Chapter Text
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“Tell me a History, little wings…”
***
The voice crept eerily into half woken ears; like wind licking at the mouth of a cave. The slightness of it teased Muriel’s brown eyes open to the surrounding pitch of darkness, leaving them unsure if the whisper had come from a dream.
The words carried an air of familiarity. Senses took flight from the chasms of their mind: a taste, a scent… a feeling ; a tall silhouette in a curtain of clouds that fell like waterfalls from the archways of Old Heaven. Sensations as lucid as a memory and as elusive as a dream. And Muriel knew about dreams, if only for those daylit versions that came without slumber or appeal—visions that haunted their waking hours like ghosts reticent to reveal themselves. Muriel considered the words themselves:
Little wings?
It was a nickname. But its identity was lost in the disintegrating fragments of their subconscious; sand slipping through the helpless clutches of ethereal fingers. The dream was already hardening around the edges, reconstituting reality around them. The smell of sulphur, the murmur of bubbling lava flow, and the chafe of basalt on their hands and face, which caught at their cardigan when they tried to rise. A knife-edged threat of pain hindered the movement, and Muriel slumped back onto the igneous surface, trying to forget the gash left by Hellhound claws in their leg.
They bit their lip, held their breath, and rose to sit upon the rock. The action caused the sounds of respiration to recommence. Which was odd, because Muriel still had their breath tucked behind their teeth.
Muriel ceased all movement and listened…
The inhalations gained in magnitude, drawing in heaves great enough to create a vacuum behind their shoulders, while each exhale coursed ripples of warm air between the feathers of their exposed wings. The rasps of breath picked up as Muriel began to turn their head, like a giant hyperventilating at the sight of a mouse.
Yet there was no giant behind them. Even in the darkness, Muriel could sense the walls of this chamber were too small. A rivulet of leaking magma on the ground nearby gave the tiniest hint of light. That, and the blue glow from the eyes that were now staring back at them.
Eyes that burned like stars.
Muriel swallowed.
The owner neither blinked nor moved. And Muriel heard no more sounds of a great beast’s breathing—though this might have been caused by their own breaths and heartbeat taking up all the soundwaves and echoing throughout the chamber.
Just when Muriel was starting to believe the eyes were mere gemstones catching the reflection of a mysterious light source, a low noise rumbled in the chamber like the roll of distant thunder.
“Something amiss?” it asked.
The thunder might as well have struck Muriel directly down the spine.
That voice, no longer a whistle on the wind, shook them to their core and off their seat on the low jut of rock. They winced as their wounded leg kicked out for balance, and their wings scraped against the rock. The eyes moved forward, and with proximity came the outline of their host.
A tall silhouette in a curtain of smoke…
Muriel blinked, pain forgotten, as the creature hesitated just out of reach. The blue eyes darted between Muriel’s own and the wound upon their leg.
“We must heal you, little wings.”
Muriel blinked a few more times. “I… I’m sorry?”
One thing was certain in the darkness and the smoke. Whoever this creature was, they were no angel. For all that the angels had been through, they hadn’t yet reduced themselves to hiding out in Hell. And demons couldn’t heal angels, any more than angels could heal demons.
Muriel ought to know. Aziraphale had tried for years.
The demon’s eyes fell closed, and it was so much darker for a moment. As if the light from those eyes had been the source of all light in the universe. Or was it the inspiration for it?
Muriel shook their head at the intrusive thought. Thoughts like this usually lead to mind-splitting headaches and flashes of memories that they still weren’t entirely sure were their own. The demon reached out a hand. Muriel recoiled. But noticed that with the blue stars of his eyes, they were able to see the outline of the offering. Supernaturally long fingers in gloves as fine as if he’d borrowed them from Aziraphale’s own collection. A leather so black and pristine that it shone blue with the light of the stars in his eyes.
“We will heal you,” he said. “And then… you can heal me .”
