Chapter 3 - Demonic PoV

            Finsternis stared at Lucia. He had been wrong about her. He had seen her as just another nephalim, inexplicably female, too weak to do what must be done. Oh, Lucia had looked glorious flying out of a shattered window, scarlet curls fluttering like the flowers on a flame tree, crimson eyes wide. He’d always found the red demons, coloured like fires that actually burned, to be the most attractive, and Finsternis had to admit he was still fighting an urge to bury his fingers in Lucia’s hair, to do things that would make her eyes go wide.

            But she was too human, too damaged by savages who thought nothing of eating their young’s souls. Finsternis didn’t hate humans, he disdained them. No demon would let another starve or freeze or suffer, not for one moment. Purple demons did not hate orange demons- or reds or yellows or blues or greens, for that matter. Male demons did not see females as lesser. Humans were even more vile than they accused demons of being.

Lucia was another Judas, Finsternis had assumed, to be manipulated into doing what was necessary because he lacked the courage to do it himself. Now he wished for another Judas, because this was worse.

            Save the Horsemen from their appointed fates? This was madness. They were soldiers in a war and Lucia wanted to have a nice chat with the enemy’s greatest weapons. It was like feeling pity for a nuclear bomb. The Grand General’s children were always beyond frustrating, but Lucia was in a class by herself.

            And there she was all narrow-eyed, clenched jaw challenge, ready to fight Finsternis but not the Horsemen. There was something indefinably demon about her, but only an angel’s child could be this stubbornly stupid.

            The demonry in general accepted the angels in their midst, arrogantly striding about in pockets of space among the rainbow clusters of demons. Finsternis, however, hated the angels, hated their frosty perfection, their overweening pride. Allied angels were a necessity, nothing more, to be tolerated as they looked down their perfect noses at everything not them.

            The Grand General was the worst of the lot, arrogant pervert that he was. He and his ilk used human women, not for pleasure, but to thumb their noses at the creator. It would be one thing for Finsternis to bite into soft, pale skin . . .

            Finsternis shook his head. Being alone, separated from the demonry didn’t usually affect him this way, not so quickly anyway. Surely that was the problem, the way his thoughts kept wrapping around to a nephalim. Lucifer’s crazy daughter, no less. Finsternis was chosen for these missions because he could go months or even years out of Hell without collapsing into a limp rag of loneliness. Finsternis was an oddity, even for a purple.

            He bit back a sigh. This was not going to be quick. He had spent two years protecting and manipulating Judas. If Finsternis was falling lonely already, he wouldn’t make it two months.

            “Fine. We will try it your way. It will not work, but we will try it.” Lucia’s jaw unclenched, her eyes opened. “But, we must do some things my way, as well.”

            “What?” She crossed her arms and regarded him sternly.

            “I am not walking the Earth to find the Horsemen. You are going to persuade a rich human to give you money,” Finsternis did understand her aversion to stealing, at least from the poor, “and persuade whomever you have to in order to get us on a plane. Agreed?”

            She rolled her eyes, but assented. “Fine. It’s .  . .” She looked at the human, who was playing with the iPad again.

            He looked up. “8:20. And you don’t need a plane. At least not for Famine. Look, Santalvo’s based in White Plains. That’s about two hours by car.”

            As wildly irritating as the true believer’s presence was- Finsternis felt like he was wearing clothes made of barbed needles- he was turning out to be quite useful. Of course, that was life with the Grand General’s children. They turned chance on its side. The people had attributed such events to the presence of the Messiah, but it was Judas who caused a stack of falling bricks to land spelling out יהוה.

            Admirably, Lucia did not dither once she made a decision. She picked up her things, stuffed her iPad in her bag and stood up. “C’mon, Finsternis, we have a dark alley to hide in.”

            Finsternis stood up immediately. Hiding in shadows meant soft, cool, sweet-smelling skin pressed up against- He bit down on his tongue, hard, his fangs biting deeply. Any time he let his thoughts wander, it seemed, they would wander right under Lucia’s dress. He needed to get himself under control. If any demon knew what he was thinking, he would never live down the shame. A nephalim!

