Demonic Designs (To Absolve the Fallen) (7 page)

“Yes, but you don’t need to worry about that.
 
I’ve disposed of the bodies.”

“How?” Alex asked.

“By fire.”

They went back inside, and there really weren’t any charred corpses.
 
There weren’t even any burns on the walls or ceiling.

Alex pointed this out.
 
“Why aren’t there any scorch marks?”

“For the same reason that your hand didn’t burn when you passed it through the flames:
 
I control the fire,” Jeremiah explained as he sat down in the chair he had been in before.
 

“Now,” he continued, “Lucifer’s humans were obviously no threat to us.
 
No known force could alter God’s plan.
 
Nevertheless, the Morning Star convinced them they could conquer Heaven and trained them in methods of killing their fellow humans.
 
He told them that there were other tribes that would try to steal everything they had.
 
Those tribes, he explained, served an overbearing master who would try to enslave all the other humans.
 
Of course, these other communities of people would have to be killed in order to ensure the survival of this more evolved group.
 

“And, as frightened humans often do, they bought it.
 
They thrived in their
advanced
ignorance.
 
Lucifer and his minions helped them make weapons, and gave them direction for their new-found hatred.
 
The first holy war.
 

“Lucifer knew that if he made an attack on any of the other human populations, he’d be immediately brushed aside, and probably banished, by Heaven’s forces.
 
He didn’t want a war with Heaven.
 
He just wanted to destroy all that we had worked to create.
 
Naturally, he couldn’t be the one doing all the killing; it would have to be the humans he’d corrupted.
 
And, if the angels wanted to swoop down and smite his warriors outright, that was all right too.

“Actually, it’s not entirely true to say Lucifer didn’t want a war with Heaven.
 
He simply knew he could never win one.
 
In his arrogance and insanity, he might have believed that God would take him back after the Almighty learned a lesson, but I haven’t seen that happen yet.
 

“Further, teaching God a lesson isn’t a task that one should undertake lightly.
 
Lucifer wanted to make it count.
 
He intended to wipe out all of humanity, or perhaps steal all of the little pockets away from us.
 
We knew it; God knew it, yet still we waited.
 
Some of us despaired for the imminent loss of our beautiful creation.
 
More angels fell.

“In those days, it didn’t seem like there were enough new angels being created to supplement the ones we’d lose.
 
We just didn’t know what was happening.
 
We were expected to take everything on unwavering faith, and some of us couldn’t.
 
Some couldn’t understand why we’d designed this race just to watch it suffer and die.
 
Sure, some of them were making tremendous progress, but none of them were as far along as Lucifer’s group.
 
There was no doubt who would eventually be dominant.”

“So, what did you do?
 
I mean, there was a war, right?”

“There was a war,” Jeremiah replied, lighting a cigarette, “but it didn’t happen immediately.
 
Lucifer wanted time to plan his attack, and he wasn’t sure what the other humans were up to.
 
He could assume they were making advances, though he had no way to tell how well they compared to his own people.
 
Well, almost no way.
 
He would travel from community to community, tribe to tribe, trying to convert through subversion, coercion, or bribery.
 

“One tribe always turned him away though.
 
In that whole area, it was only they who would never have
anything
to do with this being.
 
They didn’t trust him, so they didn’t hand themselves over to him.
 
He tried many times, too, but generation after generation told him to stay far away from them.”

“They were a city?” Alex asked.

“Not initially.
 
When Lucifer fell, there was no group bigger than a hundred people.
 
Humans were very tribal in nature, but they had problems adapting.
 
It was difficult for any species to survive long under those circumstances.
 
The world had just undergone the Ice Age.
 
It had officially ended only about 500 years prior.
 
Humans were doing their best, but it was slow going.
 
Necessity dictated their ambition; they didn’t move far from where they knew it was safe.
 
The smart communities banded with others and formed quasi-governments.
 
Before long, these were the only ones left alive.
 
Predators, weather, and disease saw to that.

“Over centuries, the tribe that refused Lucifer grew, incorporating many smaller tribes in the process.
 
In time, these tribes settled down in a beautiful valley and formed a city—we’ll call it Eden to keep things simple.
 
Finding a certain strength in numbers, Eden took a stance that openly opposed Lucifer.
 
And soon, all eyes were locked on it.”

“Is this like the Garden of Eden?”

“You have to learn, Alex, that the Bible is a collection of stories from Hebrew history.
 
For thousands of years, these stories were passed down by word of mouth.
 
Yes, Eden is the place they were referring to.
 
Anyone who had been around at that time would agree.
 
Its history has been skewed by misunderstandings and lies.
 
It’s like a big secret that gets whispered over and over through tens of thousands of years.
 
You can’t expect them to get it all right.

“Eden was a human colony that remained untainted by Lucifer.
 
