Usually when Lucifer got to Heaven there was a big crowd waiting for St. Peter to unlock the doors and let everyone into work (sometimes Lucifer wondered about Joshua's decision to give Peter the keys; he seemed to fumble with them quite a bit. St. John had much steadier hands). Since he'd run so late the crowds had thinned considerably, and there was barely a trickle of employees heading in.
A few minor prophets flashed their ID cards at Peter and he nodded them in, then Lucifer approached. Peter grimaced, then tried to hide it with an overcompensating smile. "Good morning Lucifer. Oh, wait, sorry…good afternoon Lucifer."
"Yeah, heya," Lucifer muttered, waving his ID card pointedly. He started to push past him, but Peter called out to one of the prophets who'd just walked in.
"Hey Job, did you know Lucifer's working up here again? Same old job and everything."
"Quiet," Lucifer hissed, but it was too late. Job spun on his heel and strode back to the gates.
"Lucifer? You're Lucifer? As in ha-Satan?" Job asked. Even in the radiant light of heaven the scars from his pockmarks were still visible. His face was contorted into an expression somewhere between outright menace and hysterical enthusiasm. Lucifer took a compulsive step back He warily nodded, and Job punched him in the face.
Lucifer spat a mouthful of blood onto the gleaming white floor of the heavens and cradled his jaw. "Ow!" For such a withered looking little man, he sure could hit.
"That's for my first seven sons and three daughters you son of a-"
Two of the other prophets ran forward and grabbed Job's arms to restrain him. "Wait! I haven't paid him back for my oxen and donkeys! Or my servants and camels and house! Let me go!"
"Come on Job, you don't want to start a scene."
"Oh shut up Jonah! You never want to do anything!" Job wrenched his arm free from Jonah and flailed towards Lucifer, trying to scratch at whatever part of the enemy he could reach. Jonah restrained him again, and the other prophet, an old man with a long white beard that Lucifer didn't recognize (but really, more than half the prophets were old men with long white beards), tugged Job towards the cubicles.
"Come on Job, he's not worth it."
"He's not worth it? I thought I wasn't worth it? Wasn't that the whole point? Huh? Huh ha-Satan? YOU WANNA TELL ME WHAT THE POINT OF MY MISERY WAS AGAIN BECAUSE I THINK I MISSED IT!"
Lucifer flapped his wings imperiously, attempting to intimidate Job but only succeeding in startling the prophets, who released him as they cowered backwards.
"Yaaargh!" Job launched himself at Lucifer, but this time he was ready. Lucifer launched himself into the air, soared past the lot of them, and flew in the direction of his cubicle. Job's continued cursing rang through the air.
Mara's bedroom window happened to overlook the backyards of their house and their neighbors'. He was considering asking the others if he could switch rooms. The temptation to sit in front of the window gazing at Siddartha serenely seated under that friggin' Bodhi Tree was impossible to resist, even if he was the sort to attempt resisting temptation.
That twerp was really going to do it. If he achieved enlightenment then he'd inevitably start teaching, and if he started teaching he'd lead others to enlightenment, and then Mara's work would be more difficult.
He didn't like working.
He liked sitting around indulging in sensual pleasures, just like Iblis (how Iblis managed to sit around indulging in sensual pleasures all day without having to leave for work was a source of fascination and consternation to the other tempter). Keeping humanity in a state of bondage with craving and ignorance was currently easy, which left Mara plenty of free time for e-bay and makeovers. If he had to work at keeping people locked in samsara he was going to become one grumpy devil.
"I need to get rid of that tree," Mara grumbled.
As was his wont, Iblis appeared in the doorway and insinuated himself in Mara's private brooding. "If you really want to get rid of the Bodhi Tree, why don't you just rip it up? It's on our side of the property line, isn't it?"
"Is it?" Mara asked.
"Pretty sure it is, yeah."
"There's no fence. How do you know where our property ends and theirs begins?"
