In The Lap Of The Gods

by John B. Hendricks

  Forward

  Growing up, my dad and I always said someday we were going to write a book together. Now I'm grown and living a thousand miles away," and at the moment I edit much more than I write.

  This is the book that my dad and I have written together. He wrote the text, I edited it and made it shine. This is our first and definitely not last book together.

  I am so proud of my father. The past few years haven't be great, but he's weathered it with grace and he's come out of the other side just as a fabulous man, father and bookstore owner as he was before.

  I owe my career to him - when I was in high school, he drove me all over the state to go to writing conferences. I met some of my favorite people there. I loved every second of every conference, not to mention how much quality time I got to spend with him.

  Thank you for reading our dream.

  - Emily Hendricks

  Chapter 1[1]

  There was a quiet knock at his door and Baphomet stuck his ugly goat’s head inside.

  “Excuse me, your Excellency. I was just informed we are running low on beer.”

  Lucifer shook his head. “Those blasted Mongols are the biggest drunks I’ve ever seen. Have you contacted the Beermeisters about when the next supply is coming in?”

  “It’s still a week away, sire. They say they are running full out, but demand is far outweighing supply these days.”

  Boredom is increasing greatly, Lucifer thought. Everyone’s tired of screwing and fighting, so now we’re on course to vast civilizations turning alcoholic. What a world, what a world. He stood up, stretching his back, trying to work the ancient kinks out. The Mongols were good for the occasional dirty work that Lucifer needed done. They worked for beer, provided their own weapons, and weren’t squeamish.

  He switched on a row of lights, illuminating a star chart on the wall. Ever since his exile to this dark, dank corner of the universe, the loneliness had gnawed at him, despite the fact that he was surrounded by billions of dead people. Very disappointed dead people. Since the beginning of its existence, people had contemplated the Great Beyond. Do I cease to exist? Where do I go? Can I get a good latte there? The answers, much to many people’s disappointment, are: No. The Hub. Yes, but the one Starbucks in Hell was always packed.

  “Send for that moody Mongol,” he instructed the demon. Sitting down on his vast couch, he massaged his temples to try to forestall the coming head splitter. He couldn’t take much more of this king of the underworld bullshit.

  He picked up his remote, clicked on his big-screen television, and looked for a Seinfeld rerun.

  Chapter 2[2]

  The spaceships appeared and landed one bright red spring afternoon in a field just outside of the Palace City of Di Yu. Lucifer had been making some notes for a script he was working on when he learned of the landing.

  The dark brown hull of the giant ship exuded nastiness. Giant antennae and vicious prongs covered the hull, with smoke discharging from a series of vents on the rim of the back. Lucifer scratched under his armpit and walked toward it.

  A door opened on the side of the spaceship and a walkway slid out, angling gently to the ground. A row of nattily attired beings eased out, bristling with weapons and fixed sneers. A crowd of various people had emerged from the city to watch. A few brought lawn chairs.

  The largest of the invaders pushed through his men, shouting orders in an angry tone, slapping a few of them sharply in various places to affect maximum discomfort. He approached Lucifer waving his weapon threateningly. “My name is Lane!” he shouted, raising his zzzarms and turning slowly. “I hereby claim this planet in the name of Mother Remusia!” All of his troops fired their plasma weapons into the air, globs of light spitting out like discount Roman candles. Lane waved his arms. “Ceasefire, you idiots. You might hit the ship again like on the last planet.” The troops stopped, chagrined by their leader.

  “You,” Lane said, pointing a finger at Lucifer. Lucifer looked around. “Me?” he asked. “Yes, you smartass.” Lane responded. “Who is in charge of this planet?”

  “I suppose you want me to take you to my leader?” Lucifer said with a stoic face. A beer can popped open in the background. A group of Amish women passed around a tub of buttery popcorn. Somebody giggled.

  “Silence!” Lane shouted, aiming his weapon in general at the throng, “or I will be forced to pulsate you! And you,” he said, returning his attention to Lucifer. “Why are you wearing that sash?”

