Not much later, the girls were sent upstairs because it had been a busy day, and they had clearly yawned from time to time. An hour later, Jon and Elise went to their bedroom as well. He couldn't resist checking on the girls for a moment. She knew very well why he did that. This was still all too new for him. He had to see with his own eyes that they were really there, that they were safe. Over the next hour, she had indeed kept her word, and Jon had almost fired off another prayer to his Uncle J. They lay blissfully in each other's arms. He didn't want to sleep because he still had work to do. She couldn't sleep because she was worried. Silently she asked:
"Who?"
"The bastard who hurt our girls instead of protecting them. Yours, tomorrow or the day after. Tonight I need to be able to concentrate on my father and his reactions. If I have to go back and forth several times, it won't work."
He didn't need to look at his watch to know that it was exactly midnight. Jon kissed her on the head and slid out of bed. He snapped his fingers and was dressed in his personal battle gear. From head to toe in black, like the units of the Special Forces. On his chest was the blood-red, fire-breathing dragon she had seen so clearly in Maggie's shop the day before. He pulled the balaclava with the fear-inducing skull over his mouth. He hadn't worn that at Maggie's that morning. She looked at the whole thing and suddenly realized that Rae Rae was right, that everyone would stay away from him and run really fast. That with the way he looked and the way he was now, he could put the fear of God into anyone. She corrected herself very quickly. They should not fear God. It's Jonathan they had to fear because of what he would unleash on them. Elise said:
"I'll be in the kitchen when you get back."
He just nodded, not feeling the need to say a word at the time.
Another snap of his fingers brought him into a dirty motel room. The room was littered with junk and smelled of cheap booze, cigarettes, and urine. At first, the occupants didn't realize they had a visitor. When the man caught Jon's eye, he jumped up and grabbed a knife that was lying on the coffee table. Jon smiled, realizing that the man had just given him yet another reason to inflict unbearable pain on him. He lit his eyes with Hellfire and asked:
"Is this the way to greet the Prince of Hell in your midst with a knife? I wonder what my father would say."
The man's eyes widened; he tossed the knife aside and fell to his knees, whimpering. Jon made a hand gesture, and the woman suddenly couldn't say anything or move, and the man was pinned to the ground. He walked over to the woman and made her look into his eyes. She saw her fate in hell after her death, and tears began to roll down her cheeks. With a terrifying voice, Jon said:
"I am so angry at your boyfriend and also at you for being the catalyst that made him attack his daughters and beat them black and blue! I will gladly reserve a cell in hell for you tonight. Believe me, you'll like it, or maybe not..."
Then he stood in front of the man and pulled his head up by his hair, forcing him to look into his eyes.
"Tell me, Leonard, what is so pleasurable about trying to rape a young girl, your own eleven-year-old daughter for that matter?"
The man could say nothing and stared at him in agony.
"You know what, I don't give a fuck what you think or have to say. Those girls are my daughters now, princesses of hell, and the Demons will be so happy to see you. I will hurt you so badly and then give you to some Demons. You will curse the day of your birth for the rest of your eternity!"
What happened over the next few minutes was tremendously violent. The woman wanted to scream at the top of her lungs a hundred times but could not make a sound. Jon grabbed the man's arms and twisted them to the maximum. He pierced his gaze into the man's eyes and said:
"Let us start with this little trick I learned."
In one fierce moment, he twisted both arms further, and the man's shoulder muscles and tendons just ripped apart because a human arm was just not intended to be twisted like that. The next thing he did was break the man's elbows and wrists in the same manner. Twist until they could not be twisted further without doing damage and then a final jerk beyond the breaking point. Finally, the man lay in a corner, crying in his own blood and excrement, broken bones poking through his skin.
Jon grabbed him by the throat and lifted him off the ground. Between his teeth, he said:
"It's time, Leonard; this is just the beginning, a one-way ticket to hell with VIP transportation..."
