Chapter 23
The anti-Christ, Tadeo, stared. Cold, a breeze sweeping by fluttered the rim of his hat, and the wind whistled in his ears.
There were other sounds, of course there were — distant music from some yard, some faraway talking, the sound of cars on another road, a few barks, some bird calls — but though nothing had gone still, Tadeo couldn’t find it in himself to realize that the world was still moving, breathing.
How could the Earth continue to beat its heart if Tadeo was staring into the face of the devil?
He was beautiful. Oh, he was beautiful — the shine of his eyes, the wisps of his hair, the pout of perfect pink lips in a sweet smile, the bronze brown of his skin, even his lovingly shaped, alluring build.
And yet the human felt a sudden sickness in his stomach.
Tensely, Tadeo took a step back, one hand reaching for the holster of his gun on instinct only to find his fingers grasping at his weaponless waistband.
“Devil,” left his mouth, but it sounded like a question.
“Devil,” he said firmer. “You were—” That brilliant smile was so terribly familiar. “I know you— You were Father ángel?”
“I spent a long time looking for you,” Satan replied, voice precious silk.
“I learned of a Beast, but even once I had, I didn’t know which human of all the ones here you could be.
” The boy’s single eye twitched. “Eventually, I learned that some priests knew of you, and that some criminals knew of you, as well. I could have disguised myself as either, but I’m very good at praying.
I was an angel once, didn’t you know?” The devil half-turned, took some steps, as if just to remind Tadeo how narrow the road was. “The angel with you knows.”
At Tadeo’s side, Dina was wide-eyed. He looked at the monster who’d destroyed paradise, half-expecting a primal rage to build up within himself for all of Satan’s wickedness that had bled and scarred Heaven as much as the Earth.
Instead, the angel’s mind and heart were hollow.
All the anger that should be there was missing, like he’d forgotten it happened at all, forgotten why he was here.
Only Apsinthos spoke — ‘Don’t listen to him, Dina.
Do not trust him. Do not believe him. He will ruin it all. ’ ‘Ruin?’
The human furrowed his brow at the silent Dina, then turned back to Satan and answered, “I don’t care what you’ve come for. You’re nothing more to me than another criminal. I’ll rip you to pieces like I’ve done to them, like I’ve done to the soldiers.”
Satan addressed Dina: “Uriel looks for you, Dina.”
Eyes widening — “Uriel…?” ‘Don’t listen,’ the star urged. ‘He lies, Dina. He’s the king of lies.’
“He arrived like a horseman from the north, and he has brought death with him from Heaven. He holds his name in your mouth, Dina. I saw him. He’s looking for you. He says… you’re trying to save the world. Is that true?”
‘It’s a lie,’ said Apsinthos again as the angel felt his heart sink, and suddenly, he felt.
He remembered. Uriel telling him to stop the end times from coming.
‘The war, Dina,’ Apsinthos urged, ‘think of the war.’ The Heaven after the war, nearly all of the Heaven he’d ever known, the roads for the sinners, the penance, and then the Watchers, and Satan’s feet tapping against the table as he taught young Dina to dance.
Then the warmth of the devil’s breath by his ear, his serpentine tongue flickering at the lobe.
Satan’s first victim. His plaything — Dina.
And Dina’s jaw clenched, in a way it’d never had.
An anger that felt as ancient as he was.
Dina was ancient; he had never felt the expanse of time that trailed from his shadow but he did now. “Be silent,” he whispered, “Satan.”
“Answer me,” Satan snickered. “Are you here to save the world from the apocalypse, Dina?”
Tadeo interjected with an angry shout: “Look around you, Satan! Look at all the horror you have caused! Look at me!” He met the devil’s humor with some hysteric, high-pitched laugh of his own, then lifted a hand to grip the bandages over the burrow in the right side of his skull.
His fingers slipped between the white, felt the wet ooze of meat.
“You don’t know— You don’t know how much I’ve suffered because of the evil of man.
And you are responsible. You are responsible!
” Satan tilted his head, almost curiously.
“You will…” Tadeo felt himself tense, a flash of the smell of blood in his nose, of sweat, of men; and his voice began to shake.
“You will never know what it is like to suffer the evil that you have created.”
“It is all my fault?” asked Satan, almost gently.
Tadeo despised that answer, how playful it was.
His heart had risen to his throat, and his eyes were instantly burning.
