I looked at my brothers in question. What the fuck was going on with Lucifer? Was he broken?
D just shook his head at me, keeping me quiet. I narrowed my eyes at him. What did he know?
Lucifer snapped his fingers as he stopped and turned on his heels to face us. “Okay, I’ve decided that time is more important than the victory, so I will give you one hint, since this will be your last shot.” He winked at me, but I kept my face neutral. If I have learned anything about Lucifer, it's that he liked doing shit for a reaction, and I was determined not to give it to him.
“If you have any hope of getting my daughter, you need to not only do it all together, but you’ll need to combine all of your powers to be able to do it.” He leered at me. “And I think you know how to do that.”
My nostrils flared as I glared at him because he was right. There was apossibleway we could have our powers channeled for a one time shot, but it was only a theory.
“I don't know if it will work,” I told him honestly.
He shrugged as he turned and opened another portal. “I told you how to do it. It's your job to figure out how to make it happen. But if I were you, I would test out that theory. No risk, no reward. Right, D?” He cackled as he walked through the portal and it closed behind him.
With his parting words still in the air, we all swiveled towards D in question at the same time. He looked at all of us before he barked, “What?!”
Con and War gave me a questioning look before they turned back to D, shrugging. I cleared my throat, deciding I needed to be the one to bring it up.
“I think we just want to know what happened.”
D released a huge sigh, but it wasn't filled with hate or annoyance. It was one full of awe and determination. “So let's first start off with agreeing that this woman is the most infuriating little devil-ing I have ever come in contact with.”
Con, War, and, surprisingly, I all wore the same sly smile because we knew the feeling.
He couldn't hide the interest in his eyes. For once, he didn't look cocky and one-hundred percent sure of himself. He looked like a man who had tasted heaven and desperately wanted to get it back.
We were so incredibly fucked.
Hetoldusthestory as we all gathered around him, ribbing him for his failures, congratulating him for standing up to Lucifer, and agreeing with him that Lillian Darkstar was both the bane and light of the whole situation, and we all agreed we weren't giving her up.
I wasn't surprised in the slightest that she had been the only woman he’d been able to kiss without killing. It just seemed like there was nothing that Lillian couldn't do. Which was why we needed to take Lucifer's idea seriously.
We all agreed that we still needed to get rid of the debt to Lucifer—he’d made that clear with the threat to D, that he could do some nasty things to us if we failed—but I also got the feeling that he thought we were the only ones able to pull this off. I didn't know why I felt that way; it was just a gut feeling.
I suspected he’d given us all those portal keys, knowing that we would fail when we tried individually, but that we needed to do it that way first before we banded together. It was quite annoying to feel like a puppet on Lucifer's strings, but that was the predicament we were in.
We also all decided that we wanted to see if Lillian would like to start seeing any one of us. Or all of us. We talked about it, and although for D and me, it would be difficult to share, Con and War’s explanation made sense. Their theory was that she needed all of us, that since she liked and craved all of our powers, she was able to handle all of us too. We decided that once we got her down to Hell, and gave her time for her anger to subside, we could convince her that she needed us.
She needed us to balance her life, both the princess of Hell as well as the media mogul on the human plane. We thought we would be able to help make sure things were running to her standards on this side, while one or two of us stayed with her in Hell. The idea of rotating also came up, which was intriguing, but none of it mattered if we failed to get her to Hell.
When it came to making up a plan, all three of them looked at me.
“What?” I asked when I felt their eyes probing me.
D looked at War and Con before turning to face me. “It was kinda implied, by Lucifer, that you knew of a way to combine our powers?”
Oh, that.
I rubbed the back of my head and turned to walk back to my desk, not exactly knowing how I felt about the whole thing, but they deserved to know what I knew. Then we could all make a decision to see if the risk was worth it.
I opened one of my drawers and pulled out an old, weathered book which looked like it had been collecting dust for centuries.
“This is the only book that has ever come close to calling out our legitimacy, other than the Bible, of course—and we all know what a crazy book that is.”
My brothers gathered around my desk, looking at the book like it had legs or something. I sighed and opened it. As soon as I lifted the cover, they all took a step back.
“It’s not going to fucking bite you!” My usual calm demeanor was cracking with all the pressure and feelings that were going on within me, and it came out harsher than I intended. I lowered my head in apology as D raised an eyebrow at me.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that… It’s just… I don’t know how much of this is true or just someone’s ‘idea’ of how our magic/powers work.” For once, I let them see my worry, my hesitation.
