Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (40 page)

And he knew which just
channel he could use…

One of the gifts the
Emperor had endowed his species with was beauty.  Fair haired, fair skinned,
with perfect, aquiline features, it rare to find an Angelic who was less than
pretty.  Just this last year, however, the training academy had rotated in a
new
cadet, a legislative aide who was not simply less than beautiful, but
downright plain.  Pravuil had developed a hopeless crush on him, for he could
see
the thoughts that danced through her mind every time the idealistic young
trainee opened her mouth.  Every single thought involved a daydream about
him
.

At first it had been
simply because, with so many females lined up on his appointment schedule, he
hadn't been interested in fucking an Angelic who was ugly.  Pravuil's heat
cycle had come and gone and, for the first time in history, a cadet straight
out of the academy had been in his office and remained a virgin.  He didn't use
his gift on her.  He didn't seduce her.  Heck!  He didn't even flirt with her! 
Anything
to avoid encouraging the affection which gushed forth from her
subconscious like water.  He might be the biggest alpha-stud in the Alliance,
but he wasn't deliberately cruel. 

But a funny thing had
happened as she stumbled into his office each morning, fumbling the paperwork
he had to sign and stuttering like an idiot.  Pravuil didn't like Zepar, and
he'd found himself enlisting her aid on more than one occasion to thwart his
Chief of Staff, who he liked these days less and less.  He'd begun, not to
flirt with her, for she was still as plain as dirt, but to
talk
to her. 
As he hadn't talked to any other person, either male or female, in his 240 year
lifetime. 

Pravuil was the
closest thing he'd ever gotten to having a friend.

She
still
had a
crush on him.  Sometimes the images were annoying because he didn't think of
her in
that
way, but he found himself actually looking
forward
to
their conversations.  As soon as he got back to his office, he waved off Zepar
and summonsed Pravuil into his office.

"M-m-mister Prime
Minister," Pravuil stammered, her mousy beige wings fluttered with angst,
matching her mousy, baby fine hair that no amount of hair gel could coax into
holding a shape. 

He'd been in a
snappish mood when he left this morning, arguing with Zepar and storming out of
here when Zepar had refused to accompany him to the palace.  Lucifer smiled to
put her at ease, pushing the silent apology into her mind as he asked her to
sit down.  He leaned back in his leather chair, tapping his fingers together
thoughtfully.

"I have a favor
to ask."

"Of me?" 
Pravuil's wings perked up with surprise.

"Yes, of
you."  He gave her that practiced smile he knew she fantasized about. 
Right away, he regretted it.  He'd made up his mind that if one had a true
friend, which was not something he knew a lot about, for when you were born
into a position of power you merely gathered people who wanted you to do
something for them, or people who wanted to take something
away
from
you, then you should always try to be forthright with that friend.  Pravuil was
his first-ever experiment in having a friend.  A rather one-sided experiment as
he called all the shots, but he
was
trying to be fair about it.  He
decided to frown instead.

"Is something
wrong?" Pravuil asked.

"Yes." 
Lucifer tapped his fingers together once more.  This aide had covered his tail
feathers on many occasions with things he didn't feel like arguing about with
Zepar.  He would grant her a modicum of trust.  "It's about a matter which
is very … delicate."

"How can I
help?" 

She leaned forward,
eager to be of assistance.  In
this
matter, she
could
be useful. 
What Pravuil lacked in beauty or social skills, she more than made up for in
her ability to dig up buried treasure.  It had been his excuse to make Zepar
keep her around when her first rotation had been up.

"Can I trust you
to be discreet?"  He stretched his gift into her mind to see if the images
which danced through it matched up with her words.  He, better than anyone,
knew that words and intentions usually diverged.

"Of course you
can, Sir!"  Pravuil's eyes were wide and earnest. 

Lucifer didn't trust
words
or
the body language used to convey those words.  Body language
could be schooled to lie just as much as words could.  But the image which
jumped into his mind of her jumping in front of him, wings flared, with a pen
in her hand wielded like a sword, made his heart do an interesting little
flip-flop.  Not in a sexual way, of course, for she was still ugly, but in an
'aww,
somebody really cares about me
' kind of way.

He stared across the
room to a picture of himself as a small boy standing next to his mother, his
white wings a contrast to her nearly black ones.  They had both possessed the
same facial features at that point in his life, an echo of a dead woman he
suspected
still
haunted the Emperor even though adulthood had squared
off his features. 

He rose out of his
chair like a cheetah, padding over to snatch the picture from the shelf. 
Halfway there, he remembered to soften that instinctive body language he used
around women.  He wanted Pravuil to help him because she thought of him as her friend,
not because she hoped he would invite her for a mating attempt next heat cycle
and then, silly romantic that she was, want him to keep her around.  He'd made
that kind of heartfelt invitation just once in his life and been shot down. 
Bitch!  He didn't think Pravuil would do that to him, but then again, he hadn't
thought the Bitch would do it to him, either, and she had. 

Instead of walking
back to his desk, he sat down in the small chair opposite Pravuil, arranging
his wings over the low back of the chair.  He looked at the picture, his thumb
next to his mother's face, and drooped his wings.

