The Devil's Lullaby Read online

  “I am the one that released you from the Ice Prison, yes.”

  So, that's where I had been. It was all darkness to me. Nothingness and freezing emptiness. “Why?”

  “The Guardian decreed it.” He said without inflection.

  I nodded as if I understood but said nothing.

  “The Lord has requested a meeting with you,” Uriah informed me. His sentence trailed off as he took in my furrowed brow and distanced expression.

  “I have no desire to meet God.”

  “The Lord.” He corrected. “Of the Summerland.”

  “Heaven,” I said.

  Uriah sighed again. So heavily that I thought his soul was trying to leave his body. “If you have no wish to meet the Lord, then you will simply rot here.”

  I released the bars and stretched out my fingers, relishing in the pins and needles that had stiffened them. The iron was sturdy but it would not hold me forever.

  “I have no desire to meet the Lord,” I repeated, using his correct title. “I simply want to go back to Hell.”

  Uriah smiled sadly. “It’s been five years, Ms Clark.” He said lightly. “I am not sure that you would like what you find if you returned.”

  I did not know how long I was left alone after Uriah walked away from the bars of my cell. I was beyond incensed.

  Five years had passed.

  My connection to Hell was muted but present, which meant that I no longer slept or needed food.

  I closed my eyes and sorted through my photographic memory for possible ways to break through the bars. Freezing them would have been the easiest option. Chilling the metal and the shattering it into tiny pieces.

  The only problem? My prison was encased in iron, the second that my magic got close to the bars, it would fade to nothing. Stolen by the metal.

  I thought about what Luc would do but came up short. There was always a level of mystery around my Master that I didn’t quite understand.

  Would he have broken through the stone walls with his fists in the air like the warrior king he was?

  Or would he wear his title as the Devil proudly and chip away at his capturer's integrity by offering them anything they could ever want?

  Would he bide his time?

  I surveyed my thought process with a critical eye. Did I always count on others to make decisions for me? Did I simply wait for things to happen to me?

  The Summerland was Heaven.

  I was a Queen in my own right. Any human or Hellion would sell their soul for an audience with me. I may have been bolstered into my pedestal by the Devil, but I had power of my own. And yet, the Lord summoned me like a peasant.

  I huffed a sigh with my eyes closed and my cheek against the limestone. The sound of rushing footsteps was enough to bring me back to the surface from my thoughts.

  I sensed the pulsating anger that wrapped around the air and strangled the oxygen from it. It was a similar effect to that of a Seventh Circle Hellion. They tended to suck all energy from their surroundings like a sponge.

  “Demon,” One of the Angels hissed. His feathers glinted gold and then silver in the light but it was hard to focus on his form. A strange sensation stabbed at the front of my mind. Magic. I tried to focus on the group but my vision slipped over them and I was unable to see straight. It must have been a spell. It almost impossible to look at them, let alone talk back to them. I could not count how many there were, as they snuck up to the bars of my cell like a horde of cowards.

  I had surveyed the bars of my prison numerous times in the hours that I had been left alone, and yet, a door that I did not know existed swung open and allowed the winged peons entrance into my cramped prison.

  The iron gate swung shut and melted back into an impenetrable wall of bars. I could not see how many there were, but the shimmering powder of whatever Angelic spell they had cast fell to the floor like glitter as they moved.

  I felt the air shift as I was surrounded. I laid on the floor, on my side but with my spine to the wall. They could not attack from behind, but that meant little if I could not see my attackers.

  I closed my eyes again and inhaled deeply, taking in their individual scents. There were five of them. They smelt like a combination of fresh rain and citrus fruit. I recognised the scent of Tweedle-Dum, the warrior. Although, his much smaller companion was not with the group of midnight visitors.

  “We’re going to teach you a lesson.”

  “Demons don’t deserve to live.”

  “Lucifer should pay for what he did to our Lord.”

  “Nova is forgiving, but we are not.”

