Seraph

  “No, I’m fine. So are they.”

  “Perhaps something to eat then?”

  “Listen very carefully,” the general said. “We are not equals. I only eat and drink with Lord Satan and other generals. Do you really think I would allow myself to be seen being entertained by the likes of you?”

  “N-No, sir,” Anzu said, barely above a whisper.

  “Good, you are wise to know that. I did not come here to be entertained. Now dispense with the pleasantries and let’s get down to business.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So I hear that you are looking for a way to bring down Lilith. Is this true?”

  “Yes, sir, it is.”

  “Why?”

  “She is sneaky, my lord. Planning something I know it . . . bordering on treason.”

  “Anzuuu . . . That is an extreme allegation. Even for one held in as little regard as she.”

  “I know it is but . . .”

  “But do you have proof. That is the only thing that I care about. Furthermore, if you go to Lord Satan with nothing but your charm and accusations he will surely throw you into the Sea of Fire as a reward for wasting his time . . . I’ve seen it happen.”

  “Sir . . . I have nothing else.”

  “What if I told you that I have proof?”

  “Sir?”

  “Yes, Lilith has been raising a Nephilim for the past five years.”

  “A giant? Well, what in the world for?”

  “That is what I will find out.”

  “I beg your pardon, my lord, but don’t you mean ‘we’?”

  “What did you hear me say?”

  “. . . You will find out.”

  “And that is exactly what I meant.”

  “Yes, my lord . . . do you have a plan?”

  “I will go and see Lilith with a dozen of my best servants, and we will capture this abomination and bring her to Lord Satan for sentencing.”

  “That is a most excellent plan, sir.”

  “Of course it is.”

  “What do I do in the meantime?”

  “You wait till I send word to you.”

  The general turned to his bodyguards.

  “We’re leaving. I will summon you to my manor in two days.”

  They all rose in unison and headed toward the door, but Anzu asked them one last question before they left.

  “My lord?”

  “What?” Deviat said halfway out the door.

  “When she is captured, please don’t forget to mention me to Lord Satan.”

  General Deviat kept walking but assured him he would be promoted for his assistance.

  General Deviat headed to his palatial estate for the night and left for the Ottocom Desert with twelve of his best warrior demons first thing in the morning. They departed from the Forest of Deviance, named after the general, for the Ottocom Desert. The desert was a part of his official jurisdiction, but he left Lilith alone as part of an unspoken peace treaty.

  They arrived just outside the mouth of the cave and waltzed in like they owned it. Lilith had no time to hide her beloved children as they all sat around a stone table, eating a meal of chemaworms and Kenneth.

  “Lilith!”

  The general walked in like her cave was simply an extension of his own home.

  “Deviat,” Lilith said in a surprised tone.

  “You will address him as General Deviat,” said Roth who was the captain of the guard.

  “It’s alright, Roth. We can’t expect manners from this wench.”

  When General Deviat insulted Lilith, the three Nephilim grunted as if preparing to make him pay for his disrespect.

  “Easy, my children. Eat your dinner.”

  “Heeelllp . . . mmeeee,” came a voice from the stone slab. It was Kenneth. But Anakim shut him up immediately by smashing a fist into his face, and Kenneth was no longer able to speak, see, or hear.

  “Well, well, well, you have been busy.”

  “I have.”

  “I thought you had one abomination, but as it is you have three. Lord Satan will be pleased to have this brought to his attention.”

  “No, sir, please don’t.”

  “I didn’t think you would wench.”

  “That’s two,” said Rapha.

  “That’s two?”

  “That is the second time you have insulted my mother, and there will not be a third.”

  “Rapha!” Lilith said sharply.

  “She is feisty . . . she must get that from you . . . I wish to sit.”

  “I don’t have an extra chair.”

  “Don’t bother. I wasn’t speaking to you.”

  Roth looked at one of the armed guards and made a notion with his head, and the guard got on his hands and knees at the stone table and Deviat sat on him.

  “I like this one. What is your name?”

  “She is but a child . . .”

  “I didn’t ask you Lilith. Now what is your name, child?”

  “Rapha.”

  Rapha was the middle child and the only girl. She wasn’t nearly as depraved as her brothers, and she was by far the most intelligent. She was also extremely beautiful and resembled her birth mother Andrea, but with deep black and brown hair. She had learned the art of manipulation and seduction from Lilith and was trained to not only use her fighting skills to overcome enemies, but to outthink and conquer them. She stood 8’ tall, but her weight was kept a secret.

  “You are very beautiful, Rapha.”

  She said nothing.

  “Are you a virgin, Rapha?”

  “General . . . ,” Lilith said quietly.

  Deviat shot Lilith a look.

  Deviat used to be an angel of love and decency, but when he decided to join Lucifer in the great war of heaven, he changed his name to Deviat. He perverted himself and became the demon that inspired molestation and deviance—hence his name. He was a very beautiful angel, but he had changed since his fall and had become a very fat and ugly demon. Once stirring romantic love, he now motivated lust.

  “Have you ever pleased a man?”

  “No,” Rapha answered quietly.

  “Do you want to?”