Muriel, wings to the wall, had nowhere left to recoil to. Their eyes adjusted with the light his own gave, but if the words weren’t unsettling, the voice was.
“How?” they asked.
The eyes reshaped to a quizzical stare; a shadow of strong brow lifting above the glow.
“With your voice, little wings…” He crept closer, easing in like a predator with the playfulness of a kitten. “Let the words dance from your lips, and I will heal. In time.”
Muriel flattened against the wall. They had meant to understand how the demon would heal them. Though admittedly the response was just as interesting. Until the eyes became an icier shade of blue.
“Wasn’t that why you came?” asked the demon.
Muriel scowled. The voice had turned salty, and quite without good reason. Naturally they hadn’t come down to Hell for the scenery, but healing demons—outside of the fact that it was impossible—was as far from Muriel’s plans as possible.
The demon let his eyelids fall again, slowly this time, as if to indicate a fondness for nuisance.
“That look is unbecoming, my dear.”
Muriel, wary of the strength of this foe, saw no reason to test his temperament while they were wounded. Ribbons of flesh had been cleaved across their calf, and the smell of blood was nauseating as the magma heat thickened it with the scent of sulphur. It occurred to them that they could not have run from the Hellhounds in this condition… And Aziraphale was nowhere to be found.
But this was absurd.
Why would a demon rescue me?
The browline over the blue eyes furrowed as Muriel looked back. Suspicion glinted in his piercing gaze like diamond imperfections. But the demon made no move to attack. Instead his gloved hand remained, awaiting response in the space between them.
“Your hand,” he said, coaxing them with a twitch of his long fingers.
Aziraphale would kill me…
Curiosity had the power over Muriel’s hand, and it was already outstretched before they could fathom an excuse to serve up to the Supreme Archangel. Or… whatever he was these days.
The demon didn’t take their hand, but gestured a finger to guide it over the traumatised calf. Just looking at the mess there made Muriel’s wings clench closed again, as if stuffing them back into their corporation might strengthen it. Yet as they watched their own pale hand beside the demon’s, a sense of calm washed over them, like setting weary fingers into a cool, clean stream and feeling the lapping water rush from fingertips to toes without even getting wet.
The wound did heal, somewhat.
The flakes and strings of skin dried and fell away, the gashes hardened into scabby edges with sticky clots in the centre, and the wound went from searing hot agony to a dull, heavy throb.
Muriel stared at it, hand still hovering as the demon removed his own.
“I should have expected some things would change,” he said. “But not this.” He glanced up, the eyes shining against a low basalt ceiling. A huff of frustration, then another glance at Muriel’s leg before he snapped his fingers.
The leather made a dull noise that echoed down the cavern. More dark stone and darker passages still were suddenly lined with a row of little flames along the walls like mediaeval torchlight. Muriel was able to stand, but only with the help of their grip on the wall.
The silhouette stepped away before Muriel could glimpse the face that belonged to it. His wings—great black, leathery things with muscles that could have broken through granite like it were pumice—unfolded just enough to hide his figure from further scrutiny.
“Come,” he said. “You’ll need to clean that… “
Without knowing where they were, there was no telling if Muriel might bump into another band of Hellhounds. And this creature seemed more than capable of tearing the beasts limb from limb.
In fact, they reasoned, this was likely exactly what had happened to the last pack that had surrounded them.
The passages appeared to have been clawed out by a creature the size of a large dinosaur. Though Muriel couldn’t imagine what. Or why. But they tried to, in the earnest need to distract themselves from the leg. Their miracles weren’t working very well down in Hell. Truthfully, their miracles had been lacklustre for as long as they could remember.
Granted, anytime they tried to remember the earliest days of angelic life, spasms of pain would shoot from mind to extremities like a shock of high voltage from inside their brain.
And cut scenes of lost memory would rattle through their skull…
In this reverie, Muriel fell slowly behind, losing track of the difference between the black basalt and the leathery wings of their escort. The flames that licked the walls grew fewer and further between, as if the demon’s power had petered out on the way up the subtle slope, and a hue of daylight took their place, bursting in soft rays from what little space was left between wings and cavern.
