Lilith (Greenverse)

When we see Lilith's avatar manifesting itself in the material world, this is the description we get:

And then we both looked round sharply. The whole forest had gone quiet, and there was a new feeling on the air. Just for a moment everything was so still I could hear the rasp of my own breathing, feel the beating of my heart. Suzie and I looked out into the clearing, our attention drawn to the open space like beasts in the wild sensing a coming storm. There was a sound. A sound on the air, but not of it, coming from everywhere and nowhere. It filled the whole world, filled my mind, and it was not a natural sound. It was the cry of something being born, of something dying, an emotion and an experience and an ecstasy beyond human knowledge or comprehension. The sound rose and rose, growing louder and more piercing and more inhuman, until Suzie and I had to clap our hands over our ears to try and keep it out, and still the sound rose and rose, louder and louder, until it became unbearable; and still it rose. Finally, mercifully, it rose beyond our ability to hear it, and Suzie and I were left shaking and shuddering, breathing harshly and shaking our heads as though trying to clear something out. I couldn't hear anything, even when Suzie spoke to me, and we both looked out into the clearing again. Something was going to happen. We could feel it. We could still feel the sound, feel it in our bones and in our souls.

And then Lilith was suddenly there, standing in front of the trees at the edge of the clearing, perhaps as little as twenty feet from where Suzie and I stood watching. The sound was gone. Lilith had made her entrance. She stood staring intently out at the clearing she'd made, her dark eyes fixed and unblinking. Suzie and I silently stepped further back into the dark of the forest, concealing ourselves in the deepest shadows. Just to see Lilith was to be scared of her. Of the power that burned in her, like all the stars in all the galaxies. She might have been created to be Adam's wife, but she'd come a long way since then.

She hadn't simply appeared. It was as though Lilith had stamped or imprinted herself directly onto reality, by sheer force of will. She was there now because she chose to be, and somehow she seemed realer than anything else in the material world. She looked ... pretty much as I remembered her, from the last time I'd seen her. In Strangefellows bar, at the end of my last case. Just before everything went to hell. -Paths Not Taken

----

She created the Nightside with only a Word:

Lilith looked out across the writhing, pulsating crowd before her, and her wide smile was as cold and unreadable as the rest of her. She could have been thinking anything, anything at all. Finally, she gestured briefly, brutally, and the crowd split in two, falling back on both sides as Lilith frowned, concentrating, and spoke another Word. Even her monstrous children cringed back from the sound of it, and I could feel reality itself shake and shudder as Lilith enforced her awful will upon it. The whole of the dark forest stirred and groaned, a living thing in pain, then, all in one terrible moment, Lilith gave birth to the Nightside through a single effort of will and determination.

A great city suddenly filled the clearing from boundary to boundary, shining bright as the sun, massive and ornate, a singular creation of wonder and beauty. It was a vision of great sparkling towers and massive shimmering domes, delicate elemental walkways and insanely elegant palaces-a glorious ideal city, a thing of dreams made real in stone and wood, marble and metal. It was magnificent, like the cities we see in our minds when we dream of distant places. All its shapes were curved, smooth and rounded, almost organic, the buildings rising and falling like waves in an artificial sea, and none of them were in proportion to each other. The city Lilith had created was inhumanly beautiful, and flawed, just like her. -Paths Not Taken

----

The Nightside is designed to vastly weaken any angels from Heaven or Hell that attempt to set foot in it.

I'd seen this kind of limited thinking before, back during the angel war. Angels of either House were always much diminished by being made material. They were still unutterably powerful, and their very nature made them unwavering in their purpose, but you couldn't argue or reason with them. Even when conditions had clearly changed so much that their original purpose was no longer relevant. Angels were spiritual storm-troopers. If a city had to be destroyed, or the first-born of a generation destroyed, send in the angels. Of course, that was still to come.

"You want Lilith taken out, why don't you get on with it?" said Suzie.

"We cannot simply walk into her city and destroy her," said Gabriel. "Lilith has designed her creation so that simply by entering it, all emissaries of Heaven and Hell would be terribly weakened."

"And then she would destroy us," said Baphomet. "She hates all emissaries of authority, whether from Above or Below." -Paths Not Taken

----

A city that vastly depowers any angels that enter it, and Lilith created it with only a word. Think about that for a moment.

When Lilith appears in the Street of the Gods, she makes an entrance by killing countless angels, causing them to quite literally rain from the sky:

Just another day on the Street of the Gods, then—until dead angels began dropping out of the night sky. They fell gracelessly and landed hard, with broken wings and stupid, startled faces, like birds who have flown into the windows of high-rise buildings. They lay on the ground, not moving, creatures of light and darkness, like a child's discarded toys. Everyone regarded the dead angels with awe and some timidity. And then they looked up, the worshippers and the worshipped, to see a greater dark miracle in the starry night sky.

A moonbeam extended lazily down into the Street of the Gods, shimmering silver starstuff, splendid and coldly beautiful, just like the great and awful personage who sailed slowly down it like an ethereal moving stairway, smiling and waving to the crowds below. Lilith had been planning her return for some time, and she did so love to make an entrance.

Inhumanly tall, perfectly formed, and supernaturally feminine, with a skin so pale it was the very antithesis of colour, and hair and eyes and lips blacker than the night, she looked like some screen goddess from the days of silent film. Her face was sharp and pointed, with a prominent bone structure and a hawk nose. Her mouth was thin-lipped and far too wide, and her eyes held a fire that could burn through anything. She was not pretty, but she was beautiful almost beyond bearing. She was naked, but there was nothing vulnerable about her.

Her presence filled the air, like the roar of massed cannon announcing the start of war, or a choir singing obscenities in a cathedral, like the first scream of being bom or the last scream of the dying. No-one could look away. And many a lesser god or goddess knelt and bowed, recognising the real thing when they saw it, come at last to the Street of the Gods. There was a halo round Lilith's head, though it was more a presence than a light. Lilith could be very traditional, when she chose. She stepped down off the moonbeam into the Street of the Gods, and smiled about her.

"Hello, everyone," she said, in a voice rich and sweet as poisoned honey. "I'm Lilith, and I'm back. Did you miss me?"

She walked openly in glory through the night, and everyone fell back before her. The great and small alike bowed their heads, unable to meet her gaze. The ground shook and cracked apart beneath the thunder of her tread. 'Even the biggest and most ornate cathedral seemed suddenly shabby, next to her. She kicked dead angels out of her way with a perfect pale foot, not even looking down, and her dark mouth made a small moue of annoyance.

"Such simple, stupid things," she said. "Neither Heaven nor Hell can stand against me here, in the place I made to be free of both." -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

Walker managed to have his people re-grow a new version of the creature-house from Outside that John killed in Book 1:

“Oh, I have a plan,” Walker said calmly. His voice tried hard to sound confident, but his face was too tired to cooperate. “You might remember a certain creature from Outside that pretended to be a house on Blaiston Street. It called people to it, then consumed them. After Taylor destroyed it, I had my people collect scrapings of the alien cell tissues and preserve them for analysis. As a result of what they discovered in their labs, I was eventually able to grow a new house, in a setting of my own choice. I had it lobotomized, of course, so it would only eat what I chose to feed it. Never know when you’ll need a secret weapon to use against your enemies.” -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

Lilith stomps it:

Walker paused outside the front door of a house that looked no different from all the others around it, then he darted inside, leaving the door that wasn’t a door standing open. Lilith charged through the opening a few moments later, and it slammed shut after her. The army stumbled to a halt outside. One of the leaders tried the door, but it wouldn’t open. One of Lilith’s children pushed forward, placed an oversized hand on the door and pushed, then cried out in shock and pain as the door tried to eat his hand. The front ranks of the army looked at each other, and decided to stay where they were until Lilith emerged from the house to give them orders.

