1. Lucifer
Chapter 1
Lucifer
H aving little memory of growing up has always left Lucy craving a large family. Little did he know how much of a pain in his arse it was. Luckily, he fucking loved the mayhem.
“You’re such a prick,” Titus muttered, glaring at his cousin, Axel, beside him. “Seriously? My gun, again?”
Axel grinned as Titus scratched at the fresh glitter glued directly onto the metal. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Lucifer couldn’t control his laughter, immediately pressing his lips together when Titus turned his red gaze to him.
“Don’t you fucking start,” he growled, pointing the barrel of said glittery gun in Lucy’s direction. “I know you’re his glitter dealer.”
Lucifer held up his hands in defence. “I didn’t know what he was going to do with it. I’m innocent.”
“Ignore him,” Axel chuckled. “He chose the colour.”
Titus’s red eyes seemed to glow in the darkness, and Lucifer felt the dark tendrils of his magic react violently at the display. “Pink?”
Lucifer smirked, hiding the constant aggression he kept locked away for special occasions. “You know it’s my favourite colour.”
“Prick,” Titus muttered, but a shadow of a smile curved his lips.
“Serves you right for going after my eyebrows with hair remover.” Axel fidgeted with his blade, flipping it in the air before catching it by the handle. “They’ve only just grown back.”
Titus’s smile widened. “It was Rae’s idea to put it in your moisturiser, pretty boy.”
“And that’s why your mate is more terrifying, Tit.” Axel shook his head at Titus’s sharp gaze at that particular nickname.
“Remind me to call in sick next time I’m put on rotation with you guys.” Lucifer picked at his fingernails, the black varnish peeling to reveal the hot pink he had on last week. “Ti, you find anything?”
Axel pushed off the brick wall, his movements agitated. “Yeah, we’ve been waiting for over an hour.”
Titus checked his phone, the scanner he’d developed able to decrypt almost every frequency, including those used by the local Met. “No.”
Axel huffed out a frustrated breath before returning to the wall. Patience wasn’t exactly one of his virtues, and had only become worse since sobering up.
But he wasn’t alone, Lucifer was also feeling the tension, an anxiety that was growing the longer there was between attacks. Lessers, crudely nicknamed ‘Skulls’ by the Guardians because of their ugly faces, seemed to have vanished. Poofed into thin air, as if they’d never existed in the first place. Their master, Gideon, was also nowhere to be found, and even Unhallowed activity had lessened.
It was the longest period of nothing since he’d been freed from Hell, and he knew it was only a matter of time before the self-proclaimed king of Daemons made his reappearance. Ready to annihilate everything and everyone in search of more power.
The classic villain arc.
It has been three months since they almost managed to destroy him.
Three months, and they hadn’t heard a whisper.
Titus straightened, tapping on his phone. “I’ve got something.” Clicking a button, radio static echoed around them, quickly followed by panicked voices.
“We’re surrounded… call–”
“–Nothing’s stopping them–”
“–Who… these people?–”
Gun shots fired, obscuring the feed further.
“Skulls... They’re dressed… skulls.”
All three of them shared a look for the briefest moment before they moved into action.
“Foot or car?” Axel called after Titus, who was always running.
“Quicker on foot,” he called back, turning down an alley barely illuminated by the moon. This part of London was quiet at such an early hour, the streets mostly abandoned, bar a few drunken straddlers or late night commuters. “The call came from the underpass by the Tower.”
Lucifer blinked, bringing up the image of the underpass for a mental lock. With a wink over his shoulder at Axel, he drifted mid-sprint to appear instantly at the edge of a concrete column. It had taken him years to perfect the drift to be so effortless, and now the power barely ruffled his equilibrium. He would be standing in one place, and then with the image of his destination in his mind, poof, he was there.
Fucking amazing, and was the single coolest thing about being a Daemon. Oh, and the wings. Lucy also loved his wings. They were hot as fuck, and had gotten him laid by many females over the years, as well as a couple males when he was in his experimenting phase.
Everything else, the horns, the mood swings, the ennui of being almost immortal, and the constant need to destroy and kill with black magic not meant for a single being… not so much.
Skidding to a halt, Lucy looked around. For a second he thought he’d fucked up and had drifted to the wrong place. But then he noticed a police officer, his body torn down the middle in a grotesque show of strength. Blood pooled fresh beneath him, his heart somehow still pumping for a few more seconds before the body finally realised it wasn’t going to recover and accepted its fate. Another officer lay a few feet to the side, mouth gaped open as he gasped for breath. His throat was gone, torn out.
Lucifer knelt, the officer meeting his eyes before death finally took him.
There were half a dozen more spotted around, and he was sure there were more inside the construction site just to the left if he went by the wet sheen across the metal linked fence.
“What the fuck?” Titus appeared, Axel following a few seconds later.
“Where are the Skulls?”
