CHAPTER 178: MY LOVE

It was a beautiful night, or at least that’s how Lucifer remembered it.

Under the full moon, the seal had weakened, allowing him to assume control of Averie’s body, as stipulated in their agreement.

While the guests tried not to stay out in the cold wind, he enjoyed it. It was rejuvenating.

If there was one regret he had to recall, it would be turning away from the beckoning poker table of the casino.

The hour was critical, and he had to be on the deck.

It was while he was basking in the moonlight that he noticed two shadows staggering towards the pool.

Their builds differed drastically.

One was an able-bodied man in his late thirties, and the other was a frail woman in her early twenties.

Their drunken flirting, groping, and giggling had the devil smirking.

’Look at those eyes.’

Although she laughed and swerved, there was a clear intent in her eyes.

They were in robes.

Jonathan faced the pool.

"No one will find us here, right?" he asked as the woman undid his robes from behind.

"That’s the exciting part."

Her voice was bewitching.

"Let them find us."

A stupid grin testified that Jonathan liked the idea.

He heard the sound of her robes falling to the floor.

"Close your eyes," she whispered in his ear, her lips red and warm like her hand on his chest. "Turn around."

Jonathan followed her orders.

It was foreplay. Yes, he thought it was foreplay.

A sudden sharp pain on the left of his chest, barely inches away from his armpit, stunned him.

He opened his eyes to witness the young woman, gloriously naked and cruelly grinning.

Her extended arm stopped at his chest, where a blade was lodged, its handle sticking out as if calling for death to clutch it.

Jonathan’s lips quivered.

It was cold. Suddenly, it was extremely cold.

Scarlet liquid, the scare of the living, leaked out from the wound.

As he reached for it, the woman pushed him into the pool and twisted the knife.

With atrocious pain came a spray of blood.

Jonathan flapped his legs as he hit the water.

His wound burned; his nostrils flared, and his head felt light.

And before he knew it, he was drowning in a pool of red.

The taste and scent of iron was the last thing he remembered as his body went limp.

It was a wonderfully executed murder. Lucifer could not have appreciated it more.

As the woman stepped out of the water and cleaned the blood off her face, Lucifer stepped out of the darkness.

With off-putting exhilaration, he put on Averie’s gloves the way Asmodeus Binsfeld did in BSPH.

He was satisfied with the way he did.

The cold eyes staring at the back of the naked woman held moderate amusement.

He was thinking of ways to kill her without ruining Averie’s attire. Just the thought of dirtying the body of his host seemed ungentlemanly to him.

"My love," he called in the wind, his voice no different than that of Averie’s. "Won’t you look back?"

And oh so sweetly, she did look back, her neck twisted in his hands.

Her torso and head were facing in opposite directions, as her entire body spasmed and convulsed.

Lucifer watched as life faded from her eyes.

He dragged her body to the edge of the railing, careful not to ruin the wooden deck.

After fastening her limbs in robes, he threw the dead body overboard.

Born on land, she met her fate at sea.

He would have walked away, but it felt a bit underwhelming, a tad anticlimactic.

The night was cruel, but the devil devised a crueler plan.

He dipped Averie’s gloves in the bloody waters.

’With such creativity, I should be writing scripts.’

***

It was night, and Sophie Moon was in a dark alleyway.

It was unlike her to be out so late, but she deemed her task important enough for such trivialities to be ignored.

She was fine with the cold and the homeless. But dipping her hand in trash bins was the true humiliation.

On the night she saw the raven staring at her through the glass pane of her window, she felt an unpleasant gaze on her.

It was as if something otherworldly was staring at her soul.

It was haunting.

While cowering, she had gone to bed, hoping the sunrise would erase the memory.

But the morning only brought misfortune. She found her window open and her diary gone.

How she had left it unlocked was a mystery, but it was certain that the haunting raven had taken it.

If it were her gold necklace or platinum earrings, she wouldn’t have cried a tear. But that diary had ideas collected over a decade. And the thought of losing it was enough to send shivers down her spine.

