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

don’t seem particularly zealous, more concerned with maintaining order. Two of their agents actually helped Belial and I shut down Barbatos.”

“Do they know about your powers?” asked Mara.

Lucifer looked up at her. “You think they’re responsible for siccing the Wonder Twins on me?”

Mara shrugged. “Is it that outside the realm of possibility? Wouldn’t be the first time the US government used proxies to deal with their dirty work.”

“That’s true…” muttered Lucifer. “You have a phone I can borrow? I need to reach Belial and I dropped mine during the escape. I’d like to get back to the house now and could use his help.”

“Of course. But I’ll go back there with you right now, no need to wait for Belial,” said Mara. “He’s not the only one indebted to you.”

“That would be helpful,” said Lucifer. He looked down at his robe. “And I don’t suppose you have any clothes in my size…?”

Mara’s eyes burned bright yellow as she waved her hands. Energy crackled around Lucifer’s body, shifting the robe until it transformed into a silk red suit with a black, open-collared shirt. Lucifer examined the new clothing and gave a smile of satisfaction.

“Much better,” he said. “Although I will need you to turn this back into a robe later.”

“I will. Although there’s a bigger problem,” said Mara. “Now that these two know, who’s to say how many others will find out? You’re going to have a target on your back. Do you know of a way to restore your powers?”

Lucifer paused. Then he just stood from the couch, buttoned the jacket, and walked past Mara towards the front door. “I’m afraid I haven’t come up with anything just yet.”

5

Not only did Lucifer leave the van in a place it would definitely be towed, but the stockpile of weapons inside would definitely give the police reason to investigate further. And now that Mara was with him, Lucifer had no need of the van for transportation purposes—her wings could teleport them both instantly to Lucifer’s front door.

They materialized about a block away just in case Shem and Ham were still lurking around. Didn’t seem likely as strategy certainly wasn’t their strong suit, but it was best to take precautions so as not to be caught unawares. The two of them walked the short distance to Lucifer’s home.

The front door was left open. Mara took the lead and once inside the foyer, she conjured a hellfire sword in her hands. The library was to the left of the foyer and she checked inside there, first. Some books had been removed from the shelves, but they were left discarded on the floor. There was broken glass in a puddle of gin from Lucifer’s attack on Ham, as well as the butcher knife Lucifer had thrown in the fight.

Mara moved through the library and into the kitchen. Also empty and not much of note in there. She continued forward, but as she came closer to the living room, she could sense another presence. Mara held up her hand, signaling for Lucifer to stay back. She gripped her sword with both hands and pushed open the sliding door with her foot.

She charged in the living room and raised the sword, prepared to bring it down on the remaining intruder. But she met with sudden resistance in the form of another flaming sword. Mara locked eyes with the intruder and her face carried a hint of surprise.

Mara’s sword vanished, the hellfire retreating back into her arms. The ‘intruder’ did the same as well, just as Lucifer entered the room behind Mara. He too was surprised to see the third person, though he probably shouldn’t have been.

“Belial?” asked Lucifer. “What are you doing here?”

“I live here,” said Belial.

“We tried to contact you, but we didn’t get an answer,” said Mara.

“I got your message and I came right over,” said Belial. “I hoped to catch the would-be assassins before they managed to escape.”

“And did you?” asked Lucifer.

Belial shook his head. “They were gone by the time I arrived. It seems they tried searching for some useful information, but I didn’t see any books unaccounted for.”

“No, my guess is they saw that the books weren’t in whatever idiot variant of English they speak, and so they just left them behind,” said Lucifer. “Or perhaps it was the lack of pictures that put them off.”

“Whatever the case, we need to press on ahead,” said Belial.

“Agreed,” said Lucifer. “I didn’t find my phone, so my guess is they must have taken it, thinking they could get some information off it. Not only are they likely too stupid to access anything on the device, but I’ll bet they didn’t even think about disabling the GPS. We can find them that way and then I can learn more about why they came for me.”

Belial didn’t say anything at first. Instead, he just stared at Lucifer. The Morningstar quickly got the impression that his loyal bodyguard had a very different idea in mind for how to deal with the situation.

“Do you…disagree?” asked Lucifer.

“Don’t you think there’s something else we should focus on first?” asked Belial.

“Like what?”

“It’s dangerous for you to go after them in your current state. The priority should be restoring your powers,” said Belial.

“It would definitely be ideal, but we can’t wait around for that,” said Mara. “Probably won’t take long before they realize they can’t do anything with the Morningstar’s phone. And at that point, they’ll probably toss it and head off into hiding. Wasting precious lead time to research a way for Lucifer to restore his powers—”

Belial cut her off, holding up his hand. “Hold on, what are you saying? What needs to be researched?”

Mara blinked a few times. “How to restore his powers. So far, we don’t know what can be done—”

“Yes, we do,” said Belial. “Lucifer’s powers are tied to Hell. What we need to do is return there and then he can be restored. Who told you—”

Belial stopped himself and looked at Lucifer. He let out a