He snapped his fingers and disappeared out of the motel with the man.
The next moment, Jon appeared before his father's throne, still holding his victim by the throat. His brilliant white wings with a red and golden heavenly glow were fully spread. Those wings, combined with his combat gear, scared every demon present beyond belief. No Demon, no Angel could appear out of nowhere in front of the throne in Hell or the throne in Heaven. The fact that Jon could was a clear sign of his power. He threw Samantha's father down and said smugly:
"Daddy, you don't write to me, you don't call me, you don't visit me. I'm starting to think you don't like me."
Lucifer sat down and looked at the situation in front of his throne with a desperate look:
"It's not that I don't like you, Jonathan; it's that I'm disappointed in you."
The boredom on his father's face set off a first alarm; something was definitely wrong.
"Yes, I know the feeling, Dad. I was so disappointed when the Dallas Cowboys were once again out of the running for the Super Bowl. Well, business first. That excuse for a man."
With those words, he gave the man a hard kick in the ribs, and the cracking of bones was more than audible, after which he slid a few feet on the ground toward the throne.
"This is a disgusting piece of shit. He wanted to horribly hurt and rape a little girl. When her older sisters tried to save her, he thought nothing of beating up all three of them. One of those sisters would have died if I had not intervened in time. By now you know that I have claimed one woman and four girls on Earth. This automatically makes them princesses of Hell. The three girls I just mentioned are your granddaughters. What do you say, should I take him back so he can try to rape more little girls, or can he stay here?"
Lucifer's eyes had begun to burn when he heard his son's words, and now he looked at the dirty piece of man. Full of venom, he said to Jon:
"Leave him here!"
That was the second alarm bell for Jon, the way his father had looked at the man with hateful eyes. Jonathan shouted:
"Zelo, appear before me, I command you!"
A few seconds later, the Demon flew into the throne room. This was Hell; this was the throne room. Here, he fell to his knees before the Crown Prince. Without taking his eyes off his father, Jon quickly pulled three small feathers from a wing and held them up:
"Zelo, get up, take these feathers, and take this piece of shit with you. One feather, fix it, and beat it to within a second of death, slowly. The second feather, fix it up and beat the living shit out of it. The third feather, fix it up and kick its soul out of the package, then go to level nine and summon our friends. I want him to face a beating the likes of which Hell has never seen!"
Zelo quickly accepted the feathers:
"Yes, My Lord, as you command."
He grabbed the man by the collar and left the throne room with him. Lucifer held Jonathan's gaze, who saw out of the corner of his eye that Bearus was doing his best not to smile. And that was alarm bell number three. Lucifer sent all the Demons away and as Bearus and Belios prepared to leave the throne room, Jon said icily:
"B&B fucking stay!"
Lucifer asked:
"What's the point of all this, Jon?"
"I'm tired of everyone nagging me, and they'll keep nagging. You want the Apocalypse? Well, you'll get it, but on my terms, or you can forget it."
Lucifer had shot forward onto his throne, his eyes narrowed to slits.
"What terms?"
"I will announce them at the next meeting. That will take some time because I have to put some things in order first. Everyone will hear this at the same time. It's a one-time offer, and it's take it or leave it. At the first sign of double-dealing or underhandedness, the deal is off, and I'll burn it all immediately!"
The devil nodded and said:
"I can agree to that, son."
"Thank you, Dad. Question: Has my authority or title as Crown Prince been revoked?"
A frown appeared on Lucifer's forehead, and he replied with his eyes closed:
"Absolutely not, you are the Crown Prince; you sit on the secondary throne. Your authority here in Hell, like mine, is unlimited!"
The Devil continued to speak, but now his voice was audible throughout Hell, shaking it to its foundations and making it clear that he was more than just pissed off. And that was alarm bell number four.
"Anyone who so much as doubts your authority as my Prince or undermines it in any way will be erased from existence in an agonizingly slow and terribly painful manner!"
