Realms

[michael christopher]

Realms

This work protected by copyright. Copying material from here without my expressed written permission is against the law.
The electronic documents posted here are the intellectual property of Michael Christopher Thompson II. Copyright 2009.


I


It is widely believed that angels are beings of light, descending into the realm of the living to carry souls to the land of the dead; this, Kanjel Artemin will tell you, is a lie. In his delightful manner, he will calmly explain how angels really only exist to capture wayward demons and return them to hell, and that all of these damned demon-hunting missions that God has assigned to him are starting to wreck his nerves and make him question his sanity and divinity. Still, he prefers not to think about it - firstly because he knows his place, and secondly because thinking about it is a scary proposition. Who knows what thoughts might come as the result of that initial thinking? Thinking is a human’s game - and Kanjel Artemin is not a human. Angels that think too much typically fall from heaven, a fact which Kanjel is too well aware of and a fate which he is rather unwilling to risk. He sees where he takes the ones that he captures - and he would rather be the deliverer to those realms than the one delivered to them.

By now it has probably entered your mind that Kanjel might only be speaking this way from personal experience, to which Kanjel would reply: “Correct, what a fucking genius you are,” with more than a mere hint of sarcasm curving the end of the sentence fragment like the blade of a sharpened scimitar. Quite the foul-mouthed angel this fellow is, wouldn’t you agree?

If one were to see him walking down the street (in the human realm, of course), they would see his piercing ice-blue eyes, a permanent frown creased across his brow, near-shoulder length sandy blonde hair circling around his head and partially shrouding his face, which would be shaped with a medium length nose, high cheekbones and a rigid jaw line. He is starkly handsome - beautiful, really, although is an indistinct way. We will join him on these crowded New York streets, watch him walking aimlessly, listening to him say no dirty words - but rest assured, he is no stranger to dirty thoughts, which is contrary to popular belief not uncommon for those of the Angelic persuasion.

Passing by a seemingly “homeless” blind man (the gentleman in question accumulates a decent forty grand a year and lives in a nice high rise apartment near Times Square), Kanjel thinks to himself: ‘Fucking asshole.’ He glares at the sinner and says only four words: “God is watching you.” The faux-homeless man says nothing and refuses to shift his gaze. Kanjel turns his head away and stares forward as he walks. He does not blink (you would find it odd, if in a room with Kanjel for an extended period of time that he would not blink once) before stopping to pull a cigarette from his coat. He lights it, puffs and watches smoke drift upward. He does not taste or feel anything, for he is an angel, and merely does this to (as the humans might say) “look cool.” Half of the time he thinks the effect is achieved, and the other half of the time he finds this action silly and valueless yet commits it anyway out of force of habit. No bolt of pain, shame or guilt strikes him from God for his useless “indulgence.” After smoking for a mere twenty-three seconds, he tosses the cigarette into a nearby gutter. Although a seasoned capturer of powerful demons and a violent warrior of God, he is no enemy of littering.

On this particular day, in this particular year of (a) Lord, Kanjel has descended from the heavens for a reason. He is here to track down a madman - the madman having the handle Jameson Redding - who has been possessed by a low-level demon similarly handled Jameredin. As all things in this universe are, this is a strange (and yet not-so-strange) coincidence. Hey, it’s a small reality. Kanjel, being a low-level angel himself (not even a god-damn Cherubim, Kanjel will tell you), was impersonally selected for this mission (as he is impersonally selected for all missions). His job is certainly not all it is cracked up to be.

Suddenly an ambulance blares by, spewing it’s flashing red lights and wailing into the New York city streets as it speeds toward destination unknown. ‘Jameredin,’ thinks Kanjel, and he knows it is true immediately. ‘I will rip that fucking midget apart digit to limb,’ he mentally whispers before starting forward, walking in the direction that the ambulance just took off in. If only he could have wings in the earthly realm he could beat the ambulance to wherever it is being drawn to. He knows he would not be able to use them here anyway, but this is a fact that he purposely “forgets” in his bitchiness. Despite having to walk, he is an angel, thus the odds that he will get there shortly after the ambulance have been tilted in his favor. Sometimes the universe works in ways that do not immediately make sense.

He arrives at the scene of the crime ten minutes later (it would have been a half an hour for a mere human he thinks with some gratitude) to meet Officer David Whitaker. When Mr. Whitaker requests identification to enter the crime scene, Kanjel replies with a charming: “David, why don’t you go fuck yourself?” Of course, Officer Whitaker hears the words: “Why, of course, Officer, I would be much obliged,” and sees the handsome young detective pull out a wallet with a card identifying him as Detective Dimitri Artemin. He lets the gentleman pass without further trouble.

Kanjel walks around the scene asking pointless questions here and there, receiving pointless answers in return. Many a line of police tape does he cross until he reaches the scorching body of Rodrigo St. Pierre. Poisoned black smoke rises from the charred corpse into the city air, polluting it, and it keeps numerous police officers and detectives at bay. Being an angel, Kanjel can neither smell nor get sick, and he advances to the body.

An upside down star has been carved into St. Pierre’s forehead and circled (Kanjel can only tell by the ridges in the head - the colors of the body are now indistinguishable). How he has been burnt like this, Kanjel does not know; there has been no fire in the building, and this man has been cooked alive; by all means, he should be dust. Yet he isn’t. The police will classify this as a cult-murder, a human sacrifice; Kanjel knows that it was neither.

Jameredin is not a cult, he is a single being, and he does not sacrifice, he kills for the simple joy of killing. He has left the insignia to taunt Kanjel; he thinks he is going to get away with it. “Moron,” Kanjel mutters. He is startled by a voice behind him.

“Excuse me?” it says. “Excuse yourself, fuckface,” Kanjel retorts, then stands to his feet. “Thanks,” the officer answers with a genuine smile. The compliment that he did not actually just hear has made his day. “I fucked your mother and your wife at the same time,” Kanjel states stoically, smiling devilishly. “Why thank you!” the officer replies. “I’ve been trying to keep in shape.” He backs away from the body, the stench obviously destroying some of his mood, but he is still painted with a smile.

Kanjel walks away, kicking gravel and muttering to no one in particular. “Think you’re funny, eh? Yeah, real fucking funny.” He spits on the ground. Another officer interrupts this angry self-indulgence. “Dimitri? Dimitri Artemin? That you?” he questions. ‘Fucking great,’ thinks Kanjel, then turns to face the officer.

“It’s me, Dan Kriegal! You remember me, don’t you?” “No, you numb-fuck asshole,” says Kanjel bluntly, and Dan Kriegal hears “Of course! Forty-fourth division, right?” To this Dan nods emphatically. “Yeah, man, we go back one hell of a long time,” the man exclaims. He grabs Kanjel’s hand and beings shaking it emphatically. “Look, you stupid assfuck, go fall off a bridge,” says Kanjel bemusedly. Dan hears “Glad to see you again Dan!” Kanjel pulls free and backs off. “Go get hit by a truck,” he says. “Look, Dan, I’m really busy, I gotta go,” is what Dan hears. “I understand,” he starts, and then adds “Hey! Keep in touch!” “Eat shit and die,” responds Kanjel, and a shit-eating grin spreads across Dan’s face. “Always!” he responds happily.

Kanjel walks away, anger showing clearly on his face (only the two of us can see this, of course). He kicks the gravel again. ‘What the hell was that? Some kind of stupid joke? Well, it’s hilarious,’ he thinks. The double-talk is getting old, too. He knows that not everyone will buy it; he’s lucky he hasn’t encountered a non-believer yet. He could just speak in his polite manner constantly, but the thought makes him literally sick.

God’s little jokes are starting to rack his nerves.

He turns around, stares at the smoking body a moment more, then walks toward the apartment building to find the floor the victim was thrown from. How he knows that the body has been thrown, he cannot say. The cops have obviously not caught onto the idea yet either (perhaps it is because there is no evidence that the body was thrown in the first place), but he is sure. As he enters the building, a surge of cold overcomes him, and he cringes. Jameredin has been here - he might even be here now.

As he slowly ascends the stairs, he begins to silently pray. A rebellious angel he is most certainly, but he is nevertheless glad to have God on his side. He clutches the small crucifix he hides in his pocket, feeling warmth and strength begin to rush through him, he can almost feel invisible wings spreading behind and around him, and he knows that, whether they are there or not, the mere idea of them is warming the freezing apartment air.

Having cleared the first flight of stairs, he begins to ascend the second one, but the cold hits him again. He knows that if a human were near he may only feel a slight draft, a chilly winter breeze, but he is not human; he exists in two realms, and when something is wrong in the second, he will feel it in the first.

He wants to flip. He has to flip.

No, he tells himself. Move. He pulls one leg up and grips the railing for balance. He can see his slowly rising breath, golden lines seeping, bleeding through, and he knows that he must flip soon - the realms are much too close.

The realms, he knows, are like fire and ice. The human realm is ice, and the divine realm is fire. When the fire gets too close to the ice, the ice begins to melt, and the fire engulfs it. The earthen and divine realms work in much the same manner. It is his job to keep the sparks from the fire - demons, evil-spirits, and the like - from melting the ice. He also knows that in the end the ice will be thrown to the fire, but it is his job to make sure that it doesn’t happen ahead of schedule.

He forces himself to concentrate on the mission and pulls his right foot upward. Despite the immense cold, he is sweating. He swears that he hears thunder in the distance, but there is no sign of a storm, no lightning to accompany the thunder, no clouds; not in this realm.

And then it happens.

Ice slams into his chest like a hammer, he staggers backward, losing his balance, and falls onto the floor of the apartment’s second floor on his back. He can hardly breathe.

(FLIP FLIP FLIP FLIP!)

His skin fades into dark gray, his hair into a shock of ivory white. His trench-coat becomes two brilliant and glowing white wings, and his newly crimson eyes search the room. He is now wearing thick silver armor, and from the end of his crucifix protrudes a flaming sword.

Kanjel Artemin has flipped into the realm of divine fire.

Lightning flashes outside, but the effect is distorted by rupturing thunder which seems to shake the entire realm and all of the electricity in it wavers. Heavy, pregnant storm clouds blanket the dark gray sky. Lightning erupts again, red this time, then blue. He sees all of this through a window in front of him (it has no glass, of course). There is a stagnant stench emanating from the top of the stairs. It is still freezing, but in his angelic form, it is merely a nuisance.

He turns. This is a run-down clay building. No one lives here. Those who crossed over into this realm, here into the edge lands, know to stay away from the place. There are a few holes in the wall, but they are occupied by rats. Nothing more.

He lifts his flaming sword in a defensive stance, but also to light the way, and begins up the stairs again. They are not carpeted, like they are in the human realm, but stone. As he rounds the section of floor on which the window is mounted, he rushes up the third set of stairs.

Here.

He steps, gazes around the floor, and slowly moves forward. There are four doors. Near left, he thinks, and kicks the rotting piece of wood from it’s rusted hinges. As he walks in, the smell gets stronger, and he sees it; a red tail, or at least the tip of one, scuttling up and out the only window in the dark room. Jameredin.

He swings his sword upward, crumbling the roof around him, and soars through the new opening. As he does, he shifts his eyes toward the fiend and lifts his sword - but there is nothing.

He must have flipped.

Kanjel grimaces, his blazing white teeth glimmering in a flash of pink lightning. It is time to flip back - he may catch him if he flips now and -

*scratch*

Kanjel whips his head around, facing another, much larger building. Skittering upward, he sees, is Jameredin. The creature looks back, bares it’s hideously long yellow teeth (‘Is it warning me or is it smiling?’ Kanjel wonders) and continues skittering upward. In the human realm, the menacing building would be a skyscraper, but here it looks more like some forsaken glass tower.

He jumps from the roof and begins soaring to the top. The landscape of the long dead city (assuming one would want to call this infernal maze that) is grotesque and mountainous, as all places here in the edge lands are. Jagged black edges and storm clouds surround the few stupidly occupied buildings. There are people living here, of course - sinners, killers, rapists, the unrepentant - but they are smart enough to stay inside of their shambled shelters.

The divine realm itself is not global, like the earth, but is indeed flat. On the bottom half (where he now resides) is what the humans call “hell”. The top half is “heaven”. However odd or illogical it may seem to think of the two realms this way, they are congruent. The southern hemisphere of the earthen realm would be in the Divine Realm’s “heaven”, the northern hemisphere in “hell”. This does not affect crime rates or evil or any of the such, but demons are less likely to flip below the equator. And this is New York.

Kanjel reached the top of the tower and looked down.

Nothing there.

Where had the little bastard gotten off to, anyway? He should have still be coming up the side -

‘Shit,’ he thinks; ‘Too bad angels aren’t really perfect.’

He feels the claw bury into his scalp and instinctively swings around. He spreads his wings full length, but the demon wraps a hand around one of them and wrenches violently backward. There is a sickening snap and Kanjel’s wing is suddenly aiming horizontally, as if he is soaring, but he is not. He drops the sword, the flame suddenly extinguishing, and it clatters off of the roof. He is defenseless.

If he were to die in the human realm, it would be no big deal, but if he dies here, it’s curtains for good. Jameredin is still hanging onto his wing and shoulder, and, despite the pain, he wraps both arms behind him, grabs the demon by the tail, and swings forward. It flies over his head, over the side of the building, but he does not let go, and the demon swings through a glass panel on the tower. More red lightning flashes in the distance.

Leaving his useless wing dangling from his back, he wraps his fists around the top of the tower and swings inward through the broken glass panel. “You fucking bastard!” he screams. He considers flipping, but he knows that Jameredin will not (because he has the advantage here, on his own turf), so he decides that he must stay and fight this creature on it’s own turf, for it is now or never.

He wishes he still had the damn sword. And both wings.

The little bastard had caught him by surprise. He is lucky that the damn wing hadn’t been ripped clean off. He was also stupid, unprofessional. The little bastard could sneak up on him again if he wasn’t cautious; he would too. They took every chance they got, and Kanjel might as well have just handed him the knife and turned his back.

A claw flew at him from the darkness of the cavern-esque room and slashed across his face. The oblong cuts oozed golden blood, but Kanjel paid no attention to the pain and grabbed the creature’s arm, swining it through the window pane. It began screaming into the darkness, but it’s screams were drowned out by roaring thunder in the distance.

Jameson Redding - Jameredin - is dead. Or he will be in seconds, for surely it will not take too long for it to slam into the ground at from a fatal height and at a fatal velocity. Kanjel’s mission is over. No messy cleanup. The humans might be worried for a few weeks, but that will eventually pass - it always does. Kanjel sighs, leans against the wall, and slides downward. As he touches the ground, a million miles away, and still only a few hundred feet, a homeless woman picks up a broken cross.

[michael christopher]

Realms

This work protected by copyright. Copying material from here without my expressed written permission is against the law.
The electronic documents posted here are the intellectual property of Michael Christopher Thompson II. Copyright 2009.

II

In the earthen realm, Lucifage Rofocale, Arch-Demon of the Binah and one of it’s lower emanations, is simply believed to be a human named Luke Roffel. He is the leader of a Satanic cult known as the Ninth Circle, a devout religious sect devoted to carrying the gift of humanity into the stars (some gift, he occasionally thinks; whatever is out there will eat humanity alive). He does not enjoy this life, but he will not return to the Divine Realm - that would be far too dangerous; why tempt the hand of fate?

He sits in front of his black and white Magnavox, surrounded by empty bags of Lays’ Sour Cream n’ Onion chips, empty cans of Cherry Coke, cigarette butts, and empty aspirin bottles. The carpet is old and moldy, and in some parts there are patches worn down almost to bare holes; more than a few brave cockroaches have been known to scuttle across it and under it.

He lifts his grease covered hand to his mouth, graciously accepting it’s offering of a chip, then reaches over for his equally greasy Cherry Coke can. Realizing it is empty, he crushes it between his frail hands and tosses it behind the chair where it lands with a dead thud. He pulls a fresh, new can out of the ice box sitting beside the chair. We notice that the box is now empty.

