Chapter Text
With one last drag, the small bud of what was left of his cigarette was pressed against the edge of the metal tray. Dark eyes watched as the last red glow disappeared just like any other light claimed by the darkness Alastor Doucet was so accustomed to.
The sea never slept, and neither did Alastor.
There were times like these that the walls of the lighthouse felt like they were closing in on him. Located on the edge of the ragged coastline, the lighthouse was long abandoned by any official keeper. The once bright light still turned at the top, albeit dimmed and moving sluggishly nowadays, like an old eye refusing to shut permanently. Not that it still had any use. It had been a long time since ships still passed these dreaded parts of the sea. Yet, it continued to turn, one of the few signs indicating that someone made their home there.
That Alastor had made his home there.
Around him, the gentle sound of soft jazz drifted between those stone walls, a fire slowly dying inside the hearth. It was not much, some might argue it to be a little plain even, but to Alastor it was all he needed.
He liked to think of himself as a man of little needs, already content with a good glass of whiskey in one hand while the fog pressed against the windows outside like cold breath. In front of him, a desk littered with tangled wires, cassette reels, and an old broadcasting microphone. His voice, honeyed, crackled over the frequencies he firmly believed no one should have been listening to.
Not at that time of night, at least. But maybe someone did. Another insomniac perhaps, staying the night at some grubby roadside motel as the current storm kept them from going out onto the road.
“Good evening to the restless.”
Alastor paused, the slightest hint of a smirk tugging at the ends of his mouth. His fingers adjusted the dials with elegant precision that would have proven to any bystander that he had been doing this for years already.
His equipment had been nothing more than a personal project. Old junk he had tried to tinker on over the past decade with too much passion and not enough parts.
Nevertheless, it worked.
“This is your dear host on yet another stormy evening, broadcasting from the edge of the world,” he almost sang. “So why not pull up a chair, pour yourself that drink you have been staring at for far too long already tonight, because let’s be real with ourselves, haven’t we already sunk as low as those doomed ships out there?”
His gaze flicked towards the grimy window. There was a good reason ships no longer sailed past these cursed shores. This part of the sea had become restless and unpredictable. Sailors would speak old tales about angered ocean deities, siren-like creatures that dwelled beneath the dark surface, ready to strike. Gods to some, mere stories to scare children with at night for others.
To Alastor, it was the faceless voices brought to him by the sea, keen on tormenting him.
No one else ever heard the voices, he’d figured that out very early on. Not the technicians he had worked together with at the station he had landed his first job at before it collapsed. Not the psychiatric nurse who drove off the cliff a little over four years prior, a very unfortunate accident. Not even the drifters who had tried breaking into the lighthouse whose bones had been fed to the waves, swallowed by the darkness.
But those voices - or better said, one specifically - would reach him more often than not during stormy nights like these, carried on the crackling static coming from his own radio, warping the soft jazz playing in the background.
“Hm, we all know the stories, do we not?” He purred into his microphone, “Or are you just another unfortunate soul who has found themselves travelling through these parts unaware of what tales the wind carries ashore? Well, then let me bring you today’s weather report: cold, wet, and absolutely dreadful. You’d do well to stay inside and be on your merry way again first thing in the morning.”
His answer came in the form of a low hum over the static, as if something ancient tried to swim through the melody playing in the background, albeit a lot more sinister. Once it would have made Alastor look up in absolute terror. Now it instantly widened that ever-lasting grin present on his lips.
It was not a hallucination. No, he knew those. This was something different, something primordial.
Whomever, or whatever the voice belonged to had returned, Alastor’s fingers tightening around his microphone. His heart didn’t race, it had long since stopped doing that during moments like these. Instead, he could feel a warmth spread through his chest, equal parts dread and devotion. It had been a good few weeks since he’d last heard it, almost believing that he either was cured from his own madness, or that it was finally done with him.
“So you have come back,” he whispered into his microphone, knowing it could hear him. “Usually you always call during a storm.”
The first time he had heard it was during a storm like this one. He had only been seventeen years old, just having put his own, dear mother into the cold ground. He thought it had been a devil calling out to him, coming to laugh him in the face for having lost everything. After all, it had been his own fault that his mother had fallen ill, had it not? It had been his fault that he had wanted to get rid of that dreadful man that left his doting mother with nothing more than more bruises to adorn her beautiful dark skin, only for him to doom them both into financial ruin. It had been his fault that he had not been able to find another job to pay for treatment. It had been his fault—
“ Closer .”
Alastor blinked, suddenly feeling the air around him shift, growing heavier- saltier . Feeling slightly dizzy, he slowly stood, half expecting for a shadow to show up behind him. When he turned around, all he was met with was his own reflection in the dark background of the window, rain clattering against it even louder than it had been mere minutes ago.
