Tazreel balks and looks at Lucifer, completely stunned.
“I told you it would be dear, my friend,” Lucifer teases, though his eyes are sharp and biting.
Tazreel looks at me and then back to the Devil, pained. I’m not sure what’s being bargained right now, but clearly it’s a big deal, and I have a feeling it’s for this Cedrice person.
“You know I can’t force that arranged marriage, since I’m not her Sire, but I’ll encourage it. I’ll even go so far as to give it my blessing if that will suffice,” Tazreel finally relents.
The others all watch the negotiations with rapt attention, like a pack of wolves waiting for their turn at the carcass.
Victory shines in Lucifer’s features, and he turns to me with a calculating smile. “When you see your mother, tell her the Ophidian says hi,” he tells me on a chuckle before he turns back to Tazreel.
The Ophidian.
I don’t know what comes over me in the next second, but just as Lucifer opens his mouth to divulge the secret Tazreel is dying to hear, I lose my shit. One second, I’m watching the Devil’s lips form the Ophidian, and the next, I’m hooking my now-activated scythe blade around his neck.
Every single one of the Abdicated snap to their feet and move toward me, but Lucifer holds his hands up to stop them. They obey without question, though their eyes stay trained on me and my blade. Lucifer turns back to me, like he doesn’t care that my blade is right against his neck.
His body language may be casual and relaxed, but the look in his eyes screams of the suffering he’s now planning for me. I should probably shit my pants right about now, but I can’t seem to move past the rage sparking in every synapse I possess.
“You attacked us? You’re the reason they were ripped away from me?” I ask on a growl. I try to work through what’s happening, but it’s a struggle. If he’s the Ophidian, then he’s responsible for what happened. But something about that doesn’t make sense to me. Why would he attack his own guards? Crux, Jerif, Echo and Rafferty guard his Hellgate, why would he kill them?
“Careful, niece, you’re quickly losing your coveted spot as favorite,” he quips. “I’m going to need you to be a bit more specific so I can address your accusations before punishing you.”
I tamp down a foreboding shiver at his words.
“The Outer Ring demons that attacked me kept saying they were supposed to take me to the Ophidian. There were hundreds of them pouring out from the portals. We tried to fight, but there were too many,” I tell him, my vision suddenly far away as if I’m back in the Vestibule again, my voice haunted with the memory of it all. “Why would you do that?”
I blink away the pain and crushing grief and try to focus my anger back on Lucifer. His frost-blue eyes look confused for a moment, and I can see questions flash through his cold stare.
“Me? I wouldn’t,” he defends, and it confuses me even more when his statement and the look on his face ring true to me. “The Ophidian...that’s just something we used to… Wait.” He pauses, his eyes going distant. “That can’t be…” he whispers, his brow furrowing and his tone perplexed and eerie. His head snaps up, and his eyes focus back on me. I watch as comprehension dawns on him like the sunrise, and in the time it takes to inhale and then let it out, Lucifer is gone.
Just poof, disappears.
The blade-end of the scythe hits the ground, no more Adversary there to hold it aloft, and everyone blinks for a moment like they’re trying to understand what just happened.
“What did we miss?” Driftwood asks, looking around at the table and then back to where Lucifer just disappeared from.
I’m surprised that they aren’t all jumping on me, ready to mete out revenge for threatening the King of Hell, but they seem more interested in solving whatever riddle just went down between what I said and the apparent conclusion that Lucifer came to because of it.
“Fuck!” Tazreel says, his fist banging on the table. “He left without telling me who the mother is.”
“He mentioned the Ophidian. Who is that?” Elle asks, looking around at the others, but they all shrug.
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier that you were attacked in the Vestibule?” Tazreel demands.
My eyes narrow. “When was I supposed to tell you? Before or after you yelled at me and threw me in the dungeon?”
Gasps fly out of some Abdicated mouths. “You put your progeny in the dungeon, Taz?”
“Oh, please, like you wouldn’t have done the same thing,” he says to Ginger. She just shrugs, not denying it.
“We should be able to narrow it down. If Luce knows who the mother is based on the scythe, then that’s our clue.”
They all move forward until I’m being squished by Abdicated, like we’re all sharing the same tiny ass elevator. They all hem and haw over the scythe, fingers grazing over the wood as they take it in, each of them very careful not to touch the blade.
“I think only Grims can call scythes,” Ace—the slouched ash-colored male—says, his tone quiet.
“I didn’t fuck a Grim!” Tazreel replies, his tone put-out. Some of them look like they don’t believe him.
“But what is a Grim if not a true Gatekeeper? It’s been so long since the other Gatekeepers were around, but wouldn’t they be able to call a scythe too?” Jewelry dude observes thoughtfully. “This scythe is most definitely the key, but Borf is the oldest Savor there is. He would have tasted Gatekeeper in her if it was there,” he adds.
“Unless Borf never cataloged a Gatekeeper,” Elle comments.
“But her coloring…” Driftwood says, interrupting that line of discussion as she looks at my purple wings with envy. “It’s very unusual.”
“Hmm.” The bald male taps his plush lips in thought.