The scene in the scrying pool changed to show me a rear view of the house that wasn’t a house, as Walker came running full pelt out the back door. He ran through the overgrown garden to the back gate, then leaned on it for a while, breathing heavily. He looked back at the house, shuddered once, and immediately regained his composure. The back wall of the house seemed to heave, and swell, twisting black veins standing out suddenly in sharp relief in the fake brickwork. First the wall, then the whole structure of the house began to shake and shudder. Black and purple splotches of rot and decay appeared, and the two windows ran away like pus. Holes like ragged wounds opened up all over the sloping roof, and the back door slumped, running away in streams of liquid foulness. The house hadn’t stood a chance against Lilith. She’d barely been in it a few moments, and already it was dead and rotting. -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

Lilith's true form effortlessly overpowers a Transient Being, shoving it aside and imprinting itself on a summoning ritual designed to physically incarnate the latter:

The vision changed again, to show us the Babalon Working. Only edited highlights, of course, but it was still pretty impressive. The lengthy ritual was designed to summon, hold, and physically incarnate one of the Transient Beings; not just a demon or spirit, but one of the real Powers and Dominations. The living embodiment of an abstract concept, in this case love or lust or sexual obsession. (Babalon was an old, old name, and no two sources could agree on exactly what it represented.) The three young men saw it only as a weapon they could use against those they perceived as the villains of the day, and those in the Authorities who might try to obstruct the forthcoming changes. The three young men were determined not to be stopped. They would bring about freedom by force, if necessary. Like most fanatics, they were blind to irony, and even if they had seen it, they probably wouldn't have cared. They were doing this for the greater good, after all.

The Babalon Working involved days of fasting for all three men, and almost continual chanting, drawing circles and pentagrams on the floor, and protective sigils and wards on the walls, along with the regular ingestion of sacred herbs and drugs. They guzzled thirstily at bottled water and sweated it all out again as they stamped then-way through ritual dances. They weren't allowed to sleep, or even rest. By the end of the sixth day they were all looking pretty ragged round the edges. They worked naked now, stinking from dried sweat and the human wastes that piled up in the room's corners. Their eyes were red and staring, their voices hoarse and pained from the endless chants, and their hands shook so badly the sigils they drew had to be traced over and over again to get them right. They were beyond hunger, beyond thirst, chemicals roaring through their veins, expanded thoughts clamouring in their minds. They staggered in spiral patterns across a floor covered in chalk-marks of all shapes and colours, timing the rhythm of their ragged voices to the pounding of their bare feet on the bare boards. They were half out of their minds, half out of the world, pushing their thoughts by brute force into another level of reality, until finally they found what they were looking for.

Or it found them. It was much bigger than they'd thought, bigger than they could bear, but they held their nerve. They retreated to the physical plane of existence, calling it after them, and it followed them home. That ancient Force, that terrible female principle known as Babalon. The three men could feel it drawing closer, and a new strength pounded through their racked bodies and raw voices. Their minds snapped into sharp focus as their intent crystallised, and Babalon grew clearer in their linked thoughts. She was indeed beautiful and terrible, and intoxicating in her power.

And that was when it all went wrong. Horribly wrong. An inhuman howl filled the warehouse, resonating in every physical surface, as the entity known as Babalon was suddenly thrust aside by something else; something far more powerful. Somehow it had detected the opening between the planes of existence and seized the opportunity to manifest in Babalon's place. The Transient Being was forced back, for all its power, and this new thing came forward in its place. The whole warehouse shook, the walls bending and twisting. The three men were thrown around like rag dolls, until they were left clinging to the shuddering floor like mariners on a raft, all their carefully traced circles and pentagrams and wards nothing more than chalk-dust, meaningless in the face of the unknown Force that was incarnating. Something impossibly old and powerful, terrifying, bewildering, something that had been banned from the material world since time out of time, but was now forcing its way back into reality. There was a blast of unbearable light, the sound of all the birds in the world singing at once, as Something impossibly vast and complicated compressed itself into physical existence. The three men clung together, helpless in the face of what they had allowed back into the world. They caught a glimpse of something that was denied to those of us watching the vision, and they all cried out miserably in shock and horror, like children discovering that there are monsters in the dark, after all. And then the Power they had let in erupted out of the warehouse, smashing contemptuously through the walls and the wards marked on them, out and loose in the Nightside. -Hex and the City

----

But as an idea without shape or form, I was helpless to do anything. I was trapped in Limbo, unable to open a door into any other realm. Until someone here created an opening I could use. They were trying to incarnate a female principle into physical existence, a part of the Babalon Working, and it was easy for me to push the Transient Being aside and imprint myself upon the summoning. Someone in that group hadn't done his homework properly. He'd left all kinds of openings for a determined mind to take advantage of. And once I'd left Limbo behind, they couldn't keep me out. All the Powers and Dominations that ever were couldn't have stopped me then. -Hex and the City

----

The Primal, a collective of purely conceptual Outsiders, fears Lilith:

"We are The Primal. Purely conceptual beings, products of the earliest days of creation, before the glory of ideas was trapped and diminished in the narrow confines of matter. Kept out of the material worlds, to protect its fragile creatures of meat and mortality. Ever since Time was, we were. Waiting and watching at the Edge of things, searching eternally for a way in, to finally show our contempt and hatred for all the lesser creations, that dare to dream of being more than they are. We are The Primal. We were here first. And we will be here when all the meat that dares to think has been stamped back into the mud it came from." -Nightingale's Lament

----

And then I broke off, as the head turned suddenly to look at me.

"We know you, little prince," said the choir of whispering voices. "John Taylor. Yes. We know your mother, too."

"What do you know about her?" My mouth was painfully dry, but I fought to keep my voice steady.

"She who was first, and will be first again, in this worst of all possible worlds. She's coming back. Yes. Soon, she will come back."

"But who is she? What is she?"

"Ask the ones who called her up. Ask the ones who called her back. She is coming home, and she will not be denied."

"You're scared of her," I said, almost wonderingly. And you're scared of me, too, I thought.

"We are The Primal. There is still time to play in the world, before she comes back to take it for her own. Time to play with you, little prince." -Nightingale's Lament

----

She, in turn, thinks very little of them, considering them to be nothing but "chalk-drawings" compared to her:

"I don't bear them any malice. Not really. I've outlived nearly all of them. And Limbo wasn't the worst place to be exiled to. Limbo is a place, or not-place, where things only exist in potential. Ideas without form."

"Like the Primal?" I said, just to show I was paying attention.

"Oh, please. They're just chalk-drawings, compared to me. -Hex and the City

----

(Info on the Outsiders and Transient Beings can be found in their respective sections of the Greenverse cosmology blog [which is currently still a paste right now])

John's war with Lilith in an alternate future is implied to have "broken" time itself:

Larry snorted, amused despite himself. “That… is one of Lilith’s children. Pretty much all there is left to eat, these days. Apart from the bodies. There are still a lot of dead people left over from the War, but we haven’t been reduced to cannibalism. Not yet. Oh yes, they’re still lying around; decades after the War. Nothing decays any more, you see. Except the buildings. All kinds of strange energies were released during the final days of your struggle with your mother. And now all the natural processes are… out of order. Existence follows new rules now. Sometimes we don’t feel the need to eat or drink for days or even weeks at a time. And we don’t sleep. Bad dreams can take on a life of their own, these days.”

