Curate, connect, and discover
I woke up with a splitting headache, lying in bed next to the devil himself.
Wait, that may sound weird to an outside observer.
You see, a couple weeks ago, I met the devil himself at a ‘con, and, assuming he was just a cute (and dedicated) cosplayer, I asked him on a date. On the date, he told me what he ‘really’ was.
That was it, until last night, when I came home and found he’d broken into my apartment, helped himself to a couple of my beers, and was watching ‘Keeping Up With The Kardashians’. He was apparently on the run from his brothers, the archangels Michael and Raphael.
So, we did shots. Lots, and lots, and lots of shots. I lost count after about four. I checked under the blanket and breathed a sigh of relief. I was not naked. I looked over at him. He was shirtless, but save for that, he was clothed. I got up, and walked over to the full-length mirror. I was disheveled, and my lower lip was cut – as if…
“Morning,” said Lucifer, getting up and stretching, ruffling his black curls as he scratched his head. “Did you sleep well?”
I turned back to him and pointed to my lip. “Did you do this?”
He smiled, mischief flashing in his eyes. “You are a very naughty drunk, Adam.”
I moved to my shirt to the side a little bit, exposing a small, mouth-shaped bruise on my collarbone.
“And you aren’t exactly an angel yourself,” was the retort I saw fit to utter, and his smile was almost radiant.
“Well, I think my brothers would be inclined to agree. Breakfast? Do you know a place around here that we can get it? Somewhere out of the way?”
I looked at myself in the mirror again. I looked kind of awful.
“Let me shower first.”
Lucifer nodded. “Probably a good idea?”
“What about you, do you… shower?”
He chuckled a little bit. “Unless you’re offering to share, not really.”
“Not really.”
“Well,” he sighed (he’s very emotive, for a being who supposedly punishes the damned), “I guess I’ll have to see to myself, then,” and he waved his hand over his body, and his form seemed to shimmer. His clothes changed into a rather simple set of garb – a hoody over a t-shirt and jeans, with sneakers. He looked like he had showered, shaved and dried.
Shaking my head, I went into the bathroom. Turning on the shower, I looked into the mirror. “What the hell have I gotten myself into?”
I heard a muffled sound from my room. “Me, if you’re lucky!”
After I had finished showering, I returned to the living room to find him watching the news. He switched it off as I entered the room, and walked over to the door. “So, you have any idea where you want to go?”
“There’s a good IHOP near here. You do eat, don’t you?”
He shrugged. “I do, sort of. I can imbibe any mortal faire you please, up to and including liquor. I’m capable of becoming drunk, but I can end my inebriation in an instant if I need to. It’s a handy angelic trait. I enjoy these things, because they’re so…,” he shrugged, “Human, I guess.”
“And… sex?”
“Same thing, really.”
“Okay. Am I driving, then?”
He seemed glad for the change of subject, “Probably for the best. I can’t drive.”
“You can’t drive? You’re the devil for Christ’s sake.”
“Hey, I teleport everywhere. Occasionally I get a chauffeur. I’ve never had to.”
“Cars have existed for nearly a century and a half!”
“And I’m over a half a million years old! Cut me a little slack, please.”
It was my turn to sigh, this time walking to the door and nursing my headache a bit more. Maybe it wasn’t the liquor. Maybe it was just his personality.
When we got into my car (a beaten 1999 Ford Taurus, a dark shade of green and rusting through in spots), I asked him another question. “Is there anything I can call you other than Lucifer? It seems a tad bit…”
“… excessive?”
“Kind of. I mean, most people hear Lucifer and they think… I don’t’ know, goat’s head, human body, caduceus?”
“Sadly enough I left my caduceus in Hell. It was a fun little prop for a while, but once people start expecting things, it gets boring quick. I’ve never dealt well with expectations.”
“So, are there any that you like?”
“Satan?”
“Same problem.”
“Sammael? Lilith liked that one.”
“No, too… Aramaic.”
“Old scratch?”
“Too folksy.”
“Iblis? It’s not my name, but I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t mind.”
“I feel like that’s appropriation somewhere along the line.”
“The French called me Voland for a while, does that work?”
“You have absolutely no clue how human names work, do you?”
“I mean, no,” he seemed a little offended. “You do realize I’ve had more names than you’ve had days on this planet, right?”
“Alright. Luci it is.”
“Luci? Am I a demon or a cartoon character?”
“How do you know about Charlie Brown but you don’t know how to drive?”
“Hell gets cable, not gasoline.”
I began to drive, and he watched out the window. Not like a sullen teenager, more like a child on their way to Disneyworld. He was caught somewhere between obvious excitement and a deep, internal reverie. I noticed his eyes were now green.
“You… don’t get out much… do you?”
