36.7

 

Gabriel raises one hand, a halo around his head shining with the light of creation while Lucifer faces him, a similar halo around his. As the Fallen, Roisin would have expected Lucifer’s to be distinguishable, like the black vs white of a chess board, though probably more red than black, since it was the traditional colour of Hell. This is not the case, though, as Lucifer’s radiance is clear and bright, like the Morning Star he was named for.

The architecture trembles between them, contradictions gathering like storm clouds over the bones of the cathedral., lines of improbabilities glowing and ebbing like data cables in the movie Tron. At least she’s thinking about innocuous movies, she thinks. She could be thinking about The Exorcist, Hellraiser or Legion. And now she’s thinking about those.

Two cosmic authorities. Two incompatible truths. Two mantles that were never meant to coexist. Roisin feels the world tilt and Astaroth grabs her arm to stop her falling. Has she still got wings? It’s still not in her muscle memory to utilise them.

“Roisin, this is bad. This is very, very bad.” He bites his lip, a curious gesture for an angel of his standing, but one that is oddly comforting. “Creation and Judgement cannot stand in the same moment. If one of them doesn’t yield the world will tear itself apart under the strain of complying with both.”

Lucifer’s eyes gleam, but his smile is not one of merriment. It reminds Roisin of the look of a cat whole waiting for a mouse to reveal its hiding place. “Choose, Gabriel, will you be the saviour of the Elohim or their destruction?”

Gabriel snarls. “I will be the saviour, the one crowned with glory unto the highest.”

Lucifer bows slightly. “Then I will be its destruction.” He puts both hands over where his heart would be. “And the Last Judgement continues.” He turns to Roisin. “Revelation,” he murmurs his eyebrows raised in curiosity. “The Sixth Seal. The unwritten truth.” He circles her like a scholar examining a rare artifact, his appearance of an elderly, potbellied grandfather fading away into that of a youth more reminiscent of a Greek or Roman deity than a mortal man. “You broke the world open. You showed its bones. You revealed the Creator’s contradictions.” He smiles and offers her a tiny bow. It was barely a nod than anything courtly, but she’ll take it. Better to have him as an ally as a foe. She’s got enough of those already. “Thank you.”

Roisin swallows. “I didn’t do it for you.”

Lucifer’s smile widens. “Of course not. That’s the point, really. You did it because it was the right thing to do.” He raises one hand, which flashes with the light of an exploding star. “And now I will finish what you began.”

Gabriel shouts: “Lucifer! Don’t!”

Lucifer looks toward the archangel and blows him a kiss. He has a gleam in his eye reminiscent of a child eyeing an unwatched cake at a birthday party than the most feared denizen of Hell. Why is it that the supposed villains always induce more sympathy than the so-called heroes?

The architecture bends around the erstwhile cathedral, which, curiously, exists within the flat Roisin shares with Paul and Steve.

The world holds its breath as the architecture bends around Lucifer like the twining of a puppy around it’s owner’s legs. It is not cowering in fear over what he will do, but celebrating the return of an old friend, because it remembers him as the first being to ever use Knowledge for its intended purpose. He was the first to question. The first to discern. The first to judge. The mortal world today has evolved because he used to mantle to fulfil the role God the Creator assigned to him, for without knowledge he could not have been the Adversary; the one being in all the planes of the universe who knew enough to question his creator; who knew that to banish Adam’s first wife to the nether planes was inherently wrong, and the keep the first mortal and his new, more acceptable wife in perpetual ignorance was to keep them as pets: cared and provided for but every decision made for them. It was his decision to set them free by offering Eve, who was always the more sensible of the two, the gift of the knowledge he held.

And now he holds the mantle for a second time, and there is no God to countermand his decisions, should he choose to make them, only Gabriel, who has all the gravitas of a ten-year old in his father’s dress uniform.

Gabriel’s mantle of Creation flares in response, but it is defensive; reactive and brittle as the Last Judgement begins.