“It’s hard to keep track of time any more,” said Jessica, in a voice like a shell-shocked child’s. “There’s no way of measuring it, you see. There are no days, the night never ends, and watches don’t work even though there’s nothing wrong with them. Perhaps you and Lilith broke Time, during the War…” -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

Lilith overpowers a temporal stasis field:

Time slowed, cranking down to a crawl. The hand Lilith was extending towards me ground to a halt, inches short of my face. Her voice became a long growl and then cut off abruptly as the Collector appeared out of nowhere, in an improbable device. Trust him to bring Time itself to a stop, just so he could make an entrance. The Collector, con man, thief, and snapper up of anything collectible that wasn’t actually nailed down or guarded by enraged wolverines. An old acquaintance of mine, but not what you could call a friend. I don’t think the Collector had friends any more. They got in the way of his collecting. A portly middle-aged man with a florid face, the Collector was currently wearing a stylish dark blue blazer with white piping, and a large badge on his lapel bearing the number six. He was crouching inside a strange contraption that hovered uncomfortably close above my head. It looked like an overcomplicated climbing frame, made up of long quartz-and-crystal rods that sparked and shimmered against the night sky. The whole framework couldn’t have been more than ten feet wide, but there was something more to it, as though it extended away in more than just the usual three dimensions. The air was thick with the smell of discharging ozone. -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

The Collector reached down out of his contraption and grabbed the collar of my trench coat. He hauled me up into the framework with him, and immediately I could move again. I grabbed at the nearest rods to steady myself, and they squirmed unpleasantly in my grasp as though they weren’t fully there. I wasn’t entirely sure whether I might have been dragged out of the frying pan and into the fire. The Collector has always been famous for not being on any side but his own. Below us, Lilith was slowly turning her head to look in our direction.

“Shit,” said the Collector, “the field’s collapsing. Brace yourself, Taylor, we are out of here!” -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

The contraption responsible for this field of stopped time is stated to have been made from 4-D technology, yet Lilith destroys it with nothing but a scream of outrage:

He wrapped both his plump hands around a control like a fragmented crystal flower, and the whole structure tilted sideways through space. Time Tower Square disappeared abruptly as we spun round and round, dimensions of space snapping in and out of focus. I tried closing my eyes, but it didn’t help. I was sensing the movement on some basic spiritual level, and my stomach really hated it. I clung desperately to the crystal rods, which seemed to be deliberately trying to slip out of my grasp. I could still hear Lilith’s voice, screaming No… in a howl that seemed to go on forever. The crystal contraption actually buckled under the force of her rage, and solid crystal rods cracked and shattered. The Collector fussed over his controls, swearing and blaspheming, and suddenly the whole device crashed to a halt, and I fell out of it into Strangefellows bar. -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

I looked across at the Collector, who was walking round and round his crystal contraption and cursing loudly as bits fell off it. He actually chattered with rage and kicked spitefully at the pieces on the floor.

“Bloody thing! I’ll never get another one like this! Not after the extra security they’ve installed since my last visit… This trip had better have been worth it, Henry!”

Walker strolled over to pat him soothingly on the shoulder. “Leave strategy to me, Mark. You know I’ve always been the devious one. You never did explain. What is this thing, exactly?”

“Well, originally it was a four-dimensional climbing frame for really gifted children in the thirtieth century. I acquired it when no-one was looking, and adapted it for interdimensional travel. Not as accurate as some of my other Time travel mechanisms, but just basically weird enough to sneak in and catch Lilith by surprise. And now look at it! I’d better get compensation for this, Henry.” -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

Lilith can ignore magical defenses that have been set in place. Here, she obliterates the Time Tower with a word, ignoring the numerous magic protections surrounding it:

Lilith cried out a single angry Word, and the whole stone structure blew apart, until there was nothing left of the Time Tower save a pile of smoking rubble. Lilith glared at what she’d achieved, shaking with effort and reaction, while her army watched carefully to see what would happen next. In the end, it was clear that Old Father Time was either dead or trapped. Either way, he wouldn’t be coming out to obey Lilith’s wishes, so she spat and cursed, turned on her heel and led her army on to other ventures. -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

For reference, the Time Tower's defenses are believed to be capable of withstanding the destruction of the entire world:

It was clear from his voice that he didn't intend to discuss the matter any further, so I turned away and studied the Time Tower. It didn't look like much, just a squat stone structure of maybe three storeys, brooding ominously over a backwater square. The few people passing by gave it plenty of room, though. The Tower had serious layers of protection to ensure that only Old Father Time had control over Time travel. It was said by some, and believed by many, that you could blow up the whole world and the Time Tower would still be standing there, unaffected. Most people couldn't even find the place if they approached it thinking bad thoughts. -Paths Not Taken

----

The Time Tower was also "brought" to the Nightside by Old Father Time himself, implying that he's the one responsible for the protections surrounding it:

----

'Time travel," the sphere said suddenly, and we both jumped a little. The artificial voice sounded distinctly smug. "A fascinating subject, with more theories than proven facts. You probably have to be able to think in five dimensions to appreciate it properly. We won't talk about Timeslips, because their very existence makes our head hurt, and we don't even have a head. The only reputable source for controlled travel in Time is the Time Tower. Which is not natural to the Nightside. Old Father Time brought it here from Shadows Fall, just over a hundred years ago, saying only that he thought it would be needed for Something Important."

"Shadows Fall?" said Cathy, frowning.

"An isolated town in the back of beyond, where legends go to die when the world stops believing in them," I said. "A sort of elephants' graveyard for the supernatural. Never been there myself, but apparently it makes the Nightside look positively tame. And boring."

"I'll bet they have great clubs there," Cathy said wistfully. -Paths Not Taken

----

(We'll get to Old Father Time himself on another date)

An undead Merlin confirms that his magic protections can't keep her out for good:

“Can you stop her?” said Julien Advent.

Merlin ignored him, his fiery gaze fixed on me. “The protections I have set in place around this bar won’t keep her out forever. She’ll be here, very soon now. And if she finds me in my present condition, she’ll strike me down with a look and a word and laugh while she does it. And then she’ll take you over, John, make you her puppet, and use your gift as though it were her own. Just as she’s planned from the very beginning.” -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

For reference, even while undead and severely weakened, Merlin's protections (which are powered directly by his magic) operate "on more than one level of reality":

I looked around. "Where are the Coltranes? I could use a little extra muscle."

"I already sent them home," said Alex, reluctantly fixing our drinks. I had a large wormwood brandy, Sinner had a Malvern water, Pretty Poison insisted on a Manhattan, complete with little umbrella, and Madman wanted a pile-driver—which turned out to be vodka with prune juice. Alex actually winced as he served it, and we all winced as Madman drank it. I nursed my drink and considered the bar thoughtfully. Strangefellows at least had the advantage that it was terribly difficult to get into unnoticed. The bar was surrounded by all kinds of protective wards, on more than one level of reality, powered directly by Merlin Satanspawn's magic. If nothing else, we should get plenty of warning of any attack. -Hex and the City

----

It requires all of undead Merlin's power just to maintain his protections and prevent Lilith from even ''noticing'' what's going on in Strangefellows:

“You have to do something,” said Merlin, his voice just a harsh rasp. “And you’d better do it soon. My defences are under constant attack. I don’t know how much longer I can maintain them.”

