Fall of Lucifer (19 page)

‘You would refuse my hospitality, Michael?’

Michael looked at Lucifer frostily. ‘I do not thirst.’

Lucifer laughed. ‘Tut, tut, dear Michael. After all these aeons, you still haven’t mastered the fine art of pleasantries, as Gabriel here has.’

‘Treason is no matter for celebration.’

Lucifer laughed, enjoying Michael’s repartee. He reclined on an ornate platinum throne, his white satin robe wrapped around him. Six hellhounds lay next to his feet on satin cushions. He stroked the largest on the head. ‘Cerberus . . . ’ Lucifer gestured to Michael and Gabriel to sit.

Gabriel sat next to Lucifer. Michael remained standing at attention.

‘These men I now rule,’ Lucifer began casually, ‘access to heaven is denied them?’

Michael said nothing.

‘They do not have access,’ said Gabriel. ‘The portal has been sealed. The First Heaven and the wonders of Yehovah are sealed off from mankind forever.’

‘His presence will never be known here?’ Lucifer stared at Michael unrelentingly.

Michael bowed his head in reverence. ‘I do not presume to know our Father’s mind.’

‘Hah! But I know His mind!’ Lucifer frowned savagely. ‘He would seek fellowship with them still! I know it! He would trespass!’

Michael’s voice rose. ‘You have no jurisdiction over His presence, Lucifer.’

‘He is obsessed, infatuated!’

‘No, Lucifer. He is pure. He is holy. His love for them is eternal.’

‘I am king now! Men are my subjects.’

Michael lowered his eyes. ‘Some shall not bow, Lucifer.’

‘Oh, they will bow, Michael. How easily they will bow. I shall eradicate every memory of the First Heaven . . . and of Yehovah!’ He laughed gleefully. ‘They shall remember Him only as a vague imprint, a fable! His memory shall fade from generation to generation until His name shall be only as a myth for children. They shall each and every one desert Him. Then He shall come to His senses and realize the folly of His creation. He will realize my triumph. And
then
. . . He will relent.’

Michael lifted his eyes to Lucifer’s. They were like steel. ‘Come, Gabriel. We must take our leave.’

Gabriel sat dazed, heavy-eyed. ‘I – I would stay and dine with my brother.’ His voice was unnatural, almost lethargic.

Michael too suddenly felt sluggish and strangely weakened in his soul.

‘I have sumptuous chambers prepared for you, Gabriel.’ Lucifer smiled mysteriously. ‘And a special gift: a collection of magnificent frescos depicting my being crowned as sovereign.’

‘Come, Gabriel,’ Michael said, slurring. ‘It is sorcery . . . he plays to our souls.’

Gabriel stared at Michael, and his listlessness transformed into something akin to loathing. ‘I would not desert our brother, Michael. I deserted him once on the Mount of the North.’

As you deserted me, Michael.

Michael gritted his teeth. ‘Swear your allegiance to Yehovah, Gabriel! It will break his power.’

Moloch and the Luciferean guard grabbed Michael and savagely thrust him out of the door.

‘Get
out
, Gabriel!’ Michael cried. ‘If you stay, we will never return!’

Chapter Twenty-one

The Penitentiary

Michael was flung onto the granite floor of the mammoth torture chamber. The massive iron prison doors slammed, and the key turned in the lock.

He rose to his feet, wiping the blood from his mouth with the back of his palm, and pushed his face to the iron grille. He took in the menacing iron racks, the thumbscrews, the iron maidens, and other heinous instruments of torture. Bloodcurdling screams resounded from hundreds of fallen angels being tortured unrelentingly in two enormous chambers on either side of the endless row of cells.

At the far end of the smaller chamber he could see the brawny figure of Gadreel, towering over the shivering Sachiel.

‘That’s what happens when you worship Yehovah in these parts, my pretty.’ Gadreel leered at Michael from the torturing rack, bare-chested, his massive biceps bulging. He raised the red-hot poker. ‘Whom do
you
worship?’ Laughing maniacally, he shoved the poker brutally against Sachiel’s fingernails. Smoke poured from the burning flesh, and Sachiel screamed in agony. Gadreel kicked him savagely with his hobnailed boots.