He pops open the beverage with a click of the can and takes a long gulp before setting it down on the table beside him. On the TV an old man is muttering. “It was December 21st, 1962. I remember it like yesterday.” Mr. Roffel hawks and spits in the floor, then reverts his attention back to the television. We move in for a closer look. We can now see that he wears a pair of bifocals equipped enormously thick lenses. Beside him is a grease-stained copy of Out of the Silent Planet, a C.S. Lewis’. He turns the TV up; two men are sitting in a poorly-lit padded room, now. “It comes with the fall, you know,” whispers the man on the floor, tightly fitted with a straight-jacket.

Luke reaches over to his cigarette (which has almost been smoked down to the filter) and takes a long drag before putting it out. He picks up an empty pack sitting on the coffee table, frowns, then drops it in the floor among the other little heaps of refuse. ‘Luke’ leans back. He finishes off the soda, crushes the can and throws it and the empty bag of chips to his left. He needs to get up soon, and the thought makes him groan with annoyance and - is that? Yes. Repugnance.

He knows that he is disgusting (by human terms, at least); he is not ashamed of this fact. He has seen worse before and will see again worse conditions than this, and he knows it. Let’s observe him more clearly. His hair is dark brown and shaggy, unkempt. He is clearly over two-hundred fifty pounds, but he is not three hundred and we can guess he is anywhere in between without surprise. He wears that pair of thick glasses we mentioned earlier, and they magnify the thick red acne that stands out on his face, even in the sunken hollows of his eyes. His teeth are yellow, because he has not taken care of them - he has only been a human for so long, and thus is not up to date on their typical grooming habits. Nor does he want to be, and it shows quite clearly. He is wearing a t-shirt with a superimposed photograph of a Nintendo Entertainment System. The shirt is bright green. Sadly, he is wearing no pants.

For the mere sake of indulgence, he has to get up, shower, get dressed, and then leave. Although his pleasure will be the result of these actions, he wishes he did not have to undertake them regardless. Working for his reward is not a condition he is used to. He shuts off the television, sits in total silence and darkness for a moment, then flips on the light to the right of his chair by yanking the hanging silver cord. The illumination stings his eyes, but he forces himself upward; the chair sticks to him for a moment and we can see he’s drenched the back of his t-shirt. He wipes his greasy palms on the front of it, then hesitates for a moment and puts his fingers back in his mouth to savor the flavor of the Lays’ potato chips for a glorious moment longer.

Afterward, he moves to the bathroom and strips down until he is naked. You can imagine what this looks like. This earthen air is soft on his skin, but he does not reflect on it. He turns the cold water on at full blast, twists the shower handle, and steps inside. Freezing needles pierce his skin and he sighs with unhidden ecstasy. He does not delay the inevitable, merely grabs the soap and lathers up. As he lets it rinse off of him, he becomes lost in thought.

He was created in the Divine Realm, before the Great War, originally known as Rucifel Avelel, but when it had begun, he had decided to side his power with Samael, the corrupt one, and Satan, the adversary. He had inevitably lost and been cast into the edge lands, those blasted plains clinging to the edge of existence and being lapped at by the shores of Discordia, of eternal darkness. Since he had fought in the War, he had immediately earned his spot in the Infernal Machine, the Satanic Hierarchy, as Arch-Demon of the Binah.

Now he has fallen. Or risen, depending on your perspective. There have been many minions who have fallen from grace in the past and who have been subsequently reclaimed; the great Apollyon, and Lucifer the redeemed one. He will not be one of them, he fears. He is not truly that important, he can be easily replaced (he probably already has been, he thinks). Lord Belial had been the most angry with him, had even threatened to feed him to Leviathan, the Fourth Arch-Prince of the Sixth Quarters of Discordia, but he had escaped. He hoped to earn their forgiveness here on earth by way of the Ninth Circle.

Now, no matter where he flips, it will be the end of him. If he flips into the edge lands, he will be torn apart by the ignorant savages that believe they are actually living in heaven (the idiots); if he flips in another part of Hell, he will be imprisoned and fed to the Leviathan; if he actually has the nerve to flip into the Upper-Lands, the angels will simply send him right back to hell, into the waiting jaws of the soul-devouring Arch-Prince of the Sixth Quarters. He is stuck here, on this damn earth, until he repents to the Four Arch-Princes and begs for mercy, but he is not yet ready to do that. Pride has always been the folly of the fallen angels.

He likes it here, anyway. And he is ashamed to think of his crime.

He knows that they are after him, of course. The angels - perhaps the demons. Who will Belial have sent? Dagon? Lilith? He hardly seems worth the effort, he thinks (hopes). He is doing Arch-Prince Satan far more good here than he ever would have on the other side. He is helping to merge the realities, or to “melt the ice” as people in his line of work like to call it. But the angels, they might bring in the big guns; Raphael, Uriel - who can really say? If he’s lucky, he’ll never have to stand trial before the Metatron. He remembers the last time. That’s how he had ended up in hell in the first place.

He shuts off the shower and steps out, dripping water onto the tiled white floor. Absently, he grabs a towel and begins to dry off. He wraps the wet towel around his waist, walks into his room, and opens the closet door.

Two naked children try to scream through the makeshift gags he has tied around their mouths as he flips on the light switch. The boy, who will be identified as Miles DuMont in three short days, sees Lucifage Rofocale for what it really is: a slimy, misshapen monster, three horns protruding, twisting from it’s head; it’s yellow eyes much too close together and evilly small; it’s nose virtually non-existant; when it grins, scarred gums show through it’s worm-like purple lips. Tasha DuMont sees nothing; her eyes were gouged out three and a half hours ago.

They will be sacrifices for the Ninth Circle.

The creature grins, turns out the light, and shuts the door. He hopes this will please his Lords.

[michael christopher]

This work protected by copyright. Copying material from here without my expressed written permission is against the law.
The electronic documents posted here are the intellectual property of Michael Christopher Thompson II. Copyright 2009.

III

You are probably wondering what has become of Kanjel. He is quite well, I assure you, his mood as foul as always, and we shall speak of him again soon. Now, though, it is time to meet two more contenders in this cosmic game of chess. One is an angel, but not in the sense that we have spoken of yet. The other is a monster, but he is also different.

They are human. The angel, Maxwell Fretner, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on July 5, 1963. The monster, Minister Davis Hatfield, was born in Wide Springs, Arkansas circa 1946. While they have only glimpsed the other realms in their dreams and nightmares, they exist in both of them. They are important, yet I feel inclined to warn you that their parts in this play will indeed not last a great deal of time. Even as we speak, their parts are almost over.

Fretner is a firefighter here in Wide Springs. He does it as volunteer work; his other job concerns loading and unloading large crates filled with various stock. He has a wife, Linda, and three kids: Jake, two, Mikey, seven, and Sherry, twelve. His mother died three days ago, and while he has taken a week off from his job, he has mentioned nothing to the Fire Department.

That is why he was called to duty twelve minutes ago.

Minister Hatfield could be described as an evil man. He is a hypocrite, a liar, and a murderer. He kidnaps children and sells them on the black market (we have already met one of his customers - a certain Mr. “Luke Roffey“). He has been known to “test out the merchandise” in the past. We will dwell on this individual for as little time as possible, for his deeds need not be repeated here any more than is necessary. We do want to sleep again, correct?

It all toppled down around forty-four minutes ago. After quite an “accident”, Hatfield found his hands wrapped around the un-breathing neck of four year old Tyler McDowell. He had panicked - someone has been expecting this one (a very important someone, I will add, whom we will encounter later). He has prayed to God (God had, by the way, turned a deaf ear) for a solution, and not receiving one, has formulated a plan on his own. Some might conclude Satan had whispered in his ear for a moment or two. He would burn down the church and tell his client that the child has died captive inside.

It will work. Of course it will work, it has to work.

But the place has gone up much too fast. He used too much kerosene in his friends - oops. The heavy rotting frame around the door has collapsed (he has been meaning to get that replaced for weeks). The giant stained glass windows are too small to climb out of, as the bars that hold the glass in place are set too close. The fire exit has been chained for years because of rambunctious teenagers who thought that it might be funny to break into the house of God and desecrate it (he mentally associates this with a heinous act of vandalism perpetrated by a sixteen year old boy and a seventeen year old girl on one of the front row pews thirteen years ago). That he considers sex in a church more filthy than the fact that he just strangled a four year old boy to death crosses his mind for a moment, and is dismissed just as quickly. Ironically, he lost the key to the exit only yesterday.

He now finds himself wishing that he had followed state safety regulations.

How he will explain the body of the small boy in the backroom (assuming he is not burnt to ashes) he does not know, but he will worry about this later. The fire department has to have seen this by now, but if they arrive too soon he’ll be caught. Either way he’s stuck.

We will leave this poor excuse for a human being (is he truly even that? It takes more than opposable thumbs to be considered human) behind, we will leave him in his worry, let him drown in it, and we will ride beside Max Fretner in his small Ford as he speeds behind the Wide Springs Fire Truck. His siren is blaring and his radio is turned up.

“First Baptist Church in Emery, off Knoxton Road. No cars parked around front, so hopefully no one is there. If we pick up the pace maybe we’ll have something to salvage.” Max smirks. “Rick, forget your radio speak?” “Bite me, Fretner.”

Max has never been an overly religious man. Hiding somewhere under the blanket of what he forces himself to believe are thoughts that religion in itself might be utter bullshit, and perhaps even the concept of God, but he would never admit that these things resided in his mind to another human being, much less himself.

As they finally pull up to the flaming church, the realization begins to set in. This sacred place, this holy ground - it has been tainted. Something terrible has happened here, and Max knows it. Somehow he is positive, as illogical as it may seem.

He steps out of his truck and the heat hits him immediately, a blow to his chest. He moves slowly forward. “I’ll go around back,” he mumbles. This is going to be one of the bad times, he knows. He can always tell when they’re coming and he always could. There’s a heat that comes with it, an inner heat greater than the external heat of the fire.

There is a car in the back lot, a faded red Pinto. It looks like it’s falling apart. He has never seen anyone drive a car like this, but it means that someone is inside, and the only thing he an do is help. It would be smart to take the others in with him, at least one or two more, but what he will find in there, he knows, is for he and he alone to see.

He moves to the fire exit and turns the knob. The door, he knows, will only open partially. He lifts his heavy boot and drives it into the door with an immense force, but still it gave no more than it did when he had tried to open it. It looked as if it was chained, and he silently cursed the fool who had orchestrated the idiotic idea.

He grabs the hatchet from a pocket on his heavy fire-retardant coat and begins to hack away at the obstruction. After six chops, there is a decent hole in the door, and he kicks into it. The action is followed immediately by a sharp snap-splintering sound. Most of the top half of the door is gone. He replaces the miniature-axe.

He pulls himself through.

The world begins to change around him, the sharp angles of light being produced by the fire start to blur; suddenly the walls are black. The pews are also black and there is no more fire. It has burnt out. Candles on the wall glow bluish-white, illuminating the small enclosure. He looks toward the destroyed fire exit, but it is gone; in it’s place is more of the same solid black wall that surrounds him. There appear to be no windows. He is utterly, mysteriously and suddenly somewhere else.

“Hello?” he questions aloud. He is not answered.

The room feels air-conditioned, he notices. The silence of the room is deafening, broken only by the almost inaudible flickers of blue flame from the candles. Max knows that he hears thunder outside, but rain does not pound on the roof. Perhaps it is afraid to touch this dark place, he thinks.

At the front of the aisle that is formed between the two pews is an elevated stand. On the stand rests a book and two candlesticks, both emanating the same blue glow as it’s brothers placed around the room. Behind the stand is a large crucifix upon which hangs what appears to be the body of Christ, but the body is coated in crimson, as if it’s sweating blood.

This is when it begins to twitch.

Max bends over and vomits onto the onyx rug, filled with disgust and a sick horror. At any minute, he feels, this abomination of God will climb off of it’s cross and bludgeon him to death with it. He turns his head away, toward the end of the aisle this time, and sees three doorways. There is a set of double-doors on the wall facing him, and a door on each side of that. Above the doors is some kind of sentence, but it’s written in a language that he is not familiar with.

He walks to the double-doors, opens them wide, and is amazed. There is no walkway or balcony bridging off of the side of the wall, but rather a straight, long drop downward. To his left, a blazing neon sun is setting, only half-visible over the line of the horizon, and at the same time it is the most beautiful and most terrible thing he has ever seen.

Below him is an ebony sea that dazzles with the sun’s warm green reflection. At the foundation of the tower pink and green lights float in circles. Though they are beautiful, he knows they would rip him apart without a second thought.

As soon as the vertigo hits, he slams the doors shut. This has to be some alien world, some alien dimension - but he is the alien, isn’t it? The thought scares him and he immediately pushes it out of his mind. This place scares him enough without him adding to it’s questions.

There is a groan behind him, a soft ripping sound, and he whips around.

Suddenly he is back in the church. The fire exit remains broken to his left, and ahead of him is a stand on which rests a Bible (untouched by flame, even now). The candles are missing. Behind the stand is an unblemished crucifix - the model Christ does not look alive this time he realizes with more than a little relief.

The thought that he has also inhaled far too much smoke also crosses Maxwell Fretner’s mind.

Max looks around for any sign of life, sees none, then yells the same phrase for the second time tonight. “Hello?!” he sounds. Still nothing. He walks to a door on his right and turns the knob. It’s locked. He delivers a hard kick to the center of the door, breaking the lock and knocking the door off of it’s hinges.

Inside, he sees a man - the Minister - crouching over a small form. He has his arms around it, but not in a friendly manner. What Max does not yet realize, we are about to. Mr. Hatfield has come back to take the child’s body and dispose of it elsewhere. It will not burn in this fire, which has been a terrible failure he realizes now. He is going to toss it into a nearby river and collect insurance on the church, opting to stick with his old story (that the child had burned up in the fire). But now he has been caught.

Caught.

He stands up, sobbing, already formulating a story in his mind. “I - I saw him on the s-street... they had nearly k-killed ‘im and -”

The reason you don’t hear Mr. Hatfield finish his sentence is because Maxwell Fretner’s fist has just connected with his jaw. The aforementioned bone is currently in three broken pieces, held in place only by the fleshy bag of their owner’s chin. He tries to scream, but it hurts so much oh god it hurts so much oh god oh god oh

Max punches him again, harder this time. He knows. He knows everything, as he always does, and it is his burden. The Minister’s actions have risen within him an immense, unquenchable anger. His fist connects again, this time shattering the nose on the receiving end of it’s force. What he does not know, however (for his power has failed him in this desperate time of need), is that Hatfield has just grabbed the hatchet from one of his coat pockets.

*thwack*

At first he doesn’t even feel it burying into his back, he just continues punching, but by the third swing of the hatchet he has lost too much blood to continue. He punches have gradually gotten weaker and now they are almost nothing, and, despite his weakened form, Hatfield merely rolls his attacker off. Before tending to other matters, he buries the hatchet in Fretner’s heart, making sure that he is no longer among the living.

He grimaces as he stands. Most of the fireman’s attention has been paid to his face (which was now a gross, misshapen mockery of what it had once been - much truer to his inner self, wouldn’t you agree?), but he had landed a decent amount of blows to his ribs. How in the hell would he explain this? Is he even going to walk out of here? Surely there would be other firefighters trying to make their way to the back by now.

He turns to face the boy. The old man notices that the body still hasn’t caught fire (for some blasted reason), so he trudges to the body and tries to pick it up. The pain in his ribs is immense, and he drops the child two more times before finally settling it on his right shoulder. This is getting to be far more trouble than it is worth.

He drags along to the main room and -

It is different. Everything has changed. The walls are black, the pews are black -

“You are a sinner,” a voice bellows at him. He looks toward the front of the aisle, screams. Christ is there, hanging on the cross, eyes open (glaring at him accusingly, nevertheless) and talking. Hatfield backs up, dropping the child’s frail body before-hand. “You are a murderer,” it commands, and the Minister falls to his knees. Now the shame has hit him.

