoved Lucifer’s shoulder. “Don’t you let Michael into your head like this, Lucy. You’re so much better than he was. You should have been the one to rule
the brotherhood. Not Gabriel. And not fucking Lilith.”
Luce chuckled half-heartedly. “No one would have ever followed my rule, Uri. Especially after I cut the heads off the Angels who ruined Eve.”
He couldn’t say killed. Killing would have been a kindness to his girl. They weren’t kind. They were cruel and disgusting. They ruined her. Beat her. Left her for the wolves…
Lucifer growled. The wolves. They fed her to the one animal Lucifer felt most connected to. Even to this day, he wondered if those motherfuckers chose those animals on purpose as a personal fuck you to him… or were wolves just the most vicious and hungry animal available to clean up their dirty work.
Luce envisioned the wolf pack devouring her. Eating Eve down to the bone. Swallowing her soul, her fight, her wild nature. Their howls were her cries. Like her soul got swallowed up and lived in the heart of every wolf so when they howled in the night, it was her freedom song.
That was the only way he could survive her loss. To think she was still out there – not just her energy in humans, but her wild spirit bloomed in the wolves that loved the night as much as she had.
“I can’t stop thinking about Eve,” he confessed. “Stupid right? But I can’t shake her. Ever since I stepped into this realm, I keep,” fuck, he felt like a fool. “Shit. I’m so fucked in the head right now.”
Uriel didn’t say a word, which wasn’t very comforting.
In silence, they stood in the middle of the road and Lucifer had no clue where it led to. In the pasture, he could hear the scurry of smaller animals like fox, opossums and mice. He smelled their musty odors, heard their squeaks. Those sounds awakened him in a strange way. He loved and hated it at the same time.
“Come on, let’s get to the house. We’re not going to do anyone any favors running ourselves into exhaustion.”
Raise the Dead Page 4
