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cymorilcinnamonroll · 2 months ago

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Holy Diver: A Gay Lucifer x Beelzebub Dark Fantasy Romance (Paradise Lost Fanfiction) PART 1

(Read Part 2 Here)

I flexed my white muscle and moved as one with my katana, picturing Minoan bulls to leap over as I flayed Lucifer’s cheekbone from its sinew. He was heady with exertion, looking like a scraped up, bloody Jude Law as devil-may-care Bosie in Wilde.

But Lucifer was always a snake – ready to strike – and he took his broadsword and met my steel – tempered in fire, a thousand carnivorous folds of singing metal – and sparks ignited as we cascaded into a series of cuts and slashes, fileting each other.

“I draw your final blood, you owe me a beer,” I teased, nicking his shoulder lightly – just a paper cut, letting the linen-like flesh and gold hair of my master, owner of my heart – Lucifer – quiver atop the paper crane edge of my katana.

The droplet spilled in the air as I shoved him with a mighty push down, my steel-toed boot digging into his chest as I captured his scapula-blood on my thumb.

Lucifer smirked, turning into a white albino serpent with emerald eyes that curled around my sword, bleeding as his scales plied up my katana. I licked the stolen bloody drop, then guided the shimmering serpent onto my pale limbs, letting Lucifer idly twist and thread around my fly wings – hardened keratin against a body that would put Asmodeus to shame – and brought the White Serpent to my lips.

We kissed deep, and I bit the White Serpent, tasting his heart in his throat. The Green Language of the Birds filled my ears like a panoply of spring. Suddenly, Lucifer turned back to man, corvid-winged, his bronze ampoules of curls spilling across my arms, to my groin, as we threaded together as Serpent and Fly.

Spent, we gathered our clothes at the dojo, showered, then polished our blades with some whetstones Mulciber had forged for us eons ago from adamant. Mine sparkled with iodized black, Lucifer’s was pale as the moon.

“A beer,” Lucifer grinned. He extended his lace-like hand, sharp talons abroad, and took his palm in mine. We ambled out of our chalet into Dis City proper, walking the long gardens and Pleasure District to our favorite restaurant – Tantalus’ Spoon. Cursed by the gods as he was, we made Tantalus cook, but never could Tantalus touch, taste, or eat his dishes. The lust and wicked longing old Tantalus stewed and simmered and reduced into his mad cuisines would have pleased even the most discerning gourmand.

We ordered two Kirins from the young qilin waitress, and the other Hell After Hours crowds filled in quietly – Samael and Lilith crowded the back with their brood, flirting over a game of dice with blood at stake – craps it looked like – and Moloch and Tanit shared some Sherry and read the New Yorker.

“Nice fiction this week, Bee,” Moloch drawled, adjusting his black-red curls. Tanit winked at Lilith, motioning her to bring Lilith’s newest baby to her, letting her rock on Tanit’s lap. They cooed over the baby, and Lucifer joined them, letting the brown-haired boy ride hobby horse on his lap.

“Who wrote it?” I said, lighting a Tareyton. The cig tasted like Demon Est Deus Inversus, a peated whiskey Michael had made last century that turned out particularly good. Christmas presents from Heaven always pissed me off – join us Fallen Brothers, celebrate the Golden Boy Christ – but the angels did good spirits.

We were all incorporeal, after all. Spirits in spirit enspirited.

Moloch frowned. “There’s something odd in the paper, look at this,” he said, motioning to the Times feature: a man of the book with prominent jowls, a pate of slick white hair, and gray eyes that shimmered like G-d.

“’Top Exorcist of the Vatican Claims He Will Drive Beelzebub Out of America’s Billionaire Heiress,’” Moloch read.

Samael sniggered. “The fuck. You’re touching a human?”

I bristled. “Elodie and I have our arrangement.

Lucifer gave a laugh like a wolf. “One of your consorts misbehave, husband? And she dialed Daddy Pope. How fucking hilarious.”

Elodie. Elodie. Elodie. A rich brunette of archaic, refined breeding, old Manhattan money, half Rockefeller lady of the hour, half Nigerian heiress. She was one of my favorites. The fuck had she done now? Elodie had always been an occultist with a tendency to scare easily – I delivered showerings of golden fortune and money and goodwill to her, men and models and Silicon Valley shit to play with, rare, limited edition jewels I had Mulciber handpick and Mammon summon on black market mines and deliver to Elodie’s designer’s door. I even got Elodie a private retreat to Socotra for some Burning Man-adjacent tech fest. Socotra all to herself didn’t come cheap.

And the sex? Of course she was addicted. But addiction could scare Satanists, frighten occultists, or send the demonolaters running to the holy hills. Weaving into their sinew like I had Lucifer earlier, melding a blot of ink of my verdant black soul with Elodie’s tiny spirit spark, crushing her to iced clarity with my mandible?

Perhaps she has found G-d. I probed her feelings with my mind – Elodie was praying the Rosary. She had shut off our psychic line.

“Excuse me, I’ll take care of this matter,” I said. “Least I need is Michael on my ass.”

Especially if I wanted what I’d been coveting all year: his newest peated whiskey: Sol Invictus. Aged in cambion blood barrels. Add in some of Aphrodite’s womb yeast and it was promised to be:

Impeccable. A treasure. It was the only bloody thing getting me through a crumbling real estate market in Pandemonium, my muckraking drunk Secretary Eve screwing everyone and writing Carrie Bradshaw style tell-alls in the yellow pages, and fucking Metatron complaining about the backup of souls in Limbo. It wasn’t my fault Penemue had roc flu. The roc had been shipped here illegally from Jahnna. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I straightened my lapel.

Exited Hell

And debuted in Elodie’s kitchen.

I eyed what was in the penthouse atop Central Park: bare bones. She was one of the eccentrics that refused kitchen staff or servants. Fancied herself a Bohemian. Insisted on Soylent Green and micro-micro-micro wheatgrass dishes. But she needed food. I took flour and two eggs, made a mound of fresh pasta dough, took a knife and wine bottle to roll and separate it, and made spaghetti aglio et olio with the dull, boring ingredients she had in her state-of-the-line kitchen.

Tantalus would lose his shit at the wasted grace of space.

“Honey?” I said, my voice sweet as Elodie ambled in, her eyes bleary. She was dressed in silk and chiffon.

She froze. “Bee.”

“Miss me? I made us dinner.”

She frowned, her rich, luscious brown skin and model-thin frame with the height of a caryatid standing in stark contrast against her amber-earth curls.

“I told you to leave me alone,” she said, amused. “I’m fasting. It lengthens the span of your telomeres.”

“You can’t afford to skip a meal.”

“Sigh. Fine, Bee… it smells delicious. What can I do for you?”

“First, wine,” I said, summoning a Malbec. It would cost the firstborn of a multimillionaire. Not my finest vintage by far, but I wasn’t trying to overpower her. Gentleness and subtlety, and a smile, were weapons of mediation too.

Everything, in the end, was warfare games.

She settled like a bird across from me in the minimalist, blue kitchen. She ate like a she-devil.

“God I’m hungry. Maybe I should give up Goop.”

I kissed her neck, massaging her shoulders. “You’d look marvelous with some curves, and you look marvelous as you are now. But I don’t want you losing weight. My human is precious to me alive. Dead… you cannot enjoy Tblisi.”

“True!” she sang, suddenly energized, and kissed me. I noticed the Barbara medal on her necklace.

“Praying to a saint?”

“Virgins, martyrs, Lilith and Mary, who gives a shit,” Elodie smiled. “I want to see how powerful you are. I called in a favor at the Vatican. This penthouse is booby trapped with the most powerful relics, Solomonic Seals, and anti-ether wards. There’s even a true nail from the Cross. You’re mine, Bee. My toy.”

