Heaven's Lies

by Daniel Caet

  That is how the weeks went by and these were followed by months without getting any closer to my goal to my frustration, and I began to lose my patience. In other circumstances I would have resorted to much more drastic methods, but the fact that my only option for the weapon to return to me was by voluntary delivery tied my hands. To complicate everything, the rest of my life conspired to be forced to move away from Gaius.

  One morning a few knocks woke me up in the fragile wooden door of the room where I slept.

  “My lord, you better come soon!” said Placia with a hint of fear in her voice.

  I was tempted to give her a voice and tell her to leave me alone since the night before I had really retired late, but something in her trembling voice made me get up. I threw a blanket over and opened the door to find the woman looking at me with a broken face.

  “Sorry to bother you, my lord, but there is something you should see.”

  I followed her without asking anything to the main room of the tavern where Baal was waiting for me, watching something deposited on the table. As I approached, I found that it was a clay pot, but what was striking was not the object, but the smell that it gave off and that I could immediately recognise, the smell of death.

  “We've found this when we came down for breakfast this morning. It carries Belial’s seal,” said the demon very seriously.

  My eyes were placed again on the vessel, not too large, covered with a cloth as a plug that was sealed to the container with what looked like a piece of animal skin and, on it, the seal that Baal was referring to and that I could recognise immediately.

  The symbols on the seal, which could only be read by someone who knew the ancient demonic languages, belonged to Baal’s brother; a violent, cruel creature with a love for power comparable only to his love for human flesh. Without thinking for a second, I took the vessel in my hands and threw it on the floor, knowing what I could find inside. The vessel was shattered and towards my feet rolled Kashna’s severed head. Placia gave a stifled scream, bringing her hand to her mouth while Baal ordered her to shut up. The face of my former lover observing me from the ground, with her eyes drawn, was the bearer of a clear and powerful message. Belial had usurped my place on the throne of hell, and he was trying to persuade me with that threat to keep away and never come back. And he and I both knew that would only mean one thing, that I would return immediately. I knew that would take me away from Gaius and my goal in Rome, and that it would ruin everything I had achieved so much, but I could not afford to lose my status as lord of hell because, in case of recovering my sword, demonic legions could be my only weapon against Michael and his entourage. I was forced to take a step back in my plan in the hope that that would allow me to take two steps forward when the time came.

  “Baal!” I called.

  “Yes, my lord?”

  “Are you very close to your brother?”

  “We've hated each other since we were in our mother's womb, my lord” the demon replied smiling.

  “I'm glad, because I'm going to tear his guts and rub them through the nine kingdoms of hell. And you are going to help me.”

  Those were my last words before disappearing towards my usurped kingdom, and although I could not know it at that time, the wheel of destiny was going to run over Rome in my absence, destroying everything in its path.

  Oblivion

  A year passed before the situation in the underworld was stable enough to allow me to move away again. Just as I had promised, I had dragged Belial's guts all over hell and hung his body over my throne as a warning to anyone who wanted to sit on it again in my absence. To avoid any kind of stupid revenge, I had ordered the death of his thirty-seven children and his sixteen grandchildren, including one of them who had not yet left the womb, a wish that Baal had been delighted to fulfil. And so, between blood and rot, hell had known that his just master and lord had returned. When I finally felt safe to return to Rome I did it with apprehension, afraid of having lost every opportunity to win over Gaius and recover my sword, but nothing could prepare me for what I was going to find.

  My appearance in the middle of the Roman night went as unnoticed as the first time. When my steps took me through the doorway of the golden whore's door, the tavern was completely empty, except for Placia who was facing away from me with her huge ass in display while filling her mouth with the cock of a poor nobody who was sitting at one of the tables with his eyes closed and his hands on the woman's head.

  “Placia!” I shrieked, “move your filthy ass and prepare my room!”

  The woman must have recognised my voice as soon as she heard it, and she almost choked in the middle of her task raising her head as if by spring causing her client's complaints.

  “Hey, this is not what I paid you for!”

  “Shut up, you short dicked-moron!” she shouted in response. “Get out of here, out I tell you!” And she threw him out of the tavern without regard and without giving the poor man his money back.

  “My lord!” she said closing the door. “I was not expecting you. It would have been better if you had let me know of your arrival, I would have had everything prepared, a feast fit for the emperor would have prepared ...”

  “Shut up now and hurry up, woman!” I replied without regard.

  I sat in the tavern to wait for the room to be ready, and when she finally returned, I took the opportunity to ask her what had happened in Rome in my absence.

  “Rome is still the same shit hole, my lord. Nothing has changed since you left. I keep making a living as I can with my honest work, without harming anyone, but ...”

  “Save me your moaning, Placia, I'm not interested. Agrippina and her family. Are they still living in the same house?” The woman looked at me with a dishevelled face and I knew at once that something had happened. “What has happened? Speak or I'll rip your tongue out with my own hands!”