He came to them from time to time, but they stood strong against him.
 
Sure, once in a while there would be a deserter.
 
Some people would listen to his words and be moved to the extent that they would leave everything behind, but not many.

“After years of watching Eden grow and develop, we were finally sent to minister to them.
 
God, in His infinite wisdom, had chosen that time and that place for angels to reveal themselves to men.
 
He and Lucifer were both vying for Eden.
 
Rather than God choosing to take back one of the many human settlements that Lucifer had corrupted, it seemed that God had chosen to draw His line in the form of a circle around this embattled conglomeration of mortals.
 

“So we appeared to the people of Eden.
 
Afraid of frightening them, we took precautions not to seem too
angelic
.
 
When we were with them, we took substantial bodies, similar to what demons are forced to take upon falling to Earth.
 
There was no use of powers or intimidation.
 
Our intent was simply to deliver a message: We were there to help, and they no longer had to listen to or fear Lucifer.

“We sought out the patriarchs of the families.
 
We told them why we were there and what we could do for them.
 
Then, to everybody’s surprise, they told us that they didn’t want
our
help either.

“We were dumbfounded.
 
We couldn’t fathom how they planned to hold back the raiding bands or armies that would inevitably come from the Morning Star.
 
For hours, we patiently tried to explain the plight of everyone around them if they should refuse our help.
 
We offered them unconditional protection from Lucifer and his minions.
 
We promised to show them the power of faith and how they could use it to their benefit, but they wanted none of it.

“Ultimately, they said that if they couldn’t handle it on their own, if they had to rely on us, they would be in no different position than if they’d had to rely on Lucifer.
 
This was the general consensus of the group.
 
However, just as some responded favorably to Lucifer, some of them saw it our way.
 

“It was to those people that we taught the greater secrets of the universe—but not like the way I’m talking to you now.
 
We would communicate through spirit.
 
With every perfect truth we gave them, their spirits would become a little more attuned to the existence we had created.

“Nature would bend itself to their will.
 
A very few claimed to get messages from God that we weren’t even getting.
 
And, judging by the pure faith they had in what they said, we were inclined to agree.
 
Those who would listen to these men and women were filled with hope and peace.
 
The people I speak of would later be known as the first prophets.
 

“Some of them claimed to have the aptitude to see the future, which was foreign to us.
 
Before that, only God knew the future.
 
In fact, angels have little perception of
future
.
 
Heaven’s time doesn’t work the same as it does down here; it isn’t linear.
 
Everything is eternal, so we don’t perceive things the same way.
 

“Many of these prophets could heal.
 
The replenishing power of the Almighty was unmistakable.
 
Word spread very quickly that life-ending injuries among the prophets were not necessarily life-ending.

“Soon, they had a few brave souls coming to them for advice of all sorts and healing.
 
To our surprise, the advice they gave was sound, and the people they touched were free of disease and pain.
 
They were affecting the people of Eden in a way that was forbidden to us.

“Then, God told all of the angels to depart, except for myself and a small battalion.
 
We were told to stop any attack made by the fallen, but other than that, we were commanded to just watch.
 
It was up to the prophets to make the changes.”

Jeremiah could feel Alex drift off.
 
This was probably as good of a place to stop as any.
 
The boy had learned so much already and undergone a great shock.
 
Everything else could wait until morning.
 
Then, they would start their trek.
 
It wouldn’t take long, and it was about time that Alex met his associates.
 

There was still much to teach Alex, but the spiritual energy surrounding him was so strong that Jeremiah could feel it when he first entered Kingstone.
 
He may have doubted Alex before, but things had changed.
 
This boy wasn’t a normal prophet.
 
Despite his present weakness, he was capable of amazing feats.
 
Prophets like Alex were rare, but Heaven believed they were Jeremiah’s specialty.

Alex seemed enthralled by the story.
 
Well, until he passed out, that is.
 
To Jeremiah, though, it was tedious.
 
The pain in the memory of his past life was more of a dull ache now.
 
He had lived two very different lives, served two very different masters.
 
Every time he shared the story of his creation and his subsequent existence with anyone, he was reminded of that tormenting fact.
 

On the other hand, Jeremiah had always thought this story an important place to start.
 
After all, it was the beginning of prophetic influence on Earth.
 
And telling it so many times helped Jeremiah keep all of the details straight.
 
After thousands of years of memories, sometimes things blended together or, in some other way, became distorted.

Jeremiah did remember Patheus, though.
 
He and Patheus had served together in Eden—and again as demons.
 
And that information might not help the situation.
 
It might discourage the boy a little to know that Jeremiah’s second-in-command was looking to stop them.
 
And there was the threat of death; there always seemed to be a threat of death.
 
That was the one thing Jeremiah hated most about his job: the casualties.
 
He just couldn’t shake the feeling that he was going to lose one of them.