Chapter Text
“I will purge every last abomination and sin from this world!”
Below screamed, his now hulking figure distorted and still growing from soul absorption, his sickly green gray carapace infecting every surface it touched.
Deep in his throat, a bubbling, twisted energy grew in time with his scream, turning the once beautiful threads of the world a horrible rotting color.
Eda’s arms were thrown out as if she alone could shield her kids. Luz felt King clung tightly to her shoulder, burrowed in against her neck as close as he could get, Amity’s hand in hers as red and green warred with blue in the sky and ground.
Willow, Gus, and Hunter were crowded in next to her, faces a range of fear, defiance, and grim determination.
Magic sparked out from them in some futile attempt to protect the small little group from the tyrant.
In Luz’s hand, her last bit of smudged and crumpled paper, a sigil was hastily scrawled.
Her first sigil.
A warm, cloying thing she’d discovered months back now, when she’d first come to Seoul, when she first discovered the secrets on her new neighborhood. It pulsed against the paper, that steady thrum of a heartbeat she’d come to expect from the strange magic none of the demons around her had heard of in hundreds of years.
And then, with the snapping of the threads below their feet, everything happened all at once.
Belos let loose his scream, a jet of miasmic rot, an obliterating ray speeding toward them like negative sunlight.
Plants and abomination goo circled them like a barrier. Earth rose to meet it, static yellow bands so reminiscent of the threads tearing below them weaving between, and over top of it all, a purple glow vibrated, pulsing in a way that seemed to strengthen the whole thing. Eda stood her ground, despite the barrier, wings spreading further in anticipation.
And that last slip of paper, slapped on like a last, pleading hope.
…
Everything blinked out in an instant, here and then gone.
Luz still felt everything.
Or in this case, nothing.
Weightless, breathless, senseless. No sound, no light, she couldn’t breath, she couldn’t move-!
The all consuming nothingness somehow felt more oppressive than even Belos’s presence.
The sudden and unexpected flicker vivid purple and golden amber light bursting into her vision didn’t help.
“Gah-ah”, she gasped, hands flying to her eyes to block out the onslaught, while also trying to relearn how to breath as existence itself slammed into her.
“Sorry! Sorry about that. Here, just let me-”, a deep resonating voice said, both a balm and a boom in her freshly reawakened eardrums, “There.”
The light faded to a more comfortable glow…not unlike that of her sigils. Opening her eyes and peeking past her fingers as the light became manageable, she was met with…
“King?”
The being laughed, a deep and jovial noise that echoed in the undefined space around them. As quickly as it started, it faded, though mirth still filled the being’s features, so very like her little brother’s.
“No, though the rascal does get his good looks from me”, they said, and…oh.
Oh.
Luz was finally able to take in his full appearance. A tall figure, at least a head above Eda, with thick, deep purple fur covering them. It poked out of the collar and arm holes of his “Bad Pitch Lovin” Oni Karaoke T-shirt, and the bottom legs of his long pajama pants. The sweats were covered with four repeating, softly glowing sigils. The ones she’d been using to imitate demon magic these past few months.
His head was like King’s, bone and snout. A pair of longer horns curved back and down, curving all the way back around for their points to stick out of the fluffed up fur at his collar. A single bright amber eye looked back at her with gentle fondness, while the other was dark with a small worm poking itself out. A worm that looked suspiciously like Hooty.
“You’re King’s dad!”
“I think King put it best once. I am both King and Queen. Best of both things. But dad works fine”, the figure…the King of Demons, said, a smile in their voice in features.
Just like King.
Luz smiled back, excitement bubbling up until the realization hit her.
The Demon King hadn’t been seen in hundreds of years. Hadn’t been seen since Gwi-ma took power. Hadn’t been seen since a particularly nasty and bloody battle in hell that left many wondering.
“Wait…you’re…d-does that mean I’m-”,Luz asked, seeing the Demon King’s features shift, fond to worried, pity maybe, and sadness. As easy to read as her brother had become.
She didn’t notice her feet starting to sink into the glass clear water below her.
It reached her knees before a solid pair of hands hoisted her up again, knocking her from her spiraling and settling her back gently to stand on the tense surface again.
“Don’t go thinking like that now”, the Demon King said, a hand settling gently on her shoulders as he kneeled down to be eye to eye with her, “Otherwise, you will be.”
The weight of his hand and the gentle, almost apologetic gaze on her helped to somewhat ground her again, and she took a deep breath. Looking around now as more of the foggy place around them came into focus, she found that they were standing on some large dark lake. Water lay undisturbed below their feet, while around them, all the way to the horizon in every direction, small cubes floated up out of the surface and into the air. It looked, and felt, a bit like standing at the bottom of a glass of soda in a restaurant. Hazy shapes moved out past the fog, big and little, fast and slow. Always just out of sight, to the point that Luz couldn’t tell if they were anything other than more areas of fog playing tricks on her.
“So”, Luz started, pulling her gaze up to the Demon King, “Where…are we?”
The Demon King rose back to his full height, hand still settled on her shoulder as he nudged her to start walking, their pace slow, going nowhere with no point of reference.
“The Space Between. Here and there, Earth and Hell,…Life and Death.”
Luz raised a skeptical brow, glancing around again as they walked. For a place between other places, it didn’t have a lot going on. No structures, no people, no animals. Just floating cubes and fog.
“My family”, she ventured, “My friends. Where-?”
“Not here”, the Demon King said, again apologetic, “You are the closest to me in magic, easiest to pull through the veil. Even King hasn’t reached that level of understanding for our language yet. But we don’t have much time, and there is quite a bit to do.”
A flash of violent red, pierced by a distant, echoing scream, pulled both their attention to the horizon, the murky void now alive with actual movement. Next to her, Luz noticed the Demon King’s faraway eyes tense with worry and fear, eyes widening as if seeing something terrible out beyond the dark.
Another cry rolled out from that red distant lighting like thunder. Luz felt tears press against her eyes without knowing why. That cry sounded familiar, visceral and haunting as it seemed to pierce through realities.
It…
It sounded like hospitals and late nights in sterile, cold rooms, holding weakening hands. Stung like high pitched machine noises and the deafening quiet where they used to be. Felt like hunched forms and shaking shoulders and soft whispers of ‘please’ and ‘I love you’.
Heartbreak.
“Who is that”, Luz asked, her voice sounding raw and hollow to her own ears, as if she’d been the one screaming, her hand coming up subconsciously to fist into the varsity jacket where it pressed over her heart.
Her cheeks were damp, and as she turned to look up at the Demon King, she saw silvery tear tracks rolling down his own cheek, even as his eyes looked on steadily.
“My daughter.”