Battle With Fire by K.F. Breene

Two

Lucifer’s bootsground dirt between their soles and the sun-bleached, cracked sidewalk. Decrepit homes, shapes hunkering in the fading light, lined the right side of a narrow street, which played host to dented and scratched automobiles. A cemetery lurked on the left, devoid of tourists wandering around its walls.

A lone figure stood halfway down the block, opposite the pulse of his daughter, her demonic magic shining like a beacon in this dim world. He was on his way to her house in the Brink, a visit he’d spent the better part of two months planning. He wanted to get it right. There were…things to clear up. Things that would hopefully help them repair their relationship.

A door swung open in a pale green house, emitting a haggard sort of creature with too much padding around the middle and a face full of bristly white hair. It stopped on the front stoop, five steps up from the ground, and scowled at Lucifer passing by.

The look kindled rage in Lucifer’s gut, banked one moment and burning brightly the next. Magic seeped around him, fire licking his white button-up shirt and crackling through the air. He met that stare with his own, daring this creature to defend its territory. There were no masters in the Brink, not those silly were-humans, and certainly not the mortals. It was dog eat dog in this world, Lucifer knew well, and he was at the top of the food chain.

The man held Lucifer’s stare for a solid beat, longer than any demon would dare. Longer than most mortals that Lucifer could remember, as well. Its—his—fuzzy white brows stitched together, and he huffed and glanced down the street. To Reagan’s residence?

The human had plenty of reason to show fear—he must see that—but he didn’t, and the reason was evident in that look. He thought someone bigger and badder would handle this territory breach.

A surge of pride wormed through Lucifer’s gut. This was a rough neighborhood for humans. His daughter had clearly fought for her place, and she’d been recognized as owner of her domain. As a queen. Of course she had—it was a family right.

She belonged on the throne here just as she did on the throne he would soon offer her. He understood now why she hadn’t wanted to forsake this place. It was a small kingdom, but it was hers all the same.

The creature—man—on the other side of the street pushed back into the shadows as Lucifer neared. He lifted a square of power that brightened, blaring light onto a lined face and white hair. Were all these creatures old? Surely Reagan would’ve wanted a better challenge than that? Or was she protecting them from a greater foe…

Perplexed, he noticed the house reaching into the sky, taller and newer than its counterparts and expertly appointed. Ordinary flowers sat peacefully in little white boxes hanging off the railing, and the front yard was a carefully tended thatch of grass. Two polished wooden chairs sat on the porch, facing the cemetery opening, an interesting view for a dull day.

A man walked out of the house next to it, the residence a fading affair with chipping paint and ragged wood. Nails were trying to work their way out of the structure. The look on his dark brown face suggested such unspeakable menace that Lucifer had to laugh, delighted. His robust body, thick chest, and posture—hands hanging loosely at his sides—all suggested this human had some power strapped somewhere around his waist. He expected trouble and had no problem handling it with vicious resolve. Fantastic.

“Hello,” Lucifer said, and offered a light bow. “What is your role here?”

The man tensed, and his eyes turned shrewd, as if he were working through an internal debate. His gaze swept Lucifer’s person before flicking to what must be Reagan’s residence.

“I ain’t got no role with you fuckers,” the man said, his voice deep and rough, as though someone had taken sandpaper to it. As though he had been screaming for all his life and no one had heard. What wonderful havoc he would create in the Underworld.

“Tell me, are you magical?” Lucifer asked.

“Fuck that shit.” The man spat over the porch railing and onto the patch of dirt at the front of his house, dotted with weeds.

“How colorful.” Lucifer continued on toward Reagan’s house, and as he approached the steps, another presence caught his eye—a figure emerging from the bushes to the right of the porch. She approached him with a hunched posture, arms akimbo, a flurry of red hair around her head. Despite her strange hobble-walk, he recognized the grace behind her steps. “And a warrior fae. Quaint. It appears as though my daughter takes in strays.”

“Your daughter, huh?” The woman straightened up, as though realizing her strange antics did not influence him. “You are a black hole to Seers. Did you know?”

