Page 16 of Winners, Losers, and Champagne Kisses
“Alecto,” she grumbled.
Lucifer kissed her knuckles, and I didn’t know what was up with her. Lucifer was stunning. He was golden in every sense of the word. I thought she might be jealous that Tisiphone and Megaera found mates or people who were into them here, but Lucifer wouldn’t keep his eyes off of her and she seemed wholly uncomfortable. I was finding out what was up with that later. Lucifer had the same idea.
“I’d love to take you on a date literally anywhere you want to go later.”
Alecto just ignored him, but she didn’t say no. Lucifer was a massive pain in the ass most of the time, but if he cared about something or someone, he spoiled and cherished them. Most of the time, that was just Josephine.
Lucifer didn’t date. If he hit on someone, he was offering a one-night stand with no commitment and he was generally upfront about that. I’d neveronceheard him ask someone on a date and in fact, had heard him rant extensively about how offensive he found the idea.
“So, you’re the new model,” he said, looking his nose down at Michael.
Yeah, he had to instantly go back to dick mode after hitting on Alecto.
“An upgrade,” Michael sniffed.
Were we seriously having an archangel pissing contest right in front my appetizers when we needed to be focused on the angels who were out there causing chaos?
“No, you should be angry. We were the first angels and were on top of the food chain. Back then, we didn’t know better. We thought we needed toaskfor equal rights and then we thought we had to stay and fight for it instead of just leaving. The Father was doing what all new gods do and was on a power trip, so it turned into civil war.
“We were cast out, but we didn’t exactlywantto stay. Humans self actualized new archangels. You’re theexactsame as us, stronger than the rest of them, but by the time you came around the hierarchy was put into place and they put you at the bottom.
“Also, I’m not sure if self actualization has made it there yet or if anyone believes it if it did, but humansloveangels. They don’t even know the majority of the choirs anymore and they’ve mixed the cherubim up with Roman cupids. Who do they know the most outside of me? Guardian angels and the archangels.
“You’ve got churches and schools named after you and endless statues. The only reason so few archangels fell with me is because we lost so many in the civil war. Let me guess. You’re all male so you have no female archangel to mate with and it’s forbidden to mix with other choirs. You should ask yourself withso many women who would have wanted a female archangel to call their own, where are they?
“The Father sanctioned a lot of nasty shit, but he was against killing innocents. He was an ass on a power trip for a while, but most of the stories about his wrath were what spread the belief that ended up creating him.Hewouldn’t do anything to an innocent angel, but some of the other angels might.”
“I don’t really have time to get mad about any of that. My home is destroyed, my father is missing, I’ve been held captive and tortured for over two hundred years, and if I don’t forget all that and force myself to fight again, all of that is going to spill over to this realm.”
“Hey, listen. I have a pretty complicated relationship with the Father, but the archangels should stick together, even if we just met. We can handle what’s going on here, but if you want to fix what’s going on back home, we’re going to have to find the Father. The angels are either doing this because they are jaded or because theythinkhe wants this. He’s the only one who can set both straight.”
“Do you need to see him, too?” Michael asked.
“Fuck no. Falling was the best thing that happened to me. Lucifer and the devil are two totally separate entities, but most people don’t know that. Do you know how much shit you can get away with? People are pretty desperate to make deals with the devil and they’ll trade anything. I haven’t seen him in several millennia, but I don’t feel like dealing with the judgement. But I’ll totally help you.”
Yeah, that was Lucifer’s thing. If he couldn’t make a deal with someone, he made a wager. The gods were stronger than him, so he made everything a bet. Someone gave Josephine a bad haircut, and he tried to make a deal with me once. He wanted me to turn them to stone so he could put the statue in his livingroom, throw food at it, and let Josephine piss on it. In return, I could call in any favor at any time.
Dionysus threatened to throw him through a wall if he ever tried to make a deal with me again and he backed off.
“I don’t even know how many realms there are, but they must be as big as this one. How would we even find him?” Cas asked.
“We can sense other gods from across the planet. I know all the gods here. We can sense gods in other realms, too, but the problem is that the other realms were either specifically created for them or they are an afterlife realm. They are full of gods and now that we all know about each other, we’ve made friends. I wouldn’t be able to tell if it’s your god whose hiding out or someone just visiting friends,” Persephone said.
“But you might,” Dionysus said. “He’s your pantheon. You should be able to feel him even if you’ve never met him.”
Lucifer let out this long-suffering sigh.
“I’ve met him. You’re going to make me face him and deal with that vein in his forehead when he’s disappointed with me. Not only areallmy debts paid, I’m calling in chips for one hundred years of future debts paid.”
“You could just not make everything a wager.”
“Don’t kink shame me. None of you will make a deal with me and I have ‘completing a deal with a god’ on my bingo card. Hey, this can be a deal!”
Ugh. This might be the one time he could rope Dionysus into making a deal with him. Dionysus and Hades just rolled their eyes.
“Oh, fine. You have a deal.”
“What’s he like?” Michael asked.
