Chapter 20 #2
“Not a very nice way to speak of my loyal subjects,” Lucifer said. He had a smile on his face, but there was malice in his eyes, an anger that told me both Cole and I had hit a nerve.
It made me smile and Lucifer’s eyes narrowed as he took in my sardonic amusement. He lifted his voice and called out to the people surrounding us. “These fools aim to stop us in our quest to bring immortality to the masses. What do you think of that, my beloved followers?”
Eerie laughter lit up the night and for the first time, I truly focused on the people gathered around Lucifer.
“Followers?” Sonya moved to stand next to me, pausing briefly to touch my shoulder. But she didn’t look at me, her attention seemingly focused solely on the towering, handsome demon in front of us. “These aren’t followers, Lucifer. They’re pawns, humans you fooled into believing your lies.”
“Lies?” He spread a clawed hand over his chest and looked again toward the people at his back.
They’d pushed closer, to him and us, blind devotion in their eyes as they stared at Lucifer.
“Dear ones,” Lucifer began with an aggrieved tone. “I give you eternity and she calls me a liar. All I ever wanted was to bestow upon my children a gift.” He raised his hands, a shockwave of red shadows unfurling at his feet. “So take this gift, my people. Become one of us.”
One of the women near Lucifer went to her knees, a garbled scream leaving her as her body started to shift.
Another took her place, nobody paying any attention to the woman who remained on her knees, her body contorted, locked in agony as she struggled to complete her shift.
“She’s struggling to shift,” I whispered.
Because a human had just been given shifter powers.
“Hmm,” Cole murmured. “This is… unnatural.”
The woman made another one of those pained screeches.
She continued screaming and moaning as her bones broke and reformed, inching closer to a completed shift before her body abruptly started to backtrack, trying to revert back to her human form.
“Yeah, you’re a real giver, all right.” I had to drag my eyes from the tortured woman on the ground so I could look at Lucifer. “This woman is in agony because of your so-called gift.”
“Immortality is a gift that often demands a high price.” Lucifer stroked a hand down the head of the woman pressing against him.
She bared her teeth at us, showing fangs.
“Yeah, and they’ll be the ones to pay it, not you.”
“Oh, don’t worry.” Lucifer sauntered forward and bent down to stroke the head of the woman struggling with her shift.
Her struggles were weaker now, limbs malformed under her flesh slicked with sweat.
She went rigid as his fingers touched her, then still, the mad light in her eyes flickering then fading as she died. “You’ll pay, too.”
I watched as the lifeless corpse went limp at his feet. “Not as much as that woman just did.”
“I gave her peace. You point out her suffering and now you point out the mercy I give her. Nothing pleases you, Lilith.” He looked past me to my mother. “This is what happens when the child is spoiled and never given any discipline.”
Freya stalked forward past the newly-changed humans and gave me a simpering smile before curling up against Lucifer. “I know you wish to prove your glory, Lucifer, but can we kill them now?” Freya stroked a hand down his chest. “Your brother is a traitor. He deserves to die.”
“Hmm,” Lucifer agreed, his bat-like wings flaring. “Do you want to kill him for me?”
Freya’s eyes glowed with bloodlust. “Oh, please, can I?”
“Take our baby witches,” he waved at a section of humans twisting in on themselves, dark shadows unfurling at their feet. “Show them how it’s done.”
Cole shoved me behind him before I could react. I flew into the arms of one of my angel twins, not registering which until Azra put me down and spun me around to look me over.
A high-pitched scream came from one of the witches who’d rushed Cole. I smelled blood but didn’t see what had happened, thanks to a Demonspawn lunging for me and my mother.
“Take this,” Sonya said, shoving a knife into my hands before drawing a longer blade from the sheath at her waist. She plunged it into the heart of the Demonspawn, pulled it back, then spun and used the momentum to take the demon’s head off.
Two more were almost on us before the head even hit the ground.
I drove my newly-acquired blade into the heart of my first attacker, wishing it didn’t have to end this way.
Lucifer caused all of this.
And now humans were dying.
My attacker didn’t look old enough to even drink here on Earth, her body slim and willowy, face still soft with youth.
She screamed as the metal penetrated her chest but kept coming for me, pulling herself along the blade.
Again, and again, they came at us. Kids barely old enough to drive, people who looked like they were grandparents two or three times over. They came at us with bloodlust in their eyes and mad devotion on their faces.
A hand at my shoulder had me whirling as I decapitated yet another girl who couldn’t have been more than nineteen, tears streaming down my face.
“Lils, it’s me, Olivia!”
I froze, staring into the blood-streaked face of my best friend.
“Olivia!” I grabbed her, held on tight.
She did the same, but jerked back, shaking her head. “There’s no time. Look!”
I followed the direction of her gaze and saw Lucifer. He’d moved away from the core of the battle, taking position on a slight rise near the back, a wide smile on his face. And he was… glowing.
An ugly, potent power filled the air, making my mouth go dry. “What is this?”
“All the death and blood, it’s charging his power.
” Olivia’s voice was full of dread. “We have to stop him, Lils. You have to stop him. We found out what he was planning—once he gluts himself on enough power, he’s going to blast Calamity throughout all of Earth and change every mortal into a supernatural—beings bound to him. ”
A cold chill ran down my spine. Dragging my gaze from Olivia, I looked back at Lucifer.
“Talk about Hell on Earth,” I whispered.