Post by thefangedrose on Oct 15, 2023 19:18:39 GMT -8
Disclaimer
This series contains elements of a supernatural nature and will play a parody of the Judao-Christian faith. It is not meant to be mocking or subversive and is simply done for a creative outlet.
You. Were. Warned.
The supernatural elements of this storyline were not always present. “The Pact” is a concept that kept Jesse’s original “Walk the line” idea alive while honoring that none of them had these “” abilities” five years ago.
Hope you enjoy it.
I give you Chapter 8!
Civil War 2
Chapter 8
“The Sarcophagus & The Sins”
Location: Reddick, Florida
Date: September 29th
Time: 11:39 PM
Michael stood at the window of the modest house on the hill in Reddrick staring out the window in silence. He leaned slightly on the white oak cane in his right hand. The other hand reached up to run his fingers through the now short dirty blonde hair.
He wasn’t sure about his new look but understood its need.
They were more than three days late now and he found himself growing concerned. There was always a risk when sending people out on assignment like this and this new faction of Lucifer's forces was so strange and new. It was impossible to predict how things would go.
Silk and Shadow had both become restless the day before and had taken to pacing the bottom floor. They had been left with only a lone Demon to see to Michael’s needs and Michael himself..and they found that Rivers was very poor company when he was worried. He had a trend toward broody silence.
When the lights came up over the hill and then dipped down into the ravine leading up to the house Shadow turned to go and tell Michael only to hear the thud of the cane and see him walking down the stairs with an intent look on his face.
Michael crossed the room and came to a stop at the door leading outside as the two vehicles slowed to a stop on the driveway outside. The demon John stepped out of the driver's seat and immediately went toward the rear of the large moving truck.
Maiko stepped out of the passenger seat. Her makeup was smeared and coated in blood. Michael took her in and his eyes narrowed.
“I see you found resistance.”
“That’s putting it mildly Sir.”
Hana answered as she was helped out of the side door of the van. The van itself was littered with large dents on the front driver's side fender and the sliding door which prevented it from fully sliding open.
“Getting it out was bad enough….”
Hana began but the heavy steps of another figure on the gravel driveway revealed the Sins approach.
“The second Lucifer realized it had been taken he sent everything he had.” It explained. “Those huge dogs we saw at the meeting? They stalked us for a day and a half.”
“Were you followed?” Michael asked.
Before anyone could reply Maiko answered by way of a look that just said “Seriously?” and Michael let out the softest little chuckle.
“Dumb question….So, where it is?”
Hana motioned with her head to the truck and John motioned for Michael to follow. Once behind the truck, the door was already up revealing the strange stone sarcophagus that rested inside.
Something strange happened at that moment. While Michael had no memory of this object, no idea what it was or where it had come from a sudden unease fell over him. A nauseous feeling fell into the pit of his stomach and he found himself suddenly filled with dread.
He felt the eyes on him and saw the twin pools of azure blue staring at him from behind the mask of reptilian scales. The look probing but knowing at the same time. As if this thing knew what he was feeling.
And why.
“Close that up.” Michael commanded
“Thy Will Be Done.” John told him and pulled the door closed.
Michael began to walk back toward the house with the others falling into line behind him and the large imposing figure walking beside him. As they crossed the driveway he glanced over at the masked man.
“You owe an explanation.” He told him.
“You did promise us one.” Hana seconded.
“That I did.”
The group entered the house with one of the half dozen plain-clothed demons closing the door behind them as they gathered in the living room. The large masked man sank down onto one of the two old wooden tables in the center of the room, it creaking under his weight as he did.
“The truth is there are things I simply don’t know.” He began. “There are things I know first hand and others I have heard but…large chunks of the story are missing.”
“Then why did you tell us you would tell us after we got it?!” Maiko demanded crossing her arms angrily over her chest.
“....Mother.” Hana whispered in frustration then turned her gaze back to him. “Tell us what you can? We are not used to….being out of the loop.”
It was true and he knew it. The Children o f Nephilim as a force were used to being the ones holding all the cards. The one who knew things months ahead of time. Plans for plans for plans and now they were flying in the dark.
The masked man sat in silence a moment and then ran his hand down the mask blowing out a deep breath.
“Fine. I don’t suppose, considering who you all are, that I need to retell the creation myth.” He began and got no resistance. “Good, Well, they got most of it wrong after that. The way I heard it there was no rebellion. There was no casting out. Lucifer didn’t like humanity sure…he felt they didn’t appreciate his father's greatest creation…this world. But he would never rebel. He was, after all, the Light Bringer. The one made to bring hope and light.”
“And yet….” Maiko snapped motioning around them at their current situation.
