Fiona opened her eyes to a familiar sky. She felt grass underneath her palms as she sat up. Her eyes met a familiar scene of plain grass grounds extending to miles. She didn't know anything, her mind was blank but she had a feeling she recognized the place.
She stood up as she looked around. Her white dress flew with the cold wind as the sun provided her the needed warmth, with the wind she heard a melodious humming. She felt the need to follow it.
She kept walking and walking as the humming sound felt much nearer. She reached a forest and she realised she was there to meet someone, from there she knew exactly where to go. She rushed in following the voice. She finally reached the lake and saw a woman sitting at the edge of the dock.
Fiona panted a little and when she got her breath back, she called out, "Mom!"
The woman turned as her eyes widened in surprise. She quickly stood up. "Why are you back? Didn't I tell you to never come back here?"
"What did you do?" Fiona asked.
"What?"
"What did you do? You have to tell me now!"
Her mother seemed confused as she just stared at her blankly.
"Lucifer came to my life when you died. What did you do?" she asked and her mother sighed a little.
"I- I made a deal with Lucifer." She said looking at her with a little guilt glistening in her eyes.
"What kind of deal?"
"It was a simple deal… Lucifer would take my soul and protect you."
"Protect me from what? God? He's the freaking devil! Do you think he has any chance in front of God? "
"You're alive, aren't you?" She sighed. "There's one piece of advice I can give you, honey, stick with Lucifer, he's the only one who can protect you. Follow him no matter what." She paused for a moment. "You have to go now, Fiona. This place is not safe for you to stay longer here."
"Why?"
"I can't tell you. Just go!" She said and Fiona disappeared in thin air. She felt a little surprised and then let out a little chuckle.
"Azrael?" She said as he walked out from behind a tree.
"Gina." He said with a cheery tone as his white teeth flashed in between his crimson lips. His scythe was floating beside him as he walked closer to the dock and stopped teasingly smiling at Gina.
"Why did you bring her here? " She said.
"I'm a very sentimental person . Since she never got to say goodbye to you, I thought a little reunion might not hurt." he said in a casual demeanor.
"Whatever you're trying to do here, Azrael. It won't work."
"What?" He shrugged lightly. "Just because I love wearing black and have a scythe following me around, that doesn't mean I'm a bad guy.I only want to do what's best for Fiona."
"You're not a bad guy, Azrael. That's what scares me." She said and he scoffed.
"Oh, please. I'm both sides of the coin." He said as he sat on the ground. "Sorry, there's just been a lot of work pressure. I haven't had the time to sit and chill." He said, slipping out a cigarette from his inner pocket. He lit his thumb, clicking it against his index finger and lit up the cigarette. He took a drag from it and noticed a confused look on Gina's face.
"This is for aesthetic purposes. Angels can't smoke." He said taking another drag. "Alright, so Gina. You think Lucifer can protect Fiona."
"He's been doing it better than her guardian angel, who tried to kill her." Gina argued.
"Oh, that poor little guy. Lucifer swatted him like a fly. He was just following orders from the big guy. And the big guy does acknowledge it was wrong of him to deal with this situation like this. And I feel sorry that you had to sacrifice yourself to Lucifer so you can get protection for your daughter when it should've been Him protecting her." He took another drag and dusted the cigarette. "I can't help you, Gina, it was your decision to make a deal with Lucifer."
"And I do not regret it." She said firmly.
"I get it. If I had to choose between me and my daughter going to heaven together or me spending eternity in hell while my daughter rot on earth alone, I definitely would've gone with the first option. But I'm not a human so what do I know?" He shrugged his shoulders casually.
"It wasn't that simple."
"Sure, everything is so complicated with you humans." He rolled his eyes as he rubbed the cigarette in the ground letting it die out. He threw the rest away and stood up. "We can't undone what happened to you but we can make sure Fiona doesn't end up like you."
"She won't end up like me." Gina said and he shook his head at her stubbornness.
"Look, I like Fiona, I do. She's a good person and I would hate to see Lucifer have his way with her."
"She's my daughter, Azrael. She won't let anyone have their way with her."
"Ah… Dear mama who died when her daughter was four, your daughter is a total dum-dum. I've spent a whole month with your daughter pretending to be her friend. I swear in all my years, which are centuries, I've never seen someone as trusting as her. I'm surprised she has survived this long without getting in a white van." He said and she shook his head.
"I'm not helping you, Azrael. Fiona knows what she's doing."
"But that's the thing, she doesn't know what she's doing." Azrael argued.
"She'll be fine." She said looking down in the lake as she heard movement in the water, a pained look came on her face.
"You know your daughter will face the same torturing as you if she signs that contract with Lucifer." Azrael said.
"I know." She replied, there was a tinge of guilt in her expression as she said that.
"Hmm.." Azrael observed her for a moment then he laughed. "Ugh, you freaky humans." He said standing up. "You want her to sign that contract."
She didn't respond but her expression told Azrael he was right.
"Well, I'm not shocked. After all, humans thrive on temptations. What did Lucifer offer you?"
