A/N: Good afternoon. I decided to go ahead and post this a day before I had originally planned to. I want to give a huge thank you to everyone who has reviewed, favorited, or followed this story. It really means a lot to me, and I'll try my best to keep this story up to your standards. This chapter has a lot of little time skips.

And guess what? This is the longest chapter yet. Yay!

I don't have anything else of importance to say, so here you go. Enjoy.

Songs listened to while writing:

Hall of Fame (The Script),

Can't Wait to be King (The Lion King),

and Fearless (Olivia Holt)

~How to Train Your Shadowhunter~

When Alec stepped out of the bright portal doorway, he quickly examined his new surroundings. The portal had led to a huge clearing with brightly colored grass surrounding a massive ranch-style house in the center.

His eyes strayed warily to the huge trees that surrounded the clearing. He didn't recognize what kind they were, but they were dark and seemed to almost bind the rest of the land in a shadowy embrace. He shivered slightly.

Light footfalls sounded behind him, and then Lucifer was standing beside with an amused look on his face. "My father seems to think that we need a more . . . homely place to stay at for your training."

Alec made a vague noise in the back of his throat that could be taken as agreement, although he wondered how anything surrounded by those trees could be homely. "So how exactly is this going to work?"

Lucifer started walking towards the house, and Alec hastened to follow. "Let's get inside first, shall we? I do wonder what my father has given us."

"Okay," he said, agreeing readily enough, but he was practically bouncing with questions that he couldn't wait to ask.

When they walked into the house, the first thing that Alec noticed was that, in the way that Lucifer had predicted, the house seemed very warm and inviting, and all together very different from the mansion he had been in within Hell, as it had given off a very regal and refined air that he really didn't know what to think of.

Lucifer's eyes quickly glanced around before he smoothly moved to the staircase, all but gliding up the stairs. Alec, trying to take everything in, followed him.

Upstairs there was a small library, many cushioned chairs, and some bean bags. There were two other closed doors.

Lucifer opened one, and Alec looked inside. The room was brightly colored in shades of white, gold, and light blue. Lucifer's head tilted. "This room is probably mine. This is how I preferred things before my fall."

At Lucifer's nod at the other door, Alec opened it and found a room decorated in dark colors, metallics, and dark blues. He realized something. "Hey, this is the same color scheme as that room I woke up in!"

Lucifer nodded. "Yes, I must have forgotten to mention that that will become your bedroom once we return back to Hell. In fact, that entire house will be yours."

Alec's eyes widened. "Wait, that's my house now?"

"Yes, of course. Surely you realized that you would have a house? And don't worry, you won't have to take council with the other demons there. There is still the throne . . . well, I would say room, but it's really just a cavernous area with a huge obsidian throne."

"Council? Obsidian throne? What?"

Lucifer looked amused. "Elegant as ever, I see. You shall have throne hours where any demons that have a need of something may come request it. Your throne – or my throne right now, I suppose – is made of obsidian. As uncomfortable as it sounds, the obsidian is almost fluid there and feels quite nice. And you will, of course, have a crown to signify your status."

"Uh . . . " he said. "I thought you were kidding about that."

Lucifer looked slightly offended. "I would never joke about a crown."

"Sorry?" Alec said, but it sounded more like a question. "So what exactly would these throne hours consist of?"

"Oh, you know," Lucifer said airily, "mainly listening to demons whine and complain for stupid reasons while you wonder if you should just destroy them and be done with it. It's quite amusing, really."

Alec blinked. He was starting to wonder if crossing through that door had been a good idea or not. "Oh."

Lucifer suddenly clapped his hands, eyes glinting mischievously, and Alec felt wary. The fallen angel grinned wickedly. "Let us begin your training, Alexander."

. . .

Nearly three days of . . . training later, Alec was casually strolling across the floor with Lucifer's sharp gaze following his every movement. He turned on his heel, letting the dark cloak swirl around him.

"You're improving quickly, little shadowhunter. You are already showing more grace than before," Lucifer commented, sounding terribly pleased with himself.

