Smoke midnight black and oily filled the every corner of the room. A sickly sweet scent, to the point of acridity and stinging to the nostrils, invaded the senses. Four pairs of eyes, bright and with a strange unearthly beauty shone silvery and white from behind the smog, and a voice like distant thunder began echoing in liminal spaces in her mind she could not fully comprehend.

“Raphael was my counterpart when Lucifer, God’s first and magnificent one, was banished to the lower planes for his pride against the Father. “

The entity paused, gentle sounds of roiling smoke, and a lone bell tolling in some unseen space. The bell and the silence was all she could focus on. Would she lose control? She’d heard stories of people, magicians, who’d been consumed and thrown into the proverbial waves when they didn’t have the proper bindings. Her mind raced to stay focused on the ritual. She would succeed.

The voice seeped through phantom cracks in the air itself, hissing like boiling water and cracking glass,

“With his fall, the rest of us followed, whether it was our will or not. My Kin. Belphazor, Azazel, Beelzebub, Mammon. You know our names. Written in places where the eyes of mortals dart to sense our presence as if a mere word on a page might upheave their life. Fret not, your sigils and evocations are sufficient. I see my brother Raphael’s name here, and I am bound by his presence. Gracious is the father, and better triflings have we than to be so enamored with mortal’s frankly completely incorrect feverish dreaming of us. Though the truth would crush your mortal mind, the truth would not set your spirit at unease.”

The talking smoke continued, the eyes in the smoke squinted and looked distant, as if recalling something so bygone and emotionally wracked as if it the event in question which struck it had just happened.

“I remember the skies that day. Witnessed the clouds and pleroma Itself weeping. She who would be called Sophia, and the mask that the Morning Star would come to wear under the name Demiurge. The heartbreak of the Shekhinah. Echoes of that time and the shattering of the Egg into infinite story, beyond time itself, linger in the other realms. Scattered across infinity they play like memories, incomprehensible visions to the mortal children of the Most High. Yet some glimpse the truth. Some see passed the veil and into their true nature in this world my kin and I were cast. But truth is not my station. You already know me well.”

The being paused, and the room grew even thicker with its fog, tendrils and plumes of smoke billowing, threatening to consume her.

“You mortals run by lies. Lies you tell yourself to ease the pain of life. Lies you tend like torturous gardens in an effort to keep yourself for seeing how meager and pathetic you can truly sink to be. Lies you tell that shape events beyond your control.

And it was a lie that brought me to this earthly plane, here with you now. You reek of deception, and it amuses me. Speak your petition and let us be termed to agreeable compensations.”

The smoke settled, and the billowing of the black miasma calmed, all eyes focusing on the now, collapsed on the floor, magician.

She collected herself and stood up, trying her best not to tremble, and to speak with authority, she pointed to the lamen on her chest,

“By the Authority of the Most High, I command thee to keep me company. And as compensation, I will offer you a single glass of wine.”

She’d seen the eyes of friends and lovers with laughter in them before. There was a rage behind the jollity. Inhuman, an amalgam of emotions so pure and present they confused her outright that they could be shown so truly and in harmony with eachother. Maybe this was a part of the threshold beyond humanity, she wondered.

“Would I have your oath that I would be safe if I asked a being like you to spend time with me, listen, and just…hang out?”

There was silence for a time, and the being spoke again

“You drew the holy diagrams, focused your will, drew up on the name of the Most High and called the mighty Raphael to an accord to ask the being known as Asmodeus, the Lord of Lies, to ‘hang out’ with you.”

She couldn’t hear laughter, but some unholy compression was trying to throw her into gut-laughing. She breathed deep and spoke,

“My will is my own. I know your station, and know you can speak only lies. So I will ask…”

A gulp wormed it’s way down her clenched throat. Shit. Shit. Shit. What the fuck was she thinking?

“Will you hang out with me? I’m lonely. And all the angels just kind of give advice and keep their distance. This is what I need.”

She could feel it in the air like electricity. A curiosity and amusement sprang from the smoke entity that called itself Asmodeus.

