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THE OTHER HUNTERS WERE ALL almost ready to leave that night, but I had something that I needed to do before I could go back to the Palace of Sins for dinner and get fully prepared to leave after the sun went down and everyone was already asleep. It wasn’t something I was particularly excited to do, but I knew I had to do it.
If I didn’t go and talk to Kai about this before I left, he was bound to be upset with me when I came back home... if I came back home. Honestly, the possibility of not getting to come back home scared me more than him just being upset with me for not telling him in the first place. We were all we had left after our parents abandoned us when Kai was a baby. Kai depended on me.
I walked through the minion village, trying to remember which house Kai lived in. I knew he lived with Oliver and Will - two other minions - now that I no longer lived in the village, but the houses all looked so similar to each other (except for the Bauer siblings’ mansion) and I’d only actually been to their house two or three times since Kai moved there.
I was still surprised that Kai lived here as a minion at all. I got that my brother and the others were called minions because that was what King Gavin and the name sort of stuck, but still. After the Hunters and the guards, the minions were the next line of defense for Hell and they also “served” the princes, acting as their defenders if it ever came to the point where they needed it as well as simply acting as their companions.
Personally, I served Prince Gus before I was promoted to the Angel Hunters and Athena served Prince Wyatt. I wasn’t sure about Nine or Finn, though.
It wasn’t like Kai was ever required to become a minion. Even though Victor was one of the big reasons that most of us were still alive, he always made it clear that we didn’t have to serve him unless we wanted to. I always kind of worried that Kai became a minion just because I did, but he seemed to be handling the whole thing well enough regardless.
Then again, he served Prince Lachlan and the prince of Lust was by far one of the easiest princes to get along with. At least, that was what I always heard.
Finally, I came across the house. I only knew it was the right one, though, because I spotted Oliver standing outside, watering one of the flower beds that was filled with dark red roses.
Roses were a pretty popular flower down in Hell - they were Victor’s favorites (other than Edelweiss flowers) and so they were essentially Hell’s flower, as some called it.
Oliver looked up when he heard me approach and grinned at me. Oliver was a fallen angel and one of the first kids that King Victor ever took in (Will was the first and Oliver wasn’t too far behind him), but the darkness that he held within him didn’t show even a little bit on the surface. He had lightly tanned skin, dark brown hair, and bright blue eyes - frankly, he was one of the brightest and most happy-go-lucky fallen angels that I’d ever met.
“Good to see ya’, Koa,” Oliver said as he trotted over to me and pulled me into a hug (despite my attempt to protest against it), “You lookin’ for Kai?”
I pulled away from him and nodded. “Yeah. Where is he?” I asked.
Oliver pointed towards the house as he brushed his bangs out of his eyes, “Inside with Will. Pretty sure he’s helpin’ with dinner, but I don’t know. I’ve just been out here waterin’ plants.”
I smiled and nodded before heading inside the house. I eventually tracked down Kai in the kitchen where he was busy chopping some carrots while Will stirred some soup that was in a pot on the stove.
Kai looked a lot like me - though I supposed there was a good reason for that. Both of us had the same darker, reddish-toned skin, the same black hair (though Kai had a few streaks of blonde in the mix - literally the only appearance modification he was ever brave enough to get), and the same brown eyes. We were even of similar builds, though I was a little over an inch taller than him. A lot of people often thought that we were twins, but we weren’t at all. In fact, I was six years older than Kai.
Next to Kai was William - or Will as he preferred to be called (and, as far as I knew, was called unless the person that called him anything else had a death wish). He was ghostly pale compared to Kai, Oliver, and I, though that was probably because he hated going on the surface and rarely got any kind of sunlight unless Oliver forced him to. He had jet black hair, brown eyes, and gauges in his ears. He was covered with tattoos, too, in pretty much every place he could get them without getting them on his face. The demon seemed to be the embodiment of darkness at times and rarely put up with anyone that had more energy than him unless they were Oliver. He and Oliver seemed to be pretty close, though Will would deny that until the end of Earth as we knew it. No one could ever figure Will out, but Oliver always seemed to have a decent time guessing at it.