“Yes. By design. I am the ultimate cheater, didn’t you know? I can’t very well have others spying on my plans, or the angels would always know what I was about. Scrying won’t work, either. Your crystal ball will return only static. If I had known of your presence, it would’ve been the first thing I taught my daughter. I’ll remedy that shortly.”

“I do not advise that, not until the war is through.”

The Seer’s eyes filled with a gravity that made him pause with his foot on the first step.

“My goal is to keep Reagan alive,” she said. “I must do everything in my power to help her…” The woman shook her hands above her head theatrically. “If she stays in the middle of the two factions at war, she will perish.”

That stopped him short. He studied her for a moment, getting a read on her. There was no mistaking the mischievous glimmer in her pale eyes, the tiny smile playing about her lips, both seemingly unconscious. Very unlike the Custodes, for certain. But then, she was a Seer, not a warrior. She didn’t belong exclusively to the fighting sect of their people, although she’d obviously been trapped with them before coming to the Brink. The warrior fae had been hiding in the Flush, he knew, until recently. A suffocating sort of place, Reagan had said. The Custodes could be suffocating creatures, so he believed it.

He checked out her odd choice of clothing—a clean, flowered apron over a dingy dress overlapping baggy purple sweats with holes in the knees. A foot-long broom handle stuck out of one of the pockets, the end filed down into a point, like a stake. A silent threat to the vampires, perhaps, who likely wouldn’t take her seriously.

Her wild hair was ratty and unbrushed, and dirt marred her pale complexion. Her unkempt look had to be planned. She was going against the grain, as it were, of her very put-together Custodes counterparts.

Underneath all of that, though, he felt her frustration. Her plea for true freedom. Her wildness and her savagery. Her desire to play tricks and create mayhem. She had more to offer than what she’d been allowed to give, and she was begging someone to notice. Given the crow’s-feet around her eyes and lines denting the skin around her mouth and on her forehead, she’d been waiting a long time.

“Do you come here often?” he asked, wanting a bit more information.

The violent man huffed, leaning on his railing, continuing to watch.

The fae didn’t notice, her gaze glued to Lucifer. She knew he dealt in lies and tricks. Everyone did. She was trying to tread carefully.

It wouldn’t matter, not unless his daughter interjected. Reagan was the only being to have thoroughly bamboozled him and lived to tell the tale.

“She is the favorite of the fates,” said the fae, speaking more slowly than before. “I need to keep an eye on her.”

He squinted an eye, and a smile stretched across his face. “Care to give a real answer?”

The man from across the street skulked closer, his hands in his pockets, watching the fae warily.

Ah. There was too big of an audience.

“How’s this?” Lucifer sent a plume of fire at each of the watchers, shrouding them in hot air but not allowing the flames to touch their flesh. Reagan wouldn’t take kindly to him infringing on her territory.

A squeal rent the air from the skulking man, and then he set off running, through the flame and toward the cemetery. Lucifer doused the fire from the man’s head and clothes. He’d forgotten how prone to flight humans could be. The man’s hair would suffer, but the flame probably hadn’t touched skin for long enough to do more than give him a sunburn.

Lucifer tore the fire away from the violent man next door. Rather than run, he’d gone for the gun tucked into the back of his belt. Lucifer waved his hand and knocked the man’s hand aside.

“The fire was not a threat. It was a request for privacy,” he said.

“If you want privacy, ask for fucking privacy,” the man responded. “If you want to get shot, try to light me on fire again.”

“And you are not magical, correct?” Lucifer asked. “Because it would be wonderful to have you come to the Under—”

“Don’t even fucking say it.” The man reached the gun around to his back, using the wide radius Lucifer was allowing him, and stuffed it into his belt. “Don’t say another fucking word. Obviously you’re busy…” He waved at the fae. “I don’t want none of that. Handle your business.” He jogged down the stairs and walked off in the opposite direction.

“He’s not fond of knowing magic exists,” the fae said with a grin.

Judging by her delight, she’d clearly taunted him in the past. Very mischievous, indeed.

“So. You’ve escaped the Flush,” he said, monitoring her closely. “When this is all over, will you go back? Or will you stay here?”

