Chapter 18
Chapter
Eighteen
LUCIFER
Was it wrong of me to relish their reactions when I laid out exactly how essential I was to them? Well, if it was, I didn’t want to be right.
“Go on, take it all in. I know it’s a shock to realize the devil has the details you need to win this.”
Caleb let out a low curse before leveling his stare on me. “If you’ve had this knowledge all this time, why would you drag it out? Why not tell us immediately?”
“Well, I didn’t know what the bone was for, now did I? Daddy dearest tasked me with hiding it. He didn’t tell me why.”
“Well?” Lilith said, hands on her leather-clad hips.
“Well, what?”
“Where is it?”
“Where is what?”
“Oh, for the love of—” Lilith huffed, stopping mid-sentence.
I smirked before inspecting my cuticles as though I was completely unbothered. “You mean the bone. Originally it was in hell, obviously. But after a few centuries, I decided it might be fun to move it around every now and again. Keep any would-be thieves on their toes.”
“So where is it now, Lucifer?” Chaos snarled.
“Keep it in your pants, big guy, I’m getting to that.”
“Get to it faster,” Grim bit out.
“Okay, okay. Sheesh, you’d think as Death you’d be more patient.”
“If I were any less patient, you’d be back in your cage with your lips sewn shut.”
Not giving him the satisfaction of thinking I was fussed over his statement, I adjusted the cuffs of my shirtsleeves one at a time, then took a deep breath. “I’m pretty sure it’s buried beneath Stonehenge. No, wait . . . That was two moves ago.”
One of the resident Berserkers growled and lunged for me, the other snagging him around the chest and holding him in place with a tersely whispered, “We can’t hurt him, Alek. We need him.”
“It’s either in the volcano in Iceland or under Elizabeth I’s tomb in Westminster Abbey. Oh, wait, wait, wait . . . No. I think my last move was to swap it out with one of the relics in Notre Dame.”
Now the other brother surged forward, a loud, animalistic snarl ripping free.
It was Chaos who hauled him back by the neck of his shirt. “If anyone’s going to flatten his smug face, it’s going to be me.”
I blew him a kiss. “I think you mean pretty.”
War flipped me the bird. “Sit on it and twirl, angel.”
“Ooh, like a music box. I didn’t realize you were into that. Merri, my sweet little crabapple, you’ve been holding out on me.”
“Lucifer, where is the bone?” Gabriel asked, exasperated.
“I’m almost one-hundred percent sure it’s in Notre Dame. Give me a moment and I’ll be able to tell you for certain.”
“Hang on. We’re not letting him just leave without some kind of assurance he’ll return, are we? Not for nothing, but Satan isn’t exactly the most trustworthy.”
I shot Hades a withering stare. “I would think I’ve proven myself by now.”
“Proven yourself about as honest as a mob boss in a casino,” that annoying dog said.
If I had a chance, I’d neuter him at the first opportunity.
“Too late,” he yapped, making me wonder if I’d spoken out loud. “Already taken care of. I am a responsible, good boy.”
Kiki picked him up and rubbed his ears. “The very goodest boy.”
“Damn straight, toots.”
Grim stepped forward. “I will accompany him.”
“So will I,” Evander said.
I rolled my eyes. The last thing I wanted was my idiot brother spoiling all the fun.
“Me too.” All four horsemen joined me as we whipped our gazes to Merri.
“No, you certainly will not.”
She opened her mouth to protest Grim’s harsh correction, but stopped when Malice took her hand.
“Hellcat, you can’t risk yourself. You’re already a target, considering who your mother is, but now? In your condition . . .”
The reminder of Merri’s pregnancy filled me with a healthy dose of trepidation and pride.
Getting her with child had been my ambition for so long, but now that it had happened, I couldn’t quite shake the fear of what that meant for her.
She’d have a target on her back for the rest of her existence, just because of her connection to me.
Add to that the child, who, let’s face it, was more than likely mine, and she was practically doomed.
Before I could continue my unexpected spiral, Dahlia snickered. “Welcome to the club, Mer. You thought your mates were overprotective before? Just wait. They’re going to be insufferable for the next nine months.”
“Months?” Rosie said with a laugh. “Try decades.”
“Baby girl, it hasn’t been decades for us.” Remi sounded almost wounded.
“It feels like it sometimes.”
Remi turned to Asher. “I can’t tell if she means that in a good way or a bad way.”
Asher patted his knee. “Both.”
“I’m not helpless,” Merri said, crossing her arms over her chest.
“No one said you were, kitten. But none of us will be able to focus on the task at hand if we’re worried about you and the baby. You know that.” Sin’s gentle words earned him a modicum of respect from me. Perhaps he wasn’t just a handsome himbo.
The tension in Merri’s jaw meant she wasn’t fully on board, but she surprised me by not arguing further. With a sigh, she claimed a seat on one of the sofas.
“Right then. So our hunting party is as follows: me, Grim—”
“All four of us are going,” Chaos said in a tone that brooked no argument.
“Aren’t you the cutest musketeers?” At his glower, I simply rolled my eyes and finished my list, “And Evander. Anyone else?”
“The six of you should be more than capable of handling a simple recovery mission. Last we heard, Paris was mostly wiped out,” Lilith said.
