Tag: book

To be honest, Hell wasn’t all that bad.

Stories about it couldn’t do it justice. They missed the mark by leagues— or maybe they only referred to the places where sinners paid for their mortal crimes, or whatever the current rhetoric was topside. No eternal flames, no arctic tundras, no torture chambers. In actuality, Hell was nothing more than a sprawling metropolis.

It was also Sadie’s home.

There were, of course, the notable differences to the living world; namely, the blood red sun, which stained the sky in watercolors of orange and pink and yellow during the day, like an eternal sunset. At night, the same skies were a deep, velvety purple, swirling with celestial bodies that glittered bright white against it. Streaks of red tore through the fabric of the sky day or night, rain or shine. Sadie had come to know these tears as splits in time, where souls fell to their doom from every universe, every timeline, every reality.

The first time she’d had that particular conversation had given her a headache that had lasted weeks. She hadn’t bothered trying to understand it, afterwards.

To be fair, Sadie had it made: a pretty one bedroom apartment in a skyscraper on the scenic side of town, where she could watch the sunrise in the morning; a cushy job stealing souls for the big man himself; lovers at her beck and call.

After five centuries, Sadie was bored.

Half a millennia of demonic and sexual mayhem would, apparently, do that to a girl. She’d done her world traveling, not to mention her time traveling, spending so much time in the real world she held a record for purged souls. She’d been through a mind-boggling amount of lovers of every gender, honing her skills as a sex-demon and becoming the kind of irresistible creature their species was praised for. She’d even spent several decades just enjoying Hell and all it had to offer— she was so wrapped up in the community, she’d basically become a feature herself.

She was bored out of her mind.

Which led her, of course, to her current position, scrunched into a rolling chair in an elaborate office opposite the Big Man himself. Lucifer watched her spin in the chair with his signature smirk. Like a pet-parent watching their fur baby do something cute and mildly annoying. Which was a fair assessment, as Sadie hadn’t even bothered to announce herself before appearing in his office-slash-throne-room and immediately driving him up a wall.

“You can spin all you like, Sadie, but that won’t help me get you what you want.”

His voice was deep and rich. Once upon a time, Sadie would have found it unbearably attractive— much like all of him, his muscular build, his dark and silky-smooth skin, his mile long jet black hair, those burning red eyes, the horns that stood proudly from his temples. There was more— of course there was— but Sadie could only objectify him for so long before she was struck with an overwhelming sense of that’s my dad. Which wasn’t entirely true; he’d bestowed the mantle of demonhood upon her, but she’d been mortal before. Many Hellish years ago. She’d died mortal, slipped through those mysterious tears in the fabric of Hell’s sky, and landed seething with rage at Lucifer’s feet.

She liked to think she’d been his favorite ever since. Hence the dad feelings.

That in mind, Sadie regarded him as she spun slowly to face him again, the chair’s black leather creaking faintly as she shifted her body in it. “I’m bored,” she told him flatly.

Lucifer snorted.

“Don’t laugh,” Sadie squawked, craning her neck as the chair continued its slow rotation. “Not all of us can be endlessly amused by our demonic offspring and their ridiculous plights! Some of us need more enrichment in our enclosures!”

“Sadie.” His tone was firm, but fond. “You don’t need any more enrichment. You desperately need to be socialized.”

Sadie shot him a withering look, which was probably undermined by the fact that she was still spinning like a four year old in his chair. He’d been kind enough not to kick her out of it when he’d caught her, still standing in the middle of his office after passing someone’s judgment. Though she could have done without watching him send some poor soul off to his eternal damnation or whatever. She preferred screams of ecstasy to screams of agony.

Lucifer propped his enormous arms onto his desk, careful not to sink his thick, golden claws into the dark wood. All he’d done so far was cock an eyebrow at her, and Sadie felt quite suddenly like a child throwing a tantrum.

“Fine,” she grumbled, crossing her arms under her breasts. “Maybe I need a little more socialization. But!” She pointed at him, her own black claw glossed like smooth onyx, “I also want to go out and learn again. I need more stimulation for my mind.”

“There it is.” His signature smirk returned, a glimpse of sharp teeth at the corner of it. “You want to go play schoolgirl for a bit.”

Like a cat, Sadie reached out and whacked some of his papers off the edge of his desk. “Don’t be gross. Rephrase that or I’m taking the rest home with me and hiding them under my mattress.”

Lucifer sighed, rolled his burning red eyes, and said, “You missed out on your own college experience, and want to make it up to yourself now. Happy?” Now he had his arms crossed, eyebrow still cocked up halfway to his horn.

Sadie almost stuck her tongue out at him. She hadn’t expressly said she’d wanted to go to college in any of their previous conversations, not that she could recall. But he’d heard her lamenting what she’d missed out on due to her early death, and college had definitely been in there.

At least he hadn’t said high school. Ugh.

“I can’t believe the mattress threat still gets you,” she teased.

“I know what happens on your mattress.”

“Ew. Perv.” But Sadie still smiled, finally stopping her restless spinning with one combat boot on his ornately carved desk. If he had any reservations about it, he didn’t voice them. “Alright, Mister-All-Knowing, Lord of Hell, King of Sin—”

“Sadie.”