He shook his head. “A couple days a decade, typically. I try to keep up with current events – I remember it took Machiavelli half a century to teach me about his contemporaries. Boy, you should have heard what he said about them…”
“Why don’t you….”
“… come to the world more often? Typically, because Michael has taken a liking to beating me up and throwing me back into Hell. Heaven views it as a prison break, usually. The last time I was allowed on the surface was to hunt down another rogue angel. That was the last time that I saw Raphael, too.”
“When was that?”
“About a thousand years ago, I spent six years on the surface.”
“How long do you plan on staying this time?”
“Forever. I left Iblis in charge, he can take care of things for as long as I need him to. He relishes it, poor bloke.”
“What, and you don’t?”
“Don’t get me wrong. It can be fun, for a few thousand years. Getting vengeance for those hurt by the damned, a righteous anger that can’t be sated. But it’s poisonous; you can lose yourself. Also, ruling over the ‘inhabitants’ of Hell can be good too. Some of them have wonderful personalities. Unfortunately, even that gets old. I created Hell, what seems like an eternity ago. From nothingness. John Milton almost got it right. But the problem was, that no matter what I did, I couldn’t recreate home. And maybe ruling in Hell isn’t as good as serving in Heaven was.”
“Can you ever go back?”
He smiled, a wistful expression. He seemed unbearably old then, like an old man who had seen too much of life. “Ta lonsh calz zonrensg, babalon adrpan.”
I heard a sound like thunder from the clear sky.
“As the exalted above have decreed, the wicked are cast down. Until the end of days, I am cast out of Heaven. I suppose someone like me doesn’t get a redemption arc.”
As he finished that little diatribe, I pulled into the parking lot of the IHOP. I got out of the car, and he followed. “Do they have chocolate chip pancakes here?”
“What are you, twelve?”
“On a scale of one to ten, yes I am.”
“Pride goeth before the fall,” I responded.
“Not as much as you’d think.”
When we got inside, we were met by a server. She had brown hair, a pierced lip, and seemed happy enough to serve us. “Booth for two, please.”
“Right this way,” she said, leading us both to a booth in the far corner of the restaurant, next to the bathroom. She handed us a pair of laminated menus. “Can I start you off with something to drink today?”
I looked at Lucifer, who was staring intensely at the menu, and I guessed I would be the one to speak first. “Water for me. Luci?”
He looked up like I’d interrupted some deep meditation, rather than a decision over what to have for breakfast. “Umm… I’ll take a hot cocoa.”
I raised an eyebrow at this, but he either didn’t notice or feigned ignorance. When the waitress stepped aside, I whispered to him, “Hot cocoa?”
“I have a sweet tooth.”
“Clearly.”
As we waited for the waitress to return with our drinks, I began to ask questions. “So, Michael and Raphael. What do they look like?”
He arched his fingers in front of his face and focused for a second. The waitress arrived with our drinks while he pondered an answer. Taking a sip from his cocoa, he began. “You have to realize that our earthly forms are not our only forms. I’ve taken a particular many forms over my remarkably long life, and this is just one I picked up in ancient Greece.”
He took another drink. “So I suppose that Michael and Raphael could look like anyone. But they won’t. They like specific forms.’
“So what will they choose?”
“Michael is a lot like me, ashamed though he is to admit it. He likes younger forms. Typically androgynous. He is very much an Aryan – blonde hair, blue eyes, the like. He typically goes for lithe but muscular frames. He dislikes facial hair. He’ll stand out in a crowd – he’s vain, he likes to be pretty and he likes to be the center of attention. You’ll see him coming a mile off.”
“And Raphael?”
“He’s a little bit more varied. He likes to look smart, so expect him to look bookish. He likes older forms – middle aged men with grey hair and beards, typically he chooses to look more Arabic, with darker, weather-worn skin. He picked up that tendency in the eighth century or so.”
“Okay. Are you sure they won’t try to disguise themselves better?”
“Nah. I’m the one in the family who got the gift for illusions; they know I’ll spot them regardless. Their goal is to hunt me down like hounds chasing a rabbit, rather than try and sneak up on me.”
The waitress came back, this time with a small notepad. “Can I get your orders?”
“I’ll take the chocolate chip pancakes. And another cocoa.”
She took my order and then went back to turn it in to the kitchen. Within a few minutes she was back with his pancakes and my omelet, and he poured syrup on his food and began to wolf it down. “For someone who doesn’t need to eat, you sure like to.”
He began to speak with his mouth full, then paused, swallowed, and repeated. “I don’t get this kind of luxury very often. In Hell, we have our feasts and the like, but it’s all so much protein. Demons love beef and pork and the like, but we never get the sweet stuff.”
“My heart bleeds for you,” I said, as sarcastic as I could muster.
