Alex smiled. “And Matt.”
Jeremiah seemed to consider this. “Right. And let’s not forget Elizabeth.”
“I thought she preferred Liz.”
“Whatever.”
After a moment of silence, Alex groaned, “Can we stop somewhere to get something to eat? I feel like I haven’t eaten for days.”
“You haven’t. Two days, to be precise. It’s never good to give people food after they’ve received news like you have. I doubt that you would have held it down last night, anyway. But I think you’re over the initial shock, now. Yes, we can get something to eat.”
“I mean, I am really hungry, but I didn’t really mean it felt like days. How could I have gone this long without food?”
“Well,” Jeremiah replied, flicking his cigarette out the window, “the human body can go for a long time without food, living off itself. I can also channel energy I have to make your body feed off of me. It doesn’t provide you with the sustenance that you need to perform much physical activity, but it does look like it has enhanced your ability to see. I thought it might.”
“See?”
“The visions you’ve been having. I can sense it in your brain activity. There’s nothing quite like receiving divinations, is there?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Alex said, trembling as it felt like something cold washed over him.
Jeremiah shot a look of surprise at him. Then, he shook his head in disgust.
“That’s typical, Alex. You’ve been receiving visions for the past two nights, and you don’t remember your dreams. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were fighting this. That’s not making any of this easier for either of us.”
Alex started shaking; it felt like Jeremiah had the air conditioner on high, and the temperature was dropping.
“This is why fighting is bad,” Jeremiah continued. He placed his hand on Alex’s chest, and, immediately, Alex felt heat returning to his body, but little and slowly. “Just accept it.”
“It’s cold,” Alex whispered.
“I know.” Jeremiah sounded more patient. “Navigate through the cold, the darkness. Find the light. The light is heat. It’s safe.”
“Am I dying?” Alex gasped.
“No, child, you are growing. Just...stop...fighting.”
Then, Alex let go. He could feel nothing, but he could see the light. He had never been so scared. Though somehow he knew that death was no threat, he couldn’t shake the feeling that his spirit was no longer with his body. It occurred to him that he was not moving himself toward the light. He was being pulled. It just got bigger and bigger until he was engulfed by it. Then, he felt something that, for the rest of his life, he never believed he could adequately express.
It felt like all of the love he’d ever had in his life was rolled up and emanating from the light. It was like being simultaneously loved by his parents, his friends, and the only girl he had ever truly been in love with. It was overwhelming, but he could do nothing other than take it in.
When he came to, he was still in the car, and Jeremiah was eyeing him intently.
The demon had pulled the car to the side of the road when Alex had gone unconscious, just in case the boy got lost. Jeremiah didn’t know how far he could send his mind in that direction before receiving a holy beating, but he’d have to try. Finally, though, Alex did wake up, and Jeremiah said a silent prayer, thanking God that this first one hadn’t taken so long or been very painful.
But Alex couldn’t speak immediately; he could barely keep his thoughts in order, let alone form words. He had a sense of dread he couldn’t explain. It seemed like something was going to happen, but that was all he had. Despite his attempt to conceptualize what it was that he saw, creating the feeling of fear he had, he couldn’t get past the base fear, itself. He had felt so much love just prior to this. He wondered what the message could possibly be. Something was calling him by name. It took a while, but Alex realized it was Jeremiah.
“Looks like your reason won’t help you here.”
“I saw something—something that’s going to happen,” Alex replied, “but I don’t know what it was.”
“Just relax. It’ll come to you. Besides, it will give me time to tell you about the past, before you start telling me about the future. Anyway, I’ve grown accustomed to telling this story, and it would disappoint me if you didn’t hear it all.”
***
“We have them, boss.”
Patheus looked up slowly from the computer on his desk, “Shule, this one had better work. You’re running out of luck, and I’m running out of patience. You’re planning an ambush on Jeremiah’s lackeys, with which I have no problems. However, it is possible that you aren’t considering the ramifications of your actions. By making a move on them, you gamble with your life. If you go, the runts might kill you. If you stay, and the mission fails, I will kill you. Either way, I will eventually get your soul. Now, do you feel completely comfortable with that?”
“I don’t know, boss,” Shule stammered. “I don’t want you to kill me.”
“Then, don’t fail me. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Patheus stood up and waved his hand. “Leave me,” he commanded. “Tell Eva I wish to speak with her.”
“Yes, boss,” Shule said, bowing his head as he backed out of the room.
Within a few minutes, Eva was standing in his doorway. She never knocked. One of these days, Patheus thought, that little habit is going to get her killed.
“Eva, your nose seems to be healing up nicely.”
She smiled and gave him the middle finger.
“How vulgar,” he responded with a sigh. “Couldn’t you have thought of something a little more clever?”
“Well what could I say that would impress or intimidate one of your prowess?” she asked. “I am completely enthralled by your ruthless attempts to bully people who are obviously subservient to you and abuse those who aren’t.”
“Are you implying that you aren’t subservient?”
She snorted a fake laugh through her slightly misshapen nose. “Do you really think you could control me?”
“Yes, in a very literal sense.” And with that, a force lifted her off the ground and pinned her against the wall.
