Eve of the Gods--NaNo 2011-12 Prep

October 18: Outline v.3

Evelyn Sinclair is working at a Barnes and Noble-esque bookstore--in the cafe, actually--and her life isn't going so well. Not to sound cliche, it's not horrible, life isn't treating her like crap or anything, it's just annoyingly normal. Nothing really exciting seems to happen, or even about to happen. Or even going to happen in the distant future, as Lyn has never planned to do much. Her dream is to one day own her own bookstore/cafe, but secretly, she knows that this is just a cop out; it's more a reaction to the problems she has with her job than any real passion for the book and cafe business, or even business in general. Even though her whole family is immensely successful, whether professors or doctors (even a relatively well-known artist sister, who carves sculptures out of old hubcaps and license plates), she...hasn't been.

This is not to say that Lyn is without ambition or without spirit. On the contrary, she is full of fire and intelligence and wit. The problem is that she doesn't know what she wants--every time she thinks about it, this overwhelming sense of bigness, of things beyond her understanding, of power and memory and...depth just overcomes her. She cannot begin to understand what she wants because she wants so much. But at the same time, she doesn't understand these feelings because the understanding of them is part of their overwhelming depth. What she does know, however, is that she feels like a woman out of her own time. She is more comfortable with characters in books and people from history than with the people of her time. Her politics, her interests, her very being seems as a person who belongs not somewhere, but some WHEN else.

One day, while working at the cafe in her bookstore, Lyn is approached by a man who calls her Eve and says he needs her help. It turns out that he is Hermes, the Greek Messenger god, and chosen emissary of the Lesser Courts, those deities and entities that owe their existence to human belief (see the concept of Tulpa or thoughtform). After a necessary freak out and deal-with-it period--which doesn't last long--Eve agrees to help him, feeling as though something within her (the part that she just doesn't understand) is driving her to do this.

Turns out that the gods are in danger. Someone is planning to do something that would undo their existence by severing them from human belief. As gods, being of pure soul and no flesh, death is not merely death, it is obliteration. It is complete nothingness, as if they had never existed in all of history. This is an entity that has been around for a long time, and whom the gods have kept their eye on, but until now, his actions have been mostly to glorify himself and destroy his enemies. And then he disappeared for a long time. Now it seems that he is back and has changed tactics-- he wants to undo the curse God put on him. The Eye of the Fates (the Greek Fates, yeah?) has sensed that his new plan will be of great danger to the gods, but they can neither find him, nor can they See what his plan may be.

Besides undoing the gods, this plan would likely have other, greater consequences. By undoing the curse of God, it is quite likely that all of existence (humanity, the animals, the Lesser Courts, etc) would cease to be. So Hermes has recruited Lyn to save them all. But why? Well, that she isn't allowed to know. Her ignorance is also her greatest tool; it is what is keeping her safe. But Hermes extorts her to look deep inside, to feel the unknowable part of her, and he explains that this is God's gift to her. She--and she alone--will be able to stop this from happening. This the Fates have seen (they were how Hermes found her--the block on the Cursed one does not extend to Lyn).

The gods can't really do anything themselves. Their only move was to find Lyn, whom they knew could help, but not how. But Lyn has no idea what's going on except that the Greek Messenger God has befriended her and asked for her help. Hermes realizes that they are going to need more help--someone else who was involved in everything from the beginning and is not limited by mortality or belief. Hermes just wants to save himself and his fellow Lesser Entities, so his role is mostly to recruit Lyn (and be a friend and ally) and someone else with the pull to help get things rolling.

Hermes takes her to meet the one entity who can help. The Lesser Courts are not all that powerful these days (the Hindi court being the exception, with their Brahma being so close God, for one, and their belief center still going strong), and they can only barely save up enough power to spend time on Earth for short periods. In fact, many of the lesser gods gave up most of their power to help Hermes spend so much time in the human world. The Greater Courts (the Angels and Demons, the Holy Spirit, Jesus and his posse, God, and Mother Earth) are not really supposed to (or choose not to) interfere with human Free Will, because God is a wait-and-see kinda guy. There is, however, one entity whose personal history is just convoluted enough to free him from this whole thing: Lucifer. Who spends most of his time on an uncharted island in the Atlantic.

