Chapter 31 Lucian #2
"Emily!" I snap, already moving to intercept this clusterfuck. "Call off your hellhound before we end up with demon-vampire fusion cuisine!"
Emily's head whips around faster than a possessed Linda Blair. "Desiste, Braxos!" she barks out, her voice carrying that 'don't you dare fuck with me' tone that could probably make Satan himself sit and stay.
Fantastic. Because what this situation needed was another supernatural throwdown with Dani's baby bro. Yeah, no thanks—I've already got enough reasons for my feisty firecracker to want to roast my ass. I am not adding "Let Demon Maul Brother" to that list.
Braxos, ever the obedient little hellhound, slinks back to his seat like a scolded child, leaving Damon standing there looking like he just walked in on a demonic orgy.
"Damon, meet Braxos, Emily's butler," I announce, gesturing to the sulking mass of brimstone and a lousy attitude. "Don't worry, she's got his balls in a vice grip. Metaphorically speaking."
"Jesus fucking Christ," Damon mutters, making a beeline for the fridge like it's his safe house.
"I did not sign up for this supernatural circus.
" He snags a blood bag and plops down at the opposite end of the island, putting as much distance between himself and our resident hellspawn as physically possible.
"Just keep that walking nightmare fuel away from me, and we'll be golden. "
I have to hand it to the kid—he's adapting to this whole "vampires, witches, and demons, oh my!" situation pretty damn well, all things considered. I mean, sure, he looks like he's about two seconds away from having a full-blown existential crisis, but hey, who isn't these days?
Sable saunters in with an armful of candles and some funky-smelling herbs.
She arranges the candles like she's setting up for a romantic dinner date with Satan, then tells Emily to repeat after her.
They start chanting in unison, their voices rising and falling in a creepy-ass harmony that makes my skin crawl.
Once the witchy duet finally wraps up, Emily looks expectantly at Braxos. "Alright, big guy, let's hear those dulcet tones in English."
"As you wish, Mistress," Braxos rumbles, his voice so deep it could give Barry White a run for his money. "How may I serve you?"
"Holy shit, it worked!" Sable squeals, bouncing up and down like a kid who just found out Santa's real. "I can't believe it!"
"Great, now, if only you could magic away his face," Damon mutters beside me, shuddering. "Because I'm pretty sure this dude's mug is gonna haunt my nightmares for the rest of my unnatural life."
"Is this more to your liking?" Braxos asks, and suddenly, his entire appearance shimmers like a heat mirage. When the distortion clears, my jaw practically hits the floor.
"Oh, HELL no!" I snap, jabbing a finger at the demon. "You are NOT allowed to cosplay as Bruce fucking Wayne!" Because, of course, this asshole would choose to impersonate the Dark Knight himself straight out of the pages of my precious comic collection.
"Damn," Emily breathes, her eyes wide with fascination. "So you can just... change your appearance at will? Like, to anything?"
"Indeed, Mistress," Braxos confirms, his face still wearing Bruce Wayne's chiseled features. "I can alter my physical form to suit your preferences."
I sit here, gaping like a fish out of water, trying to process that we now have a shape-shifting demon in our midst. A shape-shifting demon who has a hard-on for DC Comics.
I swear, if he starts quoting Batman lines, I'm gonna lose my shit.
Emily bolts into the living room like her ass is on fire, then comes rushing back with a magazine clutched in her hands.
She slaps it down on the counter and starts flipping through the pages like a woman possessed until she finally jabs her finger at some poor, unsuspecting GQ model.
"Him!" she declares, her eyes gleaming with unholy glee.
"Can you make yourself look like this fine specimen of manhood? "
Lo and behold, our resident demon Houdini does his little shimmer-shimmer act, and suddenly, we're staring at a carbon copy of the magazine Hottie.
I'm talking luscious, flowing locks that probably have their own line of hair care products, smoldering bedroom eyes that could melt a nun's chastity belt, and a body that looks chiseled out of pure, grade-A beefcake.
Emily's eyes go all liquid sex, and I know that look. I've seen it on every poor bastard who's ever fallen victim to a succubus. She's about two seconds away from climbing this demon like a tree, and I am NOT here for it.
