Chapter 66: What Do We Do?
The air in the Inferno Club’s private sanctum hung thick with despair and the cloying scent of burnt ozone, a stark contrast to the thumping bass vibrating the walls from the dance floor beyond. Neon lights bled crimson and indigo through the smoky haze, casting long, distorted shadows that seemed to writhe like the damned. Dante’s family and allies were crammed around a heavy obsidian table, the surface littered with empty glasses, crumpled sigil-scrawled napkins, and the palpable weight of impending doom.
Dabi paced like a caged animal, his knuckles white where he gripped the back of an empty chair. The image of Dante – no, Asag wearing Dante’s face – casually tearing a celestial body apart, its screams echoing through the void, was seared onto his retinas. "He’s not just in there," Dabi snarled, voice raw. "He’s… flaying him. Turning everything Dante is into fuel for that fucking cosmic blowtorch."
Sapphire slammed her fist down, making glasses jump. "So we do what we always do! The Binding Rites! The Soul Anchors! We’ve pried parasites out of his head before, Adam! We fucking invented some of those rites!" Her eyes, the same intense blue as Dante’s, blazed with furious hope.
Adam, the First Man, leaned back, his ancient face etched with a weariness that spoke of eons. He ran a hand through his silver hair, the gesture heavy. "No, Sapphire." His voice, usually resonant, was a low gravel scrape. "Those were gnats. Annoyances. This? Asag isn’t hijacking the driver’s seat. He’s melded with the fucking engine. He’s not a parasite; he’s a fucking symbiote forged in the heart of a dying star and baptized in primordial chaos. Remember that warlock king who tried to ride Dante’s power like a fucking pony last century?" Adam’s laugh was a bitter bark. "Asag would use that prick’s soul as a cocktail garnish. He’s arrogant, vicious, and his power… it’s not just raw. It’s old. Older than me. Older than most things that still crawl in the dark." He locked eyes with each of them, the weight of his words pressing down. "Ripping him out? It’s not like pulling a tick. It’s like trying to extract a black hole sewn into Dante’s soul. We try the old ways, we don’t just risk Dante. We risk tearing reality a new asshole."
A heavy silence fell, broken only by the muffled pulse of the music and the ragged intake of Hela’s breath. Dante’s mother looked impossibly fragile, her regal bearing crumbling. Vincent, usually sardonic, stared blankly at the table. Xavier chewed his lip bloody. KJ traced a crack in the obsidian, his expression grim.
Emerald, Dante’s younger daughter, whispered, "So what do we use? What’s strong enough to pull that bastard out without shredding Dad in the process?"
Lilith, her sister, older and carrying the sharp intelligence Dante often masked, suddenly straightened. Her dark eyes, mirrors of her father’s when focused, narrowed. "What about Lucifer?"
The reaction was instant and volcanic.
"Hell fucking no!" Vincent exploded, surging to his feet. "Invite the Devil to tea? Are you insane? He’d probably help Asag finish the job for kicks!"
Xavier shook his head vehemently. "He’s chaos incarnate, Lilith! Unpredictable. Dangerous."
Sapphire, however, leaned forward, a dangerous glint in her eye. "He’s also the only primordial power older than Asag who isn’t actively trying to end everything. Sometimes. And he hates rivals. He might see Asag’s proximity to his throne as… offensive."
Dabi stopped pacing, whirling on Lilith. "You think the Morning-fucking-Star gives a shit about Dante? Or us? He’d burn us all for a moment’s amusement!" His voice cracked on Dante’s name.
Hela spoke, her voice surprisingly steady despite the tremor in her hands. "Adam? Does he have the power?"
Adam steepled his fingers, his gaze distant, calculating millennia of celestial politics and grudges."Power? Oh, yes. In abundance. And a monumental ego. Asag establishing a beachhead in a being of Dante’s potential… that might rankle him. Might." He sighed, the sound like stones grinding. "But the cost… dealing with Lucifer always has a cost. Usually paid in blood and sanity."
KJ growled, "Better than the cost of not doing it. Watching Dante become the herald of the fucking apocalypse? Watching him tear apart another world? Or Earth next?" He looked around the table, meeting each gaze. "We’re out of options. We roll the dice on the Devil."
The debate raged, voices rising over the club’s thrum. Accusations, pleas, curses – the air crackled with desperate energy. Finally, Adam raised a hand. Silence fell, brittle and tense. "Enough." He looked at Lilith, then Dabi, then Hela. "We summon him. Majority rules. Prepare the circle. Now. Use the club’s nexus – it’s unstable, but potent. And brace yourselves."
They moved with grim efficiency, clearing the center of the room. Lilith and Emerald quickly etched intricate, glowing sigils onto the floor using a mixture of crushed obsidian and their own blood. Sapphire and Vincent placed black candles at the cardinal points, their flames burning unnaturally still and white-hot. Hela stood back, murmuring a protective invocation, her hands trembling. Dabi stood beside Adam, his body rigid, every muscle coiled. KJ and Xavier flanked the entrance, weapons drawn – futile gestures, but instinctive.
