Lucifer Unchained, page 13
part #4 of Lucas Johnson Series
“What are you doing?” she asked, staring blankly.
“Getting comfortable.” I removed my tie and half-unbuttoned my shirt. Sofia’s eyes widened as she saw my scars.
Yes, she knew I had them, but seeing the hundreds of scars embedded in my flesh was a different experience.
I did this to intimidate her. Her abilities included memory manipulation, which could be messy if she decided to use them on me. And this was my way of reminding her that I would kill her if she screwed me over. “Shall we take a bath first or jump straight into the bed?” I asked and pulled down my pants.
Sofia rubbed her face with her palm, taking another chocolate. “Just, get in the bed.”
I slid between the bed sheets. She stepped above me, moved the duvet over me so its edge reached my chin, kicked off her shoes, and knelt on my chest. She pressed her hand on my forehead. “Hopefully, this will hurt.”
She pushed her aether against mine, trying to jolt my soul out of my body. Oh, if sending me to my soul chamber was this easy, I would have done it myself. My soul bounced lightly out of the body and then instantly returned.
Sofia frowned and tried again. Same effect. She scowled. “How are you doing this?”
“You tell me. You know my memories better than I do.”
“Would you stop acting like an idiot for a second?”
“Okay, I could do that for a moment.” I removed my grin, putting on a serious expression. “I know how to move my soul outside my body and yes, I do that often. But I don’t know how to go to the soul chamber from there.”
“Couldn’t you tell me first?”
And so, my cheeky grin returned to my face. “You didn’t ask nicely.”
She sighed. “Why do you have to make this difficult?”
“Because it’s fun. Look, Sofia, I understand that you’re bitter about how the escape from Tul Sar Naar went.”
“No, you don’t understand. You made your stupid plans and then you forced me to choose between them. The blood of all the people you killed is on my hands because of you.”
I raised an eyebrow. “So, why didn’t you choose a less bloody plan?”
“Those had lower chance of success.”
I smirked. “That’s really hypocritical when you say it out loud, isn’t it?”
“I know,” she snapped. “And that’s why I’m angry.” She got up from the bed, walked to a cabinet, and pulled out a box from a drawer. “Anyway. We’ll go to Limbo the hard way.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What do you mean by Limbo?”
“Nothing.” She opened the box and took out a pipe, into which she hastily stuffed brown mold.
“No, that wasn’t nothing. As far as I have heard, and I’ve heard a lot, the place where soul chambers reside is called the Void. Limbo denotes the first circle of Hell. Why would you use that word?”
She sighed. “I grew up with different terminology.” She lit up the pipe and took a long drag. She sat on the bed next to me and handed me the pipe. “Smoke.”
“What’s inside?”
“Hashish. The more stoned you get, the easier it is to dreamwalk.”
Another term I’d never heard. Drugs and alcohol generally loosened the soul’s connection to the body, so that made sense. I took the pipe and smoked. We kept switching and within a minute, I was more drunk than I had ever felt.
“Leave the body,” Sofia said. “We fly to Limbo.”
I did. The world around me blurred as I left my body and my mind cleared. In this form, I was a frame of pure darkness with a crown of horns and a tail.
Sofia’s body flickered with light and she floated up, looking just like when she lied down.
Humans were not supposed to be able to do that, so she was seriously lying about who she was. “This isn’t how this is supposed to work,” I said, not sure if she could hear me.
“This is where I stop answering questions.” She looked up. “Fly after me.” And she left through the ceiling.
I followed, ascending toward the heavens. The blurry image of Krasnoyarsk spread under us and we approached the canopy of clouds. And I was getting bored. “You know, if you tell me the direction and rough distance, we can fly a lot faster.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. We need to completely leave the Earth’s orbit.” She crossed her arms across her chest in a I’ll enjoy watching you fail.