That night, she cried herself to sleep and had a dream.

She dreamed of a place not far away from her home.

It was an alley littered with torn papers.

She thought nothing of it, but when the dream continued for a week, she could not hold herself back and rushed out into the middle of the night.

And indeed, she found, in a corner of the alley, a paper stuck to the brick wall.

Episode 3 begins with Asmodeus searching for the missing girl.

It was from her diary.

Inexplicably, those words made her feel cold. Her eyes were full of tears that reflected horror.

And like a zombie, she continued reading.

He asks the mistress if she has a hand in it, but she denies the allegations.

He then pushes her to the bed. Satan approaches Beelzebub and Belphegor, who refuse his offer and advise against taking any action.

They warn him that the family head will hear of this; he dares them to do it. Well, they do. But Lucifer, proud beyond measure, scoffs it off.

A cold wind unnerved her, but she continued reading.

He refuses to play to what he considers Satan’s moronic whims. He believes that if left alone, like a child denied attention, Satan will settle down.

His pride does not allow him to question his brothers’ loyalty. He does not even consider Satan a threat. Mammon and Leviathan are talking about their mother.

Leviathan is trying to gauge what Mammon’s plan with Satan is. They talk about how demanding she was of Satan, always pushing him harder. She was the one who nurtured his tendency to be easily angered.

"What are you doing here, Miss?"

The voice had her shivering in place.

The steps drew closer, but Sophie Moon didn’t look back.

Thankfully, noticing her distress, the man identified himself as a police officer and escorted her back to her home.

She thanked him, the paper clutched in her hand.

Leviathan scoffs. He asks Mammon what he is complaining about. After all, he received everything he wanted. He had his attention, and she gave him everything he wanted.

’Well, you have to be deserving to be treated that way,’ says Mammon, ridiculing his brother. ’She knew your envy could never be fulfilled, so she never gave you anything.’

Sarah, noticing that her husband hasn’t returned home in days, thinks he has left her. She is seen walking alone in the rain, crying and lost.

Asmodeus receives a call from one of his subordinates while he is in bed with the mistress whom he had severely whipped. He knew how to use both the carrot and the stick.

The subordinate was supposed to look for the missing prostitute, but he ended up finding someone else.

He informs Asmodeus about Sarah.

He leaves in the rain and escorts her back to his mansion.

She spends a sad night in bed with him, seeking warmth from a vile man while he is indulging himself. Tears are flowing through her eyes.

Leviathan is watching them.

Even the synopsis of the third episode was odd.

’I don’t write like this.’

Yes, everything that had been happening to her was weird and concerning.

That night, she slept well, hoping she would not dream again.

But that was a misplaced hope.

Every night for the next fortnight, she saw similar images, dreams that led her to different locations.

And every time, like a man of the sea drawn towards a siren’s call, she found herself in alleyways, always greeted by pieces of torn paper.

Episode 4 begins with Asmodeus and Sarah’s shots in the morning.

The writing, the words, the structure always felt like the thoughts of a creature, not a human.

Satan convinces Mammon to side with him by appealing to his greed, promising him a third of Lucifer’s businesses.

But what Satan doesn’t realize is that Mammon is manipulating him. He asks Satan to bring Asmodeus aboard, knowing very well that Asmodeus doesn’t hold Satan in high regard and that he would only ever choose to remain neutral.

Lucifer is visited by Detective Roy.

He says he is currently investigating the murder of an American man suspected of being part of the mafia.

Lucifer gives him no answers, prompting the meeting to be over. Sarah has moved into Asmodeus’s mansion, serving as his valet and his mistress.

"Where is the rest?"

Even after an hour spent searching, she couldn’t find it anywhere.

Something was very off. Someone was playing tricks on her.

But that bothered her less. Her only concern was the text she read again and again.

Every page, which should have read like her musings on an idea, was written like an edited block of thoughts.

’Yet it feels lifeless.’