Adam stepped into the center of the completed circle, the symbols pulsing with a sickly green light. He drew a ritual dagger across his palm, letting thick, dark blood well and drip onto the central sigil. The air pressure dropped sharply, making ears pop. The muffled club music distorted, becoming a discordant, twisted screech. Shadows deepened, swallowing the neon light, leaving only the stark white candle flames and the pulsing green sigils visible.
"Lucifer," Adam intoned, his voice resonating with ancient power, cutting through the warped silence. "Star of the Morning. Light-Bringer. Prince of Lies and Truth. We call thee. We invoke thee. By the blood of the First, by the desperation of the Damned and the Doomed, we bid thee appear. A trespasser fouls the tapestry. A usurper, Asag, coils within the vessel Dante, threatening the balance you… oversee." Adam’s pause was deliberate. "He seeks dominion you have long claimed. Answer, or watch your realm fracture."
The sigils flared blindingly bright. The candles’ flames shot upwards, forming pillars of white fire that didn’t consume the candles. The very fabric of the room seemed to stretch and strain. The scent of sulfur intensified, choking, overwhelming the stale air and alcohol. Then, the center of the circle ripped.
Not an opening. A rending.
Out of the impossible darkness stepped a figure.
Tall, impossibly elegant, clad in a suit that seemed woven from liquid shadow and starlight. His hair was the pale gold of a winter dawn, his features sculpted with a beauty so perfect it bordered on obscene. But his eyes… they held the frozen emptiness of the void between galaxies. A faint, mocking smile played on his lips. Power radiated from him in waves, a crushing, seductive pressure that made the air crackle and the protective sigils flicker violently. It wasn't just power; it was authority. The primordial authority of the Fall itself.
He surveyed the assembled group, his gaze lingering on each face – Adam’s stoicism, Dabi’s terrified defiance, Hela’s fragile dignity, Lilith’s fierce hope, the brothers' grim tension. That chilling smile widened a fraction, revealing teeth that seemed unnaturally sharp in the fractured light.
"Well," Lucifer said, his voice a velvet purr that resonated in their bones and promised exquisite torment. "What a delightfully desperate little gathering. Praying to the Devil? How quaint. Tell me…" He took a step forward, the circle’s light dimming where his shadow fell. "What makes you think I give a single, solitary fuck?"
Lucifer’s icy gaze swept the tense faces before him, lingering on Dabi. A flicker of predatory recognition sharpened his unnerving smile. He took two deliberate steps towards the man, the scent of ozone and scorched earth intensifying. "You," Lucifer purred, the velvet voice scraping like gravel over bone. "The stubborn soul who wouldn't scream. Even when I peeled you open layer by layer in my little workshop downstairs. Still clinging to that defiant silence?" His presence pressed down, a physical weight promising agony.
Dabi met the Devil’s stare head-on. No flinch. No tremor. Just the hard, flat look of a man who’d already survived the worst Hell could offer. His jaw clenched, knuckles white where fists were balled at his sides. He didn’t blink. Didn’t speak. The silence stretched, thick with unspoken torment and raw defiance.
"Fuck off, Morning Star," Hela snapped, stepping forward, placing herself partially between Lucifer and Dabi. Her voice trembled, not with fear, but with fury barely leashed. "This isn’t about your fucking souvenirs. Dante’s compromised. Hijacked. And the thing wearing him like skin is actively tearing holes in reality. Planets, Lucifer. Like they were fucking tissue paper." She kept her description deliberately vague, avoiding the name. "The balance is shredding. Your precious order? Crumbling." Her eyes, Dante’s own intense, dark eyes filled with a mother’s terror, bored into him.
Lucifer waved a dismissive hand, the gesture elegant and utterly contemptuous. The air crackled. "And?" His voice dripped with bored amusement. "Realities fray. Entities rise and fall. It’s the cosmic dance. Why, precisely, should I expend even a fraction of my considerable energy intervening in your… squabble? Dante’s power was always a latent bomb. Perhaps it’s simply detonating. Poetic, don't you think?"
Adam’s deep voice cut through the tension, low and dangerous, resonating with the power of the First. He pushed off the obsidian table, his ancient eyes locking onto Lucifer. "So you don’t give a single flying fuck," Adam stated, each word a hammer blow. "Not that your son, your own blood, could easily fucking obliterate everything? All of existence? Including you? Including your meticulously curated little fucking kingdom of suffering?" He took a step closer, the protective sigils on the floor flaring weakly against the sheer pressure emanating from both primordial beings. "You really want me to believe you don’t care? Especially when you hear who fucking hijacked that power? Who’s piloting the fucking apocalypse?"