  “Excuse me, my lord, I thought ... I thought you would know.”

  “Know what? For all the hells, do you want to talk?”

  “Agrippina no longer lives in Rome, the emperor banished her and her children to I don't know which island. It seems that he got tired of having her going against him all the time and of her uncivil behaviour, although we all know that this was only an excuse to get rid of her and her fight definitively. The old man is getting madder by the minute, you know? They say that now he has started to fuck all the goats of the island where he lives, something that he would not be the first to do, do not get me wrong, but that has not just been well considered in an emperor. But they say that he has already fucked all the lads who live there, and of course, now he has turned to the animals! I don't care, but I think if they took me to the island, I would take those funny habits of his away in a second ...”

  “What about Gaius?” I asked, cutting out her verbiage.

  The woman looked at me for a second, bewildered.

  “Who is Gaius? The little one from that madwoman Agrippina? Oh, sir, that is even worse!” she said, lowering her tone like someone afraid of the walls hearing her. “It turns out that he is completely bonkers like the uncle, and after you left, he gave him to go around the brothels of the city fucking the whores and the lads and then killing them with his own hands. You know that we poor people do not matter anything, so no one was shocked by it, but it was that he really made a big mess, very difficult to clean, and to finish off, then he began to do the same with other young people from important families, and his mother had to do somersaults back to cover up his disasters. The whole city knows it and they comment it in the markets, but nobody says anything publicly for fear of the emperor. Come on, he's completely mad and I guess the uncle has recognised himself in him, and he has taken him to live in his island. Now he does not leave there either, and there are those who say that he has become the uncle's whore, which would not be surprising because all of this family are crazy and only think of putting their cocks somewhere, if you are interested in knowing what I think.”

  That woman
's words completely dislodged me. The Gaius that she was describing had nothing to do with the sweet boy I had known. Although he had always had a manipulative side, I had never seen him even kill a fly, and I had a hard time believing he could have become a murderer. If, as Placia said, Gaius had been taken to Capri next to the emperor, my situation had just become desperate. I knew that Michael and his hosts were in Capri, always controlling the emperor, and that meant that I could not simply appear in the palace. If I wanted to get back to Gaius, I would need help, and no matter how hard it kicked my guts to accept it, there was only one person in all of Rome who could help me.

  “Listen to me well, I need you to find out where a person lives, and I need you to find out tonight.”

  “Tonight? My lord, it is impossible. I have no one to ask tonight for anyone's house. If you leave me until tomorrow…”

  “I said tonight, woman, or I promise that I will take care of closing all your holes, and you will have a hard time making a living as you do!” I said, and the expression of terror that the woman returned confirmed she had understood.

  “What ... what is that person's name?”

  “Her name is Livia Antonina.”

  The fear that I had instilled in Placia took effect and the next morning the woman, visibly exhausted, told me how to find Liliath's house. I knew that this was a desperate move, but if I wanted to get to Gaius, I would need the help of someone who worked well in the weaves of that city, and I had no doubt that Liliath was that person. It could be that she was posing as the respectable woman of any merchant, but I knew that the lust for power that lived inside her was not so easy to kill, and that it would have undoubtedly made her establish a network of contacts from which at that moment I lacked.

  I went to the house that the woman had indicated to me, this time disguised as a Roman, trying to go as unnoticed as possible. The house was in an area of Rome that I did not know at all, an area not as privileged as the Collis Hortorum, but that was still full of considerably large houses, most of them in the hands of Roman citizens who had enriched themselves with commerce and business, although they did not belong to families of ancestry. I reached the double dark wooden door of the entrance and knocked hard without knowing who could come out to meet me. It was a slave with dark skin and an imposing stature who opened the door to ask me in bad manners what I wanted.

  “I'm here to see your domina,” I snapped.

  “That's what you say,” he replied, blocking the doorway. “And who are you supposed to be?”

  “That is none of your business, just take me to your lady or the dogs of the house will dine your guts tonight!”

  My answer only served to make the body of that mole tense preparing to respond as violently as possible, but he was interrupted by Liliath's voice shouting from inside.

  “Arso, stop! Let him in!”

  The giant withdrew reluctantly and in my field of vision she appeared framed by the light from the doorway, dressed in a completely white light gauze robe, fitted with ribbons to her body, the loose red hair framing her face. I crossed the threshold and approached her, who turned back into the house again without telling me a single word. She led me to a dark room, lit with many lamps, with a table and a chair for only furniture. On the walls, shelves full of scrolls that I supposed should contain the accounts of her husband's business. Liliath closed the door behind us, and when she turned to look at me again her face had changed and anger was evident in her gaze.

  “Are you crazy? What the hell are you doing here? Do you want us to end up dead or is it that the time you've spent with your ass sitting on the throne of hell has made you stupid?”

  “I'm here because I need your help,” I said, still looking her in the eye, and my words made her shut up. The silence lasted a moment to continue with an explosion of laughter.