“I’ll get there.” He snapped back. “He was chosen to be the one to watch over them here, but of course, he couldn’t do it as he was then. No celestial being can, their very steps would break this world. So a container was designed to place him into. It would leach his excess strength and send it home until the point a body could be made for him to walk amongst them. A protector, hiding in plain sight.”
“That sarcophagus,” Michael said as the chill slipped down his spine.
“Correct.” The masked man agreed. “What happened is a mystery. Something went wrong with the process and we ended up with the entity we are contending with now.”
“Can we use it to end this?” Hana asked
“I don’t know.” The masked man answered with a shrug. “That isn’t why I wanted it.”
“Then you mind getting to the point and telling us why you wanted it?!” Maiko demanded.
The masked man’s eyes slid over to her and then back to the group as a whole without a word. After silence, he looked down at the intel papers and photographs still spread out across the table. He reached out and took a picture of a woman with black vacant eyes with strange infection-looking veins running outwards across her face.
“You need a huge amount of energy to do what he’s doing to these people.” He said waving the picture between two fingers. “A huge amount of energy and a conduit to conduct it. If I had to guess? The place he’s turned into Hell is acting as the conduit and he’s using himself to conduct it.”
“And it weakens him.” Hana agreed.
“So you wanted to take away the option of him using it as a loophole,” The woman with the shoulder-length bleached hair, Sik said with an impressed nod. “Smart.”
“Smart…but wrong.” The masked man said and tapped on the picture with one of the fingers holding it on the eyes and face of the woman. “This? Is a result of trying to put a powerful soul into a struggling living human body. It shreds the soul and kills the body.”
A voice suddenly broke the tension with a single word whispered in dismay. The sleeveless jumpsuit-wearing John looked on from the doorway with a horrified look on his face.
“....Dean….”
It took a moment for all of them to realize what the former demon meant but once they all did all their heads snapped around to look at the man sitting on the table. All of their faces except Michael’s wore the same expression.
Outrage.
“You did that to him didn’t you?!” Maiko demanded. “When you convinced him to free you, whatever the fuck you are. That’s why you don’t bleed!”
“Unintentionally, but yes.” The masked man said softly. “I didn’t expect Lust and Greed to snap back with such force. It shredded his soul to nothingness on impact.”
“That’s the second time you have said that,” Michael told him.
Unlike the others, Michael looked sad. Remorseful at the loss of such a good man. The eyes behind the mask looked over at him and he nodded gently.
“What exactly are you?” Michael asked. “Lust, Greed, Wrath….you have spoken of Envy. Sins…What are you?”
“I am…. necessary.” The masked man answered.
“....Can you save it?” John asked as he choked back a sob. “His soul?”
The eyes behind the mask looked over at the door and gently the head shook.
“That is beyond my capabilities I’m afraid…..” He looked back then at Michael and continued. “But what I am and what happened to Dean Matthews is beside the point. What matters is what that Sacrophagus can do.”
“The hell it is!” Maiko shouted. “He was Our friend! We fight beside you thinking he is inside somewhere, but now you tell us not only is he not but we are fighting beside the thing that killed him?!”
“It can bring you back the Harbinger.” The masked man snapped over the sound of building outrage.
He knew that he was about to lose them. This whole thing was about to fall apart and he could feel it. Those words did exactly what he expected them to do. All of them fell silent, their mouths open and their eyes wide.
“The Harbinger?” Hana whispered. “Xar?”
“Of course not.” The masked man snapped. “Why would I need the Sarcophagus to call her? All you’d need is a cell phone or a GPS tracker.”
“...Danika….” Maiko said in shock. “How?! She’s been dead for years now.”
“The same way he’s making Demons.”
“And end up with a black-eyed demon of my own?” Michael demanded. “No thank you.”
A great sigh came from behind the mask, the exasperation evident by the annoyed and weary look in those icy blue eyes.
“Weren’t you listening?” He asked in a harsh snap. “They turn out that way because he’s trying it with a living human. So we would need…”
And he left the question hanging in the air. Hana and Maiko both looked at one another unsure…even Michael looked a little shell-shocked but behind them, John said clearly.
“A dead one?”
The hand not holding the photo raised and pointed a thumb back at the jumpsuit-wearing former demon.
“She knew more about all of these myths and legends than anyone alive,” Hana added.
“Not to mention how smart she was.” Michael seconded. “She helped build all of this from the ground up.”
“So….” Shadow asked finally looking over at the masked man. “How do we do it?”
“You all act like it's that simple….”
He looked around him and found nothing but expectation in every set of eyes on him. Finally, he shrugged and continued.
“And it would need to be extremely recently deceased.” The masked man told them. “But beyond that? We still need a power source capable of serving to power it.”
“Hell is out,” Michael told them all immediately. “We walk in there and no one walks out.”
“Are there any other options?” Hana asked him.
