Page 72 of Fear No Hell

Calliope

The first thing I notice when we step into Pandaimonium is all of the colors.

So much color it sends me reeling. If I had ever thought about what the world of daimons looked like, I would have guessed it would be monotonous.

Lots of greys and blacks and whites. What I see instead is every color of the rainbow and more besides.

A glittering, iridescent, pink-hued sky with a radiant scarlet sun.

Pastel buildings lit in different hues of neon.

People—daimons, I guess—of different shapes, sizes, and colors racing back and forth in the streets. Some floating, some walking.

The second thing I notice is the pain. A deep, pulsing pain in my head that has me collapsing to the ground, my face buried in my hands as I try not to scream.

I guess I’m successful since the only sound that does escape me is a pathetic whimper.

I shove my fingers into my hair, hoping the tugging sensation will offset the agony radiating from my temples.

Hands settle on my shoulders. I go rigid before realizing it’s Sam’s touch.

Through the miasma filling my brain comes his straight-forward bedside voice, completely at odds with the panic and rage I feel pulsing through the bond.

I can’t read his mind, not quite, but I know the rage isn’t directed at me.

I gasp as another torturous pulse spears through my head. For the second time tonight, tears roll down my cheeks.

Anxiety radiates from Sam, so intense I would feel it even without the connection between us.

“Lila, can you hear me?”

I nod. The movement seems to shake something loose, and, miraculously, the pain begins to ebb.

I breathe in deep. Exhale. Lift my head to look at Sam, who has me half in his lap. “I’m okay.”

“What happened, sweetness?” Sam’s hand is buried in my hair as he looks me over with obsidian eyes that somehow manage to convey every emotion he has as intensely as his hazel ones do.

“I don’t-I don’t know. I was fine and then just overwhelming pain. Right in my temples.”

“Are you still feeling it?”

“No, it’s gone now.” In its place is an odd tingle that makes it feel like my flesh is crawling.

I raise my hand to my left temple and run it up, into my hair where the worst of the irritation is, and gasp as the skin underneath flakes away in my hand.

“What the fuck—" More skin crumbles away as the tingle turns into an itch.

Sam gapes at me.

“Sam, I can’t see my own face. What is going on, and why are you looking at me like that?”

“You-uh-well, shit, you have horns, sweetness.”

“I have what!” I don’t know why that’s what's throwing me about this whole thing. Not me being the goddess of daimons, not Sam being one of the seven daimon kings of Pandaimonium, not the bonding. Apparently, horns are where I draw the line.

“Ah, I was wondering if that would happen.” Lucifer kneels next to Sam, an unexpectedly respectful distance away from where I’m reclined in his lap.

“I’m sorry,” I bite out. “Did you know I would end up with horns?”

“Know? No, I didn’t know. Suspect?” He bobs his head up and down.

“Yeah, I definitely suspected. The original Lilith—my late wife—had stunning horns after her dismissal from Eden. Her successor did as well. As the third of the title, I assumed you would too. Guess Pandaimonium was waiting for you to get here to bestow them upon you.”

“Did you say your late wife?” Sam exclaims before I can ask about my new horns.

“Umhmm. I may not actually be the devil, but the whole Adam’s first wife, Lilith, defecting from Eden and taking up with me is very true.” Sadness flickers over Lucifer’s face. “She died several thousand years ago.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I say, only partially paying attention to his response as I run my hand up along my temple until I hit the base of what is undoubtedly a horn cocooned in my hair.

Its base is thick and ridged where it meets my flesh before curving up and back along my scalp until it ends in a sharp, thin point.

“Huh.” I do the same thing with the horn on the other side.

Sam’s stretches out a hand toward my head. Drops it back to his side. “Can I touch?” he asks shyly, a gleam in his eye that wasn’t there before.

“Of course.” His fingertip comes up to work its way from the base to the tip.

I can’t feel it as a touch like some of the erotica says.

It's more like a weight that has the distinct heft of a finger. “You’re not-you’re not weirded out by this?

