The Dark Lord's Vessel

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

The whole universe is summed up

In the Human Being. The Devil is not a monster

Waiting to trap us, He is a voice inside.

Look for the Devil in yourself,

Not in others. Don’t forget the one

Who knows his Devil, also knows his God.

.

― Shams Tabrizi

.

LUCIFER

Lucifer's lover panted beneath his fingertips, his chest heaving as a small, strangled cry escaped his throat. A cold sheen of sweat glistened on his swarthy complexion, so pale from blood loss that his skin was nearly as pale as his was.

"Shhh…" He touched Jamin's raven-black hair. "You are safe, mo ghrá. Moloch cannot touch you."

Disjointed images leaped into his mind as his maité saol battled an enemy who could not take physical form. For five days now the Evil One had tormented Jamin in his sleep, and all he could do was sit uselessly by, for how do you fight an elder god?

Jamin bolted upright, but Lucifer was ready for it this time and pinned him beneath a snow white wing. The first time it had happened, he'd pulled Lucifer's pulse rifle right out of its holster and shot at his own reflection in the mirror.

"It's not real," Lucifer said. "It's just another nightmare."

Dislodged feathers floated around the room as Jamin clawed at his wings, unable to tell the difference between him and the meat-puppet Moloch tormented him with in his dreams. Lucifer yelped as his lover nearly catapulted him off the bed. He flapped his wings for leverage and pinned Jamin's hands together.

"Stop! It isn't real!"

Jamin's eyes shot open, impossibly black; filled with power, and possessing no white whatsoever.

"Let me go!"

Lucifer gasped as a terrifying emptiness punched into his mind. It studied him, scrutinized him, took the measure of his soul. Whatever had happened to him in the Dreamtime, it had awoken some kind of powerful, latent gift.

"Please," Lucifer choked out. "You'll split your stitches open again."

Jamin's breath came in quick, panicked gasps as finally he recognized it was him; the real him, and not just his body. His face twisted into an expression of anguish.

"He is coming for me! And when he does, he will punish you to make me suffer."

Lucifer cradled his lover against his chest. Jamin melted into him, sweaty, exhausted and weak. Shame filled his black eyes as he stiffened and looked away.

'Kadesh…'

Lucifer felt the word as clearly as if it had been spoken aloud. Kadesh. A man who lay down with other men. But it was not him Jamin rejected, but his own shame.

"You should have let me pass into the Dreamtime," Jamin said. "Now I have to live with everything I've done."

"Never."

He laid his lover gently back down into the bed which, unlike the crewman's bunks, was a real bed, with satin sheets and luxurious down-filled pillows. He checked Jamin's bandages to make sure he hadn't popped any stitches in the tussle. They'd had to rush him back into surgery, twice, because he'd battled the phantasm so violently in his dreams.

Jamin turned his face away and stared at his own reflection in the shattered mirror behind the bar. Lucifer tried to probe his lover's mind, but Jamin blocked it with a whispered, 'leave me alone.' The same gift which had prevented Moloch from comprehending his true nature as an Agent of Ki also prevented Lucifer from using his ability to see.

'You couldn't see into the b***h's mind, either… You thought she loved you. And then she ripped your heart out…'

The old insecurity clenched his gut, but ever since he'd met Jamin, the fear felt discordant, a musical instrument that had been played so many times the strings had worn thin and every note sounded frayed.

"Piss off," Lucifer hissed at the phantasm. "Now that I know what you are, never again will you possess my mind."

Moloch laughed at him. His bond with Jamin enabled him to recognize the voice did not originate within himself, but it had not stopped Moloch from whispering temptations. The Evil One's machinations were insidious, not because he outright lied, but because what he whispered always contained a terrible kernel of truth.

'You know you have to know…'

"Shut up!" Lucifer pressed his hands against his ears, trying to will the voice out of his head. Which was worse? Thinking you were crazy? Or realizing you'd just spent most of your life possessed and the demon wanted back in?

He took a deep breath and focused on his inner heartbeat, on the feel of his lover's warm skin, focused on what was real. What was real? From the moment of his birth, everything had been a lie.

He looked at his lover, so unresponsive, so very far away. The voice receded, watching, laughing. Yes. He needed to know. Even though he feared it might feed into the Evil One's plan.

"Do you miss him?" Lucifer's voice warbled. "Do you miss that thing?"

Jamin closed his eyes and took a breath.

"Yes. Between his bouts of fury, he pleads for my return."

"Does he tempt you?"

"Yes."

Lucifer's feathers trembled. "Then why did you choose me over him?"