Belial and Vidar walked over to the bars. Belial put his face up to the iron grille, directly in front of Michael’s. He fondled his cat-o’-nine-tails with its glass-tipped thongs. ‘Why, if it isn’t His Royal Highness, Chief Prince Michael.’ He ran the cat-o’-nine-tails down Michael’s face, caressing him.

Michael closed his eyes, summoning every atom of his self-discipline. Jether’s words echoed faintly in the back of his mind.
‘Never show your fear. Their evil feeds on fear.’

Michael clutched the bars, not a muscle of his face moving. Vidar smashed Michael’s knuckles viciously with his iron cudgel. Michael drew his hands back in agony.

‘You won’t look as pretty when we’ve finished with you,’ Belial snarled. ‘Will he, Vidar?’

Gadreel came up behind him, jangling the keys to Michael’s cell. He leered down at the ashen form before them. ‘Your Royal Highness,’ he sneered. He turned to the others. ‘Come, let us have some sport!’

* * *

Lucifer and Gabriel sat at the lavishly set dining table, sipping from crystal goblets. The black tapers had burned down except for a faint flickering. Gabriel sat listless, drowsy.

Lucifer reached out and took his arm. ‘Come, Gabriel, I would show you my kingdom.’

They rose and moved through the balcony doors out into the cool zephyrs. Gabriel looked from the balcony at the Outer Darkness surrounding the Black Citadel. Lucifer moved his hand across the heavens, and immediately they travelled downward, through multitudes of solar systems, through pitch darkness.

Gradually their eyes became attuned to the gloom. In the distance, thousands of strapping fallen angels were erecting monstrous iron structures. A full league below them, a torrent of molten lava flowed through Hades.

Lucifer lifted his hands. ‘See, Gabriel, nothing is beyond us.’

He pointed to a menacing black iron scaffold, where a group of troll-like creatures pitted their strength behind an enormous gate hundreds of feet high. Slowly it rose from the ground. Welded into it was a living gargoyle, breathing flaming brimstone.

‘You shall rule Hades with me, Gabriel. We shall yet prove to our Father the folly of this race of men.’

Gabriel’s eyes were dull and listless. Lucifer took a huge, shimmering key from beneath his robe. ‘The keys to death and the grave. They are now mine. Bequeathed to me by eternal law.’

Chapter Twenty-two

A Trespasser in the Kingdom

Michael had been beaten to a pulp. His flaxen head was matted and bloodied, with a gaping wound at the crown. His right cheek too was bloodied and raw. His eyes were bruised, his fingernails seared and burning.

The revelators and his legion of Watchers were now incarcerated with him in the lowest regions of the penitentiary. Hundreds of thick iron prison bars embedded in granite confined them.

Gadreel pulled the iron door open with one arm and kicked Michael savagely in the face. The jagged spurs on his boot ripped into Michael’s flesh. ‘You have a visitor, Your Highness.’

Michael stumbled to his knees.

‘You will bow before your king,’ Gadreel spat.

With an effort Michael lifted his battered face to the prison doors.

Smiling down at him, in a white satin robe, his golden crown on his head, was Lucifer. To his right stood Gabriel, pale and trembling; to his left, Zadkiel.

Lucifer drew his face nearer to Michael’s. ‘If I can’t win you back, my dear Michael, I’ll
force
you back,’ he said in a malevolent hiss. ‘And if I can’t force you, I’ll
destroy
you.’

Michael struggled to get his words out through clenched, bloodied teeth, each word causing him agonizing pain. ‘There . . . is . . . an . . . addendum, Lucifer.’

Lucifer’s eyes narrowed. ‘What? What addendum?’

Michael slumped back down, but his eyes were steel. ‘To the title deeds,’ he whispered.

Lucifer swung around to Gabriel.

Gabriel nodded dully. ‘It’s true. They expire.’

‘What do you mean, they
expire?
’ He clasped Gabriel’s shoulders in a vicelike grip.

Gabriel’s eyes slowly focused. ‘The title deeds – there is a time limit.’ His speech was strangely slurred. ‘They become invalid.’

