Chapter 3
Relief. I was giddy with excitement and anxiety. I was ready for a change and had been for many years. I never thought I’d be permitted to go back to my home world. After millennia, I was finally going home.
I packed the last of my belongings I was taking with me to St. Louis in the only box I could find.
Some of my belongings were in the pocket realm to make traveling easier.
I knew that I wouldn’t be able to bring over ten thousand years’ worth of collected items back to Earth with me, but there were some items I couldn’t leave behind.
Little sentimental things that reminded me of times in my life that were good.
Since they’d been few and far between, I held on to the good as much as possible.
I was elated to be going back to Earth. Asmodaeus, my keeper and friend, was tired of my constant begging to return.
He’d realized that the powers I had as the first succubus were passed along to other succubi over our long lifetimes, and that they could do the job I had been doing for millennia without me.
Hashem hadn’t been communicative in many generations either.
We all figured he’d abandoned his duties, which meant that I wouldn’t be struck down for stepping foot back onto his creation.
But, from what I’d learned over the years, the world had changed significantly.
Human innovation reimagined the way we viewed the world, and those revolutions made their way to Hell, too.
Those we got in Hell weren’t innovators, but humans who gleefully took from others with the intent of power, fortune, or glory.
The assholes who stole the intellectual property of women and people of color wound up in Hell, and I was often tasked with figuring out the worst of their crimes.
I spent my last day in Hell going over the finalized contracts for the Pax, while working with Asmodaeus to get another succubus trained in my place.
Asmodaeus’s job was like mine, though he was far older than even I.
Lust was the game, and what we both knew was that lust took many forms. It was most often associated with sexual lust, but lust could be power, money, objects, or anything in between.
We fed on all of it, and we ate well, though the flavor profiles changed based on who we interacted with.
We had our preferences, but Hell wasn’t a place for the weak.
I was used to the brutal world of Hell, of extracting secrets and anticipating moves.
I was even used to the misogyny of men, and some women, who were convinced they’d make their way into Heaven’s gates.
The tired assumption that these humans believed they could greedily take from other humans, pretend as if they ever had an original thought, and made heaps of money off the backs of others, was exhausting.
I’d spent my time learning how beings moved in the worlds, and how those power dynamics never really changed from place to place, or between practiced religions.
I admired people like Simone de Beauvoir and Angela Davis, Gloria Anzaldúa and Ziba Mir-Hosseini who worked meticulously in women’s studies on Earth, and it shaped a lot of what I learned in the 20th century about inequities that crossed over into other realms.
I hoped that St. Louis and the Catervae Pax were different.
Being considered the only utopic society in any world had its merits, and I was ready to experience it for myself.
The Pax was originally the idea of Adaela óDubhlaoich, and she’d enlisted others to help structure what was now the talk of every realm.
The rumors weren’t always good. There were plenty of people who weren’t for a state without a centralized governing body. Order was maintained through various agreements between each faction—with the biggest discernment being that scarcity was a construct.
Regardless, I was incredibly excited to be invited to live in this intentional community, and I hoped that my skills wouldn’t have to be utilized to the same extreme.
I wanted to learn who I was without the constant pressures from the kings of Hell to deliver results.
I may not have experienced the same inequalities that some had to experience on Earth, but my life was driven through the lens of what I could do for Hell, and not who I was and what I could contribute.
I was riddled with equal parts anticipation and dread with how much I wanted what I’d built up in my head to be true.
As I made my way toward the portal that would take me to St. Louis, I didn’t anticipate the apprehension about leaving my home.
I never cried, never showed emotion here.
I couldn’t, since it was a sign of weakness, but I was choked up about leaving what I was familiar with in search of something better.
It was a gamble, and I wasn’t sure if what I’d bet on would be better or worse.
I nodded at the guards, Gozu and Mezu, who were standing next to the portal, intending on staying quiet and just moving on my way.
The two of them were notorious for their ruthlessness about who was welcome to stay or leave Hell.
Instead of a smooth exit into this new life, I spent several agonizing hours ready to leave but being interrogated by them to confirm I was allowed to leave.
Finally, I stepped out into a city I’d only seen in the minds of humans who’d made their way to Hell.
It hadn’t mattered that I’d done research about the city.
The sights, smells, and noises were overwhelming.
It was louder than I anticipated, with vast, sprawling buildings and cars racing down the interstate.
I expected them to be quieter. We didn’t have them in Hell.
The infrastructure wouldn’t work for them, and Lucy didn’t want to change the landscape.
I couldn’t move for a moment with everything I was taking in.
There were beings of all walks of life making their way in and out of the portals, or chatting with each other, laughing.
Gods, when was the last time I’d heard someone laugh with genuine joy?
I was fascinated by the beings chatting with each other as if it were normal.
In Hell, that often wasn’t the case, and it would’ve instantly devolved to infighting.
I smiled to myself as I was ushered away from the portal’s entrance so someone else could step through.
I looked up at the Arch, the giant piece of human architecture that incidentally became the segue for the Pax to establish itself.
