In The Lap Of The Gods

by John B. Hendricks

  “Who are you?” Eve asked melodically, her voice like the finest Steinway. “What are you?” she asked Belphegor, dampening his ardor. Stuck up, he thought.

  “I’ll ask the questions, little missy,” Lilith smiled with an undercurrent of threat. “Who do you love?” She pulled a small tape recorder out of her coat.

  Eve looked at her skeptically. “Are you a reporter from one of those tabloids? ‘First Couple Spoils It for Everybody’ kind of crap?”

  “I do edit the Hell Newsletter,” Lilith admitted.

  “Hell!” Eve exclaimed. “Lucifer?”

  “Yes, we were sent by Lucifer.” Lilith looked over at Belphegor. He made a motion across her mouth. Zip your lip.

  “Goodness,” Eve said. “Does he ever talk about me?”

  “Endlessly,” Lilith said. “Gooey, lovey-dovey, hopelessly in love, moon in June type stuff. He’s nuts over you. He thinks you’re the tops.”

  “Wow!” Eve said. “I never thought he would still feel that way. He’s the only man that ever, you know, did it for me.”

  “I know the feeling,” Lilith agreed. She pushed the recorder in front of her. “Is there any message you’d like me to pass on to him?”

  “Absolutely.” Eve closed her eyes and thought for a second. “Hi Lucifer. This is Eve. I’ve never forgotten our tryst in the Garden. It’s the one thing that has kept me sane for all these years. I’ve never believed all the bad things I’ve heard about you and I hope that someday we’ll meet again. I miss you.” Eve opened her eyes and grinned. “You’ll make sure he hears that?”

  “Oh, I’ll make sure,” Lilith said. “But don’t forget, you’re not the only girl that he’s romped with in the great outdoors.”

  “What? Who are you?”

  “I, my dear, am Lilith. The FIRST woman.” Lilith offered her hand. As Eve reached for it tentatively, Lilith pulled her own hand away, rubbing it on the side of her head. “Too slow,” she laughed, and balled her fist and punched Eve sharply in the nose. Eve crumbled. Lilith raised her fist to her lips and blew over them. “Fastest fist in Hell,” she smiled. “Belphegor, bind her up and get ready to tote out of here.” She looked around the room. “I have one more thing to take care of. The fun is just beginning” She rewound the tape, pulled out a second recorder and began fiddling with it, laughing hysterically.

  Chapter 51[51]

  The Boscobel Hotel exuded piety, and that was just from the street.

  The bus had dropped them all off and sped away after a heated exchange about the forgotten luggage. “We can forward it,” the driver had said, and was pelted with crab legs. A bit of backslapping and coarse language helped eased the Norsemen’s anger, and they all tromped noisily into the hotel.

  The desk clerk raised his hand and was getting ready to speak but quickly shut his mouth as the stream of rough and tumble gods kept pouring in. “Must be real Vikings fans,” he commented to no one in particular.

  “You could say that,” Lucifer said. He had been bringing up the rear, heart palpitating, righteousness overload here in the middle of cheese country. “We want to take a peek in room 19,” Lucifer said.

  “Those sure don’t look like Gideons,” the desk clerk said.

  “Norway chapter,” Lucifer smiled. “Don’t worry; their beef is worse than their biff.”

  “There bark is worse than their steak?”

  “Smartass.”

  “Jaevel!”

  Lucifer looked at him. “For your sake, I hope that you intend that to mean son-of-a-bitch and not devil.” He pulled his tail out and twirled it cowboy and lariat style in front of him. “Now, before I steal your soul or something satanic like that, I need the key to room 19.”

  In the distance, they both heard a wooden door splinter open.

  “Impatient, aren’t they?” Lucifer said to the wide-eyed clerk. He thrust his hand out, slapping the desk clerk with the palm of his hand in the center of his forehead. “Finally getting my edge back,” he thought. He turned and fought through the thick air of high morality to the birthplace of the Gideons.

  The Aesir were lingering impatiently in the hallway and in the room. To his surprise, he could smell something rotten and decaying in the room. Something evil.

  “Where’s Odin?” he asked.

