From Hell with Love (48 page)

Niccolo tried to deny Lucifer’s approach with a cross slash aimed at the angel’s midsection, but Lucifer threw his arm holding Lux against the strike, sending sparks as their weapons clashed against each other.  Off-put by the power behind the blow, Niccolo was not able to stop Lucifer when the angel threw his left hand underneath Niccolo’s right arm and grabbed the collar of Niccolo’s tunic.  Lucifer then planted his right foot behind Niccolo’s body and threw his hip out before pushing Niccolo’s upper half, sending the human tumbling to the ground.  Niccolo was about to scramble to his feet, but then he felt the point of Lucifer’s short sword against his throat.

“That was dirty,” Niccolo grunted, but Lucifer only laughed before letting his sword blink out of existence and then offered his hand to the young man.  Niccolo took the help that was offered him and grunted as he was pulled to his feet.

“Sorry, kid, but once you live a few centuries in Hell, you’ll see that nobody plays fair,” Lucifer said as he helped the Horseman.  He watched as Niccolo twisted and turned, popping parts of his spine and other joints which had become rigid during their sparring session.  After a moment, Niccolo groaned and then crossed his arms.

“And I shouldn’t trust
you
most of all, is that the lesson?” he asked before giving Lucifer a childish look.  The way that Niccolo acted around him made Lucifer grateful; he could pretend he was not in charge of thousands of wayward demons and fallen angels.  With a smile, Lucifer walked up to Niccolo’s side and laid a hand on his blighted shoulder.

“Never ever, Nico.  The day you trust someone down here is the day you get let down.  If nothing else, you should take that away from our sessions,” Lucifer said before walking toward the exit of the courtyard, taking time to look at the hellish landscape around them.  The Devil did not leave his palace very often, so many people came to his palace and kept him from having any free time, but he took solace in looking out on the four quarters of Dis.

“There have to be some people I can trust, Scratch,” Niccolo said as he came up to Lucifer’s side, staring out on the angel’s realm with a distinct longing.  “They can’t be all bad.”

“They’re not,” Lucifer stated before sighing, leaning up against the post at the top of the stairs.  The Death Quarter lay below them, and while it was a desolate and macabre section in Dis, it still was more interesting than the resplendent palace forty yards behind him.  “You just never can tell, Nico.”

“Why not?  Why does it have to be that way?” Niccolo asked, oblivious that he was having such a heavy discussion with the supposed scourge of the world.  It just seemed natural to speak with such familiarity, which he did not realize was what made him so endearing to the fallen angel.  Lucifer turned slightly to take in the sight of his young student, a slight smile crossing his lips before turning back to look at Buné’s spire.

“I’ve lived a long time, Nico.  Longer than most of these other fallen angels.  I was the first creature created by Adonai, millions and millions of years ago.  What I’ve seen,” he said before sniffing, recalling everything that had happened to him, “is that no matter how much you want to trust someone, you can’t offer yourself completely.  You have to hold something back, Nico, or you’re going to get hurt.”

“Who did you trust that you hurt you so much?” Niccolo asked, his childlike nature causing Lucifer to chuckle softly.

“So many people, Niccolo.  Some of the punishment I was given I deserved.  I guess I betrayed Adonai before he betrayed me,” Lucifer said before looking off into the distance, past the Death Quarter, past Dis.  He saw the face of his creator and tears started to leak out of his golden eyes.  “That did not stop it from hurting.”

“Why did you do it, Scratch?” Niccolo asked, drawing the confused gaze of the Devil.

“Do what?  Betray Adonai?  Start the war?” he asked, the human by his side giving a small nod.  Lucifer looked down before crossing his arms and shifting his weight, staring at the steps leading away from them.

“It seemed wrong, Nico.  Adonai created us and we were grateful.  We had to do so much, complete so many tasks, but we owed so much to our father.  But…the station we were given,” Lucifer said, falling into his memories, “it seemed wrong to be so powerful and so helpless.  When he started the evolution experiment, it looked like Adonai was finally realizing what he wanted to do with the world.  But then you guys, you stalled out.  I could feel your willpower, your desire to achieve something, to be more than just silly primates subsisting on plants and animals in the forest.”