It spoke.

“Were you in my place, the Lord of the throne of Lies; what promise or oath would ever be sufficient? If one always expects a lie, what could you ever say that would satisfy them?”

She began to sweat. The reasoning that led her to this moment began to blur. Why had she chosen this, what was she really after? She could have called up one of her friends, Mark, Sam, anyone. As a matter of fact, in her reading she had read that Uriel was this Demons correspondence, not…

Panic set in. Dread and sheer panic, hotter than any sun, colder than any polar wind.

She grabbed for the tome beside her, fingering about the floor in haste, looking for the safety of the wisdom of magicians before her, not wanting to take her eyes off the now roiling and billowing smoke.

It would only be a moment. She darted her eyes to look for the book, to secure her peace, only to see its form pish and unfetter into black smoke, returning like vaccuumed air back to the mass of smog before her.

“I suppose in some ways, I am still granting your desire, little mage.”

A cackling like the sparking of dying embers filled the room. The laughter shook her to her bones. She stared back at the smog cloud and those silvery brilliant white eyes. She couldn’t focus. That muscle like will was so fatigued, drained. The sweat that soaked her clothes was ice cold. She couldn’t move. Her vision was being swallowed up by the smoke.

Darkness and a single voice.

“The road to audience with the greatest liar of all will itself be a lie. A lie to ensnare the liar. Remember this is what you asked for, it’s the only truth you have now.”

She couldn’t feel her body, her senses were absent, all there was, was a single dot of light beyond the fog whispering some incomprehensible language.

One word was uttered in this eternal silence.

“Uriel.”

A blinding light split the eternal night, and a great shining figure of a winged man, robbed in copper and Green, hands stained with soil, wearing a crown of laurels appeared before her

She felt a slamming sensation from above her, very much like the feeling of falling and waking up before a deeper sleep.

“Forgive us.”

The kind voice chuckled, like water dripping onto plants bathed in sunlight.

“Ages ago we thought it would be humorous for the Lord of Lies to be caught in a lie of his own. The book you received and taught yourself the ritual from was one of ours, penned by a mage born ages ago from Scotland.”

She could breath! Even more than that, she felt better than she had in ages. Period cramps are a bitch to do ritualistic work with, but she only felt pleasant. More than pleasant.

The angel continued.

“Think of it as a prank, if you’d like,”

His eyes were so kind.

“We gave him permission years ago to possess the Scottish mage, telling him that it was part of the greater plan that it happen. ‘God works in mysterious ways’ and all.”

The angel smiled ear to ear and continued,

“Well, it was of course a ruse. Metatron filled out some false paperwork, and the mage was just writing what he thought was best. Me, Michael, and Jophiel showed up to play our part to convince Asmodeus it was really happening.”

Uriel was trying to surpress his own laughter and couldn’t contain himself.

“Man! 1500 years in the making! You played your part brilliantly, mage!”

No mask hung on her face but complete confusion.

“There was never any danger. Just a bit of fun.”

She was gobsmacked. Awestruck. Silent.

Uriel continued,

“The nature of being a demon to humankind can get very droll for them, interacting with humans can get very grating.”

The angel pantomimed commanding motions,

“Grant me this, make them fall in love with me, give me a mansion- “

He ceased pantomiming.

“And so on. It’s like a nine to five desk job for them. The Father cares they have fun too, so we get to play with them occasionally.”

He stood next to her,

“I mean, what better prank than the lord of lies being lied to be beings that can’t lie? We had to BEG the Father, but he eventually caved. Big Guy loves a good joke.”

She started crying and huffing, trying to steady her breath.

He paused and took her hands into his own, gently caressing them. She found it impossible to rationalize. She felt balanced. Satisfied. Casually joyful and at ease. Not a lingering negativity about a thing, and certainly not a hint of fear.

The angels face softened and he spoke so gently he could have spoken with secret languages only wind and flowers know.

“I heard you were lonely, Abbey.”

Pure love radiated from his being so brilliantly it was like standing next to the brightest star in the sky.

“What would you like to do first?”

FIN