Savage Divinity

Total Word Count: 38031



"As you will milord." The Other was back to the usual pattern of casual indifference in all things considered. A pause, once more, and then the Other walked away from Lucifer. He watched the Other go, a little tilt to his head, as he watched its progress. Away, away…



"Now then," the King of the Underworld mused, turning once again, looking once again, his hands brushing across the glass, one final time. "Now then, what secrets are you prepared to give, children of white blood? What secrets have you hidden in yourselves that I might find…?"



xxx



"Don\'t struggle. I\'m not going to hurt you." The voice was loud, and it hurt, but not so loud as before, and not so painful as once it might have been. Reson jerked his head anyway, trying for the escape opportunity that consistently did not present itself. "I\'m not going to hurt you," the voice reiterated. "It\'s all right. Shhh…" Over and over, a litany of promise that rang hollowly in his ears until at long last, it wasn\'t ringing anymore, but so much a part of him that he could barely stand it. That voice, in his head –



"Who are you?" he managed to get out, his voice little more than the barest breath across sanded rivers, but sounding to him as painful as gunshots near the ear. It hurt! Silent, then, What are you?

A small chuckle, as if the question had been asked before. He winced from it, his body snapping sharply as a flag jerked by malevolent wind. "You really want to know who I am?" Soft, soft enough so it almost didn\'t hurt. "You really want to know? Trust me, the truth won\'t please you – you won\'t like who I am."



"I can deal with it." The gag had vanished earlier, but try as he might, he couldn\'t remember when it had been taken off. His mouth was sore, and forming words hurt, but he could do it, and that was all that mattered in the present. Let the past take care of itself – let the future do the same. At the moment, all he cared about was the moment.



"I\'m sure you can," the voice purred. He couldn\'t see him, couldn\'t do more than hear him, feel him, perhaps, moving around. "I\'m sure you can," the voice said again, this time closer to his ear. It hurt a bit, but not as much as before. He felt like he was slowly going deaf. His hearing was fading from being able to kill with the sheer force of volume it brought in to below normal, or so it felt like. It was a strange feeling. He wasn\'t sure if he\'d rather have his super sensitized ears or these new ones that felt no pain.



"Who are you?" He hated that it felt like begging, no matter how tough he kept his voice. No matter how hard he sounded, or how self-assured, he knew he was begging for an answer. There was power in knowledge, and knowledge held back. He was at the mercy of this other one, this being who knew too much and cared too little.



Something warm crossed his neck. Warm and wet. He growled. A hand slapped his face. "Be still when I\'m talking to you."



"You aren\'t talking!" Reson protested. His face received another slap for his efforts. Angered now, instead of cowed, Reson snarled, his teeth reaching out and clicking together. Now he missed his ears\' pain, that ability to hear the positioning of an adversary. He couldn\'t pinpoint the other\'s location, couldn\'t find him to hurt him.



Hands crossed his mouth, fingers prying it open, dipping inside, pulling back. It hurt. His lips felt tight, like they were about to rip under the strain. His eyes watered. His skin felt like it would give under the pressure being applied. And by his ear, still that hateful voice, sounding so soft, so perfect. "I am talking. You\'d best remember it." Warmth across his earlobe.

What is he doing? the Vilyte wondered wildly. There were laws against this sort of conduct! There were things that were not supposed to be done! But this stranger didn\'t seem to know – or care – about them. That thought gave Reson pause. If he doesn\'t know about them, he would still suffer punishment. If he doesn\'t care about them, even worse. But if he\'s above the law… Was such a thing even possible? He had to wonder. Were there those who were inescapably powerful, so much so that their sheer power could protect them? Render them untouchable?



The very notion was a frightening one. Reson didn\'t like it. He shook his head, the fingers digging into his gums and drawing the first droplets of blood from him. He was tired already from fighting, and he had barely offered any resistance. The pain was keeping him back. He hated how it felt, how it burned. He wanted it to stop. Wanted it to simply go away…vanish.

But it wouldn\'t!



Get off me, he begged in silence. No use trying to put words to open air; he couldn\'t speak around those hands, holding onto him. Those teeth gnawing at his ear. What was it with this masquerader? Why was he so…different? Trying to think, Reson wondered if this was a Vilyte hybrid of some sort, or one of the Angel-stock…or some other creature entirely.



