Antediluvian

Disclaimer: Characters and premise are the property of Kazue Kato. I'm just borrowing them for a little non-profit fun.

Chapter One: The City

"What is the origin of evil? That is what you wish to know? Was it the desire for knowledge? A flaw in Satan's programing? Something innate to the human condition? Was it the existence of temptation? Unequal distribution of goods, talent, favor or grains of sand inspiring jealousy?" Mephisto laughed softly. "No, what you wish to know is if demons brought forth evil or if evil brought forth demons.

"I can only tell you what I saw of the Reflected Worlds' earliest history, and back then, my perspective was quite narrow.

"I was born after the Fall of Man, so I can't honestly say I grew up in paradise, however, compared to the rest of Assiah... The Eldest had recalled the angels still loyal to him to Gehenna to aid in stretching his resources to cope with the ever increasing human population. The amenities that had been offered before Mother's invitation went out were gone. Most of the world had suddenly become a very cold and harsh place in which humanity had to struggle to survive. But not for us. My parents' generation was composed of angels who had refused the Eldest's call and their human soulmates who made that possible. The Nephilim benefited both from Mother's technology, built from the memories she'd recovered of the world beyond the Void and Father's blue flames with which she powered her devices.

"I admit, it wasn't perfect. Mother died of giving birth to Lucifer and I and Father left, unable to stand the sight of us. But their contributions to our society remained. Lucifer troubled himself over Father's abandonment of his sons much more than I did, I never did understand why. Father clearly didn't care about us so, in return, I refused to care about him.

"I was the beloved prince of the most prosperous City-State known to the Antediluvian world. Ignoring my immediate family, those around me catered to my every whim. I had anything and everything I wanted. Although, I may only remember my childhood as perfectly idyllic because it's end was so abrupt and brutal."


In a secluded niche, several dozen feet up the shear wall of ravine over-looking the narrow entrance to a secluded mountain valley a youth with dark purple hair lay back idly watching the clouds roll by. A girl curled up at his side, her dark red hair fanned across his shoulder as she drew lazy circles on the skin of his stomach with a lavender finger. She glanced toward the narrow pass that connected the valley to the outside world, "Do you ever wonder about what's out there?"

The boy snorted. "Unwashed barbarians still living in tents with their sheep because they believe the desire for knowledge is the source of all evil," he said.

"Maybe they've changed," the girl said. "The ones that leave never come back. Maybe they've surpassed us and we never noticed, hiding here in our little enclave all smug and self-satisfied."

"Or maybe they never come back because the barbarians murder them," the boy said. "I wouldn't let your curiosity get away from you Naamah. Afterall, you can't even pass for human," and there were fewer born every decade who could. "What would you do if they decided to take offense because you Grandfather got sick of serving them and left?"

Before the girl could reply a strident voice drifted up from the valley floor. "Samael!"

The boy rolled his eyes, "Here comes Mr. Perfect, we'd best get dressed or his head'll explode."

"Oh, be nice to your brother," the girl snickered. "We should pity him for having no notion of how to have fun rather than mocking him."

A few minutes later a blonde boy jogged up the trail. "Samael! You skipped your classes!" he declared frowning sternly at the other boy.

"I told Paimon to find a tutor who doesn't bore me to death if he doesn't want me to skip," Samael replied. He grinned down at the girl. "Naamah, unlike his tutors, is not boring."

"You were needed!" Lucifer exclaimed. He hesitated for a moment then lowered his voice. "There's been a killing."

Naamah gasped.

"Who-" Samael asked.

"Lamech. He's been practically bragging about it, so there's no question about guilt but since he's of Mother's blood Paimon wants us there for the sentencing. So there's no question about who's the rightful power either, even if Paimon is just Father's stand-in. Which is why everyone's been searching for you for hours!"

"Who's dead?" Samael finished his question.

Lucifer shrugged. "The trial's barely an hour off now so get a move on it and get into your ceremonial garb."

