The People with Useless Power

Chapter Nine

"I've never seen a more formal fight."

[A/N: So, my book isn't even at chapter ten yet, and people are being so nice to me and are saying that I'm actually good... and I actually feel like
I'm good. So, thank you. Whoever you are, wherever you are, and especially if you, well, uh, like my story.

Seriously.

Thank you.]

Emily looked up from her cereal as the entire cafeteria went quiet around her. She felt Mara bristle beside her, and she finally saw what everyone was staring at.

A man- a tall and muscular man with tan skin and broad shoulders- was having his coat taken at the doorway by people who looked like stereotypical succubuses. He wore a suit, a sleek, black, tidy one, and his black hair was like Grayson's: straight at the roots, and wavy at the ends. Emily immediately noticed the real reason everyone was staring, though. The man had big, strong, outstretched wings, and the feathers were black, but there were lines of crimson and gold near the ends. He folded them back neatly, and Emily dropped her spoon with a loud clank when she saw his big, black, emotionless eyes.

The man turned those eyes on his audience, and everyone turned back to their breakfasts, forcing themselves to talk nonchalantly, except for a few fangirls in the front. He strolled beside the rows of tables to the back one, where Mara, Vincent, Emily, Grayson, and Emma were sitting, and he sat down across from Mara, his arms crossed. "What's for breakfast?" he asked casually, his wing hitting Emma in the face. Emma dug her nails into Emily's palm, and she realized the reason Emma was hesitant about holding hands across the table.

"Sorry," Emma mouthed, and Emily stifled a laugh. She narrowed her eyes and stuck her tongue out at her in response.

"What are you doing here?" Mara asked tonelessly.

"Visiting you, of course," he laughed. "Did these companions make you unintelligent?"

"This is your father, isn't it, Mara?" Vincent drawled, bringing Grayson closer to him protectively.

"What gave it away? Our resemblance? The way he just knows me, not anyone else? The way he's using words with more than two syllables?" Mara snapped.

"You told me that your dad was dead!" Grayson whined in an accusing tone.

Mara's father looked from Gray to Mara, his eyes still blank, but his mouth twisted in a dangerous sneer. Vincent mirrored it, and they glared at each other for what seemed like hours until Mara clapped in their faces.

"He seems nice," her father shrugged, and Vincent snickered.

"You look like you could be Satan," Emma commented, and he turned to look at her blankly, before a smile grew on his face.

"Emma, is it?" he asked politely. "Most of our conversations over the telephone are about you. How is your relationship with the woman of whom you kept talking about and annoying my daughter?"

Emma's eyes widened, and everyone else snickered, except for Mara and her father. "Shut up, Luci," she spat.

"Luci?" he muttered with a raise of his perfect eyebrows.

"Your new name is Lucifer," Grayson explained.

"My name is already Lucifer," he said, and silence fell over the table.

"Mara, your father is Satan?" Emily finally asked, breaking the awkward.

Mara laughed a real laugh, for the first time Emily had seen, and shook her head. "God, you guys... you seem so surprised... every world has to have some form of "good" and "bad", and my father had been chosen to represent the bad in the world."