When the demon moved from view, he encased himself in his wings to the side of the opening to a cave a few stone steps up, and offered his hand through the gap in the leather to help Muriel up the steps.
Since when did demons appreciate beauty like this?
A damp, earthy smell settled in thick humidity through the crevice to this antechamber of the volcano. Someone—the demon?—had left a lantern upon a rock to help reveal the edge of a pool large enough to swim in. The water was crystal clear there, making a perfect reflection of the fading twilight that shone the failing sun rays in navy-green hues through a crack in the rock above.
Muriel considered the soot on their cardigan, the torn leggings, the wound that still oozed and ached and stabbed with each step. They needed no further invitation, and the demon did not follow.
First a toe, then a foot, then the leg dipping deeper and deeper as security with the warmth of the water followed each test. The pool was hot ; a hot spring, they decided, warmed by the magma below. They sat on a mossy edge as weeping blood left the leg wound to swirl in the water. They shook the soot from their cardigan, now charcoal instead of white. Aziraphale did warn them that they’d both be doing some creative things with the laundry after this enterprise. He did not warn them that they would be making friends.
Muriel focused on their reflection in the water. But their thoughts were on the demon outside.
“You… don’t need to hide.”
Well, true enough. Aziraphale was not here, and Muriel was not the hunter of the two of them.
“I wasn’t awaiting an invitation, Muriel,” came the low rumble of his response. “I cannot go where the sun reaches the earth.”
“Oh. Right.”
Muriel wondered if this was what they were meant to heal… most demons had no problem with sunlight. Aziraphale had dozens upon dozens of books about vampires that had been hauled from one location to the other, and Muriel had read them all. But they were folklore, and this was a demon. He must have a condition.
But… he called them by name .
“Sorry,” they said, a long-lost childishness returning to their voice. “Do you know me?”
There was a distinctive pause. The sort that hunts for the air in one’s lungs then whisks it away to leave a cold vacuum. The sort that weighs a question on the same gravity scale as a collapsing supernova.
Muriel heard hoofsteps rounding whatever cavern lay behind the wall of the shadowy side of the cave. Slowly, hoofsteps turned into the crunch of volcanic ash under shoes, and when the creature emerged, the wings had been stowed away, and the silhouette had taken the shape of a man.
Sharp angles defined him still, in a sharp, dark suit that accentuated the peaks and valleys of a fit, sleek frame. An icy blue tie flowed down from the summit of his Adams apple over the subtle valley of his shirt. Above the clothes were chiselled features of a renaissance quality; a strong jaw with cheekbones sharp enough to draw blood, and the eyes that had seen history pass before them without a thought to blink. His black hair was woven in a soft braid over his shoulder, chasing down from the windblown waves atop his head. Muriel’s eyes closed, their fingers reaching unconsciously to their own hair—grown now from the cropped style of their innocent years—and relived the technique they did not remember practising, sliding one velvet lock over or under the others.
He was a medley of sophistication and savagery. A melody. A memory in male form.
“You… do not know me?” he asked, nonplussed.
All power had drained from the voice. Like a star, withered and aged and sapped of its strength until nothing was left but a tiny, cold dwarf.
“Erm…” Muriel began cautiously, “... should I?”
He straightened, shoulders rolling back like a spoiled child preparing to lecture their parents on why they deserved accolades for the art they drew on the wall. He cleared his throat.
“I… can think of a few reasons.”
The neediness was almost comical, but Muriel sensed there was more to it than bratty sentiment, and stayed their muted expression as he continued.
“You… do not know me, though. Do you…”
Muriel shook their head. “I suppose telling me your name might help. I’m quite good with names.”
He turned from them to face the darkness in the cavern where he stood. “If you do not know me, then telling you would only serve to further misery.”
