Lucifer's Gift

Chapter Two

LUCIFER'S POV (yay)

I sighed, sinking into my desk chair with relief, and massaging my temples to dispel the headache that was slowly developing. I had had a pretty shitty day, one that had stretched on for an ungodly amount of time. I was drained from work, and if I had to make a list of all the possible things that could have gone wrong today, I would have been able to check every one off.

I'd been having a lot of those kinds of days lately. Work in Hell was beginning to wear on me, and the darkness was eating away at the edges of my inner light with every day that passed. Managing eternal damnation wasn't the easiest task, and most of the time, I took no joy in it. The only happiness I gleaned from my life was the justice I enacted upon the souls that were sent to me by God.

I not only ruled Hell; I governed Purgatory. Each and every soul that died went there first for judgement. If they had been more evil than good, they would be sent to Hell, and vice versa. But if they had been neither one or the other, not extraordinary in any way, they would simply stay to roam in Purgatory.

Since I took my job very seriously, I evaluated each and every single soul that entered Purgatory personally. Though I had many close advisers and high-ranking staff that could take the brunt of the work, I did it all. Part of it was that I wanted to do my best with the task that God had assigned me; but the bigger reason, if I were to admit it, was that I had nothing else to do.

I put on a strong front. My armor appeared flawless; no chinks or gaps to stab through. To the other angels, I was perfect, unstoppable, and, just fine as I was.

That was just a front. An illusion. I was not perfect nor emotionless as I seemed. That was, in fact, directly linked to the reason I had been having a rough time recently. Angels were engineered by God to love and nurture, but like any creature capable of these actions, they needed to be love and nurtured as well. Just as Mates served as a reward for service, God made mates for this purpose. His angels were simply not made to be solitary creatures.

I had heard the angels talk; I wasn't deaf. I heard their claims, their awful rumors that I had been denied my mate. Never once had I heard God step in to correct them. Never once had God come to me and told me that this was falsehood. The only conclusion that I could draw was that the angels were spreading God's word. Perhaps my work in Hell had been unsatisfactory, or perhaps God had forsaken me just as I had forsaken Heaven. Whatever the reason, I was doomed to a fate worse than death; life in Hell, poisoned by the foul evil that lurked in the hearts of God's most corrupt creations, all alone for eternity.

Once I had realized that, Hell had truly begun to wear on me. I was lost and without hope of anything better; I had sunken deep into a depression, and my light was dimming.

I had enough to deal with as it was. The quantity of damned souls had gone up in recent years, and I was dealing with an influx that was as stressful as it was unusual. I kept myself busy enough, I supposed, but that didn't keep me from becoming more and more irritable.

For the first time in my life, I felt lost.

Was this one thing really too much to ask?

I was forcefully drawn from my morbid train of thought when Marcus, my second in command and close friend, barged into the room. I looked up, ready to snap at the daemon for entering so rudely, but stopped in my tracks when I saw the look on my friend's face. He looked absolutely enraged.

"Luce! You must stop them, those goddamn cocksucking bastards!" He roared, veins in his neck and forehead pulsing in his fury.

I held my hands in the air, trying to placate the other man. "Tell me what happened. Calmly. Now." I demanded. I was unflustered by the anger; my friend angered easily, and tended to start ripping off heads when he did so.