The Demon’s Bride

Not knowing what was happening in heaven, Elise continue to hear Lady Caroline's story of her grandmother. The woman expresses her grandmother to be the same as she imagined. Where her grandmother despite her appearance was quite strong as she was an angel but her body was weaker than others especially since she was a heavenly being who live in Hell.

"...Satan didn't want her to stay in Hell but she stubbornly insist. I think it is because she understood that no place except Hell would accept the both of them. Not entirely but at the least Satan is the King here, he can do what e wish and protect her for the better," Lady Caroline continued, "Your father decided it was saver for him to bring your mother to the mortal's world."

"Perhaps it is because he knew the danger on the air in Hell for my mother." Her blood followed from her mother who was the daughter of an angel. Elise knew hat I'd her mother were to liv here, she would have to suffer from illness like she did or her grandmother did as well.

"Every and each people has their own method in order to protect their loved ones," Lady Caroline said with a foreign tone as if she couldn't wrap her mind in the words she said herself. "I thought I loved my husband but I learned it was simply lust. As evil as it sounds, that was the truth. If you have finished your tea, come with me I will have you a tour around the castle."

Elise pushed herself from her seat and smiled, "Thank you for your offer, Lady Caroline." She then followed the tall woman as she left the room but before stepping away and while standing behind Lady Caroline, Elise's hands that she held behind her back moved. She twirled her finger on the air, letting the small wisp of black shadow to ooze out and fly from her.

When Lady Caroline turned around, Elise asked, "What kind of objects does the underground store?"

"That's depend," answered Lady Caroline to her, not noticing the little action Elise sneakily made. "The underground's purpose is to store memoirs, usually the objects of those memories. Such when Satan divided a land in half, we hold the sword he used here. There're also other books, totem, and even living parts of people."

On the mention of living parts, Elise's fingers couldn't help but squeeze against each other. "Living parts?"

"No worries dearie, it is just a simple few parts not the ones you would imagine. Like your father's scale when he turned into a dragon form. The demonic Lion's tooth which almost bite off Raphael's wings. There's a lot," as Lady Caroline explained, they both had entered to a room where there were books placed inside glass cases. 

Although Elise hadn't read the book just by a look of the velvet hard cover, she could tell what was store in there are similar to the book of resurrection which had now fall on the wrong hands. 

"Have there been any items stolen from you, Lady Caroline?"

Lady Caroline's lisp pursed and she looked visibly upset. "There was a few. None succeeded except one," the woman waved her hand which was holding a new smoking pipe, cuing Elise to follow her. Maintaining the distance of two steps behind the woman, she was led into one crystal case which was empty. "Before there was a book here. The book can bring people to life and the son of bastard named Caleb had stolen it from me."

Even though Elise hadn't stolen anything, she could feel shudders upon sensing the rage that boiled inside Lady Caroline when she remembered the past event. 

"Did you received it back?" Elise naively inquired as if she had no clue about no book.

"No. I have requested Satan to before the book falls into more stupid people who truly believe they could bring back a soul to life." But it had, thought Elise and her mind question Lady Caroline's statement.

"You mean to say that it is fake and the book cannot bring people back to life?" Elise asked as it sounded that the woman was saying that it couldn't work yet she had seen both Lilith and Caleb who succeeded the ritual.

"A hundred life in exchange for one, that's a bad deal to start with. Not to forget this resurrecting method is extremely tricky because you cannot choose who you will resurrect."

Elise also agreed to the woman's words, she can't see it as a good exchange but surely the dark sorcerer lord did.

"There are more disadvantage of this book," Lady Caroline raise her folded finger to each point she made, "First, the summoner cannot put a proper leverage on the people they brought back to life. For a reference, if Satan died and you summoned him, it means he can kill you as you have no control or whatsoever. One can try to put a leverage with another magic that would make the summoned to obediently follow the summoner's order but if you are just a bit weaker than the demon you summoned, you can expect death chasing hotly on your tail."

Elise pulled her eyebrows. Which mean Caleb isn't actually affected by the dark sorcerer Lord's order? Or that the dark sorcerer Lord is stronger than Caleb?

"What about the second point?" Elise questioned as she saw Lady Caroline's second raised finger. 

"It's a secret that Satan didn't say and only him and I know. Whoever use that book they will suffer from a great drawbacks. That being a curse is now laid on them," Lady Caroline uttered with a smile which made the news to sound more malicious.

Elise saw this as an opportunity, "What curse?"

Being generous, Lady Caroline said, "A poison is now running on their body. It will make them stronger for the first three to four weeks but the stronger they are, the potent the poison running in their blood is. Slowly by slowly, their organs will stop working, their mind going to a hell-like delusion, before their soul burning to a complete destruction where no one could ever heal or bring back that person's soul. The pain they go through would be nothing like one would imagine a pain is. It is extremely agonizing which only grew worse with time. A befitting end for a stupid thief."

Elise felt as though bells tolling inside her mind. Assuming the dark sorcerer Lord was the one who had done the ritual to resurrect Caleb which mean without his own awareness he was currently in the brink of death.

Elise felt joy in her heart but not entirely. She didn't feel it was right. She didn't see how it would be fair for the man to die before she killed him. 

"Being on that topic, your highness. Apart from all the limbs that was collected here. There is one which I am quite fond of. The story of the items were heart wrenching to human bu entertaining for me. I wasn't there to witness what happened but knowing that you hold a slight blood of an angel, I think you would like this."

The description given by Lady Caroline was vague but Elise already knew what was it that the woman mentioned. They left the room that was filled with books to the left side of the door. The servants who looked lifeless once again opened the door.

Elise lifted her chin to look forward, immediately locking eyes with the wings that was stored inside the glass case. The wings were large enough to cover the entire space for itself that the glass case wans't enough to contain them. And the totals of the wings were unlike most demons or angels where they would only have a pair. There was three pair of the wings, a total of six by counting each, all in the color of pitch black and it was engulfed in the vivacious green fire even as it was stored inside the glass case.

Lady Caroline's voice came beside her ears, "Diablo's wings. It's called the wings of sorrow."