  Thor jerked his thumb toward the other room. “Bathroom. Too much moo shoo pork.”

  That explains the smell, Lucifer thought. He pulled out the map and turned to the east wall. This is it, he thought. Odin clapped him on the shoulder.

  Lucifer pulled away. “You could have at least washed your hands,” he said in disgust.

  “Hell, be glad I even flushed!” Odin roared in laughter. “Let’s get moving before the toilet backs up into here!”

  Lucifer nodded, clearing his throat and opening his arms wide.

  “Kitsch,” he whispered, a hole in the air started dilating, slowly, and the bright lights of the City of God poured into their widening retinas. No one talked, not even Thor, to everyone’s surprise. In fact, the group seemed to be holding their collective breath.

  “Life’s a voyage,” Lucifer said, breaking the silence, “that’s homeward bound.” That Melville may have been verbose to the extreme, but the man knew about the fierce burning need to return home.

  Lucifer stepped through the portal, home.

  Chapter 52[52]

  The City of God was as just like the one Lucifer remembered. There was lots of gold, lots of glitter, and lots of flash.

  He did not remember the tumbleweeds, though.

  The city looked like an abandoned Las Vegas. The lights were still on, but nobody was home. Lucifer glanced both ways up the Golden Highway #9, the outermost highway from the center of the city. There was nothing but dust and Russian thistle rolling haphazardly around, which wouldn’t be out of place in the desert southwest, but was very odd in a city where the wind never blows.

  The Aesir, wound up tighter than a two-krona watch, were pacing the road, swinging their various weapons of choice absently, waiting for something to happen. Odin walked over and asked him in a puzzled tone.

  “Are you sure this is the right place?”

  Lucifer grimaced and eyed Odin, pointing at the road sign. “Welcome to Heaven.”

  “Oh,” Odin said with slight embarrassment. “I just pictured it as a bit more, crowded.”

  Lucifer did a quick calculation in his head. When he left his previous domain, there was consensus that 100 billion people had walked the earth at one time or another. There had to be a lot of them up here. Did they all go to Hell?

  ***

  Lucifer had spent what felt like eons in the Kitsch room. He had a nasty sugary taste in his mouth all the time and screamed at pictures of fluffy clouds and daffodils. Music boxes would sporadically start and stop, playing their endless loops of tinny sap that penetrated his hands as he covered his ears. He felt imaginary gnomes tugging and tearing at his flesh.

  Then the door opened.

  A phalanx of Thrones stood there snarling. Jehovah’s button men, sneers tinged with glee. “Time to take out the trash,” Olofaliel the boss said.

  “Hoy!” his thugs with dirty faces shouted in unison, picking Lucifer up and lifting him above their heads. They ran in lockstep along Highway #8.

  A large throng of people had gathered, lining the Japanese-mapled streets, jeering and laughing. Lucifer looked side to side, taking in every face, memorizing them and creating a mental checklist for later. He would have his revenge.

  The Thrones stopped abruptly, letting him fly, arms and legs akimbo, gracelessly flailing, wingless, and slamming against the decorative golden wall of Heaven. He saw stars, dancing pinpricks of lights, dancing in front of his eyes.

  He realized that he wasn’t physically stunned. There were actual stars blazing through a open portal in the wall. Did they shine so brightly just because of the hydrogen banging together or was it a reflection of his white-hot inner hate?

  The crowd went silent, hush
ed with awe and fear. Lucifer could feel both in the room, which meant that the mighty Creator had made an appearance.

  “Well, Emperor of Kitsch, your kingdom awaits,” Jehovah beamed. “Enjoying your view?” he asked.

  “When did you make all of this?” Lucifer asked. “It’s so-“

  “Infinite? Well, sometimes when you get a good thing going, it’s just hard to stop. So I decided not to!” His voice deepened. “Welcome to Jehovah’s Ever-Expanding Universe!”

  “If it’s ever expanding,” Lucifer said. “What is it expanding into?”

