The Third Throne: Angel of Darkness (7 page)

“Tempting, but no, I like my spleen where it is.  The last time I got too close to Lord Lucifer’s fists, I couldn’t see straight for a week, so I don’t need my only free week in forever to be laid up in pain.  I’ll scare up Azazel for you,” Sebastian rolled his eyes and exited the hall through the archway that led to the Realm of Fire.

“Fine, just hurry,” Hades waved his hand to Sebastian to set him in motion.

Hades carefully walked up to Lucifer, mindful to keep enough distance to avoid the blood spatter.

“My Lord, you have other business you need to attend to.  She is waiting for you,” Hades knew Lucifer would want to unwrap his new present and that it was probably the only way to pull his attention away from pummeling Mark.

Lucifer paused as he set up another vicious swing to Mark’s head.  Yes, the girl.  What was he thinking?  He was wasting time with this pathetic angel.  He threw one last punch, for good measure, and hefted himself to his feet, out of breath.

Mark moaned and twitched on the ground from the pain.  Blood pooled around him, soaking his clothes.  Mark tried to move his uninjured leg around in an effort to roll to his side.

“He ain’t pretty no more.  You have no idea how many times I have wanted to do that.  Did it feel good?  I’ll bet it felt good,” Hades muttered more to himself than to Lucifer.

Lucifer wiped the splattered blood from his face with his sleeve and took deep breaths to calm his mind.  He tucked his wings into his back and pictured the girl, naked, in his bed. He turned to walk away, ignoring Mark’s coughs and gags.  He was more focused on the tightness in his pants than how much he wanted to finish Mark off, permanently.  Hades was right; he had much more interesting business to deal with.

“I’ll be back to scoop you up in a minute,” Hades quickly spoke over his shoulder to Mark.  He was too busy steering Lucifer out of the hall to deal with Mark just yet.  Hades knew it was going to be a huge mess to clean up and not just in the physical sense.  The Council would be on Lucifer’s ass for this indiscretion and Hades would ultimately be the one with the chew marks.

Mark coughed up blood.  His entire body was wracked with pain.  He did not know what he had done to deserve the onslaught, but he was not finished yet.  He still had a job to do.  He could not see Lucifer, since his sight had been reduced to shadows and his left ear was ringing, but he had a feeling that Lucifer was still near.  He carefully rolled to his side and struggled to get to his knees.  He spit out two, or maybe it was three, of his teeth.  He gagged again, and then tried to get air into his crushed throat.  He wheezed out the words, “Gabriel” and “girl,” but fell back to the ground again when he slipped on the blood soaked ground.

“Fool,” Hades sighed.  He hung his head and closed his eyes.  He had been so close to getting Lucifer out of the hall.  Mark should have been the Angel of Endurance instead of him.  He almost felt sorry for Mark, but he called down the thunder and there would be no stopping Lucifer.

Lucifer turned, completely focused on Mark, and let out a guttural roar.  He raced toward Mark in a blind fury.  He knelt, and grabbed him by the throat with one hand.

Mark tried to push Lucifer away, but the attempt was half-hearted since he could not see what Lucifer was doing.  Lucifer lifted him and dragged him out of the Hall of Winds by his throat.

“My Lord, where are you taking him?” Hades was truly concerned for the first time.  Lucifer had kicked the shit out of so many angels that Hades had lost count.  He himself had been on the receiving end of multiple attacks, but attacking a Heavenly Angel without provocation was dangerous territory.  He saw the untamed look in Lucifer’s eyes as he dragged Mark closer to the realms.

When Lucifer refused to answer, Hades tried to scare him.  “My Lord, you know we are forbidden to torture the Heavenly without just cause.  Michael will see this as a personal slight.  The Council may find you guilty and charge you.  Do you really want to suffer at Michael’s hand?  While it may not be as painful as something we would do, it’s certainly humiliating enough to rethink this course of action,” Hades kept pace with Lucifer as the Fallen stepped aside not wanting to get in the way of the raging devil.