“Except for the demons,” Crombie added. “There have been sightings of them roaming all over.”
“Right, but a handful of demons against the lot of them? Child’s play.”
“They wouldn’t stand a chance against me alone,” I said, offended that they thought I needed assistance. I was the king of demons. The lord on high. The leader of their realm. They would cower at my feet.
“Look to your mate if you want your ego stroked, Lucifer.”
I narrowed my eyes at Lilith’s sharp tongue, but didn’t respond to her goading further. Instead, I glanced at each of my babysitters in turn. “All right, then. Shall we?”
“Shit, it’s worse than I thought it would be,” Sin breathed as soon as we winked into existence outside of what once was the grandest cathedral ever built.
Now all that remained was so much rubble. Piles of stone and dust surrounded the remnants of the famous facade, the shards of stained glass littering the ground a pale reminder of the iconic window known across the world.
“Are you certain it’s still here?” Chaos asked.
“As certain as I can be.”
Evander closed his eyes, and I could only assume he was tapping into his celestial abilities before murmuring, “It’s here.”
“You can sense it?” Malice asked.
He nodded. “Angels can always sense things touched by the divine. Just as you four can likely sense that which falls under your various mantles.”
“Like real-life metal detectors,” Sin said.
Evander blinked at him. “Sure.”
Grim closed his eyes, mirroring Evander’s previous actions. Brows pulling together, he hummed. “Something, yes. I can’t get a strong enough hold on it to follow the trail, though.”
A slow shuffling followed by the sound of rocks falling and shifting caught my attention. All around us, demons began their careful approach, crawling out of the holes where they’d been hiding.
“What are the odds they attack?” Sin asked.
“Slim,” I answered.
“What about sending word we were here?” Malice ventured.
“Much higher.”
“We should move quickly then,” Grim said.
“Already ahead of you,” I said, angling myself in the direction of the axial chapel’s reliquary shrine. Or rather, what was left of it. Ugh, I was going to dirty my suit.
Glancing at the pile of debris with distaste, I cocked a brow and turned my attention to Chaos. “You, put those muscles to good use and clear a path, would you?”
Chaos’s entire body tensed, but he acquiesced, as he should have. In moments the path was once again walkable, and I strode toward the shrine, just a titch worried the bone wouldn’t be there any longer.
But no, Evander already confirmed its presence. Wait. He just confirmed the presence of something divine. Fuck.
I had an entire argument with myself over moving the bone in the first place, before I mentally slapped myself and put my game face back on. How could I have possibly known I was going to have personal use of a fucking dead man’s bone?
“All right, so where is it?” Sin asked once the six of us were standing in the remains of the chapel.
Sighing heavily, I pointed at the melted and crushed remains of the reliquary shrine. If the bone was still inside, there was zero chance it was intact. “There.”
“Fuck,” Chaos grunted.
“Damn it,” Grim said, pinching the bridge of his nose as he hung his head.
Evander, the stoic prude, was less visibly dismayed. He moved toward the shrine with purpose. Doing so forced him to cross in front of Grim, who jerked away.
“Careful! One accidental touch and—”
“I’m an angel, you can’t kill me.”
“Not outright, but you aren’t wholly immune, and it would be the height of inconvenience to have you incapacitated right now.”
“Look,” Malice said, his eyes narrowed in concentration as he pointed at the mangled bits of metal.
“Is something moving in there?” Sin asked as we all watched the dust and ash begin to rise in a swirling cloud.
Sin shoved Grim toward the destroyed shrine, but he hadn’t needed to. It was clear Grim was drawn toward the spot. He stepped closer and the cloud grew denser, a shape taking form within the dust.
“Is that what I think it is?” Malice asked.
“I thought you said it was a bone,” Sin added, almost accusingly.
“It was.”
“That is not a bone,” Sin said, pointing toward what was clearly some kind of ceremonial dagger.
Before I had a chance to speak again, Grim reached out and took the weapon by the handle. Any remaining dust dropped back down, inert once more.
“Well,” I said after a beat of stunned silence. “That was easy.” I hadn’t counted on the object being transformed into a literal weapon by the mere presence of a horseman, but it wasn’t much of a leap. My Father was known for his mysterious ways.
“This time it was. We had someone who knew exactly where it was hidden.” Evander’s voice was cold and detached.
“Isn’t that why Gavin and the others stayed behind? So they can work on sussing out the rest of the items?” Sin asked.
“We can only hope they make progress. I doubt we’re going to have any kind of divine intervention lighting our path.”
“This bone responded to Grim,” Malice said. “We are the intervention. We need to be there for each one.”
“I don’t know why it is so special. It doesn’t feel like anything more than a dagger carved from bone. There is no power here,” Grim said, turning it over and inspecting the blade.
“That’s because it hasn’t been attuned.”
Chaos grunted. “How are we supposed to do that?”
I looked from him to the dagger. “And there is the hard part. I don’t know.”
“I guess it was too much to hope everything about this one would be easy,” Sin said after a moment. “Should we head back to the others, then?”
Snarls echoed in the distance, the demons surrounding us growing bolder, closer, spoiling for a fight. Or a snack. We didn't have time to put them in their places.
“Yes,” I said decisively. “Let’s.”