The Third Throne: Angel of Darkness (10 page)

She heard Hades greeting the angel with his usual charm just as she was pulled down the stairs.  She heard the name Adrian before the door closed behind her.

Caleb spoke for the first time as they descended the stairs past her room.  “Lord Hades has issued a command. I must heed him.  I’m sure you know by now the consequences for failing to obey orders.”

Michelle realized it must have been a long time since she’d entered the realms if Caleb had a usable tongue.  She was a little surprised to hear his accent.

“Yeah, little weasels get their tongues removed with rusty screwdrivers,” she snapped and tried to pry her arm away from his unyielding hand.

“Pray you never learn for yourself,” he glared at her as they made their way to the bottom of the stairs.

“Let me guess, I’m not going to my room to rest,” she said dryly, nearly tumbling down the staircase.

“You catch on quick, Mistress,” he dragged her out of the castle and straight to the Realm of Poison.

“The next time Lucifer kicks the crap out of you, I want to watch,” she snarled at him.

He sneered at her then turned to the angel in charge of the Realm of Poison.  “Nolan, please make our guest comfortable,” Caleb handed her over to a tall blonde angel and ran back to the castle.

Nolan nodded, grabbed her wrist, and in she went.  She landed on a pile of scorpions and prayed for a meerkat to eat the nasty little things.

“How are you feeling today, my Lord?” Hades asked, entering Lucifer’s bedroom.

Few were allowed into Lucifer’s private domain, though most would run screaming if they did enter.  The angel had a serious penchant for mounting things on his walls as trophies.  Even his headboard was made from the bones of his enemies.  It was hardly The Plaza, but when one spent an eternity in darkness away from the light of God, it tended to cause a person to become a little batty.  The only thing that Hades enjoyed about the room was the ceiling that had all the constellations accurately painted on it.  He missed the heavens and he missed the stars.

Lucifer sat on the floor, staring at the large fireplace in his room, catatonic.  He looked wrecked.  In all his years, Hades had never seen his brother in such disarray.  He had a thick beard, his shirt was ripped in multiple places, and his hair was knotted and mangled.  Yet, the most disturbing thing was Lucifer’s eyes.  They were haunted and distant.  The reflection of the flames in his eyes showed the chaos inside of Lucifer’s mind.  On a positive note, his hair and eyes were darker and closer to normal.  Normal for the raging insane Lucifer, not the Heavenly goody two shoes Lucifer.

Hades had tried to speak to him multiple times since his self-imposed hiatus, but it was not only difficult to witness his brother in such a state, it was nearly impossible to listen to him.  He could kill the little bitch for what she had done to him.

“That good, huh?” Hades threw himself into the black leather chair next to the fireplace facing Lucifer.

Lucifer didn’t acknowledge Hades in the least.  Seemed he had forgotten how to blink as well.  He sat with his knees against his chest and his arms wrapped around them.  He looked like he was trying to count the number of flames in the fireplace.

“Well the good news, if you can call it that, is that Mark is walking and talking again, and at the same time no less.  Adrian said that he is nearly recovered and expected back shortly, which is good, since I hate Adrian.  He asks more questions than Mark ever did.  It makes me long for the good ole days when the Heavenly Angels were so disgusted by our actions that they wouldn’t dare enter beyond the Hall of Winds.  I guess Mark has grown accustomed to it after all this time.  The boy finally grew up.  According to Adrian, Michael has been barking mad and sends requests for your head hourly.  I told Adrian to pass along the message that you were tied up, and would see him once we found the scissors.  Seriously, though, Michael will not be pleasant to deal with.  I warned you of the consequences,” Hades watched a tear ran down Lucifer’s cheek.

Wonderful, seems we’re still sobbing in our soup,
Hades sighed to himself.

Lucifer had been moaning and weeping over what he had done to Mark.

“Really now, I don’t understand why you are so upset.  If you are going to feed someone his teeth, then you should own what you did, and not feel sorry about it. It’s a waste of time, in my opinion,” Hades shrugged, which only made Lucifer whimper.

He decided to change tactics.

“I just had a conversation with the little bitch.  She is enjoying her time here.  She has found all sorts of ways to occupy herself.  She still hates you, I’m afraid,” Hades braced himself for the reply.

“Please, I’ve asked you not to call her that.  She has done nothing wrong.  I am to blame,” Lucifer muttered.

