Brother Lucien

A slow sigh of a breeze slid through the room, and before he could turn, the small candle in the holder upon the dais lost its flame, casting him into pitch darkness. Lucien flinched and pulled his hands away, reaching back for the dais to cling to. How was the air moving in a sealed room underground? Were there grates in the walls? Maybe he could get out that way. He tried to remember the layout of the large space, a chapel more or less, beneath a curved stone roof. The statues were against the wall, and the door was perhaps thirty feet to his left when he had been facing the figures.

If only he had flint and tinder to make a light, it would be so much easier. "My god, I wish I could get this candle lit!" he hissed, focusing on the mundane to keep from worrying about the chilling bizarre darkness all around him.

Suddenly, a series of huffed crackles spread across the other side of the room. Racks of small prayer candles burst into light, the tapers sparking on their own and holding a little flickering flame. The combination of so many created a warm suffusing illumination, and despite how uncanny that just was, Lucien breathed out a sigh of relief, happy to see once more.

Taking a deep breath, he moved to face the statues again, but his eyes widened when he saw that they were both gone. Only the bare, musty stone wall was visible, and when he looked to the left, he could see the door barring the way out. The series of oddities made Lucien shiver for a moment, but even so, he worked past his rapidly beating heart and looked around for any grates up on the wall.

There was one towards the ceiling in the very back of the room, and the opening behind the grate looked large enough for him to climb through. "Oh thank God," he whispered, but as he pushed away from the dais he suddenly felt that he was no longer alone. His eyes darted around the chapel, and he wiped the clamminess from his hands onto his robe. "It's nothing. They're nothing. Just ghosts. Just your imagination!" he hissed, resuming his steps towards the wall.

The iron grate was old, and as he shifted the panel he could feel it begin to lose its grip on the frame.

"Lucien... Stay with us..." came a breathy voice from behind him.

The man grit his teeth, pushing beyond the feeling of the hairs standing up on the nape of his neck to keep wrestling with the grate.

Another, deeper voice purred, "Let Lucien make his own decisions... We don't want a slave, after all."

Somehow, hearing his own name (or his nom de monastère) made him finally take pause. "You... both of you have been in my room," he said slowly, recognizing the voices at last but still not daring to look.

The deeper voice merely chuckled, while the breathy one offered, "Yes. We have visited you. We are drawn to you."

With every word, each of the speakers began to sound more solid and present. They incrementally became actual voices instead of echoes.

Lucien grit his teeth and swallowed, his fingers slowly releasing the bars of the grate. "So you have witnessed what I do... what I am."

He heard the old wood of one of the pews creak, and then another on the other side of the room do the same, as if two people were getting to their feet slowly. Lucien closed his eyes and waited with his back to the room still, his hands finally tucking into the sleeves of his robes to hide their shaking. Shadows thrown by the candles revealed one figure with horns upon his head and another figure with a solitary wing tucked up behind his back. "We don't want to hurt you, Lucien. We have never wanted to hurt you, or anyone," the breathy voice urged, and the shadow with the wing held its arms open, as if to reveal its sincerity.

Lucien swallowed. "And you? The other one?"

The lower voice, always with a warm rumble to it, noted, "We are trapped here. This construction above us is a cage. I cannot return and neither can he. We are exiled from our kingdoms because we tarried."

"Angels and demons are forbidden from engaging in carnality with one another," added the breathy voice.

The man sighed, suddenly smirking a little. This had to be a joke, surely. The other brothers were playing a prank on him. Lucien turned, his lips still pulled into a smile, but when he finally saw the two standing before him the expression melted from his face. The two marble statues had come to life - he could think of no better term for it. They both had coloration now - the angel was still pale, but his skin was olive-complected and his hair was long, straight, and white like clouds. His remaining wing was white-feathered like a swan's. His eyes were a light gray and glinted like silver.

The demon, meanwhile, was slightly larger, with grayish green skin, long, straight black hair, and two rams' horns curving back from his forehead in black. Black talons grew from his fingertips, fangs just nestled in with the rest of his dentition, and his eyes were amber and slitted, like a cat's.

Both of them were handsome, almost unbearably so, and Lucien took a moment to process the reality of it all. "I didn't... I never imagined beings... people like you were real," he said at last. "Do the others in the monastery know?"

