An underground hangar? Holy shit. What doesn’t Irin have? And how has she amassed so much?
“Thank you, Irin,” Cain replies with a bow. “Alright. Is everyone clear about the mission?”
Lucifer gives him a mocking salute. “Aye, aye, captain.”
Cain throws back a one-finger salute of his own then goes back to pretending he doesn’t exist. “Ok. Let’s get ready.”
The remaining Se7en immediately file out to prepare and I turn to do the same. However, Irin’s soft, sing-song voice stops me in my tracks.
“Eden, dear. A word?”
Oh shit. I should’ve known I wouldn’t get away with my outburst from before so easily. I was already skating on thin ice with her. She doesn’t seem like the type to dole out second chances too freely. I shoot Lucifer a glance, wishing he had followed behind the Se7en. I don’t need an audience for another dose of humiliation.
I’m already reciting the apology in my head, hoping to defuse the situation before it begins, but before I can get the words out, Irin reaches out to grasp my hand.
“Have you ever been to New Orleans?”
Huh? Here I am, prepared to take a tongue lashing, and she comes out of left field with a random ass question.
“Um, no?” My eyes go from Irin to Luc then back to Irin. Is this a trick question?
“You should visit some time. Beautiful, vibrant city. Teeming with life. You’d enjoy it.”
“O-kaaay. Uh, I’ll do that.”
“Yes. Yes, you will.”
I frown. Maybe this line of questioning isn’t so random after all.
“Don’t you think Eden would enjoy New Orleans, Lucifer?” Irin smiles. Her tone is off. And the way she’s grasping my hand…no, definitely not random.
“I believe she would,” Luc answers.
“Good! Then it’s settled.”
“But there was no mention of strange demon activity in New Orleans. Cain wants us in Detroit,” I counter.
“Pffft. Not nearly as fun. Who would want to go there?”
“You know the scarred one won’t take kindly to us defying his orders,” Lucifer remarks with a snicker. Oh, I bet pissing Cain off would be reason enough to change course. Plus, taking orders from demons is not something Lucifer would ever do.
“Then I guess you better leave before he makes it to the hangar,” Irin sweetly suggests.
Lucifer and I look at each other and nod. So it’s settled.
“Your jet should be ready in twenty minutes. I wouldn’t waste any time getting to it,” Irin tacks on.
I don’t know what else to say, so I mutter a thank you, and Lucifer and I exit the room.
“Don’t speak about it,” he mutters under his breath as soon as we hit the hallway. “Not to anyone. Just get your things and come to my room as quickly as you can.”
I nod and quicken my pace. Something is seriously up, and I’m not about to get caught with my pants down around my ankles. I’m always the last to know, always the one left in the dark even in matters pertaining to my own life. Not anymore. If I want to be in control of my own fate, I have to act like it was mine to control.
As soon as I’m in my room, I gather my already packed bag and add the cache of weapons to it, leaving some out to store on my body. We need to be prepared for anything from anyone, friend or foe. I’m done in five minutes flat so I decide to head to Luc’s suite, hoping to get out of here before any of the Se7en detect our departure. However, when I open the door to leave, Phenex is standing on the other side.
“Eden,” he breathes, his soft, accented voice graveled with grief. “I was hoping to speak with you before you left for your journey.”
I peer out into the hall, confirming that he’s alone, and open the door wider. Shit. I need to go, but if I appear rushed, he’ll know something is off. I can’t risk him going back to Cain.
“Sure. Come on in.”
He enters, and I notice that he hasn’t changed since we got back to Irin’s compound. Dried blood still streaks his smooth, mahogany skin and his clothing is torn and stained. He literally hasn’t left Jinn’s side. Until now.
“I wanted to tell you…I’m sorry,” I begin, knowing this will be my one and only chance to make amends. “For yesterday. For what happened out there in the park. I’m so sorry, Phenex.”
He nods solemnly. “You shouldn’t blame yourself. There was nothing any of us could do.”