Alec barely resisted to say something rude under his breath. His feet were sore and his shoulder's were stiff from the lessons on proper "lordly walking". Honestly, what did the way he walk matter?

Suddenly, Lucifer was in front of him, looking gleeful. "I do believe it is time for the next stage of your training. How does walking on enchanted planks above shark pits while reading books on Hell's politics sound?"

Alec's eyes widened, and he quickly shook his head, but Lucifer was already pulling him away. "No, Lucifer! NO! What part of no don't you understand?!"

Lucifer merely laughed, a delighted sound that echoed off the walls.

. . .

Alec dropped eagerly into a cushioned chair with a sigh of relief, stretching out his sore muscles. All of this training for proper walking and balance and flair was honestly more physically demanding than some of his shadowhunter training.

Lucifer easily lowered himself down into the chair across from Alec, observing him with amusement. "Do you want a pain relief potion?"

Alec debated saying no, but he eventually agreed. "Sure. I somehow doubt that you'd go easy on me because of my physical pain."

Lucifer grinned and tossed him a potion that hadn't been in his hands a minute ago. "Right in one. Surely the training hasn't been that bad."

Alec downed the potion, and gave Lucifer an incredulous look as his muscles stopped aching. "Not that bad? For the past week and a half, you've made me do everything from walking over pits of honest-to-the-Angel sharks, read while sparring with one hand for 'multitasking training', wake me up in the middle of the night to make me walk around doing handstands, and attempt to groom me to be charismatic in all situations. How is that 'not so bad'?"

Lucifer shrugged, having no regret. "We have a limited time frame. I need to cram in as much as I can, and if you can't even walk with deadly grace, then how are you going to wordlessly demand attention from the demons? You need to look and act the part, Alexander. Soon, you shall be tossed into the real shark pit when you are to announce to the Clave that you are the King of Hell. Your every move will be observed continuously. For perfection, you need practice. A lot of it."

Lucifer suddenly grinned. "We wouldn't want another incident like yesterday happening in front of hundreds, now would we?"

Alec felt the heat quickly rising to his face. He had been walking across the room, and rather gracelessly caught his foot onto the edge of a rug. It had resulted in him toppling forwards, a strangled noise coming from his mouth, and nearly hitting his head on a coffee table.

"Well, no," he said, looking down like a scolded child.

"Ah, ah," Lucifer tsked, tapping his chin back up. "Never look down when talking to anyone. It makes you look easy to walk over. I suppose that we shall start out lessons on body language when talking to others now."

Alec gulped. Talking to other people had never been his forte, but he now had determination. He though of all those oblivious mundanes he would be helping, he thought of the order that he could be bringing, he thought of the angels's and God's faith in him, and most of all, he thought of his family.

He didn't think that there was a limit to what he would do for his family.

. . .

"So why did the demons on your council look so . . . human? None of these books say anything about it."

Lucifer looked up from his book on food recipes with a startled look on his face. "Oh, I don't suppose that it would be. Generally the older and more powerful the demon, the more human-like they are. The first demons came from humans, after all."

Alec nodded, and tried to keep his eyes from straying to the recipe book in front of Lucifer. The thought of Satan reading recipe books like a stereotypical house wife was really too much. "You created them, didn't you?"

Lucifer frowned. "Well, sort of. I came up with the concept, and created the first few, but after I turned Lilith, she did most of it. I created the Princes, and some of the Greater Demons, but she decided that the demons should not look so human, and she started experimenting. I eventually stopped her, but most of the grotesque-looking ones were her creations. A majority of demons are more human-looking though. Why?"

Alec's head tilted to the side, a habit he had picked up from Lucifer. "So why are most of the demons I've had to deal with the nasty looking ones?"

Lucifer shrugged. "Whatever Lilith did to make them look like that made them more likely to hate humans. They've always been rather jealous of the other demons for looking so much . . . well, better."

"I never knew that," Alec said, glancing down at the book in his hands about the geography of Hell.

Lucifer followed his gaze. "Hm. After you finish that book, I'll get you some books on the early history of Hell. How is that book going for you?"

Alec fidgeted slightly in his seat. "Well, I actually had a question. Where, uh, exactly were you when Michael took you out of Hell?"