  The low rumble of multiple voices as they spat words at me filled my ears. They tugged on my shoulders to urge me to the centre of my empty cell, and it was enough to make my blood chill.

  The tapered darkness inside of my mind rimmed the edge of my vision and my bloodlust grew.

  The demon inside of me curled my fingers until they sharped to talons. I relished in the familiar feeling of changing my form. My magic reached out like dark tendrils, searching, seeking something to constrict and suffocate.

  Angels were unlike anything which I had ever encountered before. Their shells were human, but their innards were energy and light. I could poison their souls with a simple lick of my power. I watched the white purity of their divinity turn black and I grabbed the body of the closest angel and ripped his head clean off.

  The spell faded from the fallen guard as his life flickered out like a blown bulb. His head fell to the ground with a surprisingly loud thump.

  “I've not beheaded someone in an age,” I mused and then licked the pearlescent blood my hooked talon. It was bitter like soap.

  I felt the others shift as another Angel darted forward and grabbed a handful of my platinum hair.

  I staggered backwards and slammed the guard into the wall with all the force I could muster. His ribs shattered and I dug my claws into his forearms. His arms tightened around my waist as I slammed my head back into the angel’s nose. The crunch of his septum was a sound that I would replay and savour later.

  I ignored the shell and reached forward and gripped the heart of the shimmering guard in front of me, as he stalked towards me. Invisible even to my demonic vision, I clasped where his heart should have been and my magic curled like a barbed wire punch, latching onto his soul and leaving jagged marks all over it.

  Demons were grounded. Flesh, blood, and magic. Angels straddled the line between reality and the ether.

  I punched, clawed and took more hits than I would care to admit. My already ruined clothing had gone hard with blood, and my hair was ratty with the jewel-like angelic fluids that sprayed from their body when they bled.

  With my enemies surrounding me, dead on the floor. I was alone again. My chest heaved and the beast inside of me roared and revelled at the corpses. The proof of my strength.

  They could send as many of their winged weaklings as they wanted. Nothing can break the Queen of the First Circle.

  Chapter 2

  The floor of my cell was covered with an assortment of metallic feathers, which I had painstakingly plucked from the wings of my dead attackers.

  After I had ripped their plumage from their wings, I arranged all five of the Angel shells into the corner. Discarded like broken toys. Their corpses were unnerving, and their eyes were empty sockets with blackened rims, as if their energy had flared and burnt out as their life had fled.

  I had started to arrange the feathers is colour order when Uriah cleared his throat as he stood at the bars of my cell.

  “Should I ask how you managed to kill every single guard on this floor?” He asked with cool indifference as his eyes scanned my body from head to toe. I shrugged and continued playing with the golden feather, rolling it in my palm as if I could manipulate the matter into something else.

  “They came to my cell. I do not take kindly to uninvited guests.”

  Uriah crooked a brow. He clearly did not believe me. I turned back to my extensive work o
f sorting the angel feathers.

  “Gold is Seraphim. What does bronze mean?” I mused to myself, as I tapped my bottom lip with the feather in my hand. The end of the spine was still coated in white glittering Angel blood.

  It tasted like washing up liquid. Foul.

  “Third Choir. Cherubim.” Uriah supplied as he knelt to get closer to the feathers. He did not reach through the bars but studied them intensely with his gaze.

  “I am guessing they’re guards?” I laughed without humour. “Were guards.”

  “Does the death of innocent Angels amuse you?” Uriah stood up. His hand twitched but it was impossible to read the stoic man.

  “Innocents don’t try to kill others.”

  “Demons.” Uriah corrected. I licked my bottom lip and his golden eyes flicked to my tongue.

  “Have you come to extend another invitation to your Lord's table?” I asked.

  “I am not sure the Lord uses a table when greeting prisoners.”

  “Prisoner implies that I have been tried and found guilty. I am here because I was taken.” I gestured around to the limited confines of my cell.