Jamin sighed, and when he opened his eyes this time they were a mortal brown-black, set within a frame of lush, black eyelashes. He was a beautiful, wild man, built for hunting and combat, but there was a vulnerability to those dark eyes that made Lucifer want to wrap him in his wings.

"Moloch views me as a prize." He touched Lucifer's face with a calloused hand. "But when you look at me, I feel as though I am the most precious gift in the world."

Lucifer's feathers rustled as a pleasant tingle spread to the wounds he'd let Ninsianna bind up as pennance for his sins. Agape. That was the emotion Moloch could never fake. An emotion which was real. It was a powerful spark of light he could use to fight the Evil One's lies.

A long, comfortable silence stretched between them, interrupted only by a faint announcement made out in the hallway that the Prince of Tyre was still under full radio silence. Beneath their feet, the subspace engines gave a reassuring hum as they orbited a dwarf planet hidden in the Sol system's asteroid belt.

"What does he say?" Lucifer asked. "When he whispers to you in your dreams?"

Jamin grimaced.

"The usual rhetoric of a jilted lover." Jamin rolled his dark eyes. "He wants to hurt me. He wants to make me suffer by hurting the people I love. But if I return, he will give to me my world."

Jealousy rippled through Lucifer's pinfeathers.

"-I- will give you Earth!."

A small light of laughter brightened Jamin's worried black eyes. "I will conquer my own world, thank you!" He tried to sit up and turned ghastly pale. "As soon as I convince my guts to stay inside of my body."

Lucifer touched the elastic support brace Doctor Halpas had wrapped around the wound where the old woman's spear had torn his gut open from sternum to pelvis.

"That's a grandiose scheme for a man who grew up without running water."

Jamin gave him a rueful grin.

"I've spent the last three seasons consorting with the lizards. I've learned a few things, including how to use your machines."

He gripped Lucifer's hand, not a lover's touch, but gratitude. A feeling of warmth settled into Lucifer's chest as he inhaled Jamin's musky scent. He wasn't quite certain how he'd ended up with another man as his maité saol, but it felt as though he stared into a mirror.

"What about Ninsianna?" Lucifer asked. "Eligor promised I would let her go."

"You're just trying to get rid of her."

"Yes."

Jamin's brown eyes crinkled with amusement. "You are jealous?"

Lucifer paused. "Yes," he said softly.

Jamin stared past him, but this time he did not compartmentalize his emotions. "You have to keep her."

"Why?"

"You must not let Moloch get his hands on Mikhail's son."

A ripple of fear cascaded into Lucifer's gut. The Emperor's Seraphim attack dog was a Cherubim-trained Special Forces soldier. On the surface, the man appeared cold and icy, but his gift had always warned there was something dark and primordial trying to claw its way out, like an undetonated planet-killer just waiting for some hapless traveler to trip the ignition sequence. The Colonel terrified him. And now he'd gone and pissed the man off by stealing his wife!

How in Hades had such an emotionless prick ended up with a manipulative beauty like the Chosen of She-who-is?

"Let her husband protect her!" He pinched the bridge of his nose. "The sooner Ninsianna is off my ship, the better."

"You can't," Jamin said. "He failed to protect her."

"Shahla tricked her."

"Mikhail never should have left his wife alone!" Jamin's dark eyes bored into his. He was angry at him. He was angry at him for what Moloch had done while using his body as a tool.

"Mikhail won't let it happen twice." Lucifer gave him a wry smile. "The man's a fool for duty. If the Emperor orders him to rid Earth of its fleas, he won't rest until every flea is smote!"

"That's what frightens me." Jamin's expression turned pensive. "If this Emperor of yours orders him away, can you guarantee he won't abandon her?"

"No. The Colonel always does whatever the Emperor asks."

He stared at his own white wings reflected in the shattered mirror behind the bar; the wings the Emperor had given to his species, the wings the Emperor had burned off. They were the wings Moloch had restored. Given them back to him. Healed. The jagged shards of glass reflected back his own eerie silver eyes. They were the eyes he'd inherited from his father ... his real father, the one who'd been obsessed with retro-engineering humans.

A cold sensation rippled through his white feathers. Would his adopted father blow up Earth to be rid of this entire problem? The same way he'd blown up Tyre to get rid of his real father, Shemijaza?

"What did Moloch show you?" Lucifer asked. "When he..."

His voice trailed off. What did he show you when he thought he'd made you -his-?

Jamin fumbled for the small, black box he'd asked Eligor to retrieve from his bloody clothing. It was ringed by unreadable platinum symbols and a beautiful eleven-pointed star in the center of the lid. Lucifer grabbed it off the nightstand and placed it into Jamin's hands.

