27. Shemhazai
A fter the stunt Hecate had pulled with that disgusting asshole, the game we had already been playing for centuries kicked up a notch.
I no longer gave a fuck about her stupid fucking dogs. I would have my goddamned revenge. I was relentless. I chased her from England to France, and I almost had her cornered in Paris when she evaded me once more and fled to Rome—back to where it had all started.
This is where she, once again, outmaneuvered me. She fled to Rome, rightly assuming I wouldn’t follow her to the new epicenter of Yahweh’s empire.
Hecate, a master of glamour, disguised herself and hid in plain sight; however, this was one place I could not follow.
Raziel now ruled over the Vatican. He was the pope’s puppet master and was in charge of Yahweh’s entire expansion process.
This was one of the reasons I had been freed from the archangel’s custody in the first place.
Yahweh had decided Raziel would be of better use to him as his representative on Earth.
After the fall of Rome, Raz took advantage and spearheaded Yahweh’s religious takeover there, setting up the Vatican and overseeing the construction of Yahweh’s many churches.
I’d been avoiding Rome ever since Raziel had made it his home, and the second Hecate crossed the border, I’d been forced to give up the chase.
I could feel Raziel’s eyes on me, and it made me so sick to my stomach that even my revenge was not enough motivation for me to get any closer.
If I entered the city, I knew Raziel would reclaim me, and I couldn’t let that happen.
Not even for Hecate.
So, I switched tactics.
If Hecate was going to barricade herself in enemy territory to avoid me, I was going to need to draw her out somehow.
As pissed as I was that she had managed to humiliate me so thoroughly, I had to respect it. What she had done just proved she was a worthy opponent, and it made me want to play with her even more.
She gave me some semblance of purpose. Chasing her through the ages kept me from rotting in my own self-loathing and loneliness in Hell. I would even consider her a friend in a strange way.
I knew if I asked her to call a truce, she would oblige. The thing was, if I didn’t have her to chase, I would have nothing.
Just endless days cataloging souls with no one but fucking Art to keep me company.
So, the game needed to continue, and it couldn’t continue until I smoked her out.
Most of the old gods had disappeared. Their sleeping corpses kept showing up in Hell, and I had my citizens create a graveyard for them, where most of them were now buried.
Happily, Ares was among them, so I didn’t need to worry about him hunting Hec down anymore. For that, I was grateful.
Hecate was one of the last pagan gods to survive Yahweh’s exorcism of the old ways, and it was due to her incredible ability to sow rebellion among her followers despite the looming oppression of Yahweh’s systematic indoctrination of planet Earth.
Witches were still practicing in secret, so much so that mortal man had come to fear witchcraft above all else.
As Puritan culture took over, Hecate’s followers became even more persecuted, and Yahweh attempted to rid the world of one of the last standing forces that could oppose him.
So, I went to Salem, a coastal trading town set up in the New World that had been named after Jerusalem.
The people of Salem had sworn to make it a town of pure, traditional values, and it was the perfect setting for my scheme.
Balance naturally manifests in situations where one force heavily outweighs another.
Because of how hard the people of Salem were trying to follow ‘the way of God,’ I knew this would be one of the easiest places to kick up a little mayhem.
Any of Hecate’s people who lived here would be in hiding, and if I exposed them, all it would take is a gentle nudge for the entire town to fall into hysteria.
Once Hecate learned that her people were at risk, she would come to save them, and I would be fucking waiting.