The angel inclined his head. "To a point. We do not talk to everyone, and no one has ever seen us. Not like you are seeing us now."

The demon smirked, glancing over at the angel briefly before turning back to Lucien. "Sariel is very self-conscious of his appearance."

The angel, Sariel, gave the demon a small look of displeasure, then turned his attention back to Lucien, clasping his hands. "All that Malphas and I ask is for you to keep us company. We cannot leave until the walls of the monastery fall down, and even then neither of us are sure what will happen."

Malphas crossed his arms over his bare chest, looking somewhat frustrated. It was clear that the two of them had deliberated about their options far too many times to count. "Sariel is afraid of the monastery's collapse."

The angel flicked his wing and glared at the demon. "At least we are safe here, and together! The monastery provides security!"

The demon grit his teeth, a deep, wet growl rolling around in his throat. "It's a cage, Sariel! We can remain together beyond the walls!"

"We will be struck down!" the angel cried.

Just before Malphas launched into a rebuttal, Lucien yelled, "ENOUGH!"

Both the demon and the angel paused and looked at him, their eyes somewhat widened with surprise.

Lucien, surprised at his own gall, swallowed and closed his eyes. "Look... I want to help you, I truly do, but I'm a prisoner. This is my cage, too. And until I know that I'm not going to be jailed and shot the moment I leave here, I can't do anything to assist you," the man explained, sliding his hand through his hair in frustration.

The two creatures glanced towards one another, and Sariel nodded before Malphas turned back to the man to offer, "We can grant you two boons. Whatever you wish, within reason."

Lucien was just about to suggest one of a few options when Sariel interrupted him to caution, "But only if you pledge yourself to us."

The man pursed his lips, took a few seconds to mull it over, and casually said, "Fine."

Both the angel and demon looked at him with concern, a heavy silence falling upon them until Malphas tentatively asked, "You... truly have no qualms?"

Lucien just looked at him. "I'm a whore, Malphas. Whatever you both desire I have probably taken money for already. Heaven doesn't wait for me, but the gendarmes do, and I need protection. I also need to get out of here." He gave a look to Sariel, who still seemed apprehensive. "Gentlemen, I don't know what powers you both have, but if you can keep me safe then I'll serve you as long as you want."

The demon and the angel regarded him in silence for a moment, then drew away to confer among themselves privately. Lucien, meanwhile, contemplated renewing his efforts with the grate. If those two never made up their minds, then he'd have to take matters into his own hands.

Luckily, that wasn't the case.

Chapter 3

The three made their arrangement, and Lucien was released back into the monastery late at night. Neither Brother Remi nor Lucien spoke of the creatures down in the basement chapel, and the sedate life of the monks continued. While pretending to be the model brother during the day, Lucien slipped down to the chapel at night to serve his new masters, Sariel and Malphas. After having been trapped for so long and rendered incorporeal and silent to nearly everyone else, the ability to touch warm flesh was a blessing for them. Lucien never worried himself with questions of morality - if his new masters could free him of his predicament and protect him, then everything was worth it.

Plus, they were some of the most attentive lovers he'd ever had.

Outside the walls, France had begun to tear itself apart. Famine, disease, heavy taxes, and constant war had driven the common folk to rage and madness and desperation. Their enemies were the nobility and the clergy, thanks to the abuses of the Estates General, and churches and monasteries all over the country began to suffer for the arrogance of their representatives in Paris. It was only a matter of time before the fires came to Lucien's monastery, but when they did, he hardly noticed.

Indeed, that night Lucien was laid out naked on the altar, the light of the candles illuminating his sweaty skin. The chill of the stone beneath his back made him writhe and gasp, though the feeling of the hot mouth upon his hard cock was what made him moan. Sariel loomed over him, the angel on his hands and knees upon the altar, with his hips over Lucien's head.

The young man panted and shivered, looking up at the pale, perfect, slender cock standing stiffly erect mere inches from his lips. Feeling his cheeks heat up in spite of himself, he lifted his head and slid his tongue slowly along the underside of the velvety, angelic shaft. Sariel whimpered, his pale lips wrapped around Lucien's cock, his head kept to its task by Malphas, who gripped his hair.

