Lane
The air was dark, and thick with smoke and the heavy stench of blood and urine. Lane took a deep breath, and instantly regretted it as she had to fight back the urge to vomit. She tried to lift her hand to cover her mouth, only to find that she was chained to the wall that she was sitting against by her hands and her feet.
It was around that time that she began to feel the cold seeping into her, as if it was crawling into her body and through her soul, and she started to shiver. She could hear the sound of her own teeth chattering, and hear the chains rattling from her bodies violent shaking.
“Don’t worry, the shaking is only one of the side effects of the process. It’ll soon pass and that’s when the real fun begins.” The deep, male voice rang throughout the room, causing goosebumps to erupt on Lane’s skin.
The voice wasn’t one she had heard before, but her instant response was defensive. She couldn’t see the man through the darkness, but she could feel that he was evil. She had never met a person quite as dark, as vile, as this man was.
Instantly, Lane felt herself wish Nybbas was there. Even if he was the Demon of Fear and the one who had caused her immense pain and grief in her life, he was her Mate and she knew that he would help her and protect her no matter what. She also wouldn’t mind if her brother was there as well, he had always been there for her.
At the thought of her brother, Lane felt a memory beginning to surface. As she pictured her brother feeding her the blood of a human, as well as that of a demon, she could feel the bile threatening to rise. That couldn’t have been her brother, he wasn’t a demon, and he never would have chained her to a wall and forced her into the Change, trying to make her a demon.
So who had it been? Lane had a feeling that the man who was speaking to her had the answers she was looking for.
“Why?” Lane’s voice was hoarse when she spoke, and she ended up coughing when she tried to swallow. How long had she been in this darkness? When was the last time she had ate anything, or drank anything?
“Why? My dear Angel, i’m doing this for you. I’m doing this to give you power, so that you can finally have the revenge that you’ve been waiting for since you were a little girl. I’m doing this to give you everything you’ve ever wanted, and then some. All you have to do is agree to this, and you can have the things you’ve only dreamt about.”
He was offering her revenge? He was offering her everything she had ever wanted. Promises, such a small word which people put too much faith in. Promises were broken easier than glass, and that was a lesson that Lane had learned the hard way one too many times.
“There’s nothing you could give me that would make me agree to the Change. I’d rather die than become a creature so vile, that they feed off of the death, the life force, of innocent humans.” Lane felt her back stiffen when she heard the sound of footsteps approaching her.
When the cold, hard hand connected with her cheek, it left a resonating crack and forced Lane’s head to snap to the side. She could instantly taste the coppery tang of her own blood and her cheek and jaw began to throb. Lane forced back the tears, and instead, she squared she shoulders and raised her chin defiantly.
“The answer is no.” Her voice came out hard, determined, though inside, she felt anything but.
She knew that this man was evil, and his promises were only to get her to agree. After she agreed, all bets were off on whatever was promised. Lane knew that they were willing to offer her anything she asked for, as long as she agreed to Change and become a spawn of Evil, and then they would go back on their promise, or they would twist it so that in the end, she was left with regret and guilt rather than justice.
Lane grew up in Heaven, so she knew all the tricks of Hell. She had seen and heard about them daily, since she was allowed to look down over Earth. There had been a few times when she had snuck into the room with the Seeing Mirror with Rummy, or her two eldest brothers and they would sneak a peek at Hell, and instantly regret it. Ever since then, Lane knew it wasn’t a place she wanted to go.
The chuckle that came from the man was deep, and Lane supposed to any other woman it might be sensual, but to her it just sounded creepy. She wanted nothing more than to get as far away from this being as possible.
“Angel, you can’t say no. It’s just a matter of time before you agree and join a life of complete darkness and destruction. It’s not as bad as you think, well, actually, it is. It has its benefits though, like being able to rape and murder as much as I want. Rape isn’t something I personally need to deal with, not unless I want to that is, but murder? Ahh -” The man paused, as if enjoying a memory, and when he spoke again, the joy and passion in his voice disgusted Lane. “There’s nothing better than the feeling of blood soaking your hands from another person, of controlling whether they live or die. The rush, well, it’s almost better than sex. Not to mention being able to get into people’s minds, watching them break before you. It’s a thrill when you see that a person’s spirit has broken, and you have complete control over them.”
A wave of revulsion passed through Lane, and she once more had to swallow to fight back the bile threatening to rise. Lane had never met a person quite this vile, this dark and twisted before, and for a moment, Lane envisioned she was back home in Heaven, where she was safe and that her life recently had just been a terrible nightmare.
Lane knew better though, and she was realistic enough to know she needed to face this head on, or she would definitely succumb to the darkness of the man and the upcoming internal battle she would be fighting.
“I can feel you fighting it, the desire to just accept the inevitable. Why don’t you just let go? It would be so much easier if you would stop denying your true calling. You were never meant to be an Angel, not with the power and strength you have. I could teach you, could show you how to control what you have.”
“I will never agree to this, i’ll never accept it. I would rather die than become a minion of Lucifer.” Lane spat, her fury getting the best of her. She could feel something burning inside of her, something strong and demanding, causing her to fight against her restraints. She wanted to kill this being in front of her, to rip his blackened soul right from his chest.
Lane felt her teeth elongate and her vision enhanced, the clarity allowing her to see the man in the dark. He had long brown hair, and his eyes were a light brown, reminding Laneene of caramel. His skin was suntanned, as if he spent the majority of his time in the sun. He had a muscular build, which he was proudly displaying in a shirt that looked to be a second skin.