Lucifer’s perfect, mocking smile didn’t waver. His void-like eyes remained impassive. He didn't speak. Just regarded Adam with an infuriating, serene detachment.
Adam leaned in, his voice dropping to a gravel whisper that echoed unnaturally in the sudden, heavy silence of the VIP room, the club's bass a distant throb. "Asag." The name hung in the sulfur-scented air, sharp as a shard of obsidian. "Asag has Dante."
For the first time, the glacial perfection of Lucifer’s expression fractured. A minuscule tightening around his unnerving eyes. A flicker, fast as lightning, of something ancient and cold – pure, undiluted alarm. The predatory amusement vanished, replaced by a calculating stillness that was infinitely more terrifying. His gaze snapped fully to Adam, the weight of it crushing. Worry, stark and genuine, etched a shadow across his face for a single, potent heartbeat. The Prince of Lies looked unnerved.
Lucifer’s unnerving stillness held for a heartbeat that stretched into eternity within the club’s suffocating silence. The playful malice evaporated, replaced by a frigid intensity that made the protective sigils gutter violently. "Asag," he breathed, the name a venomous hiss that seemed to freeze the very air. That ancient, cold alarm solidified into pure, predatory calculation. His void-like eyes, fixed on Adam, now held the chilling focus of a serpent sighting prey. "That rancid, overreaching worm dares claim a vessel of such… potential?"
The raw, unexpected edge in the Devil’s voice sent a shockwave through the gathered allies. Dabi felt the hairs on his neck rise, the phantom ache of Hell’s instruments flaring in his bones. Hela held her breath, clutching Sapphire’s arm unconsciously.
"Dares?" Adam countered, his own voice a low rumble like tectonic plates grinding. He seized the opening, leaning into the Devil’s sudden, sharp focus. "He has. He’s not just claiming it, Lucifer. He’s wielding it. Flaying planets apart like rotten fruit. You felt the tear in the Veil, didn’t you? That wasn't cosmic indigestion. That was Dante’s power, twisted by Asag, ripping a hole you damn well know leads here eventually."
Lucifer’s perfect lip curled in a snarl of contempt so pure it burned. The ambient temperature plummeted further. Frost crackled on the spilled liquor staining the obsidian table. "The arrogance," he whispered, the velvet gone, replaced by a grating, metallic rasp. "To touch what belongs…" He cut himself off, the implication hanging like a guillotine. He took another step, breaching the inner edge of the glowing circle. The sigils flared in protest, spitting sparks, but didn’t shatter. His gaze swept over them all, lingering on Dabi’s defiant stance, Hela’s terrified hope. "And you," he stated, his voice dangerously soft again, aimed at Adam. "You want me to clean up this mess? Pull the parasite out without frying the host? Save your precious, volatile boy-toy?" The mockery was back, laced with a new, chilling undercurrent.
"Save order," Adam corrected, meeting the Devil’s gaze unflinchingly. "Save your fucking throne. Because Asag isn't stopping with Dante. He’s unraveling everything. Using your son as his battering ram. You think he gives a solitary fuck about your domain once he’s consumed enough? He’ll crack Hell wide open like an egg." He paused, letting the image sink in. "Help us extract the tumor. Or watch your kingdom become his next fucking plaything."
Silence descended, thicker than the club’s smoke. The thumping bass felt like a dying pulse. Lucifer tilted his head, studying Adam, then Dante’s terrified family, then the flickering sigils binding the space. His unnerving eyes narrowed. The faintest muscle ticked in his jaw. The calculation was visible, a cold, ancient intellect weighing eons of grudge against imminent, catastrophic loss.
Finally, a slow, chilling smile spread across Lucifer’s perfect features, devoid of warmth, radiating only predatory intent. "Very well, First Man." The words slithered out. "You have piqued my… interest."
Dabi’s breath caught. Lilith gasped.
"Conditions?" Adam demanded instantly, bracing himself.
Lucifer waved a dismissive hand, the gesture elegant, terrifying. "Later. For now? Lead me to the vessel." He stepped fully out of the circle, the protective magic dimming, overwhelmed by his presence. "I wish to… assess the infestation personally." He looked towards the VIP entrance, towards the thrumming chaos of the main club floor. "And then, we negotiate the extraction fee." The smile widened, promising pain. "It will be substantial."
Relief warred with profound dread in the room. Hela swayed, caught by Sapphire. Dabi just stared, the image of Dante’s body tearing worlds apart colliding with the memory of Lucifer’s own tortures. The Devil was in. The cost was coming.
As Lucifer moved towards the door, the suffocating pressure lifted a fraction, replaced by a different, frantic energy. The immediate, impossible hurdle was cleared. Action was demanded. Adam gestured sharply to KJ and Xavier. "Move. Clear the private sanctum annex. Now. Full lockdown sigils." They vanished through a side door, urgency in every step.