Rather than look horrified or angry at the brought up memories, Lucifer just looked slightly distasteful. "It's one of the central points of Hell. In some places, the different realms touch and make common ground. That was the crossing point between the darkest of the realms and the fire realm. For the first few eons I stayed there."

"Why did it look like it was the center of a volcano with ice and snow all around it?" he asked, remembering how beautiful he had always found it.

"Because that's exactly what it was. In that particular point, it didn't just connect the two demon realms, but it also allowed a way to see Earth. It's on a highly warded part of Antarctica. Without a fully powered angel, though, there is no way to get out there."

"Will I get to see it soon?"

Lucifer scowled slightly. "Probably not, thankfully. The God-forbidden place is under the control of the five rebelling realms."

Alec was slightly confused. "Why do you hate it so much?"

Lucifer frowned. "One cannot spend eons staring at the same things, drowning in despair and horror at ones own actions without hating the things they see every day. If I never see that part of Hell again, it will be too soon."

"Oh," he said, not really knowing how to react at that. "I'm sorry for bringing it up."

"Nonsense," Lucifer said, looking back to his normal self. "Never apologize for seeking information. It is what we are here for, after all. I don't suppose you have any other questions?"

"Yes, actually," Alec responded, thinking it over. "Why haven't any of the books you've made me read mention all the souls condemned to Hell for eternal torment and all that?"

Lucifer looked startled. "Oh, did you want to know about that? Yes, I suppose that is important to know, given that you will be in charge of making sure their punishments are happening . . ." He shrugged, and snapped his fingers, causing nearly a hundred books to rain down from the ceiling. Alec felt genuine fear for himself at the amount of information he had to know just on the torture sections of Hell. He was never going to have free time again, was he?

"There you go," Lucifer said, sounding horribly pleased with himself. "For now though, it's high time you learn to properly sit."

Alec looked down at himself in confusion. "What's wrong with the way that I sit?"

Lucifer's nose wrinkled slightly in distaste. "You sit so . . . averagely. It just won't do. You are the King of Hell, not some mundane lackey. You need to sit with purpose and grace. Any chair you sit in should seem like a throne."

Alec barely resisted making a dumb noise, knowing that Lucifer would immediately scold him for sounding unintelligent. "And how does one achieve such an affect?"

Lucifer looked delighted, and Alec barely resisted the urge to lean back. If he had learned one thing in the past week and a half, it was that nothing good came with that particular look.

. . .

Alec had been peacefully sleeping, a content smile on his face, when there was suddenly a loud boom from downstairs. He woke up immediately, and quickly jumped up, landing lightly on his feet. He started to grab grabbed a seraph blade that was on his bedside table, but it was gone, and his eyes were wide as he silently made his way to his doorway.

There was a thud from the kitchen area, and a quick look into Lucifer's room told him that the fallen angel wasn't in there. With a wary look on his face, he made his way down the stairs, every muscle in his body tensed, and he wished he had a seraph blade or his bow. Where was Lucifer?

When he carefully made his way into the kitchen, it was empty, and his heartbeat was thudding loudly in his ears. What could be in a dimension that God had set up?

There was a slight creak from behind him, and he whirled around, but there was nothing there. His eyes darted around, and he could tell that someone was watching, but he couldn't see anyone.

Suddenly, there were strong arms around him from behind, and when he struggled to get loose, he realized that whoever it was had incredible strength. He swore if this was a stupid "training exercise" by Lucifer, he was going to destroy Lucifer – completely wipe the devil from existance.

"Now, now, boy, stop struggling, and I might let you live," a hoarse voice said, and there was a wheezing laugh. "Unlike that silly angel that was here."

Alec felt lightheaded as he processed the man's words. Was Lucifer dead? But . . . no, surely not.

Somehow, his voice was strong and confident when he said, "You lie."

The wheezing laugh was back. "Oh, do I? You should have heard his confusion. He thought he was safe in this little realm set up by God. Did you know that angels blow up when they die? It was most informative."

