by Nana Malone
“Why do you do that?” Azrael asked. “Debase yourself?”
“Because we were supposed to improve their species through intermarriage,” Lucifer's shoulders slumped as though he were carrying the weight of the universe upon them. “My Father refused to help these people finish evolving as soon as he’d harvested enough of their DNA to fix our inbreeding problem. There’s no one else left alive to finish the job.”
Out of 200 Angelics who’d rebelled against the Eternal Emperor to remain on Earth, only Lucifer had been genetically evolved enough to cheat death. The rest had cast their souls into the Dreamtime as soon as the short-lived humans they’d rebelled to marry had reached the end of their mortal lives.
“Our species was meant to take one mate,” Azrael chastised. “For life. Not … this.”
“Blah blah blah,” Lucifer gave a dismissive wave, his demeanor changing to yet another of the many false personalities he projected to the world. He pointed to the terrified, squirming consciousness. “So what do you have for me?”
“East Turkestan Islamic Movement,” Azrael said. “Caught him detonating two bus bombs in Urumqi, China to open a portal to feed Moloch. Killed three people and injured 29.”
“Yup,” Lucifer slapped his hands upon his thighs. “Looks like you brought him to the right place.”
He pushed a button. Sata’an-human hybrid soldiers rolled in a portable containment canister.
“Take this scumbag downstairs,” Lucifer ordered, waving his hand at the squatter posing as a terrorist. He slipped the key worn around his neck into a pedestal next his chair, sticking his hand into a scanner on the podium before pulling down a lever. It was some sort of failsafe. A guarantee that only he could open the gateway to hell even if he got falling down drunk and somebody liberated him of the key.
“Yes, Sir!” The soldiers snapped a crisp salute, accentuated by the lizard-like tail tucked up along one side of their bodies. They waited for Azrael to shove his quarry into the canister so he didn’t accidentally kill them, and then dragged the screaming terrorist out of Lucifer’s throne room. Heat radiated into the room as the soldiers opened the next set of inner doors, the first of many descending layers into the alternate dimension, each more terrible than the one before. Slamming doors muffled the sound of the prisoner's screams.
“It is done.” Lucifer gave him a smile that would power the electrical needs of three Earth cities. “Another scumbag off the planet.”
Lucifer’s mercurial mood swings never ceased to amaze the even-tempered Azrael. Lucifer could, quite literally, be all things to all people. Or so he pretended. Azrael knew otherwise.
“Thank you.” Azrael turned to go.
“Why won’t you shake my hand in friendship?” Lucifer asked softly, stepping forward to stand behind him. “You know it is what I want more than anything in the world.”
Azrael kept his back turned to the Morning Star as Lucifer projected the image into his mind. It was not friendship Lucifer sought, but death. To be freed from the burden of living life as a quasi-ascended being, appointed warden of an unearthly prison when what he wanted more than anything in the world was to join his mate in the Dreamtime.
Lucifer was as much a prisoner here as Moloch.
“Your gift doesn’t work on me.” Azrael picked an image carved into the doors of the General crushing Moloch beneath his boot to focus upon as he resisted the compulsion to do as Lucifer asked. “You know the terms of the Armistice. Until a new Morning Star has risen, you are not free to leave. As his former host, only you understand the way the bastard thinks.”
“Elissar was so close.” Lucifer's voice was almost a whisper. “Hezekiah was certain she was the one. Were you even aware she was using her budding power of persuasion to hold your interest?”
“No.” Azrael noted the curious sensation of his heart breaking even though he hadn’t needed a heart for 2,300 years. “But she didn’t have to. I found her to be the most interesting, delightful child I had ever met. The fact she led me to believe she had traits in common with my little sister because she sensed how much I missed her was irrelevant.”
“Was it?” Lucifer asked. “Would you have followed her into the fires of Gehenna had she not reminded you so strongly of Gazardiel?”
Azrael refused to turn around as tears of black chaos welled in the corners of his eyes.