He spat, “God will have you burned! For what you’ve done!
God will destroy you!” His breath was coming faster, and he wanted to reach for the crucifix beneath his shirt to ground him back to the present but it was missing, burnt to nothing in Hell.
And now the sound of his own panting made him think of men, of a dirt ground, of a lot.
The resurrection he’d suffered for. “For all the evil that is your creation, that we have all had to suffer and die for, you will burn!”
“Does it,” answered Satan, “make you feel better to think so?”
“That you will burn eternally? It does.”
“Does it make you feel better to believe I was the one had those men rape and kill you?” Tadeo’s blood froze, breath stopped.
“Would it comfort you to believe that I was the one who had your father kidnapped and strung up, that I was even the one who gave your mother the stroke, that I was the one who ordered every massacre, every torture? Will it absolve them all? Would you forgive them? Would you be able to sleep at night believing that it is all the devil, that none of this is purely man?”
‘God.’ Tadeo was trembling again, but he shook his head weakly, his mouth opening, closing.
“Satan,” Dina said slowly. “You will be thrown in the lake of fire. It is too late now to save yourself.” He felt his star soothing him, encouraging his rage.
“We will save the world,” Tadeo added, his voice still shaking. “Dina was sent to me by God to save humanity, and we will do it. There is nothing you can do.”
Humming, the devil took a step closer, then another, then another.
Tadeo, tepidly, lifted his eyes and had to suppress a shudder.
When Satan had disguised himself as a priest, Tadeo had caught glimpses of beauty behind a terribly mundane face of false blemishes and too-perfect imperfections, but now he saw all that hidden loveliness without anywhere to hide.
And he was catching glimpses of horror now, utter ugliness, grotesque redness at the edges.
“Tadeo,” Satan cooed. “Tadeo, Tadeo. But don’t you…
want to destroy the world? Don’t you see how it has hurt you? ”
“What?” left Tadeo’s mouth before he could stop it, inflected somewhere between humor and disbelief and ‘let it not be’ fear.
“I asked if it made you feel better to tell yourself that I’m responsible for what happened to your parents, your home, and you.
You didn’t answer.” Satan stopped, now just slightly out of arms’ reach.
“It’s because you know that it doesn’t. It isn’t your fault.
You’ve been taught all your life that there must be some scapegoat behind the actions of evil throughout history.
You’ve been made to believe there is a devil, one who exists to tempt you to evil, rather than confronting that maybe it is all human nature.
Maybe it is man who hurts man, mothers who hurt daughters, neighbors who kill neighbors. ”
Tadeo swallowed, shook his head again. “Do you think I’ll ever be stupid enough to listen to what you have to say?”
“I wasn’t there, Tadeo, when you died. I tempted no one.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Dina whispered. “Don’t listen to a word he says. Do not trust him. Do not believe him...”
Satan said, “I did not destroy your life, Tadeo. It was men who killed you. It was men who killed your father. It’s men who killed the world you were promised as a child.
And you know it. It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve read the Bible.
In your heart, you know the truth. And look for yourself.
” He lifted one hand to gesture to their surroundings how Tadeo had done.
“Look around you.” His words echoed Tadeo’s own earlier, down to the cadence; the young man shivered.
“You have tried to make yourself a saint, but it has not saved anyone. You don’t even realize how much worse it’s going to get.
And you tried to save them all, Tadeo. You tried to save them, but only God saves, and there is no hope. ”
“That isn’t true,” Tadeo tried to say. “I’ve done nothing wrong— I’ve tried to just end this war!”
“You want to be a saint, but God needs a sinner,” Satan told him.
“Do you know why you are the way that you are, Tadeo? Do you really believe it was God that resurrected you into a beast?” Again, Tadeo’s blood was cooling, and he wanted to cover his ears now, to beg Satan to stop speaking, to let him believe what he wanted.
Even if it was a lie, it was the only thing he could bear. “Hasn’t Dina told you?”
“Satan,” the angel said, his voice attempting to sharpen only to break.
“You’re,” said the devil, “the anti-Christ.” Tadeo blinked.
“Of your beloved Revelation.” Slow, Satan’s lip curled back, revealed a cruel, bright smile.
“You are the destroyer of Earth. You are no more than a false prophet, so false that you’ve even misled yourself.
Even if this angel is trying to set you on a path to help the world, you can’t deny what you are. ”