Alec felt himself panicking, and he was unable to escape the vice-like grip around him. He felt something rising up in his chest. It felt . . . untamed and powerful. Dangerous.

A blade ghosted over his throat, drawing blood. Alec felt a wave of pure power rush over him as he thought of how he wanted the man to get off him, and he followed his instincts blindly, barely flicking his hand backwards. To his shock, the man was ripped viciously off him.

He turned, expecting someone to have just ripped his attacker off him, but there was no one else there. His attacker, a ratty looking old man with bull horns, started to lunge back at him, and he quickly made a vague movement to the side with his hand.

The man's body flew through the air harshly and hit a wall with a sickening crunch. The man did not get up again.

Alec stumbled, feeling a wave of exhaustion. He didn't think that he had ever been so tired in his entire life. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he collapsed into a heap on the floor.

. . .

"Wake up!"

Alec groaned. His head felt like someone had smashed a hammer into it. He slowly opened his eyes with great effort, and met dark eyes that belonged to a darkly skinned man that radiated extreme power.

He scrambled away. "Who are you?!"

The man held up his hands in a complacent gesture, and his eyes softened. "Easy, Alexander. I am Raphael."

Alec reared his head back. "Wait, Raphael the archangel?"

Raphael's lips twitched in amusement. "Yes. Now get up. Lucifer needs to talk with you."

Alec suddenly remembered the old man's claims of Lucifer being dead as he stood up. "Is he okay?!"

"Yes, my brother is fine. Those demons last night had somehow gotten a very powerful artifact that disappeared from Heaven's armory centuries ago. It restricts an angel's powers when in radius. He managed to grab it, and tried to leave the realm to go to Heaven and retrieve back up."

Raphael's eyes sparkled in amusement as he continued. "It made a rather dramatic explosion here when he tried to fly off, but he managed. He showed up in God's throne room covered in ash, managed to tell us what had happened, and nearly passed out from the exhaustion from his flight with the power limiting artifact."

Raphael started to lead him outside, and the healer angel said, "When I showed up with Michael, Gabriel, and Raziel, we were expecting to have a fight, but about a dozen demons were killed by the explosion Lucifer caused, and the leader was dead about a dozen feet from you. At first I though you might be dead as well, but you're not."

He felt sick to his stomach as he realized that he had killed his first demon. As they stepped of the porch, Alec's eyes were drawn to the huge crater in the clearing that had scorch marks all around it. There was no question as to where that explosion had come from.

"Alec!" he heard, and suddenly he was drawn close to Lucifer. The fallen angel's eyes quickly ran over him, and whatever he observed made him look relieved. "I'm glad that you're okay."

"Me too," Alec said, trying to step away from Lucifer, but the devil was having none of that. "Actually, something really weird happened."

"What happened?" Raphael and Lucifer questioned at the same time.

Alec struggled to find a way to explain it. "The demon had a knife against my throat and I thought about how much I wanted it off. Then I felt a wave of . . . power, I guess, and the next thing I knew I flicked my hand back and it was ripped off me. Then when it lunged at me, I moved my hand to the side, and it hit the wall with enough force to kill it. It was . . ."

When he just shook his head, mind reeling at how creepily calm he felt about his first kill, Lucifer looked thoughtful. "Why were you out cold on the floor?"

"I felt more exhausted than I've ever felt in my life," he responded, and he felt uncomfortable under Raphael and Lucifer's stares. The two angels exchanged looks.

"May I try something?" Raphael asked, stepping forward slightly.

"Uh, sure," Alec said.

Raphael pressed two of his fingers over Alec's heart and he started intensely into his eyes. Alec's skin started to tingle strangely under Rapheal's fingers, as if there was static all over him.

Raphael's eyebrows shot up, and he stepped back, looking at Lucifer with an unreadable look. He looked slightly amused as he announced, sounding like a football announcer: "Congratulations, you've just discovered a new power. It seems fitting that the King of Hell have some form of telekinesis."

"What?" Alec asked, and he wondered how often he would wind up saying that in the future.