Well, at least he had stopped weeping hysterically whenever disparaging remarks were made about his mistress.  The first time Hades called her a bitch, Lucifer wallowed for an hour and begged Hades not to say such reproachful things.  Hades couldn’t handle the begging and sobbing.  Typically, he enjoyed it from his prisoners and servants, but from the Prince of Darkness it was disturbing.

“My apologies, my Lord.  I hate to see you like this.  I’m worried about you, and not just because we have work to do, as always, but because you are important here.  Who would run this place if you weren’t around?”  Hades was trying to break Lucifer from this curse.  Lucifer hated the thought of anyone running Hell but him.

“You would do fine in my absence,” Lucifer waved a hand in Hades’ direction.

“Did you just compliment me?  I think I have a headache.  For the love of all that is holy, beat me, yell at me, or spit on me, but don’t compliment me.  It’s disturbing,” Hades held the bridge of his nose and tried to think of a way out of this disaster.

“I never should have brought her here,” Lucifer whispered as he continued to stare at the flames.

Past crying and ranting and on to remorse, soon he would be back to his wonderfully brooding self.  He needed Lucifer to pull himself together and then make sure this never happened again.  Hades had quickly understood the problem and was working on a solution.

“That’s right; you shouldn’t have brought her here.  She can’t stand the sight of you.  She cries in her room every night because she is afraid of you.  I don’t know what will become of her,” Hades put on his best concerned face and waited for Lucifer to continue his pity party.

“She has every right to hate me.  I stole her, Hades; do you understand what that means?  I took her away from her life.  I have done nothing but lie to her.  I’m nothing but a selfish bastard.  I thought I knew what I was doing.  I thought I had everything under control.  Everything was so well planned.  Once I got her here, I foolishly believed that everything would be perfect.  I didn’t fully understand the consequences.  I only cared about my obsession to find her,” Lucifer roughly wiped a tear from his chin.

“Would it have changed anything, had you known the consequences?  It didn’t seem to matter when you threw Mark into the flames.  I told you of the consequences, yet the boy still ended up with third degree burns,” Hades replied quickly.

He had a Hell to oversee and babysitting Lucifer, more than usual, was causing his control to slide.  Lucifer was not the best manager in the world.  He typically spent more time indulging himself in his own ventures than actually running Hell, but he was there when Hades really needed him.

“No.  I would still have done anything I could to get her.  I guess I would have prepared myself better, had I known.  Mark brought his fate upon himself by sticking his nose where it didn’t belong.  I do regret hurting him as badly as I did.  A punch to the face probably would have sufficed.  He was never one for pain,” Lucifer sighed.  He ran a hand through his dark hair and continued to sulk.

“If all you were going to do was punch him, I would have gladly done it for you,” Hades rolled his eyes at the mess Lucifer had created.  He looked to Lucifer’s bed and remembered how the girl said that she hadn’t slept with Lucifer.  “How do you prepare yourself for the effects of lust, exactly?” Hades had seen Lucifer take complete strangers into his bed.  Why had he not claimed his mistress yet?

“I don’t know.  I’ve had countless women, yet none of them affects me the way she does.  Neither Maraquette nor Serena ever came close to making me feel the way she does,” Lucifer said shaking his head.

“They were insane.  Give her time and she will become like them, then you won’t have to worry about her anymore.  Of course, you could simply forget about her.  This girl aside, you are going to have to get your rank ass off the floor and rejoin the rest of us.  You can’t stay locked away in here forever.  I have been making excuses for you.  I said you needed a little vacation,” Hades smirked.

“I have tried to forget her, but I can’t.  I thank you brother for taking care of things in my absence.  I guess it is time to get off this floor,” Lucifer chuckled as he slowly stood up.

“Did you just thank me?  I think you need to wait at least another week or two until you get your ‘bad’ on again.  The others will eat you alive if they hear you say thank you for anything or see the dried tear stains on your shirt.  Maybe we should burn that shirt.  You know you can’t lose control of your domain.  It would be your ruin,” Hades clasped his hand on Lucifer’s shoulder and nodded to him.

“I know.  You’re right.  That’s why I have stayed locked away.  You don’t know what it has been like for me Hades.  You have no idea.  I can feel again,” Lucifer sat down on the bed, and hung his head.

“I do remember what it’s like to feel and it sucks that you have to go through it.  It’s so much easier to live here and do our jobs when all of our feelings are locked down tight.  It’s easier to hate when you can’t feel remorse,” Hades shuddered at the memory.  He hated having his feelings brought back to the surface.  He actually regretted all of his scheming and plotting, which was a waste of time.