I looked round. I’d actually overlooked the ancient sorcerer, sitting slumped and alone at a table in the corner. He looked very old and very tired, even for a fifteen-hundred-year-old corpse. His grey face was slack, the crimson flames barely stirring in his empty eye-sockets.

“Keeping Lilith out, holding her off, is taking everything I’ve got,” Merlin said, not even looking at me. “It’s draining me dry, Taylor. I need my heart. There’s still time. Find my stolen heart for me, bring it here, and put it back in my chest, and I could be a Power again. I could bring myself back to life, wrap myself in glory, and go out to face Lilith head to head.” -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

I looked back at Merlin. “Open a door for me, between here and there. I need to talk to my father.”

The dead sorcerer scowled at me. “If I remove my concentration from the bar’s defences, even for a moment, Lilith will know what’s happening here.”

“Let her,” I said. “All that matters now is getting these three old friends back together. So they can put right their old wrong.” -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

She easily ignores the magical defenses of the Necropolis, tearing open a hole between the Nightside and the dimension housing the Necropolis' graveyard:

Raging mad at being mocked and outmanoeuvred by Walker, Lilith transported herself and all her great army straight to the Necropolis. The main building was barricaded, boarded up, and rendered positively indistinct behind a dozen layers of magical defences, but Lilith ignored them. She tore the air apart with her bare hands, breaking all the barriers set between this world and that of the Necropolis’s private cemetery. Nothing was hidden from her, and nothing was safe. The final barrier screamed as it went down, and the cobbled street in this world split from end to end. Through the ragged tear Lilith had made in reality, the grim and grey world of the Necropolis graveyard could clearly be seen. Long streamers of fog drifted out. Lilith gestured sharply for her followers to stay put and stalked forward into the private cemetery. -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

She raises every dead body in the graveyard, ignoring the magical protections explicitly designed to prevent such a thing. She also blows one of them up with a snap of the fingers:

Lilith walked among the graves, glaring about her, and finally stopped and stamped her bare foot impatiently. When she spoke, her voice cracked like a whip on the still and silent air.

“You can all stop lying around, right now! I want every single one of you up and out of those graves, and standing here before me! Why should you lie quietly, when there is work you could be doing for me? Up, now! And the Devil help anyone who dares to keep me waiting!”

She snapped her colourless fingers, and immediately every grave and mausoleum gave up its occupant. They stood in endless rows, in the good suits and gowns they’d been buried in, looking around them in a confused sort of way. Even I was shocked, and not a little impressed. There were major spells defending the private graveyard, but to a Power like Lilith, Life and Death were very similar states.

It had to be said, the returned from the dead didn’t look at all happy about their new condition. They’d paid good money in advance, precisely to avoid being disturbed from their rest like this. But they still had enough sense not to argue with Lilith. Even those who had been major players in their day knew better than to cross the ancient and terrible Power standing before them.

“These are your orders,” she said crisply. “I want all of you out of here, and back in the Nightside. Snip, snap, no dawdling. Once back in your home territory, you are to kill every living thing you see and destroy everything in your path. No exceptions. Any questions?”

One man raised his hand. Lilith snapped her fingers again, and the reanimated man exploded into a thousand twitching pieces.

“Any more questions?” said Lilith. “I just love answering questions.” -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

For the record, we're talking about ''centuries'' worth of dead bodies, all of them now enslaved by Lilith's will:

The ranks of the returned dead streamed through the streets of the Nightside, falling upon every living thing they encountered. Some of them with more enthusiasm than others, but all of them bound to Lilith’s will. They couldn’t be hurt or stopped, and their sheer numbers overwhelmed any and all defences. A hell of a lot of people had died in the Nightside, down the centuries. -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

Lilith can send things to Heaven and Hell:

There were those who still had the guts to fight. The Demonz street gang, minor demons who claimed to be political refugees from Hell, poured up out of their nightclub the Pit to defend their territory. Eight feet tall, with curling horns on their brows and cloven hoofs, scarlet as sin and twice as nasty. The reanimated dead stopped in their tracks. They knew real demons when they saw them. Lilith just laughed at the Demonz, said Children shouldn’t stray so far from home, snapped her pale fingers, and sent all the Demonz back to Hell again. -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

The two former angels surged forward, to stand between the Authorities and Lilith, their power shimmering on the air around them like a heat haze. Lilith smiled at them and said Go home, and the light and dark figures both disappeared in a moment, banished from the material planes by the sheer force of her will. I had a good idea where she’d sent them, and I doubted either of them could expect much of a welcome back. -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

She walked in glory down the Street of the Gods, treading the air high above the conflict that surged back and forth, while lesser beings raged beneath her. Wherever she passed, churches and temples and cathedrals juddered and shook themselves to pieces, and were swallowed up by the ground breaking apart beneath them. Lilith was sending them all to Hell, by the direct route. Gods and followers caught within these sanctuaries, too scared to come out and face Lilith, died screaming. -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

Lilith's ignited presence can mind control other beings. It takes John hiding behind his absolute strongest mental shields for him to resist this:

Her presence ignited, filling the whole room, vast and overwhelming. I had to look away, retreating behind my strongest mental shields, while the ten most powerful men in the Nightside, and therefore the world, fell to their knees and went to Lilith on all fours, like swine before a goddess. Walker started forward. I grabbed him by the arm and hustled him towards the invisible door. He found the key and opened the door, his hand steady even though his face was torn with conflicting emotions. I looked back, briefly.

Lilith laughed, to see the high-and-mighty Authorities cringe and fawn at her colourless feet. “Why, you’re so cute! I could eat you up… but I think you’d probably make me sick. Fortunately, my children have far more robust appetites…”

She laughed again, as her horrid offspring surged forward. I pushed Walker through the door, following him into the relative safety of the Club’s lobby. As the door swung slowly shut behind us, I looked back one last time. And saw Lilith’s monstrous children fall upon the screaming Authorities and tear at them hungrily, like wolves let into the fold. -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

Lilith can build a geas inside of someone's mind and soul that allows her to control them at any time:

“I won’t do it,” I said. I tried to look away from her, from her deep dark eyes, and couldn’t. “I won’t do that!”

“You don’t have any choice, sweetie. I decided your fate before you were even born, working on you while you were still forming in my womb. All through the first few years of your childhood, I built a geas deep within your mind, so I’d be able to use it in this place, on this day. A geas to bend your will to mine. That’s why you’ve never been able to remember your early years with me. It became necessary for me to leave the dear bosom of my family before I was quite finished with you, but there’s enough there to do the job. I can see it, squirming deep in your mind, wrapped around your soul.” -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

Much like angels, Lilith possesses matter manipulation. She can vaporize other beings with a glance:

Some tourists made the mistake of pressing forward, with their cameras and camcorders. Lilith just looked at them, and they died screaming, with nothing left to mark their presence save agonised shadows, blasted into the brickwork of the buildings behind them. -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

The prophesiers of doom, those persistent grey creatures with their hand-made signs saying the end is nigh seemed most put out. They hadn't seen this coming. Lilith smiled at them.