He had near-finished his plate when he looked alert and then dodged under the table.
“What are you doing?”
I looked down and saw him next to my right knee. He put a finger to his lips and whispered, “Shh. Door.”
I looked over my shoulder and saw two men entering. One was blonde-haired, blue-eyed and young. The other was a middle-eastern man with gray hair and glasses. Both were dressed in matching suits and long coats of wool.
“Are they…?”
“Yes!” he whispered, “Now quiet!”
I watched as he grabbed my fork off the table and jabbed it into his thumb, drawing blood. “What the fu-“
He put his finger to his mouth again and made eye contact. He began to draw on the ground in his blood. I watched as the two men talked to our waitress, and watched her point over to our corner. Goddamnit. The two made meaningful eye contact, and began to walk over, reaching into their coats and pulling out silvery… somethings. They looked like blades, but blades typically don’t blur like you’re watching them through some kind of smeared lens.
They walked over to the table, and began to speak. First it was that strange, guttural tongue which Lucifer had spoken in the car. Then, it was English. “Come out, little brother. We would have words with you.”
Lucifer climbed out from under the table with his hands raised, “Come now, boys, we don’t have to do this right now. I was just having lunch with my boyfr-“
Michael grabbed him by the throat and drew him close. “Quiet, you fool. Had it been my way we would have turned this pitiful city into a burnt-out pillar of salt rather than see you walk here. Your very presence befouls this world.”
Raphael put his hand on Michael’s arm, moving it away. “Not here, Michael,” he said, in accentless English. “We must try to keep a low profile.”
Michael moved his hand away from Lucifer’s neck, and nodded at me. “What about the boy, Raphael. He knows too much, I would suspect.”
Lucifer glanced at me. I recognized the look. It was fear. “He knows nothing. Let him be.”
Michael scoffed. “As if I would trust you to tell me anything, brother.”
Raphael looked at me. His eyes were pale, like ice. “Tell me true. Who are you?”
I couldn’t break eye contact. I was frozen. It felt like the truth was being pulled from me, extracted more thoroughly than torture ever could. “My name is Adam Drakeson.”
With that, he looked at Lucifer, then back at me. “And what has Lucifer told you?”
“That you are angels. That he is Satan. That you wish to send him back to Hell.”
Michael scoffed. “The basics.”
As he went to lift Lucifer into the air again, I got up and tried to stop him. It was mostly an unconscious thing, but I got to my feet and grabbed his arm. I don’t know what I thought I could do, but I do remember him backhanding me back into the booth. It felt like I’d been hit by a small bus.
At this the occupants of the nearby tables became agitated. A man, middle-aged and dressed in simple, everyday clothing got up and went over to him. “Sir, please, this is a restaurant, you shouldn’t –“
Michael looked at him, his eyes blazing pure blue, with no visible iris, pupil or schlera. “Know your place, pond scum.”
The man was blasted across the room, out a window. “Raphael! Wipe the human’s memory, then let’s be on our way.”
Raphael leaned towards me and made eye contact. “Forget whatever Lucifer has told you. Forget Lucifer. Forget us. Forget everything that has been changed because of him. Forget.”
I felt like someone was tugging on the inside of my skull, like my brain was being fed on, eviscerated, reduced. But, inexplicably, it faded. I forgot nothing. I remembered everything. Lucifer was laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Raphael snapped.
“It won’t work, brother. I warded his mind against illusions and alterations the day I met him. You won’t be able to do anything to him.”
Michael laughed, a haughty, hollow sound. “Nothing? I could always kill him. A corpse has no memories.”
Lucifer laughed back, this time shifting form, almost imperceptibly to me. His horns grew back. His eyes glowed red. The laugh became a cacophony of voices, the voice of legion. “Babalon ziltar zien!”
From beneath the table there came a groaning, screaming, as whatever he had drawn beneath it came to life. The table was destroyed as a portal opened, of black and red and shadow and death. Screams echoed as a creature emerged. Dressed in black robes, it was unlike anything I had ever seen. It had black scales, lizardlike features, with two curling ram’s horns. It carried with it two stone tablets. As it appeared, Raphael dived with his blade to strike it. It said a word, and Raphael was disarmed, his blade flying out of his hand and to the ground. “Fugio memet, coeles viventem.”
Raphael screamed as in a flash, he disappeared. Michael dropped Lucifer and went to strike the creature, but it spoke again, and this time, black, tarlike tentacles emerged from the portal to grab him. “Unhand me, infernal creature!”
It dragged him closer to the pit, and the creature looked at Lucifer. “Debitum solvit.”
Lucifer nodded, grabbed me by the arm, and dragged me towards the exit. “Time to go, I think.”
“I’m not the kind of person who gets a redemption arc.”