“I’m sure this is how your fantasies start out,” she spat at him.
“Actually, you’re right.”
She narrowed her eyes; they flashed blue. “You pin me against the wall to prove your dominance over me in the form of rape. How human.”
“Wrong.” He smiled and walked toward her. “In my fantasy, I pin you up to a wall and scoop out your brains through a hole I made in your head. But you were half right. In any event, making my fantasies into reality will have to wait. I have a mission for you.”
“And what would that be?”
“You will use your gifts to seduce a young man. You’ve done it before, and you’re so good at it, Eva. Or do you prefer Delilah? Men have always been weak for you, no matter what your name.”
That stung. Even Eva felt a little dirty for some of the things she had done. She turned her head away.
“You are who you are, Eva. It may be the only thing you’re good at, but at least we’ve got that avenue available to us. Come on, it’ll be like old times. Jeremiah’s new pupil will be the target. From Shule’s report, we know that Jeremiah was at the house last night with Alex.”
She spun her head back to him. He had a calm smile.
“Then, you’re insane,” she hissed. “Even if it were possible, Jeremiah would kill me before I could get within yards of the boy.”
“I know how he operates, Eva. He’ll give the boy some training. Then, like a good mother bird, he’ll make the boy fly on his own. And, like the hawk that you are, you will swoop in to make a catastrophe of his first venture alone. With any luck, he won’t have any friends around to help him either.”
“You realize that Jeremiah will kill me when he realizes what happened
.”
Patheus lowered her to the floor. “It will not be your responsibility to deal with Jeremiah. There is another who is far more equipped to handle that situation. Jeremiah thinks Metatron dead, and this will be advantageous to us. The tides of battle have once again turned.”
***
After eating at a fast food restaurant, Jeremiah took Alex to a car wash, where Alex did, in fact, clean the demon’s car. Jeremiah watched with faint amusement. Alex had asked what the demon would do if he simply declined to wash and vacuum out the car. Jeremiah merely replied that Alex was going to do it one way or another. The question was: what else would the boy do with Jeremiah in control of his actions?
“Well?”
Jeremiah threw his cigarette to the ground and stated, “I suppose it’s good enough. Though, if I were paying you, you’d be fired. Let’s go. We have many things to do.”
“You’re an asshole,” Alex observed as he climbed into the car.
Jeremiah also got in the car, started it, and waited a moment before replying, “Because I had you wash my car? Oh, Alex. I’m afraid your innocence will be shattered after all. Never forget this: I am a demon. And, if the worst thing I do to you, or make you do, is wash my car, consider yourself lucky.”
With his door shut, Jeremiah cleared his throat. “Okay,” he began. “Where were we? Oh, yes. I remember. The prophets and my team were the only ones left to defend Eden against Lucifer.
“You may not believe this, but even angels can be intimidated. You need to understand that Lucifer commanded all angels at one point. I didn’t have the faintest idea what I would do to combat him. He knew all of our maneuvers; he’d created most of them. To make matters worse, I didn’t have the support of the citizens of Eden, only the prophets. Even they didn’t seem to care what we did, as long as we stayed out of their way. Actually, I generally assumed that they knew more about what we were doing than we did. God spoke to them on a regular basis, whereas He only gave us orders. That’s all we ever were to Him: tools. You were His pride and joy—ours, too. We were happy that you had His attention, but it made the situation difficult when we didn’t.
“But we had faith. We patrolled the area, ever-vigilant for Lucifer’s minions, but they never came. The prophets ministered to the people of Eden, and, slowly, many began to follow. The people were seeing things they couldn’t explain. In the course of a decade, some had created what would become the first religion, aside from the abomination Lucifer was pushing. It was strong, too. It was playing a role in the government of Eden, and the people were pressing for the prophets to actually rule the growing township. It was not our place to interfere, but we knew that if the prophets were allowed to control Eden, Lucifer would never stand a chance of absorbing it into his twisted schemes.
“As I said, the prophets were exhibiting powers that we never thought they would be able to master. Many of those powers have been written about in your holy books, and many of the stories were lost to time. You are beginning to understand the power of sight, a power that some of them possessed as well. There were healers. Some of them could even sway other people in ways of the mind—they understood logic, philosophy, and basic science of course, but we were also seeing telepathy. And we did what we could to make them appear all the more powerful.
“There were mortals who feared the prophets, so much so that we had to step in on more than one occasion to foil an assassination attempt. We never had to kill a mortal. In fact, usually our presence alone was enough to dissuade the terrified sheep.
“Rumors spread of the prophets’ strange powers and that they consorted with Lucifer, but none of it amounted to anything. Eventually, the prophets did control Eden, whether they had wanted to or not. They did so, despite the dull hatred simmering beneath the superficial acquiescence of Eden’s population. People have always feared what they don’t understand. It seems to be a flaw that Michael didn’t work out of your programming, as it were.”
“So what happened?” Alex asked impatiently.
“Lucifer, himself, walked in one day.”
“You allowed him to do that?”