"You are all redundant now. I am the End you have been waiting for."

More shadows, blasted into crumbling brickwork, more fading echoes of startled screams. -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

Lilith can see time itself.

"So," she said finally. "Alone at last. I thought they'd never go. You are humans. Not quite what I was expecting."

"We're what humans will be," I said. "We're from the future."

"I thought you must be," said Lilith. "Without the angelic presence to mask it, you're dripping with Time. Thousands of years of it, I'd say. Why have you come such a long way to be here, speaking a language you shouldn't be able to understand, knowing things you shouldn't know?" -Paths Not Taken

----

She can drain the life from any beings she's given birth to:

She rose suddenly out of her Throne and surged forward inhumanly quickly to grab my face in both her hands. I cried out, in shock and pain and horror. Her touch was cold as knives, cold as death, and the endless cold within her sucked the living energy right out of me. I grabbed her wrists with both my hands, but my human strength was nothing next to hers. She smiled as she drained the life out of me, and into her. Smiled with those dark lips and those dark, dark eyes.

"I gave you life, and now I take it back," she said. "You will make me strong again, my son." -Paths Not Taken

----

The Splendid opened his perfect mouth to protest further, and Lilith reached out and touched him lightly on the forehead. He cried out in shock and horror as his life energy was ripped right out of him, to feed Lilith's endless hunger. She sucked him dry in a moment, watching calmly as he crumpled and shrivelled up before her, all his power nothing more to her than a drop in her ocean. The Splendid blinked out and was gone, as though he had never been. Lilith smiled about her.

"Just a little illustration of my mood, so everyone knows where they stand. I may be your mother, but I won't abide over-familiarity. Now, where are those who banded together to betray me, so very long ago? To banish me from my own creation? Step forward, that I might look upon your faces once again." -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

"You! This is all your fault! See what has become of me! Look at what driving you out did to me!"

"I see it," Lilith said calmly. "Fair punishment, I'd have said, for a traitor and a fool."

"It was necessary," said the Carrion in Tears, but it sounded tired, as though repeating an old, worn-out argument. "And now you're back, and it was all for nothing. I told them, but they wouldn't listen… Kill me if you want. I don't care. I was beautiful once, and adored… I don't recognise this Nightside. You won't either. It's all changed. It's moved on and left us behind."

"Killing you would be a mercy, in your current state," said Lilith. "But what the hell. Don't say I never did anything for you."

She absorbed all its living energies in a moment, then made a moue of distaste with her night-dark mouth as the Carrion in Tears vanished into her. "Nasty," she said to the silent crowd. "But I promised myself that I'd kill all of my old enemies who survived, and I always keep my word. Now, step forward, my children. The original productions of my young and lusty flesh." -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

She called for them by their original names, and again there was a long pause. Finally, a mere handful of Beings made their way to the front of the crowd to face their long-forgotten mother. First was the Harlequin, who knelt before her in his chequered finery and bowed his masked head to her.

"I am here, mother dear, though much-changed by time and circumstance. I allowed myself to be shaped by fashion and fad, but still I survive, and still I dance. I would like to think that you could still see something in me that you would recognise."

"I change, too, when I must," said the Incarnate, bowing elegantly to Lilith. He was young and pretty, dressed in an immaculate white suit of impeccable cut, his noble face attractively androgynous under a white panama hat. "The details change, but I go on, worshipped and adored. At present I am a pop sensation, singing for my supper, and teenage girls worship my image on their bedroom walls. I am the Thin White Prince, and they love my music and they love me. Don't you, my little doves?"

A pack of fierce young girls surrounded him, dressed just like him, their overly made-up faces sullen and aggressive. You could see in their faces that he was more than life itself to them, and they would die for him in a moment. Some actually spat and hissed at Lilith, sensing a threat to their beloved idol. The oldest of them couldn't have been more than fifteen.

"I know," said the Thin White Prince. "But one takes one's adoration where one can find it."

And finally, there was Bloody Blades. He crouched uncertainly before Lilith, snorting and quivering, held in place by ancient instinct. He was huge and hairy, with hooves and horns and terrible clawed hands. He stank of sweat and musk and uncontrolled appetites. He glowered at Lilith with stupid, crafty eyes, attracted by her femininity but cowed by the sheer power he sensed in her.

"There's not much left of Bloody Bones," said Harlequin. "He's been reduced to a purely animal nature, a god of wild actions and transgression without conscience. There are always men and women ready to worship the beast within. There are those who say he did this to himself, quite deliberately, to free his needs and appetites from the tyranny of reason."

"How very depressing," said Lilith. "From all the thousands who spilled from my fecund loins, only three remain? And all of you so much less than I made you to be."

She killed them all, contemptuously, sucking in their life energies, then murdered all of the Incarnate's child followers with a casual wave of her hand, just to be thorough. Her power beat on the air like a storm that sweeps all before it, and the assembled crowd quailed under her cold gaze. -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

Lilith can "hack" into magical items:

I took out my Membership Card, activated it, then almost dropped the bloody thing as Lilith’s face looked out of the Card at me.

“Hello, John,” she said. “My sweet boy. My own dear flesh and blood. I haven’t forgotten you. I’ll come for you soon, then you’ll be mine, body and soul, forever and ever and ever.”

I shut down the Card, and her face disappeared. I was breathing hard, as though I’d just been hit. Suzie and Tommy were looking at me, and I realised they hadn’t heard a thing.

“Bad news,” I said. “We’re going to have to do this the hard way.” -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

Lilith, from abroad, opens up a portal to another realm in front of Razor Eddie that sprouts tentacles and drags him into it by force:

And then I swear I heard my mother’s voice, abroad in the night, speaking Words of Power from a language so ancient it predated any human tongue or meaning. A trapdoor opened up in the pavement right in front of Razor Eddie, a hole in our world, a door to somewhere else. Long tentacles with crocodile hide and suckers like barbed mouths shot up out of that other place and wrapped themselves around Razor Eddie. He cut viciously about him with his razor, but for every tentacle he severed a dozen more burst up through the trap-door. They finally whipped around both his arms, pinioning them to his sides, then they dragged him down into the hole, out of our world and into theirs. He never cried out, not once. The trap-door slammed shut, and Razor Eddie was gone. -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

Lilith can open portals leading to and from the Outside, as a means of traveling wherever she pleases:

But almost immediately another presence forced its way into the bar, slamming through Merlin’s defences. A door appeared in a wall where there had never been a door before, a ragged hole in the brickwork like a mouth or a wound, and stretched out beyond it was a narrow corridor, impossibly long. It led off in a direction I couldn’t identify, which had nothing to do with left and right, up and down, that my mind couldn’t deal with or accept, except simply as Outside. And down that awful corridor, slowly but inexorably, a single figure came walking. It was too far off in that unacceptable distance to see clearly, but I knew who it was, who it had to be. Lilith knew what we were up to, and she was coming to stop us. -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

Lilith mimicks the powers and physical appearance of Lady Luck, a Transient Being who embodies the concept of luck:

And then all the conversation in the clearing stopped abruptly, and all the animal noises from the jungle died away. It was like the world was holding its breath. There was a soft gentle sound, like wind chimes caressed by a breeze, and Lady Luck came striding out of the jungle and into the clearing. She was slender and elegant, her every movement almost painfully graceful, wearing a long, shimmering, silver evening gown that matched her eyes. She had delicate Oriental features, with long, flat black hair, and a small mouth with very red lips. She looked right at me, and her mouth stretched suddenly into a smile to die for. She came out of the jungle darkness like a dream walking and headed right for my table. As she left the trees behind, the branches burst spontaneously into flower, or withered and cracked apart. Sometimes both. As she walked between the tables all the cutlery turned to solid gold. A blind man could suddenly see, and another man slumped forward, dead of a heart attack. And suddenly everyone in Rick's Cafe had an apple in their hand.