“You asked if I come here often, and I do. As often as I am able, in fact. It isn’t because this place is comfortable and crazy, though it is. It is because of the part I must play in all of this.” She licked her lips. “My magic doesn’t work like that of a normal Seer. I don’t need cards or a crystal ball to use it. I don’t need to study you or look into your eyes. If I am in tune with you, I See without trying. Without wanting to. I use hallucinogens and other mind alterants to crystalize my focus, or else I would be bombarded at times. Especially at a time where the future is so uncertain and there is so much at stake. My nemesis can step away from her trinkets and act normal, without feeling the pressures of her magic. I cannot.”

She paused and pulled back her shoulders.

“I call the other Seer my nemesis for a reason. She is the light, and I am the dark. She is the one who must steer the shifters and the fae—the goody-goody crew. I am the one who needs to monitor Reagan, the princess of the Underworld.” She cocked her head at him. “A title she can only claim if she lives, and that seems to be a very narrow outcome. There is something lurking in her future that I cannot quite grasp. It is her salvation, I know that much, and it is monumental. But it…”

She hissed and slowly curled her fingers into a fist.

“It is beyond me. All I see is death right now. A thousand ways she might die. More. My mind frays when I think of it. No amount of hallucinogens is helping. She is on a very shaky road, the drop on each side precipitous. I need…more. I need Sight on you.”

He squinted at her, turning that over in his mind, when she continued.

“I’ll also need to betray my faction in order to do my duty to them.” She licked her lips. “I will be heavily policed. Maybe jailed, I don’t know. I certainly won’t be a favorite.”

“And so you will need a place to go. A place that, you will be grateful to hear, can help with your Seer issues—your magic won’t work in the Underworld. You’d go blind to the future.”

“Yes.” She sighed in relief.

He studied her for a moment. “You can’t See me, so to speak, but…did you know I would come here?” he asked.

“I knew something big was going to happen in Reagan’s life today. I made arrangements to make sure she wouldn’t be home.”

“Except…her demonic magic is pulsing in that house. If she is not there…”

“Oh yes, that.” She waved it away. “She had Penny the mage rig up a spell with Reagan’s blood to direct you here. She didn’t want you to catch her out in the wild.”

“Your idea…”

“Guilty. A good idea, nonetheless. I don’t know where she is, though. I only know she will make a wonderful discovery, and it will likely be followed by drinking.”

Clever, creating a spell like that. He hadn’t known that could be done. It would explain the heightened feeling of it, something he’d thought could be attributed to Reagan’s power level or maybe his attachment to her.

“You orchestrated that because you knew it would be me?”

“You’re my only blind spot. I sensed Vlad was making an arrangement hours ago, securing the sort of power he would need to sweep through the Realm. The details were hazy, though, and I figured it was because you were involved.”

“Yes. It seems it was not he who snuck into the Underworld. He had a traitor. I brought him that traitor, who had been left behind by some others, and found the viciousness with which he handled the situation to my liking.”

“I know. I see his path with crystal clarity now. He is undermining Darius and a few of the dissenting elders as we speak, give or take ten minutes.” She tilted her head up and looked at the sky. “The unicorns might be a problem for you. That is part of the deal he offered, but he cannot control the outcome. It will depend on the goodness of a certain heir.”

Lucifer kept somewhat still, watching her. No one could’ve known they’d discussed the allegiance of the unicorns, given they’d done so while wrapped up in Lucifer’s magic. Lucifer had come straight here—even if Vlad had spread the knowledge, and it would have hurt his cause to do so, it couldn’t have traveled here so fast, especially not to this creature.

Her gaze came back to rest on him.

“We already knew you would work with Vlad, though, and the unicorns won’t make or break you.” Her stare was direct. “Reagan can, however. She can break you as no other heir could.”

With her death, the Seer meant. He might be a blind spot for her, but she could still sense his attachment to his daughter. His hope for her. Insightful, this creature.

“She must be subtly directed,” the Seer said. “You do want her to help destroy the elves’ hold on the Realm, correct?”

He huffed a somewhat bitter laugh. “You will have a job manipulating her.”

