Page 54 of The River of Fire

I stare at Lana, attempting to gauge just how upset she would be if I annihilated this imp. Puck, sensing where his deliverance lies, now struggles to reach her, tiny arms straining in her direction. The way my little lamb’s eyes soften as her mouth gently opens lets me know that, damn it all, I cannot immolate the pest. Today.

As I release the imp, he flies into Lana’s arms, his bat-like wings nearly smacking me in the face.

“There, there,” she soothes the two-legged calamity. “The big bad archdemon isn’t going to hurt you.”

I raise my brows and fix her with a droll look. “Lana, he has lived with me for decades. He knows very well that, were it not for you, his innards would be hanging off the branches above us.” Then again, if it were not for her, neither I nor the imp would be here. She scowls at me while still gently patting theimp’s back as if it were an infant. How am I supposed to woo her when my first course of action will always be chaos and slaughter?

“Well then.” Her smile is a devious thing. “You’ll just have to ask yourself WWLD before you give into the impulse and choose violence. What would Lana do?”

I scoff in affront. “That is ridiculous, you are...” The look on her face stops me in my tracks. Her eyes are completely narrowed. “And I am…” Now she is pressing her lips together as if begging for patience. “Would you like some champagne?” I finish.

“Why, I’d love some.”

Wonderful, that is… wonderful. It is all going wonderfully.

I take the bottle of chilled sparkling wine out of the basket. When I see the cork, I reach back into the basket in search of the corkscrew. It does not take me long to realize the kitchens did not pack one. Or champagne flutes for that matter. WWLD? Massacring all of them is likely out of the question, but some mutilation is surely called for. I exhale slowly through my nose.

“What’s up?”

“No corkscrew. Or glasses. Or plates, not that the latter matters anymore.”

Lana places Puck on the blanket before jumping up with much enthusiasm. “Bet I can open it with the ether! Iampretty good with air.”

I look at her, then back to the cork before reluctantly handing it over. “Be careful not to –”

But I am too late. Lana attempts to open the bottle right where she stands. I manage to throw a quick shield of ether over her before the top of the bottle explodes from too much pressure. Lana jumps back in surprise, having clearly overestimated her fine motor skills with ether. She trips over one of the fat candles and kicks it atop the woolen blanket. Puck chirps in alarm before darting towards the fortress, just as the blanket catches fire with a whooshing sound. Lana, still protected by my shield, scurries back on her elbows.

Surrounded by the inferno, I observe the wicker basket bursting into flame. I could extinguish the blaze, but I find it a fitting end to this disaster of a picnic. I walk out of the fire, until I am standing above my baffled Nephalem.

I lean down and pull her up by the front of her shirt. As I’m crowding her towards the trunk of the tree, she gazes up at me with a delicious expression – part fear, part lust. My cock is instantly rock hard and she feels it too, judging by the gasp she unleashes as I press her back against the trunk with my front. In a moment she will feel it inside her as well.

I lean down until our faces are level. “Now we’re doing this date my way.”

Chapter 39 – Lana

I’m woken by a thunderous rumbling. I’ve lost count of how long I’ve been here, but it feels like it’s been a long time since I last heard thunder this loud, on that day when Nick tried to kill me. As I sit up, the room starts shaking, paintings are rattling against the walls, and the glass of water Ashtaroth left for me by the bedside tips over. Quickly righting the mostly empty glass, I jump out of bed and drag on the sleep clothes I often don’t even bother to wear anymore. They never last longer than a couple of minutes before being unceremoniously removed.

I burst out of Ash’s quarters, still threading one arm through the sleeve of my top, and sprint towards the throne room. If he’s not there, he’ll be in the meeting room behind it. I’m not sure how I know that it’s his power shaking the palace and not an attack. It just feels like him. And it feels furious.

Something thuds into the window I’m running past and I yelp, freezing in place. Hail. A massive hailstorm started raging outside. Running once again, I sling around corners, dodging the occasional running servant on my way towards the shouting I now hear. I feel a sliver of apprehension at the tone of that roaring voice. Maybe I should go back and wait for him to tell me what’s going on? No, I would never be able to go back to sleep and wait to find out what’s wrong.

As I enter the throne room, the sight before me makes my bare feet skid to a stop. Sariel is on the ground in a heap, his majestic black-feathered wings slouching half on the ground. His head hangs down and I can’t see his face, but the rest of him is covered in soot and blood.

Standing before him, whole body heaving with furious breaths, is Ashtaroth. His eyes are a pure red, reminding me of Belial’s that day in the cave, and yet somehow even more unnatural. They’re an alien, glowing crimson color. Every tendon in his body is strained and his clenched fists are wreathed in hellfire. He doesn’t look at me, eyes fixed on his son’s form on the ground. Wanting to see that he’s alright, I slowly cross the distance between us. “Sar?” I whisper, sliding down to my knees and placing a hand on his shoulder. “Are you hurt?”

He doesn’t move for so long that I contemplate sending whatever meager healing power I have over his body to check for injuries, when he lifts his head just enough that his eyes meet mine. I gasp, the sharp sound loud between two of Ash’s growling breaths.

Sariel looks completely devastated. While I can’t see any wounds on him, his eyes are dead, his face a rictus of pain. “What happened?” My voice cracks at the anguish emanating from him. Ashtaroth doesn’t seem inclined to reign in his fury enough to explain. I look around. “Where’s Armaros?” I ask, a heavy stone of dread sinking into my stomach. I don’t think I want to know the answer to my question.

I don’t have a choice, however, as Sariel replies, his voice as dead as his expression. “Gone.”

“H-how?” I sputter in disbelief. What could have killed a fallen angel up in the mortal lands?

“The humans.” His voice is ragged, like he broke it screaming. “They knew we were watching them and set a trap. They tortured a child so his screams would draw us out to a barn.” He drags a hand down his face, smearing the soot on both, then tugs at the collar of his armor, like it’s suffocating him. “They had… some kind of an accelerant. Liquid,” he continues, every word sounding like it took immeasurable amounts of effort. “He charged forward to the kid. I was keeping watch. They were both doused and instantly engulfed in flames.” His teeth are clenched now and in the lull of his speech, I can hear that Ash went wholly quiet. A glance up confirms that he doesn’t seem to be breathing at all, that demonic red gaze fixed on Sariel’s face.

“I tried to help,” Sariel sobs out, and shows us the undersides of his palms. There are burns from the tips of his fingers to his exposed wrists. For them to not have healed instantly must mean he was burned to the bone. My gorge rises. “The kid… I couldn’t do anything. But Arma, he would’ve healed.” When I look back at his face, I see there’s now a clean track through the smeared soot. A single tear. “I pulled him out.” He looks at his hands again. The agony he must have felt. “His insides were completely burned. Like it was hellfire. But no demon.” He looks up at Ashtaroth, who is as still as a statue carved by Michelangelo. “By the time I managed to get the fire out, his melted internal organs were oozing out of charred fissures.” The scent clinging to Sariel adds to the mental image his description provided, and I turn away just in time to empty my dinner onto the mosaic floor.

“Belias!” Ashtaroth roars over the sound of my retching, the ground echoing it with a tremor. Darkness swirls on Sariel’s other side, like black smoke being whipped into shape by razor-sharp winds. Out of the darkness steps a warrior. He’s dressed in black plated armor that somehow manages to look frightening on a soul-deep level, without having any macabre adornments. Something about the sharp lines and decorative grates makesme think of a furnace in a medieval crematorium.

---