“I’d like to think so.” Emotion caused his voice to break. “Perhaps she first sparked my interest because she sensed my longing for my family. But towards the end, it was her I saw. Not the images she thought I needed to see to continue studying her. I saw her. And I loved her. Enough to die trying to save her.”
Lucifer sighed.
“I do love them, you know,” Lucifer said. “My children. Each and every one of them. I keep watch over them as best I can, given my current limitations. It brings me joy to see them achieve positions of influence, and when they die because none inherit my long lifespan, I grieve. It’s why I sent a tutor to prepare Elissar to one day assume her rightful place.”
“She thought highly of Hezekiah,” Azrael said. “I think she would have accepted him if she’d found out who he really was.”
Elissar’s tutor had worn a long, loose-fitting robe to hide the tail of a descendant of a Sata'anic Fallen. Perhaps that’s why Azrael found it easy to work with the ‘demons’ despite his fiercely loyal service to the Eternal Emperor. They were all monsters, damaged by Moloch and trapped in this hell.
“Hezekiah reported good things about my daughter's invisible friend,” Lucifer said. “He urged her to keep the information from her mother. He feared seeing you would restore her mother’s memories of the night I visited her. It would have pleased me had she chosen you to be her consort once she became old enough to take a mate.”
“You should set a better example for your children, then,” Azrael said, his back still turned so Lucifer wouldn’t see him cry.
“It was the only gift my mate was unable to give me,” Lucifer said. “A child who was ours. Together. Elissar’s mother was descended from one of his offspring. I had such hope for her.”
The tears were obvious in Lucifer’s voice. The brightest and most beautiful of all the angels. The most genetically advanced creature in the universe until the Regent had surprised them all by suddenly developing the ability to channel void-matter.
Lucifer … who himself had been conceived through deceit…
Lucifer, who loved not the women he slept with, but another man. A human man…
Azrael turned then.
“Ki promised I would see her again,” Azrael said. “When that day comes, I shall take your hand in friendship.”
“Thank you,” Lucifer said, the beauty that was the Morning Star shining unblemished through his eerie silver eyes. The real person Lucifer allowed very few people to ever see because, from the moment he’d been conceived, everyone, including the god he’d been raised to believe was his father, had exploited him.
After 2,300 years of being pinged between the factions which divided Earth as though he were their asset and not Ki’s, Azrael had gradually come to understand why the Regent had a soft spot for Lucifer. The stern expression Azrael used to hide the tender heart which bled for every innocent he reaped softened, allowing Lucifer to see he bore some sympathy for his plight.
The moment passed.
“And now I have ladies desirous of pleasure,” Lucifer said, the mask slipping back into place. The persona of the ladies' man. The stud stallion. The politician. The clown took over as he clapped his hands and leaped lightly off the dais. He strutted like a peacock down the hallway where three willing females were splayed naked upon his bed, waiting for a first-hand demonstration of his legendary sexual prowess. “You should try it sometime. Highly recommended. Nothing like a little va-va-voom to alleviate the stress.”
The door to Lucifer’s personal chambers slid shut behind him, leaving Azrael alone in the processing chamber with two of Lucifer’s Sata’an-human a
gents. Demons, the humans called them. Azrael knew better. They were just people. Hoping to catch the eye of a few cast-offs from Lucifer’s sexual escapades so the next generation would have hope of ascending to the general population, where an armistice prohibiting interference prevented Earth’s inhabitants from knowing the legends of angels and demons, and an ancient evil which had been cast down into a fiery hell, were all true.
The humans had enough problems…
Azrael nodded to the two Sata’an-hybrids who, except for their serpentine eyes and long tails, otherwise appeared human. “Sam … Emmett … until next time.”
“Until next time,” the two lizard-men replied. They glanced up from their chessboard to give him a knowing look, empathizing with his bafflement in dealing with the de facto emperor of Earth.
The Angel of Death had harvested his malefactor for the day. It was time to go further his scientific studies and find ten ‘good people’ to assist with a painless passing so he didn’t become as cynical and damaged as Lucifer.
