Satanic Fortitude (Doomed Cases Book 4) Read online

  “I can manage,” I said, not wanting to look like a complete loser. Using my good arm I did slide down. That wasn’t a wise move, because I lost more blood and nearly stumbled on my feet.

  The three heads were staring down at me. That’s when I remembered reading about it in one of Ricky’s books. This creature was called Greyon.

  “What … what am I doing in here?” I asked, looking around.

  “I was told to bring you here. I don’t know the reason behind it,” the creature answered. I was amazed all Greyon’s heads were different. One had blond hair, the other brown, and all of them had different eye colours. For the first time since I got to hell I had a good feeling about being in this place. Berith had his chance, but something obviously made other plans for me. My fate slapped me with yet another surprise.

  “Greyon went to get you because I asked him to do that,” said the voice that I recognised.

  Morpheus was walking up to me from a distance. I was shocked seeing him here and I had no idea how I was supposed to react. He looked a lot different from the last time I saw him, more radiant and peaceful. He wore a long thin black coat and his eyes—how could I not have noticed before—his eyes were incredible. Intensely blue. And then his irises turned into pure green. I couldn’t tell, or maybe it was just another illusion.

  He smiled at me. Yeah, he actually smiled at me as he approached.

  “Master,” the Greyon muttered and then bowed his three enormous heads. I was immobile, standing and staring at a demon that I had made a deal with that now seemed like weeks ago.

  The monster spread its bat wings and moved the snake tale around. Moments later the ground underneath my feet shook when Greyon lifted his huge body off the ground and simply flew away.

  Soon he had vanished in the clouds of darkness.

  “What am I doing in here?” I asked, holding my arm, trying to forget about the pain. Morpheus looked so shockingly handsome.

  “Come, I’ll explain everything in a more comfortable setting,” he told me and gently pushed me toward the black door that suddenly appeared several meters away from where we stood. I was done being amazed with everything that had been going on around me.

  He smiled briefly at me again and there was something calming and mysterious in that smile. We walked through the door to what looked like a huge cozy living room. The entire room was set in white and cream colours. There was a fireplace in the middle, with comfortable leather sofas and chairs situated right in front of it.

  “Let me take care of your arm, it must be uncomfortable.” Morpheus moved his fingers over my injury. The warmth tingled my skin and then my skin started to heal. In a matter of seconds the nasty wound was gone and my skin had that slightly reddish colour.

  It was a relief being able to breathe in without any more pain.

  “Thank you.”

  That was all that I managed to say to him.

  “Sit down, Maxine, we need to talk.”

  I nodded to him and chose the brown leather high-back chair. It was comfy and I was ready to fall asleep in it, but I remembered that Morpheus wanted to talk. Moments later a nice porcelain set filled with tea appeared on the table. He poured me some into the cute teacup and pushed it towards me.

  “Maybe this will come as a shock to you, but I guess I can’t keep this from you any longer,” he said, sounding serious as I stared at him completely baffled. “I’m Lucifer, the head of hell and, as they call me, the dark lord.”

  I didn’t move, didn’t make a sound.

  “And I’m your father. Yes, I might have forgotten that one important detail.”

  Chapter 10

  “With that same colour that a cloud takes on, morning or evening, when it meets the sun, I saw, in every part, the heavens flush.” ― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

  I sat there in front of him trying to digest what he just told me, but simply couldn’t.

  The silence stretched for ages and eventually I was ready to burst out laughing but thought better of it.

  No, it’s impossible. Lucifer isn’t Morpheus and my father.

  His words failed to make sense. My mother was a human and she couldn’t have been seduced by Satan. The prince of the underworld, that controlled every demon inside his doomed prison.

  “Say something. I’m sure it’s quite a shock,” he said, smoothing his clean-shaven jaw. I tried to look for something, anything that could tell me this wasn’t some kind of joke. The nose, yeah, maybe we had similar shaped noses.

  Then my other voice started poking into my head saying, Really? The same noses? Are you freaking high?

  Okay, okay, I had to get it together, because talking to myself was a sign that I was really losing it.

  “No, no way, this isn’t happening,” I said out loud.

  He still looked completely serious.

  “You are kidding me, right?” I asked, a rush of wild emotions cutting though my system. I swallowed hard and dragged my hand across my tangled hair. Shock rendered me zoned out for longer than I anticipated.

  He smiled again and my heart did an unsteady flip as a twisted realisation settled inside me. Once, several years ago, I saw a photo of myself and on that photo I had the same smile. But that couldn’t be it.

  I kept opening and closing my mouth, barely able to process this before I started talking again.

  “You could be my father, but you aren’t Lucifer. It’s impossible,” I said, but my voice sounded small.

  “And why is that?”

  “Because…because this is just wrong. You came to earth and seduced my mother. And then you showed up in Ricky’s apartment telling me about this stupid deal. I mean…come on. Why would you do that? None of this makes sense.”

  I needed to be on my feet, pacing around the room. My magic was rolling over my spine, and wild energy settled in the room. I had to keep on breathing; otherwise I would pass out.

  No.

  I was done passing out. I was done with being humiliated.

