2: Sacrifice
"So you wish me to reclaim your Marius from the depths of…wherever he is." Lucifer waved a long-fingered hand at some vague metaphorical location.
Armand was surprised for the second time in a minute. "You do not know?"
"I certainly did not receive him. In fact we receive fewer vampires, demons and all-round hell-raisers than people would believe. Marius was not one of them." Lucifer sat and stretched out cat-like on a pew bench, his long legs peeking from beneath the open robe. He was naked underneath.
"So you can do nothing for me."
"I can do nothing for you; but for him, yes. There are ways of finding out."
Armand nodded. He did not press for more information; the Prince of Darkness could be counted on to keep his promises, that much he had heard. Instead he asked: "Why here? Why in the House of the One who cast you out?"
"Oh, we keep contact fairly regularly, all the time in fact. It's necessary for the business, you know. Souls and all that."
"Deciding who goes where, you mean?"
"More like controlling the traffic flow. No one really decides where to go save the souls themselves. Even He cannot forgive you unless you forgive yourself. While you try to untangle your unresolved guilt issues, I offer a place to stay." Lucifer shrugged, an easy majestic roll of the shoulders that was nothing like an ordinary shrug. "The other option, of course, is to wander about like a lost puppy – sometimes material enough to be seen, at other times no more than a strain of particles desperately trying to keep itself together, afraid of not remembering. What humans call ghosts. I'm sure you have seen them."
"Plenty, yes. The next time I'll be sure to recommend them to you. Don't have a name card, do you?"
"What's the point? They can hardly get a grip of anything – literally." He moved forward suddenly and grabbed Armand's mass of dark red curls, sniffing it deeply. "You, on the other hand, are neither human nor ghost, and completely…hmm…tangible."
The rough, almost sexual gesture left the vampire breathless. "Name your price. The price for finding Marius, and bringing him back."
"I already have it."
Armand's heart was pounding out of its chest. "Oh."
There was a rush of air about his face, and he saw the gleaming obsidian wings unfurling, huge unearthly things that reached to the ceiling. Then he was being lifted, he was being airborne, and he had a glimpse of what it was like to be the victim instead of the reaper – helpless, entranced, weightless.
"I am so going to fuck you," whispered Lucifer's serpentine tongue in his ear.
Armand melted into the terrible embrace.
"I can't wait."