Hell's King Read online

  “Argh, dog slobber,” he yelled.

  Only to get crushed a second time, this time by a pleasant weight. “Chris, you’re all right.” Isobel plastered him with womanly slobber, which he didn’t mind at all.

  “I don’t know what I am right now,” he said, still trying to catch his breath. “The Devil isn’t my father.”

  “I heard. But, guess what. I’m—”

  “Uncle Chris!” Lucinda squealed his name as she came barreling out of the house. “It’s time for my cake.”

  Cake? Who wanted cake when their whole world had just crumbled?

  Except…the world wasn’t ending.

  Mother was dead. And when he returned to the yard, the undead were cleaning themselves up. Shuffling away, going to their final rest—until I need to call them again anyway.

  The tent was torn to shit, but the sun had gone down sometime during the battle.

  And sure enough, when he emerged into the yard, Nefertiti held a cake with a handful of candles aloft. Everyone began to sing.

  The end of a prophecy celebrated with chocolate cake.

  As the party wound down, he looked to see Lucinda napping on Auric’s lap, Muriel snuggled by his side. Bambi had claimed War’s mighty thighs, and Chris looked away when he saw where the horseman’s hand was creeping. Death and Pestilence were off in a corner making out. Famine was eating the leftovers, and as for the Rasputins, they asked Chris and Isobel for a ride home.

  Home? Where was home? Not in Hell. The moment Chris found out the truth, he knew he couldn’t keep the crown. A silver lining in all this mess.

  He struggled to his feet. “Let me find a phone so I can call us a cab. I guess to get to the airport.”

  “No planes.” Rasputin shook his head. “Fucking metal deathtraps.”

  “I am not driving twenty fucking hours, old man,” Chris grumbled.

  “No driving either. Just do it,” the old wizard said.

  “Do what?” Chris asked.

  “Make a portal.”

  “I can’t.” Always his first words of choice.

  Only Isobel whispered, “Yes, you can. Remember what Muriel did?”

  Yeah, as a matter of fact, he did. He’d watched as she made a portal. Saw the magic. A lot of it.

  “I don’t know if I can do it.”

  “I know you can. With my help.”

  She placed her hands on him, and he concentrated, concentrated, pulled at the power, let it pool inside, then stumbled. What next?

  “Picture the house,” Isobel whispered. “Fix it in your mind and then rip open the space between here and there.”

  Rip open the space. Because that was so easy. He didn’t believe it would work. But he couldn’t not try—not with everyone watching.

  What if I fail?

  “There is no room for pessimism, only greatness.” Funny how that sounded like his mother.

  He squinted, picturing the house, the windows, the door, the yard.

  Then, when he had it firmly fixed in his mind, he reached out and grabbed hold of reality and tore it open.

  A portal formed.

  He gaped. “Holy shit. I did it.” But did it work? Goshen woofed and then leapt through the hole. Rasputin and the others followed. Leaving Isobel and Chris.

  “What if it doesn’t go home?” he said, voicing his worry aloud. What if he’d just sent her entire family off into oblivion?

  “I believe in you.” The most powerful words ever. Followed by her faith. She stepped through the rip, and since he couldn’t live without her, he stepped through, too.

  28

  Chris took them home. Their home, not her parents’, which caused some grumbling.

  Rasputin wasn’t enamored with the idea of taking an Uber back to the house, but her daddy convinced him, saying Grandfather could walk if he didn’t like it.

  When the car pulled into the driveway and the moment to say goodbye arrived, Isobel couldn’t help but hug her father tightly. Eyes wet. Heart aching. “I missed you so much.”

  “As did I,” he whispered against her hair. “But I would do it again if I thought it would spare your life.”

  Because in that awkward spell as they waited for the Uber pickup, she’d finally learned the truth. How her daddy had used his own soul to try and keep Morgana in prison. Only to have her mother set them both free because she had a different plan. A plan that ended up working out for almost all of them. She couldn’t help feeling a pang for Chris, who’d realized his mother truly did care for him, only to lose her in the same moment. But that didn’t negate her happiness at having her father back.

  She squeezed him, and her voice was tight as she said, “I’m glad you’re back.”

  “Me, too.”

  As for Mother, she sniffed. “Dinner. Sunday. No excuses. Wear something without holes.” Which was her way of saying “I love you.”

  As for Grandfather, he cackled. “Best party I’ve attended in ages.”

  After they’d left, she and Chris stood for a moment in their front yard, the silence enveloping them, the mist rising from the ground obscuring the world.

  Only they existed.

  “What a day,” he finally said.

  “Let’s go to bed.” She tugged him into the house, but before hitting the bedroom, she detoured for a shower. Chris held himself stiff, shock still running through his veins.

  She knew how to loosen him up. She ran soapy hands over his muscled frame. Cleansed the battle from his skin. Woke other parts of him and reminded him that there was pleasure to be had in the land of the living.

  When she dropped to her knees and worshipped him, he let loose a long sigh.

  “I love you, Isobel.”

  So did she. And she proved it. True love always swallowed.

  They made it to bed and made love again, softly, gently, an exploration of each other’s bodies that reminded them that they’d survived the apocalypse. They’d managed to circumvent fate and death.

  They held each other after, their bodies damp, their breathing ragged, their privacy broken by an intruding voice.

  “I should have known you weren’t my son. Not dirty enough in the bedroom.”

  Isobel squeaked at the intruder and hid under the sheets, whereas Chris sighed. “For fuck’s sake, don’t you have anything better to do than harass me?”

  Lucifer perched at the foot of the bed, leering at them. “Gaia and the new baby are having a nap. So I thought I’d pop in and tell you that you’re fired.”

  “Too late. I quit.”

  “You can’t quit. The job doesn’t work that way.”