He had black hair, the Vilyte remembered. Black, like night. And he wore black. And his eyes were solid midnight. That was all he could recall. That and the seductive aura that had seemed so much a part of the stranger that it was impossible to see at first. It was like a poison haze that slowly descended; once one realized what was upon them, it was too late. If one ever got away, one was poisoned forever. There was no getting rid of such a taint.



"Now, let\'s see. You asked me who I was, didn\'t you?" the voice purred into his ear. "If I let your mouth go, will you promise not to speak? I don’t like hurting you."



Resolutely, Reson nodded. He could restrain himself from making sound if the stranger would keep from doing that again. He hated the feel of someone quite so close. The stranger released his mouth slowly, fingers slipping out. It felt like his mouth had been stretched beyond repair. Only a few movements of the skin around his mouth were possible. He tried all of them, struggling to find a happy medium where his body was comfortable. It took some trying for it to happen, but when it did he was satisfied.



"Good boy." It hit him that the stranger had waited for him to finish adjusting, finished being absorbed, before talking again. Whether that was courtesy to him, or a demanding for attention, Reson wasn\'t quite sure. He closed his eyes – not that it made a great difference, being under a blindfold and all, but at least now he wasn\'t trying to fool himself into believing he could see – and listened.



"Good boy." Again, the condescending tone, as if he were a puppet, or a dog, or some other lower form of life. The hands caressed his neck, leaving wet trails of his own saliva. He shivered. "Don\'t fight me," the voice warned, but he wasn\'t. He shivered again, then stayed absolutely still. "Now, listen, listen," the stranger crooned. "I am one you know. I\'m sure you know me. You\'ve heard of me, in your story ballads, if nothing else. They wrote of me. They called me a great hero at one time…"



A great hero? Reson wracked his brain, trying to recall a story song the Song Master had played him that had featured a great hero of any sort. The greatest hero he could recall had been the Son, but that hardly counted; he was one of three of one, not a separate entity in his own right. So, what exactly was this one referring to?



Reson shook his head.



"You don’t understand, hmn?" the voice asked. "Well, then, let me elaborate. You know me. You\'ve heard of me. I believe one of the Archangels wrote a song about me…Uriel, I believe it was. Only, he didn\'t call me a \'great hero.\' No, jealous one that he was, he called me nothing more than what I didn\'t deserve. Traitor."



Traitor? Reson\'s mind flew backwards in time, looking for that moment when he must have heard something. He thought and thought, and Coris\' mind was in his mind, the old Song Master singing a ballad about God and His Son and the end of the world as it once had been, and the song had kept going, going, going –



"Lucifer?"



"There, you do know me." Satisfaction laced that voice. Pure, unadulterated joy, as if he had just been named out of the thousands as a winner of a great prize of some sort or other. It chilled Reson\'s blood.



"You can\'t be," he whispered. "He\'s dead."



"No, not dead," the stranger – the Devil – corrected. "Just…missing. For an extended period of time, the same way my cousin is currently vanished."



"How do you know?"



"That he\'s gone?" A laugh. "It\'s simple, really. We\'re all connected. I know where he is, just as he knows where I am at all times. I was once his subordinate, as you once might have known. Odd things happen though, to deities that forcefully form their own realms within each others\'. We become interrelated; something to do with blood mixing as we fight. You\'d have to ask the Others about it – they understand more than I do.

"In short though, I became the ruler of this place, and it came to me being able to run it on my own. I couldn\'t. I created the Others, because I needed someone to help me. They made themselves into multitudes. They\'re everywhere, if you look for them…" He trailed off.



Reson flinched a bit. "What do you want with me?"



"You sound like He did, back when He walked the earth," Lucifer observed. "He used to talk like that. Don’t revert to the old speaking styles; you\'ll lose me. It\'s much easier to keep up with modern times and modern slang. It makes more sense now to me too. It didn\'t used to, but…pop culture. What can I say?"



Reson had the feeling that the Devil was shrugging. "What do you want?" he asked again, a little sharper this time.



"I thought I\'d made that obvious," came the fluid reply. "No? Well, then I\'ll spell it out for you."