Inside the massive fiend room, I waved the creatures aside and they parted like a brown and stinky Red Sea. Moses would be so jealous. Once they were out of the way, I headed for the room that contained the case. As soon as we walked inside, flares sprung to life along the walls, illuminating the room with magical light. Karra gasped. Fortunately I’d been right about the smell dying down.
The walls had been carved into the shape of a pentagram, sharp corners jutting inward and then back out, giving the chamber a very claustrophobic feeling. It made you want to get to the middle quickly to avoid being impaled on the walls.
In the center sat the case, shards of warded glass still on the ground. I hadn’t instructed the fiends to clean that up, because there was no telling what kind of latent magic might still be embedded into the glass. It was better to leave it alone rather than risk unleashing something.
The hole in the wall, where the case’s guest had tunneled its way out, was something more mundane. The fiends had filled that, and I’d posted a couple dozen of them on the other side, just in case the thing wanted to come back. It worried me the dread fiends hadn’t ripped the guy-for lack of a better word-apart when he killed Asmoday. I hoped he’d just avoided the creatures somehow and didn’t have the means to make them obey him. It had been a surprise to learn they would listen to me, so there was no telling who else they took orders from. I wasn’t completely happy with the illusion of safety, but it’d have to do.
Karra went to the case and examined it. I watched her as she did, her eyes growing wider at every turn. Smartly, she avoided the pile of broken glass as she circled.
“This is amazing. The script is so fluid, so perfect. Whatever was in here must be unbelievably powerful to have escaped.”
Yeah, that’s what I wanted to hear. “You understand any of the gibberish.”
She shook her head. “Only that it was used to lock something inside, but you already knew that.” She ran her hand along one of the intact panes. “It’s two problems in one. I’ve no clue what language it’s written in, so not knowing that screws me out of understanding the manner in which the spell is being applied.”
“So, it’s still a mystery,” I mumbled. “Maybe Lucifer has some information stashed somewhere that sheds a little light on his ex-trophy.” A bit frustrated, I headed toward the fiend room. Karra followed me after a moment, clearly reluctant to leave the case.
Once we were back in my uncle’s private chambers, we split off and headed to different sides. I’d been in here a bunch of times recently, but I’d never really torn the place apart looking for anything. I’d always felt it was some kind of violation of my uncle’s private space to be digging through it all. Now, having learned about his efforts to keep me and Karra apart-and his lies to me-that feeling was long gone; dead and buried. It was one thing to play errand boy and stash the book he’d sent, but it was another to believe his world was sacrosanct any more. If hiding the tome helped the Earth, I was all for it, but I wasn’t gonna worry about his feelings when it came to me rifling his shit. Karra didn’t care to begin with.
She was perusing the shelves across the room, pulling each book off and shaking it out, then dropping it before moving on to the next. Normally, I’d have said something, but I had the fiends to clean up the mess. If trashing Lucifer’s chambers made her feel better about all the crap he put her through, then I was all for it.
I went to work.
Hours later, I’d found squat to do with the case or the strange language, and absolutely nothing about any dimensions beyond ours. My eyes blurred and my back throbbed. I fell back into a pile of scattered papers and growled. The beer I’d missed out on earlier was calling my name.
I listened to the carnage Karra was creating for a while, and it took me a minute to realize she’d gone silent. Thinking she might have moved on to another room, this one being our third, I rolled my head and looked for her. She was standing stiffly by a hefty pile of tossed books. A small leather case was in her hand. She peered inside it with a fierce intensity, her fingers spreading it open. I noticed her hand trembled.
“What is it?”
“You need to see this, Frankie.”
I got to my feet and went over with slow, deliberate steps. Something in her voice told me I didn’t want to rush; I didn’t want to know what she found. When I got there, she let out a loud sigh and took me by the arm. She wouldn’t hand me the case.
“What is it?” I repeated, and she ignored me again, guiding me to the bed. I knew right then it was bad news. No woman in her right mind would lead me to a bed if she wasn’t about to tell me something that would kill my libido.
I dropped on the mattress and Karra kneeled down before me, handing me the case, at last. She stared into my eyes, hands on my calves, rubbing them gently, almost unconsciously. Whatever she’d found had to be horrific for her to cling to me as though I’d fall apart. She swallowed hard, and I couldn’t bring myself to take my eyes off her, as if I could will away whatever she found and chase away the worry that had so infected her expression. At last, I looked to the case in my shaking hands and pulled out what was inside.
It was old parchment: letters of some kind. Written in faded ink, the writing was plain, lacking confidence, but it had the graceful line of a woman’s hand. It struck me as familiar, but I couldn’t imagine how. I read the first line:
Dearest Lucifer,
I have missed you these past moons, and worry for your safety. I pray you are well.
Still unsure what Karra had read to worry her so much, I continued on, skimming the missive through squinted eyes. It read as a love letter, though the woman appeared to have no idea who my uncle truly was. The line about her praying for him was absurd. It made it obvious the writer was human.
I have seen no sign of Arol since our abrupt parting.
A sudden tremble shook my hands, my fingers clenching and nearly tearing the page in half. Arol was Lucifer’s brother; my father. His name hadn’t passed my lips in nearly five hundred years. Karra tightened her grip on my legs, but I barely noticed, my eyes devouring the words before me. Should you encounter him, I beg you do not tell him of us, for it would only enrage him beyond control. The child grows strong within me, and I would not have it without its father. This is the only request I would ask of you, fair Lucifer. Return to me soon, my love. Charlotte
My heart went still in my chest, the papers slipping from numb fingers and fluttering to the floor.
My love. Charlotte.
Darkness fluttered before my eyes and I fell back onto the bed, staring up at the carved stone ceiling. My head spun as a churning sickness welled inside me. Had Azrael been telling the truth?
Charlotte.
The name repeated inside my thoughts, circling inside my brain like a vulture, swooping over and over to tear away tiny pieces of my sanity.
My love. Charlotte.
The bed shifted, and I felt Karra’s warm breath on my cheek. She spoke to me, but I couldn’t understand her, the words muffled and unclear. The only thing that mattered right then was the name- Charlotte — and what these letters meant.
They were written by my mother.
Stiff fingers wiped the tears from my cheeks I hadn’t known I’d shed until I felt their warm wetness smeared across my face. Karra cradled me as confusion crashed over in tsunami waves, battering my memories and washing away the lies that had collected on the shore of my life.
There was so much I didn’t know, so much I was raised to believe; so many lies fed to me. Just as the rest of the Demonarch had always wondered what Lucifer saw in me, I, too, had always wondered. Here before me, in the papers scattered across the floor, was the answer.
For all that Lucifer had hidden from me, this was by far the worst violation of the trust I placed in him. Bile filled my throat as the pieces fell into place, fury burning away my confusion. I sat up in a rush, Karra clinging to me to keep me on the bed.
“Lucifer had an affair with my mother and had gotten her pregnant. He stole her away from my father.” I pulled away and got to my feet. Karra jumped up beside me, sympathy etched across her face. She had understood what the letters meant when she stumbled across them. “My mother was killed because she was carrying my uncle’s child. No matter who killed her… Lucifer caused her death!”
Blinded by the realization, I shrugged away from Karra and ran for the nearest of Lucifer’s thing. She let me