“Ah, I see.” I gently separated myself from her, hopped onto the table, and sat cross-legged, parting my platinum-bordering-on-white hair from my eyes. “You want to cage me.”

“You’re wasting your time in Hell. What is the point of Hell and Heaven, of Lucifer and God, Bael? You’re old – older than God. Older than all that. We could do good work here in Manhattan. I could use your magick for my charities. Marry me, ignore me, I don’t care, but binding you has its uses.”

My eyes were laser focused. I probed the Cabalistic trap. It was airtight, with some room for negotiation.

“But what would you get out of that, Elodie? I don’t see the point,” I mused.

“What is the point of life, when even fucking Socotra is mine to myself?” She sighed, slumping to the ground, toying with the Saint Barbara medallion. “I’m oh so bored, Bee. I figured, if I caught you… you, who had caught me first! I’d – I’d feel something.”

“And? How do you feel.”

“Empty.”

I gently let myself down from the table and sat beside my charge-turned-attempted-kidnapper. “So, you fancy yourself Lady Solomon. Did I ever tell you how empty he felt too? Solomon trapped me as well. And he died bitter and ruined, his kingdom in waste.”

“But he was Wise. I want Wisdom.”

“You have it. Grace. Refinement. Work. An education. Toys that would cost the Gross Domestic Product of Korea.”

“And it matters fuck – ALL!” Elodie burst. She tore her Saint Barbara apart and tossed it into her artfully decorated, sickeningly expensive Boho chic living room. It landed on some pashmina.

“I’m afraid, Elodie, that even a King of Hell cannot give you meaning in life. My Father neither.”

She sighed, sobbing. “I tried everything. Retreats in Iquitos on aya. Dancing in Ibiza on peyote. Sex with street performers. Submitting my poetry to The Paris Review – I pulled all the strings my family had, and the editor said, in her most eloquent way: Elodie, you’re unpublishable. What’s the bloody point?”

I smiled, savoring what might well be our last conversation. “Then my work with you is fulfilled.”

She shuddered. “What?”

“You realize that all the magick, the powers of Heaven and Hell, the world’s most addictive sex with archons and archdemons and scoundrel human poets, riches and fame and the world as your toy, are nothing without love.”

“I love you, Bee.”

“I’m training wheels, Elodie Okowa. I have to set you free now. You have a good heart that I have fostered. Girlchild, you are twenty-three. It’s time to find yourself without the trappings of the occult and richness. Here,” I said, summoning her soul gem from my dark recesses. It was amethyst-pink, and I hung it on a silver chain atop her brown breasts, set in an adamant bee. “My gift to you. Our contract is done. You no longer owe me offerings, blood, sex, worship, anything. You have my favor forever, Elodie Okowa. I adore you, and I am proud of the woman you became. I will always help you. But it is time to fly on your own wings.”

Elodie startled, touching the elegant soul gem. “You’re – you’re setting me free from our blood pact?”

I laughed. “You want to know the truth of it Elodie, finally?”

She nodded, fearful yet enchanted, leaning against me on the floor as I stroked Elodie’s shoulder.

“Soul pacts aren’t real, my dear. Demons are cultivators of mortal souls, tempering them like steel. Like a katana, finely melded, beaten, folded over and over again, until it is strong as adamant. You are one of my many blades, Elodie. And it’s time for you to wield yourself in the moral, righteous matter you see fit. A final parting gift for you, my soul daughter.”

There were tears in her eyes, and Elodie sat in wonder as I rose in my fine dress, then pulled out of my private collection in the netherworld the katana that I had spent years crafting for her. I hung it on her wall, letting a bit of the metal poke through from the sheathe to reflect my smile back at her.

That blade? It was some of my finest work.

“I love you, Bee.”

“I love you too, Elodie. Let me help you up.”

“Kiss me, please. Our final seal.”

I did. We went to get coffee at a local diner, our favorite spot. She made no mention when I stepped over the iron, ancient nail by the threshold and the foot of my flesh burnt, smelling like smoldering patent leather, melted muscle, and charred bone.

I told her many things. Things I tell all souls in time – some earlier than others. She was a fine woman, my Elodie, and I was amazed and proud of the long life she lived after that night and the works of greatness Elodie did – but above all, the fine wife Elodie found and the children they had together.

And me?

I got

Sol Invictus

That year.

“This is his best yet,” Lucifer murmured, in a Santa hat, as we shared two glasses by our fire – celebrating Christmas for the first time, well, ever.

“Yes, Michael surely did work a miracle.”

The grime of the neon lights of Dis City’s tech district was a pink and green metropolis on rainy pavement. Beings of all realms flittered like flies underfoot as salarymen and career women waded through the grit of the asphalt. Imps scurried about as the ghosts of the dead went about delivering pizza and wine.

“Hard day?” Lucifer asked, resting his motorcycle at the stoop of my office. I liked to work in remoteness, in a boarded up little back-alley desk where I could meet with lost souls, those in need, and arbitrate and heal them of their addictions and problems. I administered therapies and medical regimens – alongside my friendship – in my practice as a Jungian psychoanalyst and psychiatrist that dealt in Afterlife trauma and confidence issues.

I didn’t want abused souls coming into the gold and adamant metropolis of my main office, the trappings and edifice dripping finery from starry, pinnated columns, and feel ashamed for being small. Father knew I had been made to feel small in my life, eons before the Great Reconciliation. I understood what it was to be crushed as beetle under the heel of those mightier, marching over your keratin towards progress.

“I met with Hua,” I said quietly to my husband Lucifer, dusting my tan trench coat and black loafers with a lint brush. I stood in the door of my therapist’s office and locked the padlock, pocketed the lint brush into my etheric carryon bag – invisible to the naked eye – and took the band of the bag of Chinese takeout Lucifer had for us to share. I smiled. “You got me lo mein and chow fun. My favorites. Thanks, love.” I pecked him on the cheek.

Lu’s navy business suit stood dark against his blond cowlick and golden stubble. His eyes burned like blue brands under his wire-rimmed glasses. “Hua… the one from the latest caseload. The sweatshop fire?”

“The one.”

“Funny how mortals don’t realize they all come to Hell to process their trauma, sins or not. We are simply Sheol, the purifying fires of the grave, with love enough for those departed…”

“To carry them up to Heaven on our faith, yes,” I smiled, and we walked back to our quiet little flat on the corner of Rue Merlebleu and Chambeau Mélange. We unpacked the Chinese food and changed into athleisure, Lu in gray sweatpants and a black turtleneck, I in all-white loungewear.

“Hua’s hard,” I admitted. “I feel like I’m making no progress.”

We ate in companionly silence, then settled into marital bliss – worries of the hard day’s labor temporarily forgotten.

Hua Lee met me the next day in my office of homely colors, greens and blues, with polished stone accents in muted blacks and grays. I prided myself on having constructed from scratch the all-natural wood and moss interior, with a clear burbling automatic creek flagging the floor over a meditation set I had constructed last year to give my patients more happiness and cultivate a sense of peace.

My patient sat drawing in the sand meditation garden, nine years old. She had long black, beautiful hair, and a shimmy of limbs that danced like a tiny singer, like she’d be at home doing the lindy hop with a pack of spiders.

“What are you drawing, darling?”

“A dragon!” Hua smiled, looking up at me. “Mr. Kwan is so kind at my auntie’s home. I wish mom and dad were here, but I’m glad they’re watching Jiehong on Earth. I – I wouldn’t want my baby brother to be alone. It’s nice Auntie Chao found a husband in the Afterlife. I’d be lonely without Auntie Chao and Mr. Kwan.”