Lucifer’s mind was focused on one thing, death.  He squeezed Mark’s neck tighter.  He vaguely felt Mark trying to pry his hand off and some of Hades’ speech made its way to his ears, but his heart was stone and his mind was set on kill.  He cared nothing for the rules in that moment.  Let Michael challenge him, if he dared.  He would destroy Mark before he would let him utter a single syllable of Gabriel’s message.

Hades grimaced as Azazel, his Lead Punisher, finally met up with him.  They both looked at each other acknowledging that one of them might very well lose a limb in the scuffle.  It wouldn’t be the first time.  Hades was about to use brute force to stop Lucifer when Lucifer unfurled his wings and swatted Hades away, throwing him into the Realm of Drowning Seas.

Lucifer approached the realm that he wanted.  He dragged Mark to the edge of the Realm of Fire and tossed him on the dirt path surrounding the realm.

Mark clawed at his neck, trying to breathe.  He gagged on the air, once he was able to draw in a breath.

Lucifer stared down at Mark as he thought about his mistress.  He would be damned if Mark was sent here to retrieve her.  Blackness filled his mind and he waved off his Fallen, who were gathering in droves to witness his madness.

“Shouldn’t we do something to stop him?” Malcolm, the Overseer of the Realm of Fire, asked, taking his place beside Azazel.  Malcolm was responsible for the realm and didn’t want his ass handed to him by Michael if things got real.

“Do you want to lose your head?  Go ahead and try to stop him.  He’s in a killing rage,” Azazel snapped.  He stood his ground and watched.  He didn’t need to end up in the fire too.

Mark could feel an intense heat near his head.  He could see a brilliant red light through his damaged and swollen eyes.  There was only one place in Hell that felt hotter than the rest.  He was about to be tossed into the Realm of Fire.  While he had never been in it, he knew enough to make one last attempt to get out of this horrendous fate.  He quickly pushed his wings through the back of his suit and extended them, forcing himself to sit up.  Thankfully, he had a general idea of where he was.  If he could get into the air, he might have a chance.

Lucifer saw Mark’s pearly white wings and his mind splintered.  He reached out, grabbed a hold of Mark’s beautiful silky white wing, and bit through the arch, severing the bone, causing Mark to fall back to the ground, writhing in pain.  Lucifer pulled the wing and shoved it into the fire.  He laughed maniacally
as the Fallen gasped in shock.

All of the Fallen in the area were silent and still, not because an angel was on fire, but because it was a Heavenly Angel.  None of them felt any kinship with their former brother since they were consumed with their own darkness, but they all knew what Lucifer was doing was wrong, yet they feared Lucifer more than they did Michael.  Lucifer would do far worse to them if they interfered; that was a tried and true fact.

Hades, dripping wet and coughing up water, tried to wave off Lucifer one last time.  “My Lord, you’ve proven your point, we will force Mark to leave.  Do not throw him in.  The penalty will be too…, and there he goes.  So close,” Hades actually felt pity for Mark.  It had been a long time since he felt sorrow or compassion for anyone.  His emotions had died long ago, replaced by anger and despair.  As he watched Mark’s wings smoke and ignite, he recalled the last time he had been in the Realm of Fire after a particularly nasty battle with Lucifer.  Hades had crossed the line and paid the price.  Now Mark was suffering for simply doing his job.

Lucifer watched as Mark’s suit burned away and fell from his body.  The feathers on his wings burned and turned black, just like the wings of a Fallen.  The pain etched into Mark’s face and the unending shriek of terror and agony did little to calm him.  He knew this would prolong Gabriel’s message, but it wouldn’t stop it.  He needed to keep any more unwanted visitors out for as long as possible.  He knew the rules were technically on his side, but if anyone could find a loophole or change the rules, it would the Archangel Gabriel.

“My Lord, it is done.  You have punished Mark sufficiently.  There is no reason to kill him once he is done burning.  You should retire and rest.  You will need your strength for later.  You don’t want to be tired out, or covered in blood and soot for your mistress,” Hades threw down his ace, hoping that Lucifer’s blood lust was satisfied.  He needed to fish Mark out before he was traumatized for all eternity.  Heavenly Angels never fared well in the realms.  He knew Michael, Head of the Celestial Warriors, Council Member, and total psycho when it came to brothers he actually liked, would not appreciate Lucifer’s actions.  Hades knew they would be lucky if they still had their heads when all of this was done.

