by Rue Volley
Lucifer cried out as he swung his blade with more force than he ever had before. El grinned as it drove him backward in the sky. The sparks flew between them and lit up their faces as Lucifer stared him down with pure hatred.
“Tell me…did she cry out my name as she came?” El said into his ear. Lucifer screamed at the thought of it and rose up above the clouds as El followed him. El’s large wings moved slowly as he hovered before Lucifer. Lucifer’s head was low as he held the sword in his hand.
“Why…why would she do this, why would you? You are my brother. Did she lay with you?...before she lay with me?”
El nodded to him, “I need you to get this folly out of your mind. This idea of love. I need you at my side, ready to do battle, ready to do whatever it takes to save Moriah and all that we hold dear. Look.” He pointed off in the distance and Lucifer turned to watch as the large volcano began smoking and he could see the sulfur rising into the sky above them.
“Moriah is dying and it is up to us to save our people. We have to look to the stars, Father is brilliant, he created a race of people to save us. Don’t you see that? Don’t you see that this world will die, and we will lose many if we do not go now and prepare the meal. They are a food source, the creatures he created for us, the grace is gone, Lucifer, the grace that was buried deep in Moriah has been used up. There is no salvation for this world, but Ffather has built a new home, one that we can salvage and prepare for everyone from Moriah. Please. Lucifer…take my hand and lower your sword to me. Raise it again when we land on that world and help me make it as it should be.”
Lucifer turned back to him and started to lower his sword. He glanced at The Mount and thought of Ariel so tender and sweet…but a liar. A simple ploy to harden his heart to what must be done. He dropped the sword from his hand as he brother rushed him and wrapped him in his arms. He whispered into his ear.
“I love you, Lucifer. Truly love you. Let her go so her visions may return.”
Lucifer closed his eyes and tried his best to push the thoughts of Ariel from his mind forever. If he had blinded her to what was to come, he would never forgive himself.
Chapter Five
The Invasion
Months passed and Lucifer trained as hard as he could. His hatred for his love for Ariel drove him, but his heart could not be swayed. His grace had mingled with her own and she engulfed him. Each day, he drew more and more into himself and yet she haunted him. He spent many a night staring out at The Mount, flashes of her lips entering into his mind and yet her disloyalty hardened his heart. El told him to use it, to use how he felt to become stronger, better…what he would need to be on this journey he was to take with his brother. His need to save this planet was not what drove him on, it was please his father and to show El that he was more than what he ever thought he could be. Ariel spent all of her time trying to visualize the future, but Lucifer had ruined her ability and with it, the visions ceased to be.
Elohim, feeling the urgency of situation, decided to speed up the invasion and so he planned and ships were built without anyone’s knowledge but that of the highest of the guard. Without Ariel, they were now blind, no future to see and Elohim knew that time may be running out.
***
Lucifer woke to screaming. A screaming he had never heard before. Voices rising into the night sky. His bed vibrated beneath him and he sat up very quickly, turning his head towards his window. The sky had a strange hue to it, it was almost red in color and he raced to his window to see what he most feared. The volcano was starting to erupt and it spewed chunks of earth and fire high into the sky. A huge plume of smoke was also rising into the air, thick and stinking of sulfur. Parts of the sky were being engulfed with it as it spread out like a terrible plague over the planet. He held onto the edge of his window as the whole house shook and then it got silent, which was the most fearful thing of all. He stared out in horror as the volcano suddenly spewed all of its contents into the sky high above it and it was not until this happened that everything was lit up below. Angels scrambled in the streets, some trying to take to the skies as pieces of their planet rained down on them and killed them one by one. Lucifer shook his head in complete and utter disbelief as the sight of it could only be described as Hell itself, a mythical place devised by parenting angels to teach the young to live in grace.
