Lucifer's Darling: A Dark Fantasy Romance Novel Read online

  Copyright © 2019 by Vicky Jayne

  All rights reserved. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in, or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known, hereinafter invented, without express written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

  Typewriter Pub, an imprint of Blvnp Incorporated

  A Nevada Corporation

  1887 Whitney Mesa DR #2002

  Henderson, NV 89014

  www.typewriterpub.com/[email protected]

  ISBN: 978-1-64434-083-7

  DISCLAIMER

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. While references might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  LUCIFER’S DARLING

  VICKY JAYNE

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  Fifty-Four

  Fifty-Five

  Fifty-Six

  Fifty-Seven

  Fifty-Eight

  Fifty-Nine

  Sixty

  Sixty-One

  For мама, who has always supported everything I do.

  I love you.

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  Prologue

  “Please! No!”

  Beep... Beep... Beep...

  ***

  It was the bitterness of the icy cold wind that awoke me. Frosty air nipped at my skin with the ruthlessness of a wild animal, its teeth gnawing against my weakened flesh. My mind blurred at the numbing feeling. Everything in front of me was wobbling, frequently switching from clear to fuzzy frames.

  Above me, the sky was a sheath of foggy film. It looked bloated and swollen, almost like an abused punching bag, and as I pulled my crumpled self up from the cobbled streets, my core muscles withering, a large crack of thunder rained above me sending me flat to the uneven ground as pain washed over me.

  My ears buzzed from the brutality of the sudden sound and my vision clouded over once more. It was overcast, blurry white, and not a single familiar shape blinked back at me. Nothing resembled familiarity. Not the coffee-tinged cobbled streets, nor the grand white gleaming dome situated a few twenty yards away from me. Nothing.

  Where was I?

  “Um, excuse me?” a gentle voice spoke out from nearby, the strong note rode effortlessly over the crashes of waves that thumped in my ears. I tried to move towards the sound; it was soothing like fresh running water found by a parched man, comforting almost.

  The knowledge of not being alone in an unknown place softened the wounds in my head. I wasn’t alone. I tried to move; only a wood-chipping crack of pain in my back prevented me. My tender muscles shrivelled beneath my bruised skin as they contracted in aiding my failed movements.

  Shortly after the surge of nerve-splitting pain, a merciful hand came down and swooped underneath the bone of my elbow, pulling me up into a sitting position. Pain seared through me, singeing my throbbing muscles to an over-fried crisp. My skin cracked, followed by the charred prod of my bones trembling inside of me. I had never felt this level of burning pain, ever.

  “Hello?” the slosh of the tranquil voice tried again, this time close to the shell of my ear. A fuzzy outline of a hand waved before me, “Are you okay?”

  I blinked, my eyelids begging to close as the aches and pains slowly but unavoidably became a part of me. “Where?-” I tried, my voice small and weak. I tried again only I couldn’t produce any sound. -I couldn’t speak anymore.

  The confusion shown on the stranger’s face pressed into the side of my skull like stamp imprint as image doubles appeared before me, the pain rising to an all-time-high before flatlining and everything faded to black.

  ***

  “And, she’s awake,” the same soothing voice from before brought me back to reality. This new environment was warmer, welcoming and saturated with the scent of summer citrus. I opened my eyes, my eyebrows pulling down as I did so. Clouded by confusion, my vision fading, focusing in and out at the light space before me, I thought What? How did I? I was just outside and then? My eyelids felt lighter. No longer did they feel weighted or make me dizzy. How did I move? I vaguely remember a man helping and then . . . nothing.

  The glassy cloud cleared from my vision and sitting before me at the end of the single bed was a young man, possibly in his early thirties, a small olive-toned notebook in hand.

  “Hello,” he greeted simply with a friendly smile, “I’m Raphael.”

  “Hi,” I murmured back. I wanted to save my voice. Raphael’s name took a second to enter my mind, and it didn’t trigger any memories.

  Leaving his name to sit in the growing pile of the unknown, I took a few quiet moments to take in my surroundings.

  The room I was in was large, pentagon in shape and open plan in design. White paint glistened against the walls, its crispness not baring a single scratch or scuff mark. It was clean, sterilized, and untouched. Dotted around the corners of the five-sided shape, were compass points of leafy plants. They sat in small crystal bulbs.

  I was lying flat on a foam mattress atop a single bed, white sheets pinning me down.

  “Excuse my ignorance, but who exactly are you?” Raphael asked, leaning closer with his fingers intertwined. His blond eyebrows plagued with a dozen questions.

  “Um, I’m . . .”

