Chapter 20: The favored son

It was not every day that Orion was faced with something he could not explain. He was out of Hell, Len by his side. Trying to find Edwin in the wide world.

Finding only Seraphin instead, and no Lich mana there, where Damon's house used to be. For the place was now a dungeon of all things, and Orion did not know how Edwin had come back to life.

He hated every second of being able to feel Seraphin's gloating. Seraphin… what a stupid name for a demon, Orion could not help but think. Especially when the man is such a piece of work.

Damon was not answering his calls, Edwin was nowhere to be found. There was only one thing to do, really. Orion took off his gloves, for he had put them on to hide his dry skin, not wanting for Edwin to see him like that.

Darn "We Love Pizza" club and their cowardly curses. It was just mashed potatoes on pizza, nothing major!

Damon shook his head, and looked at Len, who was putting the finishing touches on the summoning circle. It was madness. Summoning Death himself was the foolhardiest thing a person could do.

No one wanted to meet him, no one wanted to talk to him. Who'd want to have the stench of cologne mixed in with rotting flesh up their nose?

And yet, Edwin was nowhere to be found, and Orion just wanted to see him. To wrap his arms around him, bring him close, bite him on the neck.

Mark him once more, finally feel how Edwin felt like when he was offering himself up on a silver platter.

Will he be tight, Orion could not help but think. Damon had said that Edwin was well-preserved, whatever that meant. Surely, Edwin would be shy when it happened? Giving Orion complete control over the situation, so that the ice demon could mark him, bury himself inside of him, wrap his hands around his throat, and…

Orion shook his head.

No, killing his soulmate was not an option. He could die, and he had much to achieve yet. Still, the fact that Edwin had cheated on him still stung.

He had marked the Lich, had he not? Was the message not clear enough? Had he stolen too little from Edwin's corpse, as he had left after only a kiss?

"Are you sure about this?" Len asked, bringing Orion out of his musings. "There is no going back from this. If Death demands your soul, then…"

"Just kill the damned chicken already," Orion snapped. The animal in question looked up from its cage, its snake tail lashing out.

Oh, he could have gotten a normal chicken from the human world, he supposed, but those reminded him of Edwin. For some reason, he did not want that Edwin to find out about him sacrificing something like an innocent animal.

The chicken in the cage was anything but innocent. It was Seraphin's pet, actually. Orion and Len had wasted five days doubling back to the man's castle.

Len had nearly lost an arm trying to put the chicken in a cage without killing it. Orion considered the red-eyed demon as something like a friend but seeing him running around from a chicken had brought a smile on his face.

A brief moment of bliss, followed by rage as he felt, through the mark Seraphin had taken upon himself, that Edwin was having fun.

Without Orion…

Len eyed the chicken, nodded to himself, mustered up the memory of the darned thing defecating on his head, and then snapped his fingers.

It exploded; a handsome man appeared in the circle. The stench of decay was so strong that Len got a perfumed handkerchief from the void, as he called his private Muse pocket dimension, and slapped it against his nose.

"Oh, how charming of you," the voice of the man was like the rattling of bones.

But Orion did not care about it all. Looking at Death was like looking at an older, taller, version of Edwin.

With a mounting horror, Orion knew what he had done.

Death had many sons, yes, but apparently, he had also fathered one somehow, from his own seed.

Orion took out his water bottle, spilled all the contents on the circle.

Death rose an elegant eyebrow, but did not disappear.

Oh, shit.

"So, you are one of my son's soulmates?" The being asked, as he eyed Orion so, as if he were a particularly colorful bug. For all Orion knew, he might really look like one in the eyes of the Grim Reaper. "When I gave him three, for luck, of course, I never expected that one of them would unlock his inheritance."

Orion made a step back. A Lich, who was the son of Death himself? And… wait a second! Three soulmates?

"Edwin is mine!" His jealousy was making him bold, even when he should be running for the hills. Could it be? Did he really have to share Edwin with Seraphin, and some third wheel?

"Could have been," Death said, his smirk sharp like a knife. "You lost all rights to him, though."

"See here," Orion had never been denied anything. He had been born strong, and his strength had always given him everything he had wanted.

Not that he knew who the demon was, who impregnated his mother. The poor female demon had barely survived long enough for Orion to develop so that he could be cut out of her.

Yet, Orion was sure, with everything he knew he was capable of, that if push came to shovel, he could even take on Death himself.

"Oh, you are welcome to try. But not now. I have a mission for you," the Grim Reaper took out a dagger, and threw it at Orion's feet. Orion took it, ready to stick it between the man's ribs if he had to. "My boy is out of control, I am afraid. He has to come back to life, you understand. Not with some silly earring, but really come back to life. I need his help with something. The reason why I fathered him in the first place."

This man was cold, Orion knew. He had never expected anything but from Death, and yet, as he nodded, he knew that he was no better.

For if Edwin did a favor for Death, he would be rewarded. And if Edwin got his reward, then Orion could demand the brunette share it with him.

"You are scum, you know that?" Death's smirk finally dropped, but Orion just shrugged.

"I am a demon," he said, as he eyed the dagger. Hm, if he heated it, he was pretty sure that he could read the message engraved on the blade.

He doubted that a campfire would be enough to unravel its secret, though.

Death eyed him for a long moment, and then sighed.

"Edwin's mother, the only woman whom I have ever loved, is in chains," Death said, and Orion blinked. Wait, if Edwin was Death's son, how come the woman was still alive? "And in Hell."

Orion let out a chuckle. Oh, so he got to have Edwin over. Perfect!

"Ok, please give me a description of the good woman, and we can get her out," Orion said, then he blinked once more, as Death's smirk made a reappearance.

"The good woman," Death allowed himself a chuckle, Orion got a bad feeling inside his stomach. "Is Gorgon."

The curse Orion let out was followed by laughter. He did not need directions to Gorgon's cage, nor did he need Death, who vanished and took his dammed fruit flies with him, to tell him where the woman was kept captive.

If one could call a dragon as big as a mountain a woman, or claim that chains which the woman was using as decoration could hold her back.

"Well, we were heading there anyway," Len said, as he finally took his handkerchief off his nose. "So… you are going to have a harem?"

Orion flipped him the bird and teleported to Seraphin. There they were, like three peas in a pot. Edwin snuggled into Damon in the middle, Seraphin reading a book in the faint light of the nightstand lamp.

"Edwin…" Orion growled, only to have Seraphin look at him. The man smirked, Orion could feel his bond with the fire demon, as the man laid a hand over Edwin's hair, and gently ran it down the curly mane.

"He is sleeping, and tired, besides," the gloating was clear to be heard in that gritty voice of the demon.

But Orion did not care about any of that, no. Seraphin, he could understand. If someone killed him, and he got the chance to score with his murderer's soulmate, he would have done it out of spite.

But Damon… Damon he could not forgive.

"Honey, they let me off work early," Orion said, as he made an ice spike in his hand. "You could have at least hidden those two in the closet!"

And so, before Orion could throw the ice spike at Edwin's head, killing the man for the second time, he felt a pain right in his heart.

A single dagger was sticking out of his flesh. Damon was wide awake, his dark brown eyes narrowed into slits.

"Friendship to the grave, eh, old friend?" Orion spat, as he laid a hand on the dagger. 

Poison… darn it all!

"Yes, yours, old chap," Damon said, as he stood up, showing that he was in fighting gear.