Part 16 (1/2)
”Exactly And eventually, I suppose, the less we cared By then the means had become an end in itself-a way of life, a purpose
”This had already been the case with Satan for some time, but then he had always been a creature of nited a new and unholy fire in us as well I found myself less melancholy and lorify Creator Elohirade and despoil all his favored people in ways unknown before Now there was true pleasure Don't recoil like that”
”I didn't,” I lied
”It's not as though you've never wandered a step-and then ten more, each one easier than the last-down a path you had never thought yourself capable of taking Did you ever once think you'd spend every night of almost four e to realize you were practically broke and still alone?”
I looked away It was not a , the ht stand Or two
”But I' a point”
I retreated intoIt was cold now, a sodden, lopsided heap
”Lucifer is a creature of method Since his first failed attempt to raise his throne and then that business of Job, he had grown allergic to failure Even in the garden of the firstthe hu them like exotic creatures in their habitat He is the master of risk reduction Never i time in the darkness of his heart The Great Inventor th on his craft, always the innovator It is the reason he so rarely fails
”Now at last was a venture worthy of hie so that he craved it to the exclusion of everything else He was insanely preoccupied, shut up like a scientist in his laboratory, a beast pacing behind the arena gate”
I thought Iabout that kind of preoccupation ”And as that challenge?”
”The spirit of the Alhty God himself in the clay body of a man Elohim come to earth Elohim come to earth”
I felt my forehead wrinkle ”So you really mean it when you say he was God Literally God and man” I are of my dubious tone I had always placed Jesus in the echelon reserved for Gandhi, Buddha, Martin Luther King Jr But they were all mortal men
The look on the demon's face perplexed me His lips were parted, turned up in just the hint of a s on ht say next
Nikki, our waitress, stepped in, breaking the taut wire between us I looked away as she refreshed lad for the reprieve, unsure what had just happened between us
When she left, he sat forward again, steepled his fingers ”Clay, what I tell you, I need you to hear If you can't believe it, then consider it a part of the story, and I'll be content with that I would be very content with that, in fact” His smile was a quirk on just one side of his mouth
Of course It only ht now you need to know that this God-, shall we say” He laughed, and the dihter as I had on other occasions When it suddenly and disconcertingly stopped, he considered his hands, turning theh he had not taken the time to examine them until now ”To thwart the son is to thwart the will of Elohioal for Lucifer to stand idly by Too vital to Lucifer's state of mind It was to be the su he meant to tempt God”
”Yes”
”Isn't that impossible?”
”Not entirely” He looked and sounded, to all appearances, like the young scholar He ht have been a seminary student, ruddy cheeked and idealistic ”The clay body was the crux of it No man, no soul in a clay body has ever been immune to temptation In fact, every clay person since the first one had succumbed to temptation at some time or another, had experienced moral failure by El's standards at some point in his or her life But here, suddenly, was the unfathomable combination: the perfection of El in a fallible ether”
”Do you ever see anything redee so then rerouted his response at the last instant ”It's the nature of the vessel, Clay: cracked So that, once ruined, should have been thrown froo And what better way to prove it than to humiliate El with his own failure as one of them? He had chosen chosen to becoht with one hand tied behind his back, well then” He shrugged to becoht with one hand tied behind his back, well then” He shrugged
”When you put it that way, it doesn't seem quite fair”
”He was as h Lucifer was practically foa at the mouth, he chose hisin the desert Until he was hungry There Lucifer exploited his hunger like a general attacking the weakest defense of the enemy He questioned his identity If you are the Son of God, If you are the Son of God, he said He is an expert rhetorician, experienced and so suggestive he said He is an expert rhetorician, experienced and so suggestive Why not turn these stones into bread? Why not turn these stones into bread?
”But the , and he wouldn't be tempted to eat He wouldn't yield to the dictates of his huht of all the tiar By plain hunger By pain, by sleeplessness
”So Lucifer appealed to his pride, taking him up to the top of the temple in Jerusalem If you are the Son of God, If you are the Son of God, he said, he said, throw yourself down throw yourself down It was ingenious” It was ingenious”
”Why is that ingenious? Wasn't he essentially telling hi leap? To die?”
Lucian sht of it that way But no The temple was the one place people expected to see the Messiah And the Host would never have let hiuaranteed in Scripture, and Lucifer knew it You could argue that he was doing the God-man a favor-at least this way people would knoho he was And I heard Lucifer's thought: Let them see him then Let him throw himself down and prove who he is Let them see him then Let him throw himself down and prove who he is”
”But he didn't”
”No His ego held no sway over hi he was God By now Lucifer was showing signs of strain So like a ga He drew the God-erie of nations, against the sky-Babylon and Persia, the government of Rome and commerce of the Mediterranean Spices and olives and wine, fleets of shi+ps, the jealous pride of kings and queens and e, the tabletop shi+ht than the reflected lamps of our corner nook Between the abandoned bowl of bread pudding and his coffee cup, I saw the sun, setting in a dark gold disk As it ypt Then the stalks of wheat were not wheat at all but a field of people A nation of people Lucian's voice wafted toward htywith trade thewith silk, roads pulsing with trade The roads swept beneath me, beneath the surface of the polish, of my bird's-eye view, miles at a tinized pyraurats of an undiscovered west The roads swept beneath me, beneath the surface of the polish, of my bird's-eye view, miles at a tinized pyraurats of an undiscovered west Teotihuacan, city of Gods, Teotihuacan, city of Gods, caold masks, the priests in their robes, arold masks, the priests in their robes, are Lucian had pushed it across the table toward me
”Treasures of the East and fertile lands yet undiscovered, rich in coan and unconquered, of client kings and vassals and doainst black velvet, he showcased the world and all thatto the God-man so splendidly that those of us who had walked the streets and corridors and dwelt in the inner chaht of their collective glory It was the mosaic of all of Eden's wealth And Lucifer offered it all to the God-: fall down and worshi+p Just one, siular act” He looked up at me ”It would have been so easy I knew froood would that have done Lucifer?”
He shook his head ”It was the thing he had always craved and often won-except fro And now El stood a hand's reach away in the body of a s and a human's proclivities We hardly dared breathe For a arden, the sand of the desert as hot under my feet as the rocks of that place had been And I watched froion and surrounded by Host, aspired to the Godhood he craved, his beautiful eyes as covetous as they had been that first day an eternity ago when he cast his aaze wandered He see in the direction of the bar But when I tried to discern what it was, I saw only a cluster of randooers bored hatever was going on upstairs, a ether He see to concern me
I looked frooers more closely They were tomen, possibly sisters; both looked half Asian, one with curly, highlighted hair She sat at the bar while the other leaned against it, turned in our direction The seated one gazed sidelong in what I thought wasat Lucian Figures Figures
”This time there was no violence Clay, listen to me! Our ti” As though I could do anything else! As though I could do anything else! I was fairly certain that whatever he said would return to ardless of how closely I listened I was fairly certain that whatever he said would return to ardless of how closely I listened
”This tih his hair ”This ti the world in exchange for that procla thatthat El do within it Would he sacrifice it so readily for the sake of one dangerous tery in the desert, strained by human flesh? Yes Yes, I kneould And it would be Lucifer's best and greatestin colanced over his shoulder
Sodo El's so-called son a fraud, a s as the rest of the over his shoulder