Fallen Pride - 5. Chapter 5

“Jahke?”

The pale demon looked up from his desk, as ever a mess of books, ledgers, loose paper, pens, and ink lit by the soft fizzing of a naphtha lamp. He smiled to see the Prince standing there.

“Sire!” Belatedly, Jahke made to stand, and tried to clear his desk at the same time. “Is there anything I can do for you?” Jahke couldn’t help the blush which spread across his pale cheeks. He’d spent a long time scared of Nassau, but since the Prince liked to visit with his oldest friend, and Kiorl lived with him, the former human had gotten to know Nassau better than most minor demons, and certainly better than most recruits, over the years he’d lived in hell. He also made no secret of the fact that, like mostly everyone, he thought the demon Prince incredibly sexy. Sometimes he hardly believed he’d given Nassau a blow job the very first time they’d met.

“Ah, young one, if only that was the reason I was here...” Nassau glanced back over his shoulder, and Jahke made out the shape of another person, fully hidden in a dark cloak, he hadn’t seen before.

“Oh, I’m so sorry...” he started, but Nassau quelled him with a hand.

“Don’t worry about it. But maybe you and Sitka would like to attend Court later on this week, and we can have ourselves a little...” Nassau’s pause was heavy with suggestion, “...chat?”

“Oh, yes, please sire.” Jahke covered his fast flush of desire by clearing his throat. “What can the Office of Records do for you today m’sire?”

“I have a new demon for you to log. Do you have the ledger?”

“Oh, yes!”

Since Jahke had taken over the running of the record office, he had insisted all new demons were logged in a single, enormous ledger. His clearing up and sorting of the files had highlighted the reasons Nassau had given him the job in the first place, because there were demons who had never been given anything useful to do, and many posts which had not been filled for many years as the demons who had been assigned them had been killed, and no one had really realised it. The Book of Demons was enormous, almost as tall as Jahke was, and had its own gilt pedestal. The little demon practically skipped on his dainty hooves over to the book, and began to turn the heavy pages in large sheaves. In the many quiet moments in the records office, Jahke liked to read the ledger, and study some of the history of ones who had come before him. It was in this way he had learnt Nassau had once had two brothers, though when he had asked Sitka what had happened to them, Jahke had been quickly hushed. Now he looked down at Nassau, who had remained with the newcomer, and smiled.

“Minor, major, or recruit?” There were other categories, but Jahke had only had occasion to use ‘flame-born’ when Vruuaska had come to join them. As a Son of Ifrit his furry house mate was afforded special status.

“Neither,” Nassau turned and looked for a long moment at the hooded figure, “he is a Fallen.”

“What?” Jahke remembered himself and scraped his jaw from the floor, “I mean, really sire? I...” his natural instinct to be useful took over from his shock, “I don’t think I have a page for that.”

Nassau waved a hand.

“There is now.” The book opened itself at a new, very blank, page. The title was inscribed in florid gothic lettering, the embellished first letter as big as Jahke’s hand. He looked levelly at the new demon. “You have to state your name.”

“No.” The voice was slight, soft, beautiful. It made Jahke think of the soft light of the morning, the warmth and reassurance of his bed, tucked up with his mate beside him. It was also petulant.

“You want to be stripped of your own name as well?” Nassau snapped. Jahke had never heard the Prince sound irritated before.

“Lahja.”

Jahke watched as the demon’s name wrote itself across the page, he was surprised to find the already-dry ink in his own neat handwriting. He almost didn’t dare ask what special skills the new demon possessed.

“He’s still working it out,” Nassau replied quickly.

“And where will he be housed?” Jahke hadn’t bothered with a role for the cloaked figure. Most new demons didn’t get a job right away. It was always best to wait, and find out what they were better suited for.

Nassau’s smile twisted in a manner which showed his true nature.

“Zinkara Rumah.”

Jahke began lettering in the name of the house carefully, then glanced up.

“But, that’s our house.”

“Yes,” Nassau nodded. “If anyone will force you to get over your fear of being touched, they will.” He shook his head slightly as he looked at Lahja. “I will take him, thank you Jahke.”