Michael considered this in silence for a moment tapping the cane he held in his right hand off the floor. He considered, taking a lip between his teeth, and then looked up with a little shrug as if he had given up.
“Only two I can think of.” He told the group. “One is in Salisbury Plain in England but if we tried to take that out of the country there is no way Lucifer doesn’t know about it immediately.”
“And the other?” Maiko demanded.
“A forest in North Carolina.”
The five words caused a low resonating growl to rumble from the chest of the masked man. An unhappy feral sound that showed how unhappy he was about that option. Michael looked over at him with a raised eyebrow.
“You got another option?”
“...If I did I would have provided it.”
“Then that’s where we go,” Michael announced and pushed himself to his feet with the help of his cane. “Everyone rest, we leave at first light.”
The collected former demons followed John into the garage while Maiko, Hana, Shadow, and Silk began to head upstairs while Michael followed behind. He knew that the masked man didn’t sleep….or he had never seen him do so.
While he was on his way up however a hand closed around his wrist. He turned his attention back to look at the hand and followed the arm up to find the man who had once been Dean staring down at him.
“When we arrive in North Carolina? You and I need to talk.” It told him. “Doing this? It will require a great sacrifice of you.”
Michael just looked up at the man in silence before being released and heading upstairs. He had no idea if this would even work but if there was a chance? They needed to take it.
**
Location: Unknown
Date: September 28th
Time: 4:19 PM
The dust had settled, for the most part. The worst of Lord Lucifer’s displeasure at the Sarcophagus being lost could still be seen littered around the room where he stood at the window breathing deeply through his nose with his back turned to the room.
Papers were spread across the room, lying haphazardly everywhere you looked. Broken pieces of furniture were littered around here and there but the most noticeable thing about the room was the lone figure lying prone at its center.
The hulking form of Josie Bridal was lying on her stomach coughing while Remiel was kneeling next to her holding back her hair after what appeared to be a rather violent vomiting episode. Blood and vitriol smoking chunks of what appeared to be sulfur were spread out on the floor in front of her.
“Michael again?”
Lucifer’s voice showed how tightly controlled his temper was at this moment. The very air around him seemed to…tremble…as the words carried through the air.
“I knew I should have gone with them.” The tiny Asian woman in the kimono said from the doorway.
Lucifer waved his hand dismissively and continued to stare out the window.
“They wouldn’t come here.” He mused aloud. “Michael isn’t that stupid.”
“My Lord?” Remiel asked looking up from where she tended to Josie.
For a time Lucifer said nothing and then he finally turned back to face those gathered in the ruins of his office.
“They wouldn’t have taken it unless they intend to use it.”
The lip rings caught the light of the small chandelier as it continued to swing back and forth from the earlier outburst. Lucifer raised a hand smoothing out his dyed blonde hair and then did the same to the lines in his suit.
“Is that a problem Sire?” Sariel asked.
“Michael trying to force me back into his broken shell and lock me away again?” Lucifer whispered in that eerie calm demeaner that had fallen back over him. “Does that sound like a problem Sariel?”
“Yes Sire,” Sara answered bowing her head and then added. “It can do that?”
“And much, much more,” Lucifer warned. “Things they could never imagine.”
A sudden coughing could be heard from the prone figure on the ground before Josie pushed herself up to a knee panting.
“I shall not fail you again Lord Lucifer.” She said, her voice sounding raspy and raw in her throat. “Just tell me where to go.”
Lucifer looked down at her, his expression and face emotionless….then he looked back up at the group.
“There’s half a dozen places you could take it to give it the power it needs to work,” Lucifer told them. “Call them hotspots. Places where the veil between this world and my father’s is the thinnest. Most of them are outside the country…Michael would know if any of them tried to travel we would flag it.”
Lucifer crossed the room to where a map of the U.S. was up on the wall. Little pins littered it here and there showing places where special attention was being given. He however pointed to a spot in western North Carolina.
“The forest here,” Lucifer told them. “The silly little blonde woman child uses its energy without realizing how precious it is.”
Sara looked over at the map and immediately her eyebrows went up.
“That’s….”
“Yes,” Lucifer said with a sinister little smile. “It is.”
“Could it be anywhere else?” Sariel asked looking over at her God. “You know whatever is wearing his face won’t want to go there.”
“So it may not even be there to help them.” Lucifer agreed. “There is nowhere else. This is his only option. We take everyone and hit them with everything we have.”
Sariel gave the smallest of nods and began across the room.
“Pack up. We are visiting The Castle.”
Remiel helped Josie to her feet as Shamsiel fell in line behind Sariel. The other two followed her out leaving Lucifer standing alone in his office. For a time he considered and then followed them out.
This time?
He would ensure it was done right.
"We live in a world gone mad, that's lost control. What doesn't kill us, leaves a hole in our soul."
