Prologue
Lucifer was always a man of simple desires. He wanted his realm to run smoothly. He wanted his realm to be fully stocked at all times with good alcohol. And he wanted his wife returned to him. Morgana, Lucifer's beloved wife, had been lost to him since the fall, a time of war and uprising in paradise that lead to the destruction of realms and punishment of souls involved. This was how he ended up in his own realm, cursed to care for the souls that paradise didn't want, the ones that were cruel and careless in their lives and now needed to pay penance. Except penance was never enough. These souls would never move anywhere, never be free. They were stuck in his realm for the rest of their existence.
He had thought his wife would be sent to the same realm he was, that paradise wouldn't be so cruel as to take her from him forever. But it was. And it did, sending her to purgatory instead. Purgatory was a cold place, dark, devoid of color and joy. She had been there for lifetimes now. Too many lifetimes to count. And as time went on, Lucifer began to lose hope that he would ever find a way to get her out of there. She was on a level he couldn't reach, down in the dark, losing more of herself with every passing day due to loneliness and isolation. He had brainstormed for centuries to get her out, but every idea he had, there had been roadblocks. He was out of ideas, and just as desperate for her company as he was the day he woke up in his realm without her. And that was why, when his twin brother Gabriel came down from the above to visit him with a deal, he felt it was too good to be true.
"I want to make a bet with you." Gabriel had said. Lucifer looked up from the overflow of paperwork on his desk, whiskey glass in hand, to give his brother a look of disbelief.
"What could you possibly have to wager that I'd want? Besides another bottle of this that is." he answered casually, taking a sip from the glass. Gabriel rolled his eyes, moving further into the room.
"A soul for a soul." he answered. Now Lucifer was intrigued. He set the glass down and stood, facing his brother. He had a multitude of questions. He wasn't sure if Gabriel would answer all of them. He started with the one he was confident would get answered.
"And what soul would I have that you would desire?" he asked. Gabriel shrugged.
"You got a new arrival this morning. An Angelique Springdale. She's the one I'd want."
"Why her?" Lucifer asked curiously, sifting through the files on his desk until he came across her name. He pulled her file and flipped through it. Sloth was her only sin, he noted as he flipped though the pages on her life. She was a lazy little thing, but didn't deserve the fire. Why was she coming down to him instead of going to purgatory? She should at least be able to earn her way out. Lucifer shut the file and looked at Gabriel.
"Why bet? Why not trade? We have done that before." he said. Gabriel shook his head.
"The soul I am bargaining cannot be given to you otherwise. I have to do this like this." Gabriel answered. Lucifer raised his eyebrows.
"Who is the soul you will give me if I win?" he asked lowly. Gabriel looked slightly uncomfortable.
"Morgana." Gabriel answered. Lucifer felt his breath catch. Morgana. His wife.
"But how?" Lucifer breathed the question. Gabriel shook his head.
"A loophole of sorts. He doesn't track our bets, you know. Only the trades. So if I gambe with her soul, in theory I should be able to get Morgana out."
"Why are you just now coming to me with this?" Lucifer demanded. Gabriel shrugged a little.
"I wasn't sure it would work. I did a little research, dug through some records. It took time once the idea came to me to hammer out the details. As soon as I was sure…"
"You should have come to me as soon as you thought of the possibility." Lucifer hissed out, his voice cold. Gabriel gave him an exasperated look.
"What, and get your hopes up over what could have very well been absolutely nothing? No, brother. That wouldn't have been fair to you." he answered. Lucifer wanted to rage at him, to argue. But it was hard to argue when the other person was right. Lucifer sighed.
"Very well. What is the bargain?"
"Ah, yes." He cleared his throat. "I want you to give Angelique the opportunity to redeem herself." Lucifer looked confused now.
"What, like purgatory?" he asked. Gabriel sighed.
"No. One task, that immediately redeems her, balances her scales." Gabriel answered. Lucifer thought about this for a moment. This had potential. How did she die anyway? He checked the file, skimming through the information. Shot in the head during a home invasion. Well, wasn't that tragic? And certainly left an opportunity to, what had his brother just said, balance the scales.
"Your way? Or mine?" Lucifer needed clarification for this. Gabriel immediately looked a bit wary.
"Yours." he replied. Lucifer nodded.
"In that case." he held out his hand, which Gabriel almost immediately shook. "Deal."
And so for one Angelique Springdale, fate intervened. She was brought to Lucifer's office, shaken but not harmed. Lucifer figured this was the best case scenario. She was afraid, which would drive her to succeed in what the devil had in mind. He watched the young lady before him tremble a few moments before he explained to him that he had a task for her. If she completed that task, she would be sent above with his brother, to live in paradise. Otherwise, she came back here and faced the fire. Angelique was prepared to accept any task in the universe if it meant avoiding Lucifer's realm. So he gave her a simple task, one that would fully redeem her in the eyes of the devil: kill the man who had so thoughtlessly taken her life. As expected, Lucifer got only brief pushback from Gabriel.
"What sort of task do you call that?" The angel snarked at his brother. Lucifer gave a sharp grin.
"Balancing the scales." he replied. His own words thrown back at him, Gabriel elected to say nothing else. Angelique agreed, and the brother's sent her back to her human realm. Not alive, not really, but not dead either. Something more, and something less all at once.
Lucifer didn't watch her complete her task, not really. He checked in every now and again, getting just the briefest snippets of moments. She found the man who took her life fairly easily, following the information she had been left in her realm with. She managed to follow him to a dingy alley, watching him lurk alone, seemingly waiting for someone. He watched her hesitate, fingering the weapon as she decided if she could live with herself for eternity if she did this. He watched the cool acceptance flow over her features, watched her aim the weapon she had been given, and watched her pull the trigger. A moment. It was all over in a moment.