“I will not be manipulating her. I will be manipulating everyone around her. She is the most important piece of this battle. Reagan will finish the job that young Charity started when she brought about change. When she pushed the fae on this path. Reagan will be the one to initiate victory. I see spilled blood.” She paused and furrowed her brow. “But that is it. I have no idea of an outcome. You must have a piece in this. You must. I just cannot See it.”

Lucifer narrowed his eyes slightly. He wasn’t following. He also wasn’t sure how much sanity this creature was hanging on to.

“He is the only chance you have at keeping her on the right path,” she continued. “Which is the only chance you have at keeping her in your life. And you are the only chance they have at having a family. Do you see? Everyone has a vested interest here, and to get to the end result we desire, we cannot follow the path of the righteous. We must follow the path of the villain.”

She had to be talking about Durant, then. Reagan wouldn’t want to sire children with anyone else. She’d made her attachment to the vampire abundantly clear.

“And…you will instruct him on which path to direct her to?” Lucifer asked.

“Of course not. She will guide him. You will need help from another.”

His patience was starting to wear thin. “And who will that be?”

“A vampire who loves to straddle sides. One you would’ve caught had you not let Reagan go when she was escaping the Underworld. The villain to crown all villains. She is rooting for Reagan, as you are rooting for Reagan, but self-interest is her only motivation.”

He stilled. That was useful information. She referred to the vampire who had left the Underworld shortly after Reagan’s departure. The vampire had somehow moved through his kingdom undetected. He had hoped his daughter had another powerful ally, but apparently not.

This infestation would need to be dug out by the root. It was clear it would need to be him who did it. He had more skill than Reagan at dealing with meddling, dangerous creatures. More experience, at any rate.

“And what is in it for you?” he asked. “All this for a place to stay when it is all over? Mind you, your people will be able to find you in the Underworld, as Reagan would like to keep the borders open.”

“They can find me if they want. I don’t care. They’ll walk in, but they’ll limp out. I’d like to retire. I want that blindness you spoke of. But that’s not why I do this. This is my purpose. Your daughter, who has not known peace of her own, will need to bring peace to others. She is the key to the prosperity of all the worlds. If she dies, we will all be thrown into darkness. I do this for her, and for us all. Sometimes to walk in the light, you need to first travel through the darkness.”

“Why would you hide this from her?” he asked. “The woman I know would probably prefer the villainous approach.”

“She would, but…it’s complicated. My voice carries very little weight with Reagan. It has to do with a torturous situation.”

He’d had about as much circuitous talking as he could take. “Fine. Send this vampire to me. I will see what can be done.”

“There are two things I need first, however.” She held up a crooked finger. “In addition to being able to See you.”

“A deal with the devil? How droll.”

“Yes. One, if Reagan should ask you to turn the vampire Vlad over, you must do it, whatever the cost.”

He smiled and put up his hands. “Easily done. I enjoy betraying creatures that think too highly of themselves. Two months ago, I had planned to kill him, so really, in the grand scheme of things, he’s making out quite well. I will first need to use his forces, however. I need those numbers.”

Her eyes got a faraway look, and her gaze roamed into the sky. “If Vlad is delivered to Reagan, then Darius will need to make a choice. A choice that, if incorrect, could ruin their future.”

“What is this choice concerning?”

She blinked at him. “Something about Darius’s shared past with Vlad. I can’t get a clear picture.”

“And the outcome we are hoping for?”

“No clue.”

“Dare I ask whose future? Reagan’s or Darius’s or Vlad’s…”

She just shook her head. He stilled in annoyance.

“The second thing I must ask is for you to hold off your visit.” She pointed at the ground. “Come back later tonight. Find her, and go to her unannounced.”

“Find her, as in…you don’t know where she’ll be?”

“Correct. I have no idea. But it must be tonight, and then not again until…” She flexed her fingers. “Fogginess. You are blinding me!”

He barely stopped from rubbing his temples.

She squinted and chewed her lip. “I could really use some acid.”

“If I don’t allow you to get readings on me…”

“Reagan will die.”

“You’re sure?”

“No.”

He felt his eyebrows rise. “Then what assurances do I have in trusting you?”

“A wing and a prayer.”