“Yes.  I will retire,” Lucifer turned toward the castle, eager to get back to his mistress.  If Gabriel did find a way to ruin his fun, then he would have to make the most of the time that he had.

Michelle stood in her new room, shell-shocked.  She flew to the door and pulled at it.  When it didn’t budge, she clawed and kicked it.  She huffed out a breath and slowly moved to the bed and sat down, only to slide on the silk sheets and fall to the hard stone floor.  She stayed there and let the numbness overtake her.  Hell.  She was in Hell.  It was no longer a dream, no longer escapable.  She wasn’t going to wake up and hear her mother calling her for school.  She would never see her parents again.  She’d always thought that she wouldn’t miss them, but she did and she wanted to see them.

CJ.  Oh God, CJ.  How was she going to survive without CJ?  She needed her rock, her safe port.  She would never kiss CJ, and she would ever find out if he really cared about her. She had always thought that maybe, just maybe, CJ would be her first, her only.  She had imagined being with CJ so many ways before falling asleep each night.

She had thought about going to the Prom with CJ as friends only to explore their love for one another while on the dance floor, holding each other close.  She wished he had been upset when Kevin Jones had asked her to go to the Prom.  Instead, he smiled and said he was happy she had a date.

Emptiness filled her when she thought about never seeing CJ again.  He really was beautiful.  She wished she’d told him that she loved him.  She thought about his big brown eyes when he smiled and laughed.  She wanted so badly to see him.  She wanted him to be her first.  She wanted to touch his lips and kiss him, to feel his hands on her face, on her back, her hips, and her legs.  She would do anything to see him without his shirt and feel his muscled chest.  She had always wondered if he tasted as good as his cologne smelled.  She imagined stripping off his pants, followed by his briefs.  She was desperate to watch him get hard for her.  Her clothes would have been left in shreds if it had been him asking her to undress, and not Lucifer.  She was angry that she could never be with him, and that one day he would make love to another woman.  She had to face the fact that he would fall in love and marry someone else.

They wouldn’t be able to travel with Uncle Bob.  Oh God, Uncle Bob.  A lump grew in her throat and tears burned her eyes at the thought of never seeing her uncle again.  She had always wondered what she would do if anything happened to Uncle Bob.  The thought was unbearable.  Despair poured through her as she cried for the loss of her family, and her best friend.

Seeing the world as she had planned was no longer an option.  Her summer with Uncle Bob was unattainable.  Attending college, buying a car or a house, and even marriage were things no longer in her grasp.  She felt hollow inside.  There would be no one for her to love and to take care of.  No one would take care of her, except Lucifer, and that was too scary to think about.  She mourned a life that she could never have.

At some point, everything came back into focus and she looked around the room.  This was her life now.  She had to put away Uncle Bob, CJ, her parents, and all her memories from her old life; otherwise, she would go mad with grief.  She needed to have her wits about her if she wanted to survive Lucifer.  He said he wouldn’t be long and that she had “work” to do.  She wondered if that was what the kids were calling it these days.  She cringed as reality hit her, she had died a virgin, and the devil would most likely be her first.  The thought made her stomach sink even further.  She feared that she would never know love.  She doubted that servants of Lucifer were allowed to date, if they found someone they cared about.

Shouting from the staircase drew her from her thoughts.  She heard someone screaming in pain and remembered where she was.  She sighed and got up off the floor.  Looking at the bed disturbed her deeply.  She wasn’t sure if the bed was for sleeping or for sex.  Given the silk sheets, she figured it would be the latter.  She doubted that most people got silk sheets in Hell.

The special dress confused her.  As Lucifer had said, prisoners wore what they died in, except the naked ones who wore toga like rags.  Punishers wore either black suits or leather, even the females.  The servants she had seen wore modern jeans and T-shirts, though neither Caleb nor Aganon would have worn clothes like that during their lives.  Why had she been given a dress?

Michelle forced herself to pick up the dress.  Lucifer was eager for her to wear it.  He said it was the last thing she would ever wear.  If it were between being naked, wearing the dress, or being stuck in her pink PJs for the rest of eternity, she would choose the dress.

