Surprisingly, War rolled his eyes at us. “We are on the hook for the debt we owe him. Might as well get some good food out of it.” He shrugged as he cut into a T-Bone steak and shoved it into his big fat mouth.
I hated to admit he was right and by the reluctant looks from my other brothers, they agreed with me.
“Aww, come on! I got you out of that angel cage ages ago and haven't bothered you once!” Lucifer lifted his first finger to emphasize, but Fame just glared.
“That's what I'm worried about,” he griped as he yanked out his chair and sat down with a plop. With Fame falling in line, both D and I did as well. Fame was the lawyer of the group and we all tended to defer to him with all things demon.
“Now you're insulting me. I have a small, teeny tiny snatch-and-grab job, and that's it. Easy. Simple.” Lucifer clapped his hands and gave us a sincere smile. If you didn't know any better, you would think that the Devil was telling the truth, and maybe he was, but there was always another side to the coin that he didn't let you see.
“So, you're saying that you just want us to do what? Grab someone and drop them off to you?” Fame picked at his plate as we all focused intently, trying to figure out what the Devil was really asking of us.
He nodded his head up and down like a bobble head toy. “Yes. It's actually even simpler than that. All I need is for you to drop this person across the lineintoHell—making sure their feet touch Hells land—and you’re done. Bam. Debt repaid, and you won't have to think about it ever again.” His serene smile didn’t trick anyone.
That seemed too easy, even for me. Fame beat me to it.
“What’s the catch, Lucifer?” Fame bit out, trying to keep a neutral face, but with his lips tight and eyebrows creased, I knew when my brother was getting irritated. Impatience with Lucifer, his games of giving half-truths, leaving out important information, but War was right. We owe him, and we have to pay up.
The Angels who had us locked up put us in a deep section of Heaven that no one went to. It was purely by coincidence that Lucifer found us during one of his escapes from Heaven when he liked to rile up his brother Michael. We only knew this because he was complaining to himself about having a limited amount of time that he could be outside of Hell. He then started to list all of the things he would do to mess with Michael and his siblings if he had more time when he came across the section we were being held in. He took pity on the four beings he found in a golden cage. A cage that wasn’t supposed to be opened until it was time for the apocalypse. Once it was upon us, we would’ve been let go to roam the earth and let our powers free, but all the Angels ever told us was that it was going to be a long, long wait.
All we had ever known was the cage. All they told us was that we had a purpose and to wait for it. That God would lead us and usher in a new era. All of it sounded crazy to me, but it wasn’t like we knew how to get out on our own.
Then this dark angel came running through our area, talking all his nonsense. We yelled at him to stop and asked him to release us. Told him that we didn't want to be kept in this cage anymore. We wanted to be free.
He looked around the cage slowly, circling it as he inspected it, and finally looked at us. His eyes darkened and all traces of him being an angelic creature vanished. “If I get you out, you will need to do me one favor at the time of my choosing. One favor with no questions asked and to be done in a timely manner. This favor could be as simple as making me hot cocoa or as big as trying to take out God. Do you accept it?”
Fame, always the thinker, quickly made a change in the agreement that we would always be able to question the job, get to know the assignment a little. He agreed to our terms, and we each signed it with our blood. With the deal struck, Lucifer let us out of the cage. He’d brought us to New York on his way down to Hell and said he would be seeing us again sometime. He left us with no idea how to navigate this world, so it was a lot of trial and error, but soon we learned what we could and couldn't do and started to build a life for ourselves. However, we always wondered in the back of our minds when he would call in the debt we owed. We saw him a few times over the years, but it was short and usually in passing.
We’d asked him once why the angels never came to get us after we escaped, and he’d told us that since our magic wasn't angelic or demonic, we were not theirs to control, which was why we were in a cage in the beginning.
Shortly after, we were visited by the angel, Rafael, who told us that if we learned to control our powers quickly and didn’t bring on the apocalypse too early, we could stay on the human plane until we were needed for the one job we were created for, and that was that, we had our freedom…kinda.
“Who are we dropping in Hell? Also, how are we getting there when we don't have celestial magic?” Fame asked, all businesslike.
Lucifer's eyes flashed full red for a second before he settled into his chair, clapping his hands together in his lap. His face was carefree, almost laughing, which set me on edge.
“Oh, it's personal. Which is why I can't do it myself, or I would, I swear!” His earnest, forlorn expression was throwing me off. I looked at my brothers, and they were also puzzled.
He sighed and put his elbows on the table, head in his hands as he frowned. “It's my daughter. I need her to come back home, but I can’t get in touch with her. We had a bit of a tiff before she left, and she won't take my calls, or emails, or texts or telegrams.”
Fame and D both gave him doubtful looks, and he lifted his hands in surrender. “Every word I said is true! Cross my heart and hope to die.” He came to a full stop for a second then slapped the table, laughing. “Die! Hahaha! The Devil, dying! Just imagine all the sinful contracts that would turn void.” He wiped the tears at his eyes from his not so funny joke.
That was always how it was talking to him. Serious one moment, and hysterically laughing the next. It made a sane man think he'd lost his marbles, but I'd watched him issue a contract like a master teaching karate, with precision and finesse.
He sobered up real fast. “She lives in LA, and she goes by Lillian Darkstar. I trust you can all find out what you need to get the job done. You’re capable boys.” He put four portal keys on the table. “This should help you with the getting to hell part.” He counted them out one by one on the counter in front of us before he looked at each of our faces, smirked, and threw one more in the pile. “Just in case you fuck up and need a backup.”
Fame looked at the quarter-size black round discs with interest. It's not every day that the Devil gives you a key into his kingdom, let alone five.
Lucifer picked one up. “All you do is push this little itty bitty button”—he points to one of the sides with a small red button—“and then the doorway will pop up right in front of you. Should be enough for the four of you, right?”
We all nod slowly, still holding back because this all seemed too easy. “If she fights us… are we able to use force?” Of course, War was the one to ask if we could get violent with the Devil's daughter.
I expected Lucifer to bite his head off, and so did my brothers as their stances shifted into fight mode. But no, Lucifer just got a wide jackal grin on his face.
“Anything goes, boys. Just get her across the portal and onto Hell ground.”
Well, if that wasn't fatherly love, I didn’t know what was. I was suddenly glad we didn’t really know our father. We only saw our creator once when we first opened our eyes and then never again. We always guessed that it wasThe Creator,but the stupid angels wouldn’t confirm anything.
Lucifer clapped his hands. “Well, boys, I gotta skedaddle. As always, nice talking to you.” The chair scraped loudly as he got up, and we all stood as he opened a hell portal with the flick of his hands. Fire shot out around in a circle, and the hellscape was visible on the other side.
