Lilith

Lilith

(preface)

The air rushed past Lilith’s ear, whispering to her as she fell, branding her with the names she had earned. “Unholy, monster, evil” it cried. She had disobeyed her God and now paid the penance. Cast from heaven, banished as though she’d meant nothing to the father; her alabaster skin gleamed in the sunlight as she fell. A more perfect feminine form did not exist. The very wind itself reached out to caress her body’s delicate curves. “What was my crime?” she asked turning to face heaven. “Was I not more beautiful than Adam? Did I not do all that was asked of me?! What have they done to deserve your favor?!!” her voice trembled with rage as she screamed hoping her words would be heard by all those above.

A deep green patch appeared through a hole in the clouds as she twisted to face her approaching punishment. Lilith tried once more to open her long glorious wings but the golden chains that bound them would not yield. “Will there be pain?” she wondered as the homogeneous forest transformed into individual trees. “Surely a fall from heaven would elicit some amount of discomfort.” But much to her dismay there was none.

The sound of her crash reverberated through the frigid wilderness felling the wood in all directions. Scorched dirt and ash that had been thrown skyward rained back down blotting out the sun for several minutes and staining her shimmering yellow hair a dull brown. Her once radiant skin was now smeared with mud and vegetation leaving the perfect angelic wings as the only evidence of her past life. Amid the catastrophe a fallen angel pulled herself to her feet, unharmed she trudged upward out of the monstrous crater her sin had made.

Naked, alone and indignant she took survey of the world around her. It was an aesthetically striking place, a soft jade woodland set against an azure sky backdrop with creamy vanilla clouds mingling between them. For just a second she nearly forgot her plight while admiring her father’s work. But the clamber of metal in the distance drew her attention to the task at hand and she set out through the foliage in search of a new place to call home while in her heart all of Earth, no matter how beautiful, would forever remain a prison.

Another angel, cast out of heaven, watched with breathless anticipation. He knew how Lilith had come to suffer this fate and sought to use her power to his own end. She was found tearing men into pieces. Hundreds of God’s favorite creatures lay dead around her, their blood sprayed across her wings painting them a pale crimson. Bits of flesh hung from her talons and had become matted in her hair.

“It was truly magnificent.” Lucifer calmly said his voice seeming to come from everywhere at once “finally one of our kind with the fortitude to dispatch” he appeared standing beside Lilith and whispered “daddy’s little mistakes.” into her ear. He grinned as the memory crept across his mind and rematerialized perched on the high branch of a conifer a few feet from the wandering Lilith.

“The morning star” she turned slowly as she spoke searching for her demon brother’s gaze “to what do I owe the honor?” her words dripped with sarcasm.

“My dear you are mistaken, it is I who need pay homage to you.” he said with a quiet, gentle timbre “stuck in this dismal place, powerless, alone and bound by the very chains that once held me.” He said cocking his head to the side and raising an eyebrow. “And for what, killing a few worthless humans.” He leapt from his branch and landed with a thud on the mossy ground. “I give reverence to you for that which has sealed your fate.”

“What do you want, Lucifer? I am in no mood for your games.” She growled.

“Not what I want sister, what you want.” He moved around her giving the chains a jingle “I can remove them for you. What’s more I can restore your power and make mankind tremble at the mention of your name.”

Lilith did not trust her brother, they both hated man but only he hated God. She had killed those vermin because she loved her father and the humans never would. They barely believed he existed and did not deserve his love or the lavish gifts bestowed upon them. “I do not need your assistance.” she said.

Before she could retort further she was interrupted. “Just hear my proposition.” He was walking a slow circle around her now and Lilith was growing weary of the situation. “I’m not interested”, she turned to keep him in front of her “even those of us in heaven have heard of your propositions and I am insulted that you would treat me no better than those miserable humans you dupe.”

“I mean no offense angel. I seek to loose the chains that bind you, so that you might continue your work.” his tone was playful again.