Samael lept off the edge of the cliff landing neatly on the valley floor below. Naamah and Lucifer quickly followed suit. The three adolescents raced up the ravine, in a few moments it opened up to reveal the valley proper and the City.

The City was the dreams of a lost world brought to life. Narrow spires of glistening crystal rose hundreds of feet into the air. Light from the sinking sun was captured by their faucets and reflected back in a mirade of colors. Patches of bioluminescent plants grew along the streets and would light the way for pedestrians once night fell. Underneath the City, Samael knew there was a generator, built by his mother, that held a piece of his father's blue fire and powered it all.

As they approached the central tower Naamah split off for her own home while Lucifer led his brother around to a side entrance. "No reason to make it obvious you were playing truant," he murmured as they slipped up the back stair to their rooms. Samael took a moment to clean up then pulled on a high-necked purple tunic. Lucifer was waiting in the halls, wearing a gold wrap that left him bare to the waist revealing the faint scars where his wings had been removed at birth. "Show some respect," Lucifer said, frowning at Samael's choice of clothes.

"I am," the darker of the brothers replied. "I'm respecting those who chose to sacrifice their wings by not pretending to be one of them."

"They did it as a show of respect for Father. You hide your scars to avoid doing the same."

"It's nice how things works out," Samael replied sardonically. "I can manage to simultaneously show my respect for those who've earned it and withhold it from someone who hasn't. Not that he cares, I haven't even seen our illustrious father in years. What's Paimon's plan?"

"Lamech isn't arguing his guilt, just our right to punish him for it," Lucifer replied as they walked downstairs to the audience chamber that filled the central tower's first floor. "Paimon can't let him stay."

"Where were you?" Paimon asked quietly as he met the brothers at the door.

"If I'd known my great-great-grandnephew was going to go crazy today I would have stayed closer," Samael replied irritably. "Lucifer told me enough of the plan. Why did you ever let great-great grandfather come here?"

"Because your mother loved him regardless of what he'd done," Paimon said. "Now we have to deal with this." He squared his shoulders, standing straight his horns nearly scraped the door as he passed through. Samael and Lucifer flanked him, both of them let their faces go impassive as they ascended the three steps to the diaz at the front of the room.

Lamech's two wives, Adah and Zillah stood together at one side of the room. Adah appeared human, but Zillah's body was covered in powder blue scales. Like Lucifer, Zillah's wrap left her shoulders bare to show the scars from where her wings had been cut off. After a moment Lamech was brought in He was a stout man with greying hair at his temples. The two men who'd escorted him remained acting as guards. "Could you repeat what you told us earlier?" Paimon asked the two women.

"Zillah doesn't want to speak of what he said, but I will," Adah said.

Samael frowned at that, studying Zillah more closely. All the first generation humans were gone now, stolen away by time and the Eldest's decree that humans would grow infirm and eventually die. However, the definition of a first generation human varied, it could mean those humans made not born or it could mean those who'd come here to found the City alongside the rebelling angels. Samael's mother had been one of the former, her body still had the channels the angels had used to restore humans from the days before death. In open defiance of the Eldest's will, Satan had extended her lifetime far beyond what it should have been but in the end all of Satan's power and defiance hadn't been enough to override the inevitability of his human soulmate's death. Zillah's first husband had been the latter sort. She had arrived at the nascent City with Lamech's great-grandfather who was Cain's grandson. All humans born lacked the channels to be restored by the angels' energy and Irad had died long before Samael and Lucifer, his great uncles, were even born. In fact, Lamech's father had been born only a few years after Samael and Lucifer but his blood ran mostly human and while Lamech was a grown man, his great-great-granduncles were still adolescents.

As the first generation humans had passed away all of the rebelling angels had been left to struggle with the loss of their other half. With Eve's death, Satan had largely abandoned the City the two of them had founded and the children they'd created between them to search the world endlessly for his beloved's reincarnation. Samael couldn't remember a conversation with his father that hadn't included the wish he'd never been born. Zillah had, apparently, picked a diametrically opposite means of dealing with her soulmate's loss. From what Samael could guess it seemed that she had transferred her bonds to her, or more pointedly, to her lover's descendents. Although looking at the way she clasped Adah's arm Samael wondered if maybe she hadn't transferred her affections somewhere else entirely.