I noticed the impressive scales in the sand garden’s drawing, the solar beast’s breath of hot ramen noodles, and it giving the audience a thumbs up.

“The dragon seems happy, Hua. Last week, it didn’t look as, well, enthusiastic.” I smiled, giving her some blocks. “Can you make it in 3-D?”

“I’m happier than I was last week, I guess,” Hua acknowledged, biting her lip. “School is great, and my best friend Tahirah and I like to get custard after math – we didn’t have American frozen custard in Chengdu, but Auntie Chao’s mooncakes really can’t be beat, Mr. Bee.”

Hua made the impressive dragon out of the PlayMobil, then added a princess riding it in a sparkling green ballgown. “Ah hah! A dragon and his fearless knight!” For an extra touch, Hua gave the dragon a lightsaber, and princess knight a sword. “I’m happier, these days, Mr. Bee. Truly, like you said – the afterlife heals, and though I miss mom and dad and my little brother, I know I’ll grow up here.”

“You can be anything you want in the Celestial Realms, once you come of age, Hua. In fact, I have an idea.”

Her black eyes lit up like polished onyx pearls. “Oh? An adventure? I love our adventures.”

And that was how I phoned her darling aunt and guardian – Chao Kwan, né Lee, and asked if I could take her niece on a field trip.

“A real dragon!” Hua said, amazed, as I flew her in my arms to Michael’s dragon ranch on the outskirts of Texas’ shadow side. We had stopped at a Buccee’s earlier and I had bought her some brisket and one of the mascot plushes. Hua grasped Buccee Jr. in her arms and spread her hands like Kate on the Titanic as I carried my patient through thermals of air, letting my fly wings ride the warm currents.

Michael waved below, saddling up the Clay Dragon – a shining yellowish-gray wyrm mare – with a saddle and stirrups suitable for a tiny, scrawny nine-year-old (and her plush.)

“Popsicle, Hua? I see Mr. Bee has decided to take you on another adventure.” Michael smiled, his long, Southwestern-styled attire (he loved cowboys and the Wild West), black hair, tan skin, and crinkled smile showing with glimmering white teeth. He was barbecuing a pig in a smoker and hoisted a plate onto the table for Hua and me.

“Oh, Mr. Mike, yes! Did you make me the pulled pork and elote again?” Hua begged, rushing to hug Michael. He lifted her in his golden arms and twirled her around.

“Of course! Have you been a good girl, my darling?” Michael said. He winked at me. “I have another bottle of Sol Invictus, Bee, for bringing me this angel made flesh.”

“Ask Mr. Bee if I’m good!” Hua said, a feral child, ravaging the pulled pork, BBQ sauce, and buns with her tiny limbs and blunt teeth.

“Excellent,” I said genially, hoping my therapy would work. I put the Sol Invictus – my favorite of Michael’s peated whiskeys – into my etheric storage chamber that went to Lucifer and I’s private palace resident and country estate, out in the boonies of Hell. “Thanks, brother.”

“Welcome,” he smiled, slapping me on the shoulder. We hugged as we usually did and set in for a pig picking. Michael took the small roasted sow down from the smoker, and then we ate, listening about Hua and Tahirah’s adventures.

“And then, Auntie Chao said: Hua and Tahirah, clean up the dog poop, or I’ll make you walk her a thousand miles to get the hyperness out of you both!”

Hua laughed, joy settling into her. I remember when her body had Fallen into my outstretched soul web – a fast fashion factory fire, her parents praying over her limp body, tiny Hua charred to the bone. I had wept egregiously, knitting little Hua’s starflesh body back together with my restorative powers – what little magick I still possessed of my once great majesty as Baal Hadad, Canaanite lord of fertility, health, thunder, lightning, and war. The Fall had only affected gods, at first: Astarte to Eve, Marduk to Michael, Nergal to Samael – and my beloved Attar to Lucifer – but as human beliefs grew into Abrahamic fashions, so did the Afterlife.

When the first human had Fallen – oh, the weeping and wailing of Heaven and Hell! Oh, what a broken world. We had fought, faction upon faction, some granted salvation, others mercy – G-d driven insane…

But, that was before the Great Reconciliation.

(A small shudder passed through me as I remembered being trampled by Michael’s flaming foot, myself stinging his heel, bitter-winged my soul.)

It was not just “demons” who Fell, after all… and the workings and currents of the chthonic Afterlife had little sense to them, running on Mother Nature’s instincts and Darkness’s Chaos. That all souls came to Gehenna to seek immortality in the purifying fires of Sheol, well, that was one of G-d’s greatest mysteries.

So Humans Fell, in turn. All before they could

Ascend.

But here was Michael, smiling at me – us not at war ever again. My brother winked, knowing I was remembering. “You did well to raise the dog so kindly,” Michael told Hua, stroking her hair. “Now, Hua, what did Mr. Bee say about dragon mares?” We settled her into the harness and saddle, looped Hua in, gave her the reins, and took her out for a walk on the Clay Dragon’s back.

“Feel the rhythm of the flight. It comes from the song of your heart,” she repeated, eager. “Let’s go, girl!” Hua cried, taking off at a gallop on the Clay Dragon mare.

I was fast on her heels, flexing my wings and flying after her. I led the nine-year-old through gentle aerial exercises on her dragon… and then, it was time for her Trust Fall: the core event.

“Are you ready to see if you can fly too, Hua?” I shouted.

She nodded yes. “Yes, Mr. Bee. I have created my own song of the heart, like you taught.”

We put the dragon mare back to stable and went to the human flight ring – where Michael and I taught all souls their own power.

Michael held out a water of life vessel, sprinkling it on Hua’s forehead in a baptism that carried the scent of lilies and song of G-d. “Alright, little lady, show us what you’ve got, Hua – and high five!” my brother encouraged.

“Remember, Hua, I’ll be there to catch you,” I said, helping her up onto the dive board over the foam pit. I waded into the foam blocks as she scaled the gymnastic equipment.

Hua’s black pants, Hello Kitty tee shirt, and gold skin shone in the sun of Texas’ fall. She began to sing, opening her lips, a honeyed tune flowing from her verdant voice. It made me want to weep, but Michael and I steeled ourselves, for this was a time of joy! – and watched Hua leap.

Fire licked her shoulder blades, then dragonfly wings sprouted as her soul ascended to immortality, and her halo winked on like a shining lunar disk. I was gazing at her own personal circlet of moon, watching the brilliant blue bottle dragonfly wings weave in and out of the air in syncopation with her limbs.

“Mr. Bee! Mr. Mike! I’m finally immortal like Tahirah, my doggie, and Auntie Chao. Like the immortals, I can fly!” Hua grinned, giddy, darting in and out of our arms. Michael took to the sky on his own snowy owl wings and I on my fly, and we wove dusk pink in with the fall air, helping the sun set.

“Thank you, boss,” Chao said as I dropped her niece off. “I’ll make you and your husband mooncakes!”

We hugged, my employee in happy tears, and I gave Chao and her family a bonus for the Mid-Autumn Festival.

“God, are these delicious,” Lucifer sighed, eating a lotus root paste mooncake on our stoop as we watched children play soccer in the alley.

“Like home.” I finished my red bean one.

“Oh? Yes, you are my home, Baal.”

Attar-called-Lucifer nestled into my arms. We cheered on the kids, then shared another bottle of Sol Invictus – Michael had rewarded me with a whole case.

Hua had passed on at seven – she’d been my longest ward. Typically, souls reached immortality in a few weeks.

Her soul was stubborn. Resilient. Breathless.

Brilliant.

Michael and I had poured all our resources, alongside my stellar employee and head draftswoman and office manager, Chao, into healing Hua.

And it had paid off, her soul aging like

the finest of peated

whiskey.