Everyone smiled at Lady Luck and reached out to touch her, but she avoided them. Some looked away. Some brandished magical charms at her. She ignored it all with aristocratic calm. People craned their heads, trying to work out whom she'd come to see. Lady Luck only ever appeared in person to the very fortunate, or the soon to be damned. Often called on, but rarely made welcome when she deigned to show up. And then she stopped at my table, and everyone else started breathing easily again.

Lady Luck sat down opposite me without waiting to be asked, on a chair that appeared out of nowhere just in time. She smiled once at Cathy, who grinned back foolishly, dazzled, then Lady Luck gave me her full attention. By now I was almost supernaturally alert, checking for any sudden changes in myself or Cathy, or our immediate surroundings, but it seemed Lady Luck had grown tired of showing off. I didn't relax. The most beautiful ones are always the most dangerous. I knew my fair share of magics and tricks, including a few I wasn't supposed to know even existed, but I had nothing that could hope to stand off a Being as powerful as Lady Luck. So, when in doubt, bluff. I gave her my best confident smile, met her silver gaze calmly, and hoped like hell I could talk my way out of this. It didn't help when Cathy suddenly threw off the glamour that had dazzled her and looked like she was about to dive under the table or try and hide in my pockets. She knew a real threat when she saw one. Attracting the attention of the gods is rarely a good idea. -Hex and the City

----

"So you're an actual Transient Being," said Sinner. "Wow. I'm impressed. Really. It's not often we get to see one of your station in the flesh these days. In fact, I was under the impression that you only appeared once in a Blue Moon."

"I'm here for a reason," said Lady Luck, still looking only at me.

"Yes," Madman said abruptly. "You are. But you're not Lady Luck. You're not even a Transient Being." We all looked at him. His face was white and strained, with blotchy patches of colour, but he seemed entirely rational. "I know you, Lady. I have Seen you before."

"So you have," said the woman who wasn't Lady Luck. "Poor thing." She smiled graciously at him, and he winced, raising his hands as though to protect himself. Her voice was calm, perhaps a little regretful, as she turned her gaze and her smile on me again. "I'm sorry to have deceived you, John, but if you'd known who you were really working for, you wouldn't have taken the case."

She dropped the glamour that surrounded her, and the sweet and delicate Oriental disappeared, replaced by a new vision. Madman shrank back against the bar, horror stamped on his face. Even in his confused state, he still Saw more deeply than the rest of us. He looked away, squeezing his eyes shut and whimpering. By now the woman looked entirely different. She was tall and thin, with colourless skin and jet-black hair, eyes, and lips, like a black-and-white photograph. Her face was sharp and pointed, with a prominent bone structure and a hawk nose. Her mouth was thin-lipped and somehow subtly too wide, and her dark eyes were full of a fire that could burn through anything. She was still wearing the shimmering silver dress, but on this new her it looked more sinister than stylish.

"Hello, John," she said, in a deep, smooth voice like bitter honey. "I'm your mother." -Hex and the City

----

Like angels, demons and other such beings, Lilith can shut off people's powers with ease:

He started to shake and tremble, then to cry, and the bar and all the things and people in it began to shake along with him. It was as though an earthquake had hit the place. Tables and chairs danced and clattered on the juddering floor. The walls bowed in and out, the solid stone flexing unnaturally. Strange colours came and went, and sounds that made no sense. Distance became uncertain and unreliable, and things were both close and far away at the same time. Directions changed without warning. Madman's hold on reality was weakening again, and reality around him weakened as well. Merlin's great oak tree slammed back into the bar again, taking up the middle of the room; and then it was a tower built of stained and discoloured bones; and then it was gone again. Cracks crawled jaggedly across the floor, opening wide to show vast watching eyes. I could hear things scuttling across the outer walls of our perception. Things that wanted in.

"That's enough of that," Lilith said sharply.

And just like that, everything was still and normal again. Madman's projected unreality was immediately suppressed, the bar snapping back into sharp focus as Lilith's super-presence stabilised the world, and him. He stopped shaking and crying, and a little colour actually seeped back into his cheeks. Lilith looked at him thoughtfully.

"You Saw what mortal man was never supposed to See. Was not designed to cope with. Let me take the knowledge away from you, so that you can be ignorant and happy again."

"No," Madman said firmly, surprising us all. "Even a bitter truth is better than a comfortable lie."

"But the truth is killing you," said Lilith.

"No," said Madman. "I'm adapting."

Somehow, that thought was even more worrying. -Hex and the City

----

This particular feat is notable, because Madman (or Sigismund the Mad Mathemagician, as he is later called) had reality-altering powers potent enough to actually diminish her avatar enough for John to force her out of Strangefellows, as well as strip all of Walker's remaining high-end magicians of their powers, silence Walker's Voice, and heal a knife wound in John's back while simultaneously erasing the knife itself:

And then Madman, perhaps inspired by the revelations he'd witnessed, came strolling out from behind the bar, and everyone turned to look at him. He laughed suddenly, and it was a rich, sane sound.

"When reality becomes unbearable," he said calmly, "change reality."

All his strength and power focussed through his will, and rushed out into the bar, enforcing his vision of reality on everything. All the remaining combat magicians cried out as their magics were stripped from them, leaving them defenceless. Walker staggered back, his Voice silenced. The knife in my back disappeared, along with the damage it had done. Madman turned his uncompromising gaze on Lilith, and she put up a hand as though to defend herself.

Not all of Madman's power, even focussed through his new-found will, could undo Lilith; but it did diminish her. She wavered, uncertain for the first time. Her power clashed with his, as he strove to drive her away, and she struggled to remain. For a long moment the stalemate held; and then I used the last of my power to find the door through which she'd entered Strangefellows, and pushed her back through it.

She disappeared, but her voice whispered a last message in my mind.

"I'll see you again, John. My son, in whom I am well pleased. We have such marvellous work ahead of us." -Hex and the City:

----

Lilith no-sells Walker's Voice, then shuts it down with a laugh:

"Stand where you are," said Walker, and his words thundered on the air. He was using the Voice the Authorities had given him, that could not be denied by the living or the dead. "Surrender yourself to me, Lilith, and do no more harm."

Lilith laughed at him, and the Voice's power shattered on the air like cheap glass. "Don't be silly, Henry. Your Voice was only ever designed to work on the things of this world, and I am so much more than that. Run away, dear Henry, and hide until I come for you. I have a special reward in mind for you. You will worship me, and love me, and I will make you immortal in some more pleasing shape, so that you can sing my praises for all eternity. Won't that be fun?" -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

Lilith can intercept and redirect time travel:

We looked out into the street again. "Judging by the architecture, I'd say we've ended up somewhen in the sixth century," said Tommy. "The Roman Empire has declined and fallen, and the dominant Celts are fighting a war against invading Saxons." Suzie and I looked at him, and he bristled. "I've read a lot about this period. It's really very interesting."