  I paused. And with a shallow, dry swallow. Panic surged up my throat as my mind bore no answer.

  Who am I?

  Who. Am. I?

  WHO AM I?

  A faint doorbell sounded nearby. Its high note snapped me from my wide-eyed panic of what-the-fuck-was-going-on; I watched without blinking as Raphael sucked in a nervous sigh and disappeared th
rough the archway, leaving me in the silence.

  He came back a few moments later with a sheet of pewter cardstock clipped tightly by his thumb and forefinger.

  “Oh, silly me,” he reluctantly said. His voice was strained and weak, deprived of the joyful juices it held before. “It’s Charmeine, isn’t it?”

  I don’t know. I wanted to say, you tell me.

  It might be. Possibly? So that is my name?

  “Uh, yes?” I nodded, feigning knowledge that this name belonged to me.

  I tried not to let slip that the name hadn’t brought me any recollection whatsoever. If anything, it added more confusion to the perplexing mix of bubbling panic and fright.

  “It’s lucky I found you in time then. Otherwise, you would have to add a bad cold onto your list of injuries,” Raphael said, tucking the sheet of cardstock into the back pocket of his cream slacks.

  “Where am I?” The most basic yet burning question slipped past my dry lips before I had even the time to process it.

  Raphael paled, and I could see fear in his eyes. “Um,” he began before laughing awkwardly. The curves of his pink lips twitched stiffly. “You must have taken quite the fall to suffer sufficient memory loss, Charmeine. You’re in the light paradox, a realm just before heaven where the angels reside.”

  I replayed his words, momentarily forgetting their meaning.

  “Angels?” I repeated. My voice was faint yet audible, and my eyebrows furrowed where a concerned crease formed.

  “Yes, Angels,” Raphael said slowly, reassuring me that I had heard him correctly. The air around us felt thicker, almost as if it now mirrored Raphael’s voice. His finger jutted over his left shoulder. “D-do you fancy a cup of tea?” His voice changed once more; it was higher now, laced with uncertainty.

  I nodded, not wanting to seem impolite. I still didn’t know where I was. And it looked like Raphael was the only one available to shed some light on the matter at hand. Light. That’s what this place was called: the Light Paradox. I didn’t recognise the name.

  And I was expected to believe I lived here? Also, angels? What was up with that?

  Raphael came back into the room after around five minutes, a white ceramic mug in his hands. Everything was white. “Careful,” he warned, “it’s hot.”

  I took the mug from him, the handle burning my fingers. He was right about one thing.

  “I don’t remember anything!” I blurted out, my voice shattering with the overwhelming current of emotion I had kept locked up. The mug began to shake violently in my hands. “I’m sorry. I-I don’t know . . .”

  “Hey, it’s okay!” Raphael assured, leaning forward. His face was blank and neutral like the walls. “It’s normal to not remember everything after taking such a fall.”

  “Fall?”

  Raphael nodded and pulled the sheet of cardstock out from his back pocket once more. “Yes,” he said, referencing the paper, “you took a fall to earth. It was my fault. I hadn’t realised the portal was faulty. I was sending Afriel, another angel down to earth; it was how you fell too.” He read the words off like a checklist. He didn’t miss anything.

  “Portal?” I echoed. “What portal?”

  There is such a thing as portals?

  “Yes.” Raphael chuckled. “Wow, you really must have hit your head quite hard. Don’t worry though. Answers will come with time. All you need to know is that you are an angel, you work for the Fates, you are eighteen, and you live here in the light paradox.” He still sounded like a robot, reading off the checklist in his mind.

  “The Fates?” I embraced my inner parrot, unable to prevent myself from repeating. This was all new information.

  “Yeah, the Fates, an all-powerful elite of angels who control the universe. Their identity is still unknown, but you don’t need to worry about that. What you need to focus your attention on is your destiny. It should arrive within the next few weeks.”

  “My destiny, what’s that?” I asked, not following at all what Raphael was saying.

  Everything he said was only contributing to my ever-expanding list of unanswered questions. Confusion listed in its purest form, reminding me ever so carefully that I still had no idea where I was.

  “It’s essentially your one task that is set by the Fates for you to complete. It’s like a job.”

  I nodded. At least pretend to understand, I thought.

  “Are you an angel too Raphael?”

  Raphael smiled: a clear-cut, designer smile. “I’m an archangel. Essentially, yes, I am.”

  I just nodded, not knowing what else to say. It was becoming a common trait of mine. Nodding showed you were open to suggestion but not completely convinced of the words fired at you. It was a neutral reaction.

  “I should let you rest now. You will need a lot of energy to match whatever the Fates have in store for you,” Raphael said, his choice of words sounding like a warning, a preface of what was awaiting me.