Standing at the foot of the altar, the demon guided Lucien's slender legs to wrap around his hips. Oil had already been liberally applied to the creature's large erection and to Lucien's welcoming star, inside and out. Due to the man's dedicated service to his new masters, his entrance offered only a little resistance when the demon slowly guided himself within. A deep, rumbling growl of pleasure slipped past Malphas' throat and sharp teeth, and his free hand gripped at Lucien's hip, clutching him possessively. Clutching both of them and making them slaves to their pleasure.

Lucien could hardly hear anything, covered and surrounded by the other men, not until thunderous crash made the monastery tremble even down to the foundations. He startled, his body tightening, but Malphas and Sariel held him down, assuring him that he'd be safe. For a moment he grew concerned for the brothers upstairs, until he remembered that they were his jailers, not his friends. Not even Remi, who had locked him downstairs with these two and left his fate in their hands.

The stone beneath his back trembled, but he couldn't see much beyond Sariel's hips. The candlelight flickered with every muted crash, but the hands holding him down were secure and warm and comforting. Lucien was overwhelmed and enchanted, not by the destruction and violence above, but by the power of his masters, keeping him placid and willing despite the terror. Keeping him calm. Keeping him safe.

Lucien, with his wrists pinned by angelic hands to the stone by his hips, guided Sariel's cock into his mouth with his tongue. He shut out everything and lifted his head, sucking and swallowing at the beautiful, delicious shaft as deeply and greedily as he could. His lower half was beyond his control, being used and pleasured beyond his imagining. This was better than sex with any human, for money or pleasure. This was better than anything.

And when, at last, all had found their pleasure inside one another (it always seemed important to them never to lose a drop of themselves), they discovered that the tumult had stopped. Curious but cautious, the angel and demon sent Lucien to examine the door to the chamber. It was cracked and barely on its hinges. With the lightest touch, it fell away in pieces to reveal a stone stairway flooded with light and littered with dirt and debris.

As soon as the sunshine struck the floor of the chapel, the demon laughed and the angel moaned. Malphas took a step beyond the doorway into the light and waited. Lucien could see the tension in the creature's back, despite his bravado. And he could see, too, the enormous relief when nothing happened.

"We are free! All of us!" He held out a hand and looked at the angel, actual affection softening his features. "Sariel... it will be alright. You have waited long enough."

The angel shivered but mustered his courage, folding his remaining wing properly against his back as he walked to the doorway. Lucien remained by the entrance, watching with fascination. Once both of them had stepped out of the chapel, their true beauty was finally returned in full. Somehow, Malphas looked almost reptilian, his skin an inlay of shining silver scales. Sariel looked avian, with the subtlest of ivory feathering along his cheeks, brows, arms, and legs. Neither of them bothered with clothes to begin with, though vestments in black and white, beautiful, voluminous, stately robes seemed to coalesce around them, formed from the mist and the smoke, respectively.

Lucien remained in the shadows, his skin only just beginning to dry as he pulled on his black woolen robes. His heart began to race a little as he stepped out into the sunlight, and for just a second he was worried that the magic that had bound them for so long would bind him, too. But his steps were unimpeded by any force or spell, and he was soon feeling the sunlight warm his skin.

Indeed, when the three of them ascended the stone steps, the monastery was reduced to piles of rubble. There was no sign of any of the monks - no bodies, no blood, it's like the building had been uninhabited when it was destroyed. The attacking mob was halfway down the hillside, chanting and hefting torches and wine bottles, and the three survivors watched until the crowd disappeared into the distance.

"Your boons, Lucien," Malphas reminded him softly.

Lucien had to clear his mind and set aside the shocking sight so that he could think. Once he decided on what he truly wanted, he voiced his wishes clearly and unambiguously. He thought it prudent, given that at least one of them was a demon. When the boons were granted, the man looked just the same, though of course he would have - the wish for eternal life and eternal youth would only become evident in time.

"Lucien," Sariel asked, breaking the silence after the spells had been cast, "We have been trapped for centuries. I don't recognize any of this anymore. Malphas, do you?"

The demon just shook his head, at a loss.

Turning back to Lucien, the angel asked, "Where shall we go? To Paris, do you think?"

With a slight wince, Lucien shook his head. "No... I do believe Paris is the last place you want to be."