Jahke went back to his desk as the Prince and his companion made to leave. Just when the little demon thought he’d been forgotten, Nassau was with him in a swirl of gold-red feathers. The Prince kissed him hungrily, and Jahke felt his knees melting under the onslaught of Nassau’s skilful tongue.

“You tell Sitka I’m looking forwards to seeing you at Court. Both of you.”

“Ohhh…” it was all Jahke could do to stay standing as Nassau turned away. “Yes sir.”

*

Kiorl grinned to himself as he entered the house. It had been a long time since he’d gone Upstairs with an actual purpose, and it felt nice to be useful. Members of the royal court did not, as a rule, get sent out on clean up missions, but when Sathriel had gone Upstairs, he had left a streak of terror and destruction ten miles wide across a huge swathe of the planet. Kiorl had been only too happy to go and volunteer his services. Collecting damaged souls had been pretty easy, but incredibly satisfying, and Kiorl discarded the pieces of his blood soaked armour as he walked. Sitka would be pissed to have missed out, after all, the blood had flowed easily, and Kiorl had drunk his fill. As he let the last shreds of his ruined garments fall to the floor, he became aware none of the usual occupants to the house were to be seen or heard. Kiorl pricked up his ears, worried by the unnatural silence. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been home and hadn’t found somebody in the kitchen, usually Tobias cooking something strange and delicious, or in the den. Kiorl walked past the sweeping staircase, heading for the bigger, better furnished living room none of them seemed to use very much, but became distracted by the shuffling of a variety of feet and scales from the upper landing.

Strangely pleased to find all of his house mates hadn’t been mysteriously kidnapped, Kiorl started up the stairs to find out what all the fuss was about. It had to be a rare event indeed to gather everyone he lived with.

“What is going on?” Kiorl had been all fired up to enact the tales of his day, after all it was rare he ever had anything he could share, what with the gossip of the Court being largely confidential and usually very private, and his mood soured as he realised no one was going to give a damn about his exploits.

Kiaza turned to look at him, and Kiorl saw a light of excitement in the snake’s bright green eyes. His second oldest friend grinned at him.

“We’ve a new house mate.”

“What? Who recruited?” Kiorl’s mind reeled. He couldn’t imagine Inai or Jin-ha taking in a human lover, and Shindae was standing in the passageway, looking as intrigued as everybody else.

“No one recruited Kiorl,” Jahke sounded like a boy daydreaming. “Lord Nassau brought him in himself.”

“WHAT?” Kiorl snarled. The fur all along his spine stood sharply on end, and he felt his scalp prickle as his rage seethed under his skin. How could Nassau not have told him the sleeping figure in his private study had been destined for their house?

And what would you have done if he did? Kiorl's inner voice mocked, Beg him not to, or beg him for the boy to be near you always?

“Where is he?”

“In his room,” Tobias looked puzzled. “I don’t get why the door is white though. Or are they all secretly like that, it’s just no one washes anything around here?”

“No one has seen him,” Zai clarified.

“Well, Jahke did,” Sitka rolled his eyes as his mate, and earned himself a slap on the arm, “except he forgot to check him out for us.”

“I was distracted.”

“I’ll bet you were!” Sitka grabbed his lover’s pert ass in an obvious manner. “C’mon, I doubt we can accomplish much by standing around and staring at a door. I’m sure we’ll get to meet the new guy at dinner.”

“Oh, I see your hints are as subtle as ever...” Tobias sighed as he began to depart. “If I catch you two getting naked in the kitchen I will take it out of your hides!”

Kiorl stared at the white door as the rest of his house mates departed.

“Vruu?” Kiorl’s voice stopped the big leonine-wolf as he headed for his own room. “What kind of demon did Jahke say he was?”

Vruuaska yawned in his feral manner before he answered.

“Something called a ‘Fallen’. See you at dinner.”

Kiorl, left alone, naked and blood-soaked in the passageway, felt like destroying something. There was nothing, and so he simply tensed the muscles in his paws, and gouged thick cuts into the stone floor with his long claws. Of all the rotten luck in the multi-verse, the boy he had spent his night dreaming about was a fucking angel.

