Death Lord

20

By now I’d finished packing, and I sat on the edge of the bed, eager to hear his story and finally have some answers. “Why did you change your mind?”

“Pestilence was too damn powerful and he wanted nothing more than to annihilate the entire world. That wasn’t what I’d signed up for. Earth has been my home for centuries, and I didn’t want it destroyed. I just wanted Lucifer overthrown.”

“I mean, they are called the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse for a reason,” I said. “What did you think would happen?”

He scowled in response. “I was a fool. I’d been a child when the Four Horsemen were first defeated and entombed, but I’d forgotten how bad things had gotten then. Once Pestilence was freed and began spreading plague across the world, I knew I had to stop him. We freed War and I tried to use him to take down Pestilence, since the best way to defeat an Elder God is with another Elder God. But War needed a body to possess, as all Elder Gods do, and Lucifer sacrificed himself to save me from being possessed.” His scowl only deepened at the memory, and he ran a hand through his hair. “My mother then became Famine to take him down.”

I nodded slowly. “I was there when your mother freed Famine. My father needed me to open the portal to Faerie, where Famine was entombed, and I saw the horrible aftermath once she was set lose. Famine actually tried to possess my body.” I shuddered a little at the memory of the Elder God draining my life away from me. “Your mother saved me when she let Famine possess her. Fenrir and I escaped before I saw what happened next though.”

“She’s impressive, isn’t she? She’s the reincarnation of Eve and has been many things in her past lives, but I think she’s topped them all in her current life.” He grinned at the mention of his mother, obviously fond of her. “She found a way to defeat the Elder God when it was inside her—basically resisting the possession while retaining all of the powers of Famine. She managed to save Lucifer, who defeated War and took possession of his own body again too.”

“What happened next?” I asked. “How did Death get free?”

Belial’s grin fell and darkness clouded his face again. “After all that happened, I couldn’t stand against my father anymore. Yes, he’d fallen short as a leader many times, but he was still my father. He’d sacrificed himself to save me. He wasn’t perfect, but he and I talked some things out, and he seemed open to changing how he ruled. But Fenrir didn’t want to stop.”

My muscles tensed, knowing what was coming. I had to know what happened, but I didn’t want to hear it either.

“By then, most of our other allies had been killed, but Fenrir teamed up with Pestilence, thinking they would overthrow Lucifer together and then he would crown himself the new king of demons. They released Death, who possessed Fenrir’s body, and they kidnapped my baby sister, Aurora, and took her to Hell.” His hands clenched the sides of the chair at the memory. “My parents led an army into Hell to rescue her, and this time, I fought alongside them to rescue my sister and stop the Horsemen from destroying the world.”

“And my father?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

“By the time we fought, there was very little of him left inside his body. Death was completely in control, and I doubted Fenrir even wanted to fight him off. The only way to stop him was to kill him.”

I swallowed, my throat dry, as I learned about this for the first time. My father had said it was too dangerous for me to come with him to Hell to release Death, and most of the shifters who had gone with him had either died or refused to talk about it. I’d learned about my father’s death from my brothers, who had been there at the battle in Hell, but they hadn’t told me all of this. They’d painted Belial as the villain, and made me crave vengeance for the death of our father, but now I knew the truth was a lot more complicated than I could have imagined. I’d loved my father, but he’d been no saint, and I’d seen him lose more and more of himself in his quest to become the king of demons near the end. Maybe I should have tried harder to stop him too.

Belial’s eyes met mine. “I want you to know I took no joy in ending your father’s life, and I did it quickly with the s***h of my sword. He did not suffer.”

I nodded and closed my eyes, letting his words soak in. A hollow, aching emptiness crept over me, replacing the anger that had burned within me little by little. I’d come to New Orleans for vengeance, but what I’d really needed were answers, and Belial had given those to me. Even if I didn’t like them.

Belial’s hand suddenly clasped mine, and my eyes snapped open. I took a shaky breath in, as I realized Belial wasn’t the villain I’d painted him as. He’d made mistakes, just as my father had done, but he’d tried to make things right in the end...even if it had resulted in my father’s death.

I wiped at my eyes as I asked, “But how did you become Death?”

He jerked his hand away from mine, his face going hard. “Once Fenrir was done, Death needed a new host, and we had no way to lock him up or send him to Void. He went after my sister, planning to possess her body, but she was just a baby.” His voice shook a little, showing how much he cared for his sister. For all his family. “I told Death to take me instead, but after he possessed me, I was able to overcome the Elder God with the help of my family. I defeated him and became Death myself, instead of just a host body. And now I have to live with that for the rest of my life.”