“You are a liar! A thief! A fool!” it screams. He starts quickly backing up again when suddenly a set of double doors behind him blow open, wind knocking him forward. He moves slowly to it, looks down; fire, a sea of green flames blazes below (this is quite a different sight than what our dearly departed friend Mr. Fretner saw, is it not?), then returns his gaze to the Christ figure.

“Redeem yourself, Brother Hatfield,” it demands. “Sacrifice yourself and you will be forgiven.” Hatfield is crying, screaming like a child. “We need you, Davis. You are One Who Walks Both Realms, one of the Grigori… Die for me and you will live with me!” it shrieks.

“Yes! Yes, anything for you! My life!” Hatfield screams. He turns and runs, runs, RUNS

He feels the heat melting off his skin all the way down.

The Christ-figure grins, tilts it’s head as sharp protrusions of bone grow from it’s temples, and falls silent. Somehow it’s features have changed, and it seems to have twisted it’s face into pleasure at the pain of it’s wounds as it hangs from that wretched tree. This is no Christ, we know - but what it truly is, we know not.

[michael christopher]

This work protected by copyright. Copying material from here without my expressed written permission is against the law.
The electronic documents posted here are the intellectual property of Michael Christopher Thompson II. Copyright 2009.

IV

I know what you are all thinking, friends, and I implore that you will only wait just a few moments more. We shall see what has become of our dear friend Kanjel on our next stop, but right now something far more important has come up. Kanjel will still be there when we arrive, I promise. This gentleman, however, will not be if we wait.

As we walk down a dirty Buenos Aires sidewalk on some deserted back city block, we can see him sitting on his rear, his back to an abandoned brick building. From here he looks perfectly harmless, but we will never meet another of his power before we cross over into the afterlife. He, the Third Prince of Hell, has power that is more than equal to that of any angel’s, save that of the Metatron (who does not interfere in the matters of demons anyway).

His knees are drawn loosely up to his face, which is set in stone. There is a look of sorrow in his blank green eyes, even we can see it from here. A small scar is cut into his bottom lip; it looks rather fresh. His hair is slightly long and shrouds his face, a dark brown curtain over his eyes; it is slightly curly, but not really a great deal so. What he wears is a faded green shirt, no words or symbols printed upon it, ragged blue shorts, and he is barefoot. Many would describe this young man as classically beautiful, except for the touch of homeless sensibility that seems to have marred his otherwise appealing aesthetic qualities.

He looks frail, but that is part of his deception.

Lord Belial, known in the earthly realm as Sergio Montelvaz, has no particular reason to be sitting against this wall. He is neither looking nor waiting for anyone in particular, and at present is in a state much like that of unconsciousness. Lost in thought is our new acquaintance.

His thought is interrupted by an older looking gentleman (this one a particularly evil one) bearing a stout chin and deceptively kind gray-blue eyes. A five o’ clock shadow shades his tanned face and from his scalp sprouts closely cropped graying hair. He shakes the young man’s shoulder, speaking to him words that we will not have to trouble ourselves with translating (for on our plane of reality, all languages are both different and the same). Sergio looks up.

“Young man? Something troubles you - are you okay?” the old man questions, a false look of concern painted across his face. Sergio smacks him hard across the cheek, leaving a bright red imprint burning into it. The man stares back with shocked eyes when the boy grabs him by the collar of his shirt and pulls him toward his own face. “One, I am not a prostitute. Two, you have already killed three teenage boys. Their bodies have been thrown down an empty mine shaft twenty-three miles from here. Three, your real name is Ricardo Benjamin Lopez the Second. You will be gunned down in an empty warehouse, and I will meet you in hell in a period of something like three years. Your death will be a hilarious accident. A case of mistaken identity. Not that you won‘t deserve it.”

The old man blinks once, twice, then screams ashamedly. Tears stream down his face and he turns to the opposite direction and runs, runs, runs as if some maniacal demon from hell is behind him. Heh. He is heading toward the Police Station now, where he will confess his crimes and be sentenced to death... he will be executed in three years. Lord Belial’s prophecies only prove right fifty percent of the time.

Sergio’s head falls back into place as he resumes his thought life.

He is here for one purpose: to kill Lucifage. After his human realm death, he will be reborn in Hell where he will be detained. How the fucking creep had gotten a human body in the first place is beyond him - Rofocale had never had much in the way of brains, and it seemed suspicious that he would be smart enough to convince a human to simply hand over the flesh bag. Either way, the traitorous bastard has done the unspeakable - he has repented for his sins. To God. He has asked for forgiveness from the Oppressor. Nevertheless, God turned a deaf ear to his pleas (the Fallen and the Watchers are God’s only creations who can not be forgiven, precisely because they don‘t understand how to be - nor does Lord Belial for that matter, and nor does he have and desire to) - and so, God had rejected him for a second time. Lucifage had escaped before the Machine could make him pay for it.

And the beauty of this particular hunt, Sergio thinks, is that he doesn’t suspect hell might still be on his heels, much less Belial himself.

The fool is trying to regain the Machine’s favor with his sacrifices and his pathetic Ninth Circle, but they are both near useless efforts. The child sacrifices thus far have somewhat dulled the anger, but not enough to matter - and now that Lucifage’s benefactor the great Minister Hatfield is dead, no more could they be counted on anyway. Hell does not forgive it’s traitors any more than God does. Rofocale is an unwanted creature, one who will pay dearly for his actions.

Sergio stands and looks out at the few people churning mindlessly through the empty back streets of the city and smiles. There stupid, miserable lives are wastes. Life truly begins after death, because after the second birth you live forever.

We shall leave this odd creature here. It is not the last time we will see him. Before we go, though, I must ask you: are the pieces starting to fall together yet? I hope so - but we still have one more piece to go. We must be off to Kanjel.

V

Let us meet a gentleman. He has fallen from grace, one of God’s children, and no longer bears the right to even own a Divine name. Now he hides behind the facade of Calvin Roecker and lives in suburbia; Davidson, Pennsylvania. For the past thirty-seven years, Dr. Calvin Roecker (indeed, the man has earned a Ph.D - he’s had a lot of time to kill, you understand), our new friend, has been free from his torturous prison in Heaven.

Calvin, you see, was one of the Elohim. The Watchers. One of God’s first creations. The Elohim were earth-based angels, forces of nature watching over the fledgling humanity, and all was in harmony. Over time, though, the Elohim began to understand intimate love, and to take biological bodies which they inspired men to make for them in dreams. They developed profoundly human emotions as they took on these bodies, and thus they took human women and men as their lovers. God had tolerated this, but the children, the Nephilim, had been the final straw. God had been disgusted.

Biblical lore would lead us to believe that the Nephilim were giant, disgusting monsters, but Biblical lore has a cunning little way of exaggerating itself over time. The Nephilim were mere children. Small, innocent children. Calvin (who had been called Reniel at the time) had had a wife who had born twin children, Jakob and Abraham. They had lived a mere three years before the Grigori had been chained in Heaven and forced to watch their wives and children die, drowning under the waves of the Great Flood, and they have been watching humanity drown ever since.

Thirty-seven years ago, however, through the fault of some cosmic glitch (as far as he can guess), Calvin awoke lying naked on a beach located somewhere in southern Florida. No one has come looking for him.

And he has yet to age naturally.

Up until fourteen years ago, when he met Melinda, he had had no reason to create an aging process within his body (artificial or otherwise), and technically he still could not, but one can make himself look older (a little hair dye here, a little self mutilation there), and Calvin has been doing so ever since. They were married nine years ago and she has conceived twice since that time. They have two children: Corey, five, and Lindsey, one. Dr. Roecker has made quite the life for himself here in Davidson, since the marriage. He is a respected scholar, a doctor, and his wife is a high school teacher and has won the Mother of the Year award three times (consecutively). They are quite a successful and happy couple.

Unfortunately, all of this is about to change, Kanjel knows.

He hates tracking down the Watchers. Occasionally they involuntarily escape (not that he thinks they wouldn’t voluntarily escape, either), simply waking up in the earthen realm. It is indeed a cosmic glitch of sorts (a glitch which we will discuss before our adventure is over), and often the Watchers roam the earth for years before being reclaimed, but it is inevitable, and in the end they are always taken back to their prison.

Kanjel himself has only taken two in his existence. The first was during the Civil War. He had been fighting for the bluecoats (unsure of why he was doing so, really, for he had been called into selective service). His earthen name had been Samuel Graham. It was not pleasant ripping him from the earthen realm (and rip he truly did - the Watchers must be killed to be reborn in their prison), but at least he had not made any earthly attachments.

The second one had been a famous writer in Japan. A best-seller. The year had been 1977 for that one. It had most certainly been unpleasant. The fool had taken hostages, humans, who had learned of the principles of the Ice and of the Fire. It hadn’t taken much to make the humans forget what they had heard to replace it with false memories, but it still disgusted him that they had heard such things in the first place.

And here is his third. A family life has been established, and that will make it harder to kill this man, but he must do what is necessary. Kanjel is a messenger of God, after all, so he must send God’s message.

Funny that, upon escape, this particular Elohim had committed the exact same crime for which he had been punished in the first place.

As of now, Kanjel stands upon a hospital building - it just happens to be the facility where Dr. Roecker works. He is waiting for the good doctor to exist. He will intercept him at the doors and walk him to the parking lot where the man will be promptly disposed of. He doesn’t enjoy doing it, but he knows what is necessary.

The doors below him open, but he knows that it will not be his target that walks out. As he waits, he begins to formulate a plan. Should he tell the Doctor a lie, then take him by surprise at the end? The Doctor might know he’s lying instinctively, and that would give him means for escape. He can also come out immediately and tell him the truth. From that point, the situation can turn two different ways: the Doctor can either put up an utterly futile fight that he knows he will lose or can just give up and return.

He hates these jobs.

The doors below him open and, this time, it is Calvin.

Kanjel shifts in between the realms, somewhere in the middle, and silently glides down to the ground. To someone looking closely from the human realm, they might see a soft outline of a man floating downward, falling like a leaf, but thankfully, no one is that suspicious, and Kanjel lands unnoticed. He shifts back into focus (this is something like a time-extended teleportation).

Kanjel walks up behind the man and calls out, stopping him immediately. “Hello?” he asks. Calvin whips around defensively, facing him. There is fear in his eyes, and while he has no connections to the Divine Realm, somehow he knows - he knows.

“Dr. Roecker? We need to speak,” says Kanjel, shielding his voice from any emotion. The Doctor removes his glasses and begins anxiously cleaning them. His eyes are watering, and he blurts it out. “Why can’t you just let me b-be?” he stutters, and a tear spills onto his cheek. His eyes are gazing down at the concrete floor, glazed. Kanjel responds. “You know I can’t do that.” “I-I know,” comes the response. “I know.”

Kanjel stares at the crying man and his dead heart seems to twitch. He realizes, with some grief, what he is about to do. This man has been living in denial for thirty-seven years. He knew that he would be taken back, but he has denied the fact the benefit of reality, and what a blow this must be to his heart. But it must be done. It is God’s will.

“Look, c-can’t you just... just let me be?!” he almost demands, rage and anger replacing the sorrow and regret in his voice. “I am human now! Completely human!” he screams, pulling at his arm as if to illustrate. He suddenly points to his face, tears streaming down his cheeks. “These are human tears!” he shrieks. “Human blood flows through my veins! Let me be human, damn you! Let me be!” Kanjel closes his eyes tightly and responds:

“No.”

“Damn you...” moans Calvin as he falls to his knees. “Damn you to hell.”

Kanjel looks down at the pitiful man, but does nothing. There is a moment of awkward silence before Calvin lifts his head, his eyes begging. “Let me see them one last time,” he cries. He is on his knees, his hands clasped together.

“No,” Kanjel answers, maintaining an indifference within his voice.

The man drops his head as if in defeat, then stands up. “I have a question for you,” he sobs. “Yes?” asks Kanjel, impatient. “Why? Why does he want me? I haven’t done anything. I am not a danger to the moderation of the realms. I serve no purpose any longer. I am a worthless creation... isn’t that enough punishment?” “You must be an example. God does not make exceptions.”

Another moment of awkward silence, broken again by Calvin’s voice.

“Fuck God. Fuck his exceptions. Fuck you.”

Kanjel slowly pulls the weapon from his pocket. It is a small, easily-concealed handgun. A human weapon for a human. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. The Doctor opens his eyes and stares right into Kanjel, tears no longer flowing. “No. I’m sorry.”

And it ends.

VI

There is a constant war going on all around us, a war between light and dark, between angels and devils, and as we have already learned, not everything is what it seems. Now it is time for us to meet another gentleman, a creature born of the Divine Realm. As we walk into the smoky bar, we see him sitting on a bar stool. He is not drunk. He is not even drinking. As a matter of fact, he is sitting, deep in thought, and doing nothing else.

This young man (he appears young to our human eyes, anyway) is wearing leather pants, neither tight nor baggy, and a black cashmere sweater. Obviously a strange combination of clothing. Around the fingers on his left hand are three cryptic rings: one depicts water in silver, and pressed beneath a wave and the solid ocean is a blue sphere. This is on his index finger. On his middle finger is gold fire, and in the center is a red triangle. On his ring finger is what appears to be some unknown metal alloy, and carved upon it is what appears to be wind. There is a green square in the center of this.

His hair is medium length, but is tied into three two-and-a-half inch long ponytails, which are in turn tied into one ponytail. Despite this, his hair is not pulled back that and pools around his eyes. His eyes, of course, are silver. No one ever mentions or notices anything, because they know that there is something desperately wrong with this young man, something which they refuse to make a part of their business. His teeth are sparkling white, but he rarely smiles. There is a leather jacket on the stool beside him.

This gentleman looks rather dignified, cultured, and intelligent.

“Coke, please,” he beckons. The bartender looks at him oddly, shakes his head, and grabs a bottle from underneath the counter. He slides it to the man, then returns to his other customers. Why would this kid come to a bar for a Coke? He’s barely nineteen, for one (at least this is what it looks like), and he looks no more interested in the people here than they do in him. Must just be the atmosphere, he thinks.

And by the way, what’s up with those weird fucking contacts he’s wearing? thinks the bartender. He dismisses the thought, deciding he’d rather not care. A freak is a freak is a freak.

While this young man hails from the Divine Realm, he is far from divine. The edge lands are where he’s from. His name over there is Barbatos. Formerly revered, yes indeed. But now? He has escaped, but he’s not running. He’s looking for more of the demonic fucks to send back. He has repented, of course, but God does not make exceptions (as we have recently learned), and he is trying his damned hardest to earn his way back through the Pearly Gates.

This is the best way he knows how.

On earth, he is known as Daniel Stone (only a small handful of people know this name - he‘s not the talkative sort, this Daniel). He has been sending demons back to the pits of hell for something like twenty years now, he can no longer be sure of the time. Everyday is the same, and so it has all begun to merge and mesh together. Not that he minds. He stopped caring about how much time he spent on earth too long ago for him to remember. At least he is no longer involved the that blasted Infernal Machine.

Mr. Stone is a careful sort. There are constantly demons and angels looking for him, so he must keep as low a profile as possible. While technically it is possible for him to send an angel back, he has never done so. He has permanently destroyed the souls of only three demons (by killing them in the Divine Realm), sent back the souls of four hundred and twenty three more, and has only been in danger of his life seven times. He is quite the strategist.

As he finishes off the Coke, an older man sits down on the stool beside him. He is a fat, hairy creature, and smells of both sweat and machine oil. He is growing a five o’ clock shadow and has a Confederate Flag bandana wrapped around his bald skull. Behind his vest is a tattered “Lynard Skynard” shirt that looks as if it hasn’t been changed in years, if not decades.

“I know who you are, you traitorous piece of shit,” he grumbles, then faces sideways toward Daniel. His eyes shimmer in the dim light of the bar-room. “I know who you are too, Leviticus.” “Oh, think yer a smart fucken genius or some shit, huh?” he questions, and Daniel lifts his head. “One could also say that I think that you’re a stupid, ignorant toad of a creature.” “You know, you little fuck, I should send you back right now. I would get away with it too.”

