An Unholy Alliance

Chapter 8

Opening her eyes, Naomi saw the dark red floor Lucifer’s office. She still didn’t understand why he had an office, she wasn’t sure if her really knew why. Looking up, she was greeted by Lucifer who was leaning against his desk with his arms crossed.

“I… I had an argument,” she stuttered out between sniffles, “with Michael.” Lucifer stood up straight and unfolded his arms.
“With Michael?” he repeated. She nodded. “Over what?”
“It’s stupid,” she said quietly, shaking her head a little. It truly did feel stupid now that she had ended up in Hell because of it.
“Clearly it’s not if you’re upset over it.”

Naomi’s eyes widened as she stood up. “What do you mean?”
“If it was nothing then you wouldn’t have run off and ended up here,” he said with a shrug. “What is it?”
Naomi hesitated. Should she really tell Lucifer? Yes, she should. He seemed to care and she did want help.

Naomi took a few minutes to explain everything that had happened in the last few weeks and finished by explaining that she had argued with Michael over feeling ignored and lonely. Lucifer listened intently, letting her sit down in the chair while he sat on his desk. When she finished talking, it was silent for a while and Naomi almost regretted it.

“I swear he can be such an idiot sometimes,” said Lucifer as he stood up. He walked around his office as he spoke. “His favourite always was the youngest.”
“What do you mean?” she asked as she pushed her hair out of her face. The curls weren’t tied back, she probably should have tied her hair back so it was out of the way.
“He always favours whoever’s the youngest, he always has. When Raphael came along a few years after me, I was glad that Michael had stopped trying to correct everything I did but Raph never dealt with Michael favouring Gabriel afterwards,” said Lucifer as he stopped walking for a moment.

“What am I going to do?”
“Whatever you want,” said Lucifer with a shrug. “I’m not here to tell you what to do, unless you want me to.”
“I don’t know what to do,” she said honestly. Having her backpack still on as she sat down on the chair was uncomfortable so she took it off and put it by her feet.

“You could go back to Michael.”
“But he’s angry with me,” she said. “And if he knows I’ve been here on my own then he’ll be even angrier.”
“But he did say that he wants you to make your own choices,” Lucifer pointed out.
Naomi nodded. Lucifer was right. “He did say that.”

“What about Gabriel, he took care of you when Father made Michael basically ignore you, right?”
“He’s doing orders or something like that,” said Naomi. “He stopped by the house earlier and said so.”
Lucifer frowned. “Samiel?”
“He lives near Ryan, it’d be too awkward,” said Naomi. “Besides, he works at school, that makes it kind of weird too even if he is my brother.”

She heard Lucifer sigh. “I liked Ryan, he was the ginger, wasn’t he?”
Naomi nodded. “Yeah, he was.”
“He got Samiel out of the… well, you know,” said Lucifer, trailing off. She wondered why he would carry on.
“Yeah, I know, I was there,” she said, forcing herself to laugh a little. She noticed Lucifer was leaning against the wall, watching her, so she turned to look at him.
“I don’t know what to suggest,” he said honestly. “I wouldn’t even know how to find Azrael, she’s been dealing with her reapers since I left Hell, she’d probably be too busy anyway.”

It fell to silence again. Naomi looked down at her hands, she was still holding her phone. She put it back in her coat pocket and sighed.
“I met an angel called Zachriel once.”
“Zachriel?” repeated Lucifer as if he was trying to recall who it was. “Oh, I know him. Him and his boyfriend helped Azazel piss me off.”
“How did they do that?”
“I’ll tell you another time if you want,” said Lucifer with a shrug. Curious, Naomi nodded. “You can hold me to that but I don’t think he’d be able to look after you, especially not if Azazel and Jenn are still there with them.”

“I don’t know any other angels,” said Naomi. “So there isn’t really anyone else to stay with.” Except maybe…
“No, there’s not,” he muttered. His fingers tapped the filing cabinet next to him.
“I could stay with you.”

Lucifer’s eyes widened as he looked over at her. “Do you really think that’s a good idea? Staying in Hell?”
“Well, there isn’t anywhere else unless Gabriel carried out his orders ridiculously quick.”
“So you don’t want to go back to stay with brother dearest?”
“Not if I’m going to carry on being ignored and told to grow up,” she said. And she was probably going to be told that she was childish and immature and stupid if she went back.

“Are you sure?” He seemed nervous to let her stay in Hell. “You’ll have to deal with hellhounds and demons if you stay. Most of them won’t bother you but some of them might.”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Well, sister dearest, I guess you could stay here for a while then.”
Naomi smiled. “Thank you, brother.”