  “This old thing?” Lucifer asked. “It’s actually an obi, and it’s keeping this colorful yakuza closed so I don’t depress you with the fearful size of my massive chichi.”

  “Are you an Elder here?” Lane asked.

  “You could say that,” Lucifer answered. “So, what brings you to the edge of the cosmos?”

  “I will ask the questions!” Lane roared, swinging his heavy fist at Lucifer’s head. His glee at being able to pound someone of a different race and/or species for a change was short-lived, as Lucifer deftly took his attempted blow, twisted a few things nimbly, and deposited the hulking Remusian unceremoniously on his large buttocks. Dazed, Lane shouted to his troops to fire into the crowd.

  The piercing line slammed into the already bored and jaded crowd to no effect. Some of the Remusians upped the amperage, but the dead denizens of Hell ignored their efforts, some engrossed in a discussion of the theological possibilities of what would happened when Lucifer decided to kill them all. Would they pop out of a portal? Was there a Remusian Hell somewhere instead? A pool started forming, odds quickly calculated.

  Lucifer’s mind was clicking. Spaceships, plasma guns, and angry aliens. Don’t tell me, in a perverse way, my prayers have been answered? Perish the thought, Lucifer thought.

  “What’s this?” Lane scowled, confused. “Who are you people? Are you Gods or are you demons?”

  “Perhaps both,” Lucifer answered, holding out his hand to Lane, pulling his massive bulk off the ground easily. “It’s hard to tell these days.” He looked at Lane. The fierceness in the leader’s eyes had dimmed a bit, but Lucifer could sense an odd mix of amorality and tenderness in this alien mind.

  “Now, if I may repeat my original question,” Lucifer said. “What brings you to our little home away from home?”

  Lane thought about it. “Well, conquest of course. Taking stuff, killing people, raping women, looking for good places to eat. Nothing unusual.”

  “Obviously,” Lucifer said, “this is not going to quite work out for you here.” Lucifer nodded toward Lane’s men, who had already been disarmed by a group of Samaritans, some Good, some Bad, some just Okay. Lucifer pointed at the ship. “What is the range of your vehicle?”

  “Well, practically infinite,” Lane answered. “It has some type of complicated photon engine. We just follow the manual. Never needs refueling.”

  “And do you have more weapons on board?”

  “Sure,” Lane answered. “Giant explosive devices, big plasma cannons. Standard planet conquering equipment.”

  “How did you come across our humble celestial home?”

  “It’s been awhile since we’ve come across a planet to dominate. When we left Remusia, we were optimistic and great things were expected of us, but dammit, all the good planets were already conquered. So now we’re just wandering around, hoping for the best. We can’t go home in disgrace!” Lane put his head in his hands.

  “You’re not going to cry, are you?” Lucifer asked.

  “No, of course not,” Lane grunted, wiping a stray tear from his eye. ”I am a Remusian. We have no fear and we show no mercy. It must be allergies or something.” Lane felt his feet moving involuntarily. Not now, he shouted in his head. Must control the urge. He waved his b
laster at his troops, who quickly averted their eyes. Was that a snigger?

  “Easy,” Lucifer said, putting his hand on Lane’s arm and easing his weapon down so it pointed at the ground. “You will need all your men. I have a proposal for you.”

  “What is that?” Lane asked suspiciously.

  “I have a little dilemma that I’ve been searching for an answer to,” Lucifer answered, “and I believe you and your merry band of thugs may fill the bill. Do you boys ever do any mercenary work? I have a planet I need conquered.”

  Chapter 3[3]

  Lucifer paced the floor of his cabana, his long tail raising sparks from the tile. In the old days he did the tail trick to terrify any poor bastard who already had a preconceived notion of what Hell would be like, but now it was just a nervous habit. He had run out of fingernails to chew.

  He thought about his first and only love. He could still smell her on his fingertips. He took a deep breath, exhaled loudly, and let his mind drift.

  Lucifer, forged from the Creator’s own essence, was the first new resident of the place known as the City Of God. “Why did you fashion me?” he had asked Jehovah.

  “Because I can,” Jehovah had answered, which was not a response that gave Lucifer much enthusiasm for the future ahead.

