I shook my head. “Not really. Cronus was crucified and Rhea beheaded. I think Abaddon was in there for a while before all the fighting started out here.”
I saw Grayson coming toward us, and I ran over. “How’s Charon?”
“He’ll be fine. I’ve left him with some of Cerberus’s people. I think it’s time we all had a chat.”
We walked back over to the rest of the group.
“Lucifer, is that you?” Hyperion asked. “It’s been a long time.”
“Well, that deals with the ‘How do you tell everyone who I really am?’ part of the day,” Grayson said, and shook Hyperion’s hand. “It’s been a long time.”
“I’m sorry, I feel like we’ve overlooked something,” Sky said. “He’s Lucifer? As in the devil? The opposite of God? You know, the whole Bible thing?”
I stared at Grayson for several seconds. “Lucifer? You’re real?”
“Let’s go somewhere a little less crowded, and I’ll explain,” Grayson promised.
No one wanted to go into the villa, and as Hyperion already seemed to know that Grayson and Lucifer were one and the same, he went to deal with his friends’ bodies. It was a task I didn’t envy him for having.
The rest of us walked into a small nearby house, which, apart from having the contents trashed, was devoid of anyone living or dead.
“This was Atlas’s house,” Sky said, the anger radiating off her in waves. “Although now I guess it’s the house of a traitor.”
I picked up a wooden chair and sat down in it, crossing my arms and waiting for Grayson to tell us whatever it was he was about to say.
“I am Lucifer,” he started. “A few things. I’m not a suave, womanizing nightclub owner. I’m not evil. I’m not the Prince of Darkness. I have never met God, or an angel, or demons. I’ve never been to hell. I have no idea if heaven and hell are real. I am not the Prince of Lies. My last name isn’t Morningstar. I am not a dragon. I have not once accepted souls from someone at a crossroad in exchange for anything. Ever. I do not know anyone with the surname of Winchester. I am not the devil, or Crowley, or Satan, or any of the other dozen or so names that person possesses.”
“Well, that summed up a lot of my questions,” Sky said. “And all sarcastic questions, too.”
“So, what are you?” Selene asked.
“Thousands of years before any of you were even born, when humanity was in its infancy, when warlords roamed this planet, and murder and destruction were all they cared about, there were those who wished only for conquest. These people would later become revered, worshipped by people who didn’t know better. The gods before even the Mesopotamians, Egyptians, or Titans were anything but the future. Those people created us.
“Magic was dark and powerful back then. Sorcerers were rare, and many quickly discovered that blood magic was capable of feats of power that instilled fear in those who followed. I do not know whose idea it was to create me. I never met him.”
“Why were you created?” I asked.
“There were seven of us. Each one conceived and born during a blood-magic ritual. The sorcerers discovered that taking the blood of various species and performing the magic with it had certain effects on the conception and birth. I don’t know how many humans were used in these rituals. I know that those performing the rituals used as many different types of human as they could get hold of. They roamed the lands, looking for people to capture. I don’t know if they tried it with people who weren’t human, but I do know that the seven of us were born from different sets of human parents. Each of us gained some of the power from the ritual and the blood used, but it was power on a scale no one at the time could possibly imagine. I barely think anyone even now would be able to understand it.”
“What happened to you after you were born?”
“We were sent to another realm to train and become warriors, but something happened and it took us a millennium to get back. In the meantime we conquered our new home, honing skills and slaughtering our enemies by the thousands.
“Eventually we managed to find a way back to the Earth realm, and by then people like Nergal, Cronus, and Ra had taken their seats of power. It would still be hundreds of years before the Olympians came to power, and thousands before Merlin and his Avalon. And we set about conquering this realm, like we had the last one. Unfortunately we didn’t expect the resistance we received, and we were defeated. The pantheons of the age decided to take each of us to use as a sort of deterrent. We agreed to pledge ourselves individually to that pantheon, and in exchange we’d live like the gods.”
“It was an ancient cold war,” I said.
Grayson nodded. “No one made a move against the others, because each group had one of us. There was a kind of stalemate until our leader organized a rebellion. His name is Asmodeus, and he was the first and strongest of us, thus we made him our king.”
“What is he?” Selene asked.
“A vampire. Possibly the first—we’re not sure. We assumed there were vampires before him, because the blood magic must have used them to create one, but we were never able to find information one way or the other. Anyway, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that he is a vampire in the same way that a space shuttle is a method of transport. He’s so much more powerful than you can possibly imagine. He’s essentially a sorcerer with the powers of a master vampire.”
“What happened to him?” Zamek asked.
“Asmodeus’s rebellion rose up and fought against the pantheons. They killed some, destroyed so much. Murdered so many that the streets of towns were slick with blood and death. The dwarves, elves, and pantheons of this world rose up to fight as one, and after much bloodshed, Asmodeus was driven into a realm. The gate was destroyed. Each devil who had taken part in the rebellion was sent through a different realm gate. Those who said no to his offer, who fought against Asmodeus, were spared under the promise we’d never contact the other devils again.”
“How many were spared?” I asked.
“Two. I was one, and Beelzebub was the other. She hated me for not joining Asmodeus and hated herself for not joining him. I figured out too late that she’d been working as his spy, sowing discord along our ranks. She vanished from this realm not long after.”
“And you never saw any of your kin again?” I asked. “Is ‘kin’ the right word?”