Lucifer is initially reticent to get involved, but Lyn (whom both entities insist on calling Eve) convinces him, though not really though any effort of her own. Her presence, her innocence he says, convinces him to help, but Lucifer doesn't actually tell her why except to say, "You and I, child, we are a lot more alike than you may think." Lyn doesn't trust him much--he is the Father of Lies and the Great Evil, after all--but Hermes insists that he is the only one who can help, and that he really isn't what Lyn thinks he is. His past is quite convoluted, and not much like what most people think. And actually, over the next couple of days, Lyn begins to see that Lucifer is not the evil, vile, lying creature most people think he is. He actually seems to be sick over what goes down in Hell, and dreads needing to go down there to "recharge" so to speak. Good-looking, sensitive, intelligent, and (most of all) interested in Lyn, Lyn finds herself falling for him, much to her own surprise.

Lucifer, called Lucien, takes them to Conrad Amitage Inc. He has located the being in question, something the Lesser Courts cannot do because of their lack of power and limitations as creatures of Tulpa (as I said earlier), and found his base of operations. Conrad has gone into the business of artifacts and archaeology, fronting as an expedition company for wannabe Indiana Joneses (speaking for myself, I totally would go on one of Conrad's expeditions) and rich people. Using the considerable resources he possesses, Lucifer brings Lyn (who has actually started thinking of herself as Eve now) and Hermes to London, where Amitage is based. Eve and the two entities go to confront Amitage, though Hermes and Lucien both insist that Eve say nothing and stay back. Actually, they wanted to leave Eve behind on Lucien's island home, but she insisted that she accompany them or she wouldn't help anymore ("You can't ask me for my help and then leave me out of it! I am not an accessory to be worn and then tossed aside!"), so they reluctantly bring her along provided that she stay out of the way for her own safety. They need to know his plan before they can do anything about it (they can't just kill him because of his curse), and Eve is not ready to handle him. Overcome by curiosity, however, Eve follows the 'men' into the building and hides, watching the confrontation.

Upon seeing Conrad, however, and hearing his voice, Eve is shaken to her very core as the unknowable thing within her begins to stir. Lust, fear, anger, rage, wonder, loss, love...all of these feelings overwhelm her. She cries out and Conrad sees her, instantly knowing who and what she is. What follows is a scene where Eve comes to learn what the thing inside her is and who Conrad actually is. Upon knowing, his plan rushes into her mind (they are ridiculously connected for the reason that I can't reveal unless the big twist ending--actually middle--is revealed) and whom he is working for (but not her identity). (Brief POV interludes will introduce us, but not reveal to us, this character that Conrad plans on working with to complete his plan.) Overwhelmed by this knowledge, but without the complete understanding of it, she runs from the building and away from Lucifer and Hermes, too terrified to continue helping them. She hides for several days, ashamed of her feelings for Lucifer, angry at trusting Hermes (and with Hermes for seemingly lying to her), and brooding...until she runs into another entity. The Norse god Loki, who in a rare showing of sobriety and truth (he's the god of chaos, not of evil, after all, and he would cease to exist, too), sits and has coffee with her. Mostly they talk about people and gods, nothing about what Eve is going through. He mentions that he wanted to talk to her (the her that I can't tell you about) and found her via Odin's Eye. This reminds Eve that Lucifer and Hermes could have found her at any time, but have respected her fear and left her alone. Which in turn leads her to think about what Hermes said about undoing God's decree. While Conrad's plan sounds great and awesome and something that people should want, it completely goes against what God said. Grace must be earned, not stolen, she thinks, and then asks Loki to help her find Hermes.

Loki shakes his head and points. Across the street is Lucien, who has just appeared from crossing through the Twilight (the Gods' realm) to where she and Loki were sitting. Eve, surprised at her joy at seeing him, jumps up and runs to Lucien, throwing herself into his arms. He takes her back to where he and Hermes were staying (mostly he, as Hermes had had to return to the Twilight to gather some power) and explains everything to her from the beginning through to now. He was the Snake in the Garden, yes, an unknown and unnamed entity with an ability to weave words and twist truths to suit his needs. God approached him to test humanity, knowing it was a test they would both pass and fail. Humanity was not meant to stay in the Garden forever, Lucien says, so God gave them a test He knew would end in their expulsion from Eden. It was cruel, but necessary, Lucien explains, though to be the two beings sacrificed for the good of humanity must not feel great. In the case of one, God granted a clemency--forgetfulness, so that her punishment would be easier to bear. The other, cursed with remembrance, went insane and began to flout the Will of God. (I'm sure you've figured out who Conrad and Lyn are, then?) As far as the snake, the insanity of the one led him to seek out others to share his misery. He garnered power for himself in the Church of the Son and convinced them that the Morning Star, hitherto believed to be the King of Babylon, meant Satan and Satan was one with the Snake of Eden. Thus this being, unnamed and innocent, became at once Lucifer and a King of Hell. The true Satan, the demon Sammael, continued his duties, but Lucifer found it necessary to enter Hell every so often to recharge. He loathed what happened in Hell, for no one really needed to go to Hell (only those who believe they are going to Hell actually go there) and abhorred the suffering to be found within. Thus he spent most of the last two thousand years hiding from Hell and living in suffering.