Jon nodded:
"Thank you, Dad, for confirming my status as Crown Prince."
Lucifer asked:
"Jon, can we talk for a moment in a more private setting?"
He nodded, and they walked in silence to the Devil's private quarters. When Bearus and Belios made no move to follow, Jon snapped at them:
"What the hell are you standing there for? Is there a strike on public transport? Waiting for a written invitation? Come... now!"
They had never seen their little prince, as they called him since birth, so pissed off; it would be unwise to disobey him at this point. In the private quarters, Lucifer dropped into a seat, and Jon did the same. He pointed a finger at a couch and hissed:
"Sit, listen, and shut up!"
Belios and Bearus flew to the couch. Lucifer said:
"So apparently I'm a grandpa?"
"Yes, four girls, Dad, four wonderful, beautiful girls."
"And the woman you claimed as yours, the girls' mother?"
"She is incredible, Pap. I cannot describe her with words."
Lucifer smiled softly:
"She must be if you want to give her my light."
Jon started to say something, but his father cut him off. What the Devil had to say was alarm bell number five:
"Son, it is inevitable that you will do this; she is your wife; she is a white witch. You need her by your side; you need her as the High Priestess of Light. But why have you suddenly changed your mind, Jonathan? I am your father; I see it in you, and I know every fiber of your body. At that meeting, you were so adamant that you would never unleash the Apocalypse."
He nodded wearily:
"Yep. I yelled things at you and Grandpa there and said things at the last meeting that make me think the rift is too deep to ever be mended. However, I also realized that there is only one way to save my family and a small group of others. Therefore, I will make a proposal to you at our next meeting. But Dad, it is take it or leave it, because as I said, I will strike damn hard to save my girls. I've already sacrificed too much, and it's going to end now!"
"Jon, don't worry about what you shouted at me; you have every right to be angry. Besides, from now on, your family is under the protection of me, the King of Hell; no Demon will come near them uninvited, and if necessary, the Army of Hell along with my generals are at your disposal to protect them. I suppose this is why you claimed Zelo?"
"True, but also for other things, Pap. You took my family under your protection, and for that, I am truly grateful. But do you think for a second that Michael will do the same? That he has an honorable bone in his fucking body? The girls and my future one are not only royal here but also in Heaven. Do you really think he will take that into account, or will he see them as vermin like the rest of humanity? As he saw Mom, as he sees me, your son, a new kind of vermin, only good for starting a war and then destroying that too..."
The devil shook his head softly, as if terribly tired:
"With Michael, sometimes you wonder who the Devil is and who is the Angel because he is an unparalleled jerk. And your grandfather does not care anymore; he has taken his hands off everything. The only one you can trust, Jon, is your grandmother, but her powers are limited; she is Mother Nature. Be careful, Jon; be very careful how you formulate your terms. Think about your words ten damn times! We may not be on the best of terms. It's been a long time since we had a good relationship."
Jon knew exactly when their relationship had started to go downhill.
"It's my fault, child, not yours. We were so fixated on the coming war that we treated you as a weapon and not as a human being, as the child, as the teenager, as the adult you had a right to be. I am sorry that I made that mistake, and I can assure you that I will not repeat it with your future wife and with your children, my grandchildren."
"Thank you, Dad, you don't know what that means to me."
"Go home, Jon, go to your family; that's where you belong. I'll provide an extra layer of protection."
He nodded, obviously affected by his father's words.
"Dad, I'll probably have to come back a few times in the near future. At least once to talk to one of your guests, because I need paperwork for the girls to put in an extra layer of security. To keep them out of sight of certain people and agencies."
"What kind of guest did you have in mind?"
"Someone from the criminal underworld, experienced with false identities and a contact who can provide them, preferably in Baton Rouge. So, a guest who would have arrived fairly recently."
The Devil nodded and said with a little smirk of his own:
"I'll send Zelo with the information. He seems to like your Elise and your coffee."