She sighed as she looked down in the water. "Limbo." She said with embarrassment in her voice.
Azrael clicked his tongue. "What a shame?" He let out a breath. "I have to work out another angle now." He stretched his arms. "Well, I hope your plan of letting your daughter get tortured in your place for eternity doesn't work out." He turned away from her to leave.
"She wasn't supposed to be made." She said as her voice broke. "She shouldn't have existed, why should I get tortured for something that wasn't supposed to happen?"
Azrael let out a scoff with his back to her. "Do you actually think I care about why you're doing this? I don't." He turned to look at her. "I won't pity you for rotting in hell and I will do whatever in my power to make sure Fiona is safe."
Just then water splashed and dark shadowy hands wrapped around her body. Ear piercing screams left her throat as her skin started to melt from where the hands were touching her. Multiple laughs were overlapping each other in the background as she shrieked in pain. The hands finally pulled her in water as she reached out for someone to help her out. When she was taken into the water Azrael smiled.
"Because unlike humans, we do look after our kind." He said in a low voice.
_
Fiona gasped open her eyes as she looked at the unfamiliar ceiling. She felt a little startled and looked around searching for her mother until she realised it was a dream. She looked around the spacious modern style place.
It was an open bedroom with an open closet, filled with expensive male suits, casual wear and accessories, a few feet away from the bed. The walls were given a concrete stone structure to give off a cave like vibe. The furniture was organic and simple. The floor had a wood-like texture. The bed floor matched with the floor texture. She was sitting up on the low bed without a headboard. On the wall behind the bed long thin timberwood sticks were used, instead of headboard, that went up to cover the plain black ceiling above the bed. There was a huge window on the end of the room that looked down on the beautiful New York City.
Her body ached with pain as she tried to get off the bed. She looked down to find herself dressed in a loose comfortable dress. She wasn't feeling confused this time, she knew wherever she was it had to be because of Lucifer. She sighed as she stood up but felt dizzy as darkness enveloped her eyes. She fell back on the bed holding her head.
"That's the side effect of temptation." She heard Lucifer's voice as she looked up to find him standing next to the staircase with a glass and a leaf of medicine. He was wearing a simple black t-shirt with grey trousers.
He walked up to her and placed the glass on the bedside table next to the bed as he sat next down on the floor in front of her. "Here." He said holding the medicine to her.
She took it from him and gulped it down her throat with the glass of water.
"How do you feel, Angel?" He asked.
"My body is hurting really bad and I feel a little dizzy. But other than that I feel fine." She said and he smiled at her.
"Good." He said and then stood up. "Come on, you still need to rest. I have to say Yaseen's theory about another devil's temptation actually worked. He's been nagging me in my head to test it out but he still shouldn't have done it without my permission. Lust can take a huge toll on virgin humans. ."
Fiona felt a little embarrassed but didn't say anything as she climbed back up the bed and he put the comforter over her.
"Why are you protecting me?" Fiona confronted.
"What?" He asked as he looked at her in confusion.
"Is it just because you made a deal with my mother, her soul for my protection? "
"How do you know about that?" He asked, sitting on the bed floor.
"I talked to my mom, on that lake." She said and his crimson eyes beamed a little in surprise.
"How did you go there?"
"I don't know. Just tell me why are you protecting me? And why does God want me dead?"
He sighed as he looked at her with hesitance in his eyes. "There are things about you, angel, that you don't know and I think it's better that you don't learn about them."
"If there are things about me I want to know them." She said firmly. She saw it in his face that he was hesitant. "Lucifer, my mom told me to trust you.. I can't trust you if I don't know the whole story."
Lucifer slightly nodded his head."But you have to promise me you won't pull something like what you did before." He said and she felt a little scared but then she agreed.
"Angel, you were never supposed to be born." He said. "You shouldn't have existed. Your mother was accidentally blessed with you. It wasn't meant to happen."
"I was a mistake?" She asked in a sarcastic tone.
"Yeah, except this mistake wasn't on your parents, it happened in the system above."
"Like a glitch?"
Lucifer nodded his head awkwardly. He knew Fiona's brain was already processing her old memories and unloading a secret like that in her could trigger something in her. He didn't want her to act out because he said something insensitive. He had to carefully handle this situation.
"So the celestials want me dead because I'm a glitch in their matrix?"
"Because your case is a lot more weird than you being just a glitch."
"How so?"
"You see, angel. Since you weren't supposed to be born, there were no plans made for your life. Every human has a pre-planned destiny, if one human is destined to become an oscar winning actor, they will become one but the path they choose to do so using their freewill would ensure if they're bad or good. As for you, you don't have a pre-planned destiny which makes you completely pure."
"Pure?"
"That means your freewill won't have consequences." He said and she nodded like she understood but there still was some confusion. "You're a human with a pure soul, it doesn't matter if you do a good deed or a bad deed, your soul will not get tainted."
"They can't plan a destiny for me then?"
"They would've done that if you were human."
"What now?" She was a little taken aback by his words.
"You're part angel."