Part 1

At first the residence of hell didn't notice their absence, Lucifer had covered his tracks well. 

Nothing had changes really in the eyes of the demonic world, no one knew they had married and that now, their combined kingdoms posed a threat to the centre, to Lucifer.  

In the beginning their contract with him was simple. He gave them land to farm, and they used that land to pay his fee. They brought the land with the only thing they had to bargain with, their Grace. Their Grace would become his if they broke his contract.  Grace was what made them immortal, what cocooned their souls and protected it from the sins of the flesh.

 In the beginning that Grace was just a flicker of a flame. 

Away from God's love, it would have faded and died. But Lucifer gave them a promise of a new fuel for their flames, souls. As the centuries passed, that Grace, became a fire pit of flames and they became powerful. Lucifer was powerful, but hell was vast and was too much for him to utilise alone. So it was a good relationship. But Lucifer fear had always been that some would unite their Grace and their combined Grace would be greater then his.  The nature of the residence of hell meant that their lust for power always ruled out the risk of them combining. However two of his siblings had continued to pose a threat. They were his greatest income, yet, their love was the greatest threat to his throne. 

Over the millennium, he meddled, driving wedged between them. Dangling great wealth of power for one to betray the other and it kept them under control. But the events of the last few months showed him, that he couldn't prevent their union any longer and he need to enforce the fine print. It came down to a ring, forged from gold and Heavenly Grace. A pair of fallen angels who had taken their last spark of grace to make a pact of love.  

He had found his siblings sat by the water edge in their pocket of utopia and intervene before they could finish the act of giving away their grace in the name of love. He had kept that ring as his safeguard, that if that love ever grew to a point they became a threat, he would allow them to finish their sacrifice of Grace, in the name of love.

 So easy it was to corrupt someone to switch the ring. Switch the band of gold Marcus had made to seal his and Helena pact of union, with the band of gold that was tied to their Grace. Now the ring was in place, all Lucifer had to do was wait for their mortal bodies to expire and then all that beautiful grace, that burned in the lands of the south, west and north, would be delivered to him.   

Lucifer had left them in the scorched circle, left the element to do their worst and hoped that the loss and despair and the heavy weight of their own soul would finish them off. Maybe if they had been alone it might have. But the fact they were together meant they fought.  

"Are we really human, has he really sentence us to this pitiful existence?" She sobbed as they lay on their back staring up in the heavens, after they had final exhausted the chance this wasn't happening. "I feel so tried..." 

Her eyes began to close, but he hit her back awake. "We can't sleep Helena, these bodies are not able to withstand the cold, we need food and water and warmth. Once we have that, then we can sleep."

 They began to walk, at first they walked silently deep within their own thoughts, thinking of everything they had lost.  "They will realise something is a miss soon." He whispered in the darkness. "Someone will come and rescue us." But neither of them took hope from his words, both fearing everyone would just write their absence off as one of their little breaks from hell, while the dust settled. 

Helena was too exhausted to even think about anything else but the situation she found her self in. It wasn't until they reached civilisation did they realise what they still had. Just because they had lost their grace, did not mean they were without talents. The lie fell so easily from his lips. Two honeymooners who car had blown a flat tire and had reared off the road; their whole world gone up in smoke.  They now slept with a full stomach in a warm bed, together. 

Humanity had taken pity on them and given them charity for the night. 

To be continued...