Elves rushed toward him from the front hall, only to fall back again.
His black, feathery wings snapped out behind him, filling the hall, the edges raking down the walls. Fire pulsed around him, burrowing into anything wood, flames roaring in his wake. The ground shook as his subjects joined their power with his, their magic tearing off doors, pulling down chandeliers, scraping up the floors.
“In the dungeons, sir,” Victoria said, flying in her demon form in front of him, half his size and adept at handling tight spaces and ghastly surprises.
He tore the next door from its hinges and threw it aside. With an extra little boost of magic, it tore through glass, brick, and mortar. Through the archway, which he’d left intact for his subjects to rip down, he let surprise hinder his step for a brief moment.
The large room, two stories with a viewing balcony, had been utterly destroyed. Huge, gaping holes punched through the left wall and the ceiling, clumps of destroyed stone littering the floor. Columns lay in ruin, and half the balcony had been torn down.
“Your daughter, sir,” Victoria said.
Pride welled within him, and he laughed. “Finish the job,” he said, turning.
At the narrow steps to descend into the dungeons, he felt the unmistakable power of the king and queen. He turned to the right, waiting to see if they would present themselves. His subjects crowded around him, ripping and tearing, making clear what he thought of this insult.
The king’s voice reverberated through the chamber. “She has committed grievous infractions within our kingdom. She should be hanged. She was spared solely because she is your heir. Your actions today, however…”
The threat lingered, though the king did not step through the doors. He did not intend to confront Lucifer face to face.
A smile stretched across Lucifer’s face.
“My actions today serve as a hint of what is to come. Brace yourself, you sniveling coward. You have no idea what your actions will unleash.” He glanced at Victoria and thought, Tell them to cover me, and then follow me down. Leave the rest up here.
He descended, closing his wings with a snap, letting the fire follow him down. A body littered the ground, the neck having been ripped out. A vampire had visited, then, and clearly not one under the employ of the elves. Vlad?
A man in a cell looked up as fire crowded the room, his eyes wide but glazed, responding to the light. There was nothing behind those eyes, his mind utterly gone. He would never come back from this. Only the primal part of him still remained, and that part wasn’t enough for any sort of action. This man was waiting for death.
Lucifer stabbed him through the forehead with air, a merciful killing. “Find out who he is and deliver him to his people. Inform them of what the elves did.”
He stepped over another guard, killed the same as the last. He moved down the hall, passing closed doors. Only one of them, the last on the right, was open. He slowly walked toward it, anger burning within him. If the vampires had taken his daughter with anything other than the intention of delivering her…
He stopped in the doorway and changed into his humanoid form. Cahal the druid rose from a crouch, his expression flat.
A woman sat at his feet, and a pang hit Lucifer’s heart so fiercely that he nearly staggered, nearly rushed to her, nearly commanded his subjects to go to war right then and there.
He knew her face, though he’d never seen her up close. Knew her poise—her challenge—even as she sat bleeding on a stone floor. Knew her magic, since it was his own. Knew her potential, because he could see her strength. She would not break, this woman. Not from life, not from the elves, not from anything.
“You are Amorette’s daughter,” he said, and it wasn’t a question. He could see Amorette in the lovely face covering that hard edge. In her obvious stubbornness. In her immediate ability to wrap him around her little finger, even if this time it would be as a daughter does a father.
“Hey, Pop. Nice to meet you,” she said with a wheeze. “I’d get up, but I’m in the middle of something.”
He laughed. Though her voice was weak and scratchy, her confidence could not be misinterpreted. Her swagger, her blasé attitude, even while suffering a pain so great it dulled her gaze…
“She reminds me of you, sir,” Victoria said, peering over his shoulder. “And she is already speaking our language, even here.”
“I learned when I was in the Underworld. Somehow. That was me, by the way. In the Underworld.” Reagan grimaced, trying to keep sitting, but gravity was pulling her down. “Surprise…”
“Yes, I’d gathered,” he responded, a feeling of lightness coming over him. Also an urgency to ease her pain. “Give me a moment, and we’ll get you cleaned up. I assume you can wait?”