  “Oh, Raphael?” I asked, placing the mug back by the side of the bed.

  He turns to face me, a friendly smile on display.

  “Yes, Charmeine?”

  “What is the date?”

  “It’s November seventeenth.”

  One

  I felt like I was awake in repose. Time seemed to pass by in slow motion. Each minute dribbled by like a gentle blob of rain water, travelling down a moving car window in the misleading mist. You would watch intensely, waiting for one droplet to fall and hit the bottom of the window before seeping down into the gap, only it never came; the water would drool in the wrong direction, stop and stay there attached to the cold glass.

  I appeared to be stuck, restricted from moving in my cocoon of confusion. The walls around me were thick like mud, unbreakable like iron and a vacuum of the unknown. No answers were presented or handed out on crisp white sheets of a4. No snippet of knowledge slipped past the archangel’s lips.

  I was the caterpillar. And I was waiting. Waiting for the moment when my cocoon would crack, sunlight would bask in, and the empty shell surrounding me would swell with answers.

  Weeks had passed. I trudged along, hiking through the unforgiving mud. Nothing had unveiled. My memories were yet to reveal themselves.

  Raphael wasn’t proving to be the best at comforting or minimalizing the panic. I needed to be told the truth softly, not have it dropped like a typhoon wave over me. My memories were gone. He had suggested that I give up and and pointed out that my memories not resurfacing was a golden hint which I should relish and move on. Forget about the past and live in the present, was what Raphael had mentioned the third time I had asked. It grew to be his default response. He was like an automated being, dishing out the selected answer programmed into him.

  I felt neglected. My mind came up blank. Where could I possibly get more information other than from Raphael? You see, I couldn’t help but notice that every time I asked Raphael to tell me something, anything about my fall, a grey cloud of guilt would drift into his brilliant blue eyes and he would strain against his thoughts to avoid giving me a straightforward answer.

  Every time.

  Today was the same. Seconds slipped into ever-lasting minutes as I sat on the creamy white sofa in the open-plan front room, waiting for the Fates to deliver my destiny.

  This room, similar to the others in the dome as I had come to know it, was large with unscathed white walls, potted plants, and odd smooth-edged crystals. The soft sunlight emitting from open glass windows drifted over the furniture, catching the occasional shimmering gem and in return spattered an array of translucent polka dots over the walls. I sat relatively still, basking in the wave of tranquillity that the front room provided. I felt at peace. Perhaps it was the crystals. Maybe they did extinguish any bad omen.

  Across the room of white, was a tall curved archway—thin panels of marble scooted down the walls, enwrapped in silver fairy lights, all while adding to the soothing vibe the dome engulfed.

  I was jolted from my undisturbed daze when Raph
ael rushed in, his curly blond hair fraying by his neck in time with his paced movements. A single grey envelope was held tightly between his thumb and forefinger. It was light grey and quite small, a business card in size.

  “Charmeine!” Raphael sang, the envelope waving excitedly in his hands. “It’s here! It’s here!” He snapped his fingers in front of my eyes before dropping the small pocket into my lap, letting the cardstock fall freely.

  He sat down opposite me, crossing his legs over, awaiting my reaction. Since I was still dancing in the element of the unknown, between the two of us it was Raphael who seemed more excited.

  I just wanted answers. Or at least, some explanation as to why I appeared on the cobbled ground in an unknown realm. Nobody falls through a portal by accident.

  Despite this, I felt a vast spectrum of emotions rush through my veins. Determined that this little pocket of the future held answers, explanations, reasons.

  And with this newfound rush, I used my pinkie finger’s nail to rip alongside the top side of the envelope, tugging the cardstock from its ash casing. My eyes flickered down to read the surprisingly short abrupt message.

  Combine the harmonies with Lucifer.

  It was blunt, polysyllabic, and written in thick cursive.

  Raphael leaned forward, his blue eyes flashing like headlights from excitement. “So?!” he pressed, “What does it say? What is your task?”

  “Um?” I trail off. “I’m not exactly sure. Who is Lucifer?”

  At my mumbled response, Raphael shrinks in his seat. “Lucifer?” he murmured, his voice thinning, draining through his voice box.

  “Yeah,” I nodded, “I have to ‘combine the harmonies with Lucifer’,” I read off, “whatever that implies.”

  “It implies danger.” Raphael released a sigh and uncrossed his legs. “Lucifer,” he murmured, “What are they planning?” His voice drifted away; he’s murmuring. Just not to me. Although there isn’t anybody else listening; we were the only two in the front room.