Yes, there was. I could have done something.
I can’t say it though, so I just nod. He doesn’t deserve my self-loathing.
“He is more than a friend,” Phenex utters softly. “He’s my brother. We’ve fought side by side for centuries. He doesn’t deserve this.”
I don’t know if he’s referring to Legion or Jinn, so I just stand in silence, giving him the floor.
“I remember what it was like in the beginning. After we fell…I remember what he was like. Your world will not survive him again. He must be stopped.”
He lifts his sleeve and reveals the sharp tip of a blade. My hand instinctively goes to the knife secured at my side. But it’s premature, because I realize that the knife he has stowed against his forearm isn’t necessarily meant to harm me. It’s The Redeemer.
“He must be stopped,” Phenex repeats, tears welling his eyes. He extends the dagger towards me.
“Are you…are you giving this to me?” I stammer, unsure if I should take it. Jinn nearly died from it, and Cain made it very clear that it would stay in the hands of the Se7en. This is what they had risked their lives for. Handing it over to me would be marked as a grave betrayal.
“No,” Phenex replies shaking his head. The first of his tears trails down his cheek. “I’m giving you a head start.”
I doubt I even exhale until Lucifer and I are in the air and reaching cruising altitude. There was a long underground tunnel that led us to the hangar, which easily housed Irin’s impressive fleet. Even the runway was concealed with only a small opening for takeoff and landing, so only one aircraft could go through at a time. We didn’t see any of the Se7en, and their designated planes were still being prepared, but I was still more than a bit uneasy about deceiving them. They’d find out sooner or later, especially when The Redeemer was nowhere to be found. There would be consequences. And knowing Cain, they would be severe.
“You look like you could use a drink,” Lucifer remarks, lazing in his plush, white leather seat.
I’d been so worried about getting away that I hadn’t even let myself take in the luxury digs. Hell, I hadn’t even been on a plane before now, and here I was, in a private jet. Under normal circumstances, I probably would have been racked with trepidation, but all I could focus on was getting away and keeping The Redeemer concealed. Even from Lucifer.
“I’m fine,” I lie, trying to sit back and appear more casual.
Lucifer snaps his fingers, summoning the flight attendant, a beautiful, leggy brunette no older than nineteen. Damn, Irin sure likes them young. And judging by the wicked gleam in Lucifer’s eyes as he takes in her drastically short uniform, she isn’t the only one.
“Anything I can get for you, sir?” she asks, bending forward to display her pert breasts.
“Yes, dear. What’s your name?” he drawls.
“April,” she all but giggles.
“April. That’s a pretty name. Do you mind fetching us some champagne? My friend here seems to be a nervous flyer.”
I cut my eyes at him, but replace my scowl with a small, polite smile when April turns her doe eyes on me. “Would you like anything else to make your flight more enjoyable, ma’am?”
“No, thanks.”
“Are you sure? Your comfort is my number one priority. I’m here to fulfill any and all of your needs.” She flutters her lashes at me and bites her bottom lip. Oh, for fuck’s sake.
“Yes, Eden. Our good friend, April, would be most pleased to serve you. She takes her job very seriously.”
April nods enthusiastically.
&nb
sp; “Just the champagne is fine for now. Thanks,” I insist, growing annoyed.
April retreats to the back of the plane to retrieve our drinks. After she returns with two flutes of bubbly and a reminder to holler whenever we need her, Lucifer opens up the conversation I’d been hoping to avoid.
“You forgot to say goodbye to your sister.”
I shake my head and look out the window. “I didn’t forget.”
“Does she know you’re gone?”
“She’ll find out soon enough.” I swallow down rising emotion with a gulp of champagne. “It’s better this way. I won’t keep toying with her heart. Not when she’s still holding out hope for something that will never be.”
“Hope for what?”
I choke down another sip. “Nothing. I’m not discussing it with you. Next subject.”
