I snorted. Kujo was pretty unpleasant. I liked that Nero and Celix seemed to call him on it. Some of the men I knew sided with their bros no matter how toxic they got.
“So, stay away from angels. Got it.”
“So, we actually have a problem because just looking at you, it’s easy to tell who your father is,” Celix said.
I didn’t particularly care who my father was. I didn’t care now that I knew he was Hell royalty. If he were, then he was ancient. He was old enough to know how babies worked, and I was born in a decade with birth control, so he could have figured that out. He wasdefinitelyold enough to know better that if you made a kid, you should stick around and take care of them.
They were all looking at me like they knew I wouldn’t give a shit when they dropped his name. I’d written demon books before. There were countless texts about demons and who ran Hell. Each one had a different take, and I didn’t even know which one was correct.
“So, your father didn’t abandon you. Your father is Lucifer, and he’s been missing for decades. He’s not like that, but hecan’tleave Hell this long. Hell needs a Morningstar to function. Lucifer knows this and wouldn’t be gone this long unless something was preventing him. You’re a Morningstar, and we need you.”
What.the.fuck?
Kujo needed to calm down. Yes, Furies were badasses, and no one wanted to fight one except, apparently, Sydney, but an incubus or a succubus was the foil to their rage. I could pheromone him into a pile of goo. I’d thought about it plenty of times, but I never had before.
It would be funny right up until he woke up and tried to beat my ass. Plus, it would embarrass him in front of our new queen. The dipshit hadn’t realized that yet. With Lucifer missing, she was running the show. And she’d need our protection.
There were no queens or duchesses in Hell. It was all men. They allsaidit wasn’t a patriarchy thing, but it kind of was. The angels that fell were all men. They didn’t hobnob with the lesser demons, so I couldn’t tell you how they’d feel about Sydney.
Icouldtell you that a lot of them were ambitious. They’d been pushing at each other to be the supreme King of Hell, but Hell didn’t answer to anyone but Lucifer. Itshouldanswer to Sydney since she shared his blood.
They’d all be pushing towards her to get into her bed. They couldn’t marry Lucifer because Lucifer wasn’t into men, but based on the pheromones coming off of Sydney, she was. I knew they’dthinkthat since she was raised on Earth, they could just use her connection to Hell to keep it stable and rule through her.
I tried not to giggle. I could justseeher smashing Beelzebub’s nuts through his throat. I could even see her making Satan cry. She was glorious. I was trying not to get attached because once we brought her to the princes, we’d probably never see her again. We weren’t even close to being important enough.
“Sorry, but how do you know my parking my ass on Hell’s throne is going to fix a thing? It’salwaysmore complicated than that.”
Oh, it was. I just didn’t enjoy giving people bad news. I liked things being nice and happy. Most of the Cambion kids were happy to come here. Their parents could usually feel thatothernessfrom their demon halves. Sometimes, they’d been mistreated, but they’d also been made to feel like they weren’t normal. Sometimes, they’d been bullied.
It wasn’t like that in Hell. We had schools, playgrounds, toys, and we never treated the Cambion kids like they were different. Kujohatedthis job, but I loved the looks on their little faces when they saw what we had here and realized they weren’t different.
Someone else could tell her.
“Okay, so it’s not as easy as that,” Celix said. “We don’t knowhowLucifer’s magic keeps Hell running, but Hell’s malfunctioning is spilling onto Earth. We don’t currently know how to stop it. Please don’t assault my nuts.”
“Maybe you should explain.”
“You know that new drug that’s been all over Earth news? Not a drug, cupcake. The souls of bad people have been escaping Hell and jumping into the nearest corpse. It’s basically necromancy, but the necromancer is using YouTube. It’s all wrong. They aren’t even in the right body. It’s an abomination. They are basically zombies,” Kujo said.
“Okay, now you’re just shitting me. If there were zombies, it would be all over social media.”
“Itis.The authorities are claiming it’s a street drug called Wrathhog, and the criminals are mixing all kinds of nasty shit, claiming they have it. We grabbed a Cambion whose stepdad had a meth lab out back and was trying to recreate it,” Kujo said.
“Wrathhog isn’t a drug. The reason all the zombies they killed kept talking about Wrathhog is that they were tortured by her in Hell. She’s a legend in Hell. Sheenjoystorturing bad people. She’s super creative with it, too. She’s won several awards,” I said.
I was not very violent for a demon. The incubi were all about love, but I wassucha fan of Wrathhog. Wrathhog gave them what they deserved, but she was just such a kind and caring person if you weren’t a total shit. She gave me her autograph when I was just a kid, and I’d never forget it.
Sydney cocked an eyebrow at me.
“You have awards for that shit?”
“You don’t end up here how they tell you,” Celix said. “You have to be a total wankstain—murderers, rapists, you know.”
“Ooh, do you remember that time she had those dog fighters, and she had their entrails ripped out by angry chihuahuas for months? And then she had a bunch of Yorkies come behind them and piss on the wounds. That was one of my favorites,” I squealed.
There was talk about giving Wrathhog her own reality television show, and I couldn’t wait.
“This is all alot.So, I’ve heard of Wrathhog. My ex said some of the fraternities on his campus claim to have it.”
