chapter vignette 4

Y’know, when mortals say they’ve been through Hell and back, they really have no idea. They never felt the pain, the sheer darkness, where even angels of mercy and forgiveness could grow cold and bitter. That’s how the world ended up with us. Demons.

Some of us never even fought during the Age of Wrath. Me? I tried to stay out of the way. I just wanted humanity to prosper and be as creative as they could be. I didn’t like that bastard of a God forcing ignorance on them, but I saw Lucifer’s plans failing a mile away. I have more common sense than to just join up like that. Even still, I got chucked down into the Abyss along with everyone else just for sneezing in the wrong direction. Hell, I blame myself for Zadkiel too. If she weren’t with me, neither of us would be where we are now. But seeing’s how God’s original angels all seemed to have fucked off with him by the time we escaped? Maybe that’s for the best. They left us Demons to inherit the earth, and when most of us got out we were so angry and spiteful that we wanted to tear it down.

A lot of us cooled our jets. Some of us still want to watch it all burn. Others turned their efforts toward trying to find Lucifer after he managed to get out. Some of us want to rule the world better than God ever did just to prove a point. Me and Zadkiel though, we’re just here to sit back and help humanity survive. She’s an angel of mercy, she helps talk people into forgiveness. That’s commendable, and she rocks it seeing as she’s stuck in the body of a teenager. Meanwhile, I go around and help artists and musicians make things. I got a coma patient who was named after me in the first place. Convenient! And I can even admit that it was touching to see her family excited for her to wake up. she’s still in here, I’m just in the driver’s seat. Call it a mutually beneficial arrangement.

These days I find it easier and easier to forgive the state of the world. Maybe Zadkiel helped with that, it’s in her very nature. But being out of Hell for so long has made me appreciate all the art I’ve missed. It’s kinda flattering to think to yourself, I did that. I gave them that. For a long time, I just wanted to keep humanity hopeful and give them inspiration while the world was ending around them. If you look at it, we got super-vampires sleeping under the surface waiting to spring up and wat their children (God’s fault), a big celestial snake and spider going nutso over who gets to fuck up the world first, this big techno-conglomerate dictating what reality should look like as if they’re the angels that created it, and a bunch of angels I have never fucking seen before in my life going around and poking mortals with super duper special critter-killing powers.

So, now that we’ve established where we’ve been at in the world since I got out, let me tell you a story. So, imagine you’re me. Just a Demon, walking down the street, no big deal, right? Of course. Now, I was on my way to help a little buddy of mine. A little vampire, stuck in the body of literally a child and kinda… well… locked in the basement of a poncey douche. Now, I have full authority to get him the fuck outta there because I ain’t havin’ it, but that might mean the ponce notices and tries to get him back. So really I know I have to wait till the fucker goes into vampire sleep to get this kid out. It’s all about planning.

Anyway I’m on my way to go see this little buddy of mine. As you do. When all of a sudden I run smack into this fucker who looks like he jumped out of a Japanese scroll painting. One of those watercolor dealies. Very nice. An aesthetic I can appreciate. But! The first thing I notice is that this guy’s a vampire. Like a really old one. Really really old. Like, supposed to be extinct old. So while that’s gone and caught me off-guard, it hits me right in the face. A celestial eminence I haven’t felt since before the Age of Wrath. It’s powerful, it’s moving. And it makes me angry just to feel it, at least at first. There’s no mistaking it, this man is God.

But the more I look, the more I expect him to recognize me even as I am now, the less I think that this is the original God at all. He just seemed confused that I was glaring at him like that. Well soon I stopped being angry, and started feeling real smug-like. His behavior, his imperfect mannerisms and the fact that the original God would never manifest as a vampire all told me, God is fucking dead. He’s dead and this guy took his place. He had his wife with him and I knew that eminence too. She’s big mother Nature. Now her, she knew who I was. I know she did. I didn’t say anything about it, but I walked away from that encounter feeling real vindicated-like. Yeah, asshole. Now you’re dead and this confused vampire man took your place.

After that though? Shit, the world started healing up. Those freaky new-angels started realizing that maybe God’s Will isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and started having their thralls see the individual and not the ‘monster’. Vampires started being able to go out in the day and live again. I took a walk one time out in the day and I saw this poncey-lookin’ fluffy fucker and his wife dancing in the park like the world was theirs and he wasn’t exactly hiding his fangs too well. Warmed my icy, Abyss-hardened heart to see that.

I started feeling pretty good about the world for the first time in a long time. Innocence? I can never have that back, not after the Abyss. But forgiveness? A sense of catharsis? Yeah, I think I can let myself have that.

And anyone who tries to take this improvement away from humanity as a whole can fight me.