            Lucia was holding a keyring with a single key on it out to the human. “Take it. I need access to the internet, or I’d give you the iPad. But this is for my apartment. 1351 Cedar Ave, apartment 5. It’s paid up for another three weeks, with water, gas and electric. I can’t go back, you may as well enjoy it.”

            The human smiled for a moment, the sadly shook his head. “If I leave here for three weeks, it’ll be somebody else’s place and I’ll have to find another squat,” he explained.

            “Oh.” Lucia looked so dejected at not being able to help the man, Finsternis acted without thinking. He spread out his arms, pulled Hell’s Infinite Inferno into himself, just a tiny fraction, but more than most demons could handle.

            The fire filled Finsternis, surpassed him, consumed him. As always, it was a struggle to remember what he wanted, that he wanted anything at all besides the pleasure and the pain, the fundamental force itself.

            Wresting control, he passed the flames around and about the true believer, enjoying the human’s abject terror, then wound the flames- now the puce and ashen colours of the human’s soul- over the entrances to the factory. After every door and window was wreathed in flames the colour of a broken heart, Finsternis let go, allowed the inferno to snap back to Hell, the passage leaving him bereft and snappish.

            “What was that?” asked Lucia, wide-eyed. The human just stared and shivered.

            “A barrier. No human but this one can enter this place now. An angel or a demon could,” he squinted at the residue, visible only to him, “with difficulty, but your friend here can spend three weeks bathing and sleeping on a bed and no one will steal his ‘squat’.”

            Lucia smiled in the human way, then quickly pulled her lips straight, an unexpected gesture that surprised Finsternis, but not nearly as much as her quick, light hug. Shame. He’d work on feeling it just as soon as the feel of her skin wore off.

            They left the factory and Finsternis sighed with relief. Away from the true believer, the irritation subsided and he felt more himself, more in control. The shadows of the alley pulled him in. Lucia had called it an ability, but his relationship with shadows was an affinity. Demons were beings of darkness as angels were beings of light. Finsternis didn’t do anything at all when he entered shadows, the shadows themselves were drawn to him, sought him out, pulled him in. As long as Lucia was close enough to him, the shadows welcomed her, too.

            He stood as close as he could to Lucia without touching her. It was like trying to keep apart a magnet and iron filings. Nephalim, he reminded himself. Nephalim, Lucifer’s daughter, full, red lips she had a habit of biting when thinking . . .

            “He’s here,” whispered Lucia as a steel grey Mercedes pulled up.

            “Who?”

            “My boss. All those early mornings, work lunches and late nights unpaid, he owes me. This does not qualify as stealing.”

            A pleasant looking man in his mid 60s got out of the car. A thin grey combover failed to cover the crown of his head, a small potbelly strained his faded blue oxford shirt, and downturned blue eyes peered warily from behind thick tortoiseshell glasses.

            To a human, Gil Landry would have appeared to be a kindly grandfather, not the face of evil, but Finsternis saw with more than his eyes. To Finsternis, Gil was eaten through by greed and callousness, twisted by the feeling that somewhere someone was getting something that Gil could have, should have, had.

            “Hey, Gil!” Lucia strode from the shadows.

            “Oh, hello, Lucia. How are-“

            Lucia cut him off. “You’re fucking giving me five thousand dollars and your car.”

            Being half angel, the color of Lucia’s soul was hidden from Finsternis, but he could see it when she persuaded someone. At the same moment Gil’s face went curiously slack the sickly greens and yellows of his soul went the same brilliant red as Lucia’s eyes and hair, shot through with gold. It was, without a doubt, the oddest color for a half angel, but Finsternis had never seen a female nephalim before, either.

            Gil handed her his car keys, then paused. “Write me a fucking check for $5,000, Gil.”

            Finsternis could have told Lucia it was not necessary to use obscenities while persuading, but it was amusing to listen to her pronounce obscenities with such precision in that soft, high voice.

            Gil handed her the check and walked into the building without a backwards glance. Lucia turned to Finsternis. “I’m hoping you know how to drive?”

            Finsternis rolled his eyes. Satan’s children were never the most practical of weapons. “Since the Model T, Little Light.” He took the keys.