"I never knew my
biological father."  The picture reflected the sadness which had always
marred his mother's smile.  It was her most enduring feature.

"So I have heard,
Sir."  Pravuil trembled at having him sit this close.

Lucifer gave her a
wistful smile that was genuine this time.  "Please.  In here, when the
others aren't around to gossip behind your back, just call me Lucifer."

"Y-y-yes s-sir, I
mean, Lucifer, Sir," Pravuil stammered.

Lucifer stared at the
picture once more.

"Before she died,
she made contact with my biological father."  He caressed the glass.  That
old familiar feeling of loss, even though it had been 225 years since she'd
died, still made his heart heavy.  "Hashem was livid.  Rumor has it … well
… the truth is … I don't really know
what
happened.  I was fifteen years
old at the time.  All I know is my real father claimed the adoption was invalid
because my mother had never told him that I existed."

Real
father.  He'd never called Shemijaza that before.  He
looked up to stare into Pravuil's eyes.  What he got from her mind was not
fluttery dreaminess or pity, but an emotion he rarely saw in people. 
Compassion.  She saw
him.
  And she wanted to help
him.
 Not
because he was the Prime Minister and she had a crush on him, or wished to
garner a favor she could call in at some later date, but because … just
because.  It was strange, this sensation of all of a sudden having the shoe on
the other foot.

"I don't know who
I am anymore," Lucifer whispered.  "The Emperor … ever since he came
back, he hasn't been the same.  I just think … I think I would feel better if I
knew the truth."

"Have you not
looked?" Pravuil asked.

"Several
times," Lucifer rolled his eyes.  "You know Zepar.  He tells me not
to fill my head with such nonsense and reassigns the aides to do something more
practical."

"I don't think
knowing who your family is impractical!" Pravuil said.  "I may have
been raised in the training academy, but my half-brother and my father always
make sure to call me at least once per month.  We get together once per year
for a family reunion." 

Most hybrids only
sporadically visited their offspring, if at all.  A deliberate casualty of the
anti-fraternization laws, which had been amended over the millennia to not only
discourage mated pairs, but also to encourage Hashem's armies to look to
him
to be their father-figure instead of the parents who had given them life. 
Policies Lucifer had whole-heartedly embraced in his father's absence, driven
by anger at his mother's suicide and egged on by Zepar.

Lucifer handed her the
photograph.  "I'm not even sure where you would begin.  All I know is that
she died in the eleventh month of 152,098 and that, several months prior to
that, my biological father initiated some sort of legal action.  And then all
of a sudden, he died, my mother died, and the Emperor just disappeared."

"I'll research
the media reports from that time period, Sir."  Pravuil forgot to call him
Lucifer.  "And then I'll sift through the court records.  If it was a
contested adoption, the records would be sealed, but you can unseal them if you
know what you're doing."

The image Lucifer
received from her mind as she spoke was of a bold investigative journalist,
digging for the truth, an archetype Pravuil idealized.  Her wings were still
mousy-beige, her hair still too thin and stringy, and her features as plain as
dirt, but when her eyes met his, she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever
seen.  She'd
seen
him.  And she would help him.  Just because…

The smile he gave her
was genuine and heartfelt.  A smile few people ever saw.  The smile she gave
him in return was just as genuine.  It made him feel … warm.  As though she'd
reached into his empty heart and made a little place for herself there.  A
friend.

"Thank you,"
Lucifer said.  "I'll tell Zepar I have sent you on some bogus mission so
he doesn't complain you're out of the office.  Let's just keep this between you
and me?  Okay?"

Pravuil rose and shook
his hand.  Her handshake was not sweaty and unsure, but firm.  For
him,
she
would be bold.  His touch lingered far longer than the practiced two-and-a-half
second handshake he'd spent the past 225 years perfecting, relishing the warm
tingle which flowed from her hand into his.  Her wings fluttered with
determination as she walked out the door to complete the mission he'd just
given to her.

Yes.  He'd finally
made a friend.  He made up his mind right then and there that he wouldn't
mate
with her when she came into her next heat cycle, either, because then Zepar
would make her go away.  Zepar was too tightly intertwined in his affairs,
having been his advisor ever since the day his mother had died and the Emperor
had left
him
in charge of the Alliance, to risk pissing off.  But
beginning right now, he would start taking more control, starting with knowing
the truth about his family!  If the Emperor didn't want to be his father, then
perhaps it was time he found out who his
real
father had been?

What the hell are
doing?
that small nasty voice hissed
inside his mind. 

He told it to shut up!

~ * ~ * ~
* ~ * ~

May - 3,390 BC

Earth:  Village of Assur

Ninsianna

He intercepted her
carrying home a basket of early spring vegetables.  Standing in the middle of
the open field, arms laden with the bounty of the soil, there was no alley to
duck into to avoid him or house to pretend to be visiting on a mission of
healing.  She had no choice but to stand her ground.

“Ninsianna,” Jamin
jogged to catch up with her.  “We need to talk.  Please!”

“What do you want?”
Ninsianna eyed him with distrust.  Yalda and Zhila looked up from the adjacent
plot.  At least there were witnesses if he tried to drag her anyplace or duck
her head into the water again.