Chapter 52
Alexa, play ‘Dead Man,’ David Kushner
Year: 2348 BC
“Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.”
—MOTHER TERESA
I had never known terror like I did the moment I saw Lilith enter Heaven through the pearly gates. She was a perfect little ink spill in the center of a yawning ivory wasteland, and I nearly wept with fear and rage.
“Lilith! No! Go back to Hell!” I shouted, but she only had eyes for me. Shem stumbled in behind her, his shoulder still half-rotted from where she had hit him with her magic. He reached out with his good arm to grab her.
“Lilith, we need to go back; you can’t be here,” I heard him plead, but she shrugged him off. Angels swarmed them, and she rotted them away before my eyes. For a moment, I watched in awe. She was all-powerful and her death magic seeped out of her, corrupting everything it touched.
We had underestimated her. She was going to make it. She was going to make it to me, and the three of us were going to get out of here and go home…
Thwack !
My soul rattled in the cage of my body, and I vomited. The violence of my retching surprised me, and I looked down to see that a gush of black sludge had erupted from my mouth into the clouds before me.
What the…
I glanced around and realized that Rafael had just struck me with that fucking scepter.
Lilith froze.
Shem stopped moving.
Everything went silent.
“Lilith, welcome to Heaven,” Yahweh said, sounding as if He were greeting an old friend for dinner. “We have been waiting for you.” He gestured to me lazily.
“Let him go,” Lilith said, her voice dark and full of rage and sorrow. “I’ll give you whatever you want, just let Ramel go.”
“Anything I want?” Yahweh asked calmly, and she nodded.
“No, Lilith!” I snapped at her, coughing up more black sludge. “It’s not fucking worth it. Go back to Hell. Hazai will take care of you.”
Her eyes darted from me to Rafael and back to Yahweh.
“If you leave here, I will unmake him, and you will never see him again,” Yahweh drawled, and Shem hissed, his face contorting into his cat demon form before reverting back.
“What do you want?” Lilith asked, decay dripping from her perfect fingers.
“I want things to return to the way they were meant to be. I would like you to manage death, and I would like Ramel and Shemhazai to return to my side where they belong. They are my angels. They belong here in Heaven with me, and you belong in Hell—alone.”
“Fine,” Lilith said, nodding. “I accept.”
“No!” I snapped. “I refuse. I will not serve Him again.” I met her mossy green eyes and tried to imagine what my life would be like without her safe in my arms. “I would rather be unmade.”
Lilith shook her head, her gorgeous eyes filling with tears. “I cannot exist in a realm where you do not, Ramel. I need you,” she whispered. “Even if I can’t have you, I need to know that you exist.”
My heart was breaking, and Shem looked like he wanted to raze the entire fucking planet.
“This is a problem,” Yahweh said thoughtfully. “I cannot force my will upon you, Ramel.” He turned to Lilith, raising a brow. “Perhaps we can come to an agreement. As the mortals and the animals work to replenish their numbers, we will not have as much of a need for death for at least a generation. If you allow me to put you into purgatory, your torture may be enough to convince Ramel to see reason.”
What!? Fuck no !
“Absolutely not.” I felt like I might throw up again, but not from the magic of the scepter. I felt sick with fear. Lilith’s eyes were as wide as saucers, and Shem brushed past her. The pupils of his eyes were pinpricks and before I knew what was happening, he was launching himself at Yahweh.
Shemhazai’s power was great, perhaps even greater than mine. It rippled like a shockwave through the choir of angels that guarded Yahweh, Rafael, and I. He reached forward, and dark, curved claws bloomed from the tips of his fingers as he reached for God’s throat.
Yes. Get him Hazai!
I silently cheered. Rafael stepped in front of Yahweh and brought down the scepter, striking Shem in the back so hard he coughed up a mouthful of black oil. It was as if his powers were ripped from him, and he hit the cloudy ground and slid toward me. Several angels moved forward with another noose and bound him while he struggled to regain his footing. That fucking scepter was a weapon to behold.
Shem and I stared at each other as he was bound and shoved to his knees next to me. We both knew it was over. There was no getting out of this.
We had lost, we had lost…
Lilith was screaming again. She tried to rush forward, but Raf brought the scepter back down just over Shem’s head, an evil smile curling across his lips. She froze in her tracks.
