by Dante King
Lucifer Reborn 2
Dante King
Copyright © 2021 by Dante King
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
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Chapter 1
Lucifer cackled madly, shocking the assembled angels into silence. A cloud of brimstone-scented smoke rolled over the clouds, and when it disappeared, the Prince of Darkness had vanished.
I clutched Maddie tighter, placing myself between her and the group of seriously pissed-off angels glaring down at us. Like my girlfriend, these guys wore golden halos and sported white wings fluttering between their shoulder blades. But there the similarities ended. The angels assigned to guard the golden gates of the Celestial Academy weren’t chosen for looks, but brawn. Just from sizing them up, I could tell they took their jobs very seriously.
“You heard the man,” I said, brushing a faint coating of soot from the shoulder of my new white robes. “We’re the furthest thing from intruders. Lucifer secured enrollment for me in the Celestial Academy, and I’m guessing from Maddie’s wings that she’s automatically enrolled. We’re your newest students.”
Dual Enrollment. The words, pronounced with Lucifer’s well-known flair for the dramatic, sent a shiver down my spine. As the first human being to attend the Infernal Academy in nearly a century, I had the dubious privilege of attending classes in both Hell and Heaven. Considering I had both a demon girl and a fledgling angel in my burgeoning harem, that made a certain kind of sense.
The Celestial Academy lay before me, ready for my entry. The only problem was the fuming mad pack of holy rollers standing between us and it.
One of the angels—the same tall figure who’d tried to bar Lucifer’s way upon his appearance—stepped forward from the pack. “You are not welcome here,” he said, his voice like the booming herald of a trumpet. He couldn’t quite decide whether to point at me or Maddie, so his finger aimed at the open space between our shoulders. “You may be dressed in holy guise, and your woman may even have the wings of a seraph, but you are not of the Celestial Realm. Make like your Master and flee this place!”
Next to me, Maddie suppressed a shiver. “Maybe we should do what these guys want, Luke. They look pretty tough…”
Maybe they did. But I’d spent far too much of my life already doing what other people wanted. Being a nice, polite member of society hadn’t gotten me very far back on Earth: in fact, it left me with little more than a beat-up old van and a failing IT business. The night I took a job at the house of my former crush Christina Herbert, I’d been running on fumes and dodging past due notices on the rent for my crummy studio apartment. I shuddered to think of what my future might have been like if I’d never activated the Morningstar Program and selected the Angel of Darkness.
Now? Now I was a prime candidate for Lord of Hell—the heir apparent to Lucifer himself. With a sweet car, a swanky magical apartment, and a growing entourage of hot demon babes. And I hadn’t gotten a single bit of any of it by being nice, or by going with the flow.
I wasn’t about to start now.
“Nope,” I said, grinning. A single step across the clouds put me in front of Maddie, shielding her from any sudden attack the angels might be able to put together. “Maddie and I are fully-accredited students of your divine institution. In fact, I think today is our orientation.”
The lead angel’s hands turned into fists. Lightning flashed in one of the pure white clouds behind him, as if the Almighty himself were pissed off by this turn of events. Hell, for all I know, He was. It wasn’t every day a demon-trained human got to attend the most prestigious academy in the Celestial Realm.
“Orientation?” the angel said, practically spitting out the word. “What would you know about it, whelp?”
I shrugged. “Well, I’m straight,” I said, the corner of my mouth curling into a smirk before the angel. “Maddie on the other hand is definitely a bit more flexible. Isn’t that right, babe?”
The angels stared at Maddie as if she’d grown a second head. Spots of color rose to my girlfriend’s cheeks, but she did a little pirouette as if I’d just introduced her to a group of friends at a party. Although her silky robes were of a similar material to the angels’, and her wings were just as pearly and fine as theirs, none of them held a candle to her in the looks department. In fact, each of the angels had a strangely androgynous look, like David Bowie in the middle of his Ziggy Stardust period. None of these guys and gals looked like they played guitar, though—maybe a harp.
“You are to leave at once,” the angel hissed. The air at his side shimmered, and suddenly he was holding a massive sword forged from silver. The blade was so sharp that it seemed to cut the very air as he moved, slashing through the fabric of reality. “I will say this for the last time. You are not welcome here!”
“I have every right to be here!” I retorted.
The world around me dimmed, the edges of my vision turning blood-red. Damn it, I’d been in such a good mood just a few minutes ago. I’d been all soaped up and naked in my subspace’s shower, Maddie in my arms telling me all about how much she loved me and wanted to be the queen of my harem. I’d expected her to transform into one of my demonic paramours, like Christina and Mareth before her—instead, she’d sprouted wings and brought us to this place.
Not that I was complaining, of course. Now that I was here, I was honestly kind of pissed off that my rights as a student of the Celestial Academy had been hidden from me.
