“A hungry mongrel—yapping, thrusting out, intent on nothing but the meal to come—is silent only when its teeth sink in.”
― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
I stared at her, clenching my fists, knowing that she was absolutely right. Lucifer couldn’t just walk into the palace and take control of his demons there. He had others that acted on his behalf.
Different rules were applied to hell than on earth. I had a feeling the dark lord wasn’t allowed to break them. Messengers, Watchers, demons and even mongrels were all created for a reason.
After being in that small cell, alone and defeated, I was forced to analyse lots of different things.
I suspected that Alexis had found Lucifer’s greatest strength in his biggest weakness. She must have been watching him, analysing the way he operated when she was still his lover, and after he scarred her, she used that new knowledge to plot her revenge plan. My father didn’t reveal his true nature to her either. She only knew him as Morpheus, like I had when he first showed up in Ricky’s apartment.
Maybe my father asked me to take care of her because he couldn’t act upon it himself. For centuries he was using the appearance of Morpheus to deal with his affairs and that’s why there was so much conflicting information about him.
I guess it was easier for him to pretend to be someone else. Maybe he was allowed to travel to earth only as Morpheus. I was confused, but the further I thought about it, then more I believed that maybe he wasn’t allowed to interfere in any serious human affairs.
It was clear that Lucifer’s own demons in hell were obedient, but that didn't mean he could also control them on earth. There were many reasons why demons were so desperate to escape to the human world. Of course the life in the underworld wasn’t a real life.
I suspected that once demons left hell, the dark lord no longer owned them or their future.
Watchers and the heads of the factions were working to keep a certain order on earth, so the demons that crossed over to earth believed they had to follow Lucifer’s protocol that he created for his benefit. That way he made them believe he was still in control. I mean if that was really the case, then my father was a master manipulator and he’d managed to trick me too.
In some ways this was still a theory, a theory that made perfect sense.
Alexis must have put all those complicated pieces together.
Now that she had her power back, nothing was going to stop her from executing her revenge. She must have been thinking about this for a very long time, trying to find a way to get to Lucifer, to mess up his plans. Her timing was perfect: the election in hell would keep him occupied for a while.
It only took me twenty-six years to figure out that the faction system on earth had many flaws.
Demons on earth were unaware of what was going on in hell after they chose life on earth, and most of the time they were happy living amongst humans. They believed they could decide about their own future. Hell had taken that away from them.
“Lucifer will come for you, Maxine, and I’ll be waiting,” she said. “And then nothing will ever be the same again.”
Eventually after about a day, a scrawny human brought me food and water. I was beginning to think that Alexis was planning to starve me to death.
The solitude had truly fucked with my head and the time began to drag. I was back from hell, but now after being locked up in this small cell I felt like I had never left.
The human didn’t make eye contact with me. He slid the bowl with food through the square space between the bars and then vanished. Alexis didn’t come back. She took my magic away from me and left me to suffer in solitude.
Every minute felt like an hour and every hour like a day. I couldn’t break that circle when I started to lose touch with reality. Days were passing, although to me time stood still.
The food tasted the same every day and eventually I began looking forward to the time when the human would show up. Then I would ask him all sorts of questions, mainly to find out what day of the week it was or if there were other prisoners around here.
Most days he ignored me, but after weeks maybe, he began loosening his tongue and answering some of my questions. It turned out that two weeks had gone by since I was caught in her chambers.
On the fifteenth day I lay on the cold floor thinking I wasn’t going to last long like this. Alexis had finally found a way to break me, because I was willing to do anything, just so I could get out.
“Maxine, hey, Maxine.”
I heard a whisper and saw Arthur leaning over the bars and smiling at me. I shut my eyes and counted to ten, telling myself that this wasn’t happening for real. My imagination was screwing with my eyes. He was dead, gone, and he wasn’t coming back.
He kept whispering to me, and after a while he disappeared. Then it was Ricky, Emma and Zach.
They all showed up, telling me that I could escape, that this wasn’t the end. I believed them in some ways.
The truth was that I had no idea what was happening to my friends or if they were locked up too.
After a few more days I started shouting at the top of my lungs, just so I could feel alive, until some men showed up and beat me up. It was a vicious circle that was never going to end. Alexis had time. She wasn’t rushing anywhere.
I lifted my fingers and kept moving them in front of my eyes, thinking about my daughter. She was the only reason I hadn’t gone completely insane, my glimmer of hope that I could still get out here. I kept imagining playing with her. She was my light in the dark tunnel.
The scrawny human came back the next day, and the next day, but I was done asking him questions. That routine became mundane. He stuck my bowl through the metal bars and left, muttering incoherent words to himself.
Being the other me, the human one, was difficult and I hated every second of it. Mum was much stronger than me. She survived without any help and still managed not to go crazy when she had me.
More days must have passed before Alexis came back, and at some point I lost track of time. She hummed under her nose, looking glamorous wearing a long red coat with gloves.
“Ah, the famous Miss Brodeur is no longer a threat and of course no longer a mongrel. I must say, Alexis, that I’m impressed with the way you handled her,” said Rodriguez staring down at me with twisted excitement. His eyes gleamed with powerful energy and every tiny hair on the back of my neck stood up. I was afraid of what he wanted to do with me, more than before.