* * * * *
Chapter 12
Thither Death, coming like Love
Takes all things in the morn of tenderest life
And being a delicate god,
In his own garden takes each delicate thing
Unstained, unmellowed, immature, untrod
The Garden of Death, by Lord Alfred Douglas
Earth - AD December, 1992
Chicago, Illinois
"We’re going to be late, Elisabeth!!!” Mama yelled. “Hurry up and get your coat!”
“Awww… Mom…” nine-year-old Elisabeth Kaiser shouted, pausing in front of the mirror to put the final touches on her angel wings. She straightened the halo jutting crookedly out of her golden curls for the Christmas pageant. She’d been chosen to play the Angel of the Lord who gives Mary the good news she’d be mother to the Savior.
“It’s your play!!!” Mama shouted. “Franz! Tell Opa and Oma it’s time to go!”
“Ze child vishes to make a stage entrance, ja?” Opa gave Elisabeth a wink as she came down the stairs. “I recall her mater [mother] primping in front of ze mirror to make such an entrance before a certain young man as a teenager.”
“Oh … Papa!” Mama smiled. “She’s too young to be so obsessed with her appearance!”
Elisabeth bounded down the stairs most un-angel like and did a stage pose, one hand upraised like the Statue of Liberty as she practiced delivering her line.
“Hail Mary, full of grace! The Lord is with thee.”
“You’re supposed to be telling Mary she’s knocked up,” sixteen-year-old brother Franz said scornfully, “not doing a gymnastics pose.” He poked her robe with a shepherd's hook.
“You’re just mad because you’re the only shepherd without a line,” Elisabeth taunted, sticking out her tongue when Mama wasn’t looking.
“Franz!!!” Mama barked. “Inappropriate language. In the car. Now. And not another word or I’ll tell Santa to leave your presents in the sleigh.”
Elisabeth glanced over to where the Christmas tree awaited presents, colorful light bulbs making any other form of light unnecessary. When they got back from midnight mass, including her Christmas pageant, underneath the tree would be loaded with presents. The dining room table was heavily laden with sweets carefully wrapped in plastic wrap. Cake. Cookies. Fruitcake and strudel. All for Christmas dinner tomorrow when her family would invite the neighbors over for a traditional German Christmas feast.
“Only babies believe in Santa Claus,” Franz taunted just loud enough so only she could hear it.
“Mommmm!” Elisabeth cried. “Franz says I’m a baby for believing in Santa Claus!!!”
“Only children who believe in Sankt Nicholas get presents,” Oma bustled out of the kitchen balancing yet another tray of sweets for tomorrow's feast in her plump hands. “How do you suppose the presents get under the tree with all of us at church? Here, enig engel [little angel]. Put these on the buffet for me like a good girl. Ja?”
“Ja, Oma!” Elisabeth carried the tray of intricately iced heart-shaped lebkuchen cookies into the dining room. She had her suspicions about the presents. Papa always disappeared midway through the lengthy sermon and reappeared just in time for them to put on their annual Christmas pageant, but if she didn’t believe in Santa, she wouldn’t get any presents, so she ignored her brother’s taunts and believed anyway.
The lebkuchen had been pierced before baking, a ribbon strung through to hang them on the tree after they opened their presents. Each of them had decorated a different cookie, but Elisabeth’s cookie was the prettiest, she thought. She picked it up, watching as it twisted on its pretty red ribbon, showing off the angel she’d painstakingly iced onto her cookie.
“I don’t think it looks like a dogs paw print,” Elisabeth carried it over to the Christmas tree and stared up at the angel who’d been her inspiration. “Do you?”
The beautiful porcelain angel which had been in the family for three generations smiled down at her, not answering. The lace had yellowed over the years and one wing glued back together after a mishap involving the cat, but it was still the most beautiful angel she had ever seen. She looked forward to the angel being pulled from storage each December as though she were welcoming back an old friend.
“I didn’t think so,” Elisabeth answered the silent decoration. “Here … I made this for you. I hope you enjoy eating it up in heaven.”
