Lucifer Damned (Morningstar Book 3), Percival Constantine [electric book reader .txt] 📗

The manager gave repeated nods. Lucifer helped him to his feet and back into the office. The manager gingerly moved back behind the counter to check the computer records.

“By the way, I’m sorry about the door,” said Lucifer. “Mara can get a little…overenthusiastic.”

The manager didn’t even acknowledge Lucifer’s apology, just focused on his computer. “We had two guys like you described book a room last night. It’s a double…room 19.”

“There, now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” asked Lucifer with a smile.

“If you’re gonna kill them, could you…maybe do it somewhere else?” asked the manager.

Lucifer bowed. “You have my word.” He stepped outside the office and met up with Mara once more. “That was a bit over-the-top, don’t you think?”

“Was it?” asked Mara.

“Just a skosh,” said Lucifer. He walked down the row of rooms, counting past the numbers until they came to room 19. “Ah, here we are. Now remember, I do need them both alive.”

Mara nodded and stepped up to the door. She swung her leg up and kicked it, breaking through the wood and rendering the lock useless. Inside, Shem fell off one of the twin beds and looked at the demon with fear.

“What the hell was that noise?” Ham emerged from the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel, shaving cream lathered over his face. Once he saw what had happened, he shouted, “Oh shit!”

“The Morningstar requests an audience,” said Mara.

Shem scurried under the bed, and Mara bent over. She took hold of the frame and flipped the bed over onto its twin, then saw Shem lying on the ground with a revolver clutched in both hands. He pulled the trigger and the gun went off, striking Mara in her shoulder. She gritted her teeth at the pain she felt—an unusual amount of pain for a typical bullet-wound. But she noticed the engravings on the gun’s barrel, meaning the weapon was one designed to ward off supernatural beings.

Ham charged forward and slammed into Mara. Taken by surprise and slightly weakened from Shem’s gun, Mara was knocked off her feet and back out the door. Ham was on top of her and his fists managed to strike her face a few times. But Mara quickly recovered and Ham’s fist stopped in mid-strike, mere inches from her face. He struggled against Mara’s telekinetic hold on his fist, but slowly his arm changed direction. And when Mara released her hold, Ham ended up punching himself right in the face.

With a flick of her fingers, Mara’s telekinesis threw Ham off her. He landed on his ass just outside the door. Mara walked up to him and grabbed him by both ears, then slammed his head against the wall. Ham groaned and grunted with each strike, but he managed to hold on to consciousness.

That was until Mara drove her knee right into his face. She released her grip and Ham slumped to the ground, his face bruised and bloody and his eyes shut.

Mara stepped back inside the room, but had to duck out almost immediately once Shem fired another shot. She sighed and looked down at her hand. With her powers slightly weakened from that first shot, it took a little bit more effort for her to summon hellfire. But once she did, it appeared in the form of a small shotgun.

She turned into the room and immediately raised the gun, then fired it. The flaming hellfire shell exploded from the barrel and struck Shem right in the chest. The force of impact threw his rail-thin body against the wall and when he landed, it was face-down. Unconscious, just like his brother.

Mara picked up Shem and threw him over her shoulder. She exited the room and bent down to take hold of Ham’s foot, then started dragging him behind her as she walked to meet up with Lucifer again.

“Taken care of,” she said.

“Good, now just let me grab my phone and then we can get out of here.” Lucifer casually strolled past the splintered door with his hands in his pockets. He looked at the spot where Shem’s bed had been, but saw nothing on the ground there. Lucifer peeked under the twin beds that rested upon each other, still seeing nothing.

He went to the dresser and started opening drawers. One of them held a small collection of guns, knives, holy water, and other weapons. It seemed what Lucifer had found in their van was far from the extent of their arsenal. But also amidst the weapons was his phone. He picked it up, turned on the screen to ensure it was indeed his, and once he was satisfied, put it in his inner breast pocket.

“Everything settled?” asked Mara when Lucifer emerged to rejoin her.

Lucifer nodded. “Yes, I’ve got the phone. But the question is where should we take these two?”

“There’s a basement in Lust. Asmodeus used to use it for just such an occasion,” said Mara.

“Seems appropriate. Very well, then let’s go there and find out just how these two little fail-sons stumbled on their information.”

Lucifer glanced past Mara when he noticed the manager emerge from the front office to see what had happened. He looked at the room in horror, and then turned his attention to Lucifer and Mara.

“Don’t worry!” said Lucifer as he waved. “They’re still alive and we’ll be getting out of your hair now.”

Mara’s wings emerged from her back and wrapped around all four of them. They vanished in a flash of light, leaving the manager standing alone in the parking lot.

“Now who’s gonna clean all this shit up…?” he wondered.

7

Referring to the area beneath Lust as a basement seemed like an understatement. To Lucifer, it looked more like a dungeon. There were shackles hanging from the walls, trays of sharp and blunt instruments, a shelf of chemicals, a collection of whips neatly coiled, and several other devices and instruments—the purposes of which Lucifer didn’t exactly want to imagine. In addition, there were even some containment cells.

“You said Asmodeus used this room?” asked