Hellsfire

Chapter Five

A very, very, very long time ago, Levi hadn't been the King of Hell. At first, he'd been a human who looked very much like a girl and called themself that because they had no better knowledge, but was in fact a boy.

They didn't have a word for transgender back then, but if they had, Levi would have worked it out eventually.

At the time, he would have described himself as more of a rebel instead.

His father, Nicolas, wasn't entirely happy with this Rebel situation. His plan was to have a beautiful daughter to sell off for more money because Nicolas just really loved money. But Levi had a habit of not sucking up to people he didn't like, and he also liked to Learn Things. And it was pretty hard to sell someone with an Education. Nicolas was getting quite sick of it.

One night, just after Levi turned eighteen, Nicolas brandished his sharpest hunting knife, stabbed Levi while he slept, and left him to die.

In those days, no one would have found out, and no one would have cared. It would have been a mystery left to time, and Nicolas would have used his money to cover it up.

But Nicolas hadn't done a very good job of stabbing Levi, because instead of dying, like Nicolas had planned, Levi had not died, which would end up being quite inconvenient for Nicolas in the future.

As Levi lay bleeding in the darkness, he dragged his finger through a pool of blood and drew an intricate pattern of some kind of summony-witchcrafty-occulty thingy. He was in too much pain to remember which circle he'd actually drawn, but finally, his obscure Education his father had hated was becoming useful.

He put a hand in the middle of the circle.

The room turned white.

"Ouch," someone said.

They sat in the middle of the room, their purple hair tied in a ponytail that kept going after it reached the floor. Their skin was a light brown, their eyes were purple, their clothes were white and pink and blue and striped. These were all colours Levi had never seen on a person before. Or a demon. Or anything.

He probably would have cared more had he not been stabbed minutes ago.

"Do you want me to um...fix that for you? I'll give it to you for free."

Their voice was soft. Like an angel.

Levi groaned. He didn't know how to make words. Everything hurt.

"I'll take that as a yes."

Their hand glowed and they touched Levi's forehead. Warmth spread through his body, and the pain faded. Levi brushed his hand over his stomach. The giant hole in his body was still there. He just couldn't feel it any more.

"Am I dead?" he asked.

"Sort of," said the new and confusing person. "I'm guessing that's why you summoned me."

"Well, I didn't summon you specifically." He looked at them. Was there anything special about them? Was he supposed to know who they were? "Who are you?"

"I'm Lucifer," they said. "I thought you were doing a whole deal-with-the-devil thing. Though, you know I'm not actually the-"

"You're what?"

"Lucifer." They sounded annoyed that time. "You get three questions. Am I going to steal and eat your soul? Am I going to kill you? What's my favourite part about being Satan? That sort of stuff."

"Why is your hair purple?"

"Why not?"

"How is it?"