"You appear to be able to control things with your mind. It almost feels like a form of warlock magic, but it is much more specialized and powerful. It looks like, with practice, you will be able to move people and heavy objects around with the ease of picking up a satin handkerchief."

Alec's eyes widened, but he was unable to say anything.

Lucifer quickly spoke. "Why was his energy drained so much? Is his power just that weak right now?"

Raphael shook his head. "No, it appears that the extreme exhaustion came from breaking the . . . seal, I suppose you could call it, on the ability. It's rather like there was a cement wall surrounding the ability, and the adrenaline and panic busted through the wall so he could get to it, but most of his energy was used breaking the wall."

Lucifer nodded slowly, and then he turned to Alec with a grin. "You know what this means? As soon as we get to a different and safer realm, you have more training."

Alec groaned.

. . .

"Now this is more like it," Lucifer said, proving that sprawling out on a couch could look graceful. The room they were in belonged to an exact replica of Lucifer's – er, Alec's – mansion. They weren't in Hell, but it looked like they were, minus the great view.

"How do we know that another rogue demons won't get in here?"

Lucifer waved a hand easily. "Not to worry, I talked to Father while you were unconscious. The other demon got in because he didn't put up any real security measures since it was supposed to be so hard to find, and he wanted us to be able to enter and leave easily if we needed to. This time, the realm is hidden better and has security measures. I've already tested it; we'll be fine this time, although it will be harder to travel from."

"Okay . . ." Alec said, deciding that he was go back to sleeping with a seraph blade under his pillow like he did in the human realm.

Lucifer looked at him in amusement. "Raphy tested it too before he left. This time nothing will happen."

They sat in in comfortable silence for a while, Alec wondering how Lucifer managed to get away with that nickname, before Lucifer suddenly jumped up in excitement, his eyes lit up. "Since we have exact replicas of everything I was saving for when we went to Hell for a couple of days before going to Earth, we can go ahead and do a few more things while we're here!"

Alec felt wary. "Great."

Lucifer quickly went upstairs, and Alec followed him slowly. When he arrived back into the room he had initially woken up in after his kidnapping, Lucifer was rummaging through what looked to be the closet that was larger than his bedroom at the institute.

"What are you doing?" Alec asked, looking into the closet with no small amount of dread.

"Trying to find a cloak I found in the eighteenth century for you." He suddenly lit up. "Aha. There it is! Put it on."

Alec frowned, but put on the pitch black cloak without complaint. Once it was on and he caught a glimpse of himself in the floor-to-ceiling mirror on the far wall of the closet, his eyes widened. The cloak had a strange effect that made it seem to pull the light out of everything around it. It gave it an eerie look and made it seem like there were shadows encasing him.

"Woah," he said, and he did a little flourish so that the cloak would swirl slightly. "This is awesome."

Lucifer looked smug. "I rather thought so. Oh, and I almost forgot!"

Alec watched as he opened a drawer, feeling much less weary now that he was glancing through the clothes the closet was full of. Most of it was things that he wouldn't mind wearing, even if it all seemed to be regal clothing and no normal sweaters.

Suddenly something was being crammed onto his head, and Lucifer made a pleased noise. "There you go. Now you look like a proper King of Hell."

Alec's eyes widened when the focused on his reflection. There was a crown sitting innocently on his dark hair, a silver and sapphire thing that looked incredibly expensive. Between the crown, shadowy cloak, and the clothes that Lucifer had demanded he wear that day, he looked . . .

Well, he really did look like a proper King of Hell. For the first time in a long time, he thought that he actually looked pretty good, all things considered.

Something occurred to him. "Won't it fall off really easily?"

Lucifer eagerly shook his head. "No, I had the same enchantments put on it as my old ones. The only way that is coming off is if you take it off yourself."

"Oh, okay," Alec said, and he started to reach up to take the crown off.

"No, no, no," Lucifer scolded, keeping him from taking it off. "You need to get used to wearing it."

Alec complied, trying to ignore how glad he was at being able to keep it on. There was just something confidence-boosting about wearing a crown, and it made his kingship feel more real. "When all will I need to wear a crown?"