"Oh, we got the plans of the houses and the yards right before you moved in," Iblis explained. "We were thinking about putting a pool in the backyard, but the holy guys struck us down on a zoning technicality or something inane like that. But yeah, pretty sure when it was all mapped out that the tree was on our side."
"Hm…" Mara glanced down at his meticulously cared for black finger nails. "Well, it'll be worth a few chipped nails to frustrate Siddhartha in his goals. Time for some amateur gardening! I'm gonna rip me up a tree!"
He went out to the garage to see if they had a shovel.
Iblis played through another puzzle on Portal, then paused the game and crept over to the kitchen window. He figured enough time had passed for Mara to act on his suggestion. Sure enough, as he watched Mara walked from the garage (conveniently stockpiled with shovels, axes and herbicides) over to the Bodhi Tree. He stopped there, looking a bit hesitant about what to do next.
Siddhartha was still sitting under the tree, peacefully meditating, as he had been for the past three weeks. Though Mara clearly wanted to rip up the tree, he didn't seem to want to do it while the Bodhisattva was sitting right there.
Iblis leaned over the sink, pressing his nose flat to the glass of the window, not wanting to miss a detail of the inevitable confrontation.
Mara stage coughed. Siddhartha didn't react.
"Huh. Well this isn't quite as exciting as I'd expected," Iblis muttered. He watched Mara stage cough a second time, which earned him exactly the same reaction; a whole lot of nothing. "Dude. The guy meditated through you chucking hail stones at him. He's not gonna be bothered by a fake cough. Start digging up the damn tree!"
Mara seemed to come round to the same conclusion as Iblis. He tightened his grip on the shovel he'd carried from the garage, and stabbed at the earth just next to Siddhartha. That finally got his attention.
Iblis couldn't hear them, but from the looks of it they were having quite the heated discussion. He watched with glee as Mara grew increasingly irritated, gesticulating wildly as his silky dark hair turned brittle and grey, his teeth lengthening and finally his skin turning a threatening shade of blue. Siddhartha, though no doubt speaking with conviction, looked as even tempered as ever.
Finally Mara screeched so loudly that Iblis heard him through the window.
"And just what makes you think you have the right to enlightenment anyway? Huh? What have you done to earn awakening? You're just another meatbag, subject to craving and delusion just like everyone else!"
Siddhartha turned those mesmerizing honey eyes on Mara, and he instantly shut up. There was something unsettling in that pointed look. Even Iblis felt it standing in the kitchen. As he watched, Siddhartha slowly moved his right hand off his lap and touched it to the ground.
The effect was incredible. The earth shook, the sky opened and the whole street was penetrated with a radiant light (as opposed to just the yard of the holy house). Birds took to the air, all singing praise for Siddhartha, who'd spent lifetimes earning the merit for his enlightenment.
Iblis ducked under the sink with his hands over his head. "What in the blazes?" He yelped. "It's the resurrection! It's the Judgment! Merciful Allah, just give me a little more time!"
When his heart stopped hammering quite so loudly and he got control of himself (and his bladder), Iblis stood on shaking legs and looked out the window again.
Mara looked just about as shell shocked as Iblis felt. He'd turned white (hair and skin this time), and his fangs and claws had turned back to their usual form. He was staring open mouthed at Siddhartha, who was sitting in his usual meditation posture. Iblis couldn't make out what he said to Mara, but whatever it was got Mara to pick his jaw up off the ground and walk back to the house without his shovel.
Mara came in through the garage and walked through the kitchen in a daze.
"What'd he say?" Iblis couldn't help but ask.
"Th-the earth testified for him. He said 'that gives me the right biz-natch.'" Mara continued towards his room, and Iblis let him go to recover in private. He glanced back out the window at the Bodhisattva, who was now surrounded with deer.