  “We’ll leave that one for the philosophers and drug abusers of another day,” Jehovah smiled broadly. “I’ve been giving you a lot of thought, Lucifer the Morning Star. In my wildest abstract thoughts, disobedience from my creations never crossed my mind. I mean, why? Isn’t all of this enough? Spas, chamber music, folk dancing. And all I asked for was a little praise, a little worship? But no.” All the lights in the City of God dimmed to candle bright.

  “Behold.”

  Lucifer peered out the window. He saw in the farthest depths of space one steady light. It glowed cherry apple red. Its dark companion hung beside it, dull, matte black against the black expanse, throbbing.

  “Not only did you disobey me, but you corrupted my new children, my Mankind. You taught them disrespect and I can’t abide by that.” Jehovah paused thoughtfully. “My plan was simple. Create a new race to worship me and enjoy the fruits of my bounty. Then, at the end of their lifespan, to return to me and become one with my divine presence here in the Kingdom of Heaven, where they could join with the Heavenly Host and continue to worship me. But now…”

  Jehovah sighed.

  “Mankind has my directions, and those that can’t obey will just have to be punished. You, Lucifer the Light-Bearer, will be my instrument. In every face of every human that appears in Gehenna, you’ll see the face of your Creator, the face of your defeat, and the face of all that you’ll never be again, and I know you’ll lash out at it in every conceivable away,” Jehovah’s nostrils flared, and he nodded to the Thrones.

  “Begone, Emperor.”

  The Thrones grabbed Lucifer and started swinging him back and forth, his arms and legs outstretched and frantic. “I will have my vengeance!” shouted Lucifer, and he was flung bodily through the portal, tumbling rapidly before disappearing from sight.

  “Hmm,” Jehovah said. “I kinda like that. Let’s make it ‘Vengeance is mine,’ and we’ll use it later.”

  The Cherubim nodded and continued to scribble frantically in his notepad. “Catchy,” he thought.

  Lucifer had never been so cold and in later years felt that the long voyage through the depths of space had frozen the rage and anger into the very core of his being. He slammed into the planet, the impact heard by no one.

  Hell was pretty much like Earth, with a few add-ins like a few molten lakes of fire. Lucifer seethed in his own fury, running in circles until he couldn’t run anymore. When the first sinner popped out of a portal, the minions of Lucifer, all fallen angels such as himself, lunged at the guy and the poor bastard went down, pummeled by a thousand angry former angel fists. More people stared popping out and it was like feeding a feeding frenzy at a zoo’s piranha tank. Those frenzied first moments set the tone for a millennium of raw fury.

  It turned out that the cure for the bitter anger was merely time. The futility of tormenting humans, fully flawed by their Creator, slowly lost its appeal and the rage evaporated.

  “True revenge,” he told his minions as they sat around a roaring blaze of Carmelite nuns, “is not doing Jehovah’s dirty work, but undoing his handiwork. Stripping the Earth of his precious Mankind, and taking the planet for ourselves, now that would make a point.” They were all drinking heavily, building up a six-pack’s worth of courageous words.

  “But Lucifer,” a minion said. “How do we wipe mankind off the face of the Earth? We don’t have the resources and Jehovah still has the oomph to send us tail-between the legs back to this place.”

  The demon was right. Lucifer’s bold plans and loud talk were nothing but a pipe dream. For many years, the dreams languished on the back burner of his mind, turned down to low.

  ***

  “This is the right place,” Lucifer said. “We are on the outskirts of Shamayim, the First Heaven. This is where the select come to when they die, so they can worship their Great Benefactor for eternity.” Lucifer gagged briefly, a vision of velvet paintings danced past his eyes like floaters. “Keep an eye out for angels or any other celestial beings.”

  The Norsemen plodded slowly up the street, cautiously glancing up into the sky and watching windows and doors. Nothing, other that the ubiquitous tumbleweeds were in motion.

  “Lucifer!” Frigga shouted. “Here’s what you wanted!”

  They crowded in front of a large glowing board. It stared at them patiently, waiting. A large red X near the bottom read “You Are Here.” Frigga reached out and touched it.

  “Welcome to the City Of God!” a woman’s voice glowed from the board. “You are currently at the entrance to Shariayim, the First Heaven,” it said. “How can I help you?”

  “How about a bathroom?” someone shouted.

