Author's Note: Hello, my beautiful readers. It's officially spooky season in my books, so I won't apologise for playing the "Nightmare Before Christmas" soundtrack 24/7 in my house and peeling off my human face mask. Anyways… What can you expect today? Let's see. Sofia going to Hell, Lucifer being bored and depressed and Butler having a painful flashback. Lots of feel-good vibes, aye? Bear with me and I hope you enjoy it regardless!

Also, a big shoutout to Space-Dweeb for all those amazing comments. My heart stopped for several beats until I had confirmed that I wasn't hallucinating. Then my heart went into jitters. Thank you so much!

Disclaimer: Eoin Colfer owns all the characters from Artemis Fowl, I only own my imagination and my characters.

Chapter 8

3 years ago,...

After returning from the scenic ride of Hell, Sofia knew two things for sure: Heaven didn't exist and she would never ever enter Hell again.

Lucifer had held her hand like a child, making her first clumsy steps as he had shown her around. A ceaseless storm had ripped at her hair and clothes, eager to pull her into the vast emptiness. She had lifted her gaze towards the sky, searching for a sun or a moon or the stars. Instead, she had flinched back at the soot that had landed on her cheek. The heat had settled in her chest, numbing any sensation for the aimless wanderers. Once in a while, a monstrous creature had attacked one, dragging them away. Sofia had gripped Lucifer's hand, staying close to him. She had no doubt that they had been in Hell. But to believe you'd end there, no matter what you did in your lifetime? No way.

Then her eyes had fallen on a small figure in tattered clothes. The old woman had looked up, locking eyes with her. It had been the face of her grandmother, making Sofia gasp in recognition.

"Nonna!"

She had let go of Lucifer's hand, running to the woman, who had reached her hands out in greeting. Time had slowed down to a crawl. There had been something. Just some movement out of the corner of her eye. Sofia had turned to it, her movements and thoughts slow. So slow. Like being in a dream. But the hell creature racing towards them had been no dream. Sofia had seen its long bared teeth, the predator lunging itself at them. She had smelled its rancid breath. Had looked into those vicious eyes.

Lucifer had yanked her back, making them reappear in her small university office. She had screamed, demanding that he go back to save her nonna. To bring her back. He had looked at her in sympathy. She hadn't wanted it. She wanted her nonna back. The woman who couldn't hurt a fly. The one person who deserved a place in Heaven above anyone else.

"Help me find Yonatan and I will reward you with a long and fulfilled life," he said. "You will never suffer nor anyone of your loved ones. That and so much knowledge, you can fill every day of your life with learning something new."

Her mind reeled, thoughts jumping so fast through her head, Sofia felt sick to the stomach. She needed more time. She needed to help her grandmother. She needed more time!

Bobbing her head up and down, she agreed to find the demon. The only person Lucifer cared about. Not because she was satisfied with his offer, of course. Death wasn't an option any longer.

Sofia went home, the howling gust of Hell stuck in her head, while she began working on Lucifer's book. The words seemed to be flowing from the pages with the craftsmanship of poets, who died centuries ago. After trying to date it, she was sure that it was older than the Bible. There had been rumours and theories, but those had never been proven right. Scholars had fantasized of such marvellous texts as the Gospel of Magdalena or The Epistle of Barnabas without ever proving their existence and she was sitting in a tiny New Yorker flat, reading those priceless texts.

The flat door slammed shut. Charlene stomped into the living room, seeing Sofia sitting on the couch with a rotting book on her lap, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Hey, I am having a party later on. Can you make sure, like, not to be around? Cheers."

She stared at the blonde with the pierced eyebrows, who hadn't bothered to wait for an answer. The one who also hadn't paid rent for the last two months. Sofia got up and started packing.

Lucifer was bored. His throne bored him. Hell bored him. Life bored him. Even the humans bored him. He wanted to be entertained! And there was only one place that would be able to beat his boredom. The angel rose into the air and flew through the joke of a kingdom.

