Heir of Night (The Thorne Hill)

Hah. Who am kidding? The fucking Horsemen of the Apocalypse escaped their cage and are roaming around earth. All I know about the Horsemen is from movies. They’re not mentioned at all at the Academy, because even for us, they didn’t seem real.

But holy shit, they are.

Slowly, I take my feet off the demon footstool and get up, one hand on my stomach. Elena is moving around, happy as can be and totally unaware of the situation we’re in. My eyes start to get a little misty—damn you, hormones—at the thought of how innocent she is and how I will do anything to keep her that way for as long as possible. The world is a cruel place, even without Heaven and Hell wanting you dead. I refuse to let Elena grow up how I did, cast away and unloved. Feared and made to think there was something wrong with me.

“How do you kill the Horsemen?” I ask, calmed by the thought of murder. I’m so emotionally balanced, I know.

“They’re ancient and not easily killed,” Lucifer tells me. “But everything can die.” He grabs a bottle and two glasses.

“I can’t drink, remember?” I move away from the throne and come down the stairs, walking to the circle of hellfire. I can summon it, hold it in my hand without getting burned. Can I walk through it like Lucifer did too? I don’t want my clothes to catch on fire and burn up, leaving me awkwardly naked in the throne room of Hell.

“Oh, right, your loss. This cognac is exquisitely aged. There’s nothing like it in the world.”

“I don’t even know what that is.” Pausing, I look around the throne room. It’s big and grand, but empty. There’s nothing personal or homey, not that I expected a Hell, sweet Hell sign hanging on the wall somewhere. It’s dark and oppressive down here, yet the crackling hellfire is oddly comforting.

Turning, I look back at the throne and feel the urge to march my pregnant ass back up the stairs and take a seat. I long to feel the crown of hellfire burning around my head again, and a part of me wants the demons to quiver with fear before me the same way they did when Lucifer appeared.

Fuck, I need to get out of here. I’m not the Queen of Hell, and I don’t want to be. I want to go home, back to my baby shower, and mostly back to the man I love more than life itself. Though the look on Scott’s face would be priceless if he were to see me as the new devil. He always said I was one, anyway. I really should have neutered him when he was a cat.

“The Horsemen,” I start again. “They were down here before you?”

“Right, kiddo.” Lucifer downs half a glass of whatever he just poured.

“Why didn’t you kill them back then?” I hold out my hand, sticking my fingers right into the hellfire. It doesn’t burn me or hurt, yet I know it’s hot. It’s fucking weird, and I can’t think about it too much or I’ll get a headache.

“That is a good question,” Julian echoes, coming over by me.

Lucifer refills his glass and takes a big sip. “I thought I could use them,” he says after a moment of hesitation. “They’re a nasty, annoying clique of doomsdayers who can bring death and destruction in ways I couldn’t even imagine.” He takes another drink.

“Use them how?” Julian’s brows furrow.

“I was hurt.” Lucifer sets his glass back on the shelf. “Hurt and angry. I’d just been cast out of the only home I’d ever known. My own father didn’t think I was worthy. I wanted revenge, and back then, I was going to get it by any means necessary. What better way to get back at my father than to destroy the world he loves so much?”

Lucifer’s words send a chill through me. “But you didn’t,” I say softly.

“No, I didn’t.” Lucifer smooths out his suit jacket. He’s always well dressed, making me wonder if needing to look pristine at all times is his way of exerting control over one aspect of his life. “Instead, I caged the Horsemen, which in turn will make me a target on their path of destruction.”

“Okay,” I say, wishing I had a notebook so I could jot down a few more bullets on my oh shit list. “We need to get them back to Hell and then re-trap them. Or just kill them.”

“It’s not going to be that easy,” Lucifer says again. “When I caged them, they’d been banished to Hell for centuries. They were weak. Now…now they have a way to gather strength.”

“So let’s get the hell out of Hell,” I say with a snort of laughter. No one else appreciates my joke.

Lucifer waves his hand, and the demon Renniken bursts into flames. My eyes widen, watching the demon scream in pain for a few seconds before collapsing into a pile of ash.