behindcloseddoors | CLOSED ♔ and who shall i blame for this sweet and heavy trouble

Not to mention his way of striving to prove to us how very wrong we were.

But Michael, and the other angels, firmly believe you'll triumph on your own. That it's the natural progression of a soul that's been tempered with so much.

And have they been right so far? There was no rule in place to indicate when they could ever be convinced that they were wrong. What was eternity to them?

[Des grits his teeth and kneads his fist into his forehead.] Fuck, fuck, fuck.

[that's all he needs. outburst over, he sucks in a ragged breath.] That settles it then. I'm not playing the game like that. Michael can blow me. I'm in. I don't care what else you have to say, I am not playing by the rules of some asshole with His thumb up his ass and and a hard-on for turmoil.

[ she gently lays a hand over his fist, drawing his hand down to his side, and running the back of her fingers against his cheek. as always, her touch itself seems to produce a very visceral sense of comfort, that he can feel warming his heart from the inside out. ]

I knew you would understand us, Des. I was only waiting for the day when I knew there to be a chance you'd actually listen.

Yeah, well. Shit got real. [He looks grim, despite the comfort and relief. He's bartering his soul no matter what the hell he does, but better the actual devil who is promising him heaven, then a God who wants who just wants to keep breaking him.]

I got one two stipulations. I do this? I want the name of the guy who put the hit on Jade- whoever it really is. I'm never gonna see her again, but I'm gonna find that son of a bitch and I'm gonna kill 'em. And I still want the talisman.

[It's not gonna help him- he knows that much now- but he can still destroy it.] So no one else can live like this and so no more people like Jade have to get hunted for it. This is all going to end. This whole gory mess. I'm gonna throw a spanner in Michael's little system so hard, the Pearly Gates are gonna feel it.

That's what I was hoping to hear.

There are some things you'll have to accept, given the unique condition that keeps you from becoming a fiend, as my other lieutenants. It means that you will be unable to enter Heaven or Hell alone, something they are generally given free reign to do as necessary. You'll also be unable to travel as we do, becoming immaterial, or invisible. There are certain gifts that are inherent to a fiendish body - the ability to read a man's soul, for example. Some of these gifts can be bestowed to even a mortal frame via blood pact, if you so desire, but that choice would be yours.

In other words, there are limits to your mortal vessel, but there are also limits, therefore, to the power we can exercise over your loyalty to our cause. That means there is information about purely mortal affairs that we cannot share without tipping the scales of power to grant the other side further freedom of movement. We're certainly willing to compromise on this once in a great while, and I believe this is one such case. We can direct you to the mortal man who hired James, and what action you take will be no business of Hell's.

As for the Talisman... [ he smirks ] You need not concern yourself over its power to grant immortality. As you've no doubt learned from our story, the tales of a thing rarely reflect the truth of it.

Edited 2014-02-06 21:17 (UTC)

I'm not interested. I do this? It's me. None of this... creepy magic bullshit. [He's immortal, bro. He doesn't want anymore shady ass powers like the one the Grays stuck on him, even though he supposes that one has its uses.

He crosses his arms over his chest.] I don't care what it does. You're not an idiot- symbols have power. Jade got killed over it. Maybe her sister's next. Who knows? It all goes back to that damned thing, so I'm gonna smash it with a hammer and be done with it. Call it closure, if you want. No loose ends.

So long as I can do that? Whatever you want, I'll do it.

Edited 2014-02-06 21:27 (UTC)

We won't stop you from doing as you choose in regards to the Talisman. Although I will caution you about the involvement of one whom I've mentioned with that entire... affair. Someone I would be happy to see taken care of, given her condition.

You know her as the Mind Master, but that is only because in crossing through the Veil, she lost all memory of her true identity, and reconstructed it from scriptures that fell through from the Shadow World. Reconstructed it incorrectly, remembering herself only as a God to her children - but not her essential nature: as the demon Serpent I once created.

[Des gapes. Again.]

Didn't realize how far back shady snake mama went. [He rolls his shoulders.] She's probably got it out for me bad. I infiltrated her little cult for months until I blew my own cover.

[A beat] But you knew that.

She's aware of more than you know. Like all demons, she can read souls herself.