The angels behind the guy with the sword tensed up, expecting a fight. I wasn’t sure what passed for honor up here by the Pearly Gates, but they looked more than willing to jump into the fray to support their boss if this turned into a bloodbath. Of course, I’m not going to get a fair fight, I told myself, reaching for my power. They think I’m a demon. They more or less consider me Lucifer himself…
Black wings unfurled from my back. The fine robes Maddie’s transformation had put on me tore at the shoulders as I began to transform, readying myself for combat. Searing warmth sizzled at my fingertips, ready to boil over into flame at the slightest exercise of will. I watched the lead angel’s eyes widen, his calm exterior broken for the briefest moment by the display of Infernal p
ower.
“Abomination,” the lead angel growled, lifting his sword above his head. “Long has Lucifer desired access to the Celestial Academy! None of his spawn shall ever pass these gates!”
“Spawn?” I felt my eyebrows shoot to my hairline. “I’m not Lucifer’s spawn, dude. I am fucking one of his daughters, though.”
Maddie broke out in a fit of giggles. “Her name’s Mareth,” the former waitress said with a smile, basking in the glow of her new power. “And I’ll thank you not to say awful shit about her, because she’s awesome!”
I hadn’t thought the angel could look even more taken aback, but somehow, he managed it. “You’re both insane,” he said, glancing to either side to make sure his posse was with him. “I should strike both of you down right where you stand!”
Both of my palms erupted in flame. “Bring it,” I growled, flashing my transforming fangs. “I always knew the only way I was getting into Heaven was over a mountain of corpses—”
“Wait!”
As one, the legion of angels froze. A figure dropped from the top of the Pearly Gates, his features a study in panic. He landed on the cloud below, wisps of fog roiling around the hem of his golden robes as he put himself between the angels and us. “Stop this at once!”
The lead angel sheathed his sword. “Myles,” he said, his eyes narrowing. Dimly I recognized the man’s name—it was he who’d mistakenly greeted us at our arrival at the Celestial Academy. Right before all Hell broke loose in Heaven. “What are you doing?”
“Stopping you before you do something you can’t take back,” the golden-robed angel said. “You heard the man. Does anyone here really want to start the semester off by getting on the Prince of Darkness’s bad side?”
The head of every angel moved as if on a swivel to stare at the newcomer. “Since when have you heeded the words of the Lord of the Pit?” the lead angel demanded, his hand traveling back to the hilt of his sword. I swallowed hard. If things boiled over into angel-on-angel violence, this close to the Pearly Gates, then Maddie and I were in trouble, indeed.
Fortunately, the newcomer kept a cool head. While all the angels had a strange, ageless quality about them, he nevertheless looked older than the rest of the group—like the kindly old grandpa in a warm family comedy film.
“Look at her,” Myles said, pointing at Maddie. They all did—to be fair, Maddie was pretty damned easy on the eyes. Looking at her was no difficulty. “She has wings. She conjured robes for herself and the human without even breaking a sweat. She’s a shoo-in for a halo. Virtues, half the Lesser Seraphim don’t have the kind of control over their magic that this young woman’s already proven herself capable of.” The angel’s old man face beamed. “If you want to keep such a promising young pupil away, that’s between you and the Almighty!”
Maddie’s beauty and grace seemed to sway the pack. The battle-ready stances in the other angels shifted, the soft marshmallow texture of the clouds beneath our feet blowing gently in the wind.
Even the angel with the sword noticed. “Aye,” he admitted, a line appearing in his forehead just beneath the rim of his halo. “Perhaps this Madeleine woman is to be given entry to the Celestial Academy. She has made the initial steps of her transformation, after all.”
“Very good.” Myles’s shoulders sagged with relief. “Now—”
The point of the silver sword was an inch from my face. The leader of the angels had leveled it at me in the blink of an eye, right when I’d begun to assume we were going to get inside of the Celestial Academy without a fight. Ambushed by the blade, all I could do was hold up my hands and pull in as much magic as possible, holding it at the ready.
“But this one is forbidden,” the lead angel growled. “He’s Lucifer’s chosen, by the Virtues! Letting him enter our hallowed halls would be nothing but madness!”
A general muttering of agreement met the lead angel’s proclamation. They might have been willing to bend the rules a bit for Maddie’s sake, but the black wings protruding from my back and the fangs filling my mouth marked me as different from anyone else entering the Celestial Realm. I stood out like a black sheep in a field of white—one with the logo of a death metal band shaved into my wool.
“We’re not starting the Day of Judgment this afternoon,” Myles said firmly, turning the angel’s blade away from my face. “Kill one of Lucifer’s chosen candidates and there’s liable to be an army of demons on our doorstep come nightfall…”
I could tell the guy with the sword wanted to say ‘good’, or something badass like that, but deep down he saw the sense in Myles’s words. I’d known men who refused to back down when they realized they were wrong, digging in their heels like an ostrich burying its head in the sand, but the angels of the Celestial Realm weren’t like that at all.