  “The job should have never been mine to start with. I’m not your son,” Chris retorted. “So take back your damned throne. I never want to see Hell again.”

  “And you won’t. Son of God.” Lucifer snickered.

  Chris groaned. “Don’t remind me.”

  “Speaking of reminders, Rasputin said to tell you that he’s invited the horsemen to stay with them for a while. Apparently, your mother had them living out of a motel by the highway.”

  “What?” The statement caused Isobel to scramble into a seated position while clutching the sheet to her chest. “Why can’t they stay with you?”

  “Because they were never my soldiers. Not even truly Morgana’s. They are the servants of prophecy. They will only ride when the Fates call them.”

  “And what do the Fates say now?” Chris asked.

  “Is it over?” Isobel asked.

  “Is what over?” Lucifer queried instead. “Life is a never-ending series of battles and confrontations and choices. When one ends, another begins.”

  “That’s pretty Zen shit for the Devil.” Chris scrubbed a hand through his hair.

  “Practicing for the baby,” Lucifer remarked. “Congratulate me. I am a father.”

  “Poor little shit. He has my condolences.”

  The Devil chuckled. “Elyon might have fathered you, but that’s definitely a hint of my humor. I’ll be sure to
rub that in his face when I visit him in prison.”

  “Waa. Waa. Waa.”

  The ghostly cry emerged from nowhere and yet was everywhere. Isobel snuggled closer to Chris while Lucifer scowled.

  “Guess that’s my cue to leave. Feel free to sin some more.”

  “We’re married. It’s allowed.” Isobel enjoyed rubbing the salt into that one, especially since Lucifer winced as he faded out of sight.

  Beside her, Chris lost the rigid tension in his body. “Fuck me, but now that he’s not my dad, I kind of miss him. At least he kind of paid me attention.”

  Given what Isobel knew of Charlie’s upbringing, she knew Elyon wouldn’t do the same. “At least you know the truth. Crazy business. Who would have thought we’d be on the side that ended up saving the world?”

  “Not that crazy, considering I was never who people thought I was.”

  “But it’s not like you’re a nobody.”

  Chris made a moue of displeasure. “Honestly, given the choice between Son of God and the Devil, can I select none of the above?”

  “How do you think I feel? God is your father, and the Devil is your uncle. And Jesus is your brother.”

  “Who’s in love with my wife.”

  “Can you blame him?” She arched a brow. “I am pretty awesome. And don’t forget, you’re still cousins with Muriel and Bambi.”

  “I don’t need you to recite all my family connections. I’m aware of who is who. I’m just not me anymore. What happens now?” he asked, looking at Isobel. “If I’m not the Antichrist, destined to rule the world, then what does that leave?”

  “Anything you want. You can be anyone. Go anywhere.”

  “Go somewhere else?” he mused aloud. “Enter the unknown?”

  “Embark on an adventure. Find a new home. One for you, me, Goshen, and the baby.” She placed his hand on her stomach.

  He didn’t freak out. Rather smiled. “Our child.” He flexed his fingers. “War doth fly on the wings of the future. The blood of the innocents shall soak the Earth and give rise to a new dominion.”

  “What the heck is that supposed to mean?”

  Chris turned a smile on her. “This is not the end.”

  Later that same night, Lucinda slipped out of bed and into the backyard. Despite being hidden in the vault at the time, she knelt in the exact spot where Morgana had dissolved into nothingness.

  Except nothing ever completely disappeared. Sometimes, it just lost cohesion for a bit. Lucinda gathered the tiny motes of Morgana’s spirit. She spilled the pieces into the pink amulet. For a moment, it glowed in the darkness, and a cool breeze, hinting of death, lifted Lucinda’s hair.

  This was not the end.

  Epilogue

  The apocalypse didn’t end things as the seers had predicted. The world emerged in a bit of a mess, but humanity had a way of persevering. Much like the days and months and years after the Flood, the humans rebuilt. They multiplied. They sinned...

  The backlog in Hell was still pretty huge. That lazy nephew of his really lacked an efficient bone in his body. But Lucifer welcomed the work, given Gaia had this thing about sharing the duties with the new baby—who seemed to shit and scream an awful lot. The office was a place to escape and have a cigar, throw on the telly, and grab a few winks under the guise of work.

  But he couldn’t hide from his fatherly duties all the time. When he went home to his suite in the tower, the first thing Gaia did when he walked through the door was thrust the baby at him and declare, “Your turn.”

  Holding his new son in his arms, his only son, Lucifer stared at the tiny face with its big eyes staring back at him. The depths of them dancing with flames, a family trait.

  He thought about strangling the fragile little neck. Smothering that Cupid’s-bow mouth. He could toss the baby in the Styx. Leave it in the wild. All manner of things he could—and should—do to the one and only Antichrist. The real one this time. The one the prophecies truly spoke about.

  Except…what if they were wrong?

  What if I kill the only hope we have for a future?

  Because, after all, he had let Lucinda—named abomination by more than one seer—live.

  “You, my son, will do great things in this world,” he crooned. “But if you ever come after me or the crown, I’ll end you.” Because in a world that consisted of me myself and I, there was room for only one Dark Lord, one King of the Underworld. And my vacation is over, sinners, so prepare yourself, because your turn is coming soon.

  * * *

  The End

  But I doubt we’ve seen the last of Lucifer and Hell.

  Curious about the other stories in the Hell series. Then check out:

  Princess of Hell with Lucifer’s Daughter, Snowballs in Hell, Hell’s Revenge, Vacation Hell

  Welcome to Hell includes A Demon and his Witch, A Demon and his Psycho, Date with Death, A Demon and her Scot, Hell’s Kitty, Hell’s Geek, Hell’s Bells

  Wickedest Witch (standalone but related to Hell’s Son series)

  Last Minion Standing (standalone)