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“When Baal took you, we felt you disappear from this earth. Thankfully, being hellhounds, we still have some kind of a link to Hell. We may have freaked out a little bit, and scared all the other students when we all erupted into hellfire,” Jack said with an awkward smile as he scratched his chin sheepishly. “But when we did that, a small rip appeared. We knew it was a doorway to Hell, so we all rushed through it. Your father was waiting for us on the other side, somehow knowing what was going on. He brought us to you so that we could rescue you altogether.”
I looked to my father, taking in his white suit that was now marred with the black ash of the wasteland. He sat on a boulder with his fingers steepled before him as he watched me carefully.
“You knew he was going to do that to me?” I asked softly, anger boiling up inside me as I struggled to move in Creeper’s arms. My whole body was tired and unwilling to move much, but I stared hard at him.
“I knew you were the key to opening the gates of Hell. I just didn’t exactly know how. Being your father, there was some information I was not privy to. Some of my brothers discovered how to use you, but I never quite knew how you would be the key. When my brothers found out that I was contacting you, trying to warn you, they exiled me from the kingdom. I had to go into hiding, and I was cut off from the energy I was using to contact you. I’ve tried to speak with you since, but it has seriously depleted me. And with my brothers out to harm me now, I needed my strength. Mammom banished me, but Baal and Gorzaden wanted to completely get rid of me. So I was no longer a piece on the board. I’ve been keeping myself hidden here, hoping that your hellhounds would protect you. I felt when you entered Hell, and I knew I had to do something. I reached out through the link to your hellhounds and opened up a doorway for them. It used up most of my power and magic, but because I created them, I was able to bring them back. I can’t just make rips out of thin air to pass through, that was a special gateway only for them, hence why I couldn’t come to you before. I knew with them we would be able to save you from my brother,” he explained as he gave me a pained look full of regret and guilt.
I just stared at him, taking in everything that he’d said, and my anger simmered down a little. He’d done his best to warn me while he could. And he was going against all his brothers to aid me.
“Why didn’t you just tell me the direct truth straight up?” I asked as I arched an eyebrow at him. Why had he been so cryptic and vague?
“Contacting you through your mind wasn’t easy. I wish I could have just been direct and upfront with you, and told you everything. But the power used to contact you, the old stone tablet, was created by a prophet of God. So of course, it would come through in cryptic messages. God and the prophets always spoke in riddles,” he said with a heavy sigh as he leaned back, looking rather tired and frustrated with everything. He didn’t look as sleek or as on point as he had in my mind. He looked rather disheveled before me now, and like age had caught up with him.
“You mentioned a kingdom?” I asked as I called upon something he’d said.
“Yes, the Kingdom of Hell. You were taken to a corner of Hell, where the ritual would work best. The sacred stones are where Lucifer created us and the veil between earth and Hell is thinnest. It provided the perfect place. The Kingdom is where many of the demons and my brothers reside, torturing souls and calling it home. Once a soul is completely broken, they are discarded into the wastelands out here,” my father said sadly with a shake of his head.
“How did my mother die?” I asked after a moment of processing his words. It was the question that had bothering me for so long. Now that I was here with him, in person, I could finally get my answers to everything.
“Well, to explain that, I would probably need to tell you everything first,” he said with a small, sad smile as those dull blue eyes met mine. They looked awfully tired, like he been around for so long and just wanted a rest from it all.
From what I understood, the Princes of Hell had been around since Lucifer fell. I would definitely be tired too.
Creeper ran his fingers down my arm as Jack shuffled closer to touch my leg. My father sighed as he leaned forward once more and rested his elbows on his knees.
“When I first went topside, it was because I managed to find one of the rips. I was ecstatic, it’s not easy for us to find the rips, let alone one that can handle allowing all of our power to go through. You see, these rips that open, usually only lower demons can get through. The rips can only handle so much power and energy passing through them. Which is why I didn’t go topside recently to help you. I couldn’t find any that opened up that could handle me.”
Bug and Chum watched him intently as he spoke, but they kept giving me small glances.
“When I made it up there, I brought chaos and havoc with me. I’m a Prince of Hell, technically just a demon if you want to think of it like that, just one of the first and most powerful. Lucifer granted us some of his own power so that we could act as wardens of all the damned souls alongside him while also protecting him,” he scoffed softly to himself as he shook his head.
What would Lucifer need protection from anyway? What would be after him in Hell? Did his own demons sometimes rebel?
“I won’t pretend like I didn’t do bad things. I am a demon, we feed off the despair and chaos. Most of us kill for fun. And I was just like any other demon when I first arrived. I spilt a lot of blood and created chaos where I could. Until I happened to come upon your mother in a bar. Everything changed, I started to feel things that demons weren’t supposed to feel. She opened me up, reviving a piece of humanity inside me. Something that shouldn’t have been possible, and yet it happened. But she also told me who she was. How she’d grown tired of some things.” He paused for a moment, a soft frown marring his brow as he stared vacantly off to the side.
His jaw clenched for a moment before he caught himself and cleared his throat. “At first, I thought nothing of it, and went back to what I was doing. But I was no longer having fun in taking lives and causing so much chaos and havoc around me. I ended up stopping it, and residing on the earth for a number of years, wondering what had happened and why I had suddenly changed. I felt tired, and I felt new emotions I’d never felt before like regret and guilt. It didn’t make any sense; demons weren’t meant to feel like that.” He stared down at his hands with a perplexed look before he managed a smile.
“I started to enjoy the things humans enjoyed, and found that I actually enjoyed the liveliness of humans and how creative they were. They truly are incredible beings up close,” he said with a chuckle. “I thought of your mother often though, and I started to search for her. It took me two years before I found her again, and she asked me how I’d been since we had previously met. I wanted to be angry with her for changing who I was, but I also knew that she had just opened my eyes to what I was and what was around me. I was a Prince of Hell, a monster. But I no longer wanted to be one. Something inside me had changed, and I now saw everything differently. We started spending time together, speaking about everything that we’d both been through, of our two very different worlds. We became close, and I discovered a new feeling and emotion that I thought I would never attain. Love. Somehow, despite our differences, despite everything, we fell in love. I spent years with her, living a fairly secluded lifestyle in a small town, hidden from demons and angels alike. We even got married in secret. I sometimes spent time with other humans, but I enjoyed her company the most. I was happy with this new life we created. And then she fell pregnant with you,” he smiled warmly at me.
I just frowned at him, still wrapping my head around him being a monster. I mean, what had I expected? He was a Prince of Hell after all. But my mother had changed him.
“Did my mother know what you were?” I asked softly, and he nodded.
“She knew right from the start, from the moment we met in that bar,” he answered. My frown only deepened at this. Why would my mother have allowed herself to fall in love with such a man even if he had changed? And how would she not have gone crazy with the knowledge of what he was?
“Your mother was different, special. Because of that, you’re special too. You hold her power within you as well,” he said as he slowly rose and turned to look out of the cave opening. He clasped his hands behind his back as he sighed softly.
What was he saying? Was my mother not human? What had she been? Vampire? Werewolf? Ghoul?
All my hellhounds gave me guilty looks, and a part of me knew that they’d suspected something all along.
“Your mother was an angel,” my father said softly.
I just blinked stupidly as I took this in. My mother had been an angel?
That was crazy. Impossible.
I stared down at my hands, biting my lip as I shook my head. It would at least somewhat explain my power, I guess. But still, was he saying I was part angel too?
