A/N: The goddess and her cult fall into irrelevancy. It is time for God to execute his plan regarding her fate. Asherah is driven to the gates of hell by all of her celestial children, where Lucifer awaits her arrival. Commanded by his Father to lock her away forever in hell; Lucifer obeys, but he knows that if ever she were to escape—the consequences would be dire and most likely deadly—to him.

Prequel Chapter 6: Intervention

It had taken 500 years for the Cult of the Great Whore of Babylon to run its course, but finally, the goddess and the cult had become irrelevant. All that had gone on in the ancient temple would now haunt the coming ages. The blood-stained altar, site of horrific acts, symbol of the violence committed upon it in the name of worship, still stood in a place of prominence. If one listened carefully, the cries and screams of the victims reduced to ghostly whispers, could still be heard exhaling from the cracks and crevices of the temple walls; where rumors of the human and child sacrifices that had taken place there still abounded.

Asherah was on the brink of obscurity. The moment for God to execute his plan for the goddess had arrived.

The goddess would have to be dealt with accordingly. She was still eternal and more than able to wield her super powers. She was a force to be reckoned with and it was apparent that she was not going to go gently into the night.

Lucifer had not returned to earth since the day he and Gabriel had played in the universe and since he last saw Asherah. His father hadn't sent his brother down with any messages during all of that time, and Gabriel had not returned of his own accord.

Had his beloved little brother turned his back on Lucifer too?

On that last day he'd spent on earth, such a long time ago, playing in the sky with Gabriel, Lucifer had been repulsed by the heavenly barrier and sent hurtling back down to the ground; like his original fall all over again. The message was clear: he would never be able to get back even the smallest semblance of what he'd lost. Even the briefest attempt to pry him from his misery was too much for him to bare, for he would invariably fail and fall even lower; farther away from his family and even farther from his Father.

Asherah had left her mark on him. He had never stopped feeling hurt and ashamed about what she'd done to him; he still felt guilty about what he'd represented in that perverse cult of hers. Yet even now, there was something about her that he found himself sometimes craving. The flashes of heaven he'd thought he seen so long ago were now but fuzzy recollections—he wondered if he really had been back in heaven, or if it had all been a distant dream.

Deciding that coming up to earth was too hurtful for him, Lucifer had chosen to stay in the comfort of his own hell where he didn't have to worry about what he'd lost. Consumed with his duties as the devil, Lucifer lost the remnants of what he once was and became what he was to be. He could live with that—at least for now.

The business of hell was humming like a well-oiled torture chamber, damned souls were being processed at lightning speed, thanks to the army of skilled demons that Lucifer had created and trained so well. The demons were so good at what they did, that the devil began to reserve his special attention to only the most vile, wicked and sometimes most notorious entities to enter into the gates of hell.

Much to his demon protector's delight, Lucifer forewent sex with anyone else except Maze. After his assault, it had taken centuries for him to allow her to touch him again. He had shunned all of her advances for the longest time, until the demon was able to break down his barriers by proving to him her loyalty and fierce protection. Even the devil needed solace now and then.

During his daily roll call of the demons, Lucifer saw a dot forming at the top of hell. The dot started to grow larger and become brighter. Damn he thought, why can't they just leave me alone: what do they want now?

The light grew into the form of an angel and Gabriel alighted on the ash dusted ground.

The younger angel's hitherto exuberance was remarkably subdued. He appeared serious—even solemn and he found it hard to look Lucifer in the eye.

"Greetings brother", he says with a tight smile," I hope that you are well. I have a message from Father for you that is of the greatest importance."

Hmm, Lucifer thought, no hug, no affection—not even from Gabriel—he was crestfallen.

A dark look of sadness crossed the archangel's face as he took in the general condition of his older brother. Lucifer looked like a shadow of his former self. He was pale and gaunt, his eyes which had once been so full of life were now dull black and expressionless and his hair was long and stringy—he looked generally unkempt.