“Like what?”
“Well…you did say you’d tell me what Uriel meant about me being a part of your insurance plan when we were on the way,” I pointedly remind Lucifer. “We’re on the way.”
He glances back toward the rear cabin and shakes his head. “Not now. Next subject,” he says, throwing my words back at me.
I frown. It can’t be an issue of privacy; April is nowhere in sight. He’s stalling. “Like what?”
“Anything. Besides, in order for me to explain, I’d have to start from the beginning. And we’ve only got about an hour and a half.”
I roll my eyes. “Fine. Then tell me about Irin. What is she? And what’s the deal with Saskia?”
Lucifer heaves out a breath, but before he can shut me down, I remind him that he said I could ask anything else.
“Well, since you insist on knowing information that could be a genuine threat to your life, fine. It’s your funeral. Did you know that angels were not the first of God’s creatures?”
“What?” I lean in closer. Did I hear him right?
“We—” He swallows before going on to correct himself. “Angels were not his first children. And apparently, they were much more powerful than the angels that now roam the heavens. They were created in pairs—a brother and a sister. Each sibling served a different purpose. There were Destroyers and Creators. Together they could give life and they could take it away. The beginning and the end. The yin and the yang.
“The Destroyers were feared while the Creators were adored. The Destroyers became jealous, and out of spite, they began killing off the Creators, believing they would absorb their power and become all-powerful, without the need for a counterpart. This sparked a war, one that the Creators would quickly lose, for they were not meant to abolish life. And God, who had grown tired of the infighting, would let them all perish. But there was one…one who fought back. Against her own brother.”
“Irin was a Creator?” I can literally feel my eyes bug out with shock. Holy shit. I knew Irin was something, but I didn’t expect this.
“She was. She is. But the day she killed her brother in an act of self-defense, she became more. She had evolved, something God had not planned for his children to do. And the other Creators saw this and began to fight back. The war lasted a thousand human years, and in the end, only one was left standing.”
“Irin,” I breathe.
“Yes,” Lucifer nods. “And God spared her because, in an attempt to save her own life, she used her gift one more time. She spawned life in her image. Something only God could do.”
My jaw drops. “She made herself pregnant?”
“And Father, most likely bemused and impressed, let her live under one condition: she would be shackled to Earth, forced to watch life around her for eternity without ever being able to create it again, or truly partake in it herself. She sees all, she scribes all. But she is confined to the walls of her home. And within those walls, she is more powerful than any creature in existence, outside of God.”
“So that must be why she has that rule against bloodshed in her home,” I surmise. “Her brother was a Destroyer who tried to kill her, thus making her a killer. She vehemently rejects violence.”
“That, and the fact that she knows how truly precious life is.” He shrugs. “To her, at least.”
I nod. It all makes sense now. Of course she would reject the very thing that wiped her kind from existence.
“And her child…?”
Lucifer sighs. “There are some things that even Creators cannot construct perfectly.”
“Saskia. Saskia is Irin’s daughter, isn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“So what is she? A Creator? Or a Destroyer?”
He shakes his head. “Neither. Irin created an abomination. Saskia was born as something other. Something unlike any other being in history. Her gifts are more Destroyer, but her immortal heart is that of a Creator. Her very presence is a plague on nature. Unleashed, she is murderous.”
“Whoa. Wow,” I stammer. I would have never known. She looked out for me. She cleaned up my puke and dressed me. As tiny as she is, I can’t imagine her hurting a fly.
“Yeah.” He sips his champagne thoughtfully. “Irin used to have an affinity for cats. Not just housecats, either. Massive jungle beasts that she loved and adored as if they were kittens. One night, Saskia became angry with her mother—a petty spat—and without thinking, killed every single one of Irin’s pets. After that, Irin gave her to me for safekeeping. You see, Saskia had grown tired of staying within the confines of the compound. And Irin knew that sooner or later, Saskia would find out that she could leave. And if she did, Irin couldn’t control her, especially not knowing the extent of her power. If she could kill a full-grown Bengal tiger, what would she do to humans?”