"I don't care if it's downright fascinating, we shouldn't be here," said Suzie. "We're at least five hundred years short of when we were supposed to arrive. Somebody screwed up."

"It can't be a mistake," said Tommy. "Old Father Time doesn't make mistakes. In fact, he is famous for not making mistakes."

"He didn't," I said. "Somebody else interfered." -Paths Not Taken

----

"I take it we are still in the Nightside?" Suzie said suddenly. "I mean, for all we know this kind of shit is normal in the sixth century."

I pointed up at the night sky. Even through the drifting smoke, the crowded constellations of brilliant stars still burned like diamonds in the dark, and the oversized full moon looked down like a huge unblinking eye.

"All right," said Suzie. "Let's be logical about this. Who is there, powerful enough to intercept a journey through Time? Powerful enough to override Old Father Time himself and send us here? That's got to be a pretty short list."

"Just the one," I said, feeling the anger pulse briefly again. "Lilith. Dear Mother. I should have known she'd be watching me. I think perhaps ... she's always watching me now." -Paths Not Taken

----

Lilith directly intercepts John the moment he tries using his gift on her, overpowering him:

I fired up my gift, driving it ruthlessly with the last of my will, and used it to find the link between my mother and me. The physical, mental, and magical connections between a mother and her only son. A trick I’d used before, to drain the life energy right out of her.

But when I reached out through the link, she was right there waiting for me. Her will slammed through the link, slapping me aside, monstrously strong and utterly overpowering. I cried out and fell to my knees as she drained the life energy out of me, despite everything I could do to stop her. She smiled down at me.

“You didn’t really expect to catch me with the same trick twice, did you? Not when I’ve had so many years to think about this day, this moment, planning it all down to the very last detail… Poor boy. This isn’t your story, John; it’s mine. Time to start your makeover, I think. And then what fun we’ll have, tearing down everything you ever believed in. Open wide and say aaah!, John. It’ll only hurt for a moment…” -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

The rogue vicar Pew tries to exorcise Lilith with the same words that Jesus himself used on Legion. She just laughs at him:

Pew's head snapped round in her direction, and he stabbed a finger right at her before launching into a long, angry incantation. I recognised some of it, from old parchments and forbidden books. It was an exorcism, and a very old one, in Aramaic and Latin and corrupt Coptic. The old words hammered on the air, full of significance and power, and Lilith laughed at them. Pew broke off, confused.

"I know that song," said Lilith. "It's the exorcism the Christ used against the possessors called Legion, who ended up in the Gadarene swine. But I am much older than that, and such bindings have no power over me." -Hex and the City

----

An undead Merlin tries to stop her, only for his magic to have no effect:

Merlin came forward to stand before the corridor, staring down it and blocking the way. He looked… smaller, diminished. He raised his dead grey hands, already spotted with decay, and traced vivid shapes on the air, living sigils that spat and shimmered with discharging energies. He forced old and potent Words out of his ruined mouth, summoning up ancient forces and terrible creatures with the authority of his terrible name, but nothing happened. The Princes of Hell were more afraid of Lilith than they were of him. Merlin tried to open up interspatial trapdoors under Lilith’s feet, to drop her into some other, dangerous dimension, that she’d have to fight her way back from…but Lilith just walked right over them, as though they weren’t there. And perhaps for her, they weren’t. She was Lilith, imprinted on the material world by an effort of her own will, and he was only a dead sorcerer. Step by step she drew nearer, smiling her awful smile, despite everything Merlin could do to stop her, or even slow her down. And, finally, she stepped out into the bar, and the corridor disappeared behind her, the wall just a wall again. -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

Lilith's mere presence within the material world is gradually causing all of the possible futures to narrow down to one, inevitable future:

"Talk to me about possible futures," I said. "How real are they? How definite? How can you tell... the likely ones?"

"You can't," said Time. "They're all equally real, and therefore equally possible." He was still striding along, not looking back. "However... That isn't as true as it used to be. There don't seem to be as many futures as there once were. As though one particular future is becoming increasingly probable. More and more powerful, replacing all the others. As though ... events are conspiring to narrow us down to the one future. Which is fascinating, if a trifle worrying."

"Only a trifle worrying?" said Tommy.

"Oh, these things usually sort themselves out," Time said vaguely. "Except for when they don't." -Paths Not Taken

----

"Lilith's plans threaten all the Nightsides," I said. "Remember what Old Father Time said, about all the possible futures narrowing down, till we end up with the one, inevitable future? That's why we have to do this, Tommy. And I can't do it without your help. Merlin's bound to have set up incredibly powerful defenses, to protect him while he's drunk or otherwise incapable. I can use my gift to find them, but I don't have anywhere near enough power to push them aside or shut them off. But you ... can use your gift to confuse the defenses long enough for us to slip past them and do what we have to do." -Paths Not Taken

----

“There are any number of potential time-lines, possible futures,” said Julien, a little condescendingly. “None of them more certain than any other.”

“Right,” said Dead Boy. “My own car comes from an alternate future that clearly has nothing to do with the one you described.”

“Once, that might have been true,” I said. “But our future, the future our time-line is heading towards, is getting more certain all the time. I’ve… seen things. Signs, portents, details coming true despite everything I could do to avoid them. According to Old Father Time, the number of possibilities for our time-line is narrowing down, steadily decreasing to only one inevitable future.”

“Because of your mother,” said Julien.

“Yes,” I said. “Because of Lilith. She’s such a powerful Being that her mere presence here is enough to overturn the whole apple-cart and rewrite the rules of reality itself.”

I let them consider that for a while, then pressed on. They had to understand the background of my thinking, in order to appreciate what I intended to do. -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

This is exceptionally notable, since it's confirmed later in the series that there are an infinite number of possible futures that exist, with each one being tied to the decisions people make:

“So Walker’s really gone, then?”

“Yes.” I studied him thoughtfully. “Did you know this was going to happen?”

“Not as such. The future’s not set in stone; there are many possible futures. Which one we end up in depends on the decisions we make. -The Good, the Bad and the Uncanny

----

“This is what the world will look like,” I said, “when all the wars are over and done with. This is what you would inherit after your civil war, Your Elven Majesties. But this is only one possible future, one possible Earth. There are many others, a whole infinity of possibilities. Tell them, Arthur.” -A Hard Day's Knight

----

With the help of the descendants of Cain, Lilith created the Speaking Gun from a piece of her flesh and ribcage. It has the power to "uncreate" anything in the setting by speaking its true name backwards, and in Lilith's hands, it also holds the power to recreate (and change the essential nature of) anything in the setting by ''respeaking'' its true name:

“Because she intends to use you to find the Speaking Gun. The most powerful weapon in the world. It was originally created to kill angels and demons, but it can do so much more than that. Lilith will use the Speaking Gun to remake the Nightside in her own image. Return it to what she originally intended it to be, before Humanity infested and perverted it from its true purpose and nature. She was responsible for the Gun’s creation, long and long ago. Adam gave of his rib and his flesh to make Eve, and after Lilith came back up from Hell, having lain down with demons and given birth to monsters, she also gave of her rib and her flesh, to make the Speaking Gun. With the help of Abraxus Artificers.”

“Yeah,” Suzie said suddenly. “That was engraved on the stock of the Speaking Gun; Abraxus Artificers, the old firm, solving problems since the beginning. I’ve always been very good at remembering things, where weapons are involved.”

