My father turned back to him. “And how do you think she is supposed to do that, you fucking idiot? They did this with distorted angelic and demonic magic!” My dad’s unhinged voice was getting louder and louder, ready to explode.
I walked up to him. “Dad. Dad, look at me. Hey, I'm going to listen to you.”
He finally turned back to me, his eyes pleading with me to leave.
“But I need you to tell me why. You know I can't just see you chained up and turn my back and leave without an explanation.”
His gaze shifted behind me like he expected the boogeyman to appear, but then his eyes calmed with recognition as he saw my mates. He slumped against the rock wall he was chained to. “Oh, thank fuck, you brought them with you.”
He turned his attention to them, steeling his spine as he started acting like his normal commanding self. “I need you to take her out of here. Go back to Hell and wait for me to contact you.”
“You idiot,” Uncle Michael spat out. “At least let them try to get us out without dismissing it so easily.”
“I'm not allowing my daughter to get caught by them!” Dad bellowed in fear, and Uncle Michael scoffed, then looked away. He might be done fighting with him, but I wasn't.
“Dad, you listen to me, and you listen good. You are going to tell me what is going on, and then, only then, will I tell you if I will leave or not.” I huffed in his face.
His eyes drilled into mine, fear and love warring inside of them as he tried to figure out what to say to make me leave now.
“Well, I can explain the whole thing to you, but that also means I’m going to have to kill you and your mates. Are you okay with that?” a sweet and chipper voice called out behind us.
My dad threw out a string of curses as he mumbled, “Too late.”
Chapter 38
Iturnedaround,cursingthat I hadn’t heard the intruders earlier, but I’d assumed the hounds would alert us to someone coming in, unless these two fuckers had done something to them. I couldn't focus on that now when we had a bigger issue to deal with at the present moment.
Standing before us were an angel and a demon, smiling in unison as they looked at us. I felt dread hit my stomach, because they were obviously outnumbered by a lot, but they still didn't look scared. In fact, they looked excited.
The angel stepped up with a sweet and kind smile, but her eyes were dark and filled with malice and resentment.
“Since you were able to get through the spell we cast after these two wondered in, I’m guessing you're pretty powerful and we should be formally introduced. Hi.” She waved like she was a little girl introducing herself to the class. “I’m Muriel, and this is Behemoth.” She pointed to the demon beside her, who looked like a depressed, cherry-red linebacker with horns.
She took her hand out of her pocket and pointed her finger at all of us.
“Scutum.”
Golden light lit up from the ring that was on her finger, and a large force field appeared, cutting the room in half with us on the other side. War, like the idiot he was, ran up and punched it, to no avail. Muriel bounced up and down and laughed like a creepy horror-film child as she watched him with glee, while the demon, Behemoth, just stood there with his arms crossed and a bored expression.
Muriel walked up to the force field. “You see, I don't want to kill you all just yet. I want you to see what Behemoth and I have been working on. It's so exciting, and now it's finally at a stage where we can show it off!”
Her eyes were lit up with excitement, but there was a deranged madness to it that even Lucifer didn't have. His was more of a calculated crazy, acting foolish because he had the power to back it up and always had some kind of a long-term goal in mind. He might not ever share it with you, but a future plan was always there, but with Muriel, hers looked like she didn’t care what happened to anyone, even to Behemoth. Like she wanted to see the world burn for the fun of it and to watch others scramble like ants as it happened.
Muriel did a twirl as she disappeared through the cave’s entrance.
Death stalked up to the barrier and pointed at Behemoth. “You! Let us the fuck out of here right now! It will be much worse for you when we get out of here if you don’t,” he promised, like he knew we were going to get out, but I wasn't so sure.
He started to gesture with his hands, and Lucifer said, “He’s mute. If I had to guess, I think he's a demon from Pride. He was probably a smooth-talker in his human life, so his tongue was removed.”
Lillian pushed her way forward and started to watch his hands, her eyes flicking back and forth for a few seconds before she translated. “He says that they both stumbled upon artifacts, hers blessed and his cursed. They knew they had something they weren't supposed to have, so they came to Purgatory to try them out. That was when they met.”
Muriel came back, carrying a sword and shield. “Is Behemoth starting the party without me?!”
She walked over and punched him in the face, sending him flying into the rock wall. He stood up, slowly cleaned the dust and rocks off his body as he casually walked back over to her, crossing his arms as he faced us like nothing had happened.
She beamed up at him, then she rose to her tippy toes and kissed his cheek, murmuring how much she loved him and enjoyed punishing him for being bad.
And I thought we had issues… She made us look like boy scouts.