Gabriel wanted nothing more than to grab his brother and hug him so hard. He'd missed him terribly, but his Father had forbidden him any more unsanctioned visits until the business of Asherah was to be resolved. The young angel watched the years go by, feeling more and more remorseful about abandoning his brother. And now, his heart had sunk at the condition he'd found him in.

Trying to sound as formal as he could, Gabriel announces God's message. "In two days I will bring an intervention down upon Asherah. I have called upon all of my angel sons and any of Asherah's remaining celestial children to help bring their mother down to the gates of hell."

"Asherah will then be delivered to you, Lucifer. You will lock her up in the depths of hell where she will never be seen or heard from again."

"How and where you lock her away will be of your own choosing. Make it so that she can never escape the confines of hell for all eternity."

"Do not fail me son."

Looking visibly shaken, Lucifer sneers, "and is that all you ask of me…Father. No one has even sent so much as a peep my way for hundreds of years, and now you command me to do your dirty work. You can't bring yourself to kill your former bride, so you want me to take the brunt of her fury."

"Why don't you lock her away in hell yourself—you did a good enough job with me!" he screamed to the heavens.

Gabriel could no longer hold himself in, grabbing his older sibling; crushing him into a hug, he held on to him as if his life depended upon it. Lucifer who had reached his breaking point, fell limply into his brother's arms, like life had been sucked out of him. The hurt coming off of Lucifer was almost overwhelming to the young angel, who looking up into the heavens, shoots his Father an angry look. He whispers: "what have we done to him Father?"

After a few emotional minutes, angrily pulling away from his little brother, Lucifer looks up at the heavens and says: "I will do as you ask Father—with pleasure. Just know that the pleasure is not for you: it is for me. I will lock her away at the very bottom of hell for what she did to me all those years ago that has heretofore gone unpunished."

"Thank you brother," Gabriel says gently as he gives Lucifer a quick embrace. "I will now take my leave of you. Good luck"—he smiles and soars off towards the heavens.

Watching his bright light get dimmer and dimmer as it ascends out of hell, Lucifer's stomach clenches into a tight knot, he is afraid of Asherah, and he's not completely confident that he will be able to complete the task his Father has commanded of him.

God had set the stage for an epic divine family intervention to take place upon Asherah. But she would have none of it. On the day of the intervention, Asherah had fought fiercely. But despite her valiant effort, she was eventually over-powered by a host of her own celestial children and dragged down to the gates of hell—where the devil was waiting for her.

"Welcome mother," making a small bowing motion, Lucifer directed her to step over the threshold of the gates.

Looking back at the hundreds of angels and all of the former gods and goddesses of the divine pantheon that she'd begotten, crowding the horizon, she knew they'd pushed her down to the point of no return—there would be no escape. Turning to Lucifer, her sea gray eyes filled with sadness, Asherah took a last deep breath of the sweet air of earth, before tentatively accepting his invitation to enter through the gates of hell.

Looking at the man standing before her now, it was hard to imagine how heart-stoppingly magnificent he had been all those hundreds of years ago when she'd had her way with him. The same man standing before her now, was greatly diminished from the former devil she'd remembered. His black opaque eyes were unfathomable, and his skin had taken on the pallor of ash. He had an almost imperceptible smell about him, like the smoke from a snuffed out candle. Dressed in a less than regal looking long black robe that seemed too large for his slight body, his grand opalescent wings were the only thing about him that was the same as it had been before. Still the only light in all of the underworld, his wings lit up the ash covered entrance to hell in sharp contrast to the pervading darkness.

With a steely gaze, Lucifer eyed Asherah with caution. Taking her hand into his, he gently guides her farther in. 'This is too easy,' the devil thought, 'she's not going to do this without putting up some kind of last stand…'

Motionless, the devil and the goddess stood face to face: sizing each other up. Apparently she still had some fire power to subject him to. In a flash, Asherah's neutral gaze turned defiant. Like a snake ready to pounce, she looked deeply into his eyes and quickly slithered her way into his mind. In one powerful move, she had turned the tables on Lucifer with the words he feared the most, "What do you desire my son?"

