Retribution [malexmale]

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

"Okay, give me one good reason why I should let an ancient demon stay here."

"Because you love me." Hades deadpanned, folding his arms over his chest, leaning back against the wall outside Lucifer's laboratory. Lucifer stood across from him, studying him intensely as if he was starting to debate that fact. Lea, Dorean, and I stood in the hallway, watching with grimaces.

After the battle on Olympus and managing to placate Zeus with promises that the demon would not return any time soon, we managed to go through with Hades's plan of taking the demon to Hell where Atlan probably wouldn't think to look. From what Atlan remembered, Hell was an empty realm populated by low-level demons. He had no idea it'd become an officially owned realm with its own belief and fun-package.

Now we were trying to convince Lucifer why this was a good idea, and I wasn't even totally sold. Atlan would probably start doing some digging to figure out where his demon went and no doubt he'd trace Hades's relationship with Lucifer to this realm, but Hades seemed pretty convinced that we were safe here. Somehow.

"I can't let him stay in my realm," Hades said flippantly, "Atlan saw me take his demon. Of course he's gonna send his special little feelers in for him there, and probably Olympus too. He won't think to come here."

"And if he finds out about our relationship and follows it here? Hades, I have people to protect as well."

"It won't be for long," Hades chided him, "Give me a couple days to sort things out. By then, I should have a solid idea on how to keep the guy in check." Lucifer appeared unconvinced and totally not thrilled about the idea, but he didn't push it any further as he sighed, raking a hand through his hair.

"Well, this is just wonderful." He declared at last, casting Hades another disdainful glare. Hades just smiled innocently.

"At least he's not thrashing around anymore," Dorean offered helpfully, making Lucifer frown, "He didn't go down without a fight."

"Now he's just sitting there." Lea added, but she didn't look any less relieved. We stared at the doors to the laboratory before entering one by one. A long stainless steel laboratory full of electronic equipment and oddly stylish, but not nearly as huge and as high-tech as Hades's. However, it got the job done and that job sat at the back of the room in a cage that we'd managed to get Alexion to forge and had been sitting around in Tartarus for a year or two. The demon sat back against the wall of bars behind it and sat with its head slightly ducked down to avoid hitting its head on the flat top. Its wrists were shackled to the back of the cage and it sat cross-legged, unabashed by its nudity.

It was still heavily sedated and only stared at us through hooded eyelids, its head drooped and wings having vanished shortly after it fainted the first time. Actually, it looked a little pathetic now and not like the harbinger of death it had acted like earlier.

"Does it speak?" Lucifer asked as we stood around to stare inside at the creature.

"Yes." Hades said at the same time I denied the claim. I scowled at him.

"Well, it certainly didn't listen when people told it to stop." I told him. Hades gave me a droll stare, his arms folded over his chest as he leaned onto a steel bar stool. 

"I don't stop if you tell me to either. Does that make me an it?" He challenged. I just glared at him. I had no idea where his mindset came from, indicating that the demon was a he and a person. It obviously had no sense of morality or ethics or even a personality anymore. It acted like a rabid dog and the only reason it wasn't attacking us now was because of the amount of sedation we'd had to pump into its system every so often. Its metabolism was so strong that it chewed up the sedatives like it was a bag of M&Ms.