His kingdom. Or was it his kingdoms? Hell wasn't just one hell. It didn't only consist of the place were all humans went to after death. Hell had many layers. Thirteen to be precise, somehow nearly all of them became desolate and uninhabitable, though.

Once upon a time, he had given a toss about it, too. Back, when he had tried to bring order into Hell. Because Yonatan had wanted him to. But Hell wasn't like Heaven. There was only chaos. Chaos and cursed creatures. Creatures that only lived to torture human souls.

He had forbidden them to touch a human soul, punishing anyone who went against his ruling. But then the yalayi had escaped their prison and began preying on human souls. Their numbers had increased in the blink of an eye. Too many for him to defeat. He had given his best efforts, he really had. While Yonatan was around anyway. Once his brothers had stolen his demon, nothing mattered anymore. If he could, he would have burned the whole place down by now.

Lucifer flew up above a rugged cliff, overseeing an ocean of lava. Filthy demons scattered from one rock to the next. The angel let a fireball fly down into a crowd. They dispersed around like ants, completely at his mercy. Their terror made him smile.

Once upon a time, he believed in justice and redemption. No, that wasn't right. Once upon a time, Yonatan had believed in justice and redemption. And Lucifer had humoured him because it had made him happy.

"You are the Lightbringer, Lou. You are destined for greatness down here."

The angel snorted. Destined. The only thing he was destined to do was roasting demons. He was about to throw another fireball when a small creature clad in rags came scurrying towards him. It fidgeted around, never settling in one spot, its claws scratching on the stone. It gave him a headache.

"What?" he asked, the fireball playing around his hand.

"Your brother, my Lord," it squeaked, terrified.

"Which one?"

The creature hesitated. "The one with the wings?"

"Idiot, they all have wings. What does he want?"

The creature started to sweat. Most curious as they didn't even have sweat glands. "He asked for a... a meeting with you at the forgotten graveyard. He said you knew it well? Does that– is that what you– I mean–"

It went up in flames before it could finish the sentence. So, his brother wanted to meet. Interesting. Lucifer smiled. This night turned out to be more entertaining than he had anticipated.

The knot of the clothing around her middle wouldn't budge. Who had tied this? Sofia had wiggled, bend herself like a reed into every direction and pulled at it, with little effect. Oh, ma dai!, she thought exasperated. One option was always to ask for help from those two giants in her flat, she refused to go down that route, though. She would not be treated like a child. She could imagine their little snicker out there after she admitted not to do that stupid martial art class.

Moving to her bathroom she picked up some nail scissors. Enough was enough. She started cutting into the material close to the knot until the cloth started to give way. A few minutes later, she managed to rip the last bit away. Holding it up with both hands, she couldn't help but think the cloth used to be a big shirt. The parts that had not been caked in blood felt smooth. Expensive material. She wondered if any high street shop was producing such big shirts. Had this Butler person bandaged her? Had he been wearing a shirt? A jacket, maybe, she couldn't say for sure.

She looked down. There was a lot of blood, yet when she touched the place where she had been stabbed she couldn't find any wound. Sofia reached for her phone, her fingers grazing Lucifer's ring, remembering the energy pulsating through her when she had worn it. Her brain fog had cleared immediately. She had no idea it had these powers. Then again, Lucifer supposedly had been God's favourite. She put the ring on her index finger, surprised to feel nothing. Weird. Thoughtfully, she placed it on the sink, before letting her clothes fall carelessly to the floor. She stepped into the shower, letting the steaming water wash away her own dried blood.

Butler turned on the lights and wished he hadn't. The chaos was worse in the light. There was no place to sit down and he suspected that his uncle had dropped everything off the one chair, he was sitting on. They hadn't exchanged another word, the silence stretching on.

He turned to one of the shelves, the furthest away from his uncle. Full of books, naturally. The professor hadn't bothered to stack them all cover to cover, some were lying horizontally on top of each other. There seemed to be no system to it. Not even the same languages stood together. Butler spoke some European languages to a certain degree, so he could make out a lot of titles focussing on religious subjects. Some detective novels in between as well.