Daniel smirks. He picks up the empty Coke bottle and begins eyeing it with some interest.

“Tell me, Leviticus, do you think I could build myself a small ship in this? It’s not as impossible as it looks, you know. It’s a lost art, unfortunately.” Daniel’s newfound acquaintance hawks, spits. “Yer a fag, aintcha? You know what I say about fags.” The young man picks up his leather jacket from the stool to his right, puts it on, stands up (Coke bottle in hand), then looks at the man who is still sitting in the stool to the left of his former seat. “You still think you can send me back? Would you prefer to test this theory?”

The fat man in his seat shifts uncomfortably. “You’re a worm... Hell doesn’t need you back...” he mumbles. “You’re making excuses. You know that I would kill you, literally kill you. I could do it now, if I wanted to, but you know I won’t. You’re here on a mission, as all of the Loyals are, and that is the difference between you and I. You’re life is one of servitude, and you only learn the discipline taught to you. I learn what I want to.”

He waits a moment for a response, and, receiving none, turns and exits the bar. He puts the Coke bottle in his jacket pocket and walks to his black Jaguar where he unlocks the door and climbs inside. He sits in silence for a moment, then decides to turn on the radio. He flips through numerous stations before finally deciding on one (“Paint It Black”, quite an appropriate song for Daniel’s melancholic mood, is playing) and backing up.

As the tires roll over gravel, his back windshield shatters with a loud crash. He flips around, his silver eyes practically beaming in the darkness of the night, and screams out his anger. He immediately stops the door and climbs out before rushing to the back, but before he can act, a crowbar is brought down onto his head. The force is unexpected, and the shock sends him tumbling down more so than the pain itself.

He opens his eyes.

Standing above him are seven men, compromised of numerous different races, ages, and, as far as he can tell, decades. One man is clad in the ragged shirts and faded jeans of the early seventies, another in heavy metal drab, huge hair, and tight leather pants. A third resembles a punk rocker, with spiky blond hair and a scowling face, and the list goes on. The one who hit him is wearing a stitched leather jacket, black eye shadow, and seems to have ragged scars across his face. He looks the least human. And is also carrying a crowbar.

“You’re a fucking bastard, you good-for-nothing shithead,” he announces, and one of his friends in the back utters a whoop of agreement. “I think I’m going to cut off your head first, then we might take turns shitting down your gullet. As for your testicles, I think they’ll make some pretty good Christmas ornaments, whadda you guys think?” His six followers are agreeing emphatically when Daniel speaks up.

“Before you guys agree on anything else, I think you should get a unanimous vote on what decade it is,” he mutters, but is immediately silenced with a kick to the face. “Smartass, huh? I eat pussies like you for breakfast,” mutters Scarface. “You are what you eat,” Daniel manages. The man tries to stomp his boot into Daniel’s face, but he is too late. Daniel has already rolled three feet to his right. He immediately stands up and takes five steps back.

“Your friends don’t know, do they?” Daniel asks. He’s put it together. This particular character, the Scarface, has been sent for him. He rounded up some friends for the festivities, but he obviously hadn’t told them of his origin, and who’s to say that they would believe him if he did? Just some commonplace, murderous fun for this sextuplet.

Scarface looks at him stupidly. “Get with it, dumbass. And if you don’t pay for that windshield I’ll rip your fucking head off.” The man laughs, throws down his crowbar. “You wanna flip? Think you can handle me when the stakes really matter?” he questions, then laughs. “The stakes matter enough now. You’re one arrogant fuck if you accepted the mission. I will hurt you beyond imagining.”

Suddenly one of Scarface’s friends speaks up. “You got a lotta talk for a pretty boy. I don’t think you can back it up.” Daniel glances to the voice. The punk. “Suck my cock,” he mutters. The punk looks suddenly furious and rushes him.

Daniel pulls the Coke bottle from his pocket and smashes it over the boy’s head. He instantly falls to the ground, unconscious. Three more of the kids rush him, the metal-head, the pseudo-hippie, and a ghetto looking teenager. He jams the bottle into the metal-head’s throat, then pulls backward with a sick popping sound. He then jams the bottle into the ghetto kids stomach, lets him fall, and grabs the pseudo-hippie’s head and yanks, instantly snapping it.

The other two kids run away screaming in the opposite direction. Scarface does not look discouraged. “Kinda pisses me off that you’re the one that killed em’, but I was gonna do it when we were finished anyway. Fucking earth-people piss me off.” Daniel kicks the body of the punk, who is still alive, in the ribs, then watches him writhe on the dirty gravel of the bar parking lot. He finds it odd that no one has exited since he left the bar.

“Flip,” states Daniel, and he is gone in a flash of orange-red smoke. Scarface immediately follows suit.

The Divine Realm location congruent to the bar is a dusty, dreary place. Instead of gravel under Daniel’s feet, there is blue sand. In place of the bar is a large wooden hut, no windows nor door. He barely has time to wonder what’s inside when Scarface rushes him.

The Divine form of Scarface looks other-worldly. Where his head should be protrudes the neck of a snake. It lengthens about two meters before shaping into a scaled lions head, it’s yellow eyes gleaming under the purple moonlight. The body is a hulky oversized mass, not in any conceivable shape, and it looks as if more writhing snakes are buried underneath the layers of rags that coat them.

Daniel, or Barbatos’ Divine form is far more evolved. The body is that of a blue-skinned God, rippling occasionally with a red twinge or two. He is a winged creature, and the wings resemble those of bats; they are attached to his arms. His head is shrouded in a cloud of red and blue streaks that line his face and his eyes are cruelly exaggerated eyes of human anger. His pupils are made up of concentric black and red circles.

He soars from the sand into the air as Scarface swings for him, the dive-bombs the fiend from behind. As he wraps his hands around the distended neck, the head reaches around his back and bites into a wing, resulting in immense pain. Pinned between the creature’s back and neck, he hears the sound of ripping rags as a snake bursts from the makeshift clothing and bites into his ring finger.

We cannot see it from the view we are watching from, but the wind ring is now glowing a bright green in the snake’s head, and it suddenly explodes, emitting a sound much like that of capping popcorn. Scarface twitches, momentarily releasing his grip on Daniel, giving his prisoner a chance to flee.

Daniel flaps through the air, his wing still in some pain, thus causing him to sink back down to earth occasionally. Scarface - Snakeface, now, really - having fully healed, rushes toward him in a rage. He dodges to the left and looks around for something, anything - and he sees it. A glass knife lies covered in the blue sand, what was on the other side a shard of his Coke bottle he knows, and he grabs it.

Snakeface whips around shrieking and rushes Daniel again, but Daniel steps forward, pushing with all his strength, and feels the knife glide past the layers of rags, the viscera, the stomach - and something else. His would-be killer screams, falls to it’s knees, and begins panting. It’s neck, still long and distended, lies on the sand. It is virtually useless now, all of the monster’s strength going to keep it alive for as long as possible. Daniel sits on his knees by the head and drives the knife into it’s temple.

It does not scream.

Daniel has destroyed his fourth soul.

VII

The year is 1956. The weather is warm and the sun tans the face of the earth, which, at the moment, just happens to be in Springfall, Nebraska. To Dimitri Artemin (the son of a rich landowner around this area), it is another typical, shitty Nebraska day. Could he not have been born in California? New York? Hell, anywhere would be better than this ragged little shit pit of a town.

Fine golden wheat blows in the wind like enormous mutated grass outside of his bedroom window, and the smell of local farms carries. Here in Springfall, no matter how big the house you live in, you always wake up to the smell of cow shit and musty old hay. Mary is the only good thing about this god-forsaken land. He wishes that she was here now because he needs her.

Kanjel’s eyes flash open and begin crawling across the ceiling, wide open and scared. What has just happened? Some old, ancient memory afloat in his mind has seemingly manifested itself into a dream, but he has no memories of that lifetime, because it never existed, it never could have. God creates all Divine angels, and they have no memories than the ones that He intends for them to.

So perhaps he is supposed to see this.

He tosses the covers from his hotel room bed. He does not have to sleep, for angels never tire, but he likes to anyway. There must be a logical explanation for the dream, he knows, but there are no possibilities that come to mind. It makes no sense for him to dream. None at all.

He shakes his head, trying to focus, then looks at the clock by his bed. It reads 2:44 a.m., a pattern of bright red lines against the otherwise darkness of the room. He stares for a moment, waiting for the numbers to change, but they still remain at the same time, as if mocking him. He knows that they will stay this way no matter how long he sits here, and he realizes that he is meant to sleep. And to dream.

He rolls back into bed and pulls the cover over himself again, retreating into the warm darkness of sleep. As he does so, we see the clock beside him turn. It now reads 2:45.


Dimitri walks to his window, robed, and looks out across the fields. In all technicality, today is almost the same day as yesterday. It is not hard for one living out here to imagine re-living the same day in an endless cycle of paradoxes; nothing new ever happens and nothing new ever will.

The door behind him opens as Lily, the new maid walks in. He whips around, sees her face, and is immediately inflamed with anger. “Don’t you know how to knock, you dumb bitch?!” he screams. “What if I had not been decent?!”

He knows that it is the exact reason she has entered, but refrains from saying it. This is the third time in as many days that she has done this, and no one can truly be this forgetful. He has also noticed her far from inconspicuous glances in the hallways, but whatever sick desires she may harbor in her mind, he will not be the one to fulfill them.

He loves only Mary.

And he wishes that Mary loved him back.

“I-I’m sorry, Master Dimitri, I’ll r-remeber tomorrah, I know it -” she stutters, her backwoods hick accent slurring the words. “Save it!” he shouts. “Get out, now, or I’ll have your job!” She turns and quickly exits the room, and for a moment it enters his mind that he has perhaps only made her want him more - he dispels the thought immediately. He barely even remembers her name.

He walks to the door, closes it, locks it. There morning interruptions are beginning to get him far more angry than annoyed. It disgusts him to think that this perverse creature actually enjoys invading his privacy - sexually enjoys it. He feels violated, but even more-so afraid. If she comes in here while he is gone (and somehow he knows that she does), then all of his deepest secrets are hers to know.

He moves to his large antique dresser and changes. These unpleasant thoughts are best left for another time. Today he will confess his love to Mary, his true feelings; he is going to tell her everything, everything that he has locked in the prison of his heart. He is breaking the lock. He knows the risk; all of his love will flood out, and only she will be able to replace it. But will she want to?

After a light breakfast of toast and eggs (sunny side up), Dimitri begins the long walk to her house. He has a nagging doubt that he’ll even be able to ascend the steps to her porch, but he knows that he must not give up this early in the game. If he does not at least tell her how he feels, then he will not be able to live with himself.

As he nears her house, his stomach ties itself into a knot - can he finish this? Will he even make it to her door?

Yes.

He forces himself forward, placing one foot after another, feeling gravity pressing down on him. It feels as if he is holding the entire world on his shoulders, a modern-day Atlas - but, he knows, one wrong step and he will crumble under the weight. He must only look at today as good, no matter what Mary says. The love he is hiding within himself is festering into a sickness, and he must let it all out.

He slowly ascends the steps, almost falling over once, but he regains his composure and climbs, climbs, climbs…

Too soon. It’s too soon, he’s not ready, not yet and

The door opens. Mary steps out, so beautiful and as radiant as ever. Her light brown hair is curled down to her shoulders and glimmers in the morning sun, her face not painted with make-up and still that of a goddess, her smile not even startled into submission at the sight of him in such a bad place, a bad position.

The weight of the world is pressing down upon him now, twice upon him, it has tripled, and he fears that he might faint, might collapse here in front of her, but he can’t, he can’t embarrass himself like this.

And suddenly there is darkness.

When he comes to, he is lying on a couch inside a strange room, his face wet. Mary is dribbling a wet sponge over his mouth, a look of concern plastered onto her face. “How long was I out?” he asks. “Not long, maybe a couple of minutes,” she replies, then adds: “Are you okay? What happened?” He notices that her parents are nowhere in sight and comes to the conclusion that they must be gone, for surely the racket would have drawn them into the room otherwise. If he had been paying attention (or in any condition to pay attention, for that matter), he would have remembered whether a car was parked outside or not.

“N-nothing, I’m fine... where are your parents?” he questions. “They went to the market,” she answers, disinterest beginning to glaze her eyes. He breathes in, relaxing, and tries to push the words he so desperately want to communicate out of his mouth.

“Mary...” he starts. “Yes?” He gazes into her eyes and, he notices, they show little concern. She has somewhere to be, apparently. More important things to do. More important things than him. “I... I’m sorry,” he finishes. He pulls himself to his feet, tears trying desperately to push over his eyelids. “What? What is it?” she asks again, but he can no longer stand here. He rushes out of her still open door, tears streaming from his face, feels the gravel crunching beneath his feet. He does not stop, doesn’t even slow, until he bursts through the door his own room and collapses onto his bed, curling into a fetal position.

He does not notice Lily rooting through his dresser.

For a moment she fears that she has been caught, that he will scream at her, have her fired, and will not be able to quench the lust that has been seared into his already blackened heart, despite her means. But he does not scream, does not threaten her, is merely laying on his bed, crying, in his most vulnerable position. She knows that the spoiled rotten brat is hers.

She moves to the door and closes it.

“Is... what’s wrong?” she questions. No response. He will not have her like this, she knows, and suddenly feels her face shift, the bones under her flesh re-arranging themselves, and she manages a smile. It hurts, but oh GOD the pain is so sweet. Now, without even looking into the centuries old antique mirror hanging beside his dresser, she knows that she flawlessly reflects the object of his desire.

She moves to the bed, wraps her arms around his shivering form. “I love you, too,” she whispers, sliding her hands up his shirt. He does not hear. ‘It can’t be real,’ he thinks. ‘Because it seem so false.’

“I want you,” she whispers again, one hand against his forehead and the other fondling him gently. The only response she receives is a loud sob and more tears; she delights in them.

In the still-morning sunlight reflecting through his bedroom window (indeed, the same sunlight that reflected off of the real Mary’s hair), she takes his crippled form. He feels it, registers it, but does not believe it. Four hours later, he will walk into his immense closet, stool and noose in hand, and will end his life.


Forty-four years later, in the room of some nameless dark hotel room, an alarm clock reads 4:46 a.m. On the bed beside it lies a crying man, curled up into a tight ball. He is dreaming, remembering, and one word is now stenciled across his brain: LILITH.

[michael christopher]

This work protected by copyright. Copying material from here without my expressed written permission is against the law.
The electronic documents posted here are the intellectual property of Michael Christopher Thompson II. Copyright 2009.

VIII

Over our period of time together, we have only skimmed the barest of facts pertaining to Heaven and Hell, the so-called Divine Realm. I am sure that you have many questions that you wish to ask, and I regret to inform you that if we sat and talked for the next thousand years, we will have barely started to scratch the surface. The Divine Realm is a very complex place indeed, so rather than having actually touched down upon it’s calm waters, we have only watched from above. Being the vast ocean that it is, we can only see the surface and perhaps a few feet below (on a sunny day). We dare not sink to the bottom, for the shipwrecks that await us down there may still fester with the evil that sank them.

Down there, our protected bird’s eye view would be far from safe.

Very soon, I assure you, we shall meet some old friends again, such as Lucifage (minus two children and added the nonce - his now dead benefactor, Davis Hatfield, can no longer provide). I warn you though, that particular fellow is not a happy being at present. He is disheveled, worried, and near-caught. I think we should put him off for as long as possible. We have plenty of time.

Let us see the Upper-Lands, first. Also known as “Heaven.” In the center of the Upper-Lands is a large, white Cathedral - and when I say large, I merely mean enormous. It has been known formally as the Center of the Source, and white lines seemingly beam from it’s foundation, connecting to every building in the kingdom and creating an inter-connecting, cross-crossing maze of light. These, you see, are the roads of Heaven. Take note that they are not gold. We all hate that misconception.

You’re probably not seeing lambs up here. Or lions, for that matter.

