We don't know what Lucifer will do next. What we do know is that he has absolutely no interest in going back to being Administrator of Hell, because once you've been away from a toxic workplace, it's very difficult to motivate yourself to go back there.


Chapter Eight

"Cousin?" chorused Gabriel, Lucifer and Crowley in shock.

"Of course," Hel replied, apparently confused by their confusion, "Lucifer, you are the brother of my father, and Crowley is a demon, wrought by you from his human soul. Which makes us, at the very least, cousins."

"It most certainly does not!" protested Lucifer stridently. "He is in no way my, my, my offspring!"

"Where do demons come from, then?" she asked, eyebrows raised.

Lucifer's mouth opened and shut a couple of times. "Well," he rallied magnificently, "They are humans who, damned by their sinful conduct or a crossroads deal, are sent to Hell upon their deaths."

"And what happens there?" she asked.

"Ah, well," he went on, on firmer ground, "The souls of the wicked or dealmakers are tormented until they are broken, and reborn as demons."

"Reborn?" she repeated.

"It's a figure of speech!" Lucifer insisted.

"But how does it happen?" she pressed, "How does a human soul go from tortured sinner to demon?"

"Well," Lucifer tried again, "They are, er, transformed, by, by the corrupting power of Hell. Yes, they are transformed into demons by the power of Hell!"

"And where exactly does the power of Hell come from bro?" asked Gabriel, grinning widely.

"Well, from me, of course!" Lucifer puffed up with pride. "I am the true Lord of Hell, the Ruler of Dis, His Infernal Majesty."

"Right, right," nodded Gabriel, "And since you were the original Fallen One, it would've been you who created the first demons yourself."

"I needed minions!" Lucifer defended himself, "When I first arrived, the place was barely functional! The pilot lights were out on all the furnaces – they were the old fire-and-brimstone models back then, none of these fancy Red Energy things you have now – the place was infested with imps, the Lake of Fire was half covered with an algal bloom and for some unknown reason was full of debris that I later learned were things called 'shopping carts', Verael had to use a packing case as her first desk, and didn't she let me know how unhappy she was about that, and we actually had descending damp in the Throne Room. And then, Father announced that he wanted me to deal with the eternal confinement of the wicked, but there weren't any Hellhounds back then, and the hot and cold running souls hadn't even been connected..."

"What an episode of Rescue Renovation that would've made," mused Gabriel.

"And so you created demons," Hel continued, "Who, like yourself, must take a physical form in order to manifest materially. 'In your own image', as it were."

"I'm sure the whole 'Look I Can Make 'Em Too' had nothing to do with thumbing your nose at Dad, right?" Gabriel nodded judiciously, not even trying to hide his grin.

"Demons are not my 'children'!" howled Lucifer, "If they were, I would poison their milk!"

"He's not my real father!" yelled Crowley, "And if he was, I'd drink it!"

"Be silent, Crowley!" Lucifer snapped at the demon.

"Or what?" Crowley's anger was enough to overcome his fear. "Are you the only one who's allowed to yell in here? Why is that, pray?"

"Do as I say, not as I do!" Lucifer growled.

"Or what?" repeated Crowley. "I'm supposed to be scared of you, just because you can smite me? Get in line, you arrogant arsehole! Since I've been doing your job, running your business, while you dealt with the consequences of your stupid feud with your brother, and then lolled about stuffing your face with pasta, I've got a line as long as Lindsay Lohan's citation record queued up to turn me into a sulphurous little smear for my efforts!"

"You owe me respect!" hissed Lucifer.

"I owe you nothing!" Crowley shot back. "In fact, you owe me, for a number of dry cleaning bills, and a lot of carpet stain remover!"

"You will obey me!" Lucifer demanded.

"Why should I?" sneered Crowley rudely.

"Because I am your... uh... Overlord!" Lucifer settled on.

"You're not the boss of me!" shrieked Crowley.

He was on the point of flinging the remains of his cake at Lucifer when they both became aware of a suppressed chuckle. They turned.

Gabriel had a cell phone out, and was filming.

"Oh, Dad, that's hilarious!" he chortled, "Do you know who you two sound like? Lucifer, you sound just like Dad, and Crowley, you sound just like..."

"Don't say it!" Crowley growled, "Don't say it, or I'll pull out your feathers!"

"And I shall sit on you while he does it," added Lucifer sourly.

Hel demanded peace again, calming the waters somewhat with more mead, and more chocolate torte. "I do not know where Jimi has gone," she informed them, "But, with Father's help, I can scry my realm, and find out which way they went."

"Oh, that would be a big help, sweetheart," Gabriel smiled. "You wanna use the lake?"

Hel nodded. "I will need a large mirror for such a search," she confirmed, "The ice is black, and clear, and will serve well."

"Well, then," Gabriel stood, with another infuriating grin, "We'll just go check the GPS, won't be long, there's plenty of cake left, and I know you two have so much to talk about..."

"Don't leave me here with him!" squawked Crowley, but Gabriel and Hell were gone.

An awkward silence descended.

Lucifer broke it eventually. "So," he began hesitantly, "You've been running Hell."

"Yes, er, yes," replied Crowley, staring hard at his piece of torte.

Awkward silence.

"So, how is it?" asked Lucifer.

"Oh, fine, fine," Crowley replied. Then, because something else seemed to be expected, "The, er, new furnaces came online last century. Redundancy back-up."

"Really? Well well well," said Lucifer. "The things they can do now."

"Er, yes," agreed Crowley.

They both stared at the fire.

"Hierarchy giving you trouble?"

"Just the usual. Duke Belaal wants to tear my head off and shit down my neck and depose me, Duke Ganthery wants to tear my head off and shit down my neck then eat my brains with a spoon, Dame Ghazoria wants to tear my head off and shit down my neck just on general principles. Nothing out of the ordinary."