Lucifer sighed and held back a sob.  “What am I going to do Hades?  I can’t be around her, yet that is exactly what I want to do.  I can feel her presence even now.  She calls to me.  I think about her all the time.  I wonder what she is doing.  I want to know what she is thinking.  I’ve gone mad, and not the usual kind of madness.  Murdering no longer appeals to me. All I want is to feel her skin against me rather than choke the life out of someone.  I don’t know how to snap out of it,” Lucifer rose and paced about the room.

Hades had a few ways to snap him out of it, but figured it was a rhetorical question.  He had to find a way to cease this caterwauling.  The angel that paced in front of him like a simpering child was not the Angel of Darkness that he both feared and admired, he was an angel ruined by a woman, the worst kind of angel.  Hades swore he would never fall in love with someone who could destroy him like that.  He would rather die than sit around pining over a woman.

Katarina would have his balls in a vice if he cried over her, or for any reason other than having his balls in a vice.  She was his kind of woman, cold, cruel, calculating, and amazing in bed.  Lucifer needed to find someone more like her.  Of course, whenever he did, the woman would slowly lose her mind until she became uncontrollable.  It was doubtful that Lucifer would cry about a woman like that.  That gave him a few more ideas.

“Perhaps you need to go to the surface for a while and have sex with lots of different women and forget about your mistress.  Go, clear your head.  I’m sure it will do you good,” Hades shrugged.

It had better
, he growled to himself.

“Don’t you think I have pondered that and every other option?  I have thought about leaving, about finding someone else.  I thought about leaving her alone until I am strong enough to resist her.  I am ashamed to say that I even considered killing her,” Lucifer’s voice was quiet as he stopped pacing and turned to stare at the fire again.

Hades liked where this was headed.  “Perhaps that would be for the best.  As I said, you have a tendency to ravage their minds and turn them into female versions of you, but with boobs and a serious need for blood and revenge,” Hades said matter-of-factly.  He leaned against the bookcase opposite the fire and pretended to look at the books.

“That will never happen!  No matter what she does to me, and no matter how much I suffer, I will not allow her to be harmed!  I hate myself for even thinking it.  If anyone were to harm her, I would set every one of his bones on fire.  I would crush his skull in my hands.  He would know pain like no other before them.  Eternal damnation would only be the beginning,” Lucifer roared as he turned on Hades like a panther set on feeding.

Hades moved quickly, hoping that Lucifer wouldn’t lunge at him; otherwise, he would be missing an arm or two, which would put a serious kink in his plans with Katarina.

“Of course not, my Lord, no one will touch the girl,” Hades straightened up and bowed.  The formality rose up in him quickly as a defense mechanism.  At least Lucifer was back to wanting to kill.  He just hoped that Lucifer wasn’t going to start with him.

“Good.  Make sure of it.  As my second-in-command, I expect you to take care of things.  She is included in that.  You will see to her wellbeing,” Lucifer panted.

“Of course, my Lord, I will see to it.  I just want you to reconsider the idea of finding another,” Oh, he would see to her, that he swore.  He would make sure that she was killed or deranged enough to be killed.

“Hades, you don’t understand.  When she entered the Throne Room, I could feel her from the Realm of Nightmares.  I was afraid that she would never come.  I had called to her for so long, I’d almost given up hope that I would obtain her.  I was running out of time and becoming desperate.  You saw how insane I was.  I knew I had to do something.  Then a miracle happened, he made a mistake.  Creeper was able to find him and ultimately found her.  I knew where she was and I reached out to her.  For the first time in countless millennia, I could hear her.  I was positive that she could hear me.  The bond between us was stronger than ever.  It allowed me greater access into her mind and I tricked her.  She had no idea what she was doing. I wasn’t sure that she would comply, so I waited.  I was shocked when I won.  Hades, I finally won.

“When I saw her lying there in that horrible pink outfit, I wanted to laugh, really laugh for the first time since falling from Heaven. I was overjoyed that I had finally gotten her.  It was more about the victory than about her.  I had accomplished something her father swore I would never be able to do.  I realized it was more about my obsession to best him than about caring for her.  That’s when I looked into her face and remembered all the feelings I had when I first saw her.  Even though she looked very different, she had the same effect on me.  I wanted nothing more than to steal her away, lock her in the lowest, darkest place here, and covet her.  My obsession stopped being about winning and more about hoarding her.  How can I find another when I feel this way?” Lucifer groaned and curled up on his bed.