There are enormous stone domes on both sides of the Center. One is the Archive of Being, a massive library containing any and every book or record that has ever been or will be written. An immensely small portion of these, easily equivalent to one molecule of matter in an entire galaxy, has been writ by the human race. Within this library are the histories of trillions upon trillions of alien races. Where these other races and beings go, if not to heaven and hell - where most bear a human visage, with the exception of Hell, where certain imps have been known to root in inner circles of that infernal place.

Lets just focus on humanity, though.

As you can imagine, this building is rather large. In the center of it stands a winged old man, his hair gray and balding in the center. He is also dressed in gleaming white robes, and opened in his hands is a book pronounced in our language as “D-Nachtiliandorsofenchen.” This man is an old friend of mine, also, his name Reveliel. We don’t have time to greet him, though, as we have other business to be about.

The other dome covers a large circular table, and upon that table stands things that you, being alive, are not permitted to see. Around it, spaced very far apart, are seven angels. They are the Archangels; Michael, his orange face illuminated in self-ignited fire and light; Uriel, his blue face glowing with lightning and shimmering water; Raphael, his green face shimmering tiny emeralds about the sacred walls; Gabriel, his silver face spraying ocean mists over all around him; Jeliel, his violet face glimmering, both darkening and brightening the shadows which his mighty soul casts; Valkiel, her pink face emanating beauty and compassion; and Azrael, his crimson face drowning in the bloody waves of martyrs.

They are the seven guardian angels who watch over humanity, and only through their understanding and will can any of us be truly safe.

Now we shall leave this place and lay our vision directly upon the Center of the Source once more.

And we’re sinking, our vision become the deep black of the wettest soil.

Don’t be afraid. We are almost there, as little as I wish we were. You see, my friend, we are about to visit the most hellish part of Heaven. Light is beginning to invade our eyes; can you see it? Can you hear the screams? Good. Because we are there now. This is Sheol.

This is the prison of the Elohim.

It is an enormous cavern, and we see angels shackled to the walls, their eyes gaping, staring into a pit of liquid mercury. None blink. To us, the pit is blank, a mere reflection of the upper layers of the cavern (surely we haven’t gone down this far!), but to these broken mourners, it is a view into the lives of many different people, a front seat to tragedy. They have seen disaster, murder, suicide, sacrifice, and virtually every horrible thing imaginable. Here they are forever shackled, seeing what they wish to be false, knowing it is not, and being able to do nothing about it. Calvin Roecker would have no problem describing these things to us.

We have spent far too much time in Heaven, my friend, as we will be spending almost no time here for the duration of our saga. Almost is an exaggeration, of course.

No, most of our story will take place in the Under-Lands and in the earthen realm, and most of that in the latter. I cannot allow you to see too much of this sacred realm.

Now let us view these Under-Lands, shall we? Oh, the border between them and Edge-World (a displaced dimension that doesn’t quite exist in either realm, and one that we shall eventually enter - we want to see the Citadel once more, correct?) lies a small, shambled town. Nod is what we call it on this side. Only the wicked reside here. They all pray for redemption from God, and the few mildly-wicked ones may eventually receive something of it’s sort, but not today. Most of the new-comers seem to migrate here, as well.

Let us move a few miles to the east where we shall see the Mordren Caves. These are infested with both minor demons (such as the animalistic totems), semichenes (intelligent but un-important demons), and occasionally a major demon or two (or a pack of them, in which case all other demons in the cave should find a hiding spot). The latter tend to cluster around the bottom of the cave, hundreds of miles below the surface and beneath the location of the Great Qliphoth Tree. There are numerous wobbling branches growing from the wretched thing, and yellow orbs hang from each. In these orbs are various major demons, things that we will not look at for the sake of our sanities, all of which command small legions of minors and semichenes who in turn attack the wicked humans in both realms. Notice that the third sphere is presently unoccupied. It once belonged to a certain Lucifage Rofocale.

Let us rise back to the surface, southeast we shall head, and we shall come across a large structure formed of some un-identifiable material. It stands hundreds, perhaps thousands of feet high, and a green fire glows in many windows the farther up we go. At the top is a crucifix - it is not vacant at present. There is a screaming disfigured sinner nailed into it’s rotting wood.

Surrounding this odd castle is a moat filled with black water. Ripples emanate occasionally across the top, but perhaps it is best if we do not see what is making them; you would never bathe again, otherwise.

Lets shift intangibly through these odd looking walls and stop for a moment to admire the scenery. Rusted metal walls occasionally clang in the near distance and we are sure that we hear a bell, but let us not look for the source. Random writhing body parts hang from bloody fishing wire ahead of us. There is a decapitated head hanging from one, the wire strung through it’s eyes (they have not burst, though, and can still slightly see us), and it moves it’s mouth, as if warning us. It can make no sound.

Welcome, it mouths, to the Infernal Machine.

Welcome to Hell.

We shall float slowly upward, through rooms and rooms of torture, pain, and promises of sweet death never made to be kept.

In one room, a man sits in a rocking chair, a gun to his head. He keeps cocking the weapon and pulling the trigger, but is only answered with clicks; he has used up all of his bullets, and a gaping hole stands open in the side of his head. This one committed suicide after killing his daughter.

In another room is a large library of ticking clocks. The second hands on the clocks do not move, and all clocks are set to 4:14, the minute when this gentleman beat his elderly mother to death with her own alarm clock. He is ramming his nearly flattened stump of a head into a wall drenched in his own blood. He doesn’t look like he’s about to stop, either. Why stick around and watch?

A third room shows a bull-man impaling a serial murderer on a picket section of a fence. Repeatedly. Numerous broken bloody pickets are piled in the corner of the room, and the man has lost the ability to scream - there is a gaping hole where his throat should be.

A fourth room presents to us a man’s hand being cleaved into ground meat. In front of him is a hand feeding him a similar looking substance - he can feel every bite he takes. Pour soul.

We move through rooms upon rooms of torture, seeing hundreds of things that we will mostly forget in moments - or at least within a few months, as the specific details of this story fade from your memory - and for that, let’s be thankful. At the top of this tower is a single circled star. There is a chair in each hollow section of the star, eleven chairs in all. In the center is a large throne and there are three smaller thrones to the left, right, and back of that. In the remaining spaces are seven even smaller thrones. Aside from these things, the room is empty.

In the past few moments you have witnessed the very basic geography of certain locales important to our story in Heaven and Hell. We will return to Heaven only one more time, but shall indeed visit all of the aforementioned Hellish lands again before I finally explain to you everything that must transpire.

IX

The flame of the cosmos is held in the hands of Sara Todd over the vast ocean that we explored earlier. In all of our time together, we have yet to make even indirect mention of her, the most important figure (and even the reason for) our story. Sara is having a difficult time at the moment. Seeing her, you might think that she resembles our dear Mary (no longer with us - the cancer silently took her into the night a mere two years ago), but Mary, aside from indirectly prompting the death of Dimitri Artemin ( we must hesitate at calling him Kanjel, for he walks the borderline between being and not), was of little importance. Sara is almost as important as God Itself in the grand scheme of things.

She sits in the dark apartment, her eyes clutching for the red light emitted by the stereo, transfixed. Tears roll down her face as she painfully remembers her last few days. Her “friends”, she knows, were not friends at all, her lover devoid of love. Her life offers no reason to merely continue living. She does not care to remember the details, not only for the fact that they are skewed and bleeding into her other concerns, but because it hurts far too much.

Her friends have always secretly hated her, but their dirty little secrets had spilled over the brimming cup on Friday. One little rumor found it’s way into her awareness, and she traced that particular thread down to the thin web of the spider that it had been spun by. The truth had been yelled at her through doors, down corridors and hallways directly into her face. And it had hurt, oh God it had hurt. They were going to toss her out for their cause, martyr her themselves, and when she had returned to the only person who could have offered her comfort, he too had left her in the dust.

And now she is choking.

She has no one to communicate with, no one except loneliness, and loneliness is far too busy breaking her down to be considered her poetic companion at the moment. What had seemed like the final blow had only been the beginning. The phone calls have been the worst. They keep telling her that she was the wrong one, the stupid one, the fool. She has now conceded that the two phrases “we’re all adults here” and “we’re all human beings here” do not apply to nearly as many situations as they are applied to.

She sits, still staring silently, and closes her eyes. The monotonous drone on the radio continues, and while she doesn’t hate it, she hasn’t felt imposed to listen until now. She needs something to take her mind off of the ugly words that threaten to hammer themselves into her brain.

“So I will raise you up,” the voice on the radio promises, a unique edge hidden beneath the words.

“...before the stones,” he continues, “...and the arrows, and the crosses they would nail you to;” he sounds, almost demands that she trust him.

The phone begins to ring to her left.

“And the evil in the words they say!”

She does not answer, focuses solely on the music.

“And the laws they write but don’t obey!”

The hateful thing rings, relentless, and finally she picks it up.

“And the mirrors they never dare look through!”

“Hello...?” she whispers, choking on tears. “I’m so sorry...” another voice whispers back, seemingly mocks her.

“And the lies they try to sell to me and you!”

She hangs up the phone, the knot in her throat about to unravel, and tears stream down her face. She refuses to let herself cry at his lies, his excuses. She rips the phone cradle from the wall and tosses it to the carpeted floor. Holding back screams of anger and sorrow, she falls to her knees, bites her lip, and lets the sweet taste of metal invade her senses.

“...twas’ ‘Before The Fall’ by ‘Comes With the Fall’ -”

She throws the phone at the blasted machine, shutting it off. No more sound. No more light. She is either dead or dying or dreaming, neither of the three burdening her. Her life has toppled down all around her and the bricks have landed far too close for comfort. She is happy to be isolated in her loneliness now and she falls forward, onto the itchy rug, doesn’t notice it is there, and sleeps.

“Hello, my love,” a voice laughs. Sara looks up. She is still in her apartment, but something is illuminating the room. A dim light is glowing around a man relaxing on her couch. His hair is tied back into a ponytail, perfectly blonde, and the pupils of his eyes seem to beam silver. He is the most beautiful thing that Sara has ever seen.

“Who - who are you?” she croaks, and she is hit with an ugly thought: she, her disgusting, whimpering, sobbing self, shares this room with a perfect angel, this beautiful angel.

“Those who know me too well call me King, little girl. You? I guess that, for now, you can call me... call me Rex? Yes, that will have to do. It’s nowhere near my true name, not in terms of similarity, but if I were to tell you my real name, I have a feeling that you would find it very hard to believe that I actually am who I am. Did that make any sense?” he asks her. She nods. “I know this is a dream, but let’s not push the envelope here.”

“But... w-who am I?” she begs, pleads. “I can’t blame you for not knowing. Family trees do not quite go back that far, I’m afraid. Believe me or not, you, child, are the final descendant of Jesus Christ. That wasn’t his real name by the way. Very soon you will give birth to the savior herself.” Sarah is incredulous and stares at the dream-man for a moment. “What the fuck are you talking about?” she asks. “I’m not pregnant.” Rex smiles. “Not yet,” he says. “But virgin births are quite a powerful tradition, you know.” “I’m also not a virgin,” says Sarah. Rex shakes his head. “No, but this child will not have a father. At least not a human one. He smiles. A look of shock is stamped across her face. “You’re lying. I’m asleep, this is a dream, it’s a dream -” He silences her with a wave of his hand and ignores her statement. “Which is why I’ve come to speak with you today. Tonight. Whenever the hell this is - where I’m from, it’s always night.”

She gets to her feet, a frown creased across her face. “Who are you really?” she questions, the knot in her throat eased only a little. “I’ve already told you, Sara,” he mocks. “You can call me Rex.” “I don’t CARE what I can call you!” she shrieks, her pent up frustrations and anger escaping, barging through her vessel into the ephemeral air. “Who are you?!” she demands. No more lies, she thinks, no more masks to hide behind. “Look, girl, I know why you’re being so foolish now, and I can still forgive you, but you would be best to calm yourself before I’m forced to do it for you. You’re beginning to grate on my nerves.”

She walks to the couch, as if to sit down, but he holds up his hand in protest. “Turn around. I want to see your eyes,” he mutters, then motions toward something behind her. She turns and sees a black leather chair facing her - a chair that she knows she does not own. Her apartment is rather unfurnished, and she knows that this seat does not belong here.

“Sit,” he commands. She sits.

“This world is useless to you, darling. You know that both love and caring are fiction now. Do they exist only within you? You are so special, you know... you need someone who will return your endless love. I love you, child. I love you like no other can.” She stares forward, lost in his words, then leans her face into her palms and lets another sob escape, wants to let it all flood out. “Can you love me back?” he questions.

“I - I don’t know,” she cries.

“Lift your head. I need to see your eyes.” She lifts it. “Fine then, you can’t love me. Not yet. But will you trust me?” His eyes plead, but beneath them she senses something... contempt? “Those who trust me receive amazing benefits, you know. I can make you live forever. I can make you happy dear, if that’s what you want. Why, if the urge so took me, I could make you love me. But you will in time. We were made to love each other.” Sara does not reply, only stares. “Will you trust me?” he repeats.

“N-no...” she replies, then breaks into another series of harsh sobs and shudders. “Yes you will,” he mutters. “As a matter of fact, you already do. It’s just that you don’t want to.” She stops sobbing, looks into his glinting eyes, and concedes the argument. “That’s a good girl,” he states. “We have much to discuss, don’t we?” Sara is confused. She stares stupidly at him before he rolls his eyes and looks back at her. “I have much to tell you. You will then discuss with me a little - eh - business arrangement?” The questions dances on his lips, the reply in her eyes. Yes. He smiles. “Good job,” he answers.

“Now, dear child. Life as we know it, extending far beyond humanity, is in your wet little palms. You can decide what becomes of it. We’ve reached a crucial point in time. Life is growing, but according to the seasons of time, the very tree of life exists right before the Fall. Soon the leaves, different races, human and otherwise, shall be united in death. What little of them do survive will surely die thereafter. The cold is spreading like a sickness in Eden, and soon nothing will be able to grow at all. You think that I’m speaking in metaphors and riddles, but I am not. Life moves in a cycle of seasons, but the Tree itself is still not very big. It may not survive it’s first Fall.”

“Are you saying that life has just begun? There have been living creatures for billions of years... what you’re saying makes no sense,” Sara mutters, finally forcing words to her lips. ‘Rex’ smirks. “Child, in the Book of Life, the first page has not even been filled with names. Your race is conceited; life will not die with humanity - humanity’s corpse will be the fertilizer that a greater life will grow from. The second stage of life - a life of which you nor I can even imagine - begins here.” Sara gapes, her eyes heavy, shocked. “Humanity is going to wither and die then... like a flower...” “In the Fall. But everything dies. It is a fact of life. But how long humanity has left to live - that is in your hands. God wants to end it now, but that not fair to you or your race. Why should you die so that others may live? Where is the distinction, the justice, in that? Ask yourself this question.”

“But...” she starts. He stares silently, then breaks the mounting tension. “Yes?” he questions. “If the Tree of Life is to die in the Fall, isn’t that according to nature? Shouldn’t all of these races die so that others may live?” ‘Rex’ frowns. “God regulates nature. The very fate of humanity is in your hands and He is hoping that you let nature follow it’s course. He is hoping that you let the living, your brothers and sisters, die. The natural order of things always ends in death. Death, in all it’s tormenting emptiness, is more of a prison than a liberation. After everything that humanity has strived so hard for, why should it be imprisoned in such a way? God is not a fair creature, as history will dictate.”

Sara listens, perplexed. She has never been a strong believer in God, but even the most ignorant, belligerent “rebel” has been told that God is benevolent. If indeed what she is being told is the truth, then the Devil himself is vastly over-rated in the workings of evil.

“But... but I’ve been taught that everything in nature happens for the betterment of life.” “Hah!” he bellows. “God Himself would denounce that lie. True, it could be said that everything He has done will eventually lead to a better tomorrow, but do you think that he flooded the earth for a better tomorrow? No. He did it because He was disgusted. He has chained his own children, his own angels in eternal darkness, not because they fought against Him in the Great War, but because they fell in love. This ‘benevolent being’ you humans know as God has destroyed entire worlds, entire galaxies because their people have refused to pray to one as evil as He. Evil is defined in the eyes of the victor child. But, to paraphrase a good old friend, evil is as evil does, and murder is most certainly evil.”