So basically the reason the yutzes back there in the courtroom keep screwing the pooch is because she and her boys know what's going on.

Her and her doppelganger too. [THANKS ~~OBAMA~~ FAILBOAT.]

I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

However, in order for you to understand what it is, precisely, that we do, and will ask you to help us do, there is more to be told.

Really? [GOD, DAD.

He rolls his eyes.] Fine. Tell it.

[ ♬ distant (rubicon 2) - vnv nation

the landscape is changing again. as lucifer looks at him, the world around them is filled with new sounds. there are humans in the vicinity, men with flocks of goat and sheep, and far off in the distance, the walls of a town are visible, and above on a hill, yet another small settlement.

lucifer stares at des, the sun beating down on the three of them. azrael and lucifer are covered in a faint shimmer. ]

Look down at your clothes. They're robes, and better suited for the desert. I want you to come there, just over those hills... with me.

[ he stands up, and starts off, through what is unquestionably the Holy Land. they pass dozens upon dozens of small groups of people, fisherman near a small town on the edge of the sea, others tending sheep or goats, or driving small flocks towards nearby settlements or walled enclosures.

everything looks distinctly familiar. beneath the layers of grit that cover all, he's surrounded by forms and styles and manners of behavior seen often in Scripture, engraving, embellished illustration, and from film enactment.

they can see people standing before caves in which they live high on the hills. here and there little groups sit in the shade beneath a copse, dozing, talking. a distant pulse comes from the walled cities. the air is filled with sand. sand blows into des' nostrils and clings to his lips and hair.

lucifer has no wings. his robes are soiled and so are azrael's. they all seem to be wearing linen - it's light and the air passes through it. the robes are long and unimportant.

the sky is vividly blue, and the sun glares down on des with all its being. the sweat feels alternately good and unbearable.

they walk up rocky hills, climbing steep paths, and crossing over outcroppings of rock and ragged tree, and finally there appears before them a great patch of unwatered sand, burning and shifting slowly in a comfortless wind.

lucifer comes to a halt at the very threshold of the desert. he puts his left arm around des, his fingers spreading out firm and large against his shoulder. ]

After I was cast out, I wandered. [ his eyes are fixed on the desert and what seem the barren, blazing rocky cliffs in the distance, hostile as the desert itself ] I roamed the way you have often roamed, Descant. Wingless and brokenhearted, I drifted along through the cities and nations of the earth, over continents and wastes. Sometime or other I can tell you all of it, if you wish. It's of no consequence now.

Let me say only what is of consequence, that I did not dare to make myself visible or known to Humankind, but rather hid amongst them, invisible, not daring to assume flesh for fear of angering God again; and not daring to join the human struggle under any disguise, for fear of God, and for fear of what evil I might bring on humans. On account of the same fears... I didn't return to Sheol. I wanted in no way to increase the sufferings of Sheol. God alone could free those souls? What hope could I give them?

But I could see Sheol, I could see its immensity, and I felt the pain of the souls there, and wondered at the new and intricate and ever-changing patterns of confusion created by mortals as they departed one faith or sect or creed after another that miserable margin of gloom.

Once a proud thought came to me - that if I did penetrate Sheol, I might instruct the souls there so thoroughly that they themselves might transform it, create in it forms invented by hope rather than hopelessness, and some garden might be made of it in time. Certainly the elect, the millions we had taken to Heaven, they had transformed their portion of the place. But then what if I failed at this, and only added to the chaos? I didn't dare. I didn't dare, out of fear of God and fear of my own inability to accomplish such a dream.

I formulated many theories in my wanderings but I did not change my mind on anything I believed, or felt, or had spoken to God. In fact, I prayed to Him often, though He was utterly silent, telling Him how much I continued to believe that he had deserted His finest creation. And sometimes out of weariness, I only sang His praises. Sometimes I was silent. Looking, hearing... watching...

Lucifer, the Watcher, the Fallen Angel.

Little did I know that my argument with Almighty God was only begun.

[OH MY GOD. FUCK YOU, LUCIFER. HE DID NOT ASK FOR THIS. Des looks at the robes and makes a whining sound, and mutters under his breath:] So would a leather jacket.

[But he tromps on, listening. This is a blast from the past he did not want or need, but here he is. Wandering. He crosses his arms over his chest petulantly.]