Angelique's soul traveled back to his realm with the soul of the man who originally shot her. Lucifer absently noticed that she still wore the scar on her forehead, as though the gunshot wound had healed. He wondered if that was common for souls, to carry scars into the afterlife. He studied her more closely. Her essence burned brighter now — cleansed by choice, not suffering. She had done the unthinkable, and in doing so, made herself rare. He hoped she would be satisfied. Lucifer sent the man's soul down below, and gave Angelique to his brother, who took her soul above. And then Lucifer waited. And waited. And waited.
He was pacing his office, feeling stupid for thinking this would work, when a soft glow fell over his office. Turning around to face the leather couch along his wall, he saw her. A woman with curly brown hair that fanned out around her head. A pale pink sundress clung to her curves, and her light skin was beginning to regain some of its color. A light dusting of freckles covered her nose, and dark lashes rested on her cheeks, her eyes closed. She didn't draw breath, but then again she didn't need to. This was her. His wife. His Morgana.
Lucifer ran to her, falling to his knees beside the body of his wife, kissing her cheeks and her forehead as tears trailed down his cheeks. It had been so long. He had missed her with every fiber of his being. He took her hand, noticing how cold her fingers were. He briefly wondered if he should be concerned.
"She will recover." Gabriel's voice came from behind him. Lucifer figured after delivering Angelique to her paradise, his brother must have come back to see if his theory had been correct. Lucifer quickly wiped the tears from his eyes.
"She shouldn't have to recover from anything." Lucifer said, his voice a little harsh. "She should not have been down there to begin with." Gabriel looked mildly uncomfortable.
"You know why we kept her there." he said. Lucifer felt white hot rage clutch at his spine at those words.
"No." Now he stood, whirling on his brother with the wrath of an archangel. "I do not. Enlighten me, since her only sin was caring for me when I was cast out due to wanting things to be different. Dreaming of change." Lucifer's hands were shaking. Gabriel was shaking his head.
"That wasn't the official report." Gabriel defended.
"Damn the official report." Lucifer hissed. "And damn you, too."
"I'm sorry, Lucifer." Gabriel said finally, turning to face the devil, who was glaring at him with all the power of his fire blue eyes. "I truly didn't mean for this to happen to her."
"This, meaning didn't mean for her soul to be punished for thousands of years in purgatory." Lucifer laughed, but his voice held no humor. "Then, to add insult to injury, they wrote stories with her name on Earth, making her out to be some sort of witch! What did she do to deserve that, Gabriel?"
"I cannot say. That's not my doing." He answered. Lucifer shook his head, moving to the bar he had set up in his office. He pulled out the glass he had been sipping on and refilling it, despite it not even being empty. It was almost as though his hands needed something to do so he didn't strangle his brother.
"Nothing is your doing, is it brother? You just followed orders." Lucifer briefly stared at his tumbler before swallowing down almost half the liquid inside the glass. It burned his eyes, and he took a deep but unnecessary breath. He glanced at the woman on the couch, who remained unchanged.
"Morgana did not deserve this." He continued. "I will never forgive Him for what he's done."
"He created us. We owe Him our life." Gabriel insisted. Lucifer scoffed at the angel's words.
"And he damned me to a life below him, taking the woman I love and damning her to a life of torture, all for what?" Lucifer all but growled the words. Gabriel turned to face him, his tone solid but his eyes unsure.
"You were out of line."
"I demanded fairness."
"We. Do not. Make. Demands." Gabriel had finally raised his voice. Lucifer, on a normal day, would tease him about his lack of control. But today he was not in the mood. He crossed the room and stood before him, squaring off as though they were going to go to war all over again.
"I know why I fell." Lucifer told him, his voice soft. "And I know why you did nothing. Good little soldiers often do that. But what I cannot forgive, brother, is the way you treated her." Now Gabriel faltered. He looked at the woman on the couch, his expression pained.
"As you said, brother." Gabriel murmured. "Good little soldiers do nothing."
"She loved you, too." Lucifer did not accuse or blame with his words. Merely stated fact. Gabriel smiled softly.
"She did. But not as she loved you."
"Is that why you did nothing?" Lucifer demanded with an almost tired tone to his voice, draining another good solid gulp from his glass. Gabriel shook his head.
"No. I did nothing because I was a coward." He took a breath. "I am glad to have lost the bet to you, Lucifer. Truly. I did not wish her to suffer." Lucifer nodded, draining the glass.
"I am just glad it worked." Lucifer said finally, his voice finally calmer. Gabriel smiled, the look lightly teasing.
"Now to make sure a riot doesn't start. If more souls find out that a soul can be removed from purgatory on a bet, they will make sure we end up gambling addicts." his brother teased. Lucifer cracked a small smile, but otherwise didn't acknowledge his joke. Gabriel took this opportunity to take his leave, clapping Lucifer on the shoulder before heading back to his realm. Alone with his thoughts, Lucifer pondered briefly the term his brother had used. Riot. Now that was a thought. Souls rioting to see him and his brother release other souls from one realm or another. Souls rioting to change how things were run. Souls rioting…to get back into paradise. Souls staging a revolt, forcing their way above instead of accepting their punishment below. And in the thick of all those souls would of course, be Lucifer. Pushing his soldiers, the ones that fought with him at the fall, back to the world above. Back to paradise. He almost laughed. It would be considerably easy to regain a foothold above, all things considered. They probably wouldn't keep it long, but he could at least get them in the door. But he didn't want that. As long as Morgana awoke, he could care less if he ever saw any sign of paradise again.
As though she could read his thoughts, across from him on the couch, green eyes fluttered open. Morgana was awake.