I’m kind of alarmed by it, and I’ve been around magic all my life. ”

“Fuck no, I’m not weirded out by it.” He rolls his finger over the sharp tip. “Honestly, it’s kind of hot.” As if he couldn’t get any more perfect, he nuzzles his cheek along the side of the horn closest to him before pressing a kiss to it. “No problems here, sweetness.”

“You two are annoyingly sweet,” Lucifer snarks. “I don’t know how I’m going to handle spending any time around you at all.”

“You could just not,” Sam snips. “Y’know, stay away from us.”

“Nah, I don’t think I’m going to do that.

I want to get to know my only kid. I didn’t find out about you until you were 10 or so, and, even then, I asked your mother to keep it a secret.

It’s hard enough to be a demi-god. Worse so if you have no powers, and my enemies are still gunning for you.

With you coming into your own now, it’s finally safe for me to know you.

” Absurd though the words may be, they ring true.

"Plus, with our resident dark goddess here, and your own legions to lead, you're going to want me around for guidance.

I've been doing this for a long time, kid. "

With a sigh, Sam pushes himself to stand, only to come crashing down next to me. I reach for him, horns forgotten as I run my hands up his legs, frowning in confusion at where his prosthetic has fallen away.

Lucifer points at Sam’s right leg. “What happened there?”

“What the fuck, man? You know I lost my lower leg when I was a kid.” Sam glowers at his father.

“Nah, kid, you misunderstand.” Lucifer rests his hand on Sam’s shoulder. “I’m wondering why it’s not connected to your leg anymore. It’s supposed to do that, right?”

“Oh yeah, I dunno what’s up with that. The minute we got here it just kind of…

stopped working. Apparently, now it doesn’t want to work at all.

It does have some electronic elements. ” His voice drops to a murmur, the way it does when he’s thinking through a problem.

“Wonder if the microprocessors don’t work here?

Not sure why it would have fallen off if those stopped working.

Might have to get a fully mechanical one if we plan to stay here for any length of time. ”

From far away, an explosion shakes the ground we’re sitting on at the same time Lucifer bursts into laughter. His arms circle his waist tightly as he hoots and hollers, laughing uncontrollably until, without warning, his humor dies out, and he’s left swiping tears of mirth from his face.

“Something funny?” Sam asks drily.

“You’re a king of Pandaimonium.” Lucifer says it like it means something more than what he’s already told us.

“So I’ve been told.”

“You have many powers.”

Sam waves his hand in a “go on” move.

“You’re not seeing where I’m going with this?”

“Well.” Sam pauses. “It sounds like you’re telling me I need to fix my leg, which may be one of the shittiest, most ableist things I’ve ever heard.

But I’m going to give you a chance to explain before I go on a rampage about why there’s nothing wrong with me, and I’m not broken because I’m an amputee.

” The darkness in his vein thrums; his wings flutter behind us.

Lucifer’s scoff is the stuff of legends.

“No, I’m not trying to undo all of the therapy you undoubtedly went through to figure out who you were after you lost your leg.

You are perfect just the way you are, my boy.

Not to mention, you don’t have the power to re-grow flesh and bone and sinew like that—”

“Imagine how much we could help people if I could, though,” Sam interrupts excitedly, seemingly forgetting his irritation at the thought of that magic being used on him. “It would be a whole new world of medicine—"

“Be that as it may.” Lucifer snaps his fingers to get Sam's attention.

“That is not one of your abilities. Given your heritage, you do, however, have power over darkness and shadows. Which means you can easily replace your human-made prosthesis for something a little less, shall we say, clunky and a lot more functional.”

“I can—” Sam lifts his hand and stares at the darkness gathered at his fingertips. “You’re saying I can make a shadow prosthesis?”

“That’s correct. No microprocessors or electronics. Just shadows solidifying to come to your aid.”

Looking a little bit like a kid in a candy shop at the prospect of medical developments, Sam asks, “Can you show me how?”

Lucifer chuckles, but there’s something in his eyes that tells me exactly how excited he is to be a part of Sam’s life. “It will take a little practice—a very little, I’m assuming, given your wings—but I’m happy to help you get there.”

“Speaking of the wings—” I interrupt.

“And the other physical changes,” Sam adds.

