Lucifer

Lucifer had intended to spend the day doing absolutely nothing of consequence. This was not an especially ambitious plan. He had earned it.

There had been wine cooling in the eastern rooms since morning, a book left open beside the long windows overlooking the lower terraces, and a bath already prepared with enough heat to turn the marble chamber faintly pearlescent with steam. Someone had even remembered to bring fresh figs. Lucifer had noticed this at breakfast and considered it evidence that civilization, despite its many disappointments, remained worth preserving.

By noon, civilization had begun making demands.

A territorial dispute between two infernal houses had become sufficiently petty that neither party could resolve it without invoking precedents older than several human languages. A contract registrar had discovered an inconsistency in three archived claims and, rather than quietly correcting the obvious clerical error, had managed to turn it into a jurisdictional question. One of the western courts had requested clarification on a ruling Lucifer distinctly remembered clarifying once already, centuries ago, in language he had considered insultingly simple at the time.

By late afternoon, a delegation had arrived without an appointment.

Lucifer had received them anyway.

He had listened. He had adjudicated. He had explained, with diminishing patience, that being ancient did not exempt anyone from understanding the meaning of a boundary once it had been drawn in ink, witnessed, sealed, and subsequently violated in front of six people. He had signed nothing he did not mean to sign. He had refused two petitions, amended another, redirected one matter to someone who should have been handling it from the beginning, and spent nearly twenty minutes staring at a demon who continued saying “with respect” immediately before statements possessing none.

By the time the last court chamber emptied, Lucifer had developed the sort of tranquility that existed only because irritation had burned clean through itself.

The great doors shut behind the final petitioner with a low, satisfying thud. Silence settled over the chamber in layers: the last retreating footsteps beyond the hall, the soft tick of cooling metal from the braziers, the whisper of fabric as Lucifer leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

Enough.

Tomorrow, there would be no court. There would be no petitions. No delegations. No ancient territorial nonsense that had somehow survived long enough to become his problem. Someone else could discover the profound spiritual enrichment that came from explaining procedural law to people who had personally witnessed the development of writing.

He would be unavailable.

Lucifer opened his eyes and rose.

The movement released the tension collected between his wings. He rolled one shoulder, then the other, immense white feathers shifting behind him with a muted, silken rustle. Gold fire burned low in the sconces, catching briefly along the pearlescent edges before sliding away again in colors too faint and strange to name cleanly. His formal coat had begun to feel offensive several hours ago. He wanted it off. He wanted the rings from his fingers, the pins from his hair, the accumulated residue of other people’s problems washed from his skin.

Wine. Bath. Book. Possibly music. Nothing requiring judgment.

He had reached the outer corridor when hurried footsteps approached from behind.

Lucifer did not turn immediately.

“My lord.” The voice belonged to one of the junior attendants assigned to the receiving wing. Young, by infernal standards. Usually competent. Currently breathless.

Lucifer closed his eyes for half a second. “No.”

A pause.

“My lord, I—”

“No petitions.”

“It isn’t a petition.”

“No disputes.”

“No, my lord.”

“No visiting dignitaries, unexpected relatives, procedural emergencies, wounded pride disguised as legal necessity, or anyone who has discovered an exciting new interpretation of a contract signed before the invention of paper.”

The attendant hesitated.

Lucifer turned. Whatever remark had been preparing itself died pleasantly on his tongue.

The young demon looked pale.

Not frightened, exactly. Startled. Holding himself with the rigid care of someone carrying information that had already been repeated twice to make certain it remained real.

“There is…” He swallowed. “There is an offering.”

Lucifer’s expression barely changed.

Offerings were not unusual. Candles. Incense. Jewelry. Blood, occasionally, usually in quantities far more dramatic than necessary. Wine. Flowers. Written vows. Small personal treasures surrendered with enormous ceremony. Humans had always been imaginative when attempting to make attention tangible.

He began walking again. “Put it with the others.”

The attendant remained where he was.

“My lord.”

Lucifer stopped.

When he looked back this time, the demon appeared to reconsider every life decision that had brought him into the corridor.

“A sacrifice,” he said carefully. “A human sacrifice.”

For several seconds, Lucifer simply stared at him. The irritation disappeared so completely it was almost embarrassing. “A human.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Alive?”

“Yes.”

Lucifer’s brows lifted.

The attendant nodded quickly, as though anticipating the next question. “Alive. Uninjured, as far as we can tell. The ritual was properly conducted. The offering was transferred to the receiving room and the doors sealed. No one has entered since.”

Lucifer said nothing.

A human sacrifice. An actual human sacrifice.

He could not remember the last time anyone had sent him one. That realization produced an absurd, immediate little flare of pleasure beneath his ribs.

How long had it been? A century? Slightly more?

Humans still offered blood, certainly. They still made bargains, performed invocations, burned things they could not afford to replace and called the loss devotion. But somewhere along the way they had become very particular about the distinction between sacrifice and murder, and even his most fervent worshippers had largely stopped arriving at the conclusion that the appropriate gift for Lucifer Morningstar was another entire human being.

A pity, really. He had always rather enjoyed those.

Lucifer smoothed his expression before the thought could reach it.

“Are you certain?”

The attendant seemed almost offended by the question. “Yes, my lord.”

Lucifer regarded him for another moment, then looked down the corridor toward the receiving wing.

The doors would be closed. That mattered. An offering was not accepted merely because it had been brought into his house. He could leave it there. He could decline to cross the threshold and instruct someone else to dispose of the matter however the relevant ritual required. Nothing bound him yet.

He could still go take his bath.

Lucifer stood very still.

Then, slowly, the corner of his mouth curved.

“Of course,” he murmured.

The attendant wisely said nothing.

Lucifer adjusted one cuff, drew a hand once through the pale fall of his hair, and turned toward the receiving rooms with considerably more energy than he had possessed thirty seconds earlier.

A human sacrifice.

After the day he had endured.

Well.

Perhaps civilization had apologized.