*

Atoki looked up from the dishes Tobias was serving out, listening to the slamming of a door above them.

“You think that was him?”

“No,” Tobias frowned. “Kiorl is pissed, about something. I don’t dare find out what. He’s in the kind of mood where he’ll chew a person’s head right off.”

Another chair had appeared, magically, at the big table. After Kiaza and Jem had moved in, Tobias had declared the breakfast bar officially too small to cope with the many mouths he had to feed, and between official scavenging trips, Sikta, Shindae, and Vruuaska had built the thick wooden table. It was designed to be sturdy enough to take the punishment of their arguments, and Tobias suspected, the force of their couplings. No one had yet been foolish enough to let the chef catch them screwing on the table, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.

“Should I go tell them it’s dinner time? If he’s new, he must be hungry. I know I was starving after I changed.”

“Don’t worry. Kiorl can smell food a mile away. He’ll come down if he’s hungry,” Tobias finished serving the rest of the dinner in a distracted manner. “I’ll go.”

The empath walked softly along the main passage, his thick socks near noiseless on the smooth stone floor. Being an empath in hell had certain disadvantages, but Nassau had taken an interest in him, and it had been a very long time since Tobias had been in-training. As he moved, he trailed his fingertips over the doors of his friends. Each gave him a short, swift feeling, sometimes accompanied with an image, which told him everything he needed to know about the room’s residents. Stika and Jahke’s door suffused him with sweetness as sticky as honey; Vruuaska and Atoki’s gave him the clear picture of the young man with the big fluffy demon, curled up together in their giant fireplace, happy together in the simplicity of the fire; Shindae’s smelt similarly of ash, but Tobias couldn’t help but laugh when he touched it because Shindae’s twisted sense of humour and reckless nature was infectious; he deliberately didn’t touch Inai’s door, having made that mistake before.

The new white door stood out like a sore thumb in the dark surrounding stone. Whereas all the others had their names on, an affectation Zai had started and no one could talk him out of, this one was blank and smooth, the wood grain tight and so finely sanded it was almost hard to believe it had once been part of a living thing. The rest of the house was rather rough, because a demon’s skill at magic building was usually only as good as the things they had experienced Upstairs, and the house had been created long before technology had figured out things like perfect right angles, or walls rendered in smooth plaster and cool-toned paintwork. Tobias reached out to touch the door and brushed the white wood with the very tips of his fingers.

Sadness swept over him in a wave. Not since meeting Nassau for the very first time had Tobias ever felt like he would lose himself inside the mind of another. He wasn’t the world’s most accomplished empath, but Tobias could hold his own against even the most experienced minds. Now the enormity of the mind in the room threatened to wipe out his sense of self completely. Tobias concentrated on the feeling of the wood below his fingers, the warmth of his feet in the thick socks Zai liked to bring him. He pulled himself away from the sadness so huge it seemed to defy the very barriers of time and space with the image of his lover in his mind, Zai’s acid yellow eyes and evil grin as he cleaved Tobias’s flesh with his claws. Once Tobias was sure he hadn’t left part of his mind wandering without him, he snatched his hand back from the white door. Shaking, he went to go and find his lover and banish everyone else from his kitchen. If anyone was going to spill blood and body fluids on his counter tops, Tobias decided it had better be him.

*

“Has anyone seen him?”

“No.” Vruuaska glanced up at the ceiling with his fire eyes. “No one.”

“He still hasn’t eaten anything,” Tobias muttered. He’d brought the breakfast tray down as he’d delivered the dinner one, and yet again nothing had been touched. “I’m worried.”

“How long has it been now?” Kiaza’s voice was full of apprehension, and no one missed the way he wrapped himself slightly tighter in Jem’s arms as he spoke.

“Four days,” Jahke answered into the empty room. “Four whole days.”

*

In the room where Nassau had left him, Lahja listened to the constant crawling, tearing pain of the body he had been deposited in, and gave into the only urge he felt wasn’t going to damage him further. In silence, the fallen angel cried.