“It wasn’t a part of our directive to stop him. It appeared to us that he came with no intention of harming anyone. All he wanted to do was talk to the people of Eden, and it was the prophets who agreed to the meeting. We could feel the darkness follow him in. He had something in mind, but it was so devious that it escaped our scrutiny and, evidently, that of the prophets. Either that, or they didn’t care.
“The entire town was summoned; that was what he’d asked for. He spoke for a while about peace between them and prosperity for the land. Everyone seemed a little hesitant because they were trying to compare this compassionate, concerned Lucifer to the one they had heard about—the one parents would tell stories of to scare children into behaving. None of these people had ever seen him, but legends were strong. He caught them off guard by being so likable.
“We were watching the crowd for signs of acceptance. We knew what Lucifer was doing, and we knew that it didn’t take much to impress this budding species. The prophets were also paying attention to the people. And the people paid attention to them. Ultimately, when the prophets didn’t move, the people didn’t accept. Distrust won out, and the prophets sensed it. They told Lucifer that he could leave because it didn’t look like he was going to make any progress, and that was when he revealed his plan to us.
“He turned on the prophets. He accused them of hoarding the gifts they had. He claimed that all people had that power—the power to be gods. He informed the crowd that the prophets knew of this, and that they were keeping the knowledge to themselves in an attempt at tyranny. Technically, we couldn’t interfere; he had not yet chosen to make any kind of aggressive act against the people. He continued to tell the people that he could teach them to do what the prophets did. Feelings of anger and betrayal swept the crowd. Their emotions were almost tangible to the angels. They bought it. Predictably, they turned on the prophets.”
“What did you do?”
“The only thing we could. We stood between the mob and our oracles. It’s sad that, in trying to subtly teach people what’s right and wrong, doing so in such a manner as to not frighten or confuse them, our methods often blow up in our faces. We hope that they will see that our system is for their own good. When subtlety doesn’t work, we just have to be more proactive, and then they get it.
“I suppose I’m no longer a part of that system, but I’m sure they still work by the same logic: Let humans try it until they approach the point of no return. Then, gently pull them back. We allowed Eden to have fun with their free will, but when it came time to protect those whom we had put there to teach them, we were quick to respond.
“Lucifer had riled up the mob, and the prophets were just assessing the situation, calmly. It didn’t look like they were in the least bit concerned by the fact that hundreds of people wanted to kill them for denying their neighbors knowledge, health, and now godhood. The Morning Star stepped back and held out his arms, as if to say to the mob that he was leaving the decision up to them, and he would welcome them as family. The prophets, who were standing behind the crowd, turned and started to walk away. The crowd began to follow, with bloodlust in their eyes, and there we were.
“We shined with the glory of eternity and true faith. That seemed daunting to them at first, but Lucifer took advantage of the situation. He told them that we would not harm them, and we were only trying to scare them into submission. Unfortunately, that was mostly true. We couldn’t hurt them; our command was to protect the prophets against demons. Otherwise, we were to just watch.
“As if in answer to the conundrum, the prophets stopped walking and turned to Lucifer. ‘The angels need not protect us,’ one prophet told him. ‘God will.’ To some extent, that was a response to Lucifer’s reasoning, but we also immediately interpreted that as a command, a reminder of what we had, previously, been told to do. In any event, it seemed to me that there were other
things that we angels would soon be attending to.
“The people swarmed around us, without acknowledging that we were even there. They rushed toward the prophets, as if simply reaching them and mauling them could provide eternal life. We watched as the mob came upon the prophets, who had not moved. All who came within five feet of the prophets died instantly. I watched the life flee their eyes, as their souls were detached from their bodies. Many fell before the people of the town decided it best to leave the prophets alone. Those wise enough to run left town and never returned to Eden.
“Lucifer was enraged. I think his madness from the Fall was more severe than most. He cried to Heaven, ‘You would save them, but you couldn’t forgive me? I was your first, and you cast me into darkness and despair. This is the final insult.’ And, with that, he waved his arms to signal an invasion. We had no idea it was coming. Lucifer had been a masterful tactician, and he’d found a way to hide his force from even us. Later, I came to understand that Heaven had known, but no one ever told us. I guess the ambush was part of a larger plan.
“Demons poured into the city from seemingly nowhere. They attacked any human they could see. As soon as the first sword fell, we were where they were. We were outnumbered ten-to-one, and Lucifer, himself, was heading toward the fray. He had drawn a weapon—a sword—forged from a metal that I had never seen before. I ordered my angels to slow down the demons’ progress until Michael could arrive. I had chosen to deal with Lucifer, myself.”
Jeremiah chuckled softly. “My second-in-command, Patheus, insisted on going with me because he was afraid I would die. Normally, a demon could never kill an angel—not even a demon as powerful as Lucifer could kill the weakest of angels. The difference in faith is just too great, but our situation was different. Remember, we were somewhere in between. Due to how long we would be required to be on Earth, we had been given tangible bodies. Similar to the bodies of demons, the shells that tied our souls to this planet were not mortal, but they were not divine. And that sword Lucifer was wielding gave me pause for thought.”
Demonic Designs (To Absolve the Fallen) Page 6