“And the other physical changes,” I amend before continuing.

“How do we deal with them in the human world? I’m assuming there’s some way to help us go by unnoticed?

” If the silver fox in front of me is any indication, there has to be some way for us to appear as we were before Pandaimonium and deity bloodlines worked their magic.

“Oh, sure, yeah, that’s easy. Only some minor spellcasting. It’ll disguise the more daimonic elements of you for when you walk among the humans. All you have to do is envision the you from before, and you’ll be good to go.”

A petite, red-skinned woman in a skirt suit appears in a flash of smoke next to him. “Your lordship,” she chirps somehow managing to sound both upbeat and irritated. “You’re late for your meeting with the new Hades and Persephone.”

“Ah, thank you, Dora, I didn’t realize that much time had passed. I’ll be right with you.”

She stays put.

“I won’t lose track of time.”

She doesn’t move except for the whip-like crack of a thin tail behind her.

“Pandora, I am tens of thousands of years old. I think I can handle something as uncomplicated as a meeting with the fresh-faced lieges of the Underworld.”

“And yet, I have centuries worth of evidence to the contrary.” Pandora smiles at us, her eyes sliding away without recognition before she double takes, her gaze lighting on my horns. “Are you—”

“Yeah, you’re going to get that a lot.” Lucifer rubs at his forehead before flinging out a hand carelessly.

A portal appears suddenly in the same place as the one that vanished when we arrived, accompanied by a roaring sound.

“Why don’t you head back home, and I’ll join you there once I’m done? Have a getting to know you dinner?”

We can only nod in response to the request.

“Excellent.” His gaze darts away quickly as he adds, “Maybe Michelle can come too?”

Sam snorts. “Sure, yeah, I’ll get right on setting up my mother with the god of Hell.”

“Pandaimonium. Get it right, kid; as Lilith’s bonded consort and one of the seven kings, you're the god of all of its inhabitants and the ruler of some of them.” When Lucifer notices Pandora still staring at us, he sighs. “Get lost, you two, before this one asks you to autograph something.”

With only some mild grumpiness from Sam at having to let me out of his arms, I manage to get us both standing, his prosthesis in hand, and through the portal. It slams shut behind us, leaving us in our same gruesome basement we left earlier.

It looks exactly the same. The lake of blood and viscera remains, the imprints of our tangled, rolling bodies clearly visible.

Arthur’s body parts—apparently, I tore out both of his eyeballs too, not that I remember doing it—are strewn across the floor.

Sam’s makeshift operating table is still set up, the scalpel askew from Lucifer picking it up and dropping it. Nothing has changed since we left.

We’re completely different, though.

“It doesn’t feel real, does it?” I don’t mean for my question to sound as shaky as it does.

“Not really.” Sam perches on the table, situating the socket of his prosthesis back against his leg and rolling the sleeve up over his sock and liner.

Once he has everything in place, he tests his weight against it, chortling when the microprocessors appear to be working correctly.

“But it also does. It feels weirdly right for this to be our journey.”

“Oh?” I rest my hands against his chest and peer up at him. “Do tell.”

“We spent all of our lives searching for home and belonging.” Clasping one of my hands in his, he wraps his free arm around my waist to drag me in close. “For me, nothing in this world felt right. Except for you.”

“It didn’t feel right for me, either.” I nuzzle into him. Even with the metallic tang of blood in the air and the corpse dangling in the corner, I feel safer, more myself, right here with him than I ever did among the trees of Mount Helikon.

“So us finding our way together through, like, one in a million odds and apparently being daimonic royalty? Feels weird and right, y’know?”

I tilt my head back, so I don’t accidentally stab him in the eye with my new horns and graze my lips over his.

He sighs into the kiss, his grip on my hand tightening, sending tiny shivers radiating down my arms. His shadowy wings close around me creating a cocoon that smells like Sam. Like home.

Ensconced in his darkness like this, feeling his heartbeat under my cheek, I know no one will ever hurt me again. Not just because I’m stronger and infinitely more powerful than I was when Arthur took me all those years ago. But because I’m not alone anymore.

I’m safe.

I’m loved.

I’m free.

I am Lilith.