Hell's Revelation (Book 3)

Chapter 14

We laid Jesse in one of the empty bedrooms to sleep off his bang on the head. I was at first surprised that he'd stayed unconscious all the way back, but I suspect that Frank might have 'accidentally' knocked his head against a few walls along the way as there were certainly a few new grazes and abrasions that certainly hadn't been caused by my attack with the book.

"He's not going to be in the best of moods when he wakes up, love," Frank growled as we left the dark room and headed back to the main communal area.

He was already looking better, the rakes and cuts caused by the Fury's claws had stopped bleeding and were gradually knitting themselves back together again, and any lingering effect of their infection was dying away in all of us. For the first time since my return I actually felt exhausted.

"Well he can lump it, it's not like he gave us any other choice. We're just going to have to figure out a way to convince him he's better off here, or he's going to be a royal pain in the arse and we're never going to get anywhere."

"Any plans?"

"I was hoping you'd have an idea."

Frank chuckled as we emerged into the dim light of the main chamber to find Lucas pouring over the many documents and files yet again. I wasn't sure we could go through those things any more thoroughly, but he still seemed convinced that we could draw something more from them if only we looked harder. The problem, as with every other prophecy that is made, the details are sketchy, a possibility foreseen by the soothsayers. They lack detail and finesse, and there has to be plenty of wiggle room to factor in free will and all that jazz. We could go over all the documents a hundred times and it still wouldn't tell us anything we hadn't already discovered.

We were the product of this prophecy, we knew what we were destined to do, how we actually went about it though was ultimately up to us. I thought it was high time we stopped trying to learn more about ourselves – at least when it came to what there was we could learn from the files – and start digging up more on Malick and Lucifer's individual plans. Stopping them was the ultimate goal, we had to start somewhere.

"Here." I tossed Lucas the papers that I'd scooped up from Malick's floor. "I grabbed these off that smashed table, perhaps there's something that'll help us figure out what Malick's next move will be."

"Oh thank you. Why is it that I am suddenly the research monkey?" He unfolded the papers even as he complained, as if he could not resist looking them over.

"Well you are the one always looking for hidden meaning in those files you've read at least a hundred times. I thought you'd appreciate something new to take a gander at for a change."

"To be honest, love, I don't think even Malick will know what his next move is yet." Frank stated simply as he went to lean, nonchalantly against the back wall. As physically large and imposing as the Inquisitors must have been to fill this space, his tall and awkward form could not fit comfortably into one of the large, carved stone chairs.

"What do you mean? We know what he's ultimately planning, we just need to figure out what he plans to do next so that we can stop him. Once he's out of the way we can focus on figuring out how to deal with Lucifer. Malick is just an annoyance, we need to get rid of him so that we can actually concentrate on what's important here."

"And there, love, is exactly where your problem lies. You're so focussed on trying to do away with that weasley old cleric when he's not the real threat here. Look, Lucifer is our biggest problem right?"

"Well obviously, which is why we should get rid of Malick first, make sure we don't have any more distractions while we're trying to get this whole Revelation thing right."

"No, love, it means that he's the most important, the one we should be focussing our time and energy on trying to stop."

I blinked at Frank, not understanding where he was trying to go with this. Yes indeed I agreed that Lucifer deserved the most of our time and attention, his was the biggest threat to everyone, if he was allowed to seize total control of Hell, the wealth of all those human souls in his hands alone? There would be no stopping him. He'd already devised plans over the centuries to increase his quota of souls, slyly siphoning them off from around the edges of humanity even when it wasn't their time, and he'd been getting away with it, he would get away with more if given the opportunity. And if he managed to pull off this coup he intended on, well then there wouldn't be anyone left to oppose him.

"Isn't that exactly what I've been saying too?"

"No, Rayne, he means that we need to focus everything on figuring out how to stop Lucifer. How to bring about the Revelation that was prophecised. And we have to forget about Malick for the time being to do that."

Frank looked surprised that Lucas had actually agreed with him about something, I on the other hand was incredulous that they would even suggest forgetting about Malick. If anything he'd been the one causing us all the problems.

He'd been Lucifer's right hand all the time, instrumental in his creation of the entire Hybrid race which had been the first step in the grand plan. We began to tip the power in Lucifer's favour as we stole souls and ruined lives – leaving yet more souls that most certainly were not bound for damnation susceptible to fall into Lucifer's greedy hands. Malick knew how everything worked, hell he'd done most of the dirty work himself, of course it was vital that we stop him.

"I'm sorry I don't understand how you two can be thinking like this. You know what he is, what he's been doing. How much he's helped Lucifer with everything."

"Exactly. Malick isn't big on original ideas, he'd never have considered any of this if Lucifer hadn't planted the idea in his head first. He has no idea what to do next, so he's going to wait and see what Lucifer does first before he acts on anything. If he can he'll let Lucifer succeed as far as possible with his own plan, only to usurp him at the last possible moment.

"He's a coward at heart, he'll want to avoid as much confrontation as possible, so he'll continue to play his part in Lucifer's plan. Only when he's sure of success will he make any kind of move of his own. If we want to bring about this Revelation we need to stop Lucifer. We stop him we stop them both."

He made a good point, even though I was loath to admit it. "And I was so looking forward to torturing him," I said with a sigh of disappointment.

"You'll probably still get a chance to do that. Having stolen Jesse out from under his nose is a good start."

I smiled then. The thought did make me feel a little better, and there was certainly no time to waste feeling bitter about lost opportunities. If we could stop Lucifer then we could indeed stop Malick at the same time. He had neither the power nor the influence to get there on his own, and the Revelation should stop them all and overturn everything. A brand new, fresh start in Hell, could such a thing really happen? Things had worked the same way for millennia, but I had a feeling that Lucifer might not be the only one craving change, lusting after power. Sometimes change was good, and after all, we were in the 21st century now, a shake up might just be what everyone needed.

"Well okay then, so how do we put a stop to Lucifer."

"And how do we stop Jesse from running back to Malick the first chance he gets?" Lucas added.

As usual we both turned to Frank to be the voice of reason. I could see why the Revelator was never intended to work alone, if left to my own devices I would never have managed to think any of this through rationally or logically. I'd seen it for myself, each point of the Triangle had a different voice, had a different opinion to add, and more often than not we would look to Frank to be the deciding factor. It was a nicely oiled machine, or at least it should be just as soon as we could count on Jesse to be the human aspect once again. I allowed myself to be hopeful for what we might be able to achieve, just as long as we could clamber over this next hurdle without too much trouble.

"You two would really be lost without me wouldn't you?" Frank grinned as he shook his head, he might comment on it or complain about it, but we knew he loved the attention. He liked to be right more than anything. "Obviously the key to both of those things lies in figuring out how you can get control of that fancy new mind reading, truth revealing power of yours, Love."