He stood up and was about to leave when Lucifer asked:
"Jon, could I meet them once?"
He looked straight into the Devil's eyes, and did he see something watery, or was it a play of light?
"Dad, of course, you can visit as often as you like. I think they would like to meet you, their grandfather. However, the hostilities cease at the door! There are Angels, but there are also Demons who came into existence after you fell, who have nothing to do with this whole situation and want nothing to do with it. I like this little group very much. You know how I see those Angels and how they see me. And that little group of Demons is my family too, Dad."
He snapped his fingers and looked sternly at the two demons on the couch:
"I just put a mark on them. From now on, they are untouchable! You two will make sure that everyone abides by it, or else I might forget that I like you very much, that you are my uncles! Use you as targets for martial arts training for a while!"
Bearus and Belios could read in his eyes that their Prince was deadly serious. He looked sternly at his father again:
"I don't want anyone to have to make an appointment to visit us for fear of running into someone from the other camp. I want our home to be a safe haven for everyone we welcome under our roof. Think of us as Switzerland. But during the week, visiting hours with them end at eight because I want their asses back in school the next day."
The Devil nodded and laughed softly:
"I seem to remember your mother having trouble getting your ass back to school more often than not..."
With that, Jon got a smile on his face for the first time:
"Dad, let Grandma and Grandpa forbid them from becoming even a little bit like me."
Lucifer said quietly:
"Jon, I have no problems with your little group, and I don't want them involved in this shitshow. I never wanted to, so if you can find a way to get them out of here, both groups before it all starts, do it."
And that was alarm bell six. Jon was about to leave the room when Bearus said with a sly smile:
"Good luck, little prince..."
"What do you mean, B?"
The latter replied with undisguised pleasure:
"Five women under your roof, cozy..."
Jon looked at him wide-eyed and said icily:
"Shut up, B, or I'll give you to the Hellhounds!"
It was like a spotlight went on in his head, and he said:
"Speaking of Hellhounds, I'm taking one of the pups with me, Dad."
With that, Jon closed the door behind him and made his way to the Hellhounds. There he looked at the puppies. He had decided to take the biggest, strongest pup from a litter of his father's most dangerous Hellhound. In this litter, there was a small, skinny thing who was being bullied by his littermates. He shook his head and muttered:
"For fuck's sake, Jon..."
He took the little beast, tucked it into his vest, snapped his fingers, and disappeared out of hell to reappear in the kitchen with Elise.
She was pouring herself a cup of tea when she felt his presence. Without turning, she asked:
"Is it done?"
"Yes, that beast will hurt no one else!"
"Good!"
She turned and walked over to him with her cup of tea. She put the cup on the table and hugged him. Two seconds later she let go of him:
"What the hell is that under your vest, Jonathan Drago?"
She could clearly see the red dragon moving on his chest. He regained his smirk and said:
"A surprise for the girls and some extra protection for them."
He opened his jacket and took the puppy out of his vest. She looked at the thing and said:
"In what nightmare did you find this mutt?"
He laughed and said:
"This is a Hellhound. This is what they look like in hell before you give them a name and a reason to exist. This one was the smallest of his litter and was being bullied by the other puppies. I wanted to take the biggest and meanest, but I couldn't bring myself to leave this little guy behind. Look what happens."
Elise got a warm feeling when Jon told her why he had chosen this pup. She thought:
"Antichrist my ass, protector of the little ones and the innocent... Yes."
He picked up the puppy so that it was looking at him in the face. Jon let Hellfire ignite in his eyes and spoke to the puppy:
"Your name is Maximus, protector of the innocent, of children, and bodyguard of our children. Elise is your master as well as I am, so obey her orders at all times. Oh, and should you ever encounter an Angel named Uriel or Sandalphon, and certainly Michael, bite..."
As he spoke, the puppy began to change before Elise's eyes, and eventually, both she and Jonathan stood watching in amazement. She asked dryly:
"Did you take one from the wrong litter, Love? Because this is definitely not a puppy!"