  “Waste stations are located at the corner of each quad. Bidets have been added for your defecation pleasure.”

  “Now that’s a lovely thought,” Odin cracked, looking at Thor.

  “Quiet!” Lucifer berated them. “We are looking for Eve,” he said to the board.

  “Searching.”

  The Aesir and Lucifer kicked their feet a bit, trying to scuff the golden highway with their shoes. A few picked Chinese food from their teeth.

  “Complete,” the board said. “There are 2,968 entries.”

  “This may take awhile,” Odin muttered. “The 3,000 faces of Eve.”

  “Shut up, and that wasn’t a bad joke, granted,” Lucifer said. “Let me think.”

  “You’re the brains of this operation,” Odin smirked. “C’mon guys. Let’s have a look around.” The Norsemen scattered out a bit, peering into store windows and kicking over trashcans.

  “Eve’s last name,” Lucifer thought. Did she really ever marry that oaf Adam, or were they just living in sin. Lucifer smirked.

  “Eve, the first woman,” Lucifer told the sign.

  “No listing.”

  “Eve, wife of Adam.”

  “No listing.”

  “Eve, the mother of all.”

  “No listing.”

  “Shit.”

  “Fearless leader!” Thor yelled. “Look at this!” He was waving a giant laminated sheet of paper at him.

  Lucifer snatched it from Thor’s hand, who turned and high-fived all the male Aesir and hip-butted the females.

  “Heaven’s Highlights!” the paper screamed from the cover. “See the Stars!” Lucifer unfolded it. It was like a Hollywood map to the stars’ homes. John the Baptist’s house. Julius Caesar’s palace.

  Eve’s Place.

  Relief poured over Lucifer. Never underestimate peoples desire to rubberneck, he thought, even after they are dead.

  The Aesir stood ready. He nodded, and they followed him into the heart of the city.

  Chapter 53[53]

  Lucifer was pleased that Heaven had moving sidewalks.

  The group was in full-adrenaline fall-off lethargy. When they arrived, the Aesir were hyped up for a fight. They had vision of millions of defensive citizens and valiant masters of the Air defending the City. The disappointment was palpable in the air and Lucifer tried to encourage them. “Maybe her home is a well-guarded prison-like structure.”

  It was actually more like a California bungalow. The front gate was still open and there were no guard dogs.

  “Can we at least bust down the door?” Odin asked.

  “No point,” Lucifer said. “No door.” They walked through the open archway and gathered in the front room of the house. A giant stone fireplace covered an entire wall, the fireplace
full of ashes. The mantle was crammed with framed photographs. Frigga picked one up. “Is this her?”

  Lucifer looked at it. “Yep, the First Couple,” he answered.

  “He’s hot,” Frigga whispered. Odin glared at her. “Hey, Odie,” she said. “It doesn’t matter where I get the appetite, as long as I eat at home, right? Same for you?”

  “I’m tired of leftovers,” Odin said under his breath.

  “Looks like there’s been a struggle here,” Hermoth said, pointing to a toppled potted plant.

  “The glass in the coffee table is cracked as well,” Odin said.

  “I’m going to take a look around,” Lucifer said.

  Lucifer walked around the house. He peeked into each of the rooms: bathroom, kitchen, guest room, and finally the master bedroom. He tentatively stepped in. The bed was a king, with frilly pink ruffles. There were a few stuffed animals, a dressing table, all very feminine. Definitely not the room of the original Man of Clay.

  He walked over to the dressing table, picked up her hairbrush, and pulled a long black hair from it, twirling it around his finger. He stepped into the walk-in closet, touching the hanging garments, pushing his nose into a particularly soft shirt, smelling her scent like a desperate bloodhound. He breathed her.

  The wanton euphoria washed over him and rode with him as he glided effortlessly back to the front room. The Norsemen were lounging around, eating a few snacks they had scrounged up from the kitchen. “No beer,” Thor said dejectedly holding up a can of diet soda. “Thor sad.” His mates cracked up.

  Had Jehovah came for her and taken her by force? Maybe Eve had left something in the hope that someone would find it and try to rescue her, Lucifer thought.