I floated to her and gently caught her by the lower back, pressing her against me. I focused for a second, channeling my aether. In in a current of darkness, we shot through the clouds, the atmosphere, and the orbit, floating in space in the next second. “There.”
Her eyes shot wide. “How did you do that?”
“I’m a fallen angel. There’s nothing I cannot do in the spiritual realm.” Okay, almost nothing, but I liked her, and so I couldn’t refuse a chance to show off.
She shook her head. “That’s not how this works. But anyway, now we need to shift frequency. Hold still.” She placed her hands on my shoulders and her aether tingled through me. We started shaking. As if hit by an earthquake, my entire world trembled.
Suddenly, everything stopped, and I saw the soul chambers.
Billions of bubbles floated in space, surrounding Earth. Each differed from the others, each containing one soul of a human living on earth.
“How do we find mine?” I asked.
“First, I’ll put some protection on you.” Sofia’s aether reached into the emptiness around us and started wrapping me.
With a frown, I reached out. The infinity of the Void reacted instantly, as if waiting for me, and bent to my will. I realized why she called this Limbo. Another word for the Void was Hell. That was where souls went after death, after all. And Lucifer being the King of Hell apparently wasn’t just a saying.
The power swirled around me and formed an impeccable suit made of hardened aether, matching the black shirt and tie. I smiled at Sofia. “I think I’ve been here before.”
She shivered slightly, staring at me with terrified eyes. “You are the Dawnbringer, aren’t you?”
I grinned. “Now, I’m mightily curious why you would know someone like that, and at the same time, not recognize me as him when you knew my angelic name. Where are you from that you didn’t recognize the name Lucifer?”
Her expression hardened, but fear did not leave her eyes. “I’ll cut you a deal. You will help me with something, and I will tell you about the part of yourself you don’t remember.”
Easiest deal of my life. “I accept.”
She smiled softly. With a wave of her hand, she made a silver string stretch out of her palm and head into one bubble. “That’s my soul chamber. We go there. I’ll disable the defenses to let you in.”
One could build defenses in here? That sounded like something I had to start doing. If I could enter soul chambers through the Void, then others could. We floated toward the bubble, which looked like a swirling maelstrom of golden light. She detached from me, spread her arms, the light opened. As we flew in, the light moved around us, creating a narrow tunnel.
She clearly didn’t want me to see what else was there. After a moment, the light opened, and we stood in a small chamber. In the middle was a large, steel cube. “As one of my trials, I need to get an item from inside this,” Sofia said, gaze aimed toward the ground, arms crossed over her chest.
“What trials?”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “Get me the item and I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
I waved my hand and half of the steel cube disintegrated into dust. Inside stood a pedestal on which was a golden helmet. Its front was fashioned into a blank, oval disk, and four horns towered stretched up from the brow. “That’s a fancy helmet,” I said with a smug smile.
She stared with a blank expression. “I spent years trying to get into that.”
“So, who was Dawnbringer?”
She cleared her throat and blinked a few times to refocus. “Dawnbringer was how one of the demon kings called himself. He came into our dimension from this one. From what I heard, he died on this world, retreated into the Void and somehow stumbled into our plane of existence.”
“Into the Mirrorrealm,” I pointed out. The Secret Societies had the vague concept that another plane of existence existed. But we didn’t know much about it because it was accessible only once every five thousand years. Though we did have a few intruders from the other side.
“If that’s what you call it, yes. Anyway, Dawnbringer wanted to return to his own reality. He quickly discovered he could rule over the Void, so he amassed uncountable armies of demons and battled our Gods to gain whatever he thought he needed to return to his home world. But he lost to my mistress, who sealed his soul into a crystal and locked it up inside her vault.”
On Earth, Lucielle killed Lucifer. He had a thing for getting killed by women, which was a lesson I needed to learn, else I would share his fate. “From which I stole it.”
“Yes.” She sighed. “I was originally sent into your world to reclaim the stolen crystals, but you idiots ate them and merged with the originally sealed souls, so I have nothing to come back with.”
