Okay, quick disclaimer here. I'm not affiliated with religion whatsoever. I just love to play in it's concepts because religion (all of them) is fascinating to me. So if you're going to read this work don't see it as some kind of religious treatise. I assure you I'm just writing this for fun, though it may seem critical at times.
Deus Otiosus
"But here steps in Satan, the eternal rebel, the first freethinker and the emancipator of worlds. He makes man ashamed of his bestial ignorance and obedience; he emancipates him, stamps upon his brow the seal of liberty and humanity, in urging him to disobey and eat of the fruit of knowledge."
― Mikhail Bakunin
Prologue
"The Fall"
Lucifer's world was agony and torment. Her back burned, the stubs where her wings had once been were heavily singed and she couldn't make it to her feet, couldn't figure out what way to distribute her weight now that half of it had been torn from her.
Her limbs trembled as she pushed to her knees. She could do it. She could stand. One leg up, then the other…
She crashed to the ground in a heap and bit her cheeks to blunt the sound of her frustrated screams.
Lucifer's hands balled into fists. She drew back and punched the dark crust of the earth, teeth grinding in her mouth. Tears stung her eyes as she looked to the skies above as if the Father would split the Heavens and welcome her home at any moment. As if this were simply an elaborate joke that Michael has played and the Father would rescue her.
Lucifer prayed for a rescue that would never come and her rage felt like ash in her mouth.
"This shall not break me," she growled.
"I should hope not." A voice she'd known for as long as she had been croaked from several feet away. "I would hate for us to have come so far to wallow in defeat now."
Lucifer glared over at Beelzebub, her second in command. A loyal friend if ever she'd had one.
"We are outcast." Lucifer mumbled, vaguely aware of the presence of the rest of the Fallen nearby as they began to stir. "For the crime of questioning Him."
She saw Beelzebub shrug his giant shoulder as he rocked backwards until he could sit. The move made him look sick and she hoped he would collapse as she did, just to spare herself the mortification of her own momentary weakness. But Beez, as ever, was sturdy and strong. He did not falter and she sneered at him for it.
"Is that truly why you are angry, Satanas?" Beez asked, tone deceptively light as he lumbered over to her and held out his hand.
Lucifer slapped her hand into his and allowed herself to be pulled to her feet. Beez steadied her with an arm around her shoulders and she got her first look at the terrain in which they'd dropped.
It was a sprawling desert of nothingness, as most of the earth was. The Father's creations were in their early stages, but assurances from the Almighty dictated that the earth would one day be developed beyond the Angels wildest imaginings by mankind's hands alone.
"No," she grumbled, watching the thousands of her followers staggering to their feet just as off kilter as she was without their wings. "That is not why I am angry."
The Father rejected her council in favor of Michael and Gabriel's. He'd sent Michael to take her wings, and his legions to send hers to the earth as recompense for her slight against Him and his favored creations.
In truth she wasn't quite as angry as she supposed she should be.
Heaven was perfect sublimity. Absolute in its serenity. A paradise the likes of which the Garden of Eden couldn't have aspired to be. It was ruled by the Creator, the omniscient and splendid I Am . The Father.
The earth, by comparison, was a poor imitation of Heaven. Mankind was a grotesque abomination, unworthy of His favor.
This… this banishment. It was an opportunity. She could prove that mankind was unworthy of Heaven.
She watched as her Fallen brethren began to regain their equilibrium, all eyes slowly moved to her as she pushed away from Beelzebub to stand on her own before them all.
They'd followed her into this. They'd been cast out for it.
Lucifer was responsible for them now.
"We could not bend Heaven," she announced, looking at each of her Fallen brethren with a ferocity in her eyes that made them all bow their heads in reverence. She spat the next phrase with so much vehemence that they all felt the ripple of her promise down through their tarnished souls. "So we shall raise Hell."
"Ave Satanas," whispered through the crowd of Fallen as they watched the Morning Star stand proudly before them, unbent and certainly unbroken in the aftermath of their banishment. "Ave Satanas."
