Chapter 26
Ishouldn’t be having this much fun. I’d pissed off a whole mess of fallen angels by poking at their daddy issues. I had daddy issues. I was loads younger than them and I’d still found the time to get therapy about mine and I wasn’t going to going to murder someone because they brought mine up.
But yeah, I asked Mom to bring me to see The Karate Kid and then I asked if she’d enroll me.
Bless Mom, she did, even though I wanted to play soccer and quit and I went through a very brief two-month phase where I was going to be a princess ballerina astronaut right up until I set foot in ballet class.
But karate? I just clicked with it. It was fun, and I loved every minute of it. It made me strong and confident. I didn’t need to fight, but I knew if it ever came down to it, I could end one. Of course, that was just with humans.
Learning to fight angels with my new demon friends was rad. I was in a huddle with Nero, Celix, and Kujo. Not exactly like my first karate lesson, but I was enjoying myself all the same.
“So, we actually have an advantage,” Nero said.
“Sydney’s wings aren’t in yet, but Kujo and I have ours.
Sydney was able to lay Kujo out, so she can handle herself.
I’m pretty sure if we pair her with Celix on the ground, they will be unstoppable.
Kujo and I know how to fight in the air, but so would Wrathhog.
“We outnumber her and she gave us her weakness. She’ll be fighting, but she’ll also be trying to avoid us. Kujo and I will try to corral her to you on the ground, so she’s outnumbered further.”
“Okay, so Sydney only got the jump on me because she lied about not having fight training, but—”
“Did I lie or did you just make an ass of yourself and assume?”
“Anyway, you’ve got a good foundation, but watch us in the air so you get an idea how we fight in the air for when you get your wings. I’m Cambion, so I have more experience with the mortal realm than these guys.
“I never had a foster family give a shit enough to put me in karate, but I know about it. This is Hell. You’re either a demon or a fallen angel.
No one fights fair. They’ve either made their weaknesses secret or they’ve made our strengths illegal.
We fight dirty and we fight to win. This isn’t a tournament.
Someone is bigger and badder than you with better magic.
As the daughter of Lucifer, you’re near the top of the food chain, but you don’t have any of your magic yet, so it would be easier for a lower demon to take you out.
Keep that in mind when we send Wrathhog your way. ”
“Back-to-back,” Celix said. “We can keep an eye on each other’s sixes. She’s outnumbered. She’s not fighting to kill, but she will knock us the fuck out to even things up.”
“Noted.”
I bounced on my feet. I was ready. I guess being immortal was starting to make a bit of sense.
My ex used to tell me I should stop going to the dojo because I was getting old and it would be expensive when I got hurt.
I would have stopped if I felt like I needed to, but I didn’t.
It didn’t hurt any more now than it did when I was younger and I needed the outlet. It made me feel alive.
This? This was a million times better than that. I’d probably change my mind if I ever had to take on an angel who actually wanted to kill me, but I couldn’t wait for this.
Right up until Wrathhog called the fight to start and shot in the air. Holy shit. It was brutal. Damn. Nero was such a golden retriever except for when he was fighting. I already knew Kujo was deadly.
They went straight for Wrathhog like they intended to kill her. She did a graceful backflip in the air and zipped towards the ceiling. Nero and Kujo went after her with murder in their eyes. There wasn’t anywhere else she could go, so I thought she was done for.
I didn’t know why she let herself get cornered. From what I understood, her dad was a general. And she was just hovering in the air like she was going to let them.
Oh. Wrathhog had a plan. As soon as they got close, she did some kind of pirouette in the air and bitch smacked both of them at least twenty feet with her wings. Kujo smashed against the wall and nearly fell to the ground, but righted himself and was back in the fight.
Wrathhog flipped them both off.
“I’m insulted you fell for that and thought it would be that easy.”
Nero just grinned.
“Kujo fell for it. I was backing up my partner, so you didn’t obliterate him.”
“Oh, fuck you. I knew what she was doing. She was going to sit there until we did something.”
They all looked like they were having a blast. I was having fun. Did I just find my group of psychos? I wanted to be up in the air with them so bad. This was better than that time Randy Savage and the Undertaker did WrestleMania on Pay Per View and Mom had the night off.
They were utterly brutal, but they were also laughing their asses off. I wanted in. Either Wrathhog was getting tired because she was fighting off two big demons or she thought I was feeling left out and needed practice. They were slowly pushing her towards Celix and me.
I bounced on my toes because I couldn’t wait.
Wrathhog made it to the ground before Nero and Kujo.
She kept her wings out and swept it at Celix and me.
Celix went high and leapt over it since he was part fucking cat.
I went low and tried to roll under. I managed to avoid getting smacked into the wall, but I did take a face full of feathers.
Celix moved like lightning and was pressed against my back again.
“Decent reflexes, but in a few weeks, you’ll want to go over instead of under,” she said, exploding at my face.
I blocked her, and she hit much harder than any human. And I could appreciate that Celix didn’t jump in and try to take the hit for me. He’d only seen me take down Kujo once, but he trusted I could handle myself. I didn’t think my ex had ever given me that the entire time we’d been married.
I tried to hit her, but she was good. Wrathhog easily blocked me and countered with a kick to my gut. It hurt like a bitch and knocked the wind clean out of me, but I was having more fun than I’d had in a long time.
Kujo and Nero did that whole superhero landing thing they did in movies. Yeah, I was doing all my landings like that when I got my wings. We had her completely surrounded, but Wrathhog wasn’t taking to the air again where she could even the numbers a bit. I didn’t get it.
She was keeping us back with her wings and those were kind of a bitch to avoid. She briefly took all four of us out. I slammed into the wall so hard, I was sure something might be broken, but I jumped right back in.
Was Wrathhog letting us win? She eventually stopped using her wings, too, and was just using her fists.
It took all four of us, but eventually Nero got the pressure point in her wings.
I’d give it to Wrathhog. She said it hurt like a mother fuck and I could tell her wings just drooped.
She couldn’t control them anymore, but she was still fighting us.
She wasn’t yielding, and I wasn’t sure when the fight was supposed to be over. While she was fending off Nero, Celix, and Kujo and she couldn’t use her wings, I jumped on her back and put her in a choke hold.
“Yield!” I yelled.
I thought she was really going to let me choke her out, but she finally tapped my arm and I let her go. She walked us through which pressure point to hit again so she’d have use of her wings since she was one of us and they’d need it for me, too, eventually.
“Thank fuck,” she said, collapsing on a chair and grabbing her water bottle. “It’s the worst when someone triggers that pressure point. What did we learn?”
“Did you make it easy on us?” I blurted out.
“Fuck no. Lesson one. Angels get just as tired as everyone else. Wings are heavy. Flying is easy but using them to fight is not. It tires you out. Your first instinct is going to be to take to the air if you’re in a fight with an angel, but that’s wrong.
You only want to take flight if they do and you want to bring them down as soon as you can so you last longer.
“I only did it because I wanted to play and to show you by example that it was easier to beat me that way. When your wings come in, it’s fun. You’re going to want to fly and use them all the time. They aren’t always the answer. Sometimes, they can be your downfall.”
“Noted.”
That made sense. I thought she was making it easy on us to make me feel better, even though I didn’t get vibes off her she was that kind of friend. She was letting herself get exhausted and hurt to prove a point to me because she was that kind of friend.
“I’m done for the day. I’m not going to be able to teach you much else. Lucifer and Dad were good friends before he went missing. We were over here all the time as kids. You should explore the place. He’s got several rooms just dedicated to fun shit. I’m out.”
I didn’t need to explore the house for fun. I needed to find any type of clue as to where Lucifer was.