"More often than you might think," Lucifer replied. "Any time you're in a battle, or around those that need to know your status. You will need to wear it whenever you travel into Heaven."

Alec's eyes bulged. "Travel into Heaven?!"

Lucifer looked amused. "Of course. You shall have a standing invitation there to keep up good relations between Heaven and Hell."

"Okay . . ." Alec said, not even able to wrap his mind around that concept. Travel to Heaven without being dead? He shook his head in an attempt to clear it. "What do we need to do now?"

Lucifer tilted his head, fingers smoothly tapping against his chin. "Now, I suppose that I shall give you the full tour of your new house. Come."

With the command, the fallen angel easily turned to walk out of the door, Alec scrambling slightly to keep up, while attempting to put the natural-looking grace that Lucifer had been trying to teach him into his walk.

The house – mansion – whatever, was incredibly large. There was one huge kitchen; two dining rooms, one formal and one casual; three entertainment rooms, one of which was fireproof for some reason; twenty-three bedrooms, for "emergencies"; a bathroom connected to every bedroom; a swimming pool and sauna; more hidden passages than he could count; and a drool-worthy weapons room.

They were currently standing in the weapons room that was nearly twenty times the size of the one in the institute. Alec, having been fond of weapons from a young age, was more than a little blown away. There was an entire section dedicated to bows! A wall covered in every type of melee weapon imaginable! One wall was covered in mundane firearms and explosives and who knows what else! One area seemed to be made up entirely of weapons that didn't look like weapons – spy weapons.

And oddly enough, there seemed to be an entire area dedicated to odd objects, each with their own plaque. It looked like a huge area for trophies. One place seemed to be missing its object, and Alec read the plaque for it.

"Wait . . ." he said, drawing out the word. "A fiddle made of gold? And it's missing? I thought that was just a song!"

Lucifer got a wicked look in his eyes, and a mischievous smirk curled on his lips. "Well, technically it is, but it was just so amusing . . . Surely you understand that I just had to have this here?"

Alec snorted. "I really and truly don't understand you, Luce."

Lucifer stiffened in surprise at the nickname, and Alec wondered if he'd pushed too far, but the fallen angel just started grinning like a child on Christmas. "What would be the fun in understanding me? Then it'd just be boring."

Alec decided to not deem that with a response.

. . .

Alec made a strangled noise as he flopped in a highly over dramatic way onto his bed, hair wet from his shower. His bed felt softer than ever, and he lightly nuzzled his cheek into the comforter, sighing in relief. He was exhausted and every muscle in his body was aching. His temples were also pulsating with an intense headache that was quickly crossing into migraine territory.

There was an amused huff from the doorway. "You seem to be picking up on my melodramatics, at the very least. Surely it isn't that bad."

Alec grumbled into the blankets, and raised his head so as to be understood. "I have done nothing but train, eat, read, practice telekinesis or whatever it's called, work on my mannerisms, and get mock 'political' situations that you throw at me to train me. I have never been so exhausted in my entire life."

Lucifer made another amused noise, and suddenly he was perched on the end of Alec's bed. "If you believe that this is bad, little shadowhunter, then you have many difficult times ahead, indeed. Soon, you shall beg and pray that you can come back to these days of restfulness."

Alec made a strangled noise and flopped over, an arm going over his eyes. "Just let me sleep, would you?"

The weight on the bed shifted as Lucifer smoothly rose to his feet. "Very well. I shall retrieve you tomorrow morning at exactly seven o'clock, so be ready. We have but a few days until we need to go to the real Hell and prepare for your return to the human world. My council has informed me that things are escalating rather quickly there."

Alec quickly lifted his head. "What do you mean? Is my family all right?!"

"Sleep, little shadowhunter," Lucifer chided, snapping his fingers to turn the lights out. His silhouette was outlined in the eerie blue light reflecting from the snow and sky outside. "Your family is fine for now, and so long as you do your job correctly, they will continue to be fine."

Alec felt like saying something scathing, but his eyelids felt heavy, and he easily fell into the comforting arms of sleep, sprawled out over the covers in black satin pajamas.

. . .

"We must leave now," Lucifer said, quickly coming into the room with a look of slightly rushed panic in his eyes.

