“What the actualfuckdid someone do to my house? It looks like Christian Gray vomited all over my sitting room. I had several original Eugène Delacroix works of art in here.”
Yeah, Lilith needed to call her lawyer because someone was squatting in her house and we needed to find out who. But we needed to get Lucifer out before they got back. Even though they’d been here longer than we realized and didn’t leave any traps, they clearly came here a lot.
Lilith led us to the cellar lamenting about the décor changes and I didn’t blame her. This was a centuries old French chateau and someone completely ruined the inside of it. I didn’t know the first thing about architecture, interior design, or art outside of tattoos and I knew this was ugly as fuck.
“Um, is this a cellar or a sex dungeon?” Nero asked when he saw the door.
“Honestly, it’s a valid question,” Celix said.
Based on the décor in the rest of the house, it could have been a cellar when Lilith lived here and very much be some twisted fucked up version of a sex dungeon now.
“Well,Ikept wine down there, but right now, there’s a powerful Enochian spell on the door, so I couldn’t tell you what’s down there now except probably the King of Hell. Sydney, this is you. I can walk you through it.”
Yeah, Sydney was just as scared of her magic as she was of meeting her father. She was so focused on the fact that the first time it came out, it killed my entire family and not the fact that even though she had zero control, she only killed the people who was trying to attack us.
We were going to have to work her through that, but we just didn’t have time. Lilith told her exactly what to do. Sydney put her hands on the door and the whole thing blew down the stairs harder than the time I ended up in a foster home with a meth lab in the basement and Swat showed up.
“Oops. I’ll buy you another door for your new sex dungeon. At least I didn’t destroy the entire house. The place doesn’t deserve to be obliterated because a tacky bitch pigeon redecorated.”
“Sydney, the spell issupposedto work like that. A lot of Enochian magic is explosive. I knew the door would do that when I told you how to disarm the spell. Let’s go get your father.”
We all shuffled into the cellar. I guess whoever decorated the rest of the house like they regularly held sex parties here optednotput a sex dungeon in the basement. I could see where Lilithmighthave kept wine down here, but the only thing here was a giant cage with an angel that looked like the male version of Sydney.
He was filthy, underfed and crapping in a bucket from the looks of it. His eyes lifted when he realized someone was coming down the stairs. He didn’t look like he had the energy for much. Lucifer seemed relieved when he realized it was Lilith with demons, but then his gaze locked on Sydney.
Yeah, I’d seen paintings and old photos. I was pretty sure Lucifer hadn’t had a proper shower or haircut the entire time he’d been missing and they were clearly keeping him weak by not feeding him enough. But there was absolutely zero doubts looking at the two of them together that this was father and daughter.
Lucifer rushed to the cage and tried to wrap his hands around the bars. He got zapped and flung back. He groaned and sat up.
“You live?” he groaned.
“Uh, yeah. And you didn’t go out for cigarettes when you found out Mom was pregnant and leave the state.”
“I’d never do that to one of my children.”
“How do I get him out of the zappy cage?”
“Who did this?” Lilith asked.
“I don’t know. Every time he visited me, he wore Kir’s face to torment me.”
“How is that possible?” Sydney asked.
“Angels can shapeshift,” Lilith said. “Some of their usual forms are monstrous and terrifying. Some of the Fallen you’ve met are in their shapeshifted forms instead of their natural ones. They can appear how they like.”
“Well, that’s fucked up, but how do we get him out of that cage?”
“I don’t know. There are spells upon spells on this cage. I’m guessing the only person who can safely diffuse these spells are the one who cast them.”
Sydney had to be the most infuriating woman to ever exist. Before any of us could grab her and stop her, she marched over to the cage and just grabbed the bars. I literally just watched those bars knock the King of Hell on his ass. What was she thinking? Was she thinking at all?
A green light exploded from the cage and we all stumbled. Hellfire. She’d managed to call her Hellfire. The bars of the cage turned to ash around Lucifer. I managed to get to her before she collapsed and hit the ground. Celix and Nero helped Lucifer up and over to Sydney.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Did you really lose a fiddle contest to a hillbilly in Georgia? Because that’s super embarrassing,” Sydney slurred.
Lucifer wheezed out a laugh.