"He told us that Kenec had insulted him and his forebearers and so he smashed his head in with a stone, just like his great-great-great-grandfather," Adah gave her husband a distasteful look. "Every year it seems he gets more obsessed with that murderer, I don't know what I ever saw in him."

"Zillah, can you confirm what has been said?" Paimon asked.

"I won't speak against my husband," Zillah replied. Then halting she added, "But I will say that my sister-wife has never been a liar."

"Yes, I killed him, what does it matter?" Lamech announced boredly. "What are you going to do? If harm to Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech will be avenged seventy-seven times. So can we move this waste of my time along?"

Samael rolled his eyes, "Says who? This whole city was built on the foundation of not giving a damn what the Eldest thought or said. I know the story: My mother, despite all her wondrous qualities, loved her first two sons to the point of having a massive blind spot and so when one of them took it into his head to murder the other she blamed the Eldest for making Cain jealous. But if you want to look at things more broadly that wasn't the first time the Eldest played favorites: Humans were precious, to be cared for. Angels were the ones made to do the caring. Now look around you and what do you see?"

Paimon took Samael's lead. "We could have lashed out at the favored son, as Cain did. Instead we turned our backs on the one who saw us as the lesser sibling and built our own civilization here. Now you, Lamech have brought a murderer among us for a second time. We tolerated Cain's presence out of respect for his mother's wishes more than from fear of the Eldest. You have neither protecting you and it is not the Eldest's favorite you've wronged but one of us."

"We want to rid ourselves of him," Lucifer stated. "But do we want more blood shed on his account? We took the other world's murderer, why can't they have ours?"

"And if we're all lucky he'll die of malnutrition or exposure or whatever else it is that plagues the outside world at the moment," Samael added.

Several days later as they watched a resentful Lamech stomp out of the valley with only what he could fit into the pack on his back Paimon commented, "If he lives long enough to tell his version of the story, it'll be his ancestor who built the City and the rest of us will be forgotten."

Samael shrugged, "Who cares what a bunch of barbarians think of us?"


Many years later Samael returned to his favorite niche with a different girl. "So you take all the girls here," Mehitabel remarked. "Naamah mentioned this place before she vanished."

"And the boys," Samael replied carelessly.

Mehitabel hit his arm lightly, "You're awful."

"How am I to find my soulmate if I don't… Look," the last was said with a lascivious gaze at the young woman walking beside him.

"With all your 'looking' maybe you don't deserve a soulmate," Mehitabel replied tartly.

Samael smiled at her, "Well, you've consented to come here with me, I take that to mean I do deserve something quite amazing. Don't you agree?"

"If I didn't tease you, you wouldn't like me half as well," Mehitabel answered.

Samael considered it for several moments. "Probably not."

"Do you ever wonder what happened to Naamah?" Mehitabel asked randomly. "We were good friends, she never even told me she was going to go."

"I was sleeping with her, she didn't tell me either," Samael replied shortly. "She was curious about the outer world, she left us all for it and she probably died."

Then Samael felt a sudden sting in his shoulder, at the same moment he saw Mehitabel slap at her thigh. He stared at the feathered dart that had struck Mehitabel as his vision tunneled in and went dark.

Two men, dressed in a style vastly different from the people of the City climbed up from the valley to inspect their unconscious victims. "We aren't set up for two of them," the younger said.

"I've got a good price lined up for a male but bring them both anyway. Don't want word getting out about us. We'll behead the girl then burn her back at the camp. With their kind you gotta make damn sure they're dead," his senior partner replied.


Genesis 4:23-24 (NIV): Lamech said to his wives, "Adah and Zillah, listen to me; wives of Lamech, hear my words. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me. If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times."