"What's wrong?!" Alec demanded, quickly jumping up from where he had been sitting.

Lucifer was quickly grabbing things from Alec's closet. "There will be a fight between Valentine and your siblings within the next few days. We must be there to do damage control."

When Lucifer started tossing clothes at Alec, he took a hint and started changing. "How do you know?"

Lucifer tossed Alec's crown onto the bed in front of the shadowhunter, and continued to hunt through his things. "I have trusted demons keeping an eye on anything and everything useful that is happening anywhere in the world, but especially within New York City."

Alec accepted that easily enough, and he quickly put his crown and the shadow-absorbing cloak on. "If we have a few days, why are we rushing so much?"

Lucifer finally came out of the closet and was, interestingly enough, wearing a plain light gold crown. "We have a few things to do in Hell before we can go, and the time runs normally there."

When Lucifer was suddenly handing over a heavy duffel bag full to the brim with weapons, he easily accepted it. "Is this all we need? Clothes and weapons?"

Lucifer quickly scanned the room to make sure and nodded. "Yes, we can retrieve anything else later. We need to go ahead and leave."

With a wave of Lucifer's hand, there was a portal in front of the two. Rather than the bright white light of the portal to dimension God had made, this one was a dark misty blue. Alec stepped through it, trusting that Lucifer had created the portal correctly.

On the other side of the portal was Asmodeus and a female demon that Alec vaguely remembered from the meeting with Lucifer's council. He wondered what they were doing there.

"My lord," they both said, easily dipping their heads in a small bow.

Lucifer, having stepped through the portal, easily said, "Asmodeus, Esmeralda, has something happened?"

Esmeralda, light green eyes determined, stepped forward. Her long platinum blond hair was pulled back, and her incredibly pale skin nearly glowed in the lighting. "Not that we're aware of, my lord, but Asmodeus and I request permission to return with you and the little lord to help."

Alec felt slightly miffed that she spoke like he wasn't there, but he decided it wasn't that important. He would address it later if it became a problem.

Lucifer hummed thoughtfully. "Permission granted. What of your realms though? Asmodeus, wasn't there problems with flooding in the land of spring? And Esmeralda, what of the twilight forest? Was your clan not having troubles with some other magic users?"

Asmodeus quickly said, "The floods have been taken care of, and my second is able to cover my absence."

Lucifer inclined his head in recognition and looked at Esmeralda, who answered, "The rogues have been taken care of, and Liliana is more than capable of looking over the forests in my stead."

Lucifer nodded. "Everything appears to be in order then. Hm, are you two ready now?"

They nodded, and Lucifer looked considering. He finally ordered: "Go to Manhattan and get a pent-suite in a centralized location. Make sure there is room enough for all four of us."

"Am I not staying with my family?" Alec asked, confusion clear in his tone. Surely he would be able to stay with his family for a while before anything major happened.

Lucifer shook his head. "That would be unwise. You are about to announce your kingship to the Clave. You will probably not even be allowed in the institute soon. Technically."

Alec felt a bone-deep dread, but he had already expected as much. "What do you mean 'technically'?"

Lucifer got a mischievous look on his face, eyes glinting. "My brother is rather fond of you. Surely you don't think the Clave can go against the wishes of their sponsoring angel?"

"Lord Raziel would grant me access?" Alec asked, more than a little flabbergasted.

Lucifer looked amused, as did the two demons. "Of course, little shadowhunter. Now, we must quickly retrieve the last things we need. Asmodeus, Esmeralda, you are dismissed."

After making the two powerful demons a portal to go through to complete their assigned task, Lucifer led Alec towards the front door of the house.

Alec followed him outside, expecting the cold to hit him. When the cold only bit at his face, he looked down at his clothes in confusion.

Lucifer, not slowing down once as he walked across the snow, noticed his look with a knowing smile. "The clothes you're wearing are custom made battle clothes. They adjust with the temperature, are nearly impenetrable, and are slightly magic resistant."

Alec stared at tight black body suit with new understanding. "What is it made of?"