I grabbed the metal bars, thinking that maybe they were planning to take me somewhere. At that point I didn’t care. I just had to get out of that cage.
“Yes, she is going to be obedient now. I think we have waited enough,” Alexis said, staring at me intensely.
Rodriguez looked back at me with a calculating look on his face. He could read me much more effectively now, because I wasn’t a demon anymore.
“Just get on with this, guys. I’m kind of bored of sitting around,” I said.
Alexis smiled and took out something from her pocket. It looked like a powder compact or a small mirror.
“As you wish, my dear,” she said. “Guards, it’s time. Tie her up so she won’t try doing anything silly.”
She waved her hand around the gold box and the tiny object vanished. Jealousy filled my lungs. I wanted to feel the waves of magic rushing down my body. I missed it terribly, and part of me knew that I wouldn’t be able to stay sane without it. Being hopeless was the worst thing that could happen to me.
Seconds later a few men opened the cell and started dragging me out. I couldn’t even say if they were humans or demons. Rodriguez and Alexis walked behind me, talking to each other with hushed voices. Shortly, a black sack was shoved over my head again.
Kicking and screaming didn’t help. The guards held me tightly as I was dragged away. We must have gone outside again, because I finally managed to get a deep breath of fresh air. I shivered with cold, still wearing only a thin shirt. I was obviously being moved somewhere else.
“The dark lord will punish us for this. His blood is in her veins,” Rodriguez said, probably louder than he intended.
I was missing my magic, knowing that my cells needed my demonic energy to survive, and slowly that emptiness inside was becoming unbearable. I forced my tears away, telling myself that this wasn’t the end yet. I had to find a way out of it. I loved Zach and I couldn’t give up.
“Don’t worry, he won’t dare,” Alexis said. “His position in hell has been weakened. Our efforts will be rewarded once he is banished.”
In some ways Alexis was right. Lucifer didn’t acknowledge any of his other children. I was important to him because of my mother. He loved her, in his own way. Maybe he was going to come for me. He asked me to stand by his side and rule demons in hell. My father was willing to give me this—something that Alexis had been after for a very long time—to become his Queen, to stand by his side. That’s why she was so bitter, so disappointed with the way he had treated her.
Now I began to understand why she so desperate to bring him down.
I didn’t have time to think about this further, because I was abruptly shoved inside a car and then we started moving. They had been keeping me somewhere close to the busy road, because I heard cars passing by earlier on. The larger guard sat beside me. Alexis and Rodriguez came along on this trip. I could smell that bitch’s perfume from my where I sat. I would recognise it anywhere.
The journey took a while. Rodriguez and Alexis didn’t talk. The silence was unnerving, fucking with my mind again. I had spent two weeks or more locked up in a tiny cell, and now I still had no idea what was happening to me. Without my magic I had little chance of surviving this–whatever they were planning to do with me.
“Where are we going? Come on. Are you going to keep me in the dark forever?” I asked, after an hour in the car.
“Take care of her, Cornelius,” Alexis barked. “I need some time to think.”
Cornelius must have hit me hard, because I passed out and some time later someone removed the black bag from my head. I found myself sitting in a chair in some dark place and my head was banging. My demonic soul had enhanced my vision and now I realised how bad my eyesight actually was.
“No one will disturb us here,” Alexis said, and nodded to her men. A cold shiver crawled over my spine when I saw a table with leather straps for legs and arms. They must have brought me to some kind of tunnel or a bunker. The air was filled with moisture and dread crawled through me when I saw a selection of small knives and other sharp things on the next table.
I kept reminding myself that Maxine Brodeur didn’t get scared, she was tough, but after two weeks in the cramped cell I wasn’t the same person anymore.
Moments later two oversized humans or demons grabbed me by my shoulders and carried me to the table with straps. I screamed, trying to kick them, but they shoved something into my mouth, kicking me in the stomach.
I was strapped to the metal bed in no time at all.
“Just cooperate with me, Miss Brodeur, and you will save us both a lot of hassle,” Rodriguez said stroking his long beard. Alexis placed her palm on his shoulder and smiled at me.
She had such a creepy smile. I wished that I could break her face.
“Oh come on, I want to have a little fun with her. Pain and suffering are my tools for complete control and obedience,” the bitch said sweetly. “Now tell us, dear. The dark lord. There is a way to defeat him. Berith shared that little secret with you.”
I frowned staring at both of them, having no idea what they were talking about. I thought Alexis was using me as bait, so that she could lure Lucifer to her trap.
“Berith? I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about,” I snarled back, trying to figure out if there was a way out of here.
“That’s not the answer I was looking for,” Alexis responded sweetly and then the straps tightened around my ankles and my skin felt like it was burning with raw flames. There was no warning, the pain ripped me apart, and I screamed. I didn’t fucking want to give them any satisfaction, but this was the worst pain I’d felt in my life. As a mongrel I was much more resistant, but now the pain was greater, stronger, and I couldn’t physically take it.
Drops of sweat rolled down my face and I started shaking, wanting her to stop.
“Where is that bastard child of yours? She is the key to all of this,” Rodriguez said, grabbing my head.
I was going crazy. He didn’t just ask me about my daughter, did he? She had nothing to do with Lucifer. She was just an innocent child. The old demon stared down at me, waiting for an answer. A second later an idea popped into my head. It was one of those things that could either bury me completely or save my life.