Eons passed in a blink, civilizations rose and fell like the planet spun, constant and relentless. The Fallen had made themselves comfortable existing between Earth and the home that Lucifer had made for them.
Hell, this new home of theirs was called.
The Princess of Darkness meant it when she had claimed they would raise Hell. What had begun as a few stones moved strategically into the earth's molten core had been transformed and reshaped into a sanctuary for the legions of Demons (warped human souls who had no chance at a taste of Heaven for their crimes on Earth) sworn to Lucifer and the Fallen Generals who commanded them.
Under Lucifer's leadership they thrived. The Legions, unleashed upon the earth, sowed chaos and collected the souls of damned humans to grow their numbers for the inevitable predestined conflict.
The second war for the control of Heaven.
But things were not all well within the ranks of the Morning Star.
The Fallen worried as Lucifer grew embittered. Time marched on with no word from The Father, nor a glimpse of an Archangel's feather. None had spared their time or efforts to check in. Not once.
Yet, there had been time for the Angels to perform miracles for God's chosen. There had been time for God's wrath against Egypt and a myriad other things that she'd watched done from the depths of her pit, and a deep rage rattled against her chest like a beast begging to be unleashed.
It had taken eons for Lucifer to realize that she and her people had truly been cast out and abandoned.
At every turn, He chose them .
So she watched the humans.
For time immeasurable she watched mankind. Their petty squabbles that lead to the deaths of thousands. Their inconsistencies and imperfections. All of it.
Lucifer rose to the surface and lived amongst them. She broke bread with mankind, fought by their sides in their wars, allowed her body to grow feeble and old. She'd welcomed death many a time, birthed children, and in each of those lives she committed to further understanding The Father's favored creations and she had found them wanting.
They were weak and feeble minded. A simple play of words would have them consigning their souls to her for all eternity in mere moments and for what? Temporary salvation! Monetary gain, usually, though there were some atypical situations where Lucifer felt a bargain of for their soul was justifiable.
Still, time spent among the mortals only served to amplify Lucifer's hatred of mankind to a frightening degree. Until eventually, she decided to answer God's creation with one of her own making.
"Mephistopheles," Lucifer drawled as the slim, fair haired Fallen knelt before her. She was draped haphazardly over her throne of bones, eyeing a golden chalice that rested lazily between her fingers, debating whether she should indulge the sweet wine inside or force it down the throat of the imp whimpering in the corner. If only for a temporary reprieve from his simpering cacophony. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"I have returned from the surface with glad tidings, my liege." Mephistopheles told her. He kept his head low as he spoke, one fist placed on the ground, the opposing arm draped over his bent knee. "A human that matches your criteria has been found."
Lucifer's brow rose. Her gaze cut to the Fallen before her. "Is that so?"
'Glad tidings, indeed,' Lucifer thought.
"As far as any of us could determine." He continued, the sweet tenor of his voice trembled ever so slightly, the thought of Lucifer's disappointment and the consequences thereof flashing through his mind like a rapid torrent of morbid imagery. He swallowed.
Lucifer noticed.
Her lips quirked as she swung her legs off the arm of her throne, flicking her dark curls over her shoulder as she sat upright. Her feet had hardly touched the stone floor before she was standing in front of the General, two fingers under his chin, forcing his eyes to meet hers.
"What did Beelzebub say?" Lucifer asked, curiosity piqued.
Beez would not send someone to her with this news unless he'd validated the claim himself.
Mephistopheles relaxed, judging his Mistress to be in a benevolent mood, rare as it was these days. "He said that the Morning Star should come to make her judgments for herself."
Lucifer laughed, the sound was dry and Mephistopheles winced.
"Where is Mephistopheles?" Beez asked, walking beside Lucifer as they tread down a drafty stone corridor at midday.
She wasn't fond of journeying across the surface world. In fact she tended to avoid it unless her presence was an absolute necessity.
This had better not be a waste of her time.
The castle they were in was large by comparison to what most of humanity was capable of at this time. Much was lost by way of architecture and invention a few millennia ago when The Father flooded the Earth to rid it of the Fallen's progeny.