She held it out in front of her and nearly dropped it.  Once she got a good look at it, she wanted to rethink her options.  It was an intricately beaded floor length black dress, which resembled a ball gown.  It had long flowing sleeves that tapered to a point.  The bottom of the dress was an A line and flared out from the waist.  There were layers under the dress that made it almost able to stand up on its own.  It would have been a nice dress for the Bride of Dracula, except for the fact that it was slit from the top of the dress down to the stomach area and slit up the front from the floor to, hopefully, the top of the thigh.  Sitting or bending would be impossible.  Apparently, the title “mistress” meant exactly what she had feared.

The last thing she wanted to do was piss off Lucifer on her first day, so she steeled her resolve and set about to conquer the task at hand.

How the heck do you put this on?
She thought, dismayed when she saw that it didn’t have any buttons or zippers.

Sometime later the dress was on, though it implied there was enough dress to be called a dress.  It barely covered anything important and there was more flesh exposed than covered parts.  The only good thing was that gravity apparently didn’t exist in Hell and was no longer an issue for her substantial cleavage.  The lack of a bra was strange at first, but not a concern.  Her borderline C’s held their own in the barely there dress.  The only flesh that was completely covered on the front of her body, aside from her breasts, started above her belly button to about four inches past her virginal area.  Presumably, she wouldn’t be able to call it that for much longer.  The monster hadn’t given her panties, or shoes.

She held up the mirror to untangle her hair when she saw her face for the first time since the bathroom mirror in her house.  She was beyond pale and her skin was gray.  Her once red lips were now dark blue-gray and her eyes were a startling ice blue with purple circles under them.  The firelight did nothing to improve her appearance.  She was ghastly.  She looked nothing like Hades or Lucifer, who were tanned; she looked the same as Caleb and Aganon, like walking death.

She did her best to straighten her long black hair and pull it around her face.  That’s when she saw her scars on her wrists.  Her hands trembled as she stared at the thick raised lines on her wrists.  How?  How had she done it?  She had no memory of picking up the razor.  She had no memory of pushing it against her skin or making the cuts.  Why couldn’t she remember something so important?

She put the mirror back and carefully sat down on the bed.  She pulled the long sleeves down over her scars, grateful that the dress covered something.

Why was this happening to her?  What had she done to deserve this?  Why wasn’t she suffering in the realms like the other dead people?  Not that she was interested in burning, drowning, or freezing as she had every night of her life, but she couldn’t understand why she was different.  She was thankful to be inside the castle and not outside with the prisoners.

Lucifer had called her a servant, not a prisoner, and therein seemed to be the distinction.  Servant implied working to make Lucifer happy.  Prisoner implied wrongdoing and punishment.  She had killed herself, and according to him, that made her a servant, though she didn’t do anything wrong during her life.  It had bothered her when he said suicide was the worst crime a person could commit, so where was her punishment?  It seemed she would be working off her debt in other ways, which angered her.  It was the one punishment that she had never endured in her trips through the realms, being taken against her will in the Realm of Monsters.

The sound of heavy boots echoing on the staircase was the only warning she had before the door burst open and Lucifer appeared in the room.  He appeared out of breath
.

“There now, let me see you,” Lucifer’s eyes gleamed as he slammed the door shut behind him and reached out a hand to her.

Michelle slowly stood up and took a step forward, but she didn’t take his hand.  She stood still while his eyes meticulously removed the barely there dress from her body.  Chills broke out across her skin and fear crawled up into her stomach.  She did not want to be on the receiving end of his visual or physical assault.  He made her feel cheap and easy.  She took a step back, but Lucifer reached out, grabbed her, and pulled her against his unyielding chest.

“There is no running away from me.  It will do you no good.  I would find you.  You will learn to do your duty, whether you learn to enjoy it is entirely up to you. I promise you, I will enjoy it,” he growled against her ear.  He pulled her even closer, molding her lower body to his.

His chest was broad and hard with heavy muscles.  She had inadvertently put her hand on his chest to stop herself from falling completely into him.  She shivered as he spoke against her ear and breathed heavily against her neck.  This certainly wasn’t how she pictured her afterlife or being pressed up against a man.