“To Hua!” I raised my glass.

“To Hua,” my husband dear and darling said, and we drank deep of it, then deep of each other

that

night.

Eve chewed on her persimmon hair, a capped pen behind her pale pink ear as she answered my phone. My secretary was, as usual, inebriated, her Louboutins on the chaise lounge as she slinkily answered Samael on my old rotary phone – never out of fashion - in a houndstooth coat and black velvet dress.

“Oh yes, Sammy, your new horse is how big? Sturdy? Easy to ride?”

I sighed, clenching my fist around my fountain pen as I went over this year’s upcoming Halloween tax amendments. Halloween was the biggest festival in Hell, and Lucifer and I had promised to show Gabriel his first time celebrating it a grand time. After Michael and I had cultivated our friendship since Sol Invictus – that brew Michael’s first palm leaf offering to Hell in a literal handbasket – relations between Hell and Heaven had thawed from their usual Seventh Circle ice.

But Eve and Samael could be a problem.

“Oh yes, Sammykins, I can work with a mount that big –

“Eve, dear, can you get back to work?” I called. She was, despite her flirtations, the best worker I had, by far – even more organized than Lucifer himself.

She hung up the phone, smiling, a manila envelope in her hands. “I have a surprise for you, boss.” The redheaded first woman plopped it down across from my secretariat, a Seal of Caligrosto in red wax inked on the front – the Morningstar stamp of approval, and royal seal of Lucifer and Beelzebub Morningstar, King and Prime Minister, First Family, of Hell.

I raised my iced platinum eyebrows. “You didn’t, Eve. That’s impossible. Is this what I think it is?”

She winked, her green-blue eyes and freckled, creamy skin and wide curves kindly. “Gabriel’s passport expedited with Metatron’s approval? Why yes, as Adam works for Michael in Heaven doing exactly what I do-

“Minus the cheating.”

She laughed heartily – a witch’s cackle. “Is it cheating if it’s Biblical? You know Samael, Lilith, Adam and I have our ways.”

“Eve, the humans these days have a word for that: Polycule. But fuck, Eve – how did you finagle that bastard Metatron’s approval?”

Metatron: iced, gray-haired miser of Heaven. My mortal enemy. He had taken pleasure in torturing during the Harrowing, when Lucifer and I suffered with Hell’s sins for thousands of years. Michael had cried.

Metatron? Laughed. It was true, demons could be cruel.

But certain angels were

Crueler.

“You know I fucking hate him. How, Eve? He’s been set against me inviting Gabriel for a year, ever since I told him Lucifer and I celebrated Christmas for the first time.”

“Let’s just say I have a vested interest in reuniting Heaven and Hell, boss. Not all of us want the Apocalypse, after all.” She poured some Cabernet Sauvignon for the both of us and lit a Virgina Slim on a black cig holder like Audrey Hepburn was fond of.

“I’m glad I can count you on my team, my star Employee of the Month. Shit, expedited passage of an archangel, only the finest employee in the Hellopolis could match that.”

She winked: “A favor earned is a favor done, and a boss pleased is more bonus for me to spend on my houseplants and wine collection.”

Lucifer listened as we made ramen from scratch, me regaling him with Eve’s genius.

“She’s dynamite. Be careful, Bee.” Lucifer smiled, then boiled the handcut ramen in salted water. I fried an egg and the fixings.

“As if Gabriel isn’t. You invited him, darling. What to do with a fireball angel on the biggest shutdown party in the Afterlife, high and drunk in the bowels of Hell, when our citizens go on a bender for the month of October?”

Lucifer smiled like a fat housecat, all elegance and artful distress gone in a moment of sheer glee: “It will be nice to have my favorite brother as our guest for a month.”

We cuddled on the couch and watched Golden Girls. Then, we just watched Girls.

“I think you’re Jessa, Bee.”

“Fuck you.”

“Want to? Fuck me?”

“Always.”

Gabriel’s black hair and gray eyes were wide with glee as he ate pumpkin cotton candy. “Shit, this stuff is stickeh. Itsah all over my faceh.” He got some in his wings. I conjured a handkerchief embroidered with the Morningstar seal and cleaned him up. “Thanks, buddy! Jee willeckers, Hell at High Noon, Harrowed in Halloween, Hallowed by a Heavenly Arrival.”

“I take it the heavenly arrival is you, Gabe,” Lucifer smiled, riding his white Ferrari down I-666 past the Styx. The beach houses and red crystal waters bobbed on the sandy tide, red from iron deposits that made the fish healthy and delectable, and sunsets pink as wine.

I had given dear old Gabriel shotgun after picking him up at the airport with cotton candy – he had always had a sweet tooth, and his grumpiness at the cramped morning flight between Heaven and Hell – half of Hell’s residents lived in Heaven, half in Hell, depending on if they wanted a more pastoral, ‘cottagecore’ life of the wildness of Gan Eden, or city of wonders and madness of Hell, where every pleasure existed, for a price. The ether separating the Seven Rings of Hell from the Seven Spheres of Heaven was so thick and clotted as blackish blood that only the dead souls of the Red Baron and his ilk of bushwhacking World War I and II pilots could fly the aircraft, ensuring limited supply of flights, cramped spaces, and an airsick Gabriel.

Oh, how his tune had changed when Lucifer pulled up with beach supplies and a white Ferarri decked out in Beetlejuice garb.

“Yes, deario brother, I’m the Heavenly Arrival in Heavenly Attire,” Gabriel sang, whumping Lucifer on the back. We pulled into our beach house at tropical Emerald Bay, where the gley made the water greenish and jewel-toned, which the fish were adapted to, and we unpacked. The season in Hell and Heaven mirrored each other, our summer in winter, their winter on the Northern Hemisphere’s winter, and we moved in a cosmic dance of fall and rebirth in spring. “Who wants to barbecue? Watch out, boys, I’m a grill master and sasser.”

“Sure, Gabe,” I smiled.

We cracked a Riesling open – Gabe liked girly wines – and made some shitty drinks that would please a sorority sister. It was the first of October, and Gabriel was ready to party.

A month of debauchery followed: floats and parades, drinking Asmodeus under the table, mud wrestling between me and Gabriel to see who owed who a rack of lamb, craps and pong and arcade games… karaoke, which I slayed at, the lead singer of my own garage band.

Still, Gabriel outdid me on his horn, in the end.

When November 1st came, and we sent Gabriel back in style, my shrew Secretary Eve looked at me knowingly, grinning coyly.

“And, how did my hard work pay off?” she asked.

I smiled at her, a hard hug on her petite form escaping my limbs – I hated showing feelings at my main job as Prime Minister, reserving it for my private psychoanalytic practice – but Eve deserved one. I even kissed her on the cheek, though I certainly didn’t ‘swing’ that way with Hell and Heaven’s fairer sex (except with living mortals, of course. On that count, all demons were omnisexual.)

“Gabriel invited me and Beelzebub to him and his dear old husband Mike’s cabin for Christmas.”

She laughed in joy, hugging me, wine and cigarette smoke on her breath: “And like that, thanks to a muckraking Secretary Eve, Hell and Heaven enter new ground – a parlay.”

“Yes, Eve, it seems we do.”

“I always knew you’d do swell with hosting Gabe, Bee. You doubt yourself too much.”

I smiled, pouring us some more Cabernet. “Was it my panic attack choosing cotton candy flavors for the airport pickup?”

She nursed her wine, paused to inhale a cig, then smiled bemusedly: “It’s the care you put into your charges, cultists, friends, family, and city, Bee. Your empire. It is as much your Empire as Lucifer’s, the Morningstar Kingdom, the City of Dis. You are perhaps it’s kind master. You’re the best man I know, Baal.”