Lucifer swept out his chi, searching for Gideon’s minions and finding… nothing. “It doesn’t make sense,” he growled, stepping over the corpses onto the sodden earth. The floor was a mixture of dirt and concrete, the construction site looking more abandoned than used if he went by the crumbling brick and rusted metal. Many of the surrounding fences had been trampled down or cut open.
Axel checked the pulse of one of the men, but Lucifer knew it was pointless.
Skulls were created when a Daemon forced their own magic into someone not druid born. The corruption created ‘Lessers,’ weak soldiers that would usually deteriorate until they were nothing but empty shells that collapsed beneath their own weight. Except Gideon had found a way for them to be stronger, faster, and more resilient than those he’d fought before. They were still Lessers, their faces uniquely glamoured to appear skeletal. But they were soldiers that felt no pain, and would stop at nothing but death.
It would be unlikely that the officers, even with their guns, tasers, and batons would be able to take a single Skull down, never mind several.
So where were the fuckers?
“You guys feel any presence what-so-ever?” Axel called, straightening to his full height before moving further beneath the bridge.
Lucy stretched his chi out once more, hoping he’d missed the blip in his awareness so he could work out some of his aggression. But there wasn’t a single life force other than the three of them. “Nothing.”
Titus’s head jerked towards where his cousin had disappeared, mouth set in a grim line.
“Remember I can’t hear him,” Lucy grunted, not bitter at all that he didn’t have awesome telepathic powers like the Guardians. Absolute bullshit if you asked him. “What’s he found?”
Titus swallowed, moving in the same direction Axel had gone.
“Fucking hell.” Just behind the construction site, and hidden from sight beneath the bridge high above was a sea of fabric and plastic. “Are those… tents?”
“Looks like a homeless encampment,” Titus commented, slowly walking through.
Lucifer dipped his head inside the closest one, finding nothing but piles of foul-smelling clothes and bags. Pulling back with a frown, he looked around and counted over fifty tents, or similarly made contraptions. Fabric had been strung up, as well as tarpaulin and hand-made sheets of plastic. Flames crackled in metal barrels, the fuel piled high enough to give the area a little warmth against the slight breeze.
“There’s food here,” Axel called from the other side. “Fresh. What made them leave so suddenly?”
“Do you mean other than creepy arseholes with their faces glamoured like skeletons?” Lucy deadpanned, rolling his shoulders to ease some of the tension. His back itched to spread his wings, but he knew in the current situation they would only be a hindrance.
Something crunched beneath his boot, and kneeling, Lucy reached out to brush his fingers through the dirt.
“What is it?” Axel asked over his shoulder.
His fingers dug up something solid. “Bones.” Thousands of them had been buried, the surrounding earth singed. But despite the dirt being blackened, the bones were unharmed, if you could say bones being outside their flesh prisons unharmed. “I think I’ve found everyone.”
“Hounds?” Axel asked. “I’ve never seen a Skull do this.”
Lucy frowned, unable to feel any residue that an Unhallowed had been in the area recently. Hellhounds left a trail, like dark aethers that he felt against his chi. “Maybe the people living here were just cannibalistic?” He brushed his fingers through the dirt once more. “You can’t judge someone’s desperation unless you live it.”
Axel shook his head. “Stop trying to rationalise the fact you ate people.”
Lucifer made sure to look offended. “Are you as disgusted by lions?”
“Yes, because that’s the same thing.”
“And just to confirm, I never digested anyone.” Lucifer stood, pointing his finger at Axel. “I just chewed some flesh a little. Scared the shit out of the witch that had summoned me, so was definitely worth the decade of trauma.”
Titus looked over. “Only a decade?”
Lucifer shrugged. “When you’ve suffered the shit I have, a little cannibalism is nothing.”
Axel grimaced before crossing his arms and turning his attention to the pile. “A single hound wouldn’t have been able to take out this many people. You think it could be a pack?”
Lucifer looked over the encampment, noticing not a single tent had been destroyed. “Yeah, a bloody polite one.” Hounds were as feral as any wild animal. They weren’t patient hunters, and would have ripped through the fabric with ease using their claws and teeth.
“If it is a pack, they’ve gone hunting elsewhere,” Titus added. “But that doesn’t explain the Skulls.”
“Nothing makes sense.” Lucifer kicked at the dirt, wanting to rebury the bones so the souls attached could be at peace. “We got here within seconds of the call, and was met with…”
He sensed the arcane a second before it hit, barely managing to twist out of the way so the magic seared across his chi, rather than taking off his flesh. Gritting his teeth at the sharp pain, he turned, finding a man standing just beneath the bridge with a grin.
Titus pulled out his gun, while Axel palmed a knife.
“Not even a hello?” Lucifer called his own arcane to his palm. It was a deep red that darkened at the heart to black, and pulsated along with his anger. “Fucking rude.”
“Anyone you recognise?” Titus asked, eyeing the man who continued to beam like a maniac. His eyes were more pink than red, but his aura was distinctively Daemonic.
