Also, who said I should be scared of fucking Michael? I fucking ran Hell. What the fuck did Michael run? Oh, some stupid jack-off group of elite warrior angels in case of a holy war? The important part there wasin case. Other than that, he was a glorified policeman—and bully, if you asked me.
The only piece of interesting information I’d gotten was what I’d overhead when I was sneaking around in Heaven. Two lesser angels had been whispering about some stolen holy artifacts. They’d tried to keep hush hush about it all, but I’d followed them and heard how they didn't want to tell any of the angels in charge that one of the holy relics was actually a fake, and they didn’t know what had happened to the original or where it was.
They’d discovered it when they’d gone to play with the damn thing and it hadn't worked. If they told someone higher up about it, they would be asked how they knew and would need to confess to playing with a holy relic. That was a big no no in the angel world.
At first, I’d told myself that it was Michael’s problem and I would get to have a good laugh in his face over the fact that he’d lost one of Father’s precious relics, which would disappoint Him greatly, knowing that Michael would take that extremely personally. I wanted to laugh even more when it happened, so I went to the reliquary to see if I could figure out which one was the fake so that when Father said something, I could tell him that I’d known the whole time. Man, that would burn Michael’s bridges.
I ended up spending way too long in the place, looking at everything. I quickly discovered that every relic here was fake. Not a single one was a real divine relic, which was very suspicious and a little alarming.
I’d always thought it was pretty stupid that they were all kept in one spot, but it really shouldn’t surprise me, as I was the smart one in the family, and was ‘kicked’ out. When my father asked me to be the ruler of Hell,to take one for the team, he’d given me a set of demonic relics—divinely cursed instead of blessed—and entrusted them to me to keep secret and safe.
When he’d given them to me, I’d asked him why in the world he’d made such items in the first place. He’d told me some bullshit about balance and that if one existed, the twin needed to exist too, or else the world would be out of balance. Always the same with that guy.It's about balance. What will be, will be. All things will come full circle.Blah, blah, blah.
When I’d gotten to Hell, I’d scattered the relics all throughout the realm. I hadn't told the princes or my daughter about them; I’d just hidden them, hoping I’d never have to see them again. See, I told you I was the smart one.
I was sitting in the middle of the reliquary, laughing as I played with the fake Spear of Destiny, pretending that Michael had turned into a zombie angel and I had to kill him for the greater good.Oh no, boo hoo.
I had gotten to the great crescendo of murdering his zombie ass when I heard the big boom of the doors slamming and boots hitting the marble floor at a rapid pace. Uh oh. I’d been caught.
I turned and made my way into the side tunnel that would lead me to freedom when I saw a big shadow with super big muscles and large fluffy wings at the end of the hallway.Oh no! The angel police were here. Little demons ran around in my head screaming,Policia! Policia!
I started to look around for another way out when Michael’s furious perfectly sculpted face came into the light, and I screamed in terror. His golden locks were tied up in a girl man bun and his scowl was something that would scare even the hellhounds, but I didn't want him to think that he was intimidating me, so I squinted my eyes and let out a big sigh.
“Oh! It's justyourugly mug. I thought you were a big, bad, scary man, not an angel with a flaming stick up his butt.”
His nostrils flared as he growled, “What are you doing here,Lucifer?” His sneer at my name came out loud and clear. “And why are you terrorizing our angels? Are you really that brain dead that you can't just stay in your lane downstairs in the basement? You know you can’t be up here for long before things go wrong down there without a ruler.”
Oh, that fucker knew how to churn my engines.Toot toot!
“Well, now that you mentioned it, Iamdisappointed in you, dear brother. Not only did I have to leave Hell, which was a feat itself, but I had to come up here and question our siblings about where our father is. But I’m sure that you, being the big dumb boy you are, didn’t notice. It's okay, big guy. Some kids get the smarts of the family, and some get… Well, what did you get? Just that flaming stick and a surly attitude?”
I started howling in laughter before he bellowed out his anger, whipping out that flaming sword, and swung it right at me. Oh no, the little angel hulk was coming out.
He took a few good swipes at me, but again, I was the smarter and faster one, and I dodged his attacks, like I always did.
“Looks like you need to get some new moves, brother,” I taunted, growing more and more excited at how mad he was getting. I could literally see the fumes coming off his big cranium.
His head tilted to the side like a psycho before a big, crazy smile formed on his lips. He raised his sword to the sky and yelled in Latin, “Flamma globi veritatis!”
I didn't know what was happening, but the flaming stick discharged fire at the ceiling. The flames burned a hole through it and shot into the sky, while Michael looked at me with victory shining in his eyes.
“This time you burn in holy fire, brother.”
I looked up through the hole in the ceiling and saw a large flaming ball headed our way. I had only seconds, but I quickly gathered all of my sin magic. I was the only one—except Lillian—who was able to combine all of them at once, to make a cursed shield of death. A purple haze immediately surrounded me, the shimmer of a force-field shone, and I smiled at the dumb lug right as the ball hit my shield.
Neither of us expected the explosion that took off the top half of the reliquary as both extreme magics met. Our eyes were wide as we looked around at the clouds of dust and smoke that drifted around us, like the calm before the storm. Suddenly, our sister Meta—short for Metatron—appeared and looked around at the mess in horror.
Her eyes flashed with anger and disappointment as she caught sight of us, and she swooped down.
“What in the world is this mess? Why are you fighting like this here? Look what you’ve done!”
She started to look around at the mess, kicking debris around before she gasped as she picked up what was supposed to be the Shroud of Turin. She clutched it to her chest before she shook it at us, screeching, “Look what you ruined! We can't get these items back!”
Tears gathered in her eyes, and both Michael and I stepped forward. Making her cry had not been our intent.
“Meta,” I said, but she refused to look at me, so I tried again in my not-joking, serious Lucifer voice. “Meta, look at me. I just found out that all of these”—I waved my hands around at all the broken, burnt relics—“were fakes. That’s why I was in here. Checking.”
Meta and Michael swung their heads towards me in shock and disbelief.