“Thanks, Astarte. Say, Samael’s at the door.”

“Teehee, oh, he has roses!” she said, peering over my desk at the entrance. “Time to go, Bee!”

I squeezed her hand, then ambled my way back to Lucifer’s arms.

“You smell of Eve’s perfume – stealing kisses?” Lucifer teased as he greeted me with a peck on the lips at the door.

“Ugh,” I jerked myself out of my dress clothes, naked as G-d made me. “She reeks of Dior Gris – always covers my austere office.”

“Maybe she’s getting back at you for making her do everything in Lotus Notes and a rotary phone.”

“Touche, Lucifer,

Touche.”

I was rotting in an abyssal sea, wounds eons deep, my fly mandible and carapace of wings and flesh twisted, mutated, abandoned.

Try as I might, I couldn’t move my broken limbs. My husband Lucifer – then lover – was comatose beside me, face caved in by Michael’s sword.

The tides of Hell assailed us, and I watched hell maggots eat away at us, unable to move, unable to budge, voice stolen, mind screaming in pain as the wicked winds of the Seventh Circle assailed us. A frozen lake and fallen feathers began to grow from our refuse, and that was how the Lake of Fire and Blood was formed. Lucifer’s fire, my ice.

I woke in a sweat, screaming, as the maggots that had once made their home in my limbs wormed their way into my nightmares. My cries rose in time with the downpour of iron rain, and Lucifer startled, his six white wings of swan lurching.

Instinctively, Lucifer clutched me protectively, his fangs biting into his bottom lip, drawing silver blood. I curled around him, shuddering, my mandible nesting at the joint of his arm. He ran his violinist fingers through my long, platinum hair. Fire grew in my belly as I thought of the Harrowing.

“I was back There too, love,” Lucifer sighed, he my anchor against the night. Lightning pierced the sky as storm lamia wreathed the air under Vepar’s lead, bringing healing rains that would fill the reservoirs of the Sixth Circle and replenish the water supply. “Another wicked dream.”

“Yes, dear, another wicked dream,” I echoed; he licked my tears. We kissed, and I drank the bloody drops of black from his lip. He bit down on my tongue, piercing it, and we drank the healing ichor of each other. “Coffee, Eve lent me some Virginia Slims. I’ve grown to like them.”

“Yes, Bee,” Lucifer smiled, putting on his horn-rimmed glasses as we dressed in robes and slippers low enough to let our wings rest comfortably. “It will soothe.”

We held hands in the highest penthouse in Hell, in Dis City – our working apartments, far from the country outskirts where our palace and estate was – and admired the gleaming metropolis we had created together over the ages. “Are you ready to leave for Heaven tomorrow, for Michael’s cabin in the Shamayim, to spend Christmas with him and Gabriel?” I asked, swallowing the hazy memory of fear. Wicked dreams, indeed.

Lucifer squeezed my hand, then kissed my cheek – he was quite tall, but I was taller. “Of course, Bee. I’ve been looking forward to it all winter. It’s always hot in Hell, never snows like Gan Eden. I would like to see my old orchard.”

“Ah yes, the apples.”

“Yes… Michael says he tended them well, and Eve waters and prunes them with Adam daily.”

“Yes, I am sure they are majestic.”

“It has been so long since we have been allowed to roam Gan Eden – Heaven – on pleasure, not business reined in by Metatron’s asinine rules.”

Neither of us made mention of G-d’s living corpse:, blind, deaf, and dumb atop the Throne, that Metatron divined from with the holy flame of the Shekinah. Some things were better left unsaid, and Lucifer sacrificed much of his blood, sanity, and sleepless nights ruling from Erebus, making the black refuse of Hell into ether and matter that would grow crops, water, food, air, life, and make a hell of a home, or a home of Hell.

We went to go exert ourselves in the dojo, then made our usual eggs and toast for breakfast and played Mario Kart and watched anime, before a busy day at the Hellopolis. I brought my limited-edition Lord of the Rings trilogy omnibus to read at lunch, and Lucifer stole my worn copy of the Silmarillion from my nightstand. Sometimes, in secret, we roleplayed Mairon and Melkor…

“How is Hua, darling?” I asked her aunt Chao, my office manager. Eve and Chao were chatting by the water cooler as I helped myself to an espresso.

“Wanted me to give you this, boss,” Chao smiled, her rosy cheeks broad and jolly. Chao fished in her purse for a carved wooden fish on a leather thong, clearly evidence of an elementary school project. “In Hell, fish bring luck, as you teach us all at Soul Orientation, Bee, when us souls arrive. Bend your tall-as-fuck head down, and watch the mandible.”

I did, and Chao ran her firm, strong hands cross my hair in a motherly fashion – (and I had always longed for a mother, but for us sorry lot of angels and demons, we never had one) – parting it to tie the necklace into a slipknot.

“I love it, Chao. Tell Hua thank you.”

Eve smiled, pensive. “I have a feeling we will all need the luck, Bee.”

Lucifer and I took the Red Baron’s jet to the Shamayim. Gabriel was bouncing on his heels at the airport, corn dogs in hand as he rushed to hug us. Michael smiled widely, staying back with a trestle for our luggage, which Gabe helped eagerly carry.

“Christmas! Christmas! Oh, the holly and the ivy! Brothers, WELCOME TO HEAVEN!” Gabriel sang, magicking a string of holly crowns from his pocket for me and Lucifer, placing them on our heads before we could protest.

“Thanks, Gabe,” I smiled. Lucifer winced. Some wounds were still fresh.

“I love it,” Lucifer said. “Greenery. A tree. The best gift Earth has to offer.”

“That’s what I always say,” Michael smiled, and we departed for their cabin.

There was much mirth, drinking, snow men, and aerial snowball fights to be had – and, of course, beer, alongside National Lampoon’s Christmas – at Michael and Gabriel’s cabin.

Christmas morning came around, and Michael handed us our presents.

I got his new whiskey – Copernicus. But Lu?

Lu got apple seeds

From his old Tree.

Lucifer, not able to help it, sank to his knees, and was wracked with sobs – heretofore forbidden from visiting his old Orchard of Life, though Eve and Michael always sent him updates and pics and logs on text, and had set up etheric cameras so my husband could watch his precious apple blossoms, squirrels, and deer.

I rushed to him.

Michael hugged him, and Gabriel did too. We all held him.

“I thought you could grow a new orchard, Lu,” Michael said kindly, proud. “We love you.”

I touched my necklace, pensive like Chao had been.

Would I need it, luck?

“I can really go to my old orchard?” Lucifer asked Eve and Michael as we ate in a little slice of Italian coast in Michael’s favorite harbor in the Shamayim – the one bit of pocket of summer in Gan Eden. Michelangelo spent his days here, carving immaculate sculptures that never even graced Italy in the 13th Century – he was Michael’s personal artist. I admired the sea naiads frolicking that towered over Heaven’s Gate above the Lake of Memories Michelangelo had carved, with fishermen hauling in the day’s catch below their giant embrace, and souls that chose old age as their favorite appearance ambling about with spaghetti, gelato, and art supplies (Michael taught still life classes, after all, and his was the Heaven of Artists. Also, the most idyllic retirement-style community for old souls at heart.)

Eve checked her iPhone – my secretary was quite happy to be free of my rotary phone and office attire – she was in a red checkered sundress, peach lipstick, and straw sunhat. Eve smiled tenderly, squeezing Lucifer’s pale, elegant hand. “Of course, Lu. Metatron doesn’t control everything – we just give him busy work. Christ and Michael are mostly in charge, just like you and Bee in Hell.”

I winced. “I hate him. Metatron, I mean. Such a fucking ass.”