  Uriah did not rise to my bait. “Shall I leave you with your macabre artwork, or would you like to greet the Lord of the Summerland?”

  I eyed the iron bars with contempt. Perhaps if I could bash the Seraphim over the head and make an escape...

  No. Too risky. I knew Uriah was powerful. The fact that his golden feather had been enough to open the doors to the Ice Prison was a testimony to that.

  What else could I do? Sit in a cell and wait for more Demon-Racists to play vigilante?

  I was not inclined to sit still and be attacked. Their attempt to overpower me and the guard’s invisibility was a testimony to their cowardice.

  “I'll come,” I said without looking up from my array of bloodied feathers. “But I would like a t-shirt that is not covered in filth.” None of the corpses had a blouse that I could pilfer, although I had managed to scrounge a pair of trousers that were several sizes too big. I secured them around my waist with a sure grip.

  Uriah opened his mouth to speak but I interrupted him.

  “One that covers my breasts would be preferable.”

  Uriah curled his lip and the bars of my cage melted away with the flick of his wrist. “I have no time to pander to your inane requests.” His golden eyes rested on my hands as if he dared me to attack him.

  I sighed and crossed my arms over my chest, the action caused my trousers to slip down an inch.

  Uriah waved the bars away and I stepped out to greet him, we walked in silence. He urged me forward without touching me, but instead silently pulled a piece of malformed silver out of his pocket. It was the size of a fifty pence piece but shaped like a demented horse. A creeping blackness claimed it’s legs and tarnished the precious metal. He rubbed it like a lucky charm.

  “Why would an Angel carry Devil’s silver?” I asked.

  Uriah urged the precious object to release its magic. “I killed the First Circle Pureblood that carried this token.”

  “No, you didn’t.” I couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled from my lips.

  Uriah blinked slowly and looked up at me; he studied my expression to try to gauge if I was telling the truth. Which was unlikely, considering I was a Treachery Demon.

  Uriah held a horse made of Devil’s Silver. I knew it was designed to inspire feelings of awe and love in its target. I knew that because I had once held it in my own fingertips over a millennium previously.

  “I am certain he is dead.” Uriah snarled through pursed lips.

  “Fallen Angel by the name of Abaddon?” My lips hitched into an easy smile. “He’s alive. Lucifer’s second in command.”

  Uriah shook his head and pocketed the small silver horse. “No matter. The magic still works.”

  Outside of my medieval cell, I walked side by side with Uriah. I understood his need to bare his chest when his wings extended to their full length in the corridor. The building appeared to have sprung from the forest itself, the ground as a collection of blush coloured autumn leaves. The walls were branches that twined together until no light could peek through. The Summerland was nature itself but dusted with white glitter and rainbow facets of light. There was a purity to the Summerland that I had never equated with Hell.

  Hell was blood. Industrious, metallic, burnt and all manner of other things. Hell was conflict and Sin.

  An Angel, with pigeon coloured wings, bowed to Uriah as we walked past. His wide brown eyes flittered over my face but wisely ignored my existence.

  It was difficult to walk with trousers that threatened to fall with every step that I took, but nevertheless, I forced my strides to match Uriah’s broad ones. Everything about him was larger than life. Bronze, toned and angry.

  “You’re important here,” I noted as the lower Angel scurried away.

  Uriah said nothing but slowed his steps to make it easier for me to catch up. I decided to stay silent. My complete lack of knowledge regarding the Angelic had loosened my lips enough to forget the lessons that Lucifer had drilled into my skull with his teachings.

  Stay silent. The first person to speak is the weakest.

  My eyes devoured my surroundings. I counted and catalogued every break in the woven branches, and the orange tinted sky and fluffy clouds beyond the walls.

  My bare feet disturbed the autumn leaves on the floor, crispy and sun-baked.

  We walked past a wood carving, with deep burnt grooves across its smooth surface. It depicted a scene that I was all too familiar with. It was the same characters that decorated the enchanted silver doors of Lucifer’s castle in the First Circle.