  Morpheus kept watching me in stoic silence.

  “Actually, your mother wasn’t the only human woman that I had seduced over the years. As you might now realise you do have many stepsisters and stepbrothers on earth,” he added, and I snorted with laughter.

  He was off his rocker if he thought I would believe him.

  “All right … okay. Let’s just pretend for a second that you’re him. Why on earth have you brought me here then? I have been through hell in the past few days or weeks. I still can’t figure out the concept of time in here,” I said, laughing nervously.

  This whole thing stopped being funny a while back.

  “Calm down and keep breathing. I understand that’s it’s a lot to take in. The deal that we had, your fight with Alexis, and your journey through hell was just a test. Normally I don’t keep in touch with my children, but there was always something intriguing about you. And I did truly love your mother,” he stated, sounding nostalgic and sad.

  I shook my head and continued to pace around. This was the only way that I could think.

  “A test?” I repeated, shaking all over, and when he nodded I wanted to scream. “A fucking test? Are you having a laugh?”

  He didn’t even realise what I had been through. Being chained up to the wall in Mammon’s castle, nearly ripped apart by some mythological creature, then locked in the cage and then moved through—

  He cut off my line of thought. “I know, Maxine, I know what’s been going on with you.”

  “So you can read my mind too?”

  “Yes, but this isn’t my point.”

  “Well, it was a freaking test that I obviously failed, because apparently your ex-girlfriend was healed and Arthur … my Arthur paid the price for it. He’s dead now. Thanks to you, Daddy.”

  I couldn’t help but sound cynical. He was making me mad. I had never been angrier before.

  “Yes, Arthur’s death was unfortunate and in some ways you have failed, but only because you refused to ask for he
lp and you should have told him the truth much sooner. On the other hand you showed a lot of courage and determination. You were willing to save yourself in order to protect your daughter. I was impressed with your progress, not so much in the beginning.”

  Silence fell between us and I just stared at him, still angry over all that happened and his glib assessment of it. Lucifer was my father. No. This still didn’t feel right. Morpheus wasn’t Lucifer.

  I needed my tequila; otherwise my brain was just about to explode.

  “You can’t be Lucifer. I don’t believe it. If you were him then you would have stopped the uprising. Yeah, other demons are unhappy about the way things are handled in hell. They are marching here … they all are planning to take you down,” I said, folding my arms over my chest, tapping my foot against the floor.

  “Demons will believe anything that anyone says. They are fighting, but they are going to lose,” Morpheus or Lucifer said. “No one can get in here without my permission, only messengers maybe. Berith has taken control of the rebels. That demon can be useful at times.”

  Berith. I didn’t even want to talk about that scum. That coward deserved to fry in the pits forever.

  “What about Cyril? He helped me. He betrayed that bastard Rodriguez for me. Please tell me that you didn’t let him die,” I said, sitting down and hoping that Morpheus was going to show some mercy. Cyril was a decent demon and he was a friend.

  “He is safe and I sent him back to London. This wasn’t his fight and what he did was noble.”

  I wiped the sweat off my forehead, thinking that at least Cyril was all right.

  “Prove to me that you’re Lucifer. How can I be sure? For months you let me believe that you were Morpheus. You told me yourself that Lucifer wanted my soul,” I argued, not feeling any different around him. Lucifer wasn’t the kind of demon that would travel back to earth because he liked human women. I mean, how ridiculous was that?

  “As I said before, this was a test. I kept watching you when you were growing up without your mother. I saw the way you changed and started thinking for yourself when she died. Then you joined the royals and started that silly affair with the prince. I guess you have inherited that from me. Through the centuries I have gotten myself involved with the wrong type of women and demons. Over that period of time when you were with him, I began to believe that you weren’t worth my attention. Your choices were poor, your judgement was clouded by your heart,” he was saying, and I felt a little embarrassed. Arthur had loved me and I was in love with him too. It was hard listen to this, knowing that I had made many mistakes in the past.

  “Then your daughter was born and you left her with that Warlock witch and ended that silly romance. Things started changing and you kept drinking to forget about your guilt, about the fact that you had to keep her hidden. At some point I decided that it was better if I didn’t get involved. However, our paths crossed again when Alexis started causing trouble at my expense.”

  Something happened when Lucifer stopped talking. The cosy living room had vanished and I was back in London. I recognised the surroundings instantly: it was the office of Doomed Cases. Ricky was sitting at my desk, staring at the empty wall. Emma was looking out the window. Her normally cheerful and happy expression was missing, and she looked worried. My heart skipped a beat and then began racing faster than ever before. I didn’t have to guess—they were all worried about me. I hoped that they weren’t in any kind of trouble.

  Then the image changed and we were looking at the broadcast of the news. The camera was moving over Buckingham Palace. Crowds were placing flowers in front of the gate, hundreds of them. The members of the royal family were walking inside the main cathedral in London. The Queen mother was there, Natalie and Princess Layla. The reporter was saying that the whole nation was grieving over the young prince. I swallowed hard watching the father of my child, knowing that his life now was truly over.