Lucifer's eyes widened in surprise as he felt her compelling his innermost emotions. The goddess was laser-like in her proficiency for getting in and out of someone's mind with exactly what she was looking for. She took pleasure in taking it forcibly, by burning her way in, and ripping out what she wanted.

Surprisingly, her probe of Lucifer's desires turned up empty. His innermost spirt harbored no love, no happiness and no desires—only an overwhelming sense of ennui and bitterness regarding his existence. He believed that he was not deserving of love—or of anything that was noble and good.

Asherah had caught Lucifer off guard. Trying to collect himself, he was reeling, he felt as if someone had stuck a burning hot poker in his ear. Holding his head in his hands and grimacing in pain, he stammered, "you destroyed me once woman, but it won't happen again. Now, I must do as Father has asked me."

Lucifer's flaring blood red eyes pierced into hers. He clutched her close enough to feel the warmth of her breath on his lips. Drawing up all of the strength within him, he gritted his teeth and grabbed her; pulling her tightly to him, he enfolded her in his wings so that she could not break free of him.

Holding on for dear life, Lucifer and Asherah spun into a whirlwind that hurtled them down to the lowest part of the netherworld. There, at the bottom of a small crater, was an open hatch door to a cell. Lucifer opened his wings and pulled away from the spinning form of his mother. He then drilled her all the way down into the deepest and darkest of all hellholes and locked her up.

Lucifer stood over the cell, breathing in short shallow breaths; shudders coursed through his body. Hurtling down through the depths of hell with Asherah, had brought back the vivid memory of his own fall from heaven. Although his fall had taken place eons ago, the pain he'd suffered on the way down as his Father's love was ripped away from him, had not diminished. God had shattered his son's heart, leaving only painful emptiness in its wake.

Cast away from the light down into utter darkness, there would be no more music and no more beauty. His Father had condemned him to the most depraved existence: to torture and punish the damned. This former angel of the light, had fallen into a world where his elegant form would be forever covered in ash. For all eternity, he would be nauseated by the stench of burning flesh and smoking brimstone. Never again would he bask in the magnificence of heaven, or fly above the clouds, or hear the beautiful strains of his brother angels singing.

Standing over Asherah's cell, Lucifer looks upwards into the chaos of hell, shutting his eyes tight, he tries to drown out the echoing screams of the damned, and the overall deafening din of the place. "Forever is a very, long time." He sighs as he falls to his knees; inconsolable, he hangs his head down and weeps.

His parents had used him as a means to their end. He was a pawn in their feud over power, revenge and divinity. His father would never forgive him, yet he still commanded him to do His dirty work. His mother had debased him while using him as a ploy to punish her ex-husband. Lucifer's entire sense of family had been completely ruined, he might as well have been orphaned, it would have been easier to accept than being abandoned and alone.

Grim with intent, Lucifer fixed his tear filled eyes on his mother's cell. Slowly straightening himself up, brushing the ash off of his shoulders, he causes his hurt to retreat far down inside himself where he believes it is out of sight and out of mind. With a renewed sense of resolute calm; he rationalizes, "Asherah will receive her cosmic due: she will be written out of the Bible and be banished to hell forever—I will never have to lay eyes upon her ever again."

Trudging away from the cell which was now almost entirely erased under a blanket of swirling ash Lucifer threw away the keys and never looked back.

And then, as if a great weight had lifted itself from his spirit, Lucifer allowed a broad smile to light up his face. He felt relieved, felt fear and humiliation melting away from his insides. She would never be able to escape and to hurt him ever again. For the first time in hundreds of years he felt like he could let go of all that she'd put him through. Lucifer pushed it all down inside, like it never happened. Today he'd vanquished Asherah, physically and mentally—revenge had been bittersweet for him.