“It is time we had a talk.” Michael walked forward and sat in the deep red chair Joseph had occupied and watched as his brother took a seat as well.
“Is it too late for that now?”
“Maybe.” Michael spoke, but neither of them knew whether it truly was or not. They were always inclined to believe that too much had been done to ever hope this gamble might change the course of what was yet to come. “But I would feel remiss if I didn’t try.”
“Would you believe me if I said that I had missed you?” Lucifer was a liar. Everyone knew that much about him, even if they didn’t believe he existed. But this… this was perhaps the first time in centuries he had told the truth without compunction.
“I would.”
Lucifer smiled then, a handsome smile that hinted at another side of him, lesser known and rarely understood. It might shock some people to think that Lucifer Morningstar had not always been the way he was now.
Lilith was the hunter once again. The Angel Witch who stalked in the long dark of night, searching for another broken soul. But this soul had a name. And that name was the last clue needed on the shadowed road to Samael. Devon he was called, by those demon-kind he knew, but his true name she learned upon her return from the trip across the sea. He was exactly where Esther said he would be found, but as Lilith walked into the sparsely furnished room, she saw bodies strewn about the floor. Seven awash in ruddy stains, as what remained of their life spread in thick pools across the brown carpet.
Esther stood in her customary leather, twirling a butterfly knife, with an implacable expression painted on her face. “My apologies, Freckles, I really did try to wait for you, but the fat fucker over there ran his mouth and I wasn’t in the mood.”
“Jesus.” Lilith stepped over the body nearest the door, and winced at the red, ugly gash deep across his throat. “Tell me you at least left Devon alive, how the hell are we supposed to…”
“Relax, girl, you’ll live longer.” Esther spun the blade and with a flick of her wrist the bloody silver was sheathed again and hanging from her belt. “He’s wrapped up in the back room, if I only had a bow.”
A name is a fragile thing. You never really think about it until it truly matters, and for Samael, it seemed to matter now in a way it never did before. His name was taken from him, forgotten in the endless torments of this forsaken place. All that remained was the name given to him by the Angel who raised him from the pit. He never hated that name as much as now. I have to find it again. Not the name Lucifer gave me. The name my mother chose. My name.
Me.
“Remember who you were,” he said to himself as he wandered along a shadowed field that stretched as far as his eyes could see. “Her name was Amani, and she loved you.”
Her deep brown skin, her stark green eyes. The raven color of her hair, and the way it tumbled down her shoulders. Those were the things that came back to him, the remnants of memories dragged out of a forgotten past. Amani was her name, and she knew what his had been. If only he could hear her voice once more; it might stir that one forgotten piece out of the shadows that kept it hidden.
But Hell tore away what was light and good within a human soul, leaving only the pall of shadows and the whispers of madness that never left. As a demon, Samael had done everything he could to rid himself of fear. This place was rife with it, of course, and always near as well.
Now, he was here again, wandering the blasted fields of a place he hoped he would never see again. The fog was just as he remembered it, rotten and heavy in the air, hugging the ground and stirring in the stillness.
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