Michael laughed softly. “And I think his feelings are mutual. You two are too set in your ways, Beelzebub. Stolid, conservative, obsessed with soul economics – inflexible. Unbending.”

“The solid wood breaks, the green wood bends,” Eve said. She loved to misquote the Tao Te Ching, fancied herself ‘spiritual.’ Usually, I thought it cute.

But now it irritated me. Her and Michael assuming everything was swell and easy.

“I loathe him too, admittedly,” Lucifer murmured, scrolling on Eve’s phone to view his favorite orchard sparkling in snow, winter berries ripe on bushes as cardinals, robins, and sparrows harvested the ripened red and seeds. “But I need to see my Garden.”

“Then bend,” Michael said kindly. “Nobody wants the Apocalypse, Lu.”

I smoothed Lucifer’s Italian linen shirt. He looked like Lestat, and I was Louis, my husband’s blond hair dangling in spirals, his sharp smile against fangs. I kissed his hand, and he kissed mine. Finally, we were in the Garden of Eden – Lucifer’s old estate and orchard, where he had planted the wine bushes of Baruch and apple trees of Knowledge and Life long ago.

We sat in a little awning, under an angel statue, snow ripe on the land, bundled up in pea coats and stomping black combat boots, black jeans on underneath. We liked to match our clothes.

“It’s like being home, Bee.” He cried softly, in joy, taking pictures of the animals and plants with his phone. “Eve said I could garden.”

“It is your Garden, Lu. And Lu?”

“Yes, my love?”

“Anywhere you are, is my home.”

We embraced, tended the bushes with clippers, cleaned the graves of the angels that had died in the War – it was a veteran’s cemetery park now, where mystical poppies bloomed in autumn when the veil between Immortality and Eternity was thinnest, and those of the Great Far Beyond could stretch their mysterious hands across the Void to nudge their brothers of times long forgotten, harvest hearts, and friendship.

For all of them – we remembered. Asmodeus, Moloch, Samael, Gabriel, Michael. Me and Lucifer. Even Metatron.

We did not let our fallen brothers fade, and Michael and Eve still tended Veteran’s Park – once the Garden of Eden – and led field trips of Heaven and Hell’s children to teach them why we should never

War

Again.

“Do you think it was worth it?” Lucifer said distantly, tone icy. He got the faraway look in his eye that meant his torment and past Harrowing was haunting him.

I leaned down and nestled my head in the crook of his shoulder, then kissed his neck, biting slightly – not enough to raise blood. He moaned, leaning into me as I stood behind him, and we threaded our hands across each other.

I turned him to me, reassuring – “What, Lu, my angel?”

He winced. “I am no angel, Baal.”

“To me, Attar, it does not matter. Angels, demons, gods. Who gives a fuck. You’re beautiful.” I kissed him, and we fell together like fire and ice, kissing, plucking, fucking – Eve had cleared the schedule and closed down Veteran’s Park to give us time together for an amorous escapade, as we had done in Lucifer’s Garden long ago.

When I was inside him, cock heavy with seed, Lucifer looked up to me and smiled, cried. He kissed me hungrily as I pumped, fucked, and worshipped him – sucking on his nipple, running my claws and mandible down his treasure trail and chest.

“It was worth it for this. Carnal delight.” He said in my embrace as I climaxed in time with him, panting.

“Hyup – what? Eve’s fruit? Giving humans souls, virility and fertility, giving them immortality? Ha – ha – ha. Fuck Lu, you’re beautiful -”

He silenced my moans with kisses, rolled me over so he, smaller and tender, was atop me, a golden dove on Lady Esclarmonde’s Cathar tomb in the French Alps. He began to sing, once Heaven’s lead vocalist, a tender B’shem HaShem. I cradled him, staring up at the snow falling from the cloudy sky.

It steamed on our naked flesh, the snowflakes, and I thought

That I

Could see G-d.

Elodie had asked me to be her birth doula, a perfumed, red wax sealed letter arriving from her summoning circle on my Hellopolis desk. I smiled at the picture she attached – her and her wife, Alicia, and Elodie pregnant through a donor. Her stomach was just beginning to show:

“Dearest Bee, my oldest friend,” the letter began: “I have found myself with a little Bug, as I was once your Brood. Please, do me the honor of being Godfather and birth doula of my beautiful daughter: Bailah. P.S. – I’m writing a novel about you.”

My eyes steamed with tears at my beautiful foster-daughter, the purple bee gem shining proudly on her brown breasts above a white sundress. It was summer, then winter, then summer again, and in time, my daughter had courted Alicia, married, and was now

With child.

“What a marvelous idea Elodie had,” Lucifer said happily as we ate at Tantalus’ Spoon, putting on Hedwig and the Angry Inch with my garage band later that night. I was dressed as Hedwig, black-white wig on, bustier attached under a sparkling net dress, pink go go boots and perfume.

We performed, and Samael and Lilith applauded the most of all. Eve and Adam sat at the back with their gaggles of children playing – basically four wedded parents to the Broods of Heaven and Hell.

“Brava, Bee!” Eve crowed, giving me flowers. Asmodeus smiled, lazing idly in Eligos’s arms. They poured me some wine, toasting me.

“To the garage band!” the Demon of Lust and Wrath said, his dark blond hair shining, and Eligos gave me a lei.

“I didn’t know we were supposed to wear Hawaiian shirts and shorts after the performance and we got out of the drag,” Lucifer sulked, dressed in a three-piece navy suit.

“Huh, well, I told you this morning,” I said, amused.

He undid his cufflinks, looking at the pineapples on my t-shirt. “Well, I was playing Baldur’s Gate and saving Karlach.”

“Ah.”

My meeting with Metatron was not going well.

Metatron’s gray hair and beard were brushed with fine oils, he looked like an old image of G-d. “Well, Bael. The taxes just won’t do. We need more capital gains tax on the markets of Hell.”

I grew icy, anger rankling my stomach. I gritted my teeth, arranging my manila folder of records. I took my elegant hands and turned to the graph showing bloating on the stock market in turn with the moves of more souls from Heaven to Hell: “Souls prefer, on average, the modern amenities of the Underworld, Enoch.”

“Heaven is austerity. Pure. We cannot modernize, we are pastoral, tourist-destination laden. It’s how we thrive, in tune with nature. If we raise the capital gains tax on expatriates, we can deal with the inflation.”

“And trample Hell’s stock market, yes? Fuck you sincerely, Enoch.”

He bit his lips, frowning. “My name is Metatron, oh Bael of Rot. I am the ascended prophet. I shed that name when I became the Lord of Hosts, Right Hand of G-d-“

“We all know your G-d is as much corpse as the Emperor of Warhammer 40k.”

“The fuck is that, Bael?”

“A – a tabletop game – oh fuck you Enoch, I do not agree to the trade!”

He cursed me out too, and soon we had drawn our swords, my katana against his broadsword, and were dueling as demon and angel. He pierced my flesh, I skinned his shoulder. Anger! Hatred! O Empire of Hell I must defend, against the swollen indolence of Heaven. I pummeled, toppled him, got him in a bloody Half Nelson, then kicked his shin in.

Metatron groaned, slumping. I wiped my hands off on my pants, then magicked away the mess – careful to let the blood show still in my triumph.

“Wait, help me, Bael – HACK. Is it – hack – really so bad for Hell to suffer in honor of the righteous Paradise, Heaven?”

I fixed my briefcase and put my hair back in a ponytail, my mandible tasting his fear on the air. “It would starve Hell’s lower classes, as I explained, Enoch. Do not test me again.”

Metatron, before I could react, ambled over and stabbed me though the back. It was my turn to slump to the floor. He took my briefcase in his angry hands, stormily threw my phone, Tareytons, Elodie’s invitation of miracles – to the Devil a Daughter – and stamped them under his flaming feet. He scowled at the burning invitation.