"A mixture of some silk from a type of demons in Esmeralda's realm and metal found in the cavern realm."

Alec was more than a little impressed, and they finally came to a stop in front of what looked like stables. Lucifer pulled open one huge door, quickly stepping in.

Alec followed him inside and froze with wide eyes. Rather than a workshop, or weapons, or even normal horses, there was a rather intimidating sight. In each of the stable stalls was a huge black horse, each slightly larger than a Clydesdale. Instead of a normal mane and tail, they had shadows fog in the rough estimation of hair. Much like his cloak, they seemed to radiate darkness, and cancel out light. All of the horses's eyes were different colors.

Lucifer was standing in front of one with bright gold eyes, and was petting its neck. He turned to Alec with a prideful look. "This is my horse Aster."

Lucifer turned towards the horse in the stall next to Aster. The horse's eyes looked eerily close to Alec's. "And this, little shadowhunter, is Tenebris – your horse."

"What? Why do we need horses?"

Lucifer grinned, flashing his bright teeth. "Intimidation and dramatics. You wouldn't believe the fear and awe when you ride in on one of these horses. They have incredibly strong hide and are nearly impossible to kill, on top of having extreme stamina to let them run for very large periods of time."

Alec's eyebrows rose on his forehead. It really did figure that Lucifer would want to be dramatic going anywhere, and he was sure that those horses did invoke quite the reaction. "What is the breed called?"

Lucifer shrugged. "They don't really have a name, but most call them Abyssal Guardians, since they normally guard the abyss realm. It is, thankfully, still on our side, and the leader of that realm gifted me all of these horses a few thousand years ago."

Lucifer seemed to remember something, and added: "Also, as another intimidation tactic, they can leave dark shadows where ever they step. The shadows can't be removed and they can last for weeks."

"That doesn't sound good for stealth."

Lucifer looked amused. "They can control it. So long as you tell them not to, they won't."

Alec gave the horses a suspicious look as they neighed in what sounded like laughter. "How smart are they?"

"Oh, you know, about as smart as the average human," Lucifer responded, eyes gleaming with amusement.

"What?" Alec asked, staring at the horses with wide eyes. He though about it. "Can they talk?"

Lucifer scoffed. "Don't be ridiculous – they're horses."

"Then how do they communicate?" Alec asked.

"Telepathically, of course."

"Of course," Alec responded, his words practically dripping with sarcasm. Honestly, telepathic demon horses. What was next?

The horses neighed in laughter.

. . .

It was several hours later when they rode – yes, rode – out of the portal with their Abyssal Guardian horses. There were no mundanes to worry about, thankfully, and he wondered how they were going to put the horses once this "battle" was over.

Alec hadn't ridden a horse in years, but he was getting the hang of it pretty quickly. The fact that Tenebris took verbal directions helped a lot. The horse had yet to talk to him telepathically, but Lucifer told him that the Guardian would get around to it eventually. He took his word for it.

"Where exactly are we?" Alec asked as he looked around. It was dark outside, and the road were on was made of a mixture of dirt and gravel. With Tenebris's every step, there was a crunch noise from the road.

"Outside of Valentine's current hideout, where he supposedly had Jocelyn Fairchild. The battle should take place there, but we need to get there first, if we can."

They had only been riding for a further five minutes when the sound of howling, snarling, and yelling came from a few miles ahead of them. Alec stiffened, and his fingers strayed to his bow strapped across his back.

Lucifer frowned. "We are definitely late to the battle. Well, I never was one to turn down a fashionably late entrance." He turned to Alec. "When we get there, use your bow when you can, but don't hesitate to use your telekinesis. Your abilities are strong enough for a short battle."

Alec quickly nodded, eyes straying back to the direction of the fight.

Lucifer patted Aster, and said, "C'mon, boy. Let's go make a good first impression."

With that, the two of them urged their horses to run. Tenebris and Aster ran quickly, their hooves causing a rhythmic clip-clop, clip-clop noise. Their cloaks flapped behind them like bat wings as they approached a castle-looking building.

Well, here goes nothing, Alec thought with a grim smile, preparing to dive into the battle.