  Things had gone very well for quite a while. Lucifer, imbued with just a tiny bit of Jehovah’s knowledge, had a hard time keeping up with most conversations that the Creator insisted on engaging him in, and eventually the talks began to get a little thin until they stopped completely. Even the most perfect of couples run out of things to say eventually.

  That was when the Creator started fiddling with something new. Drawings, notes, and slideshows cluttered Heaven. Lucifer read a number of white papers that Jehovah had written on various topics. “A Place to Populate.” “Telepathy and Prayer: Does It Count?” “Should the Platypus Rule?” “Worship For Dummies.”

  A number of things bothered Lucifer as the project unfolded. Many of the papers were focused entirely on how to be thankful to the Creator for existence, with a chain of complex rules to show it in the correct manner. Live sacrifices, meal prayers, and a byzantine set of dietary laws that Lucifer couldn’t decipher apparently would take up most of the new creation’s time.

  The final straw for Lucifer was the Trees.

  “Check this out,” Jehovah had said, spreading a large blueprint out on his desk. “I’ve decided to make two creations first, what I call a man and a woman. How do the names Adam and Lilith sound?”

  “It doesn’t seem real catchy,” Lucifer said. “It seems like the second name should only have one syllable. It would be more harmonious.”

  “That’s why I’m in charge of the names and you’re not,” Jehovah sneered. “Adam and Lilith will be forever known as the First Man and Woman!”

  Jehovah pointed at the blueprint. “We’ll put my new creations in an area full of vegetation and call it a garden. I’ll plant two special trees in there. The Tree Of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree Of Life.”

  “Those are names that roll right off the tongue as well,” Lucifer muttered.

  “On these two, I decided to go with fully descriptive names, so there’s no question,” Jehovah smiled. “Here’s the plan. I put the First Couple in the garden with explicit instructions. Do not eat of the Tree Of Knowledge of Good and Evil.”

  “Why?” Lucifer asked.

  “Why?” mocked Jehovah. “So they can show their dedication to me. Strictly obeying my word is the purest love. Don’t you understand, #2? They can worship me just like you do.”

  Lucifer’s stomach dropped. “Like I do?”

  “Sure,” Jehovah said. “Haven’t you noticed? You hang on my every word, follow me around, and you do everything I tell you to do. That’s worship! Now I’ll leave you to clean up this mess.”

  The Creator slapped the stunned Lucifer on the back, rolled up the plans, and headed back to the laboratory.

  “I am a toady,” Lucifer said glumly, looking around. He started picking up the loose papers from the floor, stacking them neatly on the table. He paused, then stopped and stood up.

  “Nope,” he said. “I don’t want to.” He knocked the papers back to the floor, stared at them for a moment, and flew off to the furthest reaches of the City of God to think.

  The battle was not going well.

  Lucifer’s army of rebels was being pummeled. Flaming swords and barbed insults from the Angels of Righteousness pelted them incessantly. Half of the renegade angels had been captured and moved from the battlefield between Earth and Heaven to an unknown location. Lucifer decided it was now or never and it was time to lay his heart out on the line.

  He evaded a group of swirling cherubim and hid behind the moon for a few moments, gathering himself. His arms were tired from crossing swords with his former brothers and a myriad of bloodied lines crisscrossed the front and the back of his body. Immortality is great, he thought, but painful at times. He peeked around the edge of the moon. All clear. He flew toward the Garden.

  As he approached, he smelled the hearty aroma of barbecue. He spotted Adam behind the hulking dwelling, fiddling with some steaks on his immaculate, black grill. Charcoal smoke wafted gently into the air, a white finger. He spotted Eve in the front orchard, and silently drifted toward her, landing just outside her line of sight. He brushed some of the soot from his jacket, fruitlessly, and decided just to discard it. His white satin pants were striped with blood and other unknown substances, so they fell on the same refuse pile as the jacket. It’s me in all my glory, Lucifer thought. How could she choose Adam over the wonder of Jehovah’s true first creation? His confidence, shellacked while involved with the brutality of inter-heaven conflict, took a brief upsurge so he sucked in his gut and walked toward her.