“ The shore, I am nearly there .”
Alastor’s hand hovered over the control panel shakily in a moment of hesitation, the rest of his body frozen. He did not want to stop the voice. If anything, it would always find a way through his radio. But the words spoken, he had not heard them before. It would always speak to him in riddles over the radio waves, but this felt different.
This felt closer.
With deliberate care, Alastor turned off the signal. He listened to how the crackling statics died down, the only thing still audible being the jazzy tunes coming from the record player perched on the side table next to the hearth.
The heavy feeling in the air did not leave. Whatever was out there, it was getting closer.
Pushing back from his control panel, Alastor crossed the room towards the window. The sight greeting him was a gloomy one. Below, the sea clawed at the rocks in a fit of rage. Rain clattered against the glass like tiny nails, briefly making him wonder if the sun would ever rise above these cliffs again.
That was when he saw it.
Lightning flashed across the skies, almost forcing him to take a step back and shield his eyes behind his arm. It was a shape in the tide that kept his eyes wide open, however. It was something large, yet not in the shape of a ship, or even a rowing boat like he’d expected to find.
In his chest he could feel the pull towards the shore, the words from earlier resounding in his ears.
He didn’t hesitate, grabbing his tattered raincoat. In his pockets he was quick to stuff his keys and flashlight. Only briefly he found himself coming to a halt in front of the table where his reel recorder stood. Effective, but no doubt useless in this weather.
Not to mention, whatever was out there, Alastor doubted it wanted the world - or those few lost listeners - to know about its presence.
Outside, the pouring rain slicked the stone stairs, the howling wind immediately rendering the hood of his coat useless with the old drawstring broken. Alastor groaned, but still stepped outside with the casual indifference of someone who did not have anything to lose. He didn’t. The sea could swallow him whole and he doubted anyone would even bat an eye. Only a small number of people ever saw him in the nearby village and whenever he did make his way up there, it was more in search of parts for his broadcasting equipment than a visit to the local grocery store.
The slippery path down to the sea was treacherous, especially in the dark. Fumbling with his flashlight, Alastor tried to make his way down step by step. The only time his attention was forced away from the glistening rocks below was when he could catch the ocean howling with something more than just wind.
He slipped, a loud curse falling from his mouth. His flashlight laid broken at his feet and as he lifted his hand, Alastor could almost smell the metallic scent of the blood coating the palm of his hand where he had cut himself. Despite that, it did not stop him from continuing down those winding steps, quick to cross a small bridge toward the shore.
Another flash of lightning lit up the sky, momentarily forcing Alastor to halt in his steps.
Very little could explain to him what exactly he was seeing. No, the closer he got to the rocks, the more impossible it started to become to identify what the shape was exactly.
Humanoid, that was the very first thing that came to mind, but at the same time, Alastor had difficulty properly describing exactly how. Maybe those sailors had not been as insane as he always made them out to be on his radio show. In front of him laid a God. An ancient being that had come forth from the waves, almost as if it was shaped by the water, still half submerged by the waves crashing against a pale, scaly tail. The being’s gills pulsed weakly, a strange, golden liquid dripping down from its blackened claw like hands, which provided an almost alluring contrast against the rest of its white, almost translucent skin tone.
Alastor could feel his breath hitch in his throat at the otherworldly sight in front of him. He stood motionless, the rain having completely soaked his curls and coat.
A crown of horns - no, only two crimson horns protruded from the creature's skin, the others being fashioned out of coral creating the illusion of it having more - framed its face and golden hair, both beautiful and monstrous. It snarled at him, baring a row of teeth Alastor could only compare to that of a shark, albeit never having seen one in the flesh.
But those eyes, like red lanterns beneath the sea’s surface, punched whatever air was left in Alastor’s lungs out of his chest the moment the god-like creature cast them up at him.
He remained there, frozen, even as a groan was pushed forth from the being’s mouth.
It was wounded, the gold its body was painted in undoubtedly its own blood. Slowly, Alastor could feel his eyebrows pushing together into a small frown. It had not sounded wounded earlier. Was this the same being that had spoken to him over the radio waves ever since he had first heard it all those years ago?
He couldn’t help but wet his lips, manic laughter quick to follow. Either he had fallen completely into his own insanity, or he had been right all along. No. Those ancient tales, spread by a drunken sailor’s mouth, had been.
Then it spoke, its voice sounding so vastly different without the crackling of the radio filtering its voice. But even without the radio broadcasting its voice to him, it still spoke as if in multiple tones at once.
“You heard me.”