“Nope,” Lucy whispered before raising his voice so it carried to the Freshy. “Are you serious? You’re barely a year old.”
A ripple of awareness against his chi, and he didn’t need to turn around to know the hounds they had been discussing only a moment ago have finally made an appearance.
Fan-fucking-tastic, he thought with a grin. Let’s play.
Freshy shot another bolt of arcane, this one going wide and hitting the edge of the construction site. Concrete exploded, shooting rubble across the area in a cloud of smoke.
“What? You’re not trying to recruit me anymore?” Lucifer pushed out his bottom lip. “Tell Gideon I’m offended.”
Another ball of arcane was shot in their direction, growing mass as it destroyed everything in its path. Jumping out the way, the scent of rotting, seared flesh and distinctive hound shit erupted as whatever enchantment that had sealed the decay was destroyed.
Lucy hadn’t sensed any wards. Fuck, he hadn’t even sensed Freshy until the last second.
“We’ll deal with the hounds,” Titus said, the ground already vibrating as Axel shifted into his beast form.
“Do you know what that means, cupcake?” Lucy called over to the Daemon. “That means, you’re all mine.” With a wink Lucy drifted, closing their distance until they were toe to toe.
Except, Freshy was already gone.
“What the –”
Arcane landed in the centre of his back, eating away at his T-shirt and flesh with the ease of acid. He swallowed his pained snarl, tearing the fabric from his chest before it could melt into his skin.
His chi ached, the arcane destroying part of his aura as well as his back. It was something a greater Daemon could do, not someone who was barely out of his training wheels.
Lucifer straightened, ignoring the pain along his spine. Freshy continued with his cocky smirk, jumping from one foot to the other like an excited juvenile.
“I was told you were going to be stronger than this,” he said with a chuckle, the sound somehow even younger than expected. “But you’re weak.”
Lucifer could hear the snarls and growls of the fight behind, not daring to turn his attention away. “Tough words for someone who’s aiming for my back.”
This time, when the arcane was thrown, he was ready.
Freshy’s smile slipped, pink eyes widening as Lucifer caught the magic out the air as if it were a ball.
The magic felt like oil, greasy tendrils wrapping around Lucy’s wrists until his power broke it down enough he could balance it against his own. There was once a time when he would have puked as the effluence merged with his aura. His mind, body and soul repelling the black magic. But that was a long time ago, and whether he wanted it to or not, black magic now thrummed through his veins. It was the difference between him, and the cocky twat fresh from his Rite.
“Your turn,” Lucy goaded, throwing his own arcane back, knowing the Daemon would want to catch it just as he had. And when he did, Lucy pulled out his pistol and aimed.
“You missed,” Freshy said, his smile more of a sneer as he collapsed Lucifer’s arcane between his palms as if he’d done it hundreds of times before.
The bullet hadn’t missed, sinking into the Freshy’s thigh because Lucy just hadn’t been aiming for anything important.
“Babycakes, I never miss.” Lucifer winked, drifting across the space to stand in front of him. Gripping the Freshy’s throat, he lifted him until his feet no longer brushed the floor. Freshy struggled, eyes widening and lips opening with a gasp when he realised his ability to drift had been blocked by the bullet currently lodged in his femur.
Up close Lucy realised just how young he was. Black veins protruded around his eyes, wriggling like worms beneath skin a shade greyer than it should be. He was barely an adult, yet to fill out his shoulders before he transitioned.
And still, Lucifer felt nothing but anger as he released his grip, only to shove his fist through Freshy’s chest. “You chose the wrong side,” he said, opening his palm to release a burst of arcane. His magic ate away at everything it touched, giving true death to someone who was likely promised immortality.
Never mind, maybe he’d have better luck in the afterlife.
Pulling his arm back, he turned to find Axel still in his furry alter-ego, and Titus approaching.
“What happened?” Titus asked, claw marks slicing across his chest.
“What do you mean ‘what happened?’” Lucifer swept an arm out dramatically at the dust that remained. “I kicked arse, that’s what happened.”
“It seemed like you were struggling,” Titus replied with a raised brow.
“Says the guy who’s leaking,” Lucifer snapped back. “From three distinctive slashes, might I add.”
Axel’s beast flopped his tongue out the side of his muzzle in a wolfish grin, fangs dripping with blood.
“See, Axel gets it.” Lucifer rubbed the space between the beast’s ears. “Did you sense him with your superpowers?” The Guardians were trained to destroy Daemons, their beasts created specifically for the task.
Titus pressed his lips into a thin line. “Not until he’d already thrown the arcane.”
“So, you’re just as useless as I am then, because I sensed nothing.”
The wind suddenly picked up, whipping up the noxious scents.
“What does that mean?” Ti asked.
Lucifer looked out over the encampment, many of the tents disintegrated in the fight. “It means we’ve got a problem.”