  “Now I have seen everything!” she said without being able to control her laughter. “My dear husband comes to ask me for help, after so long. This is a novelty in our history!”

  “I don't have time for this, Liliath. I don't turn to you because I want to do it, but because I don't have another way out. And I am very aware that I will have to pay a price for it,” I replied, making it clear that I knew what I was exposing myself to by resorting to her.

  “Oh, my husband! You offend me, don't you think I'm able to help you out of the kindness that fills my heart?”

  “For that you have to have one, and we both know that this is not your case,” I replied, spitting out the words that clearly had an effect on her, causing her face to become serious like that of a marble statue.

  “Tell me, what prevents me from alerting your dear friend Michael that you are here?" she replied, approaching me. “Why should I help you in the least?”

  “Because we both know that you have so much to lose with Michael as I do,” I said, grabbing her forearm, holding her so she wouldn't move away. “If you had nothing to fear you would not be locked between these four walls playing the family mother, afraid of who can enter through the door and fearing that my presence may turn their eyes on you.”

  Liliath did not answer me immediately, and I knew that she was weighing my answer the same way I knew I had hit the mark. Finally, she released her arm from my hand with an abrupt movement and walked away two steps until her face was in the gloom.

  “The presence of Michael and his people has only brought ruin to this city. Since they control the emperor, nobody is safe. For them, men are nothing more than lambs to sacrifice at will, and if like me, you have a certain power, you are a lion under the skin of a lamb which makes you a threat. When I arrived in the city I thought it would be easy for me to go unnoticed, but somehow they learned very quickly who Livia Antonina really was, and Michael himself paid me a visit. His intention was to make sure that I was going to follow the rules that they imposed on me, and so that I wouldn't forget about it, he ordered four of the members of his angelic guard to rape me. Obviously, I don't need to tell you that I took care that they regretted even thinking about it, but the consequences were much worse. Seeing that he had not been able to humble me the way he wanted, he took revenge by harming those who matter to me.” Her voice paused as if trying to catch air before continuing. “When I decided to marry Flavio, I did it exclusively because it offered me the perfect costume to hide in a city like Rome, the respectable roman matron. However, what Flavio had never told me, and that I only discovered when we arrived at this house, was that he had two teenage daughters, Drusila and Marcela, twins of twelve years. I, the woman who had left everything for power, the one who was capable of indescribable things to achieve her goals, found myself to be the mother of two girls who, without knowing me at all, only gave me love, a more sincere and selfless love than I have ever received. And for once, only for once, my heart, the one that according to you does not exist, corresponded to them without objection. A feeling that was further accentuated when I discovered that the two possessed the gift of vision, a gift that brought us closer and made me see myself reflected in them. Little did I know that my love could bring so much destruction. In his spite, Michael ordered two bastards of the Suburra to kidnap the girls on one of their walks in the city and rape them until they almost finished their lives. When I found their bodies veiled and broken on the banks of the Tiber, my rage was such that I did not stop until I found those responsible, and that night it was them who filled the air of Rome with their screams while I tore their bodies apart.” Her voice had changed her tone remembering those deaths, and she had a restrained rage that I had seen only once before, at a wedding in Sumer. “Unfortunately,” she continued, “the damage in my little ones was irreparable. The trauma of what happened has caused the two to stop talking and refuse to leave this house if it is not in my company, unable to face a world that has destroyed them inside and out. A note handwritten by Michael himself and delivered to my slaves days later reinforced the message, if I left the city of Rome or dared to oppose his wishes in any way, it would be my lit
tle ones who would pay, this time with their lives. All this to make sure that the lamb would not become a lion.”

  “And yet this lion will never be a lamb,” I said, looking at the darkness in the corner of the room where I knew she was, even if I couldn't see her. “I know you enough Liliath to know that you would do anything to get revenge on Michael, and if you help me I promise you that I will serve you that revenge on a tray.”

  Her laughter echoed in the room, although I knew it was actually a cynical, unreal laugh.

  “Don't try to win me by resorting to how well you know me because we both know that you really don't know anything or have ever done,” she replied, stepping forward to enter the light again where I could see her cold, hard face. “And what does Gaius have to do with all this?”

  The question was expected. I knew it was unlikely that Liliath had not already heard about my wanderings with Gaius, and that it would not be difficult to deduce that the help I needed had something to do with him. I couldn't tell her the whole truth, but I also knew that if I didn't give her something, she would never help me.

  “The boy has something that belongs to me and that I need to be able to end the reign of terror of the archangels.”

  “I see,” she replied with half a smile that reminded me of a snake. “And, let me guess, that something is out of your reach because otherwise you had recovered it a long time ago, right? I always wondered what joined you to a banal and capricious boy like Gaius apart from your lustful little games,” she said, “but now I understand, you needed to win him over because what you want to recover does not belong to you anymore, you need him to give it to you” she concluded with the triumphant smile of who knows that has deduced correctly.