The Devil's Playthings (21 page)

“Why?” She didn’t say it. She didn’t have to. She stared into his eyes and placed the word in his mind. He was afraid.

“Isn’t it obvious,” he whispered to her, to God, to Michael, and every other angel that might be listening. “I could never leave you
for that lifeless existence
.”

And the weight of it fell onto her. She touched his face, and closed her eyes, and knew that she was the cause of all the evil in the world.

“No, don’t think that,” his voice bellowed through the small room, but she was
already
gone.

Her body was there but only
a mortal shell as her mind raced through time and space,
back
to the beginning. There was God, the Father of all time, his Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Then there were the five
Archangels: Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Michael, and Samael.

They were brothers all, but each had a different appearance and a different job. Gabriel, with his fiery red hair and bright green eyes visited the humans with news from God. Raphael, with his dark brown hair and l
iquid amber
eyes was the healer, and helped the humans find healing uses for herbs and plants. Uriel stood at the gates of Eden, and had hair as white as light and eyes as
black as coal.

And then there were
Michael and Samael, opposites in everything. Michael was God’s justice, but Samael was God’s vengeance. Michael
was golden, Samael was mercurial
.
They fought even in heaven. Michael c
ould let no wrong go without being absolved.
Samael could not let even the smallest slight go unpunished. Yet they were at odds so often because they were the two most alike; until God gave Emma to Samael to protect. Michael was jealous, because he was the angel of protection. And a human so important as to need an Archangel
as her
protector deserved to be protected by Michael.

God did not need to explain himself to the Archangels, his will was to be done and not questioned. So Michael let it go, forgot about it, and moved on to his other duties. But it fed Samael’s ego to be chosen for such a specific honor over Michael. And the beautiful girl who was given
to him filled his mind. He soon became
obsessed.

If God could go down to Earth in human form, Samael wondered, why couldn’t he? Humans had a short life span. He would only need to be human for 80 years or so. Why couldn’t Samael become human to be with Emma?

God refused the request. God the all-knowing, told Samael that there were too many variables in the human existence
, with their free will. But Samael would not be denied. He rebelled. He fought against God’s control, and Michael himself kicked him out of heaven.

Samael did not mind, he was where he wanted to be after all. Earth, and Emma, were his goal and his dream. He could not have been happier. But he was not human, he was a beast. He was a hideous monster… until he realized that he had
the
power to control his appearance.

His power didn’t stop there. He found that the humans were easily manipulated when bribed or scared or confused. He did all three easily, generation after generation until he controlled a vast fortune of the things the humans prized: gold, jewels, and land. He acquired an army of followers, men who were willing to die in exchange for power.

Then all he had to do was wait for Emma to enter into existence. He took the shape of a doctor in the hospital where she was born, so that he could witness her birth.
It was so important to him he created a day of feast in her honor. He rented the apartment beside her parents, in the guise of an older lady, and volunteered to baby sit her while her mother worked, free of charge, of course.
He watched her grow.

And when her parents died in the car accident when she was three, it was he who pulled her out of the car before it burst into flames. It was the one thing that God had intended he do.
After that he became a teacher at her school. He tried over and over to get Emma to open up about what was happening in her home life, but she was too afraid. After that all he could do was watch her from afar on the streets of New York and make sure no one hurt her.
And when
she
was on death’s door he swooped in and rescued her.

Suddenly Emma breathed again, and as she exhaled she screamed a loud, harrowing noise that e
choed throughout the building. She clung to him even closer, pulling him toward her as if he was a pre
cipice that saved her from falling
into the abyss.

“Don’t ever do that again,” Luc commanded as he rocked her back and forth like a child. “Don’t ever leave me like that again.” Tears fell down his face for the first time.

She knew what he could not know. She knew she was created for this, to cause Samael to fall
. God needed Samael to
be the evil to God’s good; to be the Devil to tempt humanity. It all came from loving
and wanting what we cannot have; what was forbidden. And the forbidden fruit for Samael was Emma.

Every solstice
and equinox
she
played the part of
the docile princess to the prince of darkness
.
She took part in every ceremony, witnessing humanity fall farther and farther away from grace.
She wanted to force every one of them to change their minds and do good, but she could not.
How could she change their minds when she was becoming less and less human all the time.
Humans had free will, and even she could not sway their
convictions once they were set. She was powerful, and still helpless to change humanity.

He
used her again, placing her in just the right position to incriminate a Senator who had come close to pushing through a
nti-abortion legislation. H
e kept her name out of the media somehow, so that he could use her again if he needed to. But unlike with Father Peter, she did not feel guilty for setting this man up
.
B
ecause he was
more than a willing participant. He
had countless affairs with prostitutes and other women who he abused both physically and mentally.

