--A Hint of Familiarity--
"Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you."
-John 12:35
He leapt invisibly across the city, a smile, if unseen to the world, etched upon his face. How he had missed the skies! Missed the winds through his spirit washing everything clean. Lighten this weight in his gut, the pit of his soul, it even did that. Only slightly, he realized. The inglorious Prince of the Air now, according to humanity, he recalled.
Ha. How fitting. He wondered who told them that.
The thought was nearly enough to distract him. Nearly enough to distract from the actions of that damned traitor. Nearly. But not nearly enough.
He had to make sure it never happened again. Nothing would threaten him ever again.
He landed with a sigh. Made a man dressed like a guard jump at the noise without an accompanying mouth. He laughed then, quite out loud, making the man terrified for his sanity.
After he controlled himself he strolled on, into an ornate building both magnificent and old. It was a nicer architecture than what they had now. He missed it.
Lucifer passed through halls gilded and covered in every kind of art. Passed men in odd cloth clothes, far too many crosses, far too much solemnity, and finally found the man he was searching for. One man who, God-willing, would save him the tediousness of a search. Patience was anything but a virtue.
Fortunately he was not alone but had a young boy with him. A pretty boy, face ripe and alive and still so smooth. Lucifer invaded the child, silencing his weeping soul with a thought. The innocently stolen face stared fixedly ahead.
"Have the arrangements made. Make note to invite Cardinal Bramante," the older man warned. Only then did he notice the boy's stoic demeanor, the shifting of light and dark in the room, how the pious luxury seemed to dance drunk with air. "Are you listening, boy? Paolo!"
"Quiet yourself, you foolish soothsayer." The boy's prepubescent speech had a bemused quirk to it, a little twist to every syllable that frayed the nerves and instantly.
"How dare you! I'll have you-"
"You will have nothing but despair."
"P-Paolo? What are you saying?"
"Must you be so naïve?" With amused annoyance the boy looked up into the eyes of religious righteousness. The child's own brown eyes flashed a bluish-white. "Though it does seem a prerequisite for your position."
"D-Dear Lord…"
"A quick one. Then you will know-"
"Tell me your true name," the man declared. The boy looked ready to snap, just forget the innocence and break the man's spine with a flick of his pinky. "In the name of Christ, I demand it!"
"Lucifer." His face drained. Lucifer smirked through a young boy's own. The older man grimaced, shook his head in disgust, began to back away. He recited a simple mantra again and again, comforting himself with the repetition.
"No. No."
"Yes! What would you have me do? Perhaps a serpent, a dragon or a lion?" The child's smile was wide. "You people do love to dramatize."
"Then you are…"
"Satan. The devil. The adversary of God. The son of perdition. The angel of light. The star of morning. The light-bearer. Lucifer. Yes!" The man cringed. Hating his faith now, Lucifer mused. "I had expected the vaunted Pope to be slightly more intelligent."
"Demon," he murmured, and pulled an exquisitely large crucifix from his robes. "Stay back."
The boy took a step, Lucifer the devil took a step through the boy. The blubbery and blubbering man stood firm, stood with arm outstretched holding a crucifix in a quaking hand. Another step closer. Close enough now to look up at the rotund man, cock his head and smile slyly. One more step and the golden crucifix was pressed into the boy's creamy forehead.
"Exactly what," came an amused whisper. "Do you believe two bisecting lines will do?"
"Be- be gone, cursed one. In the name of the Father, be gone!"
"My Father, actually." The child had never blinked once. "Yours is dirt."
"Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us-"
A beautiful laughter cut him off. So much grander than even a child could create; an innocence masked by cruelty yet lovely still. Its grandeur silenced the mortal, seemed to hurt and placate him all at once.
"Tell me," Lucifer cooed, the quiet pride magnificent. The stolen voice was persuasive without effort, urging any who heard it to oblige, and happily. "Where is Longinus?"
"What?"
"The Lance of Longinus. The Spear of Destiny. The weapon claimed to have pierced the Son of Man on his cross." The boy's head cocked further. "Tell me where it is!"
The man snatched a Bible from his mahogany desk, clutching it to his chest like a shield, his cross still out like a weapon against a child's forehead. With a small, soft hand the boy reached out and with a single finger stroked the black leather.
"Just what do you think this ink and paper and binding will do?"
"I don't know where it is," the Pope murmured, looking down into his eyes and knowing fear.
The boy studied his face for a moment. Studied him like he knew everything that hid beneath the skin and everything that would ever be hidden. And with a bored flick of the wrist the man flew back through the air as if on a string, dropped his weapon and shield and hung against a white plastered wall. Holes began to drill through his fleshy palms, blood looked to be pooling in his expensive leather shoes.
He screamed.
"I… I don't know!" Stigmata worsened, the devil within a child clearly not liking that answer. "Please, God."
"Yes, yes! Praise my God when His work stares you in the face!" The old man whimpered. "I suppose you speak the truth. How annoying."
The boy skipped up to the man hanging by invisible ropes, skipped up to the man bleeding from his palms and feet like his idol, and playfully rapped knuckles against his big belly. Laughed when he choked on something thick and wet in his throat.
"I have ruptured your stomach."
"Oh, God…"
"Yes, I suggest you pray. Recite your last rites like a good little Catholic." Lucifer laughed again, through a child's mouth. "Sixty-forty you are going to Hell."
"Signore!"
Shouting and pounding, both frantic. The exquisite door to the office bolted itself. The shouting only grew louder and the pounding more obnoxious. The child bent down, retrieved a black leather Bible and flipped through it back to front.
"I read your book," Lucifer stated. Despite the blood steadily pouring from his hands the man seemed to listen. "Christianity! Ha. It must be nice to abandon your sins. Place the blame on an imaginary figure."
The child's voice cracked as he continued, maybe because of puberty.
"Here I am," he whispered. "Say it to my face. Blame me for all that is wrong with existence. Look this child in the eye and curse my name!"
Blood pooled over his lips.
"Of course not."
The door burst open.
It was so odd, seeing priests with weapons. Nostalgic, even. The child's head burst with the force of two bullets tunneling through it. Exploded in a shower of thick red and chunks of ivory and gray matter. Lucifer studied the splatter, disliked the mess.
Four men rushed forward, not seeing him there. The Pope dropped dead at their feet, his throat shiny red from all the blood guzzling over his lips. Lucifer laughed once, made those religious men jump, and disappeared from nowhere.