“Fuck, the letter, fuck you!” I couldn’t stand, could stand, up, fuck, barf, up, damn you, Enoch.

“I’m reporting you to Michael for this infraction. I know he and Eve hope we can stop the Apocalypse. I hope, for the sake of my sword through your cock and bladder, it happens, Fly.”

I grabbed the burning letter, but Metatron summoned Godsfire, and burned me to a husk, castigating me with every curse in the Bible. Psalmic ones, wrathful ones, an angel

Scorned.

I bled, burnt, and wept, thinking back to Elodie’s iron nail that made me feel utmost pain.

Even those that loved me

Hurt me.

(Gladly, Father G-d?)

Fuck

Metatron.

Elodie was waiting for me at a luxe Prenatal Yoga studio that Paris Hilton loved in Chelsea. We got lox bagels beforehand then went inside, my platinum hair bunched back in a messed, artful bun, my gray workout clothes on against my icy skin.

“Bee,” she hugged me. “Thanks for being my doula, and Bailah’s godfather.”

“Of course, Bug,” I said happily. My soul-bonded goddaughter was a fine, sparkling woman: her and her wife Alicia had started a wildlife action nonprofit that protected cloud forest in the Amazon, something she had fallen in love with on a volunteer trip. She was using her Nigerian heiress and Rockefeller money well.

Elodie’s brown eyes sparkled like black movie glass, and her lips were done up in a beautiful shade of plum paint. She was plump and pleasing, and I gently wiped some of the garlic cream cheese from her lip with my elegant handkerchief Abaddon had embroidered for me for my last birthday on April 21st. I forbid even Lucifer from celebrating, but everyone always insisted on tiny gifts.

Metatron’s anger haunted me, but I erased it from my mind, having told no one of yet another dangerous encounter with the blasted Voice of God.

I would not let him harm any of my humans, or my citizens.

Not even let Lucifer have a go at him.

Metatron: abrasive, testy, conniving. Me: plotting, quiet, conservative, fastidious. We were always like fire and oil, combusting. In truth, I craved I and Metatron’s weekly fights.

Blowing off steam is always, shall we say, pleasant.

“Breathe in, lower your pelvis, hold for five seconds, then push. Have your partner position you,” the yoga instructor said, a cute Asian woman with a whip of black hair and pink sports bra.

I helped Elodie into the position, my strong mind probing her uterus to Bailah’s soul: Bailah was joyful in the uterine fluid, her soul spark dancing in time with Elodie’s heartbeat.

There was nothing I loved more on Earth, Heaven, or Hell than children like Bailah and Hua!

“Thanks, Bee. You’re amazing,” Elodie smiled as we got cappuccinos afterwards. “Say, Bee, do you think, um, well… oh God, maybe I shouldn’t say it.”

She looked nervous, her face flinching. She toyed with her goddess braids. I steadied her hand in mine, squeezing.

“What is it, dove?”

She lowered her onyx eyes: “Well, erm, do you think I’ll be a good mother? As good a parent as you are to your soul-bond charges?”

I softened, remembering raising Asmodeus, Belial, Jophiel, and the other archangel-gods in Pagan Heaven – before the Angelic Gene Corruption, and we became angels – then some of us Fallen, hellbound.

“You’ll be a wonderful mother to an adamant daughter, Elle.”

I toasted her with my coffee silently, and Elodie smiled, and we

Drank

Deep.

“So, you’re basically having a daughter,” Samael smiled, eating a lemon meringue donut he had baked for me and Lucifer after inviting us over for a barbecue in honor of Lucifer’s birthday on the Winter Solstice. Almost a year had passed, and Elodie was due in a month. “That’s wonderful, Bee.”

“Yes, well, little Bailey – Bailah’s nickname - will be my goddaughter, technically,” I smiled, warmth flooding my bones and mandible. I carried around a miniature photo of her sonogram everywhere, took Elodie to all her appointments, cooked with Alicia in the kitchen every day to satisfy Elodie’s pregnancy cravings, was working on a set of wings for my little human angel –

And Lucifer was carving an oaken cradle.

Lucifer grinned, licking the lemon curd with his forked tongue – it got on his golden stubble: “I’ve never seen Bee this happy, Sam.”

“Oh, fuff! So much merriment, and I feel left out – Sammy stopped celebrating our births ages ago!” Lilith laughed, ribbing her husband. Her green eyes, olive skin, and black-purple curls under velvet horns and above ruby lips shone in the Tiffany lamplight like sin.

Samael ribbed her right back: “Lily, we have a brood of a hundred a day. And I cook you everything.”

“Heh.” Lilith licked some chocolate cookies she’d baked, then foisted them onto my husband. “Happy eleventy eleventh birthday, Lu.”

“Oh yes, you always insist on Eleventy Eleventh birthdays,” Samael laughed.

“It’s a nice tradition,” I said amenably, my husband and I, just like Samael and Lilith, Tolkien nerds. When we LARPed, Lilith was Eowyn and Samael was Elrond. Eve liked to be Galadriel, and Michael was Celeborn. Adam, well, took photos and handed out the weapons. I loved to be in Sauron armor I custom blacksmithed, but Lucifer was too lazy, and ordered Mulciber to forge his – he was more into woodwork.

We had broken our roleplay of Mairon and Melkor finally, out, in public…

“To Lucifer’s Eleventy Eleventh! I mean, uh, Melkor’s!” Lilith cheered, fixing us a round of espressos.

We all blew our party streamers, then Samael cut into a vanilla ice cream chocolate fudge cake.

We ate the leftovers later that night in our palace by the fireside, our new dog – Naberius – a hellhound par excellence, basking by the smoldering woodstove.

“This is fucking divine,” Lucifer said mid-bite.

“Good birthday?” I asked.

“They’re always wretched,” he sighed. “I hate growing old. I think I have wrinkles.”

“Lucifer, you’re immortally 24.”

“Pah.”

I held his face in mine, gazed intently at his flawless skin, then kissed his brow: “You’re a vain creature, Heylel ben Shachar.”

“And proud,” he said bitterly. “Hell needs more glory. Sometimes, I ache for my spear, to go toe-to-toe with Michael again. Say, you think he’ll at least spar me for some territory, some of Purgatory’s outskirts by the Cedar of Lebanon transplants? I could bribe Eve with more of my strawberry plants from our yard to make the arrangements-

“Chavah is my Secretary, not yours, Lucifer. Talk to Chao. If so, I’d have to fight Michael’s number two, the cotton candy fiend. The sugar high that archangel carries alone might make me drunk.”

“Gabriel oh Gabriel, blow your horn!” Lucifer laughed, then pounced on me. “No, Bee, if I am the most beautiful angel, then you are the most splendid demon.” We sank into each other like wine in a glass, and made love to each other’s

Hell.

The sparring match was arranged in a fortnight, and I almost missed it in case Elodie was going to break her water, but she still had two weeks left. Chao drank some Aquafina and was dressed in a pantsuit, and Eve was marking the ground in chalk, while Lilith, CEO of Hell’s Business Department, held an official List of Barter:

Michael flexed on the side, in golden armor. Gabriel was in silver, winking at us. I had my katana, Lucifer his spear… for shits and giggles, we were in our Silmarillion armor.

“Okay, up for negotiation is the Cedar Grove of Purgatory. Lucifer wants to garden in it, and says Michael is using the wrong manure.”

“He is,” Lucifer said solidly, brushing back his blonde cowlick, golden muscles twining: “It needs more phosphate.”

“I prefer less,” Michael opined, then lit a cigarette. “I yield nothing.”

“I claim everything,” Lucifer called. “Get in the fucking cage, Mike.”