Michael watched from the ground as a terrible horror crossed Lucifer’s face. He turned to Charsoc, who stared at Michael in shock.

‘Yehovah’s omniscience,’ Charsoc murmured.

Lucifer was silent for a long time. ‘You are not lying,’ he whispered. ‘I sense it.’ He blinked rapidly, staring at nothing. ‘My aeons of vengeance . . . they are numbered?’

‘The covenant was deeded to the race of men for a finite period. It is written in the eternal law,’ Michael said, his words clear and unmistakable. ‘It cannot be revoked.’

Lucifer stared ahead, his eyes as blue stone. ‘The Day of Judgment . . . ’ His harried mutterings were hardly audible. ‘The day they expire . . . He will banish me to the lake of fire.’

‘It would have served you well to study the codex more perfectly when it was in your possession.’ Gabriel’s tones seemed clearer, stronger. ‘You would have seen the time constraint in the title deed.’

Zadkiel, who had accompanied Lucifer to the prison, looked from Michael to Lucifer, assimilating the terrible truth.

‘Yehovah’s genius!’ Lucifer spat. He spun around to Michael. ‘Tell me, when does my kingdom end?’

‘That knowledge has not been entrusted to us,’ Michael replied, looking unflinchingly into Lucifer’s eyes. ‘One greater than me was once entrusted with too much, to his corruption.’ Each word was agonizing pain. ‘It stained his soul.’

Lucifer kicked Michael’s head savagely.

Michael reeled back in agony. ‘You can torture me . . . you can damn me to your hell . . . ’ He lifted himself up with his elbow and looked square into Lucifer’s eyes, tears of pain and rage falling from his cheeks onto his hands. ‘But . . . I . . . will . . . worship . . .
Yehovah
.’

Gabriel seemed to gain resolve. ‘Lucifer,’ his voice trembled, ‘I will not bow.’

Lucifer gestured for Gadreel to hold Sachiel in front of Gabriel. Sachiel’s eyes were black, seared holes.

Gabriel bowed his head.

‘You would embrace this fate, Gabriel?’ Lucifer hissed. He waved Gadreel away. ‘Because of my excessive love for you, my brother, I will still forgive you.’

Gabriel raised his head to Lucifer. His tones were measured but fierce. ‘I will not bow, brother. I worship Yehovah.’

Gadreel kicked Gabriel brutally, so that his jaw smashed on the granite wall.

Lucifer stared ahead, the imperial countenance inscrutable. ‘You will both rise, my brothers. You are now my subjects, incarcerated here in my kingdom forever. You will bow to me as your king.’

The two brothers remained standing. Both prayed softly in angelic tongues.

Lucifer nodded to Belial. Ruber, Gadreel, and Belial took Michael by the hair and smashed him violently against the bars. Gadreel and Belial held him face down to the granite as Ruber shoved Gabriel to his knees and grasped him in a stranglehold.

‘Now you are bowing, my brothers,’ Lucifer said with a malevolent smile. ‘As your king, I receive your worship.’ He turned, triumphant, to see Zadkiel’s gaze riveted on a figure who remained standing. Through the shafts of gloomy light, a solitary Watcher stood at the far side of the chamber.

Gadreel’s face contorted in fury. ‘One defies you, Your Majesty.’

Zadkiel stayed, mesmerized by the figure. Gadreel leered and strode over to the Watcher. Lucifer’s eyes narrowed, on the alert . . . discerning something strange, intangible.

‘Take your visor off before our king!’ Gadreel bawled, tearing the visor off the Watcher’s face.

Lucifer lifted his hand to stop him, but it was too late.

A stream of blinding, unearthly light knocked Gadreel off his feet. He cowered in terror at the imperial figure facing him from the white fire.

It was Christos, His gracious features forbidding and fearless.

Belial uttered a strangled cry and grasped his throat, suffocating in white fire.

Michael’s wounds immediately healed, his skin at once restored. ‘Christos . . . ’ he whispered.

Bloodcurdling screams echoed across the penitentiary as the fallen angels collapsed to the floor, burning in the radiance.

Zadkiel stared, captivated. For a fleeting moment he stepped forward into the blinding light, his features bathing in the radiance. An unfathomable peace transformed his countenance.