An Unholy Alliance

Chapter 18

Michael seemed a little annoyed with her as she ate. Naomi continued to apologise for ‘falling asleep in church’. Surely he would have confronted her by now if he knew she didn’t actually fall asleep in the church.

She headed upstairs to meditate and thought over what had happened. She had willingly hugged Lucifer and she hadn’t felt too anxious over seeing his past. Usually she freaked out anytime she had visions. Maybe the meditation was helping with that too, she’d have to ask Lucifer and see if they could figure out why she wasn’t so bothered. Even with Michael, she was terrified of accidentally seeing visions of his past and she had trusted Michael.

As Naomi ate lunch with her friends, she listened to Ianto ramble about some weird and mildly disturbing fact that he had learnt from the wonderful place known as the internet.
“I also found out that apple seeds contain cyanide,” he said.
“Wait, so how many apples would you need to eat for it to poison you then?” asked Ryan. He sounded rather interested in what Ianto was talking about for once.
“Well, they don’t actually contain cyanide,” said Ianto slowly. Ryan narrowed his eyes at Ianto, he looked rather irritated. “They contain something that turns into cyanide when you eat it but it would take thousands of seeds to poison you.”

“Can’t cyanide poisoning be reversed by a bunch of stuff though because thousands of apple seeds aren’t going to kill you that quickly,” said Katie with a shrug. Ianto smiled at her.
“Yeah, guess no one’s going to be murdered through apple seeds any time soon then,” said Ianto. He said it in a joking tone and Ryan laughed a little. Naomi just hummed, remembering what he had done to Gareth. It still sort of scared her but since she wasn’t supposed to interfere too much by anything that was deemed important.

She was relieved to be able to escape from Ianto’s morbid facts about serial killers by the time lunch ended. At the end of the day, she only waved goodbye to him while saying goodbye to Katie.

Once she was in Hell, she quickly forgot any problems with Ianto and her classes she had. She appeared in Lucifer’s office and then the two of them headed to the drawing room. naomi wondered why Lucifer never teleported her straight to the drawing room considering that was where they spent more of their time. Perhaps he wasn’t able to. Maybe Naomi would ask him about it at some point.

Upon seeing Edriel, she dropped her bag by the wall, out of the way and walked over to him.
“I suppose I owe you a hug.”
Edriel furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I said I could hug you if I ever hugged Lucifer,” she said, hoping that she had gotten her point across properly.
“I see…”
“So… do you want to hug or not?” she asked. Edriel didn’t verbally reply he simply pulled her into an embrace. Naomi laughed a little, only now realising Edriel was only a little bit taller than herself.

Flashes of his past flashed before her eyes. She watched as she saw glimpses of Ed using his illusions to distract people as he pickpocketed them. There was more as he argued with an angel, the other angel was blond and stood several inches taller than Edriel. He was sort of familiar.

As she pulled away, she felt a little overwhelmed but not as much as she was used to.
“What did you see?” asked Lucifer as he sat down, stealing Edriel’s favourite spot on the sofa. Both Ed and Naomi knew he had done it on purpose so Ed glared at him.
“He was stealing from people and then arguing with someone. He was sort of tall but not quite as tall as you, Lucifer.”
“Zachriel,” said Ed with a sigh. “That was the last time I spoke to him.”

“Why did you argue?” she asked, quickly adding: “If you don’t mind me asking, that is.”
“I told him to keep his faith in Father, to pray that he wouldn’t fall in love and that he could return to his righteous duties,” said Edriel. He took a seat and stared down at his hands. “All while I planned to disappear to Earth and meet up with demons.”

“And you bloody fell in love with one,” muttered Lucifer. The distaste was obvious on his face. “They’re worse than humans.”
“You created them,” said Edriel, looking up and over to his brother.
“So? Do you think God likes all of his creations?” Edriel hummed and nodded as he relented, agreeing with Lucifer. God definitely did not love all of his creations.

Naomi smiled as she sat beside Lucifer. He watched her for a moment before speaking.
“You used to flinch at the lightest touch,” said Lucifer. “And yet, you’ve hugged both of us without flinching or growing very overwhelmed.”
“I was going to ask you about that,” said Naomi. “I thought maybe it’s to do with meditation and focusing on the present. The visions are of the past, perhaps they don’t scare me as much because I don’t focus on the past so much, you know?”
“Maybe,” said Lucifer with a shrug. “I wouldn’t know.”
“Oh.”

Naomi was hoping for a better answer than the one she got from Lucifer.
“Maybe what you just said is the reason why,” said Edriel. Yet again, he didn’t have any fruit. She wondered for a moment if Ozzo had eaten it for him.
“Maybe,” she said, mustering a smile.