Silence deafens the room and makes it hard to concentrate.

‘Rex’ relaxes.

“The fate of Life as we knot it rests in your hands, child. The universe is yours to save; be it’s savior. I will not crucify you, my love. I will not string you up on a cross, humiliate you, allow the blasphemers and evil-doers to spit and mock. I will love you. I do love you. Dance with me, Sara, and on this very night we shall begin to form a righteous army anew, one to vanquish the false light. We shall illuminate the dark corridor of space with a light of our own. Do you love me now? Do you trust me now?”

And she responds: “Yes.”

In the darkness, King Samael smiles.

X

Kanjel stares into the mirror into his ice-blue eyes for six minutes without blinking when the voice speaks to him inside of his head. ‘What are you doing with your existence?’ It asks him. He ignores it - static, he thinks. Another thought that needs to simply be turned off. But it does not go away, as he is usually able to make it. ‘I said what are you doing with your existence, Kanjel Artemin? What are you doing with your existence emanation of Geburah? What are you doing with your life Din-sun? “Go away,” he says into the mirror. His reflection does not go away. ‘You cannot ignore me,’ the voice says. ‘I am not some meme under your command.’ “Then what are you?” he says into the reflection. “I am Lilith,” says a voice from behind him. “Your wife.”

He whips around frantically, but sees no one there. He turns around, and there she is - in the mirror. Staring at him from over his shoulder. He turns his head once more to look behind himself, but she is not there - at least not in this realm. He looks into the mirror again and now her arms are wrapped his bare chest. She stares into his eyes with her own perfect green emerald eyes. The pupils are large and black like onyx. She smiles, her lips look the texture of ripe cherries. She smells faintly of incense. Yet Kanjel knows she is not really there - not at all. He does not turn his face away from the mirror this time.

“You could be so much more,” she says, and then pushes her face into the side of his own, smelling his hair and skin. “You are so beautiful,” she responds. She puts her hand toward his groin and cups it, then looks at him smiling. “Too bad you have no genitalia.” “I have no need of genitalia,” responds Kanjel. Lilith laughs, and regardless of his lack of genitalia he feels an indistinct heat growing in his chest - and he cannot say why. “Do humans have need of genitalia?” she asks. “Yes,” he responds. “It is how they dispose of waste and procreate.” “And recreate,” she adds. “Yes,” he says. “And recreate.” “Well,” she says, “they only need it because God made them to need it. You don’t need it because God didn’t make you to need it.” “That’s correct,” he says. She shakes her head disappointedly. “You don’t get it,” she says. “God is an asshole.”

Kanjel turns away from her and no longer looks into the mirror, walking away. He remembers his dream of her quite well, and from what he can piece together, she is no saint herself. A demon, in fact, and a self-declared and shameless one. Not worthy of his time, consideration - and certainly not worthy of the risk. He still hears laughter in his ear. “Do you think you can ignore me?” she says. “After that fucking I gave you last night?”

‘You raped me,’ he thinks. He hears sarcastic crying echoing throughout his mind. “Get over it,” says the voice. “We’ve all got issues. Jesus Christ.” ‘You don’t have the right to take the Lord’s name in vain, demon-bitch,’ he thinks at her. “Oh, and you do?” responds her voice. “You’re one to talk. The only reason the old bastard hasn’t cast you down into hell with the rest of us is because you’re such a bad ass. But we all have expiration dates, so stop being an idiot.” ‘What are you talking about?’ he thinks back to her. “Fallen means used up. Expired. Figured out. He casts us out when we figure out what a stupid old fucker he is.” Kanjel tries to turn her voice down in his mind - a technique taught to him many centuries ago by, of all things, a human - and she barks mad laughter into his ear from nowhere. “I told you, I’m not a meme.”

‘What do you want from me?’ he thinks at her. “I want you for myself,” she says. “You are an excellent lover. Or at least, you are when you’re asleep.” He cannot respond to this, and only sends a primitive wave of hate and revulsion at her. Her voice chuckles. “It doesn’t matter how screwed up you think I am, or any of the other spirits… just because we’re insane, it doesn’t make your sick God sane.” ‘Things are the way they are,’ responds Kanjel. ‘That’s just how it has to be.’ “I like humans,” she says, almost seeming to respond to something else. “Do you know why?” she asks. ‘No,’ thinks Kanjel. “Because they have balls,” she says. “Unlike angels.”

Kanjel does not respond, and after a moment he realizes she is gone. He has been standing in a hotel room having this mental conversation for over ten minutes now, and he looks at his reflection in the dark television. He wonders if humans know how dangerous it is keep these dark mirrors just laying around in the open - in the rooms they sleep in, no less! - but then assumes it is because they are ignorant.

How will he get rid of this witchery that has been cast on him? His sleep is being attacked, and this Lilith has developed an attachment to him through a dream. Angels do not dream as a rule, and he knows his first and only dream - of Lilith, no less - is sinister in and of it’s own manifestation. This is an ill omen for him. God will not be pleased to know this temptress has found an in-road to his mind… and what had she been talking about? About God being found out - about figuring something out? About expiration dates?

Did not eternal mean eternal?

Kanjel tried to remember his creation and youth. He could not. Had he not been doing this forever? He tried to remember the beginning, but could imagine nothing. He has always been intervening in this realm… but this realm isn’t that old. The humans aren’t that old, and neither are demons he has been policing - for they are just emanations of the human mind, correct? They are not real, not like the angels - Hell is a place that humans send themselves to torment themselves.

He ponders for a moment, looking into the dark scrying mirror - the television - and a hideous thought occurs to him. If Hell is part of the human imagination, manifest in the realm of energy - the afterlife - as he has always been taught… isn’t it possible that Heaven is nothing more than the same thing? Isn’t it possible that he is… not real?

It doesn’t make sense. Just as humans react when confronted with the idea of non-existence - that is to say, utterly dumbfounded confusion - the angel reacts as well. He doesn’t not understand and has no desire to contemplate. He is real, he is flesh and blood - at least, so it seems. He is not just another emanation… and no, he knows, angels do not have expiration dates. He would have known about that a long time ago. He knows it would not have been kept from him. The Fallen were cast out because they rejected God and rebelled against him with the angel Samael, and they were punished accordingly, trapped in the realm of the human imagination…

His head starts to hurt.

Something about this doesn’t make sense. What is it?

How are the Fallen simply emanations of human fear and loathing if they fell from Heaven? How are ‘memes’? Lilith had specifically said she was not a meme, although it is contrary to everything Kanjel has been taught about demons. Would there truly be a hole so large in his understanding of the spiritual realm that had bypassed his notice?

He fights off this darkness. It is the poison of Lilith - she is trying to drag him down to hell with her. This spiritual conflict is juvenile. God had relegated the demons to the human imagination because they rejected him - he had stripped them of their divine status, and thus the privilege of reality. Now they could only exist in the human subconscious, the Under-Lands - Hell. But Hell is on the flip-side of Heaven, so what does that make Heaven? Can God really sort out the difference between real and imaginary?

Surely he can, as he is all-powerful, omniscient and omnipresent.

Omnipresent? Doesn’t that mean he’s in everything? That means he is in the demonic as well as the angelic. That means he is everything. That means he is Kanjel, and he is Lilith, and he is the mirror between them.

Suddenly Kanjel falls to his knees and begins to cry. He stops immediately and begins to punch the floor repeatedly. Suddenly there is a banging on the underside, but he does not stop. He continues to punch and cry and after a few moments, there is a loud knock on the door. “Hello!?” shouts a woman from behind it. “Everything okay in there?!”

His eyes immediately dry up and he looks toward the door of the room. That’s when he flips.

He’s in a dingy room with a wooden floor and a rusty “mattress” - or rather, the rusty skeletal springs that made it up - in the corner of the room. On top of it is an ancient skeleton, half of which appears to have simply turned to dust. Standing in the corner is Lilith, and unlike she had looked in the human realm, he sees her now in all her profane glory. She stands naked and glistening wet, with olive green flesh unblemished and color-aside, human looking. Large brown eyes - completely brown, without iris or pupil - stare at Kanjel. Her lips are parted to reveal pearly white teeth that are perfect, except for two long and sharp fangs where the front incisors should be. She has curly red hair which extends all the way down to her feet. Her body is flawless. She walks toward him.

“Hello, stud,” she says. She finally reaches him and puts her hand in his hair. “This is all a game,” she says. “You don’t see that you’ve been played by something else.” He shakes his head. “You are a demon,” he says. “I should kill you.” She laughs. “You can’t kill me,” she says. “I haven’t come over to the earthen realm - except in your mind, maybe.” He pulls himself to his feet and stretches his wings, making to take off into the air. “Wait!” she calls. He looks at her. “I really do love you,” she says. “You don’t even know me,” he responds. “And angels and demons are not capable of loving each other.” “You know nothing,” she says. “I have many things I could tell you.” He shakes his head. “I don’t want your apple, serpent.” Still, he does not take flight immediately.

“You think we are different,” she says. “You think you’re an angel and I’m a demon. But that’s just because he gives us different titles.” “Enough,” he says. “Things are the way they are.” “You don’t believe that,” she responds. “I saw you break down in that hotel room. It was pitiful. You are realizing he’s lying to you and you don’t know what to do about it.” “God cannot lie,” Kanjel responds. “He is the voice of the natural order. Everything he speaks is nature.” She nods. “Right,” she says. “But why create us if we were going to rebel from him? Is that natural?” “Yes,” he says. “God gave you free will. You used it to rebel.” She laughs hysterically for a moment and then runs her finger across his chest, gazing into his eyes from her own.

“You’re being silly,” she says. “Do you not realize the way of that? Slavery is freedom. You have free will, just don’t use it. Don’t you see? It makes no sense. Free will is either evil or good. Rebellion is either evil or good.” “It’s not so simple,” he says. “Then explain it to me,” she replies without a moment’s hesitation. He says nothing. He has nothing he can say - he cannot explain it anymore than he can understand her argument.

Her hand moves to his face and she touches him a moment longer, but he suddenly slaps it away. “The reason I obey is because I don’t want to be here, with you, trapped forever in the Under-Lands.” “We’re not trapped at all,” she replies. “In fact, your job is to bring the free ones back here.” He shakes his head. “I don’t care,” he says. “I’m not going to be stuck here. This place is Hell.” She grins one final time. “Do you really think Heaven is any better? Look at what you’re doing for eternity. I’m in hell because I refused to do that. You’ll refuse one day too. See you around,” she says. He flips back to the hotel room and realizes that the pounding on the door and on the floor has stopped.

Things have been rather disconcerting since Lilith arrived. He hopes that this is not going to be a problem.

Hadn’t she said she was once just like him, hunting down other Fallen? What was the implication of that? Is that what she had meant by expiration dates.

Suddenly another voice speaks to him from inside of his own mind - a voice that sounds like his own. “Stop lying to yourself,” it says. “You know damn well what she said. She said you’re a slave. You’re nothing but a fucking slave.” He fights again the thought. No! He’s not a slave! He’s a warrior for God… he’s spreading the truth and saving good souls. He’s spreading light. He’s not a slave. He has free will. He has free will and always has.

Right?

Isn’t that right?

He can almost here Lilith laughing, but he knows this time it actually is just a memory.

What would happen if he refused? What if he couldn’t send one of the assigned souls back to hell? Would God send him to Hell?

And what of the Elohim, chained forever in Heaven and forced to watch the humans folly? Kanjel has always thought this cruel. Still, isn’t cruelty part of what is necessary for the universe? He ponders on what she said about Heaven being like Hell - that was not possible. They were polar opposites. There were no slaves in Heaven… although, now that he thinks about it, he’s not so sure he’s always felt that way. But he can’t remember how he always used to feel - he can’t even remember how he came to be. The days drift into each other and collide. Did he always used to be so bitter and foul-mouthed? He doesn’t think so. He used to be truly just and wonderful and wise, and he would help the humans whenever he could by taking out the predators that hunted them with careful precision.

If he has questioned God’s tactics before, it has only made him question his own loyalty. God does not make mistakes. Isn’t God by definition in charge of everything and perfect? But what is perfection?

A paralyzing thought occurs to him for only a brief second before he is able to shut it out and repress it (yes, even angels do this - in fact, they do it far more than human beings do). What if God is not God? What if the god he serves is just… a god? And not THE God?

What if… what if…

What if he is not real? Just an emanation as he feared?

Suddenly the nature of Heaven and Hell is not so clear to him. Suddenly -

Lightning crashes in the distance and the mirror in the bathroom of the hotel room shatters - a sign, he knows, from his Creator. A voice screams at him from all around the room, through the walls, through the scrying mirror/television. It screams into his soul, shriveling it, making it cower in fear. “BLASPHEME AGAIN,” the voice says, “AND YOU WILL GET YOUR WISH. EAT OF THE APPLE IF YOU SO DESIRE, OR LEAVE IT TO ROT AS I INTENDED!”

For now, Kanjel Artemin leaves the apple to rot.

For now.

To be continued...

[michael christopher]

BTW everything I'm posting on this site is all obviously in rough draft format.

This work protected by copyright. Copying material
from here without my expressed written permission is against the law.
The electronic documents posted here are the intellectual property of Michael Christopher Thompson II. Copyright 2009.

XI


Joseph Gordon is beginning to realize that the acid is starting to kick in. The world feels different, and he feels more alive and vivid than ever. His perspective has slipped and he can’t quite place his finger on where he is - he did just take fourteen blotters of acid about forty-one minutes ago. This is just the beginning. Sudden waves of fear and excitement begin to sweep over him. He knows he is going to be stuck now, in this hyper-reality for what will seem like an endless eternity, and the roller coaster is just going up the hill now. An exclamation point is flashing in his brain - something about where he is should be important. Something about this setting…

He looks around dazedly. There are eight other men in black robes. He senses that he is wearing one as well. Some of them are looking around like he is. There is an older Asian man who Joseph does not recognize, although really, he doesn’t think he can recognize any of these men. Three middle aged white men with unremarkable features sit cross-legged in their cloaks as well. One of them is staring at the floor, one of them has his eyes closed, and the third is staring unblinkingly at Joseph. He finds this a trifle unsettling, but he decides not to let it bother him - at least while he still has the capacity to make decisions of such a complex nature. That capacity shall be gone soon.

He vaguely remembers who these people are, and why they are all here together. Vaguely. It’s slipping though, along with everything else - along with his identity and memories, along with his habits, both good and bad, along with his personal taste (most of which is rather gruesome) - his identity itself. It is disappearing, and one final cognizant thought occurs to him as he considers how his mind is rapidly degenerating: on fourteen hits of acid, is it theoretically possible that his identity won’t be returning?

It’s a question that Joseph doesn’t get to answer because Joseph has left the building. To where? I cannot say. Now there is only this observer, this witness, who is forgetting all contexts and thoughts, all programs. His mind has gone from a complex operating system to a blank, blinking blue screen. “Enter command?” say his eyes. “Enter command?”

The observer hears footsteps from behind him and slowly spins his head toward the source of the noise. Standing behind him is a rather large fat man wearing a blue t-shirt with what appears to be a potion on it. It’s in a beaker and the color of the liquid is red, which screams into the observer’s eyes - he can hear the color in his mind, wheeling around, scratching at the walls. The colors begin to overwhelm him. Everything is suddenly sinking, and he feels himself falling downward, and a voice speaks out to him in English - the voice of the man wearing the t-shirt? Yes, he thinks, that sounds right. “You’re falling,” says the man. “Keep falling for a few minutes.”

Lucifage stares at the nine men rolling around on the floor strangely and smiles. Wait until he brings out the children, he thinks… tonight he will offer his sacrifice and his retraction to the Arch-Princes. The children have already been killed and now their bodies will be burnt, and these men he will have no problem into coercing into the rhythmic chants. Soon they will be nothing more than puppets, extensions of himself. The acid was a good idea, he thinks. Hatfield has gone missing, and he doesn’t know where. He can’t get the children anymore without risking himself, and he doesn’t want to be in a human prison anymore than he wants to be back in hell. Even less so, really.