He stepped back slowly as the room vibrated again and the house shook from its foundation. He stumbled as he suddenly felt a hand to his arm and looked back to see his mother standing there. Her face dirty, her wings tattered and bloody. He cried out as he touched her face and she tried her best to grin at him. She was hurt, so much so that when he grabbed her hand to run with her towards the window, she fell to her knees. He tried to pull her up. She lifted her eyes to his own and the tears streamed down her face.
“He has fallen,” she said. The words tore through him and he knew that she meant his father.
“No,” he said as she lowered her head and he screamed at her to rise.
“Go my son…without him, I am lost.”
Lucifer screamed and had to fly upward as the room started to fall beneath him. He reached down for her, but she refused to be saved and fell into a fiery pit of molten lava rolling beneath the house. He screamed as the heat rose up and singed his wings, turning the edges of them black as night. The physical pain was nothing compared to knowing that he was the reason this was happening. If he had shed his foolishness for Ariel, then she would have been able to foresee this. She would have been able to warn all of them about it. They could have all boarded the ships and left this planet by now, but no, his love had blinded him and in turn, blinded her. He turned and watched as the dome on the top of The Mount was crumbling. He flew from his home and towards The Mount as quickly as he could, hoping to find her, hoping to at least save some, while so many perished beneath him.
He had to move from side to side as fiery balls of their planet raced past him. He cried out as embers continued to eat at his wings and darkened them with each passing moment. He accepted the pain as he was accepting responsibility for all of the destruction around him now. He looked up and watched as the stars continued to disappear behind a thick, bellowing cloud of death. He finally reached the gates of The Mount and rolled to a stop as his singed and blacked wings twitched out behind him. He stood up and ran to the large door, pressing on them as he cried out her name.
He forced his way in and immediately had to roll to one side as pieces of the large golden dome rained down in the room. Then he saw her, standing in the center of the room, staring up at the memory orb, her hair flowing as beautiful as it had always been. She had her hands out in front of her and he raced towards her as she lowered them and started to turn. He stopped with tears in his eyes as her face turned to his. Her eyes no longer bright with life, but sewn shut with thick black thread. He shook his head and screamed her name as pieces of the dome fell onto her and she disappeared beneath it. He flew into the air, ready to dive into the rubble to find her, to try his best to save her. Just as he was about to reach the first large piece, he was hit from the side and flown out of the temple as his brother held him onto him tightly. Lucifer looked back as six Helios guard ripped the memory orb from the temple and escaped as it fell in upon itself and created a tomb for everyone left behind.
The many golden ships raced away from Moriah as they watched the planet start to crack and then splinter off as molten rock billowed up and consumed it. Their hearts sank as they watched everything they had ever known be destroyed before them. Lucifer fell to his knees as El knelt with him and they prayed an old prayer of their people for rest and peace. As Lucifer rose, his eyes changed from bright to dull, his heart slowed and his resolve became that of survival. Just as El had said they should be. His wings spread wide and they were black as night from burns and soot.
***
“We will arrive in days,” El said as Lucifer rolled out of the way of one sword and raised his to stop another. His skills had become stronge
r as he fought in the training room daily. They had been traveling for years and only had a short distance left to go. He looked out as he saw a small red planet and sighed. He remembered the Red Sea and gliding above her as black dragons broke the surface of the water. A flash of Ariel entered into his mind and a sword caught him on the edge of his wing and nicked it. He hissed and fell away as El shook his head and walked towards him. He lifted his hand as light started to pulsate from it and laid it on the wound. Lucifer hissed and then stood up, breaking his hold and leaving the wound half-healed.
“You need to be mindful of your health. We will need every angel to do this.”
Lucifer lifted his head with a bit of his black hair falling into his face. His eyes had hardened and his features much different than they had been when they lived on Moriah. He tilted his head.
“To do what, exactly? Rebuild the Golden City of Light? What makes you think they will allow that, my brother? This is a race created by Father in our image, wingless but we know what we are. We are truly barbaric, we know nothing of peace, only war. We come with ships filled with warriors, those who killed many to preserve a lie, a lie that Father hid from everyone…everyone but you,” he said as he raised a sword and pointed it at El.
