Who Wants to Be the Prince of Darkness? by Michael Boatman

Author:Michael Boatman [Boatman, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-85766-399-3
Publisher: Watkins Media
Published: 2016-01-25T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty

A Rude Awakening

Lucien

* * *

In the suite of his personal quarters high above the Capital city, Lucien Synaxis was jolted awake by the voice. It had haunted his dreams since the broadcast of Hades’ battle against the wizard Kalashnikov.

That brilliant son of a bitch. It’s like the Devil’s lottery.

Lucien opened his eyes, annoyed at this latest incursion into his serene existence. He scrubbed at the crust of sleep in the corners of his eyes and glared into the darkness of his sleeping chamber; the signs of his wealth and influence all around him, comforting in their solidity. He was the heir apparent after all, fortunate by birth and circumstance. What the Hell did he have to fear, or want?

“You are my son, Lucien,” Gabriel had assured him, that afternoon. They’d spent most of the previous day trying to track down their elusive target: Mothershed and his accomplice. The Hellstone had lost track of them shortly after the return of Maman Brigitte and the appearance of the Navajo Earth Mother. Gabriel had been furious at her unexpected intervention, but he’d assured Lucien and the producers of PoD that her powers were limited. Her followers were a relative handful compared to the millions of fans who tuned in every episode of Prince of Darkness. Changing Woman was passé, a forgotten goddess playing for the losing side. Nevertheless, the capital feed had gone silent after she’d revealed herself in the aftermath of the outlaw Erzulie Dantor’s defeat and subsequent damnation.

“Changing Woman’s interference is troubling, my friends,” the Liberator had told the Lucky Legionnaires in the audience, and the millions of viewers across the United Afterworlds. “But what good is any drama without a little struggle, eh?”

The damned, ever adoring of the entity that had remade Limbo into a city of dreams, cheered at this, though with less abandon than they had during the last episode.

“The outcome of these events has already been ordained, my people. Never doubt that the wizard Kalashnikov, the imposter Manray Mothershed and their accomplices will be found and brought to judgment right here on this stage. Your righteous judgment!”

Like all of Limbo’s citizens, Lucien accepted Gabriel’s word as the gospel upon which he based his life. His father had never been proven wrong in the past. He had no doubt that the fate of the old wizard and his band of acolytes lay firmly within the iron grip of Gabriel’s mighty fist.

So why couldn’t he sleep?

“I’m coming for you, Lucien.”

And why was the voice in his dreams so damnably familiar? Why did it sometimes leave him breathless with a kind of yearning? Why did it evoke such hope and terror in his heart? And why had Gabriel insisted upon keeping him ignorant of his mother, forbidding him and everyone else from even mentioning her name?

It’s something to do with that damned wizard, he thought. Kalashnikov.

But why was he so obsessed with his father’s mortal enemy?

The answer came to Lucien, as answers sometimes did, in a sudden blaze of intuition.

“Because he’s here,” he whispered into the stillness.

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