Heaven and Hell

TWENTY-FOUR

H E L L ' S H E A R T

———

"MY, I WASN'T expecting you to give up so easily." A familiar voice came from behind Dimitri. "After all, you followed rather diligently for a few hours already."

When Dimitri looked up, Lucifer was there, leaned against the wall with his arms folded across his chest. He had a smug grin decorating his lips, eyes sparkling brighter than the moonlight outside before he finally pushed himself back onto his feet. With steps agonizingly slow, he strolled towards Dimitri, nodding towards the dark abyss that was behind him.

"Are you ready to go? I'm on a strict time schedule here."

"Time is relative, a figment of imagination for minds," Dimitri grumbled, shoving past Lucifer as he soldiered into the darkness.

He hadn't considered the possibility that Lucifer would catch him tailing so soon and that fact alone made him a little disappointed in his own skills. Then again, it wouldn't be that hard to miss the sudden wave of bright luminous green that swept through the otherwise pitch black cave. Of course Lucifer would be able to pinpoint him easily.

Behind him, Dimitri could hear Lucifer chuckle at his words, his laughter echoing through the cave they were in. The noise bounced off the walls, causing it to ring like a choir of bells even long after Lucifer's lips were shut.

"Why are you in such a hurry, Dimitri?" Lucifer yelled after him, "After all, we seem to have a guest with us."

That was enough to make Dimitri stop dead in his tracks. With his feet glued to the floor, he spun around, eyes wide with surprise as he tried to look for Lucifer's figure in the shadows. The light that surrounded him was not enough to light up that much of a distance that was between them. Thus, he waited, rooted to the ground as he narrowed his eyes to slits. A pair of footsteps soon grew into two and before long, someone that Dimitri had not expected walked into view.

Met with pale skin and contrastingly dark hair, Dimitri's eyebrows shot upward, gaping in surprise as Fabian walked towards him with a scowl, most likely having originated from being caught. Lucifer's arm was around Fabian's shoulder, pulling him along like a parent would a child. As usual, his smile was ever-present.

"Since the both of you are here, I guess it wouldn't hurt to share a little bit more information about my beautiful realm, yes?" Clapping Fabian's back twice as if showing support, Lucifer stretched. "Time to get this show on the road."

With a skip in his step and hands tucked into the pockets of his pants, Lucifer leisurely breezed past Dimitri, brushing his shoulder ever so lightly against the spirit of death before continuing on his merry way. All the while, he kept to the left lane, never looking twice no matter how many choices they were offered in regards to different paths.

However, it wasn't too long before his steps halted right in front of a giant slab of stone. The path had ended all too soon and they were at a dead end.

"Nothing too interesting to be visiting in the middle of the night, it seems," Fabian commented under his breath, careful to only let Dimitri hear his words.

"He could've just gone the wrong way," Dimitri replied, "since there were so many paths offered our whole way here."

"Oh, I made no mistake, Dimitri. This is where I intended to go from the very beginning. And Fabian," Lucifer turned around with a maniacal sparkle in his eye, "there's always more than what meets the eye."

With that said, Lucifer wiped a hand across the rough stone. Dimitri's eyes trailed after the exaggerated movement, only just noticing the carvings that were written on the stone. In Biblical Hebrew, Lucifer began to read the words out loud. As he spoke, the ground began to tremble, dust blown into the air as the edges of the stone started to crumble.