A persistent knock resounded through the marble foyer.
Divinity saw no sense in postponing the inevitable. Her plans were progressing well and she couldn’t resist a poke at her eternal adversary’s bear. She opened the door, plastered on her most benign smile, and stepped out on the porch. This conversation was best had in private.
Lucifer choked the space like mustard gas. “’Ello, dearie.”
“What do you want?”
He trailed behind her as she walked to the far end of the veranda, the scrape of his bare, twisted toes against ancient marble creating a lyrical nightmare. “Thought I’d stop by. Be neighborly.”
“You never stop by without a reason.” She perused her uninvited guest with loathing. “State your business and be gone.”
“I’ve just been to see your precious Scion.” He flashed a sinister smile, the gesture rife with contamination. “Poor lad’s messed up pretty good.”
“My Scion are none of your concern. Your concern should be your son’s escape.”
Lucifer settled into a nook of the lanai, showing no apparent hurry to depart or heed to her quiet warning. “Archon is weak and useless. I should have eliminated him long ago.”
“Instead you tortured him for millennia. Making him pay for mistakes that should have been your burden to settle.”
He glanced at her, a tiny flame sparking at the center of his pupils, threatening to overtake his entire vision. “Watch it, Divinity. For a moment, I almost thought you cared.”
Divinity considered him with growing fury. “Your illicit affair ruined many lives. Eloa spends her days in the prisons now, tending to the sick. She’s never recovered from your betrayal.”
“As if I give a shit about your precious angels.” He pushed off his seat and stepped closer. “My goal was to bring the whole lot of them with me when I left. If a few insipid relics decided to hang on, it’s my pleasure to tear them away, piece by tasty piece.”
Wind swirled around them, the gusts growing stronger as her ire soared. “Your torture has turned your son into nothing but a monster, a vile half-breed abomination that must be contained. Take care of the problem Lucifer, or I’ll have my Scion handle him for you.”
“Promises, promises.” Lucifer backed away, his furious expression transforming into a wild grin. Soon his boisterous laughter filled the night. “Archon’s got too much of his mother’s heart to be of any real value. Pity. I had plans for him.”
“Then let me house him here, in my prisons. Tell me how to capture him.”
“And have him spill all my dirty little secrets to you? Try again, dearie. Besides, I think I’ll deliver my riddle personally to your Scion and his new mate. Loss is always a powerful motivator, eh?”
Lucifer backed away and disappeared in a puff of putrid black smoke.
A small smile of satisfaction formed on Divinity’s lips. Things were progressing well indeed.
• • •
Buzzzzzz. Buzzzzzz. Buzzzzzz.
Chago rubbed his eyes and squinted into the sheltered dark of the room. A glance at the nearby clock showed the time approached seven in the morning. Light emanated from his phone on the bedside table.
Shit. He fumbled for the device and clicked it on. The tiny screen filled with texts from Xander, asking where the hell he was.
He got up and headed toward the bathroom, tripping over something on the floor on the way. He suspected the object could be his jeans or maybe her shorts and thong. Memories of the frenzied tempest of their lovemaking made him smile. The image of Irena in only the scrap of scarlet silk made his cock twitch anew. He reached to dislodge whatever object now tangled around his feet and grinned. When he returned, he’d give her a proper awakening.
He stumbled into the loo and closed the door.
“Hola, Chago.” The greeting was a horrific stew of nightmares incarnate. Lucifer.
Fuck. He turned as the surface of the bathroom mirror rippled and out stepped the Posterboy of Sin in all his dubious glory.
Lucifer approached Chago with his arms outstretched. “What? No hug?”
“Explain your purpose here, Devil,” he said, grabbing a towel to cover his nakedness.
“You’ve got yourself a fine mess here, my pet.” Lucifer draped himself over the ledge of the tub and toyed with the curtain.
“My mission is none of your business. Leave now before I get violent.” Chago stepped forward in a vain attempt at intimidation. Lucifer only chuckled and trailed one blackened, sticky up the inside of his calf. He jerked away, disgusted with both Lucifer’s smarmy intentions and the overpowering rotten-egg smell permeating the air. He turned on the exhaust fan, seeking some relief.
“You wound me Scion. I’ve only come to help.” Lucifer clutched his claw-like hands to his chest, his expression crestfallen. Chago shot him a look of pure revulsion. The bastard erupted in a cackle of laughter on the tub edge, teetering precariously. “Damn, I’m good.”
“I will ask you one last time. State your purpose and be gone.” He stepped closer, his knuckles white above clenched fists.
Lucifer leaned back against the wall. “How’s my Irena?”
“She’s not yours.”
“You forget I helped create those Seals, Scion. Makes them half mine.”
“The Seal, not the host. Irena is human with all the freewill and other rights that entails. And why would I share any information with you? I serve Divinity, no one else. You got a problem? Take it up with her.” Chago glowered and assumed his most intimidating warrior stance. Lucifer gave him a slow perusal and grinned, making his skin crawl. Cristo. After this meeting he’d require nothing less than a full-body bleach bath.
“Yes. Your Scion loyalty is quite . . . admirable.”
He scowled, watching Lucifer fuss with his perpetually stained dress shirt. Hell, if you added in the grayed, worn polyester leisure suit with lapels wide enough to park a Pontiac and the meth-addict green undertones of his complexion, the term repugnant might begin to cover the abomination before him.
“Loyalty is not a foreign concept to me.” Lucifer glanced up. A small red flame sparked to life at the center of his coal black irises. “I have recently discovered what a valuable commodity it can be.”
Chago gave the non-committal shrug of a lifelong mercenary and continued to tread lightly. “Your brand of loyalty involves only pain and subservience. Those won’t go far when times grow difficult.”
“Divinity has denied you boys freewill while lavishing it on humans and handmaidens. That’s got to chafe a bit, eh?”
“Scion affairs are none of your concern. I will not divulge any mission secrets to you.”
“You don’t have to. I already know.” Lucifer looked at him, the fire in his eyes now a raging inferno. “My fucking turd of a son, Archon, is responsible for all of this mayhem.” He sidled up to the vanity and propped an elbow up on the marble countertop. “Mutiny is not something I take lightly.”
While Ultimate Evil preened in his bathroom mirror, Chago sighed and crossed his arms, his patience wearing thin. “You’re family rivalries are not my concern. My concern is protection of the Seal.”
Lucifer smiled. “Have you forgotten poor Yana so easily?”
Before Chago could squash the impulse, he reached for the bastard, gripping his scrawny neck and squeezing hard. He ignored the burning sizzle as Lucifer’s acidic skin seared through his palm. “Don’t you ever say her name again, fucker. You’re not fit to think of her.”
“Hit a nerve?” Lucifer flicked his wrist and sent Chago tumbling into the tub. “You really must learn to control your temper, Scion. I’m way beyond your league.”
“Fuck you, Beast.” Blood poured from his decimated hand, but Chago refused to relent. He stood and grabbed another towel off the rack. “Tell me how to stop Archon and solve both our problems.”
“Where would be the fun in that?”
“Don’t push me, Devil. You won’t like my reaction.”
“Hmm.” Lucifer’s expression grew distant, as if he were picking up some far off radio signal. Moments later, he straightened. “I must go.”
“Wait! Tell me how to defeat your son.”
Lucifer smiled. “From one serpent to another.”
Before he could question the cryptic reply, Irena called to him from the bedroom, her husky voice an invitation to sin. When he glanced back toward the vanity, Lucifer was gone. Only a single word remained, scrawled across the glass, etched in black, putrid ooze.
Venom.