“All right. We’ve got four intruders from your dimension. We call them higher vampires, but you might call them differently.” This was a golden opportunity to get intel I couldn’t otherwise obtain. “The strongest one calls herself Vivian Laen’Ash.”
“The Xuel’Jin.” She smiled. “What about them?”
“How do I kill one? I mean, kill for real, not until they recreate the body?”
Sofia smirked. “What, got tired of your vampire lover?”
“Not that one. Her, I like. But there’s another one I need kill, so how would I go about that?”
“Good for you, because she’s immortal in every meaning of the word. As for the Xuel’Jin in general, they keep multiple forms between which they switch their soul’s presence. You need to destroy those forms or at least isolate one. Then, you need to force them to draw the whole soul into that form as they normally control it like a puppeteer controls a puppet. And then you destroy that body together with the soul.”
That sounded possible. Sure, I didn’t know how to force Sayf to put his soul into a body, but I could work that out later. “Okay, that’ll be fun. Let’s see my soul chamber.” I made us fly out of her soul chamber and the golden bubble reformed.
I looked around, staring at what looked like black hole, floating among the other bubbles. “That one’s mine, isn’t it?”
“Dawnbringer always had to be the special snowflake.” Sofia said, smiling poisonously. “And you’re his perfect copy.”
I couldn’t even argue about that with my soul chamber being the only one that didn’t look like a bubble. I waved with my hand and we flew into the black hole. Darkness swallowed us and then we stood inside a temple.
Sculptures of saints towered along the walls, lit by sunlight that was coming in through stained-glass windows. In the altar’s place stood a diamond throne with a massive golden cross hanging on the wall above the throne. Nothing looked out of place.
Sofia pointed at the temple’s door. “This way.”
Smartass. I walked to the door and she followed, smirking. I opened the door and froze.
My temple used to be the only thing in my soul chamber. Now, the temple stood on a hill surrounded by a growing, desert city. Giant scorpions pulled around large blocks of stones, guided mostly by older men. Well, I recently devoured a thousand giant scorpion souls and the spirits guarding Ubar, so I guess this was them. And then there was a wild mixture of whoever else I killed before.
“So… you’re killing scorpions and old men?” Sofia asked, raising an eyebrow. “In comparison to Dawnbringer conquering worlds with his demonic legions, well…”
I drew a sharp breath and my face turned red. This one stung, mostly because she wasn’t wrong. I searched for someone in charge. The workers moved in a star-like pattern, going to pile of stones in front of which stood three people. I didn’t see details, but the black suit gave the man away. I sighed and flew toward them.
Sofia caught up in a second. “Is that Hades?”
“Yes, I ate the old god’s soul after killing him when escaping from Tul Sar Naar.”
“And you also took his wife to keep him company. How kind of you.”
With another glance, the woman in a white dress next to the man in black suit was indeed Persephone. At least the third person was an ancient-looking woman, apparently Edna. I landed next to them, and we all exchanged awkward stares.
“I told you that he would come,” Edna said, smiling.
Hades cleared his throat. “Well, I suppose this was unavoidable, given we are in his soul chamber, after all.”
“Yeah…” I scratched the back of my neck. “So, I suppose you can’t leave from here, can you?”
“We could drift into the Void and perish, becoming demons,” Hades said. “And we prefer even the local scenery to that.”
Sofia’s mean smirk was starting to make me increasingly uncomfortable. I looked at Persephone and then back at Hades. “All right, this place needs some changes.” I motioned toward Edna and bent the aether around her.
Her form twisted and she turned into a twenty-year-old woman, eyes bright, hair lush and long. Happy this worked, I focused and stretched my power through the soul chamber. Everything swirled in a shimmering mist. The sand turned to pavement, the stone houses grew, twisting into skyscrapers, the hill beneath my temple became a mountain. And everyone turned to the way they were when they were twenty years of age. Within moments, the desert village turned into a modern metropolis.