“But wouldn’t the same happen in Hell? Wouldn’t she kill every living thing in her path?”
“Well…there are no living things in Hell. At least none that won’t meet their demise anyway.”
Except…
“Me.” I release a gasp. “I’m a living thing. And you ordered her to wait on me!” I stop myself from flinging my empty flute at his head.
“Yes, well…there are exceptions. Plus, like I said, unleashed she would be murderous. Which is why she wears a very special leash that I designed and control.”
Her voice. I remember how she barely spoke, and when she did, it sounded like she was being choked from the inside, considering I never saw anything around her neck. That sick bastard. He was torturing her for something she couldn’t help.
I don’t understand why, but I feel somewhat of a kinship towards her. She didn’t choose to be born in an unholy way. She just wanted a normal, happy life. And she was punished, reduced to a slave, for being something that she wanted no part of.
I shake my head. I don’t know why I’m surprised. He’s the fucking Devil. Why would I expect anything more from him?
“I know you think less of me. It was her or your world. I did what had to be done.”
I lean back in my seat and look out the window. “I don’t think anything about you at all.”
Right on cue, as if she sensed the tension between us, April comes to check on us, offering us refills, snacks, and warm hand towels. I accept them all, unable to muster the strength to protest. I have enough to unpack just from that conversation alone. Fielding flirtatious advances is just too much of a headache.
“If you’ll excuse me,” I hear Lucifer mutter after a few minutes of dead silence.
I don’t bother to acknowledge him, but I hear him stand and walk to the rear of the plane. I haven’t even dug into my antipasto before I hear rhythmic thumping and the exuberant moans of a peppy teenage flight attendant.
“Fucking really?” I grumble, wishing I had the good sense to pack my headphones. If I planned to survive being around Lucifer for more than twelve hours, he’d have to buy some for me. And I would demand the noise canceling ones.
Five minutes I can handle. Ten—no big deal. But for the next forty-five-fucking-minutes, April screams and cries like Lucifer’s cock is Willy Wonka’s golden ticket and she’s Veruca Salt. She
wants it, and she wants it now. And it’s more than evident that she was getting it and more.
Beyond annoyed, I pick up one of the magazines artfully placed on a small table nearby. But I can barely concentrate on the words on the page through all the ridiculous Animal Kingdom sounds. I slam down the magazine in frustration. How can he even think about sex right now? Is he that selfish, that self-absorbed, that he can’t even see how disgusting his behavior is? That girl is barely out of high school, not to mention, she’s working. I don’t care if pleasure is in the job description. Have some fucking restraint.
After the raucous moaning finally ceases, Lucifer strides back into the main cabin as if nothing is amiss and he hadn’t spent the better part of an hour wetting his dick. I turn my head back towards the window to watch the clouds through burning eyes.
April appears a few minutes later, cheeks flushed, her once-sleek bob disheveled, to inform us that we’ll be landing soon. She asks if she can get me anything before we begin our descent into New Orleans, but I tersely decline without looking her way and offering a cordial smile.
“Ouch. A bit harsh there, pussycat.”
“Whatever.”
We touch down without uttering another word, and when the plane doors open, I’m only too happy to be back on solid ground. To my surprise, there’s a car waiting for us right on the tarmac. The driver hurriedly grabs our bags, but I quickly decline his assistance, just as I had in the hangar before boarding. Under no circumstances will The Redeemer leave my sight.
“Enjoy the flight?” Lucifer asks, trying to spark conversation after we’ve settled into the back seat of the sleek, black town car.
I shrug and flatly reply, “Could have been better.”
“Oh? You travel in private jets regularly?”
“The plane was nice. Irin has great taste.”
And that’s all. That’s all I’ll give him. Lucifer lives to have his ego stroked, and I won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me rattled.