Maybe that was because they’d spent the most time together out of all of us. They grew up in the Palace of Darkness together during a time before most of us - save the princes, Newt, Roscoe, and Victor - existed. Athena, Phoenix, Finn, Kai, and Princess Edelweiss weren’t even twinkles in anyone’s eyes yet.
I walked into the kitchen and softly cleared my throat. Kai jumped, nearly catching his fingers with the knife he was holding in the process as he looked up at me with wide eyes, breathing heavily.
I grimaced as I saw him. “Sorry, Kai,” I mused.
I didn’t want to scare him like I did, but I didn’t have much of a choice either. I needed to get going soon and, honestly, Kai was going to be startled no matter what I did. Kai was well-known for being afraid of almost everything, including his own shadow (I’d personally seen him scream at the sight of his own shadow at least three times before).
Kai shook his head and put the knife down before making his way over and giving me a hug. I hugged him back and looked down at him.
“Can we go somewhere to talk?” I asked him, “I have something I need to tell you.”
Kai furrowed his eyebrows at me, but nodded and led the way up to his bedroom on the second floor.
I looked around his room and smiled a little. The smell of paints filled the air and there were books, art supplies, and unfinished paintings and drawings scattered all over the room. It was obvious that Kai hadn’t changed much since the last time I saw him.
He plopped down on his bed and looked up at me.
“What’s up?” He asked.
I sat down beside him and leaned back against the wall, “I’m leaving for the Middleworld with the Angel Hunters. It’s a mission we were ordered to go on by Prince Lucifer. I don’t have a choice but to go and, no, you can’t come with me.”
Kai hesitated as he looked down at the floor. He picked at the dried paint on his hands. “Oh... how long will you be gone?” Kai asked me.
“Two weeks at least,” I shrugged, “We aren’t really sure how long this is going to take because we don’t really know where we’re supposed to be looking.”
I reached over and put my hand on top of the one he was using to pick at his skin. If I didn’t, he wouldn’t have ever stopped picking. I knew that much about my brother at least. Kai made a face at me, but he stopped.
“You shouldn’t go,” Kai said, “It doesn’t sound very safe.”
“Like I said, I don’t have a choice. It’s an order straight from Prince Lucifer himself,” I sighed.
I put my arm around his shoulders as I continued to listen to him talk.
“We’ve never been apart for more than three days, though, Koa,” he protested.
I nodded. I knew that, but there was nothing I could do about it.
“You should just try to tell Prince Lucifer that you can’t do it. There’s four other Hunters - let them handle it themselves.”
Again, I shook my head.
“I can’t do that, Kai. You know I can’t and you know why I can’t.”
The Angel Hunters always had five members. There was a power specific to us called the “power of five” that was bestowed upon us by King Victor when we were officially promoted to the status of a Hunter. That was why King Victor held the Hunter Trials every few years to make sure that there were always two or three minions that could be called upon at a moment's notice.
The power of five essentially amplified the powers of all five of the beings that were tied together, but it only worked when we were in the same area. If I stayed and the others went up to the surface, they would still be strong and powerful, but they still wouldn’t be anywhere near where they are now and we all had a feeling that we needed all the power we could get.
It was then Kai’s turn to sigh and he looked up at me as tears welled up in his eyes.
“But what happens if you don’t... you know... come back?”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that at first. I knew that was always going to be a possibility, so I didn’t feel right telling him that it wasn’t ever going to be one. The only problem was, though, that telling him that there was still a chance wasn’t such a good idea either. Finally, I relented and pulled my younger brother into a hug.
“I guess, Kai,” I began, “We’ll just have to hope and I’ll have to do everything that I can to make sure that the odds of me coming back are as high as they can be.”