“Sure thing, little brother.”

“I was first, twin.”

“But I’m taller.”

They laughed, then got in the ring. Chao set off the bell: “Testosterone-addled combatants, engage!”

Lucifer fell on Michael with swift fury, stabbing. Michael took his burning sword in a cutting motion and steel, ether, and spark met in blazing combustion, Lucifer’s swan feathers against Michael’s owl. Michael’s black hair and tan skin shone in the dusk of Heaven, a plum sky above as snow fell outside the facility in Gabriel’s riverine Sphere.

“I yield!” Michael said as Lucifer wedged his Satanic, Paradisiacal spear deep into the flesh of his left thigh, then wrestled Michael into a Half-Nelson. Michael’s gold blood spilled out, mixing with Lucifer’s silver. “Care to crush my head, brother?”

“That’s blasphemous,” my husband teased. “Alright, Mike – if Bee wins against your second, best two out of three, I get my trees.”

“Yes, well, they are still my trees as of now, brother.”

They shook hands, healed their wounds, then exited the ring to watch their husbands.

Gabriel and I’s match barely lasted five minutes – he was distracted by the cookies Chao had brought, and had a bulging belly of oatmeal chocolate chip.

“Sorreh,” Gabriel said to Michael, face stuffed again mid-seconds after the match.

Michael looked baffled: “Honey, why did you stuff your face before the match?” he hugged his husband Gabriel.

Gabriel choked on crumbs: “Hungreh.”

“Ah.”

Elodie’s water broke at five past midnight on Sunday, January 1st, 20XX.

When I held Bailah in my arms? All the suffering – of the Fall, of long hours poring over soul returns and property law at my desk, my fights with Metatron… even the old days when we had to carry out Father’s torture of souls, before he sunk, blind deaf and dumb, in an eternal metaphorical barrow?

All my Exile, my Fall?

Was worth it.

Bailah gazed up at us with newborn blue eyes, and I ran my fingers through her beautiful brown locks.

Elodie smiled, sweating, holding Alicia and Lucifer’s hands.

I set our baby Bailah upon Elodie’s beautiful brown breast to nurse, and picked out the baby dragonfly necklace I had spent nine months fashioning in my blacksmith studio, enchanted with a drop of me – Beelzebub’s – Fly blood to give them life:

“A gift of my soul to my goddaughter,” I said, weeping with tears of joy.

Elodie cried too, tired, ecstatic, and Lucifer smiled through tears.

I put the necklace on Bailah, settling it upon her tiny stardust flesh.

Like it, she shined.

Girl and Fly Out Drinking (Eve Interlude)

My boss Beelzebub was irked. He took his fountain pen and elegantly scrawled with his albino hands atop the morning’s ledgers: tax returns for Dis City, immigration papers, votes for the next Duke – all that was legal passed through the Prime Minister of Hell’s desk. But his mandibles under his icy platinum hair perked, tasting the air in disdain.

“Morning, Bee,” I winked, handing him his cappuccino. I took my flat white to my desk next to him. It read: “SECRETARY CHAVAH.”

“Morning, Eve. Darling – you’re late.”

I deflated, my strawberry blonde hair and freckles reflected in his Gucci glasses. Bee was in a Valentino dress casual outfit and gray slate Doc Martens with graffiti designs of little yellow lemons, a black streak in his long white hair. As usual, avant garde.

“Sorry, boss. Last night was hard. Adam spent forever going over the water main systems of Heaven’s Fourth District. And my rhubarb pie burned.”

Bee smiled, making a vermouth on the rocks – too early on Earth to imbibe, but it was always drinking hour at hand in Hell. He extended it to me as he poured a twin one for himself. “Sounds stressful, dear. Here, to soothe you. Fuck, these returns are taking forever. The Rent-An-Imp service Aym runs is operating on the black market – I need to deal with him.”

“Fucking Aym,” I smiled, clanking my glass with his. We worked in the belly of the Hellopolis, past Penemue’s Soul Return Department, past Samael’s Justice Department, even beyond Dumah’s Department of Hellgriculture, where he always put tacky redneck pictures of him riding his thunder dragons with AK-47s on the fucking hallway walls. Bee and I always joked about the idiotic pics. Trashy, tacky shit.

“Say, Beelzebub, you think the drudgery of office work in Heaven and Hell was G-d’s intention all along? Ineffable bureaucracy,” I mused.

“Hmm, I suppose a dog returns to its vomit.” Bee smiled slightly, half-moon glasses shining atop his austere cheekbones, like he was cut from ice. “Say, Eve. Let’s get dinner today. Lucifer says I should socialize more.”

I smiled, shaping my red painted nails into finger guns, then pretending to shoot him: “Attaboy, Bee! Getting out of the office and out of board meetings! I’d love to.”

The day passed in its usual fashion – President Lucifer’s speech, Prime Minister Beelzebub taking votes, the Dukes and Kings debating, Judge Samael presiding. Dumah even handed out beer cozies from him and his wife’s side hustle – black camo, eugh. All in all, terrible day.

I found myself fumbling a Pilsner into a beer cozy as we waited for the 6:00 clock dismissal alarm to blare off when the President, Lucifer, pulled it – The Devil Bee’s husband and eternal burning flame.

My boss rose, fly wings and elegant architecture of his bones standing out in contrast under the harsh fluorescent lights – some fucking building code required the hideous flashers. I preferred soft incandescent, and Bee? He loved the Zenn Buddhist darkness of Yin.

Bee lit a Tareyton as he idly played with the light on his desk: ON/OFF, ON/OFF, ON/OFF – I drank each time he let his nervous habit happen.

“Hmm, maybe I could help Adam with the Heaven’s water main systems if you like, I need to sweat-

I tossed Bee a Corona, his favorite. “Beer, then dinner, boss. Beer and dinner. No busywork, you crazy Fly.”

“Ha.” There was a sheen of sweat on his brow. “Right, Eve. Dinner. I could use a steak.”

We idled our way over to Positano on the Amalfi Coast, magicking our way across dimensions. The seabirds spanned a cerulean summer sky, and I got sea bass and pasta at Riviera, and Bee got his aforementioned steak.

“Fuck, it’s perfect,” Bee sighed, smiling, disguising his fly appendages. I had noetically magicked a green sundress and peach straw hat with a rose decal, gold slingback heels dangling from my tiny feet, and white tote bag slung to my side.

Bee lowered his shades, lit a Tareyton, and smiled. “Marriage is hard, ugh. Lucifer says he is doing well, but as the week grates on with this damn problem with Aym’s Rent-an-Imp black market deals… Lu thinks he’s going to have to use ‘Executive Perdition.’”

I froze in my spot. “On Aym? A demotion?”

Bee’s pale lips thinned – his strangely handsome, oddly angled face pursed. “Yes, well… I think it is necessary. Judgment and Punishment, and Efficiency and Passion, are the Laws of the Morningstar. And yet��?”

“And yet, Aym is one of your best friends.”

Bee smiled sorrowfully. “Yes. Thanks for listening, Eve.”

“No problem, boss. No problem. Don’t blame yourself Bee.”

“For what?”

“Any of it.”

“Aym is –

“The War. The Fall. I prefer Knowledge, after all.”

He smiled, genuinely – we all had ancient ghosts haunting us. Tenderly, Bee reached for my hand. I squeezed his, smiling.

“Hey, let’s get dessert,” I said.

“You’re a good friend, Eve. A lion among ladies.”

“And you’re a spider among flies, Baal.”

We walked off hand in hand, girl and her Fly, back to our husbands, back to the TV and domesticity, one in Heaven, one in Hell. We had a friendship that spanned Edenic generations.

Girl and Fly, out drinking.

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