“And Adonai,” Lucifer said, tears falling freely but his voice becoming more assertive.  “he just watched you suffer.  Watched you as you were killed by animals with better instincts and natural weapons.  It just seemed so cruel,” the angel faltered momentarily, shaking his head.  “He created you to
die
.  He created you so that he could laugh and watch you get devoured; watch you lose your loved ones.”

“I knew there was more to you.  I could see inside your minds and the potential you had.  I had to do something.  It started small, Nico,” Lucifer said, regaining his self with his sense of pride, looking fondly on the young soul by his side.  “I showed them what a heavy branch could do to a hyena.  Then I shoved some stones and rocks in there, showed them the potential of the world around them.”

“And you guys just went
crazy
!” Lucifer shouted, smiling wildly at the memories.  “God, just a small push and you guys just went flying ahead of the rest of the animals.  I was so happy at first.  I didn’t even think I was truly betraying Adonai; I didn’t think I was messing up his experiment that much.  It was something new to watch.”

“He…” Lucifer said before sniffing and looking out on his kingdom.  “Adonai didn’t see it that way.  Not at first.  So…the rebellion happened.  And I lost,” the angel admitted before turning to his protégé.  “So the story goes.”

“Do you,” Niccolo started, shifting to his left leg as he felt the awkwardness building up inside him, “do you regret it?”  As soon as Lucifer heard the word “regret,” the angel was already shaking his head.

“Not in the slightest, Nico.  It was the right thing to do and you humans…you’ve accomplished so much.  Even
Adonai
can’t deny
that
,” Lucifer said with a small dose of venom before turning to face Niccolo, his back to the post he had been leaning against.  “I would fight for you every day.”  Niccolo smiled before turning to look down the stairs, waiting for their guests to arrive.

“I’m going to have to ignore that one lesson of yours, then,” he said, drawing a skeptical look from the angel beside him before he turned with a grin.  “Since I trust you and everything.”  It took Lucifer a moment to take in the statement, at first he was surprised, but then he broke into a weary laugh.

“Here I am trying to give you a lesson about the world and I go and undermine it right after,” Lucifer said before shaking his head and stepping forward to put his arm around the Horseman, looking down the steps leading away from them.  “I’m a terrible teacher.”

“People don’t look to you for teaching, Scratch,” Niccolo admitted, raising his blighted hand up to cover Lucifer’s on his shoulder.  “You’re an example.  I don’t care what the texts say, that the bible condemns you.  You’re much better than the people I knew back on Earth,” he said before turning his head to look at Lucifer, who was glowing with pride.  “As long as you keep being you, you don’t need to prove a goddamned thing.”  Lucifer eyes almost started to water up again, but instead he smiled, took his arm from around Niccolo and then shoved him to the other side of the gate.

“You’re gonna make the Devil cry, Nico.  That’s not nice,” he said, drawing a wicked smile from the leper standing across from him.

“Who said I had to be nice?  This is
Hell
, after all,” he said before gesturing toward the palace with an over-emphasized flourish.  As he did, he noticed a yellow demon staring at them from the nearby awning.  His smile disappeared as he took in the creature’s appearance and the fury that seemed to leak out of him.  Niccolo’s reaction prompted Lucifer to look up to the roof, causing the angel to curse under his breath.

“Mammon?” Lucifer called out, causing the yellow demon to stand up to his full height, his bat nose quivering in anger.

“So that’s how it is, huh?  A couple months of sparring and you two get all chummy?” Mammon shouted, his fists clenched and white-knuckled.

“What are you talking about, Mammon?” Lucifer shouted, his hands on his hips.  Niccolo looked at the angel and realized that he was taking a confrontational stance toward this demon.  Although he recognized the name, Niccolo had no idea how important this creature was to Lucifer.

“No, I get it, Dad. 
I get it
.  I’m out of here.  And you,” he said as he turned his head to look at Niccolo, extending a chubby index finger toward the leper.  “Watch your back.”  With that last threat, Mammon turned and walked away, the claws of his feet tapping against the stone of the roof.  Lucifer sighed as he realized what had just happened, but Niccolo was still confused.

“
Dad
?” he asked, the question making Lucifer sigh and bring his palm up to his face.

“That’s Mammon, Niccolo.  Also known as the Hellborn,” he said before bringing his palm back down and turning to face Niccolo.  “Also known as my son.”