  Something about the wood carving unnerved me. The people were the same but the changes were subtle. Anyone that hadn’t stared at the artwork for most of their lives may have missed the differences.

  Lucifer’s wings were extended to their full length with broken feathers surrounding him like shrapnel. In the Hell depiction, he had been righteous and triumphant.

  Something was off in the version of which I stood before. He looked guilty.

  He wore the same expression when I had found out about my pregnancy. When I had discovered his lies.

  In the Hell depiction, Heaven and the Lord were shown as a cloud and a pointed finger. In the wooden carving, there was more. I couldn’t understand what I was seeing.

  In the previously hidden cloud, there was the fallen body of a man. A woman stood over his body, wrapped in a sheet to hide her nakedness. Her mouth was open in a silent scream.

  I shook my head to clear it of my thoughts.

  Uriah gripped the top of my arm and tugged me away from the art on the walls.

  I had a feeling that the wooden carving held a more complete story of how the Devil fell from Heaven. A story that he had never told anyone. Not even me.

  We walked for long enough that I soon grew bored of my surroundings. Uriah and I travelled deeper and deeper into the gnarled sun-bleached trees until we reached a cavern. It was taller than a football stadium and littered with stalagmites and pillars. I felt the flush tropical air press against my skin like a sweaty lover, and my blood encrusted shirt began to loosen as it absorbed the moisture on the air. I considered taking it off, as the garment was beyond disgusting.

  The rocky floor tapered off and was swallowed by a pool of water, clear enough to display the psychedelic colour palette that glowed from under its surface.

  I sucked in a breath and surveyed the surroundings with a cautious eye. Uriah remained by the door, his shoulders taut and on guard as if he was ready to spring into action and protect his Lord.

  The figure rose from the centre of the water, far enough away that I would have had to squint to see them if I was still human. Their entire presence was a glitch. Unnatural, but it stirred something deep inside me that I didn’t understand.

  The humanoid figure had been formed by fragments of sharp impossibility. The Lord came together into a being tha
t brought me to my knees.

  My borrowed trousers quickly soaked through, and I looked up with wide eyes and an open mouth to the woman walking towards me. Her feet hovered above the water as if it was the easiest thing in the world.

  I had the ability to change my own matter and rearrange it into a different form. The very bare bones of shape shifting. I couldn’t even fathom the power that was involved in changing the composition of the water to make it strong enough to support her weight.

  When the slight figure walked towards me, and her form shifted into something more tangible, I noticed that she was not simply walking on water. She was hovering.

  I turned back to Uriah with a sharp glance.

  More magic then I could ever have imagined slammed into me and nudged my body forward until my hands fell into the shallow water to join my knees. I was bested by a creature that hadn’t expended any effort to do so. Her entire existence weighed down my own.

  Uriah’s expression was smug as he leant against the entrance to the tunnel. My jaw was clenched hard enough to make my teeth ache. I bit the inside of my cheek. My fists tightened, hard enough to draw blood. I tried to wake my body from the drunk autopilot that had taken over, with little success.

  I wore the same kind of expression that devout religious nuts showed in the presence of divinity but I could not help it.

  The tiny pinpricks of pain managed to hammer away at the fog that had paralysed me. By the time I had regained control my faculties, I looked up to see a slim pair of naked legs.

  The Lord of the Summerland had a body of a Vegas stripper and the innocent expression of a child. It was a disconcerting combination. Her skin was ebony silk and her hair sat in auburn dreadlocks.

  “Dahlia. Lucifer’s Pet.” The Lord held out their hand to shake my own. I looked down in confusion.

  “I admire the shape of your breasts.” I noted.

  The Lord cocked their head to the side. “Thank you for the compliment.” Her voice was clear and childlike, with a lisp that hitched the end of her sentences. It was endearing, cute. Disarming.