Hell's Revelation (Book 3)

Chapter 26 Part 1

The question genuinely stumped me. For one, horrifying moment I stood, struck dumb and without an answer. How were we going to stop him? Had we really been so remiss as to plan everything so thoroughly and yet completely forget to work out the details on how we would actually stop Lucifer?I'd planned the rebellion, mapped out the exposure, checked all the boxes along the way. We were on track, everything was going according to plan for once, but I really wasn't sure where we had to go next.

All my hopes right then lay in the rest of the demon population, I was nothing without their support. We may have all been united in understanding , but would they really follow me? Nothing like an all or nothing situation to truly put you to the test.

I gaped, struggling for the words to make an appropriate comeback, feeling the loathing begin to fester under my skin as Lucifer smirked at me knowing he'd won a small victory with those few words. What he didn't seem to count on was the amassed support I had managed to gain myself , and just how willing they were to come to my aid – and admittedly it surprised me too.

"We don't need to stop you," Frank said aloud with some lyrical satisfaction in his tone, "we just need to stop him." He stretched out a clawed hand,pointing towards Malick.

The old cleric lurked,hunched and muttering, smiling gleefully at something as he edged gradually closer and closer to Patrick. Something silvery glinted in his clutching fingers.

At the sudden snap of attention towards him, Malick, not so subtly slipped the thing in his hands up his wide brown sleeve, hiding it from view. But there was noway his movements weren't suspicious as all hell.

"We all know you'll have him do your dirty work for you. We stop him, put a halt on this grand first step of yours and it'll throw one serious spanner into the workings of your plans."

"There are plenty more who would serve me," Lucifer thundered with a dismissive wave of his hand, but I made a face, looking out into the restless crowd.

"Y'know, I'm not so sure about that." I gestured out towards the masses as they rumbled in their unhappy dissent. "They don't sound too enthusiastic about your plans. You won't find anyone here to do your dirty work any more Lucifer. They're not fooled by your talk of grandeur, and they're not afraid to stand together against you. Not any more."

He was scowling at me but I didn't care, I was on a roll and I wasn't about to stop now. Apart of me was enjoying pushing the knife in, and I couldn't resist the urge to twist it just a little deeper.

"And you know as well as I do that if you try to do any of this yourself the other three Faces will be on your case in seconds," I hissed at him, drawing closer than I'd been brave enough to venture before and smiled a sneering and gleeful gesture that belied the nervous tension that was making my muscles sing.

"I wonder how they'd feel if they learned of your new set of plans, your real set of plans I mean...Maybe I should go and tell them. What do you think?"

For the first time I saw a flicker of some emotion wander across Lucifer's face – I mean beyond the cold and stoic arrogance he wore perpetually. He might never admit it aloud, but my words, my intentions made him nervous.

The other Faces, they were the only ones that truly had enough power to stop Lucifer and his ambition for dominion of all Hell. They wouldn't stand for a usurper in their number but they would be naturally skeptical of one as lowly as myself. Or make that one as lowly as I once was.

I had fulfilled the prophecy of Lucifer's making, become what he had never wanted me to become. Abomination had not been the most glamorous title, but now I was the Revelator. I was more, new, and I would make them listen to what I had to say. They would not deny me, not now, and I would stop him. My father, my creator. It made sense that the key to his destruction would be of his own making. And I felt nothing but determination to see this through to the end.

At one time I may have felt remorse, or a longing for a chance to perhaps know those who could be considered my 'family'. Demons didn't embrace the whole family concept, we were all one big, extended mish-mash of family,and we all only looked out for ourselves. The longing came from the human blood I'd been given by my mother. I don't know exactly what had happened to that part of me during the Requiem, but it was gone now, and he would not be able to play on those feelings any longer.

I was more like him now that I had ever been before, and Hell really wasn't big enough for the both of us.