“My work?” she was hesitant to move the conversation forward but desperately wanted to spread her wings and his offer was sumptuously tempting. Lucifer answered; “Depriving father of his creation of course but with one minor alteration.” his face widened into an evil scowl “rather than kill men and send them straight into God’s waiting arms why not relieve them of their most precious gifts, their souls.” Lilith felt the corners of her lips turn ever so slightly upward “How exactly would I do that?” she asked. Lucifer, now certain that she would succumb to this most decadent offer, answered “You cannot take them out right. However, you simply need offer a man immortality. He will gladly give whatever you ask of him in exchange.”

He stood squarely in front of her “Help me make our father weep over what a miserable failure his most beloved mankind becomes. Make him watch as they turn away from him the way he turned from us.” Lilith stroked her collarbone in hushed deliberation as her brother added “He holds them above all others, above you and all your kind. With my gifts you can show him who is more deserving, those who would fight for his love or those who would turn away from him for the trappings of power.” Lilith looked him in the eye and calmly said, “Remove these chains brother there is much to be done here.” Lucifer wasted no time. Stretching wings of bone and tattered flesh he carried himself aloft and once high above her produced a blade of pure black malevolence, then as swiftly as he could fall plummeted downward slamming through the branches shattering them to kindling. The sword landed with all that force at the base of her wholesome, white angel’s wings cutting them away from her body.

Lilith got to feel her pain. She writhed in agony screaming, awash in her own blood and wept for her father to stop the pain. Death’s cold hand nearly had her when Lucifer spoke once more. “You will not die and the pain will pass momentarily. Stop your pathetic sobbing. You are mortal, if only for a second.” He plunged the sword between Lilith’s bare breasts then dragged his own wrist across its sharpened ebony edge. “You must drink of my blood to regain your strength.” his callous words came over her cries and he held his forearm over the dying angel’s face. “Lilith, drink or you will die.” Her lips parted slowly allowing a single drop of the foul black liquid to slither down her throat. It burned with all the fury of hell and spread through her veins in an all consuming blaze of torment finally culminating in an orgasmic explosion of power that left Lilith quivering as dark aftershocks pulsed throughout her ethereal flesh. When the last of the tremors had subsided she staggered to her feet, reborn in her sinister lord’s image.

Her once pure milky skin had become an insipid, pale blue. The beautiful dove like wings were gone replaced by the same tattered flesh and bones that Lucifer bore. The world sung to her, trees, rocks, animals, everything blending together in a harmonious medley of life. The wind’s melody came flitting over the forest’s refrain declaring “woe unto man a dark queen hunts for vindication in blood.”

Lilith’s golden, feral eyes flew open and darted toward a scent that had wafted near her. Instinct took over and she bolted into the woods weaving through the arboreal maze with blinding speed. She paused briefly on the edge of a clearing when she caught site of her prey. The white tiger was stalking through tall grass in search of his own meal unaware that his life was at an end. Lilith’s feet carried her swiftly across the glen, her slender body cutting a swath through the vegetation before pouncing on the great cat forcing its meager frame into the dirt. It hunched down and lunged for her in a desperate counter-attack but the blur was simply too fast for him. Then, Lilith’s talon slashed splitting the tiger’s chest apart and glided through the meat and bone as if it were air at last opening the beast’s throat. She drank the blood gorging herself. Then ripped the heart from its resting place and thrust it savagely to her lips devouring the still warm organ.

She stood awash with blood in awe of the new power when Lucifer’s voice blurted into the sanctity of her moment. “Bravo my dear” he clapped his hands lazily descending from the canopy “you do not disappoint.” The newborn demon sucked her lips clean and asked “What now? How will I wage war on mankind single handedly?”

“You will hunt, you will kill and you will make men into monsters.” Lucifer’s tone was abrupt and impatient. “Every mortal turned will be cursed with the same hunger for blood you now feel and they will hunt, kill and make monsters of their own. It will be a magnificent plague of blood lust forcing man to be their own undoing.” He landed softly on the ground adding “Now desist this pedantry and go kill someone.” and in a wisp of flame disappeared leaving only the odor of sulfur. Lilith cocked her head listening to the world and sorted all the noise of life. The sound of a village in the distance became clear and she set out skulking between the trees.

She arrived to find hills over looking a small settlement and only a few dozen peasants milling about. She watched them from the ridgeline, learning about her prey until the sun set behind her. An auspicious fog settled into the valley as the last of the torches was extinguished for the night and she made her way toward the first dwelling.