I was starting to see why my dad actually liked this guy. He was passionate, and he had no problem calling his brothers on their shit. And hewastrying to make an effort, so I could too. I agreed with everything he said, but it also wasn’t up to me.
“I think I’d rather do what Abaddon did,” Satan said. “Not the plotting and murdering, but when he checked out of day-to-day ruling, he dove into fostering excellence withalldemons. He didn’t care if they were lower demons or where they came from. I think it was his penance for what he did to Kir, but we had so many breakthroughs because he ignored the hierarchy. I’ve never agreed with it.”
“I didn’t either. We were outvoted,” Lucifer said.
“Well, I’m changing my vote,” Mammon said. “If the Beast of Eden came out, we all would have died. The only reason we would have had a chance of making it out was the Fury and the incubus. I have no interest in sex like the rest of you and I know that makes me defective, but I know what love and loyalty looks like. It’s against the law for the incubus to use his magic like that and he would have risked itfor her.There’s clearly more to demons than I thought.”
Wait, what? I walked around and thumped every single angel except Mammon upside the head. Because I was starting to understand Mammon a little better.
“Okay, fuckers. Listen up. I have zero say in how you run Hell, but Mammon isn’t defective, he’s just asexual and there’s nothing wrong with that. Mammon, if someone convinced you that you’re just a prude, they are wrong. No one should be pressured into having sex. I’ll give you some books. If I catchanyonegiving him a hard time, I’m going to kick your ass.”
Because yeah, he’d made a big deal about my shirts and I said some shit too, but he wasn’t wanting to have sex and refusing to because of some purity angel thing like I thought. He just wasn’t interested, and that was totally fine.
Lucifer and Mammon just smiled at me.
“I’d listen to her,” Lucifer said. “Someone taught my little girl to throw a punch, and I’ll let her. Sydney, I’ve been telling him there’s nothing wrong with him for thousands of years.”
“The rest of us didn’t because we didn’t know better. I’m sorry. You’re also right about all of this. Belphegor and Beelzebub, you’re outvoted, but are you going to fight us?” Satan asked.
“No,” Belphegor said. “It all went too far. I wasn’t as close to Kir as some of you, but he was special. Your latest Hellspawn is crude, violent, and abrasive, but she found you when none of us could. She’s special in her own way.”
I flipped him off and grinned.
“Thanks.”
He just smiled at me. This entire time, Beelzebub had never stopped eating. I was fairly sure he was stuffing his face when I was beating the shit out of Asmodeus and probably didn’t even react when I had a knife to my throat.
“I’mbored.I’ve had sex with every type of demon. Some of the things you blamed on Asmodeus and could never pin on him was actually me. I’ve got an entire room of shit I’ve stolen from all of you when I was at your houses. I slept with most of your wives, but that didn’t do it for me either. Ruling is boring. All your parties are stupid. I want more time to figure out what makes me happy, so let the demons run things.”
That was fair. One of these days, I was going to ask him about his exploits. The other angels agreed. Belphegor was still pissed about his wife and Satan demanded the return of his property.
I looked at my demons. We’d done it. I nearly died, but we’d done it. I knew when Kujo startedseeingangel stuff that we might be able to find my dad, but I wasn’t sure about changing Hell.
But we’d done that too.
The dinner party was ruined, so we moved straight to the funeral. Someone was teaching me that trick where they summoned a pyre to burn the bodies. Angel parts could be used in powerful spells, so they couldn’t bury them. Except something was missing. I was conflicted on my feelings about Abaddon, but I didn’t blame the people around him.
“Was Abaddon married or did he just have boyfriends? Because someone should let them know what happened so they can say goodbye.”
“I’ll do it,” Wrathhog said.
She disappeared. I’d seen all the Fallen together except for Lucifer and they seemed to travel in packs. They were all subdued, but they seemed more united. Satan was makingan effort with Belphegor and Beelzebub and Mammon was organizing things with Lilith and Lucifer. Mammon appeared to at least be making an effort with Lilith. He saw me staring and peeled away to come talk to me. My demons stepped away to give us privacy.
“I wanted to apologize again. And thank you for finding Lucifer and sticking up for me.”
“Hey, you know not wanting sex is completely normal, right? And my wings are bronze because my great grandfather was most likely a Seraphim. That’s what you were feeling around me.”
“That’s interesting and should be impossible. They never leave home. We’re old, Sydney. When we fell, everyone was experimenting with sex and I didn’t want to. There was no word for that back then and I never knew if it was because of leftover angel stuff because we don’t do that. Everyone kept telling me how amazing it was and some of them made me feel like there was something wrong with me.Ithought there was something wrong with me and I guess I leaned into it. It’s just not appealing to me at all.”
I just shrugged. Mammon was making an effort, so I could too. And my father seemed to like him.
“We got off on the wrong foot. I still have alotto learn. Do you think you could teach me to do that thing you did where you summoned the pyre?”
“I’d like that. I taught Kir some magic and I enjoy teaching.”
“Maybe you could do that when the demons takeover.”
“Maybe.”