After the ceremony has concluded, he will send these men out to kidnap nine more children. If his apologies and grace are not accepted by the Arch-Princes, then he will simply continue the ceremony. He has set up a protective spell to prevent them from knowing where he’s at when the connection is made to the Under-Lands. It’s about as close to hell as he’s willing to go. He has purposely avoided flipping because he knows it will alert the ones that are after him to his presence and whereabouts, and since the Divine Realm is overlapping the earthen realm, they can pinpoint his location here as well.

So he has been pretending to be Luke Roffey for six months now. Human emotions in this human body are quite strange. He has never had to deal with regret before, or depression. Sometimes the man whose body he has taken will speak inside of his mind, and ask for some degree of control - of course, this request is always rejected. The man’s name had been Mike Reese, and he had been a practicing “Satanist” - living in his mother’s basement, playing Dungeons and Dragons and reeling against society. His age was thirty-three. He was doing nothing with his life, and then after years of doing nothing, he stumbled across some interesting websites dealing with demonic possession and communication.

Mike had never been a Christian - or a Muslim, or a Jew for that matter. He had never cared much for the New Age religion although he found it vaguely interesting. Always, however, he had been attracted to demons and orcs and trolls and the like. Something called out to him from those ancient legends and fairytales. He had always had a disdain for religion and perhaps his embrace of ritual Satanism - and not the “I only worship myself!” kind - was inevitable. His isolation caused in his behavior increasing extremes, as well as his sexual frustration. Mr. Reese was a virgin at the time of his taking.

His ignorance of the demonic realm had done him in. Six months ago, still living in his mother’s basement, he decided to try to conduct a ritual which he had read about on the internet. The ritual involved the sacrifice of a dog - and he had bought one just earlier that day for the specific purpose from a local pet store. The thing was only a puppy and he had kept a muzzle on it to keep it from making noise. His mother had never suspected it was here, and he would clean up the mess when she was no longer in the house. No harm, no foul, right? At least, no harm excluding the harm done to the puppy.

The thing had been done, and a hideously naked and blood-covered Mr. Reese had spoken these words into the air. “Binahanibinah! Binah! Hanib! Binah! Et Saturn! Et Set! Et Chronos! Ordo formo ordo graso. Binahanibinah Lucifage Rofocale! Find me, wayward one! Speak through me!” Lightning crashed outside as he lifted his hands into the air, and suddenly the electricity went out. Although conducted a Satanic ritual, Mr. Reese had not had the foresight (or class) to turn off his computer monitor, and he immediately noticed the darkness in the room. A few seconds later, the candles surrounding him had also blown out, leaving him covered in sticky dog’s blood in the darkness.

“H-hello?” he stammered out into the darkness. There was no response. “Lucifage?” he asked. “Rofocale? Binah?” No response. He sat shaking and the fear began to creep into him back then. Lucifage has his memories and can even what Mike’s sensations were as he felt Lucifage’s presence in that room - he remembers the terror at realizing that it was all true, that it was all real, and that he had just made the biggest mistake of his wasted life.

A cherry orange light had appeared in the darkness, and then beside it a few seconds later materialized another just like it, and they hovered in the air like burning coal eyes. “Hello, Michael Alexander Reese,” said a low scratchy voice. “Hello, you waste…” Mike had stood up then and began to run for the steps, but he was thrown twenty feet backward across the room and slammed into the concrete wall with a hard thud. “I bet you’re thinking ‘oops,’” the voice called out to him tauntingly.

The wind had been knocked out of his lungs, and he felt glued to the ground, magnetized. He tried to pull his large bulk off of the floor, but could not grab enough oxygen to complete the task. He only sat mute in the darkness, breathing loudly, wondering what it was that was speaking to him. Before he could gather enough energy to pull himself on the floor, he wasted the energy he had gathered on buzzing out a question to the strange voice. “What are you?!” he yelled out. He began to start to store up breath again - back to square one.

“Are you stupid?” the voice asked. “You’re the one that brought me here…” Mike tried to pull himself up then, but he was gently pushed back to the ground by strange hands that seemed to go slightly into him and at the same time which still placed pressure on his shoulders. He began to whimper and tears rolled down his eyes, wetting his stubbly cheeks. “I didn’t think anything was going to happen!” he said. “Can you just go back?!” There was strange, animalistic laughter in the darkness. “No,” said the voice, “in fact, thanks for getting me the fuck out of there. I was really getting tired of that fucking shithole.” “What do you want?” Mike asked exasperatedly, hoping he could escape this situation with his life, and more importantly, his soul.

“You called me,” responded the voice. “What do you want?” Mike lost it and begins to cry. He sputtered out his question in between loud, wet sobs. “I just… want you… to go back…” he says. “I offered… you a sacrifice…” “Yes, thanks and all that shit,” Lucifage had said to him. “I don’t care about the puppy though. You might as well have offered me a walnut. Doesn’t really hit the spot.” “Will you leave?” asked Mike desperately. “No,” replied Lucifage, “I already told you that. There’s your one question. That’s how it works, you get one question. What a waste. Waste seems to be a key word with you, Michael Alexander Reese. A prevalent theme in your life. Perhaps you should have learned from it.” Mike tried to stand up again, to run for the stairs, but he didn’t even make it as far to his feet this time as he did previously. He was shoved down hard this time and he let out a cry as his tail-bone connected with the concrete floor of the basement.

“Stop,” said Lucifage. “I don’t see your runes or your containment circle. Also, no auger.” “There’s no light! How can you see anything?!” Mike shrieked. Somehow his mother was not hearing this. He thought then that maybe if he yelled louder, he would be able to wake her. Lucifage laughed. “Oh, well I came when the lightning hit. That’s how I shifted over. It took more energy than the puppy though, so mommy’s dead now… sorry. She won’t be waking up.” “No!” screamed Mike, and he began to cry like a baby. “Shut your slobbering ape’s mouth,” Lucifage had yelled at him, snapping. Mike tried, but couldn’t. He felt a slap across the face, and then a large claw cut into his forehead. He cried out, but a wet hand clapped over his mouth.

“I said shut the fuck up,” Lucifage said. “Where are your runes? And the circle? And the auger? Were you too stupid to draw them up?” Mike didn’t know what he was talking about - all he had read on the internet was a recipe for summoning a demon. He didn’t know what an auger was, or what runes would protect him, why he even needed protection, or why a circle would matter. He tried to speak through his muffled mouth, but couldn’t get anything out. “What’s that?” Lucifage had said in the darkness, and then he removed his hand. “No,” said Mike, still crying. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Lucifage had laughed then triumphantly.

Thank God - it was a sign. Another stupid fucking human had summoned him without even knowing to draw the protective circle. Now he was allowed to stay here for as long as he wanted. “Oh, well,” said Lucifage then, delighted. Suddenly the electricity flashed back on and Mike saw himself face to face with the demon he had summoned. He saw a slimy, misshapen monster. It had deep green flesh, like old rotten eggs, and three horns protruded in a twisted spiral from it’s head. It’s yellow eyes appeared to be much too close together and were tiny and beady; it’s nose was virtually non-existent and pig-like. When it grinned, Mike could see it’s scarred purple gums from which yellow teeth shot out like rocks from the earth at the bottom of a cliff.

“You could have pulled me through the dog’s auger,” Lucifage said. Mike began to scream and he felt himself going mad. No coherent thought came into his mind and he realized that this demon’s hand was still on his shoulder. He tried to shake it off, but the thing tightened it’s grip and leaned in and kissed him on the lips. Mike was revolted and pulls away, unable to stop himself himself from vomiting all over the floor. The creature stood up and walked away from him then. Mike looked at it and stood up, dashing for the stairs. He was thrown back again, this time into his own vomit.

“I have telekinetic powers, dipshit,” said the thing to him as he lay gasping. “I’m a fucking Arch-Demon. What made you decide to summon me, specifically?” he has asked Mike. Mike couldn’t think, he couldn’t even hear the question. Lucifage had rolled his strange eyes and sent a bolt of electricity into Mike’s brain. His insanity suddenly began to die, as well as his confusion and anxiety. He looked at Lucifage, all the panic having left him then. Something had happened in his mind. He could think now without feeling insane - all of those strange emotions had left him. At least for now. This was not normal. He knew he should be screaming, and would be he had not felt something moving around inside of his mind just now…

“I…” Mike started. He grabbed his head, rubbing his temples. “I picked your name at random from a website.” Lucifage laughed. What fucking luck. Surely this was a sign from God that he would be accepted back into Heaven, back into the Upper-Lands? Perhaps he could even go into the demon-hunting business once again as an angel of God. “At random?” he asks humorously. “Really?” “Yes,” Mike replied simply. “What website?” Lucifage had asked. “I don’t know,” Mike said. “I googled it. It said you were the Arch-Demon if the Binah and that to summon you I had to say certain words and sacrifice a puppy in the darkness of night.” Lucifage was laughing inside - the first time in centuries that he has found anything amusing. Human beings are incredibly stupid, he knew. “Well,” he says after a moment, “I bet you’re beginning to gather that you’ve made a mistake.”

“Yes, I think so,” Mike had responded. “Yeah, well, you’ve asked your question, so now I get to do what I want. Because you didn’t read the part on that website - assuming it was even there - about how to protect yourself. So I can just walk around as I please and do whatever I want, you idiot. I could walk across the street to the gas station and eat a human being in front of everything. Of course that would be pretty stupid.” Mike felt himself wanting to be horrified, but the emotion did not come to him. He sat silently, almost zen-like, and continued to stare at Lucifage.

“Here’s the deal,” Lucifage said. “If I’m here in this body, I actually do have to eat some people. And that makes for a lot of explanations. For you, and me. First, all the people I kill - they’re just going to blame it on you. And if I’m stuck here in this body, I’m going to kill a lot of people, trust me. I’ll go back to hell, and I have some police of my own to answer to if that happens.” “I don’t understand,” said Mike. “Hell is looking for you?” Lucifage grunted. “You already had your question,” he responded. He knew that Hell was not looking for him yet - because it is permitted for Arch-Demons to leave to communicate with humans. However, they would be looking for him soon, because he didn’t plan on returning. It was pure luck that he arrived in this stupid man’s house without the auger or ring to keep him stabilized, and now he could walk around as he pleased - and he was NOT going back to Hell. At least not unless he had to, which would be the case if God rejected his apology.

“I can go in through your auger,” says Lucifage. “What?” Mike said simply. “I go in you and we both win. No one knows where to find me, and I don’t have to kill a hundred people a week to keep from starving.” “Why can’t you just eat normal food?” asked Mike. Lucifage had run up to him with teeth bared and pushed his face into Mike’s - of course, the human did not react. Lucifage backed up. He forgot he had purposely calmed this man down so he could question him and figure out how to work the situation. “I told you, one question,” he says. And it’s a stupid one anyway. He can’t eat people food because he only eats people. Duh. Do humans eat the same grass that they feed their livestock?

“As I was saying, I can go in through your auger hole. I can live inside you. I can be you. We can think of it like a symbiosis… I help you, you help me.” “I don’t want to,” Mike responded flatly. “I don’t care,” Lucifage said. “Get a knife from upstairs. You really should have painted some of those runes on yourself.”

Mike had gone upstairs and come back down with a knife. “Does your mother have a sewing kit?” Lucifage had asked then. “Yes,” Mike responded, “it’s down here in the basement actually.” Lucifage smiled a hideous jagged grin. “Excellent,” he said. “Go ahead and cut open your stomach and feel around in there for an intestine.” Mike did not panic at this, because he was not capable of panicking, but he did make a statement. “Won’t I bleed to death?” he said. Lucifage shook his head. “There are certain arcane arts which will prevent that from happening. Which I know. Don’t question me anyway, just do it.” Mike had been unable to resist. Something about the way the demon spoke commanded him, and he could not fight against those commands.

He had plunged the knife into his stomach and cut, and then, as suggested, he felt around until a small knot of intestine was in his hand. The pain was more enormous than humanly imaginable, and anyone would have passed out - except that Mike was under a spell. He was now more automaton than man, and pain and blood loss and things like this could not effect him. There was a strange atmosphere in this room, something which kept from dying of shock right on the spot.

After he pulled it out, Lucifage had cut it open and chanted a few words, and then he had gone inside - shrinking somehow, and yet at the same time, it was almost as if the world around him had merely grow larger - Mike included - and the workings of the spell were upon him. Such sensations and were felt as to be beyond description, and in the flash of an instant many things had happened that were unaccounted for. Mike fell to his knees still holding the intestine and began to gasp. The spell was being broken, he was losing it and he was about to pass out from the enormous pain and blood loss.

That’s when Lucifage had taken over. He had laid on the ground and chanted a few words, gone to sleep (somehow) and he woke up the next day with only a bleeding wound in his stomach. The intestines had been re-knotted through the use of black magic in the darkness of the night, and in the morning he used Mike’s rather unimpressive brain to locate the needle and thread and stitch up his own stomach. Mike Reese had left town permanently that day, and Luke Roffey had emerged - the synthesis of Mike and Lucifage.

Well, a synthesis of sorts. For all intents and purposes Mike Reese is dead and has no say in the use of his own body.

Alright, thinks Lucifage - Luke Roffey. Time to bring out the kiddies.

He turns around and walks away from the squirming men. Some are moaning, some are chanting, and some are calling out names and dates. Some are speaking in tongues, and some are speaking in English. As Lucifage walks away, he hears one of the men scream out “Lash me! Crucify me! Make me suffer!” Well, maybe at some point, thinks Lucifage.

He enters the back room and he sees a man standing over the two bodies. He only sees the man from behind and he stops. “Who the fuck are you?” he asks. The man has a thick patch of dark hair and is wearing a nice suit with a deep black cloak on over it. It turns around. His green eyes are strange and human - different than they usually are - but Lucifage knows immediately who he is looking at. A small scar is cut into his bottom lip, and it looks white and milky. His hair is slightly long and black and hangs over his face like a shroud. It is slightly curly. “Lord Belial…” he says, “Arch Prince.” He kneels before Belial. “Exalted one.” Belial walks to him and places his foot under Lucifage’s kneeling face. Lucifage kisses it, but then Belial kicks him in the face, sending him flying a few feet across the room.

Lucifage wipes the blood coming out of his mouth, but says nothing. “So,” says Belial, “How are things?” Lucifage begins to grovel desperately. “I’m sorry I left!” he says. “I was so afraid! I didn’t know what to do anymore!” Belial looks amused, but he does not laugh. “So you went back to him?” he says. “You went back to that old bastard?” Lucifage shakes his head. “No!” he says. “No, I am still in the service of Hell!” Belial finally laughs, although it sounds false and shrill, hollow. “Yes,” he says, “of course. That’s why you deserted your post.” “I’m so sorry!” cries Lucifage. Belial tosses his hand up at him. “Enough,” he says. “We have good workers bringing angels over to our side on a daily basis. Right now we even have Lilith about to bring over a Geburahn emanation to Hell. And by the way, he will be your replacement.” “No!” shrieks Lucifage. “Forgive me! Please!” “No,” says Belial. “I’m only here to kill you.”

Lucifage tries to think, and suddenly a light bulb goes on over his head. “I have information for you!” he says. “I can help you! I know where there is another renegade… another deserter. And unlike me, he does not want to serve you.” “Of whom do you speak?” Belial asked indifferently. “Barbatos…” whispered Lucifage. “He is going by the human name Daniel Stone. He has been hanging around Washington lately… not D.C.” “And how do you know this?” asks Belial. “There’s a lot of us that talk on the internet… you know, exiles, demons who aren’t in hell.” “Oh yes, I know all about all of you,” says Belial. “How do you think I found you in the first place?” Lucifage looks up at him pleadingly. “Please,” he begs. “Please don’t kill me. I’ll help you find Barbatos. I’ll kill him for you! Send me to kill him! Anything for you!” Belial shakes his head uninterestedly, which prompts Lucifage to cry out in horror and fear. “Please!” he begins. Belial ignores him.

