“Imps are vile creatures. I still don’t know what Lilith was thinking when she made them. They are malicious, spiteful, and will do literally anything for money and booze. The angels can’t touch Lucifer because of his connection to Hell, but they’d love to wipe out the rest of us who rebelled. They especially hate me. They won’t come to Hell to attack us, but they aren’t above plotting to make us kill each other. The impcouldmean a fallen betrayed their brothers, but it could also mean an angel is paying an imp to make it look that way.”
Well, fuck me.
“So, we capture the imp while you deal with the cage?” Nero asked.
“Imps fight dirty and there will probably be traps you wouldn’t want to run into. Use your Incubus. It’s stupid you can’t and if you use it to save Lucifer, we can spin it to get that idiotic law reversed.”
“Seriously? Unless I’ve got the imp in my sight, I’ll probably hit Lucifer, too. Won’t he be angry?”
“He really doesn’t care about that kind of thing. He’ll be more grateful he’s out of that cage and you kept his daughter safe.”
“He sure kept hersafelast night,” Kujo muttered.
“Yeah, I’d not bring that up until he’s gotten to know you and decided he likes you.”
“Sorry, I’ve decided I like Nero and Celix and I’m keeping them. I plan on having loads more sex. I might be young in Hell years, but in Earth years, I’m a grown-ass woman. He doesn’t get a say in who I fuck and he doesn’t get to get mad about it.”
“Yeah, you couldn’t be more different from Kir if you tried. Lucifer is going to adore you. Let’s go get your dad.”
Shit. I wasn’t scared of angel booby-traps or imps with weird dicks. I was about to meet the man who sired me and any preconceived notions I might have had weren’t even close to the truth.
We couldn’t portal directly into the volcano because there might be snares. We landed at the bottom of the volcano and I looked around. It was fucking gorgeous out here. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was something about this place that just wasn’t right.
“So, the mortals weren’t exactly wrong. This placeishaunted.”
“Oh, what the fuck? Ghosts are a thing?” I asked.
“They are rare. They usually pass on to the various afterlives unless something prevents them. It’s generallysomeonewhokeeps souls trapped here on Earth. Angels and demons don’t. It upsets the natural order. Some humans have figured out how to harness magic and do it. When this volcano erupted back in the day, someone must have trapped the souls it killed,” Wrathhog said.
“Can we ask the ghosts who brought Lucifer here?”
“No. They’d be insane by now. This realm isn’t meant to contain souls. Once they get to their afterlife, death is final. They are either happy where they are or people like my daughter torture them with scenarios where they escape, get to live again, and then just get dragged back to Hell until they realize they are never getting out.
“It’s not like that here. They are tied to the place they died, so they don’t always get closure. They want to be avenged or they want to knowwhythe gods sent plagues or natural disasters to kill them. They go crazy trying to get those answers or contact the living. Once a mortal soul gets separated from its vessel, it can’t stay in the mortal realm without going insane. I’ve never figured out why people do it, but it’s a punishment.”
“When did you say this volcano erupted?” Wrathhog asked.
“A little over two thousand years ago. There’s not much about who was living here at the time.”
“That’s alongtime for souls to be trapped on the mortal realm. It’s not really safe for the fallen, but the other angels are supposed to be taking care of any ghosts and sending the souls where they belong. It looks bad and intentional that they left this one.”
“Hold up. I realize I don’t know shit and everything I thought I did know is completely wrong, but aren’t angels supposed to be the good guys? Hasn’t this imp been murdering anyone who gets close to finding Lucifer? Aren’t they supposed to protect humans?”
“A brief history lesson and then Ihaveto take care of these souls. Angels can’t stand humans. They consider them lesser beings they were forced to look after, even though they were given more rights than we were. The fallen used to think this, too, and thought the rest of the angels would be on board when we demanded the same rights. They didn’t.
“Our father used to be more invested in the mortal realm, but he hasn’t gotten involved in a long time. Like, some of those ultra-wealthy pastors saying God wanted them to have that private jet would have had some kind of biblical punishment and it’s like he doesn’t care anymore. He might not even give a shit about what his angels do anymore.
“Now, these souls have been trapped here long enough to be malevolent. They’ve been here so long, they can’t even fathom going anywhere else. They are going to fight. It’ll alert the imp if they don’t already know we’re here. The imp will call whoever hired them. If it’s a fallen, they probably won’t show up unless it’s all of them and even then, they might not want to face me. If it's a battalion of rogue angels, we’re going to have to get the fuck out of here depending on how many come.”
I mean, cool. No worries. Just let Satan exorcise some angry ghosts and we may or may not have to take on an army of spiteful angels who would definitely have a problem with my DNA.
And I basically didn’t have an ounce of magic in my veins yet.
We immediately formed a protective triangle around Sydney. She was good with her fists if she managed to take Kujo down, but this was a magic fight and she wasn’t there yet. She was going to be magnificent when her wings and magic came in, but right now, she needed us.
We just fetched Cambion. Sometimes, we were really busy if some demons got stupid and other times, we had a lot of down time. We trained for any and all scenarios. We never thought we were going to have to use it, but it didn’t hurt to be prepared.
I felt alotbetter that I wasn’t completely hobbled and was allowed to use the magic I was born with. Even if it was just this one time and Satan couldn’t fulfill his promise, it could save us. Angels weren’t immune to me. That was mostly why there were so many laws about my kind.
