Chapter 11 Sydney
We had a nice dinner and then piled into Lucifer’s living room. If I was doing this, then I needed intel. Abaddon and Satan had left. Abaddon took his bedtime seriously and Satan was having dinner with Wrathhog before she came over and interviewed me to see if she’d take the job.
I was a big girl. I didn’t need men running interference between me and some trumped-up fallen angels.
Which was something I never thought I’d say in my entire life.
I needed to know what I was working with.
I needed strengths and weaknesses because I couldn’t go around kicking everyone here in the nuts.
“So, they all handle different sins,” Celix said. “You know Lucifer is pride and Satan is wrath. Abaddon is sloth. Beelzebub is envy and Mammon is greed. That leaves Belphegor as gluttony and Asmodeus with lust.”
“So, the seven deadly sins. What the fuck? I thought you said everyone down here were bad people. Some of those, everyone does at least once in their lives.”
“It’s more complicated than that, princess,” Kujo said. “If you’re just greedy and gluttonous with the last piece of pizza when you already had four slices, then you aren’t going to end up here, you’re just going to piss people off.”
“Are you serious right now?” Nero said. “That was five fucking months ago. It was just sitting there after two hours. If you wanted it, you should have grabbed it sooner.”
I was trying not to laugh because Kujo looked like he was pissed about that pizza. He looked like he was still angry enough about it to punch the fuck out of Nero.
“Anyway,” Celix said, “If you’re greedy and gluttonous enough to hoard anything while people go without, then you end up here.”
“Good. Those people who panic bought all the toilet paper should suffer. I broke down and bought a bidet and it changed my life, but my thighs hated me for days after putting that thing in because my ex-husband is useless.”
“That’s inconvenient, but it’s not bad enough to land someone here,” Celix said.
“Damn.”
“It’s a given that everyone is going to commit the seven deadly sins.
It’s when someone is grievously hurt that you end up here.
If you’re so envious of someone that you maim or kill them, you end up here.
Lust is a normal emotion, and it’s not actually a sin.
It’s when you act on your lust, someone isn’t returning it, and you don’t take no for an answer.
Wrathhog particularly enjoys torturing rapists. ”
“I haven’t met her yet and I already like her.”
“So, the princes were all randomly assigned sins. Some of it isn’t all that random.
You don’t want to piss Satan off. Asmodeus is a bit of a lech.
Beelzebub has always been jealous of Lucifer and Mammon is greedy.
Abaddon is allergic to work. Belphegor and Lucifer are the only ones who are the exact opposite of what their sins are. ”
“They aren’t really going to try to get with me, are they? Aren’t they my uncles?”
Because that was gross. No Bueno. Not going there. My vagina was closed for business.
“It’s…complicated,” Nero said.
“Uncomplicate it.”
“Well, like, they are angels. They weren’t born in the traditional sense. They don’t have a mother. They were created fully formed. They haven’t had DNA tests or anything to see if they are actually created. They tried once, but their blood made the lab explode. People died.”
“Yeah, still not going there. Tell me all about you.”
“Wait,” Nero said.
He made a beeline over to a cabinet and started pulling out bottles.
“If we’re getting to know each other, we’re getting drunk.”
“I knew I liked you.”
“Fuck, is that Lucifer’s fire whiskey?” Celix gasped.
“What’s that?”
Because I was in. I didn’t even need to know what it was. It sounded amazing.
“Lucifer had this business venture that fizzled out when he went missing. It’s this whiskey only he can make because he’s the only one with Hellfire. Hey, you could make it!” Nero said.
“Right now, I’m going to drink it.”
“That shit was expensive even before Lucifer went missing,” Kujo grumped.
“Oh, my Jesus, he’s going to be so mad!” Nero gasped.
“Are demons allowed to do that? Take the lord’s name in vain?”
“What are they going to do? Come down here and spank us?” Celix asked.
“They hate us, but they won’t come here. They believe the whole place is this fiery inferno. They think everyone here is miserable. It’s to stop them from rebelling like Lucifer did,” Kujo said.
Nero started pouring drinks. The fire whiskey was weird. It definitely looked like absinthe. Before I could take a sip, I had more questions.
“Demonic possession. Real or fake?”
“Fake,” Nero said. “Do you think anyone would want to exchange all this for a meat suit that could die from a severe case of diarrhea?”
“Good point because you’re all hot as fuck,” I said, downing the whiskey.
Fuck that was good. It burned on the way down in the best way. There were hints of caramel, but it was also smokey. And I included Kujo in the hotness. It was a pity he had to open his mouth and ruin it. They all drank when I did like they’d been waiting for my permission.
“Demonic possession is usually blamed on some poor soul having a psychotic break. It was one thing when they just didn’t know better, but now they do and they still blame us instead of getting them help.
We can’t possess anyone. Even the souls that have been escaping can’t jump into a living person.
It has to be a corpse. The only way to force a soul out of their body is to kill them. ”
“Noted. So, I’ve heard of incubi and furies before, but it’s all through smutty books and I don’t know how much of it is real. I’ve never heard of demons like Celix before and I don’t know how many different types of demons there are.”
“So, Lilith is the mother of demons. She was created as Adam’s wife, but she had other ideas about being submissive to a man, so she got kicked out of the garden. After Lucifer fell, he kind of adopted her. I know a lot of the lore is that they were lovers, but they were more like siblings.
“They bonded over losing everything for wanting control over their own destiny. He taught her forbidden magicks and together, they created demons to populate Hell. They created enough that the lines could continue and then demons started to cross breed. With the new hybrids, came new demons. There are tons of us now. It would take all night to go over the different kinds of demons here.”