“Very good,” said my double. “Now shut up and listen, and you might learn something. Abraxus Artificers were the descendants of Cain, the first murderer. How else do you think they could fashion such marvellous weapons of destruction?” My double paused. “You do all realise that I’m talking in parables, representing a far more complicated reality? Good. I shall continue. The Speaking Gun was designed to speak backwards the echoes of the original Word of Creation, which resonates on in everything, giving each separate thing its own true secret name. By speaking this secret name backwards, the Speaking Gun can thus unmake or uncreate anything. But the Speaking Gun could be used, by someone with enough power, someone who gave of their own flesh to make it, to respeak those secret names, and thus change their essential nature. Lilith will use the Speaking Gun to respeak the Nightside, making it over into whatever she wants it to be. Personally, I can’t wait to see what she’s going to do…” -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

The Speaking Gun can erase angels from existence:

He raised his left hand, and in it was the Speaking Gun, poisoning the air with its presence. The angel began to glow, a light so bright it seemed to come from another place entirely. Suzie and I ran for the open door. We clattered down the stairs at full speed, a terrible pressure building on the air behind us. It felt like a storm was coming. It felt like thunder in the blood, and lightning in the soul. We hit the lobby together and kept running. And from far away and close at hand, we heard the awful sound of a single backwards spoken Word. Something screamed, so loudly I thought my head would burst. Suzie and I ran out into the street and kept going, and the whole damned warehouse exploded behind us. The shock wave almost blew us off our feet, but somehow we kept going, and didn’t stop running until we were at the end of the street.

We finally stumbled to a halt and looked back, breathing harshly. The walls of Big Sergei’s Warehouse collapsed slowly inwards, and disappeared in a great outrushing of black smoke. In a moment, there was nothing left of the building except a great pile of rubble.

“Think Eddie got out in time?” said Suzie.

“I think so,” I said. “Razor Eddie’s always been very hard to kill.” -Agents of Light and Darkness

----

Lilith instinctively knows where the Speaking Gun is at all times:

I frowned, as something else occurred to me. “How did you know to find me here? Even I didn’t know I was going to be here.”

She nodded at the flat black case in my hands. “The Speaking Gun called to me. I always know where it is. It is flesh of my flesh, after all, and as such my child, every bit as much as you. It’s your brother, John, in every way that matters. Thank you for bringing it back to me. I have a use for it. Just as I have a use for you.” -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

----

Lilith designed the Speaking Gun so that it couldn't be used against her:

And yet, even under its madness and its rage, I could feel the Speaking Gun yearning for my mother’s touch. It wanted to go to her and nestle in her hand, and do terrible, awful things for her. I gripped the Gun so tightly my whole hand ached, and never once took my gaze off Lilith. She laughed soundlessly at me, and took a step forward. I aimed the Speaking Gun carefully, and pulled the trigger.

And nothing happened.

I tried again and again, but the long canine tooth that served as the Speaking Gun’s trigger wouldn’t budge. I shook the Gun, and even hit it with my other hand, but it did no good. In my mind, I could hear it laughing.

“The Speaking Gun won’t work on me, John,” Lilith said calmly. “It will never operate against the wishes of its creator. Just a little safeguard I had built into it, back at the Beginning. It loves me, you know. It aches to serve me, and make me happy. Such a good son… Unlike you. Give me the Gun, John. It was never meant for you. And in my hands it will respeak your most secret name and remake you into the respectful, obedient son I always intended you to be.” -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

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As you probably know by now, Lilith is John Taylor's mother, and the source of John's gift:

“What brings you up here, sorcerer?” I asked. I kept my voice calm and easy through an effort of will. (First rule of operating in the Nightside—never let them see they’ve got you scared or they’ll walk all over you.) “What brings you up out of your grave, after all these centuries?”

“To tell you things you need to know,” he said, still smiling his unnerving smile. “I know why your mother bestowed only the one gift upon you, when she could have made you one of the greatest Powers in the Nightside. I am old and wise and I know many things I’m not supposed to. Being dead didn’t stop me listening, and learning. Lilith gave you that one gift and no other because she intended to make use of you and it, on her return. Your gift will find for her the one thing that will make possible her control of the whole Nightside.

“I would have thought you’d have worked that out by now. If she could remake the Nightside by will alone, she would have done it by now, don’t you think? But her creation has grown and changed so very much during the long centuries of her absence, become something far greater and more intransigent than she ever intended… Why else would a Power like Lilith need an army to subdue the Nightside?” -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

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John's existence ties Lilith's avatar to reality, preventing her from being banished again:

"I came through, decanted myself into the idealised body I found waiting in their minds, then disappeared, losing myself in the Nightside. Partly because I wanted to walk incognito to see how much things had changed in my absence, and partly to conceal myself from any of my old enemies who might have survived. I was still vulnerable, then. I needed to rebuild my power in peace. After some time, when I was myself again, I chose one of my unwitting summoners, who seemed to have grasped a little of the truth, and—disguised as the woman Fennella Davis—I made a child with him. The child rooted me in this reality, so that I could never be forced out again. I hadn't planned to stick around afterwards, but you were so fascinating, John ... I'd never had a human child before. Flesh of my flesh, spirit of my spirit... I was curious to see how you'd turn out. And I enjoyed playing human. Being mother. Carrying out the role I had originally been intended for ..." -Hex and the City

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The only way to supercede this without finding John and killing him wholesale is to reopen the Babalon Working she imprinted herself upon in order to return to reality, and then physically thrust her avatar back into Limbo where her true form is exiled:

And then, finally, the Babalon Working manifested, and it was glorious indeed. Its presence saturated the whole bar, soaking into everything, making us all unbearably vivid and significant. Strange energies sleeted in from unfamiliar dimensions, as a door left ajar for so long finally swung wide open. I couldn’t see it, but its presence filled my mind, as though someone had pushed back the curtains to give me a glimpse of what lay behind the scenes of the world. Lilith howled with rage and horror as she finally realised what was happening, and tried to attack the three men responsible, but Suzie and Alex and I held her where she was with the last of our strength. Dying as we were, we held her there.

A great wind blew out of Limbo, through the open door, redolent of other realms, other places, then reversed itself, surging back in. It tugged at Lilith, and we let her go. Step by step, fighting it all the way, she was pulled towards the door. She stopped, right on the edge, and would go no further. Someone had to force her back through that door, and go with her into Limbo, to hold the door shut from the other side until the Babalon Working had been properly dismantled and shut down. And that had to be me. Because that was the only way I could be sure that never again would I ever threaten the safety of the Nightside. I swore an oath, to a dying future Razor Eddie, that I would rather die than see the Nightside destroyed because of me; and I meant every word.

But I never got the chance. My father broke away from his friends, grabbed his ex-wife by the shoulders, and sent the two of them hurtling through the open door into Limbo. The door swung shut; and, in the very last moment, my father looked back at me, and smiled.

“For you, John! For my son!”

Lilith’s final scream was cut short as the door to Limbo slammed shut. Without the three to maintain it, the Babalon Working collapsed, and Walker and the Collector quickly shut it down, forever. And that was that. All was still and quiet in Strangefellows. Walker and the Collector stood together exhausted, leaning on each other for support, looking older than their years. Suzie and Alex, no longer in my mind, came unsteadily forward to stand with me. I looked at the place where the door had been, and thought of my father and my mother, together again, for all eternity.

And the things we sacrifice, for love. -Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

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