I wanted to turn the scorpions into something normal, but that didn’t work, so I at least made them black and clean. Pleased, I turned toward Hades, who was staring at his hands, now young. “In my absence, you’re in charge. You have three goals. One, prepare this place for a heavy influx of new souls. Two, keeps things in order. And three, figure out some way I can use this in the real world.”
“And so, I become an overseer, again.” Hades flashed a smile. “I will do as you bid, though the third point will be a challenge.”
Yeah, I figured. We were in the Void, which was rather strongly separated from reality.
“You could make a harem here so he could finally get laid,” Sofia said.
Everyone other than me laughed.
“Very funny.” I glared at Sofia who seemed to be enjoying herself a bit too much. I pivoted my vision back at Hades. “I need some way to stop a body from interacting with spirits. How do I do that?”
He shrugged. “Hephaestus can make a weapon for anything.”
A grin crept onto my face. “Where do I find him?”
“His workshop was on Lemnos, so I would start there.”
I nodded and turned to Edna. “When you told me, I would get some of your power in my subconsciousness, you were lying, weren’t you?”
Her smile broadened. “To avoid death, you would lie as well, wouldn’t you?”
With a sigh, I flew up. Sofia followed me all the way to the temple. We passed through the gate and I closed it behind us. And then I rubbed my face with my palms.
“What?” Sofia asked, voice still edgy. “Not used to having underlings?”
I clicked my tongue. “Amuse me, why did you get exiled?”
She froze, suddenly out of words.
At a leisurely pace, I walked to my throne at the temple’s end, and sat down, peering down at her. “Nothing from what I’ve seen of you is consistent with your situation being a trial. The door through which you entered this world opens once every five thousand years. The cube sealing your helmet had no unlocking mechanism, and I met you in prison, which is where I guess you were sent right as you entered my world. The way I see it, you pissed off one of your gods, most likely the mistress you mentioned, so she locked away your powers and threw you into a prison in another dimension, from which you cannot come back. That’s an exile if I have ever seen one.”
“Suppose you’re right.” Sofia’s face hardened. “What about it?”
“Nothing.” I smiled. “Just wanted to clear things up.” I closed my eyes and woke up in the bed, Sofia lay crumpled on the duvet next to me. The alcohol and hashish hit me hard. The trip took about half an hour, so I was going to be stoned for a while.
She woke up within seconds, blinking with vein-filled eyes. “You’re such an ass.”
“It’s my greatest quality.” I stretched. “So, why do you live in Russia?”
“Your world is insufferably hot.” She got up, and with wobbly steps, went to another cabinet. She motioned at the window covered in frost. “Where I come from, this would be summer in our warmest lands.” From the cabinet, she pulled another bottle of Vodka. “So, still feeling like grabbing a drink?”
I felt guilty as hell when dressing the next afternoon. I drank more alcohol in the past twenty-four hours than in the past ten years altogether and I was never going to smoke hashish again. What was I thinking? And with body part?
I was supposed to be preparing for today, training Lillith, or at least resting. Sofia slept, and I left her my business card in case she wanted to stay in touch. I didn’t think she would, but just in case.
I called Vassily.
He came soon and took me to the hotel. I told him to wait for me downstairs. When I entered the room, a Katy Perry song was blasting through the apartment. The presidential suite was a mess with opened, half-eaten boxes of chocolate lying everywhere. And I knew where Lillith would be.
I turned off the Hi-Fi tower and knocked on the bathroom door. “Stomach problems?” I shouted.
“…yes.”
I called reception to get us a stomach pill and packed in the meanwhile. The assistant, visibly amused, brought two packs of some pills. I slightly opened the bathroom door and slid them inside, together with a small water bottle. “Eat one pill from each and drink that water bottle.”
Lillith didn’t reply, but I was certain she would do as I bid.
I finished packing and prepared her clothes. “Should I give you the clothes in the bathroom or will you come out to dress?”
