OK, so now we begin what I'm calling ACT II of Hearts are Open Graves. (I'd prefer to call it Part II, but, as I've been using that terminology to denote chapters, that option is off the table...)
We open with some background on Lilith.
NOTE: This story is FICTION and any back-story that I've created, however so much as it might relate to outside stories, myths, religious parables, or the like, does not constitute an endorsement of a statement of belief. It's Fiction.
That being said, ENJOY! and Please Review~
~TLD
ACT II
Part Twenty: Dance with the Devil
She cradled the infant in her arms. It had fussed a bit at first, when she had stolen it from its pretty blue basinet. But it lay quietly now, dozing to the soft crooning of Lilith's voice.
She'd locked the doors to her room, not that it mattered – her minions were out enjoying their own recreation and they knew better than to disturb her during hers. She didn't take infants often, at least in recent years, but with the full moon so close and this her 666th attempt of the rising ritual, she felt that strong compulsion in her gut that led her take infants.
"Pretty baby," she murmured.
She rocked steadily, smelling and feeling the soft baby in her arms, but her mind wandered, back, back, back…
"Adam?" God said, "This is Lilith. She will be your companion. Like you, I have made her from the clay of the earth. She is your equal in every way, your perfect companion. I love her as I love you. Take her unto yourself and love her as I do."
Adam smiled and took her in his arms. "Lilith," his voice formed her name. "You are beautiful."
She had smiled back, a feeling a warmth filling her – so strong. She'd never felt anything like it before. "Adam," she had replied, tasting his name on her tongue.
They wandered together across creation. Adam introduced her to all of the animals and birds and fish, and together they named some of the plants Adam had yet to name. The lions roamed with them and the sheep lay at her feet.
They were to be married, God had said. Like the animals and birds, they were mates. He sheltered Lilith under a Weeping Willow some distance from Adam's bed amongst the animals for the night before their wedding. The birds sat with Lilith, singing to her from the Willow's branches, twining flowers in her hair. She was too overjoyed to sleep, so she watched the stars and sang with the birds.
Later, as sleep began to creep in, Lilith felt a strange presence. She opened her eyes to find a man leaning over her.
"Adam?" she asked, straining to see in the darkness.
"No child, not Adam," a soft, musical voice replied.
She couldn't see well in the darkness, but the man seemed to glow from within, a strange white luminescence that somehow made the darkness around him even darker.
The birds twittered uncomfortably on their boughs as the luminescent figure strode closer to Lilith. Up close, she could see his features. He had the most beautiful face she'd ever seen. She thought of Adam, strong, beautiful Adam, but this man was different, his beauty was without equal. For the first day in her life, the first time in human history, she felt envy.
"Who are you?" she asked.
He smiled the most compelling smile ever smiled, and answered, "I am your future."
"You, Lilith, the most beautiful of all creation, do you really want to waste away with Adam? Why bear his children when his beauty is nothing to yours?" he continued.
"But, Adam is my mate," Lilith replied, confused.
He advanced on her, pinning her to the Willow, "No. I am," he replied.
She cried out in fear when he grabbed her wrists and, with startling force, threw her to the ground. The birds scattered, flying away in fear, only some of them keeping their wits about them enough to seek Adam for help.
She scrambled across the forest floor, trying desperately to evade her pursuer, but he was faster, and soon he was upon her, grasping her with demonic intensity, beating her into submission, and forcing his will upon her. She cried and screamed, and tried to fight back, scratching her nails into his flesh, biting and kicking, but in the end, she was broken. And when he was finished, he left her, a bleeding, crying heap on the forest floor, without a backward glance.
Hours passed, but she was too broken to move, her will and her body lacked the strength to move even an inch. Finally, Adam's voice rent the air. Her heart leapt. Adam would find her and save her. Adam would fix her.
But Adam's distressed call turned in to a cry of disgust when he saw her broken, bloody, and mud-covered body on the forest floor.
"Whore!" he cried. "How could you?" and he too, left without a backward glance.
Lilith's tears ran like a river through the forest, but still she did not move. Some of the animals came to lie by her, but still she did not move. It wasn't until she felt a tiny nudge from within her growing belly that she finally sat up.
Perplexed, she laid a gentle hand on the small lump. And the lump pushed back.
She rose, a sudden determination gripping her, and decided to go up the mountain, find God, and ask him about the lump.
But on the way, he appeared, blocking her path. She could see him clearly now in the light of day. The bright luminescence around him formed the shape of long, dripping wings.
She turned to run, expecting him to attack her again.
"Stop," he commanded, "I won't hurt you."
His voice was compelling and she felt her body stopping despite her conscious desire to run.
"In fact," he continued, "I am here to protect you."
"Protect me?" she asked, stunned.
"You don't believe that God will let you live with what you are carrying, do you?" the shining angel mocked.
"What I'm carrying?" she asked, confused.
He laid a soft hand on the tiny lump. She winced, curling instinctively around her tiny lump, expecting him to hit her again.
"Even now, he is sending an army upon us to kill the baby in your womb," he whispered.
"My baby? No!" she cried. The Devil's eyes sparkled in triumph.
As they stood, the small lump grew imperceptibly. Lilith felt the growing strain on her body, but the growing love for her baby grew exponentially faster.
"We need to hide," said the Devil, "we haven't much time left."
Whether he meant before God's army attacked or before the birth of the baby, Lilith didn't know.
On the mountain, Adam relayed Lilith's betrayal to God.
"Adam," God scolded, "How could you? Where is your compassion?"
But Adam did not understand.
God sighed, "My poor, poor Lilith."
The birds swirled around God, speaking of a tall, beautiful, glowing stranger and of the terrible brutality he inflicted upon Lilith. God saw as they had seen and was shocked to see the face of his Lieutenant – Lucifer, his beloved.