The words stung worse than the pain in Muriel’s leg. A little hollow in their chest began to cave in with all the weight of a dying star. And the only thing giving it life was this bright eyed creature, which seemed somehow capable of filling the void with light every time he looked at them…
“Someone stole the histories from you…” he said, eyes turning to ice within the shadows where he dwelt.
“Oh no, I remember the histories. It’s my past I can’t r—”
Idiot. Why are you talking to him? What would Aziraphale say?
…What would Aziraphale do…?
But the words were out. And they’d rekindled the light in the demon’s eyes.
“All this time, I thought you chose this. Or that they’d wiped you from the book of life. But to take your memories entirely…” said the demon, his voice now edging toward a sneer. “I can imagine who was responsible for that .”
“Who?” said Muriel. In their haste, they rose from the mossy seat and immediately fell back to it with a wince of pain.
The demon tutted, the hint of empathy curling his lip into a frown. “If you trusted me, that would have healed. As it is…”
“If I trusted you well enough to join you back in those shadows, would it make any difference?”
Starlight returned to his eyes. Muriel nodded.
The wound was clean now, at least. And Muriel was soothed by the warmth and the earthiness of the cave, far enough away that the sulphur of Hell didn’t linger. They rose gingerly, easing backwards out of the water and using the rock to steady themselves.
Then with the lantern in hand, they approached.
It wasn’t the wisest of choices, perhaps. But with the strength of their miracles at such a disadvantage in this wretched volcano, they were going to be making very slow work of either escape or reunion with Aziraphale. Healing would be necessary. And perhaps guidance… through the cut scenes of confused memories, if not through the caverns of this unique sector of Hell.
The demon backed away, leaving space for Muriel to step out of the cave and seat themselves on the rock. He lowered himself to their eye level. Hesitantly, his gloved hand reached out over the wound.
“It must be done together, little wings.”
Muriel did have little wings. But it had never been an issue. Someone with greater wings had carried them through dark matter clouds in the blink of an eye; swirled them through spacetime on the dancefloor of a wormhole. Muriel didn’t remember this… not really. It was just a feeling, and any vision that came with it was a confusion of subatomic dust and darkness.
And eyes that had shone like the stars.
Muriel ignored the comment, and looked down to the leg, distorted as it was by the optics of the water. This time, the scars healed over. The scabs were fully formed, the throbbing had become a dull ache that only worsened with pressure. At least, Muriel reasoned, this limb could get them to safety… or Aziraphale.
“I’m glad to see you trust me,” said the demon, his blue eyes softening as he waited for Muriel to meet his gaze again. “Perhaps now you’d be willing to explain why you’d come here, if not to see me?”
Muriel considered, hands reaching thoughtlessly to their hair and threading it into a short, haphazard braid. The glimmer of a smile traced over the demon’s chiselled lips.
I know you…
For all the ominous power that emanated in delicate mirages from the edges of his figure, Muriel felt no urge to run. No urge to scan the area for a weapon with which to defend themselves.
The only urge was to keep speaking.
And heedless of what Aziraphale might have to say of it later, speaking is precisely what they did.
“If I tell you, will you tell me what memories I’m missing? Who took them? Who… who you are?”
With an indifferent wave of his hand, the demon conjured a whirl of matter into existence. A flurry of dark particles formed the legs of a stout, stone chair with a cushioned seat to follow, then rolled up toward the basalt above to create an ornate, high back. The throne’s twin was cast behind the demon, who sank into it languidly, as if he were seated in his own great royal hall and not the rough ashen cavern of a volcano.
Muriel sat opposite him in their guest throne, and took a deep breath.
***
Ruby. Garnet. Red Spinel. Rhodochrosite. Carnelian. Pezzottaite.
Aziraphale recited the names in his mind, twisting the ring around his pinkie and scowling at the glint of gold it cast upon the ripples in the water. There was stubble on his cheek, and greying bags beneath his eyes. It was no use. He couldn’t calm himself while seeing the relic on his finger.