At a certain time, I found myself wandering to this place, into Jerusalem, which by the way is only six or seven miles west of where we stand.

And the times were immediately known to me, that the Romans governed the land, that the Hebrews had suffered a long and terrible captivity, and that those tribes going back to the very first settlements here - who had believed in the One God - were now under the foot of the polytheists, many influenced by Shadow World religions. They did not take legends of God with any seriousness.

And the Tribes of Monotheists, themselves, were divided on many issues, with some Hebrews being strict Pharisees, and others Sadducees, and still others having sought to make pure communities in caves in those hills beyond.

If there was one feature which made the times remarkable to me - that is, truly different from any other - it was the might of the Roman Empire, which stretched farther than any empire of the West which I had ever witnessed, and remained somehow in ignorance of the Great Empire of China, as if that were not of the same world.

Something drew me to this spot, however, and I knew it. I sensed a presence here that was not as strong as a summons; but it was as if someone were crying out to me to come here, and yet would not use the full power of his voice. I must search, I must wander. Maybe this thing stalked me as we watched you, I don't know.

But I came here, and wandered Jerusalem, listening to what the tongues of man had to say.

They spoke of the prophets and holy men of the wilderness, of arguments over the law and purification and the will of God. They spoke of Holy Books and Holy Traditions - all creations of men. They spoke men going out to be 'baptized' in water so as to be 'saved' in the eyes of God.

And they spoke of a man who had only lately gone into the wilderness after his baptism, because at the moment that he had stepped into the River Jordan, and the water had been poured over him, the skies had opened above this man, and Light had been seen from God.

Of course, one could hear stories like this all over the world. It was not unusual, except that it drew me. I found myself as if directed, wandering out of Jerusalem to the east, into the wasteland, my keen angelic senses telling me that I was near to the presence of something mysterious, something that partook of the sacred in a way that an angel would know upon seeing, and a man might not. My reason rejected it, yet I walked on and on, in the heat of the day, wingless and invisible into the very wastes.

[ he draws des with him into the sand, which is not as deep as it looks, but is hot and full of little stones. he moves into canyons and up slopes and finally comes to a little clearing of sorts where rocks have been gathered, as if others were wont to come here from time to time. a landmark in the desert, so to speak, a monument to something, perhaps.

lucifer slows his pace until they stand well over a stone's throw from the little gathering of rocks. ]

[Des follows along, picking over the sand and rocks and grumbling a bit about it. When they arrive at the little monument, he stares at it and then looks at Lucifer expectantly.]

Closer and closer I came to those markers there that you see, and with my angelic eyes, I spied from a long way off a single human man. But my eyes told me this was no human, that on the contrary this man was filled with the fire of God.

I didn't believe it, and yet I walked on, closer and closer, unable to stop myself, and then stopped where we are now, staring at the figure who sat on that rock before me, looking up at me here.

It was God! There was no question. He was sheathed in flesh, dark skinned from the sun, dark haired, and had the dark eyes of the desert people, but it was God! My God!

And there he sat in this fleshly body, looking at me with human eyes, and the eyes of God, and I could see the Light totally filling Him and contained within Him and concealed from the outside world by His flesh as if it were the strongest membrane betwixt Heaven and Earth.

If there was anything more terrible than this revelation, it was that He was looking at me and that He knew me and had been waiting for me, and that all I felt for Him, as I looked at Him, was love.

We sing over and over again the songs of love. Is that the one song intended for all Creation?

I looked at him in terror for His mortal parts, His sunburnt flesh, His thirst, the emptiness of His stomach and the suffering of His eyes in the heat, for the presence of Almighty God inside Him and I felt overwhelming love.

'So, Lucifer,' He said in a man's tongue and with a man's voice. 'I have come.'

I fell on my face before Him. This was instinctive. I just lay there, reaching out and touching the very tip of the latchet of His sandal. I sighed and my body shook with the relief of loneliness, the attraction to God and the satisfaction of it, and I began a giddy weeping just to be near Him and see Him and I marveled at what this must mean.

'Stand up, come sit near me,' He said. 'I am a man now, and I am God, but I am afraid.' His voice was indescribably moving to me, human yet filled with wisdom of the divine. He spoke with the language and accent of Jerusalem.