"Ohhh, no. Fuck no!" I protest, holding up my hands like I'm trying to ward off evil. Which, let's be real, I kind of am. "There will be no demon-witch boot-knocking under this roof, you hear me? I did not sign up for a front-row seat to the supernatural porno Olympics!"
Emily shoots me a glare that could castrate a lesser man. "Jesus, Lucian, get your mind out of the gutter for once," she snaps, but I can see how her cheeks are flushed. "What's wrong? Jealous that you can't pull off the 'Abercrombie & Fitch meets Hellraiser' look."
I roll my eyes. "Oh, please. I'm secure enough in my own devilish good looks, thank you very much. I just don't want to have to bleach my eyeballs after walking in on you two doing the nasty on every available surface."
My angel cake tries to play peacemaker. "Guys, come on. Let's all take a deep breath," she soothes, but even she can't entirely hide the appreciative once-over she gives Braxos's new look. "I'm sure Emily knows better than to engage in any... inappropriate activities with…um, this demon—our guest."
Emily huffs, crossing her arms over her chest. But I swear to God, if I catch her playing 'hide the hellsalami' with him, I'm gonna need a whole lot more than holy water to cleanse my soul.
This whole situation is turning into a fucking CW TV show. All we need now is for Damon to profess his undying love for Sable, and we'll have the full bingo card of 'shit I never wanted to deal with in my immortal life.'
"So, we're all in agreement that this is a major improvement, right?
" Emily gestures to Braxos's new look as if she's unveiling a work of art.
She doesn't even wait for us to answer before barreling on.
"Great. Now, let's get down to business.
Who or what came through that rift before you decided to join our little party? "
Braxos, apparently feeling right at home in his shiny new meat suit, casually leans against the kitchen island like he's posing for a fucking GQ spread.
It's equally impressive and disturbing, if I'm being honest. "From what I gathered, Mistress, it was a vampire," he purrs, staring at Emily with barely enough restrained lust to power a small country.
"Wait, a vampire?" Sable chimes in, her brow furrowing in that adorable way that makes her look like a confused kitten. "Did you catch a name or any identifying details?"
I catch Damon sneaking glances at Sable from the corner of my eye, and I have to physically restrain myself from rolling my eyes so hard they pop out of my skull. Jesus H. Christ on a cracker, I knew it. The kid's crushing harder than a twelve-year-old at a Justin Bieber concert.
"Unfortunately, I don't have a name for you," Braxos replies, somehow managing to make even that sound suggestive as fuck. "All I know is that a vampire was pulled through the rift from the stone."
Well, isn't that just fan-fucking-tastic? Not only do we have to worry about Lilith and her vampire army, but now we've got a mystery vamp on the loose, doing God knows what with a chunk of the most dangerous magical rock in existence.
I swear, it's like the universe looked at our shit show of a situation and went, "You know what this needs? More variables! Let's throw in a wild card vampire to keep things spicy!"
"Okay, let's take a step back and think about this," Sable muses. "Why would Lilith go through the trouble of yanking a vampire's soul out of Unbra? What's her angle here? Could it be Azrael, back for round two?"
I'm pretty sure we're all thinking the same damn thing at this point.
Rhyland gave that pretentious prick a one-way ticket to the great beyond before his little field trip to the Thunderdome.
But with our luck? I wouldn't be surprised if the bastard found a way to weasel out of eternal damnation just to fuck with us some more.
"Your guess is as good as mine," Emily sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose like she's trying to stave off a migraine. "Braxos, care to shed some light on how the whole Shadow Realm schtick works? What's the deal with souls being able to hop dimensions like it's no big thing?"
"I must admit, I'm rather curious about that myself," Seraphina chimes in, her angelic face scrunched up in thought. "I've pored over the Book of Shadows more times than I can count, but the specifics of soul mechanics have always been a bit... vague."
I lean back in my chair, nursing my whiskey like it keeps me sane. Which, let's be honest, it probably is. "Alright, big guy," I drawl, gesturing to Braxos with my glass. "Lay it on us. Give us the 411 on this whole 'souls playing hopscotch through the cosmos' situation."
Braxos, still wearing his shiny new skin like he's auditioning for America's Next Top Demon, clears his throat.