"Indeed there has been a betrayal, Adam, but not by Lilith," God said, his voice growing fierce. And with that, he disappeared, marshaling his angels, his faithful angels, in an assault against the traitor.
Hidden from God, on the ridge of a deep chasm, Lilith and Lucifer awaited the arrival of the baby. Growing rapidly, it pressed against Lilith's ribs. Kicking, it bruised her organs, stealing her breath. She writhed in pain as the first of God's angels found them.
"No!" Lucifer cursed, "I will not be thwarted now."
And so, he drew a long, jagged knife, and cut the struggling baby free of its tormented mother.
Grinning in triumph, he lifted the bloodstained baby into the air, ignoring the feeble moans as Lilith struggled to hang onto life long enough to glimpse her beautiful baby. In her failing eyesight, suddenly she saw him. Even covered in her blood, he was radiant, more brilliant than the North Star, a glimmering beacon.
But then her vision failed and she felt herself falling away, "Goodbye, my brilliant one," she whispered.
Suddenly he was upon her again, his face glowing on the edges of her vision, "You will not die," he crooned, "Wouldn't you like that? To live and thrive and never die? I can give you that gift."
His words swirled through her mind, pulling her back to life, back to her beloved baby, "Life?" she whispered.
"Life Eternal," he crooned. "What would you give for such a gift?" he whispered.
"Give?" she replied, her brain sluggish from blood loss. "Anything," she murmured.
The Devil smiled, "Done." The Devil's beautiful face contorted. He bit down upon his own lip with razor sharp teeth, and pressed his bleeding lips against Lilith's pale, dying mouth in a sick, passionate kiss.
As Lilith's body fell into death, he pulled her back, trapping a piece of her soul within himself and letting the transformative power of his demonic blood heal her broken body.
After he was finished, God and his angels descended upon him.
"What have you done, traitor?" God commanded.
But Lucifer only smiled. "I do not answer to you, oh Most High. I am God now. Giver and Taker of Souls."
"Do not fool yourself, oh Broken One," God replied, "You have nothing to give and no power to give it. Instead, you choose to destroy, and so, you are The Destroyer, The Breaker. But, you are not God."
"As The Creator of All Things," God continued, "I hereby banish you from this earth. I revoke your wings - that I once gave to you. No longer will you be allowed to set foot upon the earth or take flight upon the sky. You and all things like you will dwell below, so far below that the fires at the center of earth shall be your sky and none, no matter how far they dig, shall ever reach you."
And with that, God's angels cut off Lucifer's wings, and threw him into the pit, his struggling baby still clutched in his arms.
God and Adam stood over the body of Lilith. Though she was somewhere between life and death, the Devil's poison still transforming her body, she heard them.
"My poor, poor Lilith," God whispered. "She is lost to me now."
Adam stood impassively, not understanding.
"We failed her, you and I both," God said.
Adam looked up, confused, but God continued.
"I made her, a perfect equal to you, of the same substance, and I thought that similarity would be enough to bind you together – not simply as companions, but as one flesh, one heart, one love, a relationship of utmost compassion."
"And yet," he continued, "you were able to fling her aside as if she meant nothing to you. I am most displeased with you, Adam. But I will not make the same mistake again."
God sighed, before continuing. "I left her unprotected, believing evil could never touch this world, but I was wrong. I will not make that mistake again."
And so, God put Adam into a deep sleep, and, removing one of his ribs, fashioned Eve from his very flesh, so that Adam might learn compassion. As one flesh, they would feel each other's pain. They would love with one heart, become one flesh, and live in utmost compassion – feeling most complete when they dedicated their lives to loving, protecting, and caring for one another.
Seeing his new creation, and knowing how fragile his beloved children were, God created a spectacular, lush garden, secluded and protected against the Devil, in which to house them and keep them safe.
Days later, Lilith awoke, cold and alone, her new body and senses unnerving her in their alienness. She reached down, anxious to feel the lump that meant her baby was safe and with her, but the lump was gone. Her beautiful baby taken from her.
She felt empty, hollow. For days and weeks and years, she wallowed in her grief, and the emptiness, the hollowness inside of her grew like a cancer, like a disease, like a hunger that could never be sated.
Until one day, many, many years after Adam had died, a descendant of Adam and Eve stumbled upon her little cave overlooking the chasm.
He was little more than a boy, and when Lilith saw him, her grief for her lost son, erupted into flame and the hunger that had been festering inside of her for decades burst forth. She threw herself on the boy, ripping at him with her clawed fingers, screaming and shrieking like the animal she had become. When the boy's hot blood splashed on her mouth and face, she felt a rush of endorphins, a strange sensation of fullness, like the empty hole in her was being filled. Without thinking, she plunged her teeth into the boy's throat, sucking up every last drop of that life-giving fluid, and feeling, for a moment, alive again.
When the feeling passed, and the hole ripped itself in her chest again, Lilith knew she had a choice – wallow in grief and depression for the rest of her endless life… or… feel alive, however briefly, in whatever way that she could.
And so, she waged war on the sons and daughters of Adam.
Her reminiscence faded as the baby in her arms began to fuss.
"Shh," Lilith crooned, rocking the baby again.
"You're a pretty baby," she sighed, "not as pretty as my Northern Star, my beautiful, brilliant baby. But don't worry; I'll get him back. This time, I'll get him back. Lucifer can't deny me this time, not on my 666th attempt, no, not this time," she murmured to the baby.
The baby, perhaps sensing danger, began to cry, a gut-wrenching cry that would bring his mother running to his aid. But this was not his mother, and with a throat-crushing bite, Lilith silenced the infant. Permanently.