'Oh, Lord, what can I do to ease your pain?' I said, for the pain was obvious. I stood up. 'What have you done and why?'

'I have done exactly what you tempted me to do, Lucifer,' He answered, and His face wore the most dreamlike and engaging smile. 'I have come into the flesh. Only I have done you one better. I was born of a mortal woman, planting the seed myself in her, and for thirty years, I have lived on this earth as a child and a man, and for long periods doubting - no, even forgetting and ceasing to believe altogether - that I was really God!'

Oh, Jesus.

[This is both an oath and a statement of fact.]

'I see you, I know you, You are the Lord my God,' I said. I was so struck by His face; by the recognition of Him in the mask of skin that covered the bones of His skull. In a shivering instant I recovered the exact feeling of when I'd glimpsed His countenance in the light, and I saw now the same expression in this human face. I went down on my knees. 'You are my God,' I said.

'I know that now, Lucifer, but you understand that I allowed myself to be submerged in the flesh utterly, to forget it, so that I could know what it means, as you said, to be human, and what humans suffer, and what they fear and what they long for, and what they are capable of doing and learning either here or above. I did what you told me to do, and I did it better than you ever did it, Lucifer, or Azrael ever did it, I did it as God must do it, to the very extremity!'

'Lord, I can scarcely bear the sight of you suffering,' I said quickly, unable to rip my eyes off Him and yet dreaming of water and food for Him. 'Let me wipe the sweat from you. Let me get you water. Let me take you to it in an angelic instant. Let me comfort you and wash you and clothe you in a finery fit for God on earth.'

'No,' He said. 'In those days I thought myself mad, when I could scarce remember I was God, when I knew I had yielded my omniscience deliberately in order to suffer and to know limitations, you might have persuaded me that that was the path. I might have seized upon your offer. yes, make me a King. Let that be my way of revealing myself to them. But not now. I know Who I am and What I am, and I know What Will Happen. And you are right, Lucifer, there are souls in Sheol ready for Heaven and I myself will lead them there. I have learnt what you tempted me to learn.'

Well, ain't that precious.

[Des drops to sit down on the sand, drawing his knees up and resting his arms across them. If he eyerolled any harder, his eyes would vanish into his skull.]

'Lord, you're starving. You're suffering from terrible thirst. Here, turn these stones into bread by your power, that you can eat. Or let me get you food.'

'For once will you listen to me!' He said, smiling. 'Stop talking of food and drink. Who is human here? I am! You impossible adversary, you argumentative devil! Hush for now and listen. I am in the flesh. Have pity at least and let me speak my piece.' He laughed at me, His face full of kindness and sympathy.

'Here, come into the flesh too, with me,' He said. 'Be my brother and sit beside me, Son of God and Son of God and let us talk.'

I did as He said at once, creating a body thoughtlessly that matched what you see now, as that was as natural to me as thinking was natural, and I gave myself a similar robe, and I realized that I was sitting on that rock there by His side.

'How long have you been in this wilderness?' I asked. 'The people in Jerusalem say almost 40 days.'

He nodded. 'That's about the right number,' He answered me. 'And it's time now for me to begin my ministry, which will last 3 years. I will teach the great lessons that must be learnt for admission to Heaven - awareness of Creation and the Understanding of its deliberate unfolding; an appreciation of its beauty and laws which make possible an acceptance of suffering and seeming injustice and all forms of pain; I will promise a final glory to those who can attain understanding; to those who can surrender their souls to the understanding of God and what He has done; to mankind, should they follow in my footsteps here. I will give that chance to Men and Women, which is precisely, I think, what you wanted me to do.'

[Des is so through with God's bullshit right now, he just looks apprehensive and disgusted by this entire exchange.]

I didn't dare to answer Him.

'Love, Lucifer, I have learnt to love them as you told me as I would. I have learnt to love and cherish as men and women do. I will talk more of love than any other subject. I will say things that men and women can twist and misunderstand. But love, that shall be the message. You convinced me and I have convinced myself that this is what elevates Human above animal though animal is what Humankind is.'