“Tell me about you then.”
“Only if you tell us about you,” Nero said.
“Done.”
“So, I’m a Felid demon,” Celix said. “Lilith stole some big cats from Earth and used them as the basis for my kind. She also did the same with dogs and Canid demons. We used to be a lot more cat like, but we’ve become more like what you see as we fell in love with different types of demons.
“My kind and the Canid demons usually have multiples when our women give birth. There are a lot of us. Some demons think there are too many and how many litters we have should be regulated. Lucifer was against it, so it never happened, but people are talking about it again now that he’s missing.
It’s not even like we are having litters once a year. Multiple demon kids are a lot.”
“I’ll bet. And if I’m in charge, all those people can get fucked.”
“I can see you telling people that, too,” Nero giggled.
“And assaulting their nuts and eyes,” Kujo grumped.
“So, you know I’m an incubus. We are the male version of succubae. We are made for pleasure. We can sense desires and we can turn into anyone’s fantasy. Like, if someone wanted to fuck one of the fallen angels, we can give them that illusion.
“Mammon and Beelzebub have some old hangups about sex from when they were angels. The rest of them got over it. Everyone has sex. Having sex for pleasure relieves stress and releases endorphins and there’s nothing wrong with it.
Everyone here knows this. But Mammon and Beelzebub went on this campaign during the early days when we were first created that we were filthy creatures and lower than dirt. It kind of stuck.”
Sorry, but why was my father allowing any of this before he left? No one should feel lesser over how they were born. It was idiotic back on Earth and it was stupid here, too.
“You,” I said, pointing at Kujo. “Are the furies shat on, too? All I know is the furies from Greek mythology.”
“Those were fury demons during a different time. Furies are on the upper end of the hierarchy. They get away with anything. Their magic is powerful, but they’ve got piss-poor tempers they don’t try to rein in.
They are all about purity, so they only mate with other furies.
If they do happen to have a kid that isn’t pure fury, they want nothing to do with them. Fuck the furies.”
“I agree with you. Fuck them.”
“What about you? Tell us about you,” Nero asked.
“Mom raised me with no help. Her parents died when she was a teenager. I put myself through nursing school and met my ex. We got married, and I found out I couldn’t have kids. I—”
“Yet,” Celix said. “You will when you’re older. You wouldn’t have been able to before.”
“Well, shit. Hell had better have excellent birth control because I thought that wasn’t going to be a problem.”
“We do. We had it long before you did on Earth.”
“Okay, good. Anyway, my ex said he didn’t want kids, either, so it wasn’t a problem.
Then, it all went to shit. I got an idea for a romance book.
I wrote and self-published it in secret.
My ex taught literature at the local college and he was a huge snob about books.
Basically, if it was written in this century and in English, he thought it was trash.
He had big opinions about romance books. ”
“Nero does, too,” Celix said. “He loves them. Not the dark ones, though. He won’t read anything with trigger warnings or the dog dies.”
“Oh, my god, right? I’m okay with a few trigger warnings, but if there’s a dog or cat, nothing bad had better happen to it.”
“Only fucking psychopaths kill the dog,” Kujo growled.
“I want to read your books,” Nero said, bouncing on his seat.
“Uh, you can get them at most online stores on Earth, but I’m not sure about here. Anyway, I kept writing in secret, but eventually, I was making a lot more money writing than I was nursing and I was starting to get tired of the hours and some of the abuse.
“I quit my nursing job and had to have an explanation. I told him the truth, and that was when everything changed. Karl had been working on his novel since college, but hadn’t finished it.
Sometimes, he’d get it up his ass to work on it and spend all his time at the coffee shop because I guess he thought that was what he was supposed to do.
Then, it would fizzle out and he’d stop working on it.
“He acted like I wrote my books to spite him because he never finished his. According to him, I didn’t earn the right to be a writer because I didn’t go to college for it and had never taken a creative writing class.
He said my books must appeal to barely literate women who just wanted to read porn.
And for some reason, I didn’t leave him for all of that. ”
“You didn’t kick him in the nuts?”
“No, but I should have. He deserved it more than you, but you had it coming, too.”
“That’s fair,” Nero said. “You shouldn’t grab people when they are naked without their permission.”
“I’m going to remember that when she smashes your nuts.”
“I can’t imagine Nero doing anything that would deserve a testicle smash.”
“Continue with your story. Kujo is half fury. He’s going to be raging about his nuts and that pizza all year.”
“You’d be ruminating on it, too, if the child of Lucifer tried to kick your nuts through your throat.”
I cleared my throat.
“Anyway, Karl got bitter and miserable to live with. We grew apart. I really should have left because I checked out of the relationship a while ago. I pretty much didn’t care when he announced he was leaving me for some young girl.
I guess he’s never getting that alimony now.
I’d updated my will to leave everything to charity and my catalogue to a friend way before he left me.
Ha! He’s probably going to be a suspect in my disappearance. ”
“We could kill him,” Kujo said.
“What? Why would you do that?”
Kujo just shrugged like I was supposed to know. Psycho.
“There’s more, but you really need to be sober to hear it,” Celix said.
Yeah, because we were definitely all drunk. For now, I wanted to dance. Lucifer had a turntable and some records. I squealed when I found The Cure. I guess Earth music had made its way here, too.
Nero immediately got up to dance with me. Celix joined. Kujo just stared at us like he wanted to stab us.
I’d either wear that one down or stab him.