Disclaimer and Acknowledgment: All persons engaged in sexual activity or otherwise sexualized are over 18.
Thank you to my editor, LiterKnight for their continued assistance in helping me put out better-polished installments of this series!
Content warning: This chapter contains explicit scenes of non-consent/reluctance and incest. While these will be recurring themes in the story going forward, they won't be in every chapter, non-con especially. If you wish to skip the referenced scene, I have marked it with a line of "*********" While the content is important to the story, what transpires can be inferred by later context, so you won't be missing too much if you find the themes are uncomfortable for explicit description. With that out of the way...
Welcome to the Family, Part 2
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"Please don't make me do this."
"Come now, mother, a little socialization won't kill you," Paimon gently admonished, steering me away from the double doors I had been making a beeline for as soon as the feast had officially concluded. "No matter your worries, it won't be any worse than the mudslinging at the head table. And besides, there are a few siblings I must reintroduce you to."
That remained to be seen. The feast had been rather unremarkable, the two bickering factions seeming to agree to ignore each other and focus on the food. Balam and Paimon had actually made for decent conversation partners; the two offered amusing commentary and anecdotes of the antics of their siblings further down the hall. Three more brawls broke out, and someone set the right-hand table on fire at one point. Throughout the meal, it was both disconcerting and oddly heartwarming to see the expression of satisfaction and pride on Lucifer's face as he surveyed the room full of Lilith's children. At least someone was enjoying themselves. I suppose, by extension, he had taken on the role of grandfather to the motley assortment of demons. I wasn't sure how much they reciprocated his feelings.
As for their ghostly mother, my unwelcome passenger had been surprisingly quiet throughout the meal. Through our bond, I couldn't draw out any dominant emotions, instead feeling a conflicted mass that defied definition. Every once in a while, a name would float through my head, sometimes attached to the hazy fog of a memory. The feeling would always pass before I could examine it too closely. In either case, I was happy she was mostly keeping to herself.
With easy stride, Paimon guided me through the mass of demons as they mingled, imps holding trays piled high with flutes of bubbly alcohol wandering throughout the darkening space as the sun began to set above the skylight. I tried to return the bows, smiles, and gestures I received from the groups of demons as we passed, but it appeared that Paimon was on a mission, and I had no time to stop.
He bought us to the side of the hall, where the clusters of demons began to grow sparse. Leaning up against the wall were two female demons sipping from glasses and laughing as they watched the goings on of the family. The one on the left appeared like a stereotypical demoness, only wearing a rather elaborate Egyptian costume, complete with stylized headdress and kohled eyes. The other could be a demonic version of Aqua, her purple skin ending in sparkling scales at the waist that covered her legs, wearing only a bikini top and bottoms. The tail I noticed waving behind her was thickly muscled, and the usual spade-tip was replaced by a fin.
"Sisters," Paimon nodded his head, "Mother, I would like you to meet Duchesses Vepar and Vaul, Ladies of the Twenty-Fourth and Twenty-Fifth Legions, and the only siblings I could call friends among this menagerie." The Egyptian, Vaul, tittered at his words, and then curtsied.
"A great pleasure to see you again, Lady Lilith. I hope our dear brother has been keeping you out of trouble."
Vepar just snorted. "Piss to that rubbish," she scoffed in a thick British drawl, pushing forward and wrapping her surprisingly muscular arms around me, lifting me into the air with the strength of her embrace. I kicked my feet impotently as I was hoisted, but was too blindsided to react otherwise. Thankfully she placed me down a second later, her face splitting into a wide grin, exposing pointed rows of teeth like a shark. "Now
that's
how you great our mum."
"Tactful as always, sister," Vaul chided. "If that was truly mother, she would have spanked your scaled ass raw for that kind of greeting. And you'd have deserved it."
"Don't threaten me with a good time," Vepar shot back, her eyes glittering at her sister.
"It's, ah, nice to meet you both," I interjected before their banter could go too far. By the smoldering look Vaul had sent her sister in response, I could draw certain conclusions about their relationship, and that was not something I wanted to witness in person. Even if they were only technically related to me...ew. "Have you been enjoying the reunion so far?"
"It's certainly been a novel experience," Vaul answered, folding her robed arms before her. "It's been so long since we've seen its like, but so much has changed in the interim that I feel I hardly recognize some of our siblings."
"What, you mean that Gamigin blew up like a balloon, or that nearly a third of us are dead?" Vepar mocked, mysteriously picking out a toothpick from somewhere in her bikini top and beginning to poke around her razer-sharp maw. "It's the same mess of assholes as usual, just all packed together like sardines." A dreamy look crossed over her face. "Mmmm, sardines..."
"One can only hope some of these, ahem, 'assholes' take this opportunity to pay attention to their own home. It's disgraceful the way they gallivant among the other Seats, while their own legions wither away in their absence." Vaul shook her head, directing her gaze back to me. "As much as we appreciate your miraculous return, you picked a shameful moment in our history. Things were far more respectable when you and Lord Lucifer were in charge."
"Watch it, Vaul," Vepar cocked her head in the direction of the hall's center. "Talk like that will have the Vexillarii circling like sharks. Heh. Get it?"
"And what about you two," I pried, "what is it you do here in Hell, and where do you fall in all this factional nonsense?"
"Ha! I see Paimon's already been whispering in your ear." Vepar winked in my reticent guide's direction. "Vaul and I are both Mechanistae, which basically means we actually give a damn about making Gomorrah a nice place to live. Back in the olden days, I was the mistress of Hell's armada, though we don't really have one of those any more. Now I just run few shipping companies through shell corporations back on Earth."
"And I am charge of Hell's reliquary, as well as most institutions concerning our cultural heritage." Vaul spoke up, standing proudly in juxtaposition to her sister's causal slouching. "My legion and I staff most of the museums you'll find around the city, and lead expeditions to recover artifacts back on Earth when they're identified, of both the magical and non-magical variety."
I eyed the Egyptian-garbed demon speculatively. "So, I'm assuming you're the reason why humanity never found traces of monsters or magic before now. You already nabbed it all."
"Or covered it up," she shrugged. "Sometimes selective destruction was necessary to preserve the Pact, lamentable as it was. I have my counterparts with the other Seats and the Conclave, of course; it's hardly a job fit for one woman, no matter how magnificent she might be." Now here was someone I wanted to get to know. This was my kind of field, even if archeology had never been a direct passion. The sort of undertaking it must have been...to create the greatest lie in history and hide the existence of magic...it must have been monumental in scope.