As a final fit of retribution against the jewellery, he slapped the reflection with his sword, enjoying the admonishing hiss of the flame as it hit the water, then lamenting the sight of mirrored eyes glaring back at him.
His eyes… which should be Pezzottaite by now. It had been days since the last kill.
The city of Nice was a fine place to hide amongst the population. And Aziraphale, content in his baroque hotel room most of the day, could hide his eyes behind his sunglasses— Crowley’s sunglasses—when he chose to roam the streets. He understood Crowley’s fears all too well now. Had analysed the many times there were words teasing at his lips that Aziraphale had always watched for, but never received. Hiding behind shades had the effect of conditioning one to fear being unveiled. Every time he took them off to glance at his reflection, he felt the urge to hide his eyes again.
Rouge , the Frenchman had called them, back in Lyon.
Aziraphale’s French was near perfect by then. He knew his eyes were red. The Frenchman had no need to run off screaming about it.
And it mightn’t trouble him so, if they’d just go back to their natural colour. But time and again—in the Fontaine du Soleil, along the eastern end of the Promenade des Anglais where a man-made waterfall poured into a pretty pool for him to gaze into, in the mirror after his bath—he found no evidence of their return to normalcy.
Now in a substantial puddle that had formed in the old cobblestone streets, he glared at himself, trembling. Thousands of supernatural entities had been rent, each leaving Aziraphale in this state.
The humans say eyes are the windows to the soul…
Aziraphale’s eyes were dripping with red ichor; like blood diamonds hoarded away in the treasure chest beneath his corporation’s ribs. He closed them, recalling the kill from less than a week ago.
He’d taken his time with Sandalphon. The fat, bald angel had been gagged and bound and pushed to his knees. Aziraphale could still smell his cowardly sweat. Could hear his whimpering.
Crowley hadn’t whimpered…
Aziraphale forced him to feel the flaming sword eating its way through the back of his straw-beige jacket, starting from his collar and working slowly down his spine. A sickening mixture of metallurgy and simmering flesh choked the air. Gold trickled down his backside as he howled, staining the floor.
Muriel had been forced to drown out the noise with Vivaldi.
Aziraphale had just enough decency left to make them turn away at that point. They didn’t need to see this. By the end of his punishment, Sandalphon had smelt more of salt than of flesh. And Aziraphale had recalled the screams of Sodom echoing through the mountain pass to his ears all those millennia ago, and continued stabbing the burning blade deeper, and deeper; like shoving a dull stick into clay.
“No more innocent lives for you.”
He didn’t burn Sandalphon the way he’d burned Uriel and the Metatron. Those had cost a great deal of energy, and woke a part of him he did not care to visit for much too long. And yet, even without such a display of power, his eyes had been garnet for days.
How he despised Heaven. His teeth grit as he went back to twisting the ring on his pinkie. Was the ring a symbol of what was left of Aziraphale the angel? Or was it a last remnant of his yet-clinging faith in Heaven?
He stumbled back from the puddle, retching onto the street.
Staring into his soul was not helping. Staring at the ring was worse.
“I can’t bear it,” he said, wrenching it from his chubby digit.
Muriel was not far behind. The vomit, while unpleasant, was one of the first signs of the angel’s return to himself—to Aziraphale, and Muriel felt safe enough to approach.
“The ring?” they asked when they’d reached his elbow.
Aziraphale held it up, a little halo between his fingers. “Yes.” He spat the last of the filth from his mouth, pushing Muriel from it and miracling it off the street before anyone saw it. Or smelt it…
“Then why not get rid of it?” they asked.
“I… can’t,” he said, fumbling with a handkerchief to wipe his mouth. “You know I can’t.”
Muriel sighed, hugging themselves against the sea flavoured wind. “Perhaps if we go home—”
“No!” Aziraphale snapped, lunging at them.
Muriel cowered back, tripping on the cobblestone with their wing-tipped dutch heels and clattering through the puddle.
“Carnelian!” they shouted.