  “General. Please,” Lilith said quieter still.

  “Lilith, I will not have you interrupt me again.”

  “Anakim, Rapha, Emim. Leave us.”

  The Nephilim rose at the behest of their mother.

  “Rapha stays,” Deviant said. “They can leave.”

  Both of her strong boys looked at their mother as she reluctantly nodded her approval, and they left. They headed for the private chambers, and once they were gone only the general, his royal guard, Lilith, and Rapha were left.

  “Sir, is it not enough that I give myself to you as payment for the land that I graciously and humbly live on?”

  “Let me educate you on the parameters of our relationship. I am as the mortals say the ‘landlord.’ And you are the . . . the . . .”

  “‘Tenant’ is the word I believe, sir.”

  “Thank you, Roth. ‘Tenant.’ You are the tenant and whatever payment you were offering to live here in a desert that was given to me by Lord Satan himself has just increased. . . . Do not forget your place. You are at my mercy. What you are doing here with these . . . these abominations is treason of the highest order, or have you forgotten all the trouble the Nephilim caused nearly 9,000 years ago? Perhaps I should tell Lord Satan of all you have done here?”

  “No,” she whispered.

  “So then we have an understanding?”

  Lilith said nothing.

  “. . . I will have her. One way or another.”

  A single tear fell from Lilith’s face for she had waited millennia upon millennia to be a mother, and for the past five hell years, she was one. She fought to protect her children from the likes of many demons, making many disappear over the past few years, but here she was dealing with a demon that she couldn’t just kill. This was a general, a demon that walked and talked with the Evil One. If he went
missing, there would be a search party.

  Lilith couldn’t protect the sanctity of her daughter and that burned a hole in her heart. She may be a demon now, but there was a time when she was once a human with all the emotions, complexity, love, and beauty that all women who exist today possess. This simultaneously made her one of the most emotional and complex demons in all of hell, but the love she held for these three creatures made her powerless.

  “Mother . . . ,” Rapha said. “Mother, do not cry. I will do this . . . I want to.”

  “You don’t have to do this.”

  “Yes, she does.”

  Lilith begged the general with her eyes, but he would not be moved. Lilith kissed Rapha on the forehead while fighting back tears. She rose and went to her private chambers. She couldn’t bear to see her baby walking off with the father of deviance.

  “Good, it is settled then. We leave at once.”

  General Deviat stood up as the two brothers were walking out of their private chambers. They eyeballed Deviat with murderous intent. He felt a cold chill going up his spine and wanted to leave as soon as he could.

  “Get up—ahem,” he cleared his throat as his nerves formed a knot that made it hard to speak.

  “Get up,” he said clearly to the demon that was exhausted from holding up the massive weight of the portly general for the length of the conversation. But he either would not or could not move; in either case, General Deviat was in no mood to wait. Emim and Anakim closed in on the drained demon that had collapsed on the floor.

  “Leave him.”

  Roth ordered the other eleven guards to exit the cave, and they did so with General Deviat, Rapha walking behind him with nothing but her dark brown, hooded cloak. The two brothers viciously attacked the tired demon before the company left. His screams made the general and his demons leave even faster. Rapha smiled.

  General Deviat and his company gated to a spot about a mile away from his luxurious castle. There they climbed into a carriage being pulled by two enormous beasts that resembled Kuyel. They would ride the rest of the way through the Forest of Deviance. Rapha had barely explored hell. She knew how unsafe it was for her and her brothers, knowing they could end up in the same situation she found herself in right now or worse, even though being in this situation was not any fault of her own but due to Emim’s gluttony. Rapha had told her brother on many occasions that his overindulgence was going to bring danger to the family, and so far she was right.

  Her whole existence for the past five years had been that of training. Training to kill a being named Seraph and avenge the death of her father, Ornias. But here she was wasting her time entertaining a general because he liked virgins. What is a virgin anyway? She pondered. I don’t know, but when I find out what it is, I will kill it.

  “Do you like the view?”

  Rapha looked up and saw the forest.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  She continued to look and suddenly the forest’s beauty showed its true hideous nature. Men and women of all kinds were buried deep in the trees as if they were a part of the bark. What Rapha believed to be the wind howling was actually the guilty, moaning in unison and buried deep within the trees. They were being eaten alive by worms and demonic ravens, and some were being hacked by demons trying to build their strength, every second of every hour of every day.

  She reached out of the carriage and grabbed a chemaworm. It squirmed in her hands, and she ate it in front of the general, who was slightly disgusted. They continued riding and she noticed souls also hanging from the trees—by their feet, necks, arms, and even their waists. Some were being eaten by gigantic black ravens. Others were healing and growing new bones, body tissue, muscle, and tendons, just waiting to be completely healed so that they could once again offer themselves as a daily sacrifice.

  “Do you know why they are here?”

  “No.”

  “Aha, she does speak. Would you like to guess?”

  She said nothing.

  “They are here because of the sins they are guilty of committing on earth. . . . Well, that is not entirely true. Every soul in hell ends up here because they have chosen to reject the salvation our Father has provided through his son, Jesus.”