  Seconds passed and we were back in Mammon’s quarters. He sat on his throne, shouting orders around to other demons and Watchers. I couldn’t believe that Lucifer had tested me in such a sadistic way. Surely he knew that I could have died in there.

  Then Morpheus started talking, his voice loud.

  “Six demons, that time has come. The election will begin in two days. Prepare the polling stations and encourage your demons to vote.”

  Mammon nearly fell off his throne. He picked up his long cloak and looked around with fear. All his Watchers exchanged worried looks with each other.

  “My lord, let me see you, my lord,” he shouted, looking up like he was expecting that Lucifer was somewhere on the ceiling. He was pathetic.

  The tiny voice in my head told me that now I had proof—Morpheus was really Lucifer.

  My jaw was hanging on the floor and my magic was going berserk. Soon we were back in the room and Mammon’s castle had vanished. I was trying to digest this calmly, but my heart felt as if it was going to jump out of my chest.

  Lucifer was my father and he was Morpheus. I felt a little nauseous, ready to throw up.

  “But Alexis, she’s alive and healed,” I mumbled.

  I wanted to be that other Maxine that drank way too much and gambled all her money away. Her life seemed much simpler. I didn’t want to be the disappointment, the daughter of Lucifer that had failed.

  “Hold on—so you were the one that stopped the Watcher from tossing me down to the pits when I thought that I was in Gjoll,” I said.

  “Yes, I started changing my mind about you when you defeated Alexis. Your mongrel abilities are magnificent and impressive, but you had never tried fully to control them. I started paying attention to you again. Alexis had potential, her future looked so promising and at times I believed that she truly loved me, until I caught her stealing from me,” Morpheus or Lucifer said. I had no idea how I was supposed to call him.

  The demon was my father, and that felt surreal and totally unbelievable. The dark lord, the most powerful demon in hell had feelings. This was so inhuman of him. And that bitch. Damn, I wished that I killed her when I had a chance.

  “I tossed her down when I saved George, but she escaped. A couple months back a demon showed up outside my flat and said that someone had helped her. He also said that my mother’s death wasn’t a coincidence,” I said, now remembering all these small details from the past.

  “Unfortunately I failed to notice that Alexis had many significant contacts in hell. I never considered her a threat, but then her sister came on the picture and things started changing. It was time to act, so I called an election,” he explained. “The order in hell needs to change, and I needed to shake things up. Mammon is too lazy and Asmodeus had betrayed me too many times. I want to see new demons in power.”

  Suddenly I was boiling with anger and resentment. The election was bullshit. As his fucking daughter I was ready to let him know what I thought, but first I needed to know everything.

  “What about my mother?”

  “She didn’t die from cancer as you believe. She was poisoned by one of my enemies.”

  “What?” I shouted. “And you let her die? You’re Lucifer. You left me on earth with no one and you didn’t even try to bring her back!”

  I lost my cool then, as fury overtook my thinking process. My beloved mother had died because my father needed to satisfy his demonic urges. She was kind and innocent. This wasn’t the kind of truth that I was expecting.

  Then that whole bullshit test, he literally put me through hell, just so he could make sure that I was ready to finish Alexis.

  “Trust me, I regret many things, but I can’t bring people back. This is against the order and I don’t have that kind of power. I loved your mother, Maxine. She was the one and only.”

  “Bullshit!” I shouted, losing control. “You were fucking other women on earth for centuries. She wasn’t the one and only. Stop trying to justify what happened!”

  Okay, I literally had lost my shit with him, but after what I had been through I didn�
��t give a crap anymore.

  My father stared at me and I no longer cared if he was going to punish me for speaking my mind.

  “You’re wrong. She was special to me, but I hadn’t done enough to protect her. There were other women, yes, there have always been other mortal women, but I had huge plans for your mother and you.”

  “This is bullshit,” I muttered, furious. “So what the hell am I doing in here if I am such a disappointment?”

  “We will get to that in a moment. Let me just finish my thought. I had to interfere when Alexis decided to take your daughter. At that time I began seeing that you started getting away from that sad, drunken Maxine. You cared for your friends and you were trying hard to do the right thing. We are very similar, Maxine, despite what you may think. I saved you when you entered the underworld illegally. Maybe you failed in Purgatory, but you overcame your weaknesses. I sent you through the journey in hell because I needed to be convinced that you were ready.”

  “Ready? Ready for what?”

  “To become my prodigy, to kill Alexis, to take over from me and become the Queen of Hell.”

  Chapter 11

  “The nettle of remorse now stung so sharp, whatever else had drawn me most to love became for me my utmost enemy.” ― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

  A Queen of Hell? Me?

  He was funny, really, really funny. He couldn’t possibly believe that I would want to stay in the underworld. I didn’t think he realised how ridiculous and crazy that actually sounded.

  Okay, Lucifer was my father and he had been testing me to see if I was capable of killing that bitch Alexis, who was technically his ex-lover. He stared at me and all he said was slowly beginning to sink in. Lucifer had been using me this entire time and I hated that I didn’t see it.

  And my poor mother, she became a victim. Someone had poisoned her, just because she was involved with him. I should have suspected that her death wasn’t coincidental. Being young and naive wasn’t an excuse anymore.