“I didn’t know angels and demons could
have
children,” Niccolo said before biting his lip.  The fallen angel looked down in shame before breathing deeply.

“There’s only the one, Nico.  After Mammon, we realized that we never should have tried,” he almost muttered.

“Why is that?” the leper asked, not willing to guess as to why something would weigh so heavily on the Devil.  He was shocked the see Lucifer break into tears for the second time in the same day.  On Earth, he would have never thought the Devil capable of such a thing.

“It’s not like life on Earth.  We angels were made differently; made of energy rather than true matter.  In order to make a new soul, we had to sacrifice parts of our own.  I guess…I guess I didn’t give enough,” Lucifer said, his voice shaking before making eye contact with Niccolo, his golden eyes shaking with emotion.

“I was in love with an angel named Lilith.  She and I had been fond of each other for so, so long.  She had more youth and vitality, she was not as jaded as I was, but still she joined my rebellion.  Lilith was my first recruit.  For trusting me, she was banished to Hell with the rest of us.”

“She didn’t complain, though.  Even as the darkness filled this world around us, even as some of us started to turn on the others, Lilith stayed strong.  She was the mortar that held this city together.  Lilith was my foundation.”

“So,” Lucifer said, struggling with his memories and laying his hand against the railing nearby.  “When we started to think about rising up or trying to take back Earth, we decided to do something to bolster our numbers.  We experimented with having children and Lilith was my beautiful bride.  I made her pregnant and spoiled her as much as I could,” Lucifer said with a smile, remembering the face of his angelic lover.  Almost immediately it was replaced with a stoic look, as if Lucifer was trying to abandon his emotion.

“We didn’t know that it would take our energy if we tried to make children.  Lilith became weaker every day as Mammon feasted on her life; I couldn’t give her more of my own soul.  I didn’t know I had to, Nico,” he admitted, staring at the floor.  “When Mammon finally came out of her womb, that…my
son
,” he faltered, anger filling his voice with the memory, “he ate his way out.”

“I’ll never forget the look on her face, Nico,” Lucifer said, turning his golden eyes toward the human across from him. 

“I…I’m so sorry, Scratch,” Niccolo offered, his eyes filled with tears for the Devil.  He did not even think about the nickname Lucifer had been given or how it would normally irk the pale angel.  Lucifer sniffed loudly and wiped away the tears from his eyes before staring at the roof where Mammon had watched them.

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Nico.  That one was on me.  Lilith trusted me and now she’s dead.  Can’t trust anybody, Nico,” he said before turning to the Horseman with a forced smile.  “But…I’m not going to let that happen again.  I won’t let one of my brothers watch his happiness die just to make something…someone like my son.”

“I’m still sorry,” Niccolo said before hearing a pair of footsteps coming from the Death Quarter.  He looked down to find Buné and the Pale Rider approaching them, a pile of scrolls tucked underneath their arms.  Lucifer followed his gaze and tried to recover his usual nature, the tears and pain absent from his face, though Niccolo could still see the remnants of his misery playing through his features.

“Buné!  About time, you bastard,” Lucifer said, propping his hands on his hips and letting the rest of his sorrow fade away.  They were just memories, after all.  The blond fallen in the decorated armor gave Lucifer an incredulous look as he approached with his student in tow.

“I had to find Cadmus, first.  There was no way I was going to get all these scrolls to you without him,” he said, stopping a few steps below Lucifer and Niccolo.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Cadmus apologized, coming to a stop beside the armored demon.  “I had to perform a reaping earlier.”

“Oh, no.  Who, if I may ask?” Lucifer questioned before adopting a look of concern.  The reaper below them cleared his throat before breathing out.

“Agares, sir.  Crocell ended him swiftly and he didn’t have to suffer,” Cadmus said, avoiding eye contact as he discussed the slayer's mercy.  Lucifer nodded before motioning for them to come up the steps.

“A shame, Cadmus.  And stop calling me
sir
.  Makes me feel old,” Lucifer said as he stepped aside and allowed them to pass.

“You
are
old, Lucifer,” Buné said with the slightest twitch at the corner of his lips, drawing a light chuckle from his friend.  “But I will admit that he doesn’t need to treat you with extra respect.”