'Do you mean to leave them with specific guidance how to love? As how to stop war and come together in one form of worship and overcome what they have learnt from Nature and give them proof of your--'

'No, not at all. That would be an absurd intervention and would undo the entire grand scheme which I have put into motion. It would stop the dynamics of the unfolding of the universe.

Lucifer, to me we human beings are all still part of Nature, as I said, only Humans are better than animals. It's a matter of degrees. Yes, humans cry against suffering and they are conscious of it when they suffer, but in a sense they behave exactly like the lower animals, in that suffering improves them and drives them towards evolutionary advance. They are quick-witted enough to see its value, where the animals only learn to avoid suffering by instinct. Humans can actually be improved within one lifetime by suffering. But they are part of Nature still. The world will unfold as it always has, full of surprises. Some of those surprises will be horrid, and others wondrous, and some beautiful. But what is known for certain is that the world will continue to grow and Creation will continue to unfold.'

'Yes, Lord,' I said, 'but surely suffering is an evil thing.'

'What did I teach you, Lucifer, when you first came to me saying that decay was wrong, that death was wrong? Don't you understand the magnificence of human suffering?'

'No,' I said, 'I see the ruin of hope and love and family; the destruction of peace of mind; I see pain beyond endurance. I see man buckle under this, and fall into bitterness and hate.'

'You haven't looked deep enough, Lucifer. You are only an angel. You refuse to understand Nature, and that has been your way since the start. I will bring my Light into nature, through the flesh for three years. I will teach the wisest things I can know and say in this flesh and blood body and brain, and I will suffer, suffer as no man has, and not falter, not break. And then - I will die.'

Oh my G- [Des cuts himself off.] Jesu- [He cuts himself off again.

Then he just rolls his eyes.]

Goddammit.

'Die? Why do that? I mean, what do you mean, die? Your soul will leave--' I broke off, uncertain.

He smiled.

'You do have a soul, don't you, Lord? I mean, you are my God inside this Son of Man and the light fills every particle of you, but you... you don't have a soul, do you? You don't have a human soul!'

'Lucifer, these distinctions don't matter. I am God Incarnate. How could I have a human soul? What is important is that I will remain in this body as it is tortured and betrayed and slain; and my death will be evidence of my Love for those whom I have created and allowed to suffer so much. I will share their pain and know their pain and teach them how much it is possible to bear, so that they might replicate what I have done, and prove their worth.'

'Please, Lord, forgive me, but there seems to be something wrong with this whole idea.'

Again, he seemed amused. His dark eyes were filled with a sympathetic and silent laughter. 'Wrong? What is wrong, Lucifer, that I shall take the form of the Dying God of the Wood, whom men and women have imagined and dreamed of and sung of since time immemorial, a dying god who symbolizes the very cycle of nature itself in which all that is born must die.

'I shall die, and I shall rise from the Dead, as that god has risen in every myth of the eternal return of the spring after winter in nations all over the world. I shall be the god destroyed and the god uplifted, only here it will happen literally in Jerusalem, not in ceremony, or with human substitutes. The Son of God himself shall fulfill the myths. I have chosen to sanctify those legends with my literal death.

'I shall walk out of the Tomb. My resurrection will confirm the eternal return of the spring after winter. It will confirm that in Nature all things that have evolved have their place.

'But Lucifer, it will be for my death that I am remembered. My death. It's going to be terrible. It won't be for my resurrection they'll remember me, you can be sure of it, for that is something many simply will never see or believe. But my suffering, my torment, my death will spring full blown into a confirmation of mythology, underscored by all the myths which have preceded it, and my death will be a sacrifice by God to know His Own Creation and to instruct them in how to achieve their own salvation. Just what you told me to do.'

'No, no, wait, Lord, there's something wrong with this!'

'You always forget yourself and to whom you are speaking,' He said kindly, the mixture of human and divine continuing to obsess me as I looked at Him, falling into His beauty and staggered by His divinity, and overcome again and again by my own sure belief that this was all wrong.

'Lucifer, I've just told you what no one knows but Me,' He said. 'Don't speak to me as if I can be wrong. Don't waste these moments with the Son of God! Can't you learn from me in the flesh as you learn from humans in flesh? Have I nothing to teach you, my beloved Archangel? Why do you sit here questioning me? What could possibly be the meaning of your word, wrong?'