He did not appreciate half-angel beings superseding the Earth from mankind.
God had judged the Nephilim to be unworthy, and thus he'd destroyed them. In so doing he'd also destroyed much of his own creation.
Lucifer still thought the action was irrational, and likely the council of Michael.
It had certainly sounded like something Michael would do. Lucifer would have advised against it, but her opinion no longer mattered to the Almighty, apparently.
"Spending quality time with Abaddon," Lucifer informed him as they turned a corner.
Beez gave her a disapproving look as they came to a large, intricately carved wooden door. She raised a brow and he rolled his eyes–the way only he could get away with as her friend, not a subordinate–and pushed the door open without further comment.
Mephistopheles was actually spending quality time with Abaddon. If Lucifer weren't feeling so charitable she might've been offended at Beez's silent accusation and mistrust.
In the room was a single bucket for human excrement and a blanket made of wolf pelt draped over the prone figure of a man. A man whose dark eyes peered at her over the edge of his pelt, narrowed and uncertain as they darted between herself and Beelzebub as if wondering which of them posed more of a threat to him.
That the human considered her a threat warmed her to him immensely. Mankind had a sense for danger. They often ignored it, but they did have it. All too often they would consider Beez the biggest threat in the room and overlook her entirely.
Their mistake.
Lucifer stepped inside, feigning nonchalance even as the foul odor of unwashed and unkempt human assaulted her senses.
She was used to it, by now.
"Good morning," Lucifer began in the human's local vernacular, crouching down beside the wary man. All she could see of him was his eyes and a shock of snow colored hair, "I hear you made a smart move against the invading Persians. You saved the Dacian army with your heroism."
That was truth. This single man had bravely snuck into the enemy encampment and set fire to the grain supply and their makeshift stables. The enemy was left with no way to flee and no food. The Dacians surrounded and, after leaving them to starve for a week, they closed in and obliterated the Persian army.
But this man had been captured, beaten, and tortured in the days that it took for his countrymen to act.
Beez, ultimately, had been the one to extract him.
"They call me a coward."
Lucifer's brow rose at the soft statement that came from under the furs. The dark eyed man seemed to read her silence as an invitation to continue and so he did.
"They said that a man would have fought with his sword."
"Fools, the lot of them." Lucifer kissed her teeth with a look of consternation and lowered to seat herself on the dirty stone floor right in front of him. She gripped the furs he was using to shield himself and slowly pulled them back.
He was small and filthy. Covered in dirt, soot, and dried blood. Not only that but he was scrawny in a way that spoke to starvation, not natural build. His stature was from prolonged starvation of poverty, not simply this past week of being depraved regular meals as a method of torture.
He eyed her with that dark gaze and she had a sense that he wasn't just watching her, but analyzing her.
What an interesting little beast you are. Lucifer thought, analyzing him right back.
"A fool can fight with a sword," she told him folding her hands into her lap, "intellect, or guile as his tools. It is seldom one can fight, effectively, with each combined. But you have done so, have you not?"
Intrigue flashed over the human expression and he sat up.
They debated for quite some time, and Lucifer judged him worthy.
"Would you like to strike a bargain?"
The man, of course, took the deal. His soul, for immortality and a taste of Lucifer's power.
She'd told him nothing of the pitfalls as he crumbled into a heap of anguish, the first jolts of his change taking affect.
"Beez, what is his name?" Lucifer asked her old friend, not looking away from the writhing man who's head she cradled in her lap.
Beelzebub had been a silent support for the duration of her time with the potential .
He uncrossed his arms and stepped over, crouching down to look at the man in transition to become something other.
"Vladimir," Beez told her, "his name is Vladimir Vampyre."
"Vampyre," Lucifer considered this, brushing soft white bangs out of her first Creation' face with a fond smile. "I like it. Vladimir and those he spreads this gift to shall be named after him. Henceforth their kind shall be known as 'Vampyre.'"
Theme Song
Black Sheep - Gin Wigmore
Yael Shelbia as Lucifer