He stood there uncomprehending, looking strangely at what he suddenly had in his hands. He shook his head for a moment as he thought he had really seen this wrong. He was holding a kitten, a cougar kitten to be exact. He let his head hang and finally said:
"What the hell is that thing?"
Elise laughed out loud and said:
"You are going to get a litter box tomorrow, love, and cat food... or better, why don't you manifest that? Right now would be a good idea."
He shook his head again and said:
"For God's sake, is all of creation upside down these days?"
"Come on, give Max to me and take a shower because you stink."
He snapped his fingers, and his black outfit disappeared. Something he had done on purpose because he was now standing in front of her wearing nothing but black briefs, not much bigger than a very small Speedo. It had the desired effect because he saw her biting her lip softly. With a grin, he said:
"I'm on my way, my delicious little witch."
When he turned around, she couldn't resist a smack on his bottom. Mischievously, he said without turning around:
"You see Red under the surface; you really are up for some spanking."
After he got out of the shower, she was waiting for him in bed. All she was wearing was a short sleepshirt that said, "Naughty Girl." He said:
"I never knew such a sleep shirt could be so sexy, Red. But when you wear it, it cannot be anything but sexy."
She smiled warmly and then pulled him into bed. He pulled her into an embrace, and she lay down with her head on his chest. After a few minutes of silence, he said:
"I decided to start the Eden Project. How exactly, I don't know yet. I'll definitely need your help and Frank's in the first phase. I also had a bizarre conversation with my father. Well, not so much bizarre as very unexpected. Or rather, his behavior and the behavior of his two generals, B&B. One alarm bell after another went off in my head."
She said with a smile:
"B&B as in Bed and Breakfast?"
He laughed softly:
"That's why I call them B&B, yes, Bearus and Belios. It was as if all three of them had to make an extreme effort to show that they were disappointed or hostile towards me. And they failed miserably at that."
Max had temporarily gotten a blanket from Elise next to their bed but clearly had other ideas. He scratched at the bed next to Elise, who, without thinking, picked him up from his blanket and brought him to them. He sat watching the scene and wisely decided not to say anything while the kitten/puppy made himself comfortable between them and immediately went back to sleep.
"Is that why you asked Zelo to watch the expressions and the eyes?"
"Yes, but Zelo himself was also a test. My father knows me all too well, and he knows that I know something is wrong because he would have noticed it too. If he was really angry with me, he would have forbidden Zelo to enter the throne room long ago, because he knows that I would use him as a kind of spy. Dad was watching bored when I showed up with that animal. It's a look I know all too well from the many times I've had to get on the mat with Bearus after we've pulled a prank or two. Bearus himself had to try, I don't know how hard, not to crack a smile. In Dad's private study, from one second to the next, after the door was closed, it seemed as if absolutely nothing had happened. As if the meeting and what I had said, my refusal to start the apocalypse, didn't matter at all. Even the jokes began. He apologized for the way I was raised, said he didn't blame me at all for yelling at him at the last meeting, and that the only one I could trust was Grams. He also asked if he could come to visit the girls and you. I just felt that he meant it. He has been without family for so long, and he really needs it."
"Jon, I'm sorry to ask; I don't want to hurt your feelings either, love. But he's not dangerous, is he?"
He chuckled for a moment:
"Dad is only dangerous to those vile souls that end up in hell and those winged idiots up there. He is the Lightbringer, honey; this whole unholy disaster was started because he sided with humanity. Dad is completely harmless to the girls, to you, and to any innocent."
"Yes, then I think it would be a good idea for the girls to get to know their grandfather and he his granddaughters. By the way, it seems like fun to have a cup of tea and a chat with the Devil."
Struggling not to burst out laughing, he said with the pleasure more than evident in his voice:
"Red, you really are something..."
"Can we talk more tomorrow, Jon? I want to fall asleep in your arms."