"The key," Jamin mumbled sleepily. "It has something to do with my mother's key." His long, black eyelashes fluttered downward, still too weak from his injuries to stay awake for more than a few moments at a time. His muscular chest rose and fell in a peaceful sleep that would only last until Moloch sent the next nightmare.

Lucifer sighed. The last thing he needed was Jamin's unfaithful former fiance on his ship. The moment Mikhail retrieved her, he'd go running to tell the Emperor where they were. He had to keep the Colonel planet-bound!

A soft, but insistent, knock tapped upon the reinforced titanium door. Only one man would knock, rather than simply hail him. With a reluctant sigh, he untangled himself from his lover's arms and settled into the chair next to his bed.

"Enter," Lucifer called.

Newly-promoted Chief of Special Services Eligor stepped inside the hatchway which had been engineered to withstand a pulse rifle, explosive decompression, and at least six hours of an enemy plasma cutter. He was tall for an Angelic, with sandy blonde hair, blue eyes and a muscular physique which betrayed a bit of Seraphim ancestry despite his pale, white plumage. While the man did his best to carry himself with the gravitas of his new position, Eligor still wore the rough edges of a mercenary.

"Sir? I have a bit of news."

"Any contact with Abaddon's fleet?" Lucifer asked.

Eligor's left wing dropped out of the respectful dress wings pose. "No word yet from Lerajie, Sir. Nor do I expect any. He's not stupid enough to break radio silence."

Lucifer tapped his finger against his lip. "What of these smuggler networks you spoke of?"

Eligor crossed his arms.

"I wouldn't trust any of them further than I could carry them on a heavy-G planet, Sir," Eligor said. "Earth is far removed from even the remotest outpost, so it's going to take weeks to even find a beacon."

A small flutter of fear trembled in Lucifer's gut. While the Prince of Tyre had an impressive weapons array, it was not a warship. It was why he'd ordered them to retreat to the asteroid belt rather than take on the SRN Jamaran. He needed The Destoyer to fight this battle for him.

"What of Shay'tan's armada? How long before it gets here?"

"Captain Marbas calculated we F-jumped 2.3 million light years from the Monoceros Ring to here, but we still haven't figured out how Zepar was able to do it. If Shay'tan had that capability, he'd already be here, so our best guesstimate is they're traveling down through the outer remnants of the spiral arm."

Lucifer calculated the stellar distance. While he didn't remember the rendevous with the armada, Eligor did, and so did his entire crew. One hundred ships, some of them naval carriers, but most were smaller vessels, cargo ships carrying supplies, and mercenary ships, including Tokoloshe dreadnoughts and four ships captained by the Nephilim. Lucifer tapped his finger on his lip. An armada was only as fast as it's slowest ship. To secure a remote planet such as Earth, the naval carriers would not risk outpacing their supply ships. At ordinary FTL speed, Shay'tan's armada was about six, possibly seven weeks away.

"Will this solar system's asteroid belt be adequate to hide us?"

"Not with that much firepower, Sir. If they come looking for us, there's no way we'll be able to hide."

Lucifer stared mournfully at his ruined wet-bar. Usually, at times like this, he took a quick bracer to help him think, but after Jamin shot it up, Eligor had taken the remaining bottles and dumped them down the drain.

Bah! What he wouldn't do right now for a shot of Mantoid liquor!

He lurched to his feet and paced, glancing, occasionally, at his lover asleep in the bed. He wanted to consult with Jamin before he made any decisions. When Moloch thought he'd made Jamin his, the self-proclaimed One True God had given him a glimpse of his plans.

"What is Captain Marbas' recommendation?" he asked tightly.

"We circumvented Brigadier-General Raphael's fleet halfway up the spiral arm." Eligor shifted his feet. "If we send out a distress beacon, they could be here two weeks ahead of the armada."

A feeling of rage clenched at Lucifer's gut. His wings still ached with the memory of what it had felt like when his so-called father had burned them off! Talk about knowing what was real!

"The b***h's lover will rat us out to Emperor!"

"Yes, Sir." From Eligor's stony expression, he didn't want former Supreme Commander-General Jophiel involved any more than he did. The last thing they needed was the Emperor to execute them all for treason to keep the fact he was still alive hushed up.

"Thank you," Lucifer waved his hand. "Let me know the moment we make contact with General Abaddon."

Eligor hesitated. "Sir? About the news?"

"News?" Lucifer looked up with surprise. "I thought you were here to brief me?"

"No, Sir." Eligor's gaze drifted over to Jamin, still pale and weak from his brush with death. "I wouldn't, uh, disturb your friend unless there had been some change."

"Than what is it?"

For the first time in the 210 years he had known the man, Eligor broke out into a grin.

"Your first wife, Tinashe, Sir? She's just gone into labor."