She carefully strung the cookie over the highest branch she could reach of the fake plastic Christmas tree, all her family could afford, and arranged the angel-cookie so it would be the first thing the others saw when they got back from midnight mass. She’d tell Franz that Santa must have hung it on the tree. So there!
“I hope you come see our play,” Elisabeth spoke to the treetop angel. “There’s lots of room in the rafters for you to fly up and watch the service. I’ll be watching for you!”
Elisabeth had been obsessed with angels ever since she was a little girl. A statue of one graced the lounge of First Saint Paul’s with the words ‘fear god, and give glory to him’ carved into the pedestal beneath it. She could often be found whispering to it as adults socialized after mass each Sunday. Reportedly, the angel had been the only item of the original Saint Paul’s church to survive the Great Chicago Fire in 1871.
“Elisabeth!” Mama called. “What’s taking you so long? We’re running behind!”
“She’s probably eating all the cookies,” Franz grumbled.
“Was not!” Elisabeth protested. She gave the angel a quick curtsy in the white sheet wrapped around her for an angel dress and hurried out of the living room. Oma helped her slip her arms into her coat, pushing the collar beneath her angel wings like a stole so it wouldn’t crush them. She shoved her out the door to where Papa had been warming up the car on this frigid Chicago night.
“It’s snowing!” Elisabeth circled joyfully in the walk, face upturned to the air, relishing the feel of the large, fluffy snowflakes landing delicately on her face.
“It’s always snowing,” Mama grumbled. “Papa will be shoveling the walk first thing in the morning for sure.”
“I will help,” Opa said with his heavy German accent, leaning on his cane. “I am not invalid.”
“You will not!” Oma chastised him. “You have a bad heart. Franz is old enough to help his father.”
“Oh … joy,” Franz grumbled, holding out his arm to help his frail grandfather down the short steps to the street where Papa had the car waiting. “Ten to one I’ll be out there shoveling all by myself. Heaven forbid she should help!” Franz pointed at Elisabeth.
“Elisabeth must help me set the table for our guests tomorrow morning,” Mama said. "It is your job to make sure they arrive up our walk without meeting their death!"
Elisabeth stuck out her tongue when Mama wasn’t looking. Franz did it right back, just in time for Opa to catch him in the act.
“It is honor to help your Papa,” Opa said. “You should be thank
ful for what you have. My Papa was taken from me as boy to Russian front. You are lucky you have a father.”
“Yes, Opa,” Franz rolled his eyes. It was a source of continued embarrassment for Franz that his grandfather was proud of his great-grandfather’s service in the Third Reich against the Russians. It didn’t matter that Opa condemned what the Nazi’s had done to the Jews or that his father had been faced with the same choice all German young men had been faced with at that time. Join. Or be shot. All Franz cared about was his great-grandfather had fought on the ‘wrong’ side of the war.
“Get in, get in, get in, get in,” Mama chanted, bustling all of them into the car. “And buckle up.” She herded Elisabeth into the front seat to sit between she and Papa, while Franz sat in the middle of the back.
“Don’t crush my wings,” Elisabeth warned as Papa crammed his tall frame into the car, giving him a fetching smile.
Papa smiled back. He was a great big bear of a man, but also very gentle. He drove a garbage truck for the city, effortlessly lifting the heavy barrels into its great, orange maw. Sometimes, Elisabeth wondered if Papa turned in the great orange truck on Christmas for a red sleigh. All he needed was a white beard.
“It’s slippery tonight.” Papa edged the car out of the parking space and drove to the end of the street. The windshield wipers swish-swish-swished the gigantic snowflakes, which were coming down so fast Elisabeth could see the shape of each giant snowflake as it passed in front of the headlights.
“Just drive slow,” Mama said. “If we’re late, everyone will be late. They can’t start the Christmas pageant without the Angel of the Lord, now. Can they?”
“No they won’t,” Oma chipped in from the back of the car. “They can’t start the play without Elisabeth.”
Papa slowed as they approached the red light, grumbling as the car fishtailed. He breathed a sigh of relief when the light changed green well before they’d gotten to the intersection.