With that stage nearing its end, the stench of death, blood and rot disappeared. All that was left now was the final and most important ingredient—the two half souls of human-demons. One half belonged to Reign and one to Noah, and together they made a whole, complete soul that was so unlike any other. Angel souls were white, those of demons were black, and human ones were golden, but this one was different, its hue reminiscent of liquid mercury. Special then, just like its purpose. It was to serve as a conduit so the ritual could overcome the limitations of this cycle’s boundaries and make it possible to bring back the dead.
To bringhimback.
Lucifer held up the merged soul, shivering as the vibrations seeped from it to him. He’d spent an eternity getting to this very moment, searching, waiting for a universe where the conditions aligned just right and the laws of existence allowed for the impossible. He’d seen so much, experienced the death and birth of millions of worlds, watched the rise of technology and the mysteries of magic unfold time and time again. He’d witnessed the struggles of mortals, the arrogance of gods, the rebellion of the created against their creators, yet none of that had ever mattered to him. It meant nothing, each wonder and tragedy so fleeting and so easily forgotten as soon as the next cycle of life began.
Nature dictated the rules and laws of each iteration of the universe, though it couldn’t purge him, couldn’t get rid of him or kill him. As such, it enforced limitations, made it so that he couldn’t tweak or break each universe’s fundamental rules, trapping him, to live each cycle through until it met its end when its time came.
This was why he was older than the world, older than all the worlds that would ever be, an existence so wrong and foreign that had transcended eternity itself.
And that he’d done for one reason only.
Lucifer climbed the obsidian altar and straddled the corpse’s hips, slowly pressing the human-demon soul into its chest. It resisted, it fought, shaking and refusing to accept it as if it knew how prohibited the act was, how unnatural it was to change fate even here, where the rules of life had deemed it possible.
“Don’t fight it,” Lucifer whispered, bending over to kiss the man on the lips and give the conduit the energy it needed.
Lucifer was the anchor as well as the guiding beacon, and he let the conduit feed off him. It took and plundered, it consumed until there was no part left of him to violate, no part that didn’t ache. It robbed him of everything that wasn’t him, forced him to sacrifice all those identities and lives he had stolen from others, crumbling down the walls within him and destroying the untruths until all that remained of him was that which lay at his very core.
Lucifer howled, the agony overwhelming as his raven hair shed, changing into that pure white he couldn’t stand to look at. His skin burned, undergoing that same shift to a lighter hue, leaving his eyes as the only thing that didn’t suffer because they could never lie no matter what form he took. Still, the pain and the invasiveness were too much even with that little blessing, but he didn’t try to stop them. He gave himself over to them, let them have him, losing track of what was happening, unsure if he was still alive or finally dead.
The man gasped. The sound of his intake of air pulled Lucifer out of the delirious limbo, the pain and the agony draining out of him quicker than they’d come to be. Euphoria and heartbreaking longing displaced them as the man’s eyes opened, their pine-green depths so intense and nostalgic Lucifer couldn’t keep the tears at bay.
The man tried to speak but failed, his vocal cords not working yet. His gaze grew frantic as his hands reached for his neck and traced the ugly scar, the peacefulness of his expression vanishing as he pulled Lucifer into an embrace and kissed him. Claimed him, reigniting that spark that had been missing since that day the world had ended for the first time ever.
Sadness and happiness erupted inside Lucifer as their mouths parted, as they just gazed at each other andcouldn’t look away. A hand caressed his cheek, and he closed his eyes, leaning into the touch as those pretty lips whispered a name unspoken in eons.
A name only this man knew.
Lucifer’s true name.
Lucifer dove for another kiss, his entire being demanding it as he chanted the man’s name back. The onslaught of emotions suffocated him, but he swallowed past them, only letting them out once he was sure they wouldn’t break him.
Desperation and craving,love, flowed between them, unchanged and just as all-encompassing as it had once been, as if no time had passed since they’d last kissed, as if no eons and no cycles of the universe had ever separated them.
“Wha… I die…How?” the man who was now his soulbound stuttered, rubbing his temples. “What… happened?”
His voice was still raw, his body shaky and unstable as Lucifer helped him off the altar. His legs gave out, but Lucifer didn’t let him fall, catching him with both arms.
“I will tell you everything, but first you need to rest. The body hasn’t fully recovered yet.” This body which wasn’t his, just like this world. A new name was in order then, a new identity, just like Lucifer had found his.
“Ghost will be your name from now on,” Lucifer said, smiling at the logic behind his choice. “For you are a phantom that doesn’t belong here in this world.”
Ghost chuckled softly but didn’t argue as Lucifer guided him to the bed and gently lay him down. “And what is… yours?”
“Lucifer.”
Ghost made a face, his green eyes crinkling in the corners. “Fitting, somehow, for you to be a king again.”
Lucifer sat on the edge and held Ghost’s hand, rubbing gentle circular patterns as he watched Ghost slip into slumber almost immediately. This was fine. The body demanded it, needing to acclimate just as much as the soul now inhabiting it did. Plucked out of the death plane of a cycle past, it was an intruder to this world just like Lucifer himself had been and still was, a foreign object that the rules and laws of nature needed to accept. And they would, quickly and without a fuss, for they didn’t have a choice in this matter.
Lucifer glanced at the sundial by the window, its living shadows writhing under the scorching skies like dying worms as they read the light frequencies and measured time in an arbitrary manner. According to them, there were still a few hours before Asmodeus’ celebration and that offered just about enough time for Ghost to adjust, so Lucifer saw no need to cancel or postpone the festivities. He summoned one of the demonhounds and sent it with a message to the tailor, then stripped out of his robe and lay down, holding Ghost in his arms as he drifted off to sleep for the first time in eternity.
47
Noah’s body still felt foreign, like a vessel that wasn’t his even if it was. He’d felt the transformation even in his deep slumber, each protrusion of a spike, the peeling of his skin, the forming of his claws and tail. The tail was the most interesting, the way he couldn’t quite command it yet even if it was under his control in theory. But he decided that pondering about it could wait until later and came out of the scalding bath. Steam billowed around him as he stood face to face with his reflection in the massive mirror, different yet familiar still. His demon form had red skin, red-tinted eyes, black markings just like Reign’s, sharp teeth and claws, and dark hair that reached his waist.
“Noah.” Reign walked into the bathroom with a fluffy towel in his hand. He directed Noah to the low stool in the corner and wiped down his body before handing him a pair of black breeches with burgundy accents along their seams. “It is time to leave for Asmodeus’ domain. How are you feeling?”
A little off and on fire still, but better than when he’d first opened his eyes. “Horny.”
