Demon Night

Lucifer must have been the one to take it from them.”
    Ethan nodded. “To keep them under control.”
    “Yes. He always removed anything that might threaten his throne.” Lilith’s fingers were drawing blissful sighs from Sir Pup; half of his fur had become scales, reminding Ethan that Lucifer experiments had created hellhounds, too. Creating another form of demon wouldn’t be all that different. “And perhaps he took the demons’ memories, too,” Lilith added, “or at least blocked them. If he did, I suspect he has altered them more than once. Lucifer wouldn’t have wanted anyone to remember his failures, and the nephilim must have been one of those.”
    “If it was a nephilim, it was almighty powerful,” Ethan said. “I ain’t sure I’d consider it a failure.”
    “If it was one , it was a nephil. And according to the demon who told me about them, they were an enormous failure,” Lilith said, her lips curving. “Apparently, the nephilim rose up against Lucifer, and it took the combined efforts of Belial’s followers and Lucifer’s to stop them.”
    Castleford leaned forward a bit, shaking his head. “Belial and Lucifer have only been at war these eight hundred years. How far back does their rivalry go?”
    “As far as anyone remembers.” Her gaze turned inward, and she rose from her desk to retrieve a bottle of water from a small refrigerated cupboard. She tossed another to Castleford, then a chunk of meat to the hellhound. “Which, again, tells me that Lucifer took something from the demons. How can they not know when it started? Yet to listen to a demon, it would seem that Belial has always wanted to return to Grace, rebelling against Lucifer’s rule—but at one point, Belial must have been one of Lucifer’s followers, too.”
    She returned to her seat. “And that is why I don’t know how much of the story is propaganda—I was one of Lucifer’s halflings, and it would have served Belial’s demons to spread rumors about Lucifer’s weaknesses and make us doubt his power. Because doubt was akin to betrayal, and a halfling’s betrayal inevitably sent them to the field.”
    The frozen field suspended between Hell and Chaos. Ethan hadn’t ever seen it, except for images that Selah had once shown him—and judging by the way Lilith’s face tightened at its mention, her hellhound’s whining growls, Ethan reckoned he was lucky he never had experienced it firsthand.
    Castleford was watching her as well. “What was the story he told you?” he asked quietly.
    Lilith seemed to shake herself and then shrugged. “That the nephilim were the second of Lucifer’s experiments. The first, the grigori, were destroyed.” She looked between Ethan and Castleford. “He didn’t say why or how, except that they didn’t please Lucifer. The nephilim did please him, however—for a time.”
    “That time must have been until they stopped serving him,” Ethan guessed. With Lucifer, some things were that simple.
    “Yes. And although the nephilim’s numbers were small, they brought Lucifer’s forces to their knees…until Belial stepped in to assist him.” Lilith’s mouth twisted in a wry smile, and she glanced at Castleford. “Whether Belial truly stepped in or was forced into service…? Considering the source, it’s difficult to say.”
    “Yes,” Castleford agreed.
    “And they managed to imprison the nephilim—though where or how, I have no idea,” Lilith said. “I’ve never seen any evidence of it—but there are many parts of Hell that were closed to me, or where I wouldn’t have dared to venture.”
    Ethan frowned. “Why imprison them rather than destroy them?”
    Lilith shook her head. “Perhaps they couldn’t—or, if that imprisonment included Punishment, Lucifer might have preferred they experience an eternity of torture.” Her brows drew together. “And the demon went on about a prophecy—in which the destruction of the nephilim would herald Lucifer’s fall from the throne, Chaos breaking open on Earth, and the world saved by the sons of Belial—the standard doomsday bullshit that always looks best to those who believe it. So it might have been he didn’t really know what happened to the nephilim, but just told me the version that flattered Belial.”
    “If it’s bullshit, then why do you even mention—”
    Lilith answered before Ethan could finish. “Because if Belial’s demons believe it, then they might act as if it’s truth. And if this was one of the