When she first shook his hand and felt what he was, a horrible human and a hypocrite who had once forced a young girl to abort his own baby because he was already married to another woman, she easily manipulated him.
She was glad he was out of his position of power.

He would never ask
her have sex with anyone but him. He was extremely possessive of her, not allowing anyone at his precious ceremonies to look at her
in a state of undress. After her initiation he no longer asked her to have sex with him at the ceremonies, but she still sat in witness of all the depravity. Mostly she was thankful that they sat s
ide by side and observed. T
here were times, when emotions and desires ran high that she wanted to join in, but he would stare at her with his eyes flaming red
.
S
he would take it out on him once they were safely alone.

E
very night she clung to him; knowing that he was the only person who could possibly understand what she dealt with.
She began to feel some of what he had felt over the many millennia he’d been on earth.
The only other one who could understand her was locked away in a mental facility, and she dared not
visit
him out of
fear of
retaliation
from Luc.

But quietly
, after several years,
she looked for him
. A
nd she found him in a half-way ho
use
in the Bronx.
She waited several days after she found him, but she finally got up the nerve to visit him. He sat
in
a chair under a shade tree in the back yard. His face was haggard, his hair needed cut, and he’d grown a beard.
He looked like he’d been through a battle and lost. Emma thought she knew the battle he’d been through, and felt so sorry that she had been the cause of it.
H
is ever present guardian
angel was still with him. W
hen she
saw
Emma
she wrapped her hands around Peter, trying to protect him.

The Reunion

“Father Peter,” she whispered, and he turned toward her.
The soft brown
eyes that once held so much curiosity and intelligence were blank; until he saw her. His eyes lit up, but then they grew dark like the sky before a storm.

“He told me things about you,” Father Peter muttered. “He told me what you are.”

A tear fell down her cheek as she knelt beside him. “I’m so sorry for the part I played in all this,” she whispered. “But you don’t understand what I went through, what I was. I’m a different person now.”

“So it is true.” He stared into her eyes, and she lo
oked away. “Tell them,” he screamed
vehemently. “Tell them. Tell them I’m not crazy.”

“Shhhh,” she tried to silence him. “Shhh, try to stay calm.”

“Is it true? You are his?” She knew who he meant. And she nodded.

“Father Peter, please, you have to forgive me,” she whispered.

But he was losing the tenuous grasp on reality he’d fought so hard for over the last years. “Tell them you’ve seen the dev
il. Tell them I’m not crazy.” The angel stayed by his side, and another, one with a sword, joined her. Soon the sword was drawn and pointed at Emma. She didn’t kno
w if she should be afraid of it
or
if it could even hurt her
.

Soon an orderly came with a needle and gave Father Peter a shot. “You need to leave now, miss.” One orderly took her arm and led her out while the other grabbed Father Peter forcefully and led him inside.

L
uc stood at her car when she walked back to the front of the house. He was so sexy when he dressed this way, in tight black jeans and a black t-shirt, with a black vest over it. He wore several black cord necklaces with crosses on them, as if he flaunted the humans’
ini
quity in their faces. His hair was styled perfectly around his face, emphasizing the darkness and narrowness of his eyes
and his incredibly high cheek bones
.

“Why do you think I didn’t stop you,” he asked smugly.
“You just set him back years in his recovery. He’d gotten to the point where he gave in to the drugs and the psychoanalysts, and actually believed himself crazy. Now you just justified his beliefs, and he will once again try to exonerate himself.” He slid easily into the passenger seat of her very expensive sports car. She remained silent even through his baiting.

She withdrew from him and everything else. She barely ate. She lost enjoyment in everything
, except painting
.

She’d lost her own hope long ago, back when her grandfather first raped her. And now she saw no way to retrieve it. She’d taken over his black floor, breaking every mirror with her own hands. She hadn’t aged in the ten years since he’d found her in that alley. She knew she was no longer human. She grabbed the pieces of glass and tried to cut herself, but her wounds, like his, did not bleed. She knew if she had to face another year, much less thousands, like this, she would definitely end up like him. She felt the despair he felt, and hid her hope deep into her subconscious until she only dreamed about it at night.

He
watch
ed
as
she
painted yet another masterpiece of art that no one would see but Lucifer. This one was of the five Archangels, each with their own look and their own personality. She’d painted the cosmos, and the beginning of time.
She even painted heaven with its golden streets and walls made of jewels.

The best part about it for him was she had shed her clothing
months
ago, and walked around that floor completely naked.
His lovemaking every night had become as desperate and passionate as her mood. He wanted to soothe and comfort her, but it only made her more anxious.