“— What,” she continued, ignoring his exasperation, “is your ingenious plan to get me out of your admittedly-gorgeous hair? I know you have one already.”

Lucifer sighed, visibly put-upon, even though Sadie knew it was an act. She just waited patiently, smiling cheekily up at him as he picked up what looked like a blank piece of paper and turned it between his fingers thrice. Flames as red as his eyes ripped across the paper, smoldering down to inky stains that melted even further into coherent words. He held the newly formed contract out to her with a flourish, and Sadie’s cheeky smile turned into a feral, fully demonic grin.

She loved getting what she wanted.

There were rules. There were always rules. She’d abide by any and all of them if it meant getting something she wanted— a couple of centuries in the Renaissance era, another few in Ancient Greece, that one stint during the Satanic Panic where she caused such a hysteria she’d gotten yanked back down to Hell several years short of her original timeline. That one, admittedly, she’d broken the rules for, but it had been so funny she couldn’t have helped it if she’d tried.

(Lucifer had forgiven her. He always would, when one of them played with the masses like that. He found it just as funny, if not more so.)

The contract outlined her matriculation and acceptance to Summerville Community College, somewhere in the middle of Ohio. The name etched into the fine print was Sadie Morningstar.

“Aww, Dad,” she teased, flicking her eyes up to Lucifer. He snorted. “Should I feel bad about you sending me to Ohio?”

“Be glad it wasn’t Alaska,” Lucifer said dryly. With a flick of his wrist, something else appeared in his hand. He presented it to her with the same flourish. “Your student ID.”

Smirking, she took the slim plastic card. She glanced at the little square bearing her own face—

Sadie paused.

She didn’t spend all of her time in her demonic form. It got old, the tail, the claws, the horns, the wings— sometimes she just wanted to feel like a regular person. She knew what her human form looked like, when she used it; the same one she’d had in life, but somehow more. Prettier, she supposed, not in looks, but some other way. A light in her eyes, a glow to her skin, a sweetness to her voice. In the mortal world, she usually changed things up, becoming an amalgamation of all the features that were most aesthetically popular in whatever place and time she visited, layered over her own features.

She frowned at the picture on the ID, though. Because that was her face. Her human face. The one she used here in Hell. The one she’d had in life.

“When are you sending me?” she blurted out.

When Lucifer didn’t immediately answer, she lifted her gaze to his again, finding him watching her patiently. She looked at the contract and the ID again, and gasped.

Fall 2023.

“…But…?” She couldn’t stop staring at the words. At the numbers.

“Yes?” Sadie’s confusion must have shown in the look she gave Lucifer. He nodded, still patient, and said, “You died about four months ago.”

Four months. Four months. Sadie stared at him like he’d grown another head— not the weirdest thing she’d ever seen, actually, but the shock and vague nausea were the same, she figured.

Four months after her death, she’d reappear. Reborn. Renewed. Getting her second chance, even for a short time.

“People will know…?” She hedged. Lucifer shook his head.

“Your rules,” he began, and Sadie blew out a breath.

“Right.”

One golden claw pointed to the word Ohio. “You can’t go home. You can’t visit your old family or friends. I chose a place for you where nobody had connections or desires. You can visit anywhere else, but—” he wiggled his hand back and forth, and Sadie knew what he meant. The magic of the contract would prevent her from ending up somewhere that could compromise it.

“The usual rules apply, too. Don’t get famous in your own body. Try not to get involved with the government, no matter how small a capacity. No public displays of your powers.” That last one, she knew, was only for the age of technology, when people could record and prove what they’d seen.

“I know,” Sadie said, the closest she ever came to agreeing to his terms before she signed his contracts. “Is this how you treat all your kids?”

The jab was meant to be teasing. Or maybe she just wanted to feel special for a moment. She wasn’t sure, but Lucifer’s derisive snort certainly wasn’t one of the expected responses. “You lasted three centuries longer than Nikita before he begged to go home and play in his own timeline.”

Sadie snickered. “Everyone lasts longer than Nikita. Don’t tell him I said that.”

“He doesn’t have your practice or stamina.” Lucifer gave her an indulgent smile, and then waved his hand, his own signature appearing in a graceful scrawl at the bottom of the contract. “You’re all set up in Summerville. Single bedroom so you can sleep in whatever form you please, or not sleep at all. Child psychology major, Music and Opera double minor—”

“You’re actively trying to kill me,” Sadie muttered.

“Please,” Lucifer snarked, “your minors will be a breeze and you know it. You’ll have plenty of time to focus on your major between all your singing and songwriting.”

Sadie stuck her tongue out at him. “Alright, Mister don’t get famous.”

“A car will materialize if you need one, but it’s a very walkable little college town. You should be fine unless you want to venture beyond its limits.”

Sadie looked at her face one more time— her face, with her hazel eyes, half hidden behind sultry, thick lashes. Her hair, nearly black and down to her waist, was braided down either side in the picture. She could almost remember putting on that exact smoky, neutral-toned makeup, slipping the silver wing-shaped earrings in, adding the extra piercings into the cartilage of her right ear. The only indication of her usual goth-ish style was her blouse, high necked and long sleeved black lace over a modest black camisole. The very picture of a serious, professional college student.

“Deal,” she said, and her own pretty cursive appeared at the foot of the contract. The paper vanished, and she blew out a breath.

She was going back.