  She hadn’t heard these stories about The One. Lilith had only told her that they were the creator of all she saw, and if she was ever blessed enough to meet them, she should show them the utmost respect and reverence. For whatever reason, her mother hadn’t told her any stories, so General Deviat had her undivided attention.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, there are two books. The first is Torah and the other is the Lamb’s Book of Life. And in this book is written every name of every soul who has been forgiven by the blood of the Lamb, but all of those souls are with The One in heaven.”

  “Who is the Lamb?”

  “It is another name for The One. Jesus, in particular.”

  “Is your name in this book?”

  “No . . . my name is in another book. That book is only for humans.”

  “What happens if a name is not written in the book?”

  “I was just getting to that. If your name is not in the Book of Life then you are judged by the Torah.”

  “What is Torah?”

  “Torah is the instructions or the Divine Law of the Creator. Instructions by which all mankind should live.”

  “And . . . if they don’t keep this Torah, these . . . instructions?”

  “Then they come here to be judged by Lord Satan for their sins. We have a multitude of the guilty here. The sins of the guilty are as diverse as they are endless. Guilty of murder, stealing, lying, fornicating, and sexual perversions of all kinds, including homosexuality and bestiality or incest, those who eat the unclean and abominable thing, idol worshippers, Sabbath breakers and even Satan worshippers.”

  General Deviat laughed heartily at the irony of that one.

  “What are these people guilty of?”

  “I thought you’d never ask. These guilty have molested and raped other souls on earth. They are sentenced here because they gave into my temptations and committed deviant acts against other men, women, and even children. All of their victims were powerless to defend themselves, and in turn they are molested by our chemaworms and these magnificent ravens, and now they are powerless to defend themselves. Amazing, isn’t it?”

  She said nothing.

  “Do you feel sorry for them?” the general asked.

  “No, if what you say is true then they deserve their punishment.”

  “You see, here in hell everyone is guilty of something great or small, and the punishment always fits the crime.”

  “I see.”

  The carriage stopped at a black gold gate and behind it was the most magnificent palace she’d ever seen. It was a large sixteenth-century medieval castle with a drawbridge and moat filled with a portion of the Sea of Fire.

  “We are here.”

  They walked from the carriage through the main gate and onto the drawbridge. Rapha stopped to look at the moat, and the slick, black, boiling oil popped, as if eagerly awaiting a victim.

  “Careful not to fall,” said Deviat with a chuckle.

  She kept walking and then found herself in the middle of Deviat’s courtyard. There must have been thirty demons, not including the royal guard that they traveled with. Deviat’s castle was well fortified.

  General Deviat escorted Rapha into his personal chambers. They were finally alone with only two of his elite guards standing watch outside his room. Rapha looked around the room; it had a lot of black gold everywhere, from the tables, to the chairs, to the mirrors, and the bed frame. The bed was a canopy with sheer burgundy coverings and black gold rope ties. It really was beautiful and she would have felt very comfortable if it weren’t for the simple fact that Deviat was going to try to have sex with her. She noticed that he had many accomplishments by the number of gifts on his wall. The gift that caught her attention was the dual sword and shield set that hu
ng over the bed frame.

  There were big tall windows that showed a great view of the dark forest. Even the sky was beautiful. Deviat lived on a part of hell where it was a perpetual twilight, making the sky a wonderful orange pinkish color. It was quite peaceful until you realized that souls were in constant torture and pain just outside.

  Deviat took off his sheathed sword, laid it against the stand, and climbed into bed.

  “Rapha. Come.”

  Rapha turned to him and stood at the edge of the bed.

  “Remove your cloak.”

  She had a nearly perfect body. She was very toned with an overall athletic look. She looked very strong, but still very sexy; her feminine features were present and accounted for. She wore a low-cut shabby gray halter top and tight dingy shorts, which is what she wore almost every day. There wasn’t much of a selection of clothing for her to choose from.

  “Wow . . . you are more stunning than your mother.”

  General Deviat’s hefty frame lay resting on his bed and was only held up by pillows. With his finger he commanded her to approach and she did. She stood over him and began dancing, hoping that Deviat would continue to become increasingly more comfortable.

  “Ah yes, now kiss me.”

  She kissed his lips, then his cheek, then moved to his neck, and bit a huge chunk out of it.

  He hollered in excruciating pain, which made both of the guards outside his room rush in. Deviat grabbed his neck to try to stop the bleeding, but Rapha just sat there straddling him. With his skin still in her mouth and blood dripping down her neck, she looked behind her.

  The demon guards were in shock. They were used to dealing with humans and were not afraid of them. But most demons hadn’t seen Nephilim in over 9,000 years, and many more thought they were simply legend.

  Rapha spit out the flesh and stood up, her back to the guards. She took possession of the two ceremonial short swords mounted on the wall and calmly stepped off the bed. Deviat rolled off the bed slowly, still holding his neck. He grabbed his sword and disappeared through a secret escape door.

  The demons rushed her and attacked in unison, but Rapha was so graceful and so much stronger than they, that dispatching them was one of the easiest things she had ever done. She exited Deviat’s private chambers and screamed his name to let him know that she was coming for him and his death was at hand.