I stood tiny by comparison, and I wasn’t a small person.
My height made me comparatively tall for a woman, and I also was what the humans referred to as “midsized.” I loved my body, and I wouldn’t apologize for it.
I’d heard everything in Hell, from people of different centuries who revered full-figured women to those who preferred very thin women.
Beings judged me as either too fat or too skinny depending on the individual.
I never took any of it to heart. I was created as the perfect woman by Hashem, meant to be Adam’s equal.
That didn’t pan out, and I was glad for that, too.
But the Arch was a masterpiece in both its architectural triumph, but also as the only known successful alchemical creation, even if it was by accident.
I couldn’t stop gawking at everything around me, and even overwhelmed, my body let out the first exhale in millennia.
I couldn’t stop the grin that bloomed across my face as my jaw unclenched and my shoulders relaxed.
Hecate and Pan made their way toward me, and I dropped my bags to the ground to go hug Pan.
I hadn’t seen him in so long, and we were close when he resided in Hell.
I laughed as he spun me around in circles, catching myself off guard with the sound.
“Pan, what a surprise! I didn’t expect to see you so soon,” I breathed as he placed me gently back on the ground. He was radiant in his health, full of aplomb. He seemed content here, and my apprehension about making this move evaporated.
“Vada, my dear. I am so happy to finally have you back on Earth. You have no idea how long I’ve waited to see you in person again,” Pan replied with genuine affection. I missed that. “Have you met Hecate before?”
I nodded at Hecate and smiled, “We have met a time or two, though our time together was often between blades and magic. I’m sorry for that.”
Hecate shrugged, stepping closer to make a small circle between the three of us, “It’s in the past. One thing we learned while getting the Pax up and running was how to let the past hurts go so we could bridge divides. Welcome to St. Louis, Vada.”
I hugged myself, realizing that there were likely going to be many beings here who I’d battled during the Great War.
Many of whom I’d likely used my powers on at one point or another.
I realized this may happen, but I didn’t anticipate that it would also be me who would need to change my perceptions of these same beings.
We were all cogs in a machine that worked against our own interests, and I would need to remember that as I got to know the Pax better.
“We’re here to show you to your new apartment. It’s nothing fancy, but it was the best we could do on such short notice,” Pan said, eyes shifting as if he were a little embarrassed.
“I don’t need much, honestly. If I have a place to rest my head, and a place to eventually feed, I’m good,” I replied as my focus shifted back to the bustle of the beings around us. “I’m so relieved to be here, but also a little more overwhelmed than I anticipated. My apologies.”
“We’ve all been in your shoes at one point. I’m sure this world is vastly different to you. It’s going to take some getting used to,” Hecate said with a knowing glint in her eye.
“I understand that there will be questions from many, but I’d appreciate it if you only call me Vada, and that my initial time here on Earth remain in the past,” I gently requested, but my heart rate ratcheted up anyway.
I wasn’t used to asking anyone for anything, but it was a boundary I didn’t want crossed.
It wasn’t that I was ashamed of my life as Lilith, but I spent so little time as her, and a significant amount of time as Vada by comparison.
I didn’t have much to offer about my previous life.
“That’s fair, Vada. I will let others know as well,” Hecate replied, and I picked my bags back up, ready to begin my new life.
My apartment was fancy, in my opinion. Contrary to popular belief, we did have some human inventions in Hell, and the internet and TV were a couple of them.
From what I’d witnessed on these shows and through social media, this apartment was the quintessential living situation for many Americans.
It was modern, sleek, and had ample space for me to place all my belongings.
Social media was interesting because it wasn’t just relegated to Earth, but the parasocial obsessions were the same when it came to celebrities of any realm.
I spent most of the day pulling things from the pocket realm, working through where I wanted everything to go, and figuring out the security of my apartment.
I wasn’t super concerned about security, since I didn’t feel like I needed to fear for my life.
I was truly immortal, thanks to Hashem’s vindictiveness about my former life.
He wanted me to suffer the consequences, but I’d learned and adapted instead.
I believed in the motto that the best revenge was living your life to the fullest. I made the most out of what I was given, and I was thankful to have beings in my life who supported me.
As the modern age progressed, it was gratifying to see so many ideals shifting toward what the humans called “communism,” but what we called equity.
There was still a long way to go, even with the Pax.
There was a small room off to the side of my bedroom where I decided to make my office.
It was just big enough to house a desk and chair.
There were no windows in this room, since the wall faced my neighbor’s apartment, but that was okay by me.
I didn’t have much, since I didn’t often need a laptop or anything else while in Hell.
However, I would need to learn how to use most of this quickly.
It was part of living in the modern world on Earth.
I was familiar with the basics, but I didn’t think I’d ever become an expert.
I sighed as I sat down, logging into everything that I could remember the password to.
I wondered how long it would take me to get used to being on Earth.
I checked in with myself, and underneath the stress of everything, a sense of relief so powerful that I was no longer going to be forced to carry the burden of others overcame me.
That sense of self-determination meant that I could begin the real work of why I’d made my way to the Catervae Pax in the first place.