His fingers itched to take all the volumes out and to put them in order. It was beyond him how anyone could not prefer a clean, minimalistic room or a tidy bookshelf. He peered at a few photos, scattered on the shelf. Someone had cared enough to set them up, not enough to put them in an orderly fashion. Or maybe she had, judging by the way she treated her books. One of them was a black and white photo of a bride and a groom. The other was a more recent one. The professor was in there, together with three other men, grinning at the camera. Presumably her family.

The bedroom door opened and the professor stepped out, showered and clothed in a different dress. She glanced over to Butler and avoided his eyes, a backpack clutched in her hand.

"Was that your shirt? I think I owe you a new one," she admitted. Butler shrugged it off, buttoning his jacket to block her view of his undershirt. "It's fine. Don't worry about it."

The Major got up from his seat and handed her the pistol. She took it, unsure of what to do. Which seemed to irritate him. Then again, everything annoyed the Major.

"Wear it," he ordered and Sofia complied at once. She had known the Major for about two years now, but somehow, she doubted they would ever become anything close to friends. She put the pistol into the shoulder holster he had given her, slipping into her jacket.

"I will see you in Romania," he said.

"You will not come with us?" Sofia asked. If the Major thought she was overly emotional, he didn't show it.

He shook his head. "There are a few things I need to sort out first. I will check your shooting skills, once I get there."

Sofia rolled her eyes. Inwardly. She was too intimidated do it in front of him.

The Major turned to his nephew. "You know what to do. Don't screw it up, mal'chik."

Butler clenched his jaw. A vein in his temple started to throb, but he nodded. He took Sofia's backpack and left the flat. She followed, but stopped and turned around.

"Would you mind leaving my vegetables to Mrs Bates next do–" she started, but stopped herself when she saw his dark glare.

"O-kay, just lock the door when you leave."

Sofia dashed into the kitchen and grabbed the bag of potatoes and some other vegetables that wouldn't see another day if they weren't cooked. She scanned the kitchen table, trying to find some piece of paper that had no important information written on it. It wouldn't hurt to tidy up a little bit, she thought. Eventually, she found a receipt and scribbled a note on the back of it. She grabbed the food and left everything on the other side of the hall before walking down the stairs.

"What is a malt-shik?" she asked when they had descended a flight of stairs. Butler let out a tired exhale. There was no way he could put the real meaning of it into words. He rubbed his face.

"Mal'chik," he corrected her. "It means boy in Russian."

Sofia snorted, discreetly giving the tall man another once-over. He might have not been as brawny as the Major, true. But his designer suit couldn't hide the fact that he would carry a washing machine across the city without breaking a sweat. Together with the clean-shaven head and the pistol he had pushed into his shoulder holster in the hotel, his whole appearance demanded respect. Definitely not a boy.

"So, he is a fulltime culo."

Butler let out a mirthless chuckle. Italian was a pretty language, except it wouldn't do if you wanted to curse.

"Not the word I would have chosen," he admitted before the stairwell lighting went out and plunged them into darkness.

The image of a sterile and freezing morgue flashed before his eyes. He had counted every crack in the tiled floor of the run-down building. Forty-eight. He counted the length of every white cloud coming from his mouth. Consistent. They had to be consistent. Erratic breathing could be interpreted as weakness. He couldn't show weakness. He was calm. Collected. He nodded, keeping his eyes trained on the hands in gloves. Blue, stretching over several prison tattoos. They pulled a white sheet back, the sound thundering in his ears as he was presented with an unrecognisable–

The front door downstairs was opened and someone punched the light switch. Without warning, the staircase was flooded with light again. Looking up, he gave the professor a weary look.

Most unusual for him a string of Russian curses popped up in his mind that would have even made Juliet blush. He jerked his head towards the exit and strode out of the New Yorker apartment complex without waiting for the woman.

A/N: Something of a downer chapter. My apologies, I am trying not to let this drift into angst and despair. Next chapter will hopefully lift everyone's spirits again.

Thank you all for tuning in this week! I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Also, I realize that I promised you Romania and we will get there next chapter. But first, Trouble needs to do his job. See you all next week!