I sit a little taller, if I do say so myself.
Ezekiel moves and takes the book away, reading it for us now.
“Lucifer trusted her when she said they were ready, and he granted them protection, power, prestige, and various other things Apocalypse asked for, in an effort to help keep them safe, since she broke the law and gave them bits of her. Lucifer would never kill them now. He simply couldn’t. His daughter would suffer a fate he couldn’t spare her from if he did, for she’d shared too much, and only she could take it back.”
“Guess that means I’m too stubborn to do so, since you all clearly still have a piece of me wedged in you. That’s why I can’t be away from you for too long. Even in whole form, I have limits it seems. But how were you reborn with the same piece if we were all killed?” I ask, looking at Ezekiel. “Does it say?”
He shakes his head. “This is just the origins. The rest is a series of equations that make no sense to me to explain proper balance, execution of power, and various other things. If I could understand the equations, I might could understand our powers better.”
“Well, what can kill us? Clearly the Devil’s poison couldn’t truly kill me. What about you?” I ask.
“We’ve been out of hell this entire time, not getting our power boosts and such,” Jude says on a breath. “It makes us more vulnerable than we apparently were in that life. In that life, it would have been impossible to kill us.”
“Evidently that’s not true,” I point out.
“According to some of the notations in the margins, only the Devil himself could have killed us in hell,” Ezekiel says absently, still studying those equations.
Daintily, I dab the corners of my mouth with my napkin, then go phantom and put on clothes. No need to be naked right now. We’ll not be going for round two just yet.
They’re all just in jogging pants that they put on while I was cooking. It’s actually a very domestic image of us. Or at least it was.
“Why are you wearing your badass clothes?” Gage asks warily.
“So you finally admit this outfit is badass,” I state, becoming whole to see how the weapons fare.
“They’re plastic,” Jude says as he picks up a knife from my hip, rumbles of laughter following that with more carefree abandon than I’ve ever heard from them.
I’m almost distracted by the way all of them are laughing, and I don’t even mind that they’re laughing at me and the fact I apparently suck at making my weapons as real as I am.
“Glad we didn’t have to rely on these in the trials,” Ezekiel says through his guffaws as he throws a plastic ninja star.
It bounces off the wall.
This renews their laughter.
A smile creeps across my face as I take it in, all of them snickering around the brunch table like I’ve never once—during all my years stalking them like their unseen guardian—seen them do before.
It’s not dark laughter. It’s not amused laughter. It’s surprised, real, hardy laughter that goes on and on, everyone keeping it rolling by lifting another weapon and making a joke.
“Could you imagine if we’d stabbed one of the blind tribesmen with this?” Gage asks, barely choking the words out through his chuckles as he stabs Ezekiel.
It breaks on impact, and it sets them all off again.
I take it all in, unwilling to break up this rare, never witnessed moment between the four of them.
They look…human. For just this brief glimpse in time.
No wonder the old me wanted as many mortal lives as possible with them. It let me see them like this. I can only imagine how’d they’d be now if they hadn’t died and come back with cleansed souls that expelled the madness altogether.
“You expect diamonds and lush gifts, when these were the gifts you offered in a land of every form of death?” Gage asks through his own hysteria.
“I gave you a course of monsters and blind cannibals filled with death riddles in hell’s belly for your birthday. The fact I’m a terrible gift-giver is quite apparent. Side note, none of you should be encouraged to ever tell me your birthdays.”
Because the laughter momentum is already fierce, they finally laugh at one of my jokes the way my joke deserves to be laughed at. I quite literally pat myself on the back.
“So, seriously, why are you dressed like that right now?” Kai asks as their laughter tapers off.
“Because now I realize who killed us, so I’m going to nip the problem in the bud before history repeats itself.”
The lingering laughter dissipates with that.
Ezekiel moves toward me.
“What do you mean?”
“It means I’m going to go kill the Devil, of course,” I say with a shrug before going phantom and focusing really hard on the underworld.
On Lamar.
On Manella.
On Lucifer himself.
“Shit,” Jude shouts, breaking up the silence.
I feel tingles pass through me from four directions just as my eyes open to see I most definitely just siphoned myself to hell.
Looking around at four angry glares, I realize I also brought along some stowaways. How is that possible? I can’t siphon them!
“You four can’t be here,” I hiss, shoving them away from me.
I flick my wrist, expecting them to go back home, but apparently the Devil’s daughter doesn’t know how to use all her power. Doesn’t matter. I know how to use the killing ones.
“You can’t be serious,” Gage growls as I stay in phantom form.
“Actually, I am. I just need to find a book that tells me how to navigate the illusions the hallways present to keep you walking in circles.”
I go whole, walking toward the massive bookcase filled with little details of hell, I’m sure. Seems I landed us in the last spot we left when we visited hell.
Two arms immediately grab me, but I go phantom and roll my eyes, walking on undeterred.
“You can’t kill the fucking Devil,” Jude growls, getting in front of me.
I pass through him and start looking for the appropriate book. One catches my eye, because the word PACA appears on the binding for a split second before disappearing.
“I think I can. After all, I apparently have the power to destroy the world. I’m sure the Devil made me for that reason because he couldn’t do it himself. By the way, if the Devil made me, you were wrong about him not being capable of such, back when we had this discussion before the trials.”
“Stop talking in circles. Damn it, Paca, Don’t fucking do this,” Kai snaps, trying to grab me as well.
“I’m phantom,” I remind them. “Will one of you be a dear and collect that for me? I think it’s mine.”
Gage grabs the book and holds it up like it’s leverage as he smirks. “If you want it, come and get it.”
I put my hands on my hips as I level him with an unimpressed glare.
“If I don’t kill him, he’ll come to kill us,” I point out.