Instead, the angel with the sword stepped aside smoothly, sheathing his blade in the same motion. “Very well. We’ll allow the Headmistress to decide this one’s fate.”
Nods of assent filled the cloud-covered field. Maddie’s hand gripped mine tightly, the fingers interlacing as if she wanted to remind me that she was there. As if I could possibly forget. The warmth of her body filled me with lust, and I was keenly aware that only a few minutes ago, I’d been buried hilt-deep inside of her, watching her gorgeous face contort in ecstasy as she whimpered my name.
“That’s who we should have been speaking to in the first place,” I said, allowing my bravado to carry me. With an effort, I retracted my wings, pulling back from the demonic transformation that had begun to take place. “Obviously, there’s been some sort of misunderstanding. Let’s speak with the woman in charge.”
I didn’t want to sound like the kind of person who called for the manager at the first sign of trouble, but in this instance, it seemed necessary.
“Xerxes,” the angel with the kind face said, directing it at the man who’d so recently stuck a sword in my face. “Go fetch the Headmistress. Take the troops with you. These two won’t cause any more trouble. Will you, Luke?”
I didn’t bother asking how the angel knew my name. “Don’t start any trouble, and there won’t be any trouble,” I growled, giving the angel named Xerxes my best mean mug. “You put that pig-sticker in my face again, you’d better be ready to use it.”
With a grunt, Xerxes took wing. Despite the anger I had for him and his cadre of angelic guards, I couldn’t stop the feeling of awe that filled me as they took wing and flew right over the Pearly Gates. Every molecule of this place was suffused with wonder, like a soft-focus daydream straight out of a Hollywood picture. I could never get tired of staring at this perfect, heavenly landscape.
Once the guards were gone, Myles relaxed. “Virtues, but that was close,” the angel said, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead. “I, Myles Featherfinger, am in charge of welcoming new students to the Celestial Academy. Normally, there’s nowhere near this much fanfare involved.”
“Yeah, you mentioned your name earlier.” I still felt prickly about having a sword thrust in my face. “You and your friends don’t seem terribly happy to see us.”
To my surprise, Myles laughed. “Can you blame them? The two of you have come from down below, in the parlance of the student body. Hell is what we try to avoid in the Celestial Academy, whenever and wherever possible. The idea of allowing someone who attends classes in the Infernal Realm to sit beside good, Almighty-fearing angelic students... well. It gives most of these old cherubs conniptions.”
I decided I liked Myles. Maybe it was the fact that he was the only person who didn’t seem bothered when my fangs came out—or maybe it was a little bit of that demonic power in my blood, helping me win friends and influence supernatural creatures. Either way, I already felt like I’d known him much longer than a few minutes.
“You know, I went to college,” I told him, dropping my voice to a conspiratorial tone. “Read Paradise Lost in English Literature. So I know your secret.”
“Secret?”
I grinned, pulling Maddie
tighter against me. “Lucifer used to go here,” I told the man, chuckling. “He’s a legacy.”
“The legacy of legacies,” Myles said, rolling his eyes. “Not that you’ll see any trophies or banners with his name on it, despite all the records he broke. No one’s in a hurry to repeat that particular mistake—”
Before Myles could go on regaling us with tales of Lucifer’s pre-fall exploits, a crack of brilliant white light appeared from between the Pearly Gates. The wrought-gold bars creaked as the entrance to the Celestial Academy slowly swung open, accompanied by a salvo of triumphant trumpets that made the soundtrack to the monolith scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey sound tame in comparison. Three figures stepped from beyond the golden gates, half walking and half fluttering over to where we waited. Two of them I recognized as guards from our arrival; they were flanking the VIP in the middle like bodyguards.
As they got closer, I understood why. Standing between them with a beatific expression was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen.
She glowed—literally glowed. I’d heard of gorgeous women who had an aura about them, but this girl radiated a peaceful, holy light from every pore of her smooth, flawless skin. Her robes wrapped around her curves like the premium version of Maddie’s outfit, so lavish and expensive-looking they made my girlfriend’s angelic uniform look like a K-Mart’s discount rack next to Victoria’s Secret. Even her halo seemed nicer than the others, cocked at a jaunty angle that highlighted her brilliant blonde locks. Her hair was such a bright, platinum shade of blonde that it looked almost white.
Her face could have been anything from twenty-two to forty-five. But the aura she possessed made it clear that she was undoubtedly thousands of years old. When she looked at you, it was as if she’d already seen your entire life unspool inside her skull like a film reel—and she’d been looking at all the naughty bits to see how many sins you’d committed.
Myles dropped into a smooth bow, going down on one knee in a haze of cloud. Next to me, Maddie did the same.
