Hellsfire

Chapter Ten

A significant amount of time ago

After successfully killing his father, Levi worked under Lucifer in Hell. He started with small errands, mainly running messages back and forth between kingdoms, particularly messages which might have made someone angry because apparently Levi wasn't allowed to die any more. He usually got sent on dangerous quests because he was kind of expendable now.

"Message for you..." Levi panted. "From Michael."

Levi wasn't exactly sure what Michael's deal is, people in the middle ground had always said Michael was an angel, and that was probably true, but Michael was also a ruler in Hell, the ruler of Phrygia, and Levi wasn't entirely sure but Michael seemed to have a Thing with Lucifer.

He wished they'd just meet up in person instead of sending letters to each other. It'd make Levi's job so much easier. He was sick of this shit. It was kind of disgusting how much they liked each other, actually.

"I have another job for you."

"If you send me to Phrygia again, I'm going to quit."

They looked shocked for a second, then laughed. "Guess it's a good thing I'm not, then. I need you to round up some people for me. In Lydia, of course. No need to go anywhere far away this time."

The people Levi was supposed to round up were, of course, criminals. Levi had come up with a very clever criminal alter ego so he could hang out in the streets without looking suspicious.

Robin Steele. Master of theft.

It was glaringly obvious when you said it together but when he told people his name was just "Robin" or "Mr Steele" they had no problem with it at all.

He trailed his targets outside the tavern they'd been in and followed them to what he hoped was their base. As Lucifer had said, if he could get the guys themselves, it'd be good, but if he could find their base it'd be better.

It was kind of old and dingy and more like a hole in the wall than a secret base but they were definitely in there. He waited for them to close the door to sit next to it and eavesdrop.

...yeah, they were definitely the guys. What was he gonna do now? Wait for them to come back out? Barge in on them? Waiting for them to come out would put Levi at a disadvantage, he'd have to wait here and get whoever left the base next, but if he jumped in on them they'd be on familiar ground. And the chances were that they wouldn't all be there, either.

He had a choice here. But both options sucked and he didn't want to do either of them.

The third option, of course, was to ditch this whole gig and just go home. It would have been the easiest, too. But that'd get him in trouble and he didn't want that.

He could lure them out. That seemed like the only worthwhile option here. All the others were terrible. And while this was also a terrible plan, it was less terrible than everything else.

Time for a good ol' knock and run, without the run.

Levi knocked on the door of the hideout and waited.

No response.

Alright, time for plan B (ii).

He picked up a rock and threw it through a window.

There were shouts and stuff from inside and then a group of criminal-looking blokes emerged from the inside.

Levi rolled up his sleeves. "So who's going first?'

He didn't wait for them to respond. He didn't actually care. There wasn't going to be a first because he was going to take care of this all at once.