Then he met Lyn, who reminded him that his suffering was not the only to be had. She, too, had been mercilessly affected by the Remember-er, her lives lived alone and, often, horribly due to human belief in her greater sin, all caused by Adam's hatred and inability to accept his own guilt. Always arrogant, he believed himself to be a superior being, God's first human, and refused to believe that Eve should have been punished less than he though she ate of the apple first. And Lyn, Eve reborn and Adam's greatest victim, caused him to realize that he could not sit back and allow Adam to continually flaunt God's law and cause further harm. He had loved Eve all those years ago, and he loved her still, embodied now in a beautiful woman named Evelyn Sinclair. That was the reason he had chosen to help her against God's wishes, because Adam had gotten away with too much over the years and God refused to intervene in mortal affairs any longer. He loved her then and he loves her now, and she nearly broke his heart when she ran off thinking ill of him. Eve kisses him, not really knowing what she's doing, but Lucien shows her how to do it. Eve and he have a romantic sexy-tiems scene. YAY! Adam's victims get together! YAY! Down with Adam!

Hermes returns and finds the two together, but he is actually pretty cool with it, considering. Of course, his people had often had affairs with mortals and Hermes' own mother was a mortal, so he can't really say anything. He comes back, however, saying that the Eye of the Fates now knows Adam's plan. Lyn mentions that she knows the plan now, too; it appeared in her mind as Conrad was gloating over knowing who she was. Since Eve was made of Adam's rib, she is still connected to Adam and, thus, their acknowledgment of one another in the same place allowed her to know the plan. Adam has long tried to push his own curse onto others by taking advantage of tulpa, the same concept that allows the lesser courts to exist, and forcing Lucifer and Eve to bear the weight of his supposedly undeserved punishment. He has since realized that this is not true and will not work, so he has changed tactics. Instead of pushing his punishment off on other people, he wants to undo it completely. He wants to forcibly return all of humanity to a state of grace, bringing them all back to Eden (not the literal garden, but the state of the world). This would mean he and Eve never chose to eat the apple and would, thus, end their punishment. Lyn ran upon learning this because she thought that sounded good--why wouldn't humanity want to return to the Garden of Eden, where everything was easy and good and without sin? Then Loki made her remember that everything was all about choice and Free Will, the greatest gift that God had given humanity. Back when Adam and Eve were humanity, they could make the decision, but no longer. Adam could not force all of humanity to give up their Free Will and return to Eden. Which is why she came back to the both of them. Adam was Eve's responsibility.

Lucifer and Hermes want to know how Adam plans to enact this plan, but Lyn reveals that she's not sure. He has an ally, but this ally remains in shadow so Lyn doesn't know who she is, just that she's a she. And this plan hinges upon a knowledge that this ally possesses, which is why Conrad Amitage Inc exists. Adam is searching for a particular time and place, a time and place perfect for the transfer of this knowledge, which Adam would then use to enact his plan. Whatever this knowledge is, it is earthshaking and it must be, since it's probably going to cause the end of the world. Lyn reveals that the date Adam needs to find this place by is the equinox, two weeks away, but she doesn't know where this place is because Adam isn't, either. Lucifer and Hermes both dispatch friends and underlings to keep an eye on Conrad Amitage just in case he moves. Then they set down to wait. Eve and Lucifer come to terms with their newfound relationship, which Eve is having problems doing because she keeps remember that she's going to die and he never is. And every time she dies, she's going to forget him and he isn't...'cause God is not likely to undo the punishment. Which begs the question: what are they going to do about Adam?