Alastor cocked his head to the side, slowly letting those words wash over him like a cold shiver creeping down his spine. His smile only grew sharper, but at the same time something in his gaze softened. The creature was wounded. Had it come for help? Had it searched for the only being it had ever managed to reach above the sea’s surface?
Was he the only one?
“Of course I did,” he answered, voice trembling with something that wasn’t quite fear.
Something far worse.
Admiration
Whether the creature noticed, Alastor could not tell. It let out a cough, more blood spattering over its trembling hand before it tried to press itself up just a little. Clawed fingers curled, almost cracking the rock underneath.
Instead of taking a step back, Alastor found himself crouching down slowly, the edge of his coat dragged through the muddy sand.
Up close, the being was even more terrifying, but in a way that made the radio host’s mouth go dry. The creature’s piercing gaze followed him as he leaned closer, Alastor’s own brown eyes sliding over those perfectly sculpted features.
One would say it belonged in a museum, were it not for the fact that the sea was its kingdom.
And still, Alastor could feel his gaze linger on those deep gashes marring the deity’s shoulder. They did not belong there. Lowering his gaze he allowed it to rest on the being’s hips where the scales peeled at the edges. There, too, various gashes littered his skin, the blood gushing from the open wounds almost glowing in the moonlight as if the gold was being called back by the stars to return to the dark skies.
“You… knew I would come,” Alastor said softly in an attempt to break the silence.
The being gave a low, pained chuckle. “I knew before I even spoke to you.”
Alastor’s eyes snapped back up, as if the creature’s voice compelled him to. It was a layered, harmonic thing, yet demanding attention.
“Who are you?” Alastor then asked, the question pulled from him before he could even stop himself.
The creature tilted its head, a broken piece of coral from its crown falling down into the sand.
“Worshipped, then hunted and cast out.” The sea deity frowned slightly before coughing again, pain flashing across those porcelain features. “It has been too long, I am no longer sure. Perhaps you could name me.”
Pulled in by his voice, Alastor reached forward. His fingers hovered, ghosting over pale, unfamiliar skin, before he let the soft pads brush across one of the gills. He watched how it fluttered beneath his touch. The creature’s eyes widened, a startled hiss escaping between clenched teeth. Yet it didn’t pull away.
“You are cold,” Alastor murmured. “You are… injured.”
The creature’s lips curled faintly. It looked back at Alastor as if it knew that there was more he wanted to say.
Indeed there was.
“Would you die if I leave you here?”
Alastor was under no illusion that the being possessed anything less than an otherworldly strength beyond his comprehension. But after all these years, it had come here and showed its face after all the taunting over the radio. Was it truly that weakened that it needed his help?
A pause fell between them, the creature’s eyes flicking up to the skies as another flash of lightning illuminated the vast space. Alastor waited for an answer, frowning as the creature's head suddenly lolled to the side. Its voice, suddenly so small, foregoing the dual tones, finally drifted past those sharp rows of teeth.
“If I said yes, would you take me somewhere I won’t?”
There was no hesitance in the way Alastor moved as he pushed his arms beneath the creature’s cold body. Its eyes widened, but it made no protest as the radio host lifted it with ease. What startled Alastor most was how light it felt. Weightless, almost, as if it was still floating in seawater.
At his touch, the creature’s body started to shift. Fins started to retract, bones creaking and snapping into new positions. Alastor watched, frozen, as two legs took form where there had been none, rain trickling over newly formed skin.
It was not fully human - no, he was not fully human, Alastor noted. He turned his gaze away, just for a moment, before gently setting the creature down.
He refused to look down as he peeled his coat from his own shoulders, wrapping it around the creature’s whose horns slowly retracted into his forehead, leaving only the broken crown of coral.
A sudden wave of exhaustion washed over him.
“You… took my strength,” he said as a matter of fact.
“You gave it to me willingly, your eyes showed me,” the sea deity whispered, clawed hands grasping Alastor’s coat to wrap it around himself. It looked so large on him.
Alastor knew it was the truth, he would not have objected.
“Can you walk?”
The creature looked down at his newly formed legs, shaking his head slowly. Even without the scales that once adorned his lower body, the deep gashes remained, angry and bleeding.
Feigned annoyance sounded in the huff slipping from Alastor’s closed lips, missing the wicked glint in the sea creature’s eyes as he was lifted once again in the radio host’s arms, now draped into that old raincoat.
This was madness. This was dangerous. Nevertheless, Alastor could not quell the unnatural thrill blossoming in his chest as he carried the sea creature up the hillside, those winding stairs looming before him. And towering above them both, the lighthouse: a beacon, even in this storm.
Another bolt of lightning split the sky, mirrored in his eyes. Alastor’s heart pounded as he looked down at the deity cradled in his arms.
“Lucifer,” he then whispered. ” You are named Lucifer .”