“Oh, Lilith. You are about to lose them both if you take another step,” Yahweh sighed as if He were disappointed in her.
Tears were streaming down her cheeks, and my heart hurt so much I felt I might be unmade from that pain alone.
“You’re a monster,” she whispered, and Yahweh chuckled,
“No, Lilith. I am God. ” He snapped his fingers. “Bring me my bowl of nothing,” He said to no one. There was a rustle of feathers, and one of His angels brought forward the crystal bowl of purgatory, setting it down before Him.
“Luckily for you, I am a forgiving and benevolent God,” He lied, and Lilith choked on a cross between a sob and an indignant snort.
“You can agree to my terms and get into the bowl, or I can unmake your sinful demon lovers before your very eyes,” He purred, and she glanced at us. We both shook our heads.
“No, Lilith,” I whispered. “Go home.”
Shemhazai growled. “It’s not worth it. You worked so hard to save all those souls. Without you, the world will succumb to chaos.”
Nobody loved chaos like Shem did. However, the type of chaos that would befall Earth without Lilith to maintain the natural order of things would be catastrophic.
“I can’t,” she whispered to us. Her voice was so small and tiny that it made my eyes burn. Finally, she turned to Yahweh.
“If I get in, will you let them live?” she asked, and Yahweh nodded.
“Yes. I will let them live.” He promised, though something about the way He said it made my stomach churn.
She moved closer to the bowl, looking down into it with a face full of fear. Glancing back up at us, she swallowed.
“While I am gone, you must do your best to manage death in my absence. The scythe cannot be wielded by an angel. One of you must use it to manage death.” She glared at Yahweh, and He narrowed his eyes on her, clearly annoyed that He would still have need for demons while she was gone. She turned back to us.
“You must manage the catalog. Do not let the souls fester. Promise me.”
“Lilith,” I croaked, but Shem nodded.
“I promise, Lil,” he said, his voice coming out cracked and broken.
She pursed her lips and looked up at Yahweh over His bowl of nothing.
“You swear you will let them go?” she reaffirmed, and He nodded again.
“Yes, Lilith. I swear. Now get in.”
She gave us one last look, a large tear sliding down her cheek.
“I love you,” she whispered. Then, Lilith willingly crawled into purgatory, and I felt like I would never feel happiness again.
“Let us go,” Shem snarled next to me. I couldn’t speak—I didn’t know what it felt like for mortals to die, but I was sure it could not be as painful as this.
Yahweh turned to us, smiling that evil fucking smile, and He shook His head gently. Shem hissed.
“You just fucking swore to her!” he yowled, and I felt the clouds beneath my knees shift as Shem and I were both suddenly dragged forward.
“I promised I would let you go. I didn’t say when,” Yahweh laughed.
“You fucking bastard!” Shem was thrashing in his restraints, but I couldn’t bring myself to move or care about being let go. Lilith was gone, and so was my fucking will to live.
“In you go. I’ll fish you back out when we need you again,” Yahweh hummed, dragging Shem to his feet and shoving him roughly into the bowl. The last thing I heard Shemhazai say before he disappeared was, “Fuck you, you fucking fuck!”
Yahweh turned to me next and tutted His tongue. I looked up at Him, waiting to feel angry, but I didn’t. I just felt dead inside. All I could think about was how my stupid fucking actions had resulted in Lilith being sentenced to purgatory.
“Ramel, I must say, you have been my biggest disappointment. What possessed you to think that you could run away and live with the Queen of Death?”
I shook my head, now unsure what I had been thinking. Feeling small and young again, I swallowed. My eyes burned with tears .
“I just didn’t want her to be lonely,” I whispered, reeling at the fact that I had somehow condemned her to an even more lonely existence. She was stranded in Yahweh’s bowl of purgatory. Who knew how long He would leave her there. Floating alone in a vast sea of nothingness.
Yahweh’s eyes flashed in glee at my admission. “Well, perhaps when I let you back out, and you have learned your lesson, you will realize that she deserves to be lonely, and you deserve to be the one who makes her that way.”
With that, He lifted me to my feet and plunged me face-first into a fate worse than death. I spent the next four-and-a-half millennia floating through blank space, with nothing to do but think about what I had done.