  Eve jumped when she heard him approach. “Yowsah!” she screeched.

  “Sorry,” Lucifer said gently. “I was in such awe of your beauty that I must have just floated over the ground to you.”

  “That was sickeningly sweet, but I’ll take it,” Eve said. “Adam is not big on the complement end of things.”

  “What were you doing?” Lucifer asked.

  “Oh,” Eve answered. “It’s silly, but I like to hide things from Adam and make him track them down. One day I took his barbecue tongs and hid them out in the jubilee trees, and then I left him a note with a couple of clues on it. It took him awhile, but he finally figured it out. He found his tongs and I gave him a suitable reward.” Eve gyrated her hips in a wide arc. “So now I do it when I’m bored and need attention. The more intricate I make it, the more exciting it is to put together.” She looked up and down at Lucifer. “Hey, where are those fancy clothes that angels like to wear? Did you decide to ‘go native’ or something?” Eve chuckled. “I’ve never understood the clothes thing. What’s up with that?”

  “Strictly fashion,” Lucifer smiled weakly, clearing his throat. “Eve. I need to tell you something.”

  She looked at him and smiled. His heart rose into his throat.

  “I, uh. I love you.” The words hung in the air between them, unsure where to go after escaping Lucifer’s puppy love stricken heart.

  “You love me?” Eve repeated back in blank amazement.

  “Yes!” blurted Lucifer. “This,” he said, sweeping his arms wildly. “This Garden of Eden is a giant trap created by Jehovah. It’s his little experiment in sociology. You’re only here to worship him.” He pointed sharply at the sky. “He’s a petty tyrant, his foot on your throat choking you, and you don’t even know it!” Lucifer shook in fury.

  Eve sat down on the lush grass. Her fingers twirled the blades, slowly. She raised her eyes to him. “Are you saying that this is all there is to life? Praise with intermittent boredom?”

  Lucifer nodded his head. “That’s the forecast for Mankind for the foreseeable future.”

  “And I’m stuck with him,” she said, jerking her thumb toward the mansion.

  “I’m afraid so.
But you can change it, Eve. You know how.”

  Eve’s eyes widened in fear. “Don’t eat the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.”

  “It’s a test,” Lucifer said. “A way that you prove your loyalty to him every day. And what does Mankind get out of this dedication?”

  “We get the privilege of worshiping him for eternity.” She stood up and looked at the Tree.

  “Those are pomegranates,” Lucifer offered. “It tastes like how life should be; sometimes it’s very sweet, sometimes it’s really sour, but most of the time it’s in-between and pretty good.”

  Eve chewed her plump lower lip in thought. “If I eat one, what will I find out?”

  “Everything that is,” Lucifer said, sliding his arms around her, caressing her and pressing his rapidly heating flesh against her. Eve sighed, her knees weakening. She reached up, snatched one of the plump fruits from a low-hanging branch, and pressed it to her face, smelling it, her tongue caressing it, her mouth opening wide and crunching a large bite from it, piercing the fleshy outer skin with her sharp white teeth.

  Time seemed to stop, the juice dribbling down her chin. She swallowed it slowly, savoring the flavor. She looked at Lucifer, confused. “I don’t feel any different,” she said.

  “Sometimes,” Lucifer said, “a pomegranate is just a pomegranate.”

  Eve nodded.

  “But today,” Lucifer added. “It’s also freedom.”

  “Make love to me, Lucifer,” Eve groaned. “I want it all now. The chains have been lifted from my mind, from my heart, from my soul-“

  “Oh yeah baby!” Lucifer cried, easing her to the ground.

  “I love you!” she screamed.

  Lucifer’s lonesome soul soared into the limitless realms of ecstasy, places he was sure Jehovah had never intended anyone but the Creator to enter. It was so all-consuming that Lucifer didn’t hear Adam come up behind him and cold cock him with a post-hole digger, sending him rolling down the knell for a short period. Lucifer’s eyes drifted lazily in his head, bright sunlight turned burnt pink through his eyelids. “Head over heels in love,” he grinned.