Lucifer was losing his mind.  Images of the girl flooded his imagination.  He had quickly removed the bloodstains from his face and clothes after he had caught sight of his disheveled appearance in the reflection of the windows in the main hallway.  He wanted her to be intimidated by him, but even he had to admit that his brutal appearance would have been too much.  Mark and his meddling were a distant memory as he stared at her.

Ever since he’d seen her lying on his floor, his mind had stopped functioning.  He’d wanted to take her right there on the marble that was as hard as he was.  He was amazed that his pants were still on when Hades had so rudely interrupted.  He’d waited countless millennia to have her in his arms, and here she was.  She looked different from the last time he’d seen her, but she was still beautiful.  Her bright blue eyes and long silky black hair made his knees weak.  The firelight played across her face and accented her lush skin.  Her lips, even cold with death, looked warm and inviting to him.  Red would be a mind-boggling shade on them.  He would have to remember that for later.  White skin would bring out the shine in her dark hair rather than the corpse gray skin.  He couldn’t decide what he wanted to do first.  Every fantasy of her crowded his brain until he was dizzy.  Then one thought stood out from the rest. He pulled back from her so that he could gaze at her.  As much as he enjoyed the feeling of her against him, he wanted to visually explore his reward.

Michelle remained still and silent like a bunny caught in a hunter’s scope, hoping that Lucifer had forgotten she existed.  She wasn’t sure what he was doing.  He was just staring at her, and smiling, letting his eyes roam over her body.  She had expected to be thrown on the bed by now and had even braced for it.

He took her face in his hand, only to stop.  He was going to grab her and plunge his tongue into her mouth, but the feeling of her skin under his numb hands stopped him.  Her skin was impossibly soft.  It was the softest thing he had ever touched, softer than his own wings tucked deep in his back.  It was beyond velvet or silk, and it made him gasp.  He could feel, feel something other than bleakness.  He trembled as he held her face.  What would it be like to kiss her?  He nearly fell to the floor, his knees no longer existing.  He stroked her face and watched the confusion play across it.  She was perplexed, while he was spellbound.  He felt like he was flying, something he used to enjoy but had long lost the taste for.

Michelle waited for Lucifer to hurt her.  His breathing was staggered and rough.  She knew it was only a matter of time before he pounced on her.  She wondered if she could fight him off.

He slowly trailed his hand down her neck to her collarbone, then between her breasts and further to where the dress hid her from view.  Decadence.  He studied her breasts and the way they defied gravity beneath the thin material covering them.  He had never wanted to hold something so badly in his life.  His hands shook as he laid them over the large full mounds. Perfection.  All he had to do was pull the material aside and they would be laid out before him.  They could wait for the moment.  He wanted other things.  He could feel his cold body surging to life.  His skin tingled and tightened while his heart tried to break loose from his chest.

Of all the countless sexual experiences he’d had in his unending life, this was the best by far.  The other women, and men, he’d taken over the years physically satisfied him but left him barren inside.  He felt nothing for them, except disdain or hatred.  The sex had been good but never emotionally satisfying.  He took no joy from it, only release.  He never felt happy.  It was purely an experience of the flesh, which heated him in the moment, but left him cold and empty.  He was never excited nor did he experience the anticipation of the moment.  He merely fucked and left.  He took more delight from their pain, humiliation, or anger than from the actual act.  He knew he was ruthless, but there was little to be done about it, until now.

He grabbed the top of her arm and leaned down to crush his lips against hers.  Again, he stilled at the contact.  Electricity jolted through his whole body.  There was a whirlwind of emotion raging inside him, barely contained.  Was it possible that her lips were even softer than her skin?  They were warm and sweet like honey.  He moaned against them, and then inhaled her scent.  Under the normal scent of Hell, he found the scent of her skin, sweet and sensual.  He growled and pulled at her lips, nearly biting her.  He kissed her roughly at first, but slowed to a passionate dance.  Where her lips had been unyielding at first, she was now moving along with him and he liked it.  He liked that she wanted to kiss him back.