“I was Father’s right hand and commander of the Helios Guard.”
Lucifer laughed and it echoed in the hall as many angels stared on.
“The Helios Guard, oh yes. The warring faction that beat back the invaders for two-hundred years while the planet died beneath our feet. Tell me Brother, where would we be if war was set aside and we had focused on what was important, that of the planet which was in desperate need of our help? Father was a fool. It cost us everything.”
El stared him down and shook his head. “Brother, mind your words,” he said in an even tone as the angels continued to watch the two of them.
“Why? We all saw it. We all watched the world we knew crack and splinter into space. Killing all that we love, all that we know and yet, you have not shed a single tear El, why is that? Why do you not mourn the loss of our people, of our parents?”
El looked around the room and then back to Lucifer. “You are tired, as we all are. My heart aches for our home. It destroyed me to see all that I love fall away, to know that Mother and Father are no longer here, that the Red Sea has evaporated and killed all of the Black Dragons with it. That The Mount is gone, as well as Ariel and the sight-seers.”
Lucifer stepped up to him and his tone lowered. “Don’t speak of her as if you cared.”
“Oh but I did, as she did for me. She was my love, not yours, Lucifer. She was never yours and never would be.”
Lucifer gritted his teeth as El drew his sword. An angel came running in as they both lifted them and he called out. His voice filled with excitement.
“She approaches!”
El lowered his sword, as did Lucifer. “Earth?” he asked and the angel nodded to both of them.
El turned back to him. “It seems your hatred will have to hold.”
***
Lucifer tightened a vice and then listened to the moaning. He looked up and saw Gunner on the cross and grinned. “Have I ever told you about when we arrived here, when my brother and I landed on your planet?”
Gunner moaned and Lucifer smiled. “I want to tell you, because I assume you are dying, so why not?” he waved a hand and walked to a chair that was carried up by two small men. They groaned as they set it down and one got his foot caught under it. Lucifer rolled his eyes.
“For shit's sake, could we please find better fucking help?” Two of the small men jerked on the other as he screamed out, his foot was torn off and Lucifer ignored it as he sat there and then looked up at Gunner on the cross, “Where was I?...oh yes…”
“We approached earth and then stopped, far enough out so that if they possessed the ability to detect us, then we may be shielded. If we had known then what we do now, we would have just landed, but perhaps it was fate. I mean, we came in your time, Gunner, in the time of the Roman Empire and oh! Can I just say thank you? I mean, the way you people persecuted those Christians really set this up for us. I mean, Earth was primed and ready for a God to appear before them. I do have to admit that my father was quite genius as he left you wingless, yet wanting to serve. Always searching for a leader and what better one than an angel, a warrior?”
Gunner laughed and Lucifer stopped talking and looked up at him.
“What is so funny?”
“You, always wanting power and adoration. You fell, Lucifer, because you wanted to serve, you wanted to serve your father, to prove something to him.”
Lucifer hissed and his eyes swirled in red, “I really need for you to shut up. I mean, do you know how rude it is to keep interrupting me?”
Gunner looked down and Lucifer nodded. “Anyway… El wanted to invade quickly, establish rule and have them succumb as if that plan was easy as planning a meal. I knew as I stood and watched the turning world, blue and with an abundance of water that it would not be so simple. If these creatures were built in our image, then they would possess a need to rule, to conquer and to feel freedom. The irony was that they came into being never being free. Wanting to rule, but needing a ruler. They came in as a fail-safe for our people, if the worst scenario happened and it had. Do you hear me, Gunner? You are in my image…the irony, right?”
Gunner lifted his head and a small trickle of blood came from the edge of his lips. “Anyway…it almost seems like yesterday. My brother decided, in his infinite wisdom, that we should come as a small party first. An exploration team, as you will. I mean, I guess that was smart of him. I personally wanted blood, I was angry at him, at what had happened, at Ariel…” he trailed off as he touched his fingers to his lips. “You know, she tasted like honey.”