“Is that what you really look like, or are you using another man’s face?” Lane barely recognized her own voice when she spoke, but something was urging her to continue, to push the Demon in front of her to lose his control.
She watched the smirk disappear from the man’s face, replaced with narrowed eyes that were flashing with shock and anger. She straightened her spine and faced the demon head on, the burning sensation in her chest was dizzying, causing her to feel intoxicated.
“What did you just say?” The demon’s voice was low, as if he was giving Lane a chance to change what she had said.
“You heard me, Lust. I know who, and what, you are. I know you are Lucifer’s greatest pet, and you don’t even remember what your own face looks like. How many men have you killed to take their forms and sleep with their wives to produce children? You’re a sorry excuse for a Demon.”
“Who the fuck are you?” the demon snarled at Lane, and she just cocked her head to the side and smirked.
“You don’t recognize me? Well.. you’re the one that put this in me. You’re the one that forced me to get angry so that my soul would form a bond with these powers.. and now? Now i’m back. The memories, the knowledge, the strength… I have it all. I can feel it burning in my chest, beckoning me to kill, to feed on the blood of another and begin the process of the Change.”
“There’s no way that you can feel the Demon inside you yet, you’ve only been given the powers minutes before you awoke. The only blood you’ve had has been human and animal.” The Demon of Lust shook his head, and Lane laughed, her voice sounding strange to her own ears, just as the words she spoke had been sounding. She knew what she was saying was true, but at the same time, it made no sense to her.
Had she already begun the Change? Was that the burning sensation she felt in her chest? Was that where all of this knowledge came from?
Lane now knew that the man before her was the Demon of Lust, Nybbas’ father, and he was a very dark, twisted being. He wasn’t lying when he said he enjoyed killing and torturing woman, it was like a game to him.
The man in front of Lane was her Mate’s father, which meant he was like her father in law. That made her sick to her stomach. Not only was her Mate the one that had tortured her for years, but his father had been the one to kill Lane’s best friend, the closest thing to a sister Lane ever had.
Anger burned through Lane, causing her to grit her teeth. She was tired, and she wanted to end all of the twisted, darkness that had come into her life. She was tired of being afraid, and definitely tired of being told she had to do something. Lane grew up knowing that no matter who you are, there’s always a choice. No one can ever force you to do something. Free will, her father used to say, was his Father’s greatest gift to man.
“Her name was Sarafina. She had blonde hair and blue eyes, that looked like the ocean. She was 18 years old, going to Earth for the first time. She had been sent out to bring her older sister home from a Search. She was captured by a demon, held hostage behind the door of Hell, and brutally tortured for weeks. She tried to take her own life twice, each time her abuser would catch her and beat her for it. We found her a month later, but by then, she was already too far gone to save. I stayed by her bedside for three night, watching her thrash in the sleep she managed to finally get. She would wake up screaming and crying, she wasn’t able to have anyone to touch her, due to the physical and mental pain she was in. I fell asleep on the fourth night, and when I came back, her parents were in the room. Her father was holding onto her mother who was crying. Her sister was sitting on the foot of the bed, staring at the wall. Do you want to know what happened, Lust?”
Lane’s head snapped up, and she felt a burning sensation running along her body, and she felt the same burning sensation in her eyes. Her guilt, grief, and anger were too great for her to care about her own physical pain, instead, she focused on attacking the Demon of Lust, causing him the same amount of pain that Sarafina had gone through for that month.
Fire erupted on Lane’s skin, causing the room around here to illuminate. The chains that had been holding her previously were now laying on the ground, burnt and broken. Lane stood up and stretched her body, all the while keeping her eyes trained on the Demon in front of her.
“I was 13 years old when my bestfriend, the girl who was like an older sister to me, killed herself. I never saw her again after that, because she wasn’t allowed in Heaven after she committed that sin. At least, that’s what I was told. I think it was because she was dragged back to Hell, where her tormentor lay waiting for her.”
Lane lifted her hands, surprised to find the flames covering her were two different colors, blue and black. What did the two colors mean?
It didn’t matter at the moment, Lane would think about it later. Right now, she was focused on finally avenging her friend, on finding out the truth of what had happened all those years ago.
She wanted to cause him pain, something was pushing her to cause him immense pain, to make him scream and writhe on the floor. She wanted to watch him bleed, and she wanted to tear his still beating heart right out of his chest.
“So tell me, Azazel, what did you do to her?” Lane walked toward the Demon, watching as his blue eyes seemed to shift to black before settling on blue once more. His body tensed as he watched her, and she could see a dark mist beginning to settle around his body, like fog.
He smiled, “Sarafina? Never heard of her. There’s been so many different girls; human, demon, and angel alike.”
Envisioning disembowelling him wasn’t good enough for Lane at the moment, she needed to hurt him. How dare he act as if he didn’t know Sarafina, as if he didn’t remember her?
The flames covering Lane’s body seemed to burn brighter as she walked closer to the demon, her eyes narrowed and fangs exposed. She was going to make him feel everything that her friend had gone through, and then some. She would cause him pain that he had never felt before, she would make him scream, and beg for mercy, which was something she wouldn’t be willing to give. There would be nothing but pain and anguish for the demon who had caused her best friend, who was an angel, to commit suicide.
Lane lifted her hand and watched as the flames danced across her skin. She was close enough now that she could see her reflection in the demon’s eyes, who seemed to be frozen to the spot.
“You don’t remember? Well, let’s see if I can remind you.”