Lucifer Reborn by Dante King (ebook reader play store .txt) 📕

such a growl that Christina and Mareth took an unconscious step back. “This is an innocent woman we’re talking about. You’re going to tell me how she got out of my subspace, and who else might have been in there, or so help me…”

Doris cocked an eyebrow, as if she’d heard this all many times before. “You’ll what?”

Dark, leathery wings erupted from my back. This time the transformation was less painful,  as if I’d already gotten used to it. The shadow tendrils were back as well, floating to either side of me in thick tangles like an octopus’s arms. I slammed them down on either side of the desk, startling Doris into silence.

 “Holy shit, Luke,” Christina whispered, both intimidated and incredibly turned on by my display of force.

“There’s no need to hurt anybody,” Mareth added, jumping in. “I’m sure we can talk this over—”

“You’re going to help me,” I said to Doris, my voice distorted to inhuman proportions, “or you’re going to find out the kind of Hell an Archlord candidate can rain down. Now can you help me or not!?”

I expected her to sink to the ground, begging and pleading for mercy. I should have realized that bureaucrats are bureaucrats—and that petty tyrants aren’t any better in Hell than back on Earth.

“Don’t you make demands of me, young man,” Doris snorted, for all the world like I was some snot-nosed teenager instead of a powerful demon. “The process is the process, and everyone has to go through it whether they like it or not. I don’t care if you’re Lucifer himself—Hell has rules!”

My tendrils wrapped themselves around her desk, lifting it off the ground. The pile of complaint forms behind Doris tipped over, spraying all over the floor. The woman herself remained sitting, placidly looking up at me like I was just another in a long line of petty humiliations she’d had to endure.

“Alright, that’s enough,” Doris said, gesturing at a door set in the far wall. “If you want to make a scene, I’ll have you removed. Security!”

I hardly noticed the two demons approaching. Both of them were nearly as big and burly as Oni, dressed in identical black security uniforms with silver goat’s-head badges. Their muscles rippled underneath the fabric—clearly these guys hit the Academy gyms harder than most.

“Put the desk down, sir,” one of the demons said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “I’m going to have ask you to leave—”

No. Fuck that. I wasn’t leaving without answers. If that meant I had to break a few heads to find out where Maddie had been taken, well—Lucifer would forgive me, right? It’s the kind of thing he’d do?

That strange second sight welled up in me as the man’s fingers tightened on my shoulder. Damn right it’s what he’d do.

“Relax,” I told the demon, faking like I’d go along quietly. He relaxed a fraction—and that’s when I slugged him in the face. Even with my demonic strength, it was like trying to punch through a boulder. If I hadn’t caught him off-guard, it wouldn’t have worked, but I was lucky that way. He took a step backward, stumbling into the other demon and giving me space to work.

I dropped the desk, the tabletop cracking as it slammed back into the ground. Doris slid backward in her chair, smoothly scooting out of the way of the fight as I wrapped tendrils around the first demon and lifted him off his feet.

“You’re making a mistake!” the first demon gasped, my tendrils wrapping around his throat as he went upside-down into the air.

“That’s what college is all about,” I grunted, ducking beneath the second demon’s arms. “Oni, help me out. This is looking a little too much like a fair fight…”

The second demon recovered from his missed punch and lunged at me, pulling a pair of obsidian handcuffs from a pouch at his belt. Smoke poured from them, as if they were enchanted, and I shuddered to think what those cuffs would probably do to me. Turn off my magic, maybe, or something even worse.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to find out. Shock filled the demon’s face as his feet left the floor, hugged from behind by Oni. The hulking demon lifted the security guard into his arms like a child, squeezing until he dropped the handcuffs to the floor.

“He’s disabled, Master,” Oni rumbled, glancing from the man to the first demon who now hung completely cocooned in tendrils. “Would you like me to kill him?”

Before I could answer, the door to the Subspace Commission slammed open. Doris and the rest of us turned to see as Lilith strode into the office, her hands on her hips like a Queen surveying a city she’d just conquered. She’d changed out of the lush robes she wore back in the Pride School and into a stylish dress, but she still looked elegant and composed—less a priestess than a mature professional taking a night out on the town. Her heels clicked against the hardwood floor as she sashayed across the office, in a crazy rhythm that made me think she had to be walking funny. It took a moment to realize her tail was tapping right along with her heels, almost mischievous.

She took one look at the two restrained demons and sighed.

“My oh my, doesn’t this just look like a lawsuit waiting to happen,” she growled, putting her chin in one of her palms. “Do me a favor and put my employees down, Luke. You’ve had more than enough fun with them.”

I almost didn’t. Releasing the demonic anger coursing through my veins was harder than I expected. It felt weak, almost like giving up. If Lilith hadn’t been so inhumanly beautiful, hadn’t been looking at me like my strength both intimidated and aroused her, I might not have been able to let it go.

Finally, the tendrils retracted. I