Aziraphale halted, clenching his eyes shut, his hand hovering over the hilt of the sword at his side. He panted a few times before his hands flew to his eyes, as if they could clear the red ink from his iris with a good rub.
It was a knee jerk reaction to words they had practised. Closing his eyes to a gemstone of lower lustre or tone that might quell the fire in his temper. If his eyes closed, he couldn't attack, and a short fit of rage might be allowed to pass without harm. He’d offered books on the power of conditioning to Muriel, subconsciously begging for their help. He was glad they’d gotten the message. He never meant to frighten them.
They were all he had left.
He turned away before opening his eyes, still panting little breaths of last night’s digestion into the air, unwilling to look at his reflection again. But the exterior residences here had yellow walls. Such a familiar, calming colour that wrung tears from his heart. The colour of a demon’s eyes.
“I don’t want him to see me like this.”
He knew what Muriel was thinking. No divine power was needed to hear the gears crank in their head, and halt just before they issued the words “He’s not waking up.”
Muriel was better than that.
“You can’t protect him from here.”
Aziraphale ignored them. “If we were ever to be surrounded by higher order angels, this sword would be useless. The only reason we’ve had any advantage at all is because we cut off the heads first. And to be quite honest, I’m not entirely sure how well this sword would fare against the likes of Satan.”
He couldn’t leave it there. A flaming sword tended to draw questions. Especially if it was still on fire in the middle of a large puddle. Aziraphale miracled it back to his side, hidden from human eyes by a sheath of invisibility. Then he fussed with his bowtie, awaiting Muriel's attempts at further comfort. But after a moment’s silence, he couldn’t help himself.
“I’m open to ideas—” he paused as he turned to them. “Ah.”
Fog had filled Muriel’s eyes like a cinematic fadeout to memory. Behind the haze, Muriel was reliving something, a myriad of memories that might or might not make sense when they wake. Aziraphale sighed. Something about their vulnerability in this state washed over him like a bucket of water, and finally, his eyes began to soften.
When Muriel resurfaced, they were back in their hotel room, staring at a golden ceiling medallion. Aziraphale had actually managed to pack a few things into the Louis Vuitton steamer trunk. And there was tea and charcuterie on the tray table from room service.
Aziraphale hadn’t touched the tea.
“You were out for quite a while this time,” Aziraphale said, hanging a spare waistcoat inside the luggage box. He knew they were checking his eyes, and stayed his gaze long enough that they could see he’d fallen to a soft pink Pezzottaite.
“You look better…” they said.
“Yes. Yes, I think I feel… amenable to travelling home. You’re right. I can’t protect him from here. We were never meant to be gone this long.”
Muriel sat up, pulling down the cardigan that had ridden up during their daydream on the fainting couch. The sound of the china tea kettle clinking against a cup told Aziraphale that once again, tea was the ticket, and he managed the twitch of a smile.
A sip and a murmur of pleasure later, Muriel put the cuppertea back down. “I think I know what we could do about the ring. And possibly the sword as well.”
“Oh?” Aziraphale paused in the middle of re-folding a pair of trousers. “What’s that?”
“It’s,” they said, face scrunching up. “It’s hard to say… but I think that items forged by one side can be remade by the other for different, er—maybe opposite properties?”
Attentive as ever, Aziraphale lowered himself into the chair beside the fainting sofa, and waited. Muriel was—at least for what memories they’d had since a few millennia BC—as knowledgeable about the history of angels and demons as he was on the history of Earth. He’d estimated that there was a great deal more tucked away, locked up in phantom dungeons of their mind. Countless hours they’d spent forming a mind palace for what remained, tucking new bits of knowledge where they might fit in attempts to make sense of things that simply didn’t.
Having Muriel around was like having a full esoteric library. Only portable.
“Go on, dear,” said Aziraphale.
“Both sides had their weapons manufacturers. I believe the favourite in Hell was a demon called… Adamlak?… Aram…” they stomped a foot. But it came out rather soft against the rug while they were in just their stockings. “I can’t remember now. I’m sorry.”