“I already know where he’s at, in fact he’s next on my list of stops to make. Tell me, you have some ceremony going on out there?” “Yes!” screams Lucifage. “Those children! I killed them for you! And others! And I can kill more! I was going to send out my men tonight to get them -” “Your men?” says Belial. “Yes!” “Well, they’re now my men,” he says. “I can make some use of them.” Lucifage begins to cry. “Are you going to kill me?” “I’m going to kill Mike Reese’s body,” says Belial. “But I’m not going to kill you. Because to make you stop existing would be far too nice. What I’m going to do to you is going to make the boredom of watching your post in hell seem like the greatest height of Heaven. Oh, Lucifage,” he says, “you have barely even experienced Hell.”

[michael christopher]

This work protected by copyright. Copying material
from here without my expressed written permission is against the law.
The electronic documents posted here are the intellectual property of Michael Christopher Thompson II. Copyright 2009.

XII

Davis Hatfield stares at the quivering red thing hanging from the cross and his teeth chatter maddeningly. This is beyond belief. It cannot be happening. “Lord forgive me, for I have sinned,” he moans, and the thing only smiles, slowly pulling it’s hands - nails and all - from the bloody wooden cross that it hangs from. “Davis…” it whimpers at him, and then it grins, turning it’s mouth an indefinable jagged red shape that spews forth slimy red blood which pools on the floor below. “You will serve me well,” it gurgles at him. “Yes, my Lord,” he says subserviently, with more than a little fear edging through his voice. “Please don’t send me to Hell!” he begs. He lowers his head and aims it toward the creature which pulls free from the cross it’s second hand. Having done this it falls forward from the blood-stained tree and the nails rip free from it’s feet as it does leaving large holes in the center of them. It hits the ground with a sickening thud. It lays for a moment and then begins to move, and it moans out a question to Hatfield as it does.

“Do you know who I am?” the creature asks as it pulls itself to it’s feet. “You are the Messiah!” Hatfield shrieks frantically, his head still lowered as he quivers in fear. He hopes this was the right answer. He feels his bladder let go as he hears the thing starts dragging itself toward him along the carpet. Blood trails out from behind it’s feet leaving two dark lines on the black stones. “I am your Messiah,” it says. “I am Salvation.” “Yes!” shouts Hatfield. “Praise Salvation!” “I am Sacrifice,” it says. “Hallelujah!” “Shut your mouth, sinner” it commands. Hatfield’s mouth snaps shut so fast he clips off a few millimeters from the end of his tongue. Pain jolts into his brain and his eyes go wide. He holds back a scream as blood begins to flow from his lips. His nerves shriek out in horrified rage at the damage he has just inflicted on himself. “I am Agony,” the blasphemous thing says. “I am Ecstasy. I am Savior. I am Counterfeit. I am Truth.” It nears him, dragging it’s right foot behind it while it spews out thicker rivulets of black blood on the strange stone floor now than it was previously. “My name is Legion.”

Finally, Hatfield looks up. He is unable to repress a scream and he leaps backwards in a manner that is almost inhuman in it’s speed. He hits one of the stone pews and a jolt of hot pain surges up his neck. Black dots swim in his eyes and suddenly they turn to white, filling up his vision and momentarily blinding him. He can still sense the thing approaching, he can hear it, and panic begins to overtake him. “Forgive me, Lord!” he commands. It laughs, but it’s laugh is utterly different from it’s voice - demonic laughter booms throughout the room, echoing off of the walls. Somehow Hatfield’s bladder lets go a second time and he begins to madly shriek. “Forgiveness? There is no forgiveness,” says Legion. “There is only penance. Will you pay your penance, sinner?”

“Yes! Yes, anything, please don’t send me to Hell!” The insane, demonic laughter echoes throughout the room again and Hatfield finds himself shrieking like a woman.

Legion approaches him and runs a bloody hand through his hair. Hatfield continues to shriek. Blood pours out of the wound in the false-Christ’s hand and began to ooze into his hair and down his face. Hatfield can suddenly taste it, it’s saltiness is bitter and foul, sulphuric almost. He vomits on the floor and the thing only looks down him, although it’s smile has disappeared.

“You are already in Hell,” Legion says. Hatfield thinks he has heard it correctly, but he is still reeling from his sudden illness. Absurdly, he says “Pardon?” with an extremely confused look plastered across his face. “You are already in Hell,” Legion repeats. “You were bound for this place long ago.” “No,” groans Hatfield, and he pulls himself to his feet slowly holding onto a pew. He tries to move away, but feels like he is tracking through molasses. “I am Savior,” it states. “I am the one you have always worshiped. I am Salvation.” Hatfield does not verbally respond, he only drunkenly shakes his head back and forth to indicate that this is not - cannot be - a true statement. He stumbles forward and falls on his face, breaking his nose with a quick and unpleasant snap. He begins to cry and tries to lift himself up.

“What… did you… do…” he asks desperately. “Drugged… drugged me… someone drugged me… hallucinating…” Legion walks toward him and stands before his face, and puts it’s feet below Hatfield’s lips. The minister - ex-minister, we suppose - tries to throw up again, but is only able to dry heave. “If you wish,” Legion says. “Still, I am the one you worshiped. I am the one you all worship.” Hatfield slowly looks up and he sees the red human-looking thing staring down at him through blurred eyes. Slowly they clear up and he sees it in stark reality - it’s skin burned almost to the point of a lobster-esque red, it’s cracked yellow eyes looking out as if baked beneath a stove. The pupils are faded white. It’s black hair is matted to it’s head it wears a crown of thorns from which black blood pours out beneath and down onto his face. As it smiles, he notices it’s teeth are jagged and yellow, looking not sharpened but actually broken off. It’s tongue is a deep, sickening purple.

It wears a tattered and blood-soaked crimson robe, and the parts that are ripped reveal cuts and whip lashes that seep it’s sickly red blood - poisoned blood. This thing looks like a perverse, Satanic parody of Christ to Hatfield. “You’re Satan!” he exclaims as if having had a sudden revelation. His energy seems to return to him, if only because the fear speeds up his heart rate. He falls back on his hands and knees and backs up. The thing smiles at him. “My name is Legion,” the thing repeats. “Legion is the devil!” Hatfield answers immediately, as if saying it provides him some kind of power. The thing laughs again and Hatfield thinks he is going to let his bladder go a third time, but he seems to have emptied himself.

“You are so ignorant,” the thing says. “But you are here because you must be educated. I told you, I am your Christ. I am your Messiah. I am your Salvation. I am your Truth.” “Then…” Hatfield says, remembering horrifyingly the other names the thing called Legion had attached to itself. “Agony…” he whispered. It’s smile faded this time, and it said seriously “Yes, my name is also Agony.” “What…” starts Hatfield, and he feels his heart beating fast. How is his heart beating if he’s in Hell? Why does he feel alive? How can he get sick, how can he throw up?

“Why am I still alive?” says Hatfield. “How am I alive if I’m in Hell?” The thing only shakes it’s head and holds it’s hand up, showing a gaping hole in the center. It puts it in front of it’s yellowed eye. “How else do you explain this?” it asks. The grin returns. Hatfield wants to scream, but he can’t anymore. He feels completely drained, emptier than ever before in his life. He wants to cry, but he lacks even the energy to do that. He only stares stupidly at the monstrous thing before him, the blasphemous creature.

“You are one to judge, child-murderer,” it says. “You brought yourself here.” “No,” says Hatfield. “I don’t even remember dying!” “You haven’t died yet,” it says. “Maybe you will have that privilege one day. Your world is gone to you, though.” Hatfield cannot believe this - this has to be a dream. There has to be some way out of this place, some way that he can look up at the bright blue sky with a burning sun in it once more. “There is no sun in this world,” the thing says. “At least not here in the Edge-Lands. And the sun that is closer to the center…” What is this thing talking about? “It is no sun at all.” And is it reading his thoughts?

“Your thoughts are your words in this place to me, sinner,” it says, responding to his mental question. “You… Where am I? This is Hell?” “Hell is not such a simple place,” the thing says. “It is more complex than you might imagine.” “Are you going to torture me?” Hatfield asks. This seems to be the only question on his mind now, and the only thing that matters. “I only torture those who earn it,” the thing says. “Maybe one day you will be so lucky as to experience such pleasure…” “What?” Hatfield asks. He doesn’t understand.

“You don’t need to understand. You are here and you will serve me, as you have always served me. You preached my message in the other realm, even when you were pretending you didn’t murder children. You taught my lessons, you poisoned minds, you added to my number. Now you are Legion, Hatfield, as are so many you have damned… together you are all what I am.” “Are you Satan?” Hatfield asks again dumbly. Nothing is sinking in. “My name is Legion,” the thing repeats mechanically.

“I want you to gather those souls here in this place for me…” it says. “I want you to bring them here to this Citadel. There is much work to be done. Many souls must be saved. You are the only man capable of saving those souls, Hatfield.” “What do I have to do?” Hatfield asks. “Simply go forth and spread the good news,” it says smiling. “Spread the Gospel.” “What exactly… what exactly is the good news?” Hatfield asks. “I’m so glad you asked,” the thing says, and it begins to walk toward him grinning now in an inhuman way that causes Hatfield to resume his shrieking. As it nears him, it wraps it’s bloody hands around it’s face. Legion whispers, “Wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord.”

XIII

The email had been vague: “I can get you what you want,” it said. “Be at the Tri-County Mall at 7 PM in the food court on the second level, near Chicken Frisa. I’ll meet you there.” Barbados - aka Daniel Stone - didn’t know who it was from, only that it had come from “the network” as he has come to think of it. It had come from a random anonymous email address - literally anon238234@imail.com. He has received messages like this before - they are always strange and cryptic, and they always give him some kind of a lead, or at the very least something to do - some rabid demon dog that needs to be put down usually. He has collected quite the number of souls since we last saw him - twenty-two now, actually. If he was killing humans, he would be considered a serial killing mass murderer at this point - but we all know that it isn‘t humans that he‘s killing.

He knows what this email means. Someone is after him and they’ve almost caught up. Perhaps the meeting itself is a trap - it wouldn‘t be the first time he’s walked into one. Usually he likes walking into traps because he always seems to turn out to be the lucky one when things are said and done. Of the twenty-two demon souls that he’s extinguished, at least thirteen of them were quite powerful and put up a rather… entertaining fight. But who sent the message, even if it is a trap? One of the angels? Or worse, one of the demons? Can they have found him?

He doesn’t know what kind of security he warrants. Perhaps the big guns will come after him, or perhaps lowlier types will be sent his way. His kill-count makes him dangerous. Perhaps if he had only killed a few he could have stayed under the radar - but he knows he’s gone too far, and now he’s alerted some attention. The fact that he’s killed many makes him dangerous, regardless of the fact that many of the demons he killed were escapees from Hell themselves that would have simply been tortured or extinguished by the Arch-Demons that captured them. That means that they could send anyone after him. He suspects that the message was referring to some trail-following Arch-Demon or Arch-Angel.

So he’s here now, waiting to find out. He doesn’t know if the person who sent the email knows what he looks like, but he knows that the person will be able to find out who he is by simply looking at him. Demons can always tell other demons by simply looking at them - it‘s as if they radiate some kind of warmth that is almost visible. A sheen of light seems to hover around them. Angels are a different story - they shine like lightning and crackle with electricity of a kind far more potent that what seems to make up demonic auras. If it was an angel that sent the message, then perhaps it meant something else. Perhaps God is ready to accept his apology and let him back into Heaven, and grant him his Divine status once more, freeing him from the bondage of Hell for eternity…

So now he’s sitting at the tables outside of the Chicken Frisa. It’s 7:05 PM. He checks his watch, then looks around. No one seems to be walking toward him. He can’t see anyone looking at him. Unfortunately, that’s because he’s not looking hard enough. Sitting about two-hundred feet away from him behind a large pillar are a man and a woman. The man should look rather familiar to us - we have met him twice, once as Sergio Montelvaz and more recently as Lord Belial. The woman looks somewhat familiar, but we have not seen her before - at least not like this. Curly red hair tumbles around her beautiful naked shoulders. She wears a strapless deep blue top that shows two inches of cleavage, faint black eye-shadow and cherry red lipstick. She stares out from behind saucer brown eyes and looks more gorgeous than any other woman in the mall - which is made obvious by the many hateful stares she is receiving from jealous girlfriends as they drag their staring husbands away from the food court.

If Barbatos wasn’t getting so arrogant, Belial thinks, perhaps he would notice all the attention she’s getting and it might direct his line of vision over to them. But he’s wrapped up in himself now. Belial can imagine what he’s thinking - he’s sure many paranoid conspiracies are going through his mind as possible purposes for this mysterious rendezvous. The obvious one is that it’s a trap, and he’s sure Barbatos has already come to this conclusion himself - but you would think that would make him more aware and not less aware, wouldn’t you? Demons these days, Belial thinks… they just aren’t made like they used to be.

“Lilith,” Belial says to the beautiful woman sitting across from him. “Yes?” she says. “When is your friend going to get here?” “He’ll be here soon. I think he’s taking the express route.” “Flying over then flipping in the bathroom?” Belial asks with a smirk on his face. “I believe so,” she responds. “What do you think they’ll do when they see each other?” he asks. “I don’t know,” she says timidly, “but are you so sure they won’t see us?” He reaches into his expensive jacked and pulls out a perfectly spherical black stone. He lays it on the table and it rolls toward Lilith. Her brown eyes follow it. “Do you know what that is?” he asks. “It looks familiar,” she says, “but I don’t think I’ve seen anything like it in a few thousand years so I can’t remember what it is…” He smirks. “That’s an Opus. It makes our essences virtually invisible. Your idiot angel friend will probably look right through us.” “What about Barbatos?” Lilith asks. “He has a better chance of seeing us because we’re from the same place,” Belial replies. He then casts a skeptical glance at Barbatos. “But I don’t think he’s going to look over here, he seems to have gotten extremely stupid since he escaped.”

“What are you hoping they’ll do?” Lilith questions. Belial grins, showing a row of perfect white teeth. “Well, your friend - what’s his name?” “Kanjel, and he’s not my fucking friend,” Lilith says sneering. “All of those fucking angels smell like shit. At least to me.” “Me as well,” Belial agrees. “You know, that’s what they think we smell like.” “Good,” she says. “Maybe they’ll stay the fuck away from us then.” “Do you remember what we planned for him?” he asks. “Yes,” she says. “But he won’t be an angel anymore then, will he?” Belial nods at her. “He’ll be all yours,” he says. She grins finally, and in spite of her beauty some demonic ugliness seems to shine through. “You’ve been tempting him well enough, I presume.” “Of course,” she says. “I am a competent employee.” “We understand and appreciate that,” Belial replies. “You’ve been with the company for a very long time. We are well aware of your loyalty.“ Then he continues to explain the plan to Lilith.

“Barbatos is going to figure out pretty quickly that Kanjel didn’t send that email. And Kanjel is not going to kill Barbatos - not immediately anyway - because he’s going to want to know who set this little rendezvous up. How do you think they’re going to figure it out?” Lilith shrugs. “You didn’t tell me that part yet.” Belial points at a man standing in the hallway to the public restrooms. He looks completely normal except for being somewhat scruffy and unkempt. He wears a blue flannel shirt with rolled up sleeves and faded light blue jeans. His face gives away the fact that he is slightly hung over. “What about him?” Lilith asks. “I gave him a piece of paper to give to them with an address on it. After they meet and talk for a moment, he’s going to walk up to them and drop it on the table. I’m sure your future boyfriend will want to be a big shot and chase him down, but the hu-man” (he pronounces this hugh-mann) “is not going to remember what I look like or who I am so we have nothing to worry about. He doesn’t even know what he’s doing. He’s just a machine until he’s executed the command I’ve given him, and he won’t be able to remember why he even did it. They’ll go to the address, and then…”

“Then what?” she asks, and she sounds anxious. He smiles that perfect white smile again. “Then we drop the cage door.”