"Oh. That's... good."

The fire crackled.

"So, how was the, er, sabbatical? As a Chihuahua?"

"Oh, fine, fine." A pause. "Nonna Martello was a particularly good cook. And Alfonso was certainly a very attentive dog person." He fidgeted a little. "They were... all right. For humans."

A knot in a log exploded.

"So, you are looking for your dog. She's with Belisarius. Jimi."

"Yes, yes. Her name is Gedda. She's most feared amongst demons."

"Oh, that's good, yes, that's good." Lucifer paused. "I was most surprised to see that he had left the Infernal Pack. He was the best Alpha we'd had in a very long time. You shouldn't have let him go."

"I didn't let him go!" Crowley declared hotly. "Dean bloody Winchester summoned him away!"

"Michael's vessel? You let Michael's vessel take the best of your Hellhounds?"

"I told you, I didn't let him, the mutt went by himself!"

"What were you doing letting him wander around? Why was he not summoned back?"

"I didn't know he was missing! And he wouldn't obey me anyway! None of them would when they started leaving!"

"They what?"

"How was I supposed to know the wretched things were heading Topside and putting themselves up for adoption? I wouldn't have found out at all, if I hadn't put proper administrative and accountability procedures in place, you left the whole system in a bloody shambles, you did..."

A pained sigh, a pinching of the bridge of the nose. "Why did you not appoint a Dominican, a Handler of the Hellhounds?"

"I tried that," Crowley muttered glumly, "Turns out, the perfect candidate is a werewolf with the bad manners to be still alive, is permanently crippled by a conscience and a sense of right and wrong, and worst of all, she's pair-bonded to a congenital idiot who speaks Latin like a complete barbarian." He glared resentfully at Lucifer. "I got it sorted, all right? Pardon me for not doing it exactly as perfectly as you would've, but, oh, gosh, guess what, you weren't there, and I'm just the poor sap who was shovelling the shit while you stuffed your face, or your brother's daughter..."

With a visible effort, Lucifer squelched what he had been about to say. "This cake is very good," he said instead.

"Er, yes, yes," agreed Crowley, "Very good indeed."

"Very chocolatey."

"Yes, very."

"Very rich."

"Yes. Good temptation material."

"Yes, yes indeed."

"I, er, I like what she's done with the strawberries."

"Oh, yes, yes, they are artistically prepared, are they not?"

"Your... lady friend is a talented baker."

"Yes." There was another moment of awkward silence. "Er, the ones you put under the door..."

"What?"

"The cakes," Lucifer clarified, "The tortes that you put under the door. When I was in the Cage. Hel sent them, you put the layers on cling film, and slid them under the door."

"Oh, yes, well," Crowley stared at his shoes. "It seemed... the thing to do. We did push a spatula under there as well. To help you put them back together. Flourless cakes can be a bit brittle sometimes. Difficult to handle. Um."

"Yes, it worked quite well." Pause. "I am... grateful for your efforts. With the cakes. They were a morale-booster. And also a way to alleviate boredom; trying to tempt Michael into Gluttony was a most amusing pastime."

"Oh, er, right." Pause. "You're, um, welcome."

"The letters, too," Lucifer went on. "They were always welcome. Especially the ones from Hel. Reading them to Michael never failed to provoke an entertaining reaction."

"Some of them did scorch the door on the way under," Crowley told him. "We had to repaint it a number of times."

"Oh. I didn't know that. I am..." Lucifer paused, as if tasting something a little bit unpleasant, "... Sorry."

"That's... all right." Crowley gazed fixedly at his plate. "It was fun watching the Hierarchy complain about the colour."

"Really?" Lucifer frowned. "I rather liked it. What was it?"

"Er, the chart called it 'Avenging Avocado'. The time before that it was 'Camel Topaz', and they didn't like that. And Dame Ghazoria was not amused by 'Yellow Snow'..."

"Nothing short of the skulls of all of us under her boots and the Red Throne under her considerable ass would amuse that cow," muttered Lucifer. "Do not turn your back on her, Crowley. Metaphorically or actually. When she appears to be at her most reasonable, she is at her most dangerous..."

...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...

Gabriel and Hel peeked in through the snow-dusted window, and smiled at each other.

"You are a sneaky, sneaky, clever girl," he whispered proudly.

"I am your daughter," she whispered back.

They made a noisy show of tramping back to the door, banging the snow off their feet before coming back in.

"Jimi and Gedda are headed South-East," announced Gabriel, "Which can only mean one thing."

"That I'm going to need more bran muffins?" suggested Crowley mournfully.

"And we must be on our way," confirmed Gabriel. "Thank you for the help, Hel," he hugged his daughter, "And of course, your marvellous catering."

"You are always welcome here, Father," she replied, then turned to Crowley and added, "As are you, Crowley. Family is always welcome here."

Um. Yes." Crowley stuttered. Lucifer cleared his throat pointedly. "Thank you."

ha-hem

"And thank you for the cake."

ha-hem

"And the drink."

ha-hem

"ThankyouAuntieHel," Crowley squeaked, staring at the floor.

"Goodbye, brother," said Lucifer, "Crowley," he added with a curt nod.

"Bye," Crowley's voice was almost too quiet to hear as Gabriel laughed out loud, and took flight.


Ah, those awkward parent-child conversations where you have to find topics that you can discuss without getting into an argument. Avoid politics, sport, music, motorcycles and religion. Cake is usually safe. Unless one of you is gluten/egg/dairy intolerant.

He's a little energizer bunny is our Stewie. Must be all them carrot-flavoured reviews. Or review-flavoured carrots. Keep 'em coming, Denizens, we loves it, yesssss, we do, we lovessssses our reviewsesssss, they is precioussssss.