“Adrammelech?” offered Aziraphale, “I’ve heard the name. I thought he was Satan’s suitmaker?” As soon as he’d said it, he realised that was probably Crowley making a joke. He cleared his throat. “Armorer. Suit of Armor… em… maker.”
Muriel nodded, “I think that must be him. He lives in a volcano… but the way is complicated.”
“I would expect so,” said Aziraphale, finally indulging in a spot of tea. “Humans have been studying volcanoes for some time, I expect they’d find a demonic lair a bit alarming.”
“You’ll have to travel Seven Infernal circles before climbing into the volcano.”
Aziraphale held the teacup an inch from his lips, the heat of it spilling out to his unshaven, but unconcerned face.
“Well, I suppose I better get home and repack the luggage. I don’t think I packed my fire proximity suit.”
***
“Honestly, I think he had a harder time with the stairs into the caverns than he did the Seven Infernal circles.”
Muriel had meant it as a joke. Which was odd. Growing comfortable in the presence of a demon wasn’t something they’d planned for during this venture. But whether it was knowing that Aziraphale had found friendship with Crowley, or knowing that this demon had called them by name… saved them, even… Muriel couldn’t help the feeling that some part of their soul knew this demon.
Like in Aziraphale’s nicer stories, where long lost parents and infant children found each other after so many decades and instantly knew their bond.
“How did you become separated?” he asked. No longer leaning into the luxury of his conjured throne, he was bent over his knees, leather gloves linked together over the space between them in a pose of earnest intrigue.
“It’s an active volcano. They er… aren’t very stable? One minute things are fine and the next, there’s a massive cave in. You know the story of Pompeii?”
He smiled. “Tell me.”
“Err. Big cross mountain?” They made an exploding gesture with their arms. “Destroyed a whole city in a day? First use of the word volcano?”
“You used to be better at telling histories,” said the demon, leaning back into his throne.
“Er, sorry. The volcanic gas must be doing me a mischief.” Muriel paused with a half laugh, regarding his regal demeanour. They couldn’t help the feeling that they were disappointing him. “Anyway, we tried to clear the path again after. At least I did. But neither of our miracles were working very well. I suppose I tried to take a different route.”
“Adrammelech uses miracle blockers. There were plenty left lying about when your…” he trailed off, eyes glinting with danger like sheets of ice over a cliff. “Your friend went on his first rampage.”
“Why don’t you have any? I mean, you don’t. Or I wouldn’t be able to do any healing at all.”
He smirked. “I don’t bother. They’re rather… beneath me.”
Muriel looked along the path that they could see with the lantern. Where the demon had crunched the ash—and in fact, a fair bit of rock—under his shoes to circle the cave to where he could peer from the shadows, there was more than just footprints. The ground was cracked. Every footprint left a small crater in the ground; evidence of something far more massive than the demon sitting before them. And yet, without knowing or remembering, Muriel was quite certain the power of the demon alone was enough to claw the earth apart.
They had wondered what sort of demonic monster had carved out the caverns…
Upon closer inspection, the gloves upon the demon’s hands were tapered slightly at the end, as if to leave space for some unwieldy fingernails.
Claws.
Muriel gulped down a pumice stone of pure terror.
“So ehm… I told my story.”
“You did.”
Muriel shrugged helplessly. “Satisfied?”
An impish smirk played over the demon’s face. “You must not have many memories of me at all, or you would not ask such things.”
Muriel paled. “I beg your—”
“Are you asking if you can leave? You’re no prisoner. I would… not do that.”
Muriel acquiesced that he had been a fair host. Their wings were still ruffled, but the hurry to leave was already transforming back to a desire to stay… and to talk.
He smiled.
“Who are you?” they asked. “…You said you would tell me.”
His smile vanished.
“My name…” he began.
“...Yes?”
.
..
...
“Is Lucifer.”