He looked up as Gunner's head lowered even further. He snapped to the small minions in the room and pointed towards him. “Get him down, nothing pisses me off more than someone fucking dying in the middle of my story…well, more like the end, before all of this.” He waved a hand around him and the room transformed into a large hall, the minions placed ladders up onto the cross and got Gunner down from the cross as a long table rolled in on its own, stretching out forever with tons of food on it. A chair rolled up behind Gunner just as he was dropped into it. Lucifer looked at him and snapped his fingers. Gunner cried out and his bloodshot eyes looked at Lucifer.
“Pay attention to me,” Lucifer whispered to him.
“So anyway, I was part of the landing team of angels. I will tell you that we came just in time. I mean, you Romans were a vicious lot of bitches. All the crucifixion and what not…I appreciate the heavy hand of ruling, but for fuck's sake. You killed more than you ruled.”
Gunner muttered something and Lucifer looked to his minion. “Give him some juice, wine…anything, perk him up. I mean, what is the fucking point of telling a good tale if the son of a bitch is just going to moan?”
The minion ran down, climbed a chair and then hopped up onto the table. He reached Gunner as two minions held his head back and he poured wine into his mouth, Gunner coughed as wine spewed everywhere and Lucifer raised an eyebrow. Gunner cried out as he gripped the chair and then looked at Lucifer, who sat there calm as ever.
“Are we fucking paying attention? I am trying to give you the beginning of the greatest story ever fucking told here, and right at the end, you sputter out like a pussy.”
Gunner took a deep breath and shook his head, “I hear you Lucifer, what the fuck were you saying?”
Lucifer smiled and took a drink of his wine. His fingers played with the sides of it.
“As I was saying…we landed and there you were, all Roman and battling.”
“I led an army. I am Marcus…”
“Brutus….blah blah blah…I know, you told me. What you didn’t tell me is that blood was so sweet…the flesh.”
“I don’t want to talk about that with you.”
Lucifer laughed and then slammed his
fist on the table. Gunner blinked a couple of times as Lucifer rose and started to walk the length of it. His angelic sword sliding down in his hand. He stopped and stared at Gunner.
“You know why I am what I am?”
Gunner sighed and then looked up at him, “Temptation.”
Lucifer laughed, it echoed in the hall and then he stopped. “Yessss.” His word came out like the hissing of the snake. “I came here with all intention of conquering, my heart was hardened when I saw the destruction of my planet. But nothing could prepare me for the taste of your flesh. El had told me that Father constructed you monkeys for us to feed upon, but what he did not say was that if we consumed the flesh, then we would change.”
Gunner smiled up at him, “Life’s a bitch.”
Lucifer hissed and lunged at him.
“Yes, it is. It changed me when I feasted upon the flesh of humans. It opened my eyes and as my brother cowered on the ships orbiting your planet, I built a place here for myself. A new utopia and those who seek me out and the pleasures of the flesh join me, right here in Hell. El can pretend that he is the true God, as he stares into the memory orb and tries his best to foresee the future and impress your feeble minds with his magic…but, I rule here. This is mine. This is the Hell I created on Moriah, just as I created here.” Just then, he heard something that only he could hear. He heard a fallen Hellhound, a death above him. He stopped and looked upward. “Oh…well now. I guess I should thank you, and by the way, a Hellhound has fallen from grace and you need to collect her replacement.”
Gunner stood up, throwing his chair behind him. Lucifer grinned as he could feel his panic and fear.
“Who fell?” he asked as his voice cracked.
Lucifer reached out and jerked him to his side. “Your sister, Tercia.”
Gunner held his chest with his free hand as they both suddenly appeared in a dingy hallway of an apartment building. The lights flickered as Lucifer waved his hand and the door swung open. He leaned in and whispered into Gunner’s ear.