'I don't know, Lord, I don't know how to answer. I can't find all the words. I just know this is not going to work. First of all, who will do this torturing and killing?'

'The people of Jerusalem,' He said. 'I will succeed in offending everyone, the traditional Hebrews, the callous Romans, everyone will be offended by this blinding message of pure love and what love demands of humans. I will show contempt for the ways of others, for their rituals and their laws. And into the machinery of their justice, I will fall.

'I will be condemned on charges of treason when I speak of my Divinity, that I am the Son of God, God Incarnate... and for my very message I will be tortured with such embellishment that it will never be forgotten; my death, my crucifixion, my sacrifice, is going to be the same.'

'By crucifixion? Lord, have you seen men die in this way? Do you know how they suffer? They are nailed to the wood and they suffocate, hanging as they do, weakening, unable to lift their own weight on their nailed feet, and finally strangling in blood and in pain?'

'Of course I've seen it. It's a common form of execution. It's filthy and it's very human.'

'Oh, no, no!' I cried out. 'This can't be. You don't mean to climax your teachings with such spectacular failure and execution, with such cruelty and sacrifice!'

'This is not failure,' He said, 'Lucifer, I shall be a martyr to what I teach! Blood offerings of the innocent lamb to the good God have been made since Humans began! They instinctively render to God what is of great value to them to show their love. Who knows better than you who spied on their altars and listened to their prayers and insisted that I listen! Sacrifice and love are connected in them.'

'Lord, they sacrifice out of fear! It has nothing to do with love of God, does it? All the sacrifices? The children sacrificed to Baal, and a hundred other hideous rituals the world over. They do it out of fear! Why would love demand sacrifice?'

I had clamped my hands over my mouth. I couldn't reason further. I was horrified, and uncertain what he meant by expecting man to follow in his footsteps. I could not sort out the thread of my horror from the overall stifling weave. Then I spoke, thinking aloud:

'It's all wrong, Lord. That God should be so degraded in human form, that in itself is unspeakable; but that men should be allowed to do this to God... But will they know what they're doing, that you are God? I mean, they couldn't... Lord, it will have to be done in confusion and misunderstanding. That spells chaos, Lord! Darkness!'

'Naturally,' He said. 'Who in his right mind would crucify the Son of God?'

'Then what does it mean?'

'Lucifer, it means I subjected myself to the human for the love of those whom I made. I am in the flesh, Lucifer, I have been in it for thirty years. Would you explain yourself to me?'

'To die like that, it's wrong, Lord. It's a filthy killing, Lord, it's a bloody horrible exemplum to lay before the human race! And you say yourself they will remember you for this? More than for your rising from the death, from the light of God exploding out of your human body and making this suffering fall away?'

'The Light won't burst from my body,' He said. 'This body shall die. I shall know death. I shall pass into Sheol and there for three days remain with those who are dead, and then I shall return to this body and raise it from the Dead. And yes, it will be my Death they will remember, for how can I Rise if I do not Die?'

'Just don't do either one,' I pleaded. 'Really, I'm begging you. Don't make yourself this sacrifice. Don't dip down into their most misguided blood rituals, Lord, have you ever drawn near to the stench of their sacrificial altars? Yes, I used to say to you, listen to their prayers, but I never meant that you would dip down from your great height to smell the stink of the blood and the dead animal, or to see the dumb fear in its eyes as its throat is slit! Have you seen the babies heaved into the fiery God Baal?'

'Lucifer, this is the way to God which man himself has evolved. All over the world the myths sing the same song.'

'Yes, but that's because you never interfered to stop it, you let it happen, you let this humankind evolve and they looked back in horror on their animal ancestors, they beheld their mortality, and they seek to propitiate a god who has abandoned them to all this. Lord, they look for meaning, but they find none in this. None.'

He looked at me if I was mad, truly. He stared in silence.

'You disappoint me,' He said softly and gently. 'You wound me, Lucifer, you wound my human heart.' He reached out and put His roughened hands against my face, hands of a man who had worked in this world, labored as I had never labored in my brief visit.

I shut my eyes. I did not speak. But something had come to me! A revelation, an insight, a sudden grasping of everything here that was in error, but could I reason it out? Could I speak?

Edited 2014-02-07 03:12 (UTC)

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