"Huh. Didn't think we had deer in these parts. Alright, Mara can keep Siddhartha. I'm having more fun with Muhammad anyway." He went to the cabinet, grabbed a can of spray-cheese and some more bacon bits, then went back into the living room for more video games.
Lucifer leaned back as far as his desk chair would allow him to recline and groaned. He gingerly rubbed an icepack against his jaw where Job had struck him and stretched his long legs as far as they would go in his tiny cubicle.
Vaguely, he wondered if the prophets and the martyrs had such cramped workspace in the heavens. Somehow, he doubted it. Even though as a celestial warrior he had a tall and imposing frame while many of the old Hebrew guys were kinda runty. Jacob and all of his bratty kids could probably fit in Lucifer's cubicle and still have elbow room.
Well, that was an exaggeration, but the cubicle was still annoyingly small.
"Excuse me, Lucifer? Are you busy?" Joshua asked, after quietly rapping on the cubicle wall.
Lucifer sat up straighter and plopped the icepack back on his desk. "M'working, m'working."
"I'm not checking up on you."
"Oh. Well what's up?"
Joshua looked around the cubicle for somewhere to sit. As there was only the one chair and Lucifer certainly wasn't giving it up, he settled for leaning against the cubicle wall opposite Lucifer's desk. "I just received a message from Muhammad. It seems Mara was trying to rip up a tree in the yard, and now our roommates are in a dispute over the property line."
"Again? I bet this is Iblis' fault. He's still mad you guys shot down our pool."
"Your poker nights are bad enough. We didn't want to have to put up with rowdy pool parties to boot."
Lucifer shrugged, hoping Joshua would get the message. He didn't think this was his problem.
Joshua did seem to take note of his apathy. "Do you still have the house plans?"
"Ida know. Iblis was keeping track of that mess. Look, I am actually pretty busy, okay? Testing the faithfulness of humanity to your dad isn't exactly easy. Japan just gave me a mountain of paperwork. A whole bunch of those people professed themselves as atheists, and I took their words at face value, but then I find out that they're going to temples and shrines and churches and getting baptized. By the time I figure out how that culture identifies religion and whether they're faithful to Yahweh, the culture's probably going to shift again and I'll be back at square one."
"Well why don't you put them on the back burner for a bit and go with a more straightforward part of the world. Why not test the residents of the holy land?" Joshua suggested.
Lucifer regarded him with an 'are you kidding' look. "You think I wanna get involved in the Israel/Palestine disaster?"
Joshua shrugged. "I would think they're being more straightforward than the ambiguity you described in Japan."
"Straightforward, yes. Sane and rational, nope."
Joshua shook his head. "Why do I get the feeling that no matter where you're working and what you're doing you'd end up complaining about it?"
"Hey, that's not fair. I used to love my job."
"Really? When?"
"Back before you were born," Lucifer snapped.
"Oh Lucifer, haven't you read the book of John? I've always been here."
"Yes, well before the Word became flesh your dad was a lot more fun. I used to hang with Michael and Gabriel and the guys, and we'd go out and level cities and bring plagues and just mess with people. It was great." Lucifer smiled wistfully, reminiscing.
"I'm sure it was," Joshua said indulgently.
Lucifer scowled at him. "Then you came along and geeked up the place. Now everyone's all about redemption and compassion, and the exclusivity's gone too. Back in the old days, if someone wanted in to Yahweh's chosen, they really had to earn it. Like Ruth. Now, as long as people believe in you guys anybody's welcome in. It stinks."
"I don't know, I think we've gained a lot by reaching out to the gentiles."
"You would."
"Well I'm sorry you're having an off day. I hope you feel better Lucifer."
"Yeah yeah." He reached for his icepack again and sourly slapped it over his jaw.
Joshua winced. "Would you like me to heal that for you?"
"If you really wanna help you could go punch Job in the face for me. He'd never see it coming from you."
"I'm not going to punch Job in the face. I'll see you later," Joshua said, badly trying to conceal a giggle.
"Bye Josh."