AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The Immortals were always so damn cryptic. It drove me nuts. I wanted to scream,say what you mean and mean what you say, but I’d been at this Demon stuff long enough to realize it didn’t work that way. There wasn’t time to argue the merits of clarity at this point. Pandora was on the run and had very little to lose at this point. She’d committed the one crime that was beyond the pale. She and Lilith had ruled the Darkness for millions of years as mortal enemies. Their duo-rein had only lasted because they were forbidden by Immortal law to harm each other.
Pandora fucked that up.
“That’s where Corny comes in,” Lilith said.
Everyone was confused—especially Corny.
Abaddon cleared this throat and gave the former Goddess of the Darkness a look. She, however, remained unperturbed. Instead, she kept her gaze on Corny Crackers who was sitting on my couch in his, or rather Cher’s, underpants.
“I repeat.” I pulled on my hair, and strands came free in my fingers. Great. Stress was beginning to take its toll, and I was going to be Bald Bitch Goddess Cecily if I didn’t get it under control. I took a deep breath and blew it out noisily. “I need more specifics, please.” Because if she planned to send Corny on his own after Pandora, it wasn’t happening. He wouldn’t stand a chance.
“It’s simple,” Lilith stated flatly. “I don’t believe Pandora let the evil out of the box.”
She hadn’t addressed my concern, but her statement was odd. “Is that pertinent?”
She nodded and got a faraway look in her lovely eyes. “In the beginning, the Higher Power set the rules.”
All the Immortals in the room paled a bit. Even Abaddon and Dagon.
“God?” I asked, confused.
“No. God belongs to human religion. The Higher Power is more of an entity—an elusive light. Smoke and mirrors—danger, love and wickedness personified. Not something to be questioned or called on. Like I’ve said before. The Universe is neither black or white. It’s gray. The Higher Power could also be considered gray.”
That didn’t sound good to me. “Holy shit,” I muttered. “Does he ever just randomly show up?”
“The Higher Power is neither a he or she. It just is, but that’s not the crux of the story,” she explained. “The point is that in the beginning, Pandora wasn’t evil. On the contrary, she was a good and moral woman.”
“What the actual fuck?” Cher demanded. “I didn’t know that.”
Lilith raised a brow and gave my agent a sad smile. “Not many do. From what I understand it was the Higher Power who gifted the box to Pandora for safe keeping. It seems it may have been a cruel joke.”
“What were you given?” I asked, wanting to make sure I wasn’t inheriting something shitty and terrifying from the Higher Power. It was enough that I was in charge of Demons.
“A key,” she said.
My stomach got a bit wonky. “To the box?”
“Possibly,” she said.
Closing my eyes, I wanted to scream. Did any Immortals do things the nice and easy way? It didn’t appear that way. “Lay it on me.”
Lilith sighed and ran her hands through her wild dark hair that was so much like mine. “I was given words and told they were the key. I was never told what the key opened, but it’s possible it’s for the box.”
I waited for more. There was always more.
“The truth can shift. In the Darkness, the seed of hope awaits. Behind every smile lies a dark and tragic secret. What you see is rarely the whole truth. Some bridges are meant to be burned. And embrace what is repugnant to discover the beauty that lies beneath. Often the answer has been in front of you the entire time.”
I memorized the words. I might not know what the heck I was doing as the newly appointed Bitch Goddess Cecily, but I was one hell of an actress and could memorize like a pro.
“Got it.” I stood up and walked over to the window. The sun had gone down and the evening sky was full of stars. Normally, I would wish on the first star I spotted. Not tonight. I needed to make my own luck. “How is Corny involved in the story?”
“He spoke of the Tome of Dark Magic earlier,” Lilith answered. “I believe the secret to Pandora’s box are in the pages of the book.”
“You’ve never seen the book?” I asked.
“No,” Lilith confirmed. “In the beginning, it was bequeathed to both of us and stolen by Pandora.”
“And it’s caused untold issues over millions of years,” Dagon said in a tight and furious voice. “Bloody, deadly and unnecessary issues.”