"The Shadow Realm is a complex tapestry of energies and dimensions," he begins, his voice taking on a lecturing tone that reminds me way too much of my least favorite college professor.
"Souls are not bound by the same physical constraints as their mortal vessels, and as such, they can traverse the various planes of existence with relative ease. "
I blink, trying to process the word vomit that just spewed from his mouth. "In English, please? Some of us didn't major in Metaphysical Bullshit."
Braxos shoots me a look that's half exasperation, half barely-contained lust for Emily.
Gross. "In layman's terms," he says, each word oozing with condescension, "souls can move between dimensions if the conditions are right.
And with the power of the Soul Stone, those conditions become much more. .. flexible."
Fuck. So not only do we have to worry about Lilith playing puppet master with vampire souls, but she's got a magical MacGuffin that basically gives her a free pass to yank whoever she wants out of the afterlife.
I'm starting to think we need to invest in some cosmic restraining order against this bitch.
Like, "Lilith, by order of the universe, you are hereby forbidden from fucking with the natural order of things.
Violators will be subject to eternal damnation and/or aggressive bitch-slapping by yours truly. "
But knowing our luck, she'd probably wipe her ass with it and keep right on wreaking havoc.
"There is another matter you should understand," Braxos states, his tone carrying the weight of ancient knowledge despite his model appearance.
"The souls claimed by the stone are delivered directly to Lord Moretemis in Unbra, like tributes to the Dark God.
Each one consumed adds to his terrible might.
The stone was never intended to draw souls back from his realm, but with sufficient power and knowledge, one could reverse its purpose. "
"So, what happens to the soul once it's punched its ticket back from the Shadow Realm?" Emily leans forward, her eyes sparking with that dangerous curiosity that usually leads to trouble. "Is it just, like, a spooky ghost, floating around all invisible and shit?"
"No, Mistress," Braxos responds with that formal, old-world precision that makes him sound like he stepped out of a Shakespeare play. "Upon breaching the veil of Unbra, souls regain their corporeal form."
I lean forward, trying to wrap my head around this mindfuck. "Let me get this straight," I say, pinching the bridge of my nose. "Thanks to the power of bullshit magic, said soul is just walking around, business as usual, in the body it wore before getting ganked?"
Braxos inclines his head, a simple gesture that somehow manages to convey a metric fuckton of gravitas. "In essence, yes. Once returned, the soul can reclaim its physical vessel to walk the earth as before its demise."
"So then, when a soul goes to Unbra, they aren't...really dead?" Sable asks, her chocolate eyes wide with innocent wonder. She's twisting a strand of pink hair around her finger like she always does when her brain's working overtime. "I mean, I always thought death was so... final."
"The mortal concept of 'death' is but a primitive approximation of a far more complex transition," Braxos intones, his stolen model face attempting solemnity.
"Souls are cosmic currency, harvested and categorized according to their essence in the great collection chambers of Unbra.
They are meant to remain there for eternity, feeding the darkness.
" He raises those perfectly sculpted eyebrows in what I assume is supposed to be ominous foreshadowing.
"Until that balance was... just disrupted. "
Great. Because supernatural soul trafficking wasn't complicated enough. Now we've got interdimensional jailbreaks to deal with.
"So what you're saying is Moretemis basically runs some kind of twisted soul filing system?" Emily cuts in, rolling her eyes. "Like, 'Oh, here's another dead human! Let me just catalog you under 'H' for 'Had it coming' and stick you on my soul shelf’? That's seriously how the afterlife works?"
Ten bucks says she's already planning some half-baked magical experiment that'll either save us all or blow up the mansion.
"Your mortal metaphor, while crude, holds elements of truth. The Great Shadow's methods are beyond mortal comprehension, but—"
I take a long pull from my whiskey bottle, watching this supernatural TED talk unfold.
Between Sable's earnest curiosity, Emily's barely-contained magical mad scientist vibe, and our resident demon trying to explain the afterlife like it's a cosmic library system, I'm starting to think we